Politics

  Baghdad / AFP Iraqi pro-government tribal militiamen summarily executed four men suspected of being members of the IS group in the country’s north, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday. The rights group said that the killings took place on November 29 near the village of Shayalat al-Imam, located some 70 kilometres (40 miles) south of Mosul, the last IS-held Iraqi ...

  Aden / AFP A suicide bomber from the IS group killed at least 48 Yemeni soldiers in Aden Sunday, the latest in a string of deadly attacks against recruits in the country’s second city. Military officials and medics said many others were wounded in the attack that targeted a crowd of servicemen who had gathered to collect their salaries near ...

  Khartoum / AFP Dozens of health facilities supported by the World Health Organization in strife-torn areas of Sudan risk closure due to a lack of funds, exposing one million people to likely epidemics. Eleven clinics have already been shut in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan where years of fighting between government troops and black African rebels has forced tens ...

  Ouagadougou / AFP Mali’s president said on Sunday he could let Burkina Faso forces pursue extremist fighters when they flee across the border into his country, days after militants massacred 12 Burkinabe soldiers. Around 40 fighters attacked a base some 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Burkina-Mali border on Friday in what local authorities called the biggest ever extremist attack ...

  MANILA / AP The United States said on Sunday that it would work with the Philippine president to address any concerns after he threatened to terminate a pact that allows US troops to visit the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte was enraged after a US government aid agency deferred a vote on a renewal of a major development assistance package ...

  Jakarta/ AFP Thirteen people have died after an Indonesian military transport plane crashed in the east of the country on Sunday, officials said, marking yet another air accident for the armed forces. The Hercules C-130 plane took off from Timika city in Papua province carrying 12 crew and one passenger, but came down in a remote mountainous region shortly before ...

  Moscow / AFP Four armed “bandits” were killed and two wounded in a shootout following an attack on police in the capital of Russia’s Chechnya region, strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said. Regional boss Kadyrov said a “group of armed people” attacked a police officer and stole his car in the capital Grozny late Saturday. A shootout erupted as law ...

  Sydney / AFP Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has renewed his call for a republic, but only after Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, as he outlined a road map for breaking away from the British monarchy. Turnbull—a staunch republican who led the cause before a failed referendum in 1999—said his support for an Australian head of state stemmed from patriotism. ...

  Algiers / AFP Amnesty International on Sunday urged Algeria to adopt a law on the right to asylum and to open an investigation into the deportation of sub-Saharan migrants from the country this month. “The authorities should decriminalise irregular immigration, adopt a law on (the right to) asylum and fight racism against sub-Saharans in the country,” the group’s Algeria ...

  Caracas / AFP With protests rocking his unpopular government, embattled President Nicolas Maduro delayed until January 2 taking Venezuela’s highest denomination bill out of circulation. The 100 bolivar bills would temporarily remain legal tender, Maduro said Saturday, but the borders with Colombia and Brazil will remain closed to hit what he claims are “mafias” hoarding Venezuelan cash abroad in a ...