Politics

  Yangon / AFP Myanmar’s army has seized an important outpost from a powerful rebel faction during a bout of intense fighting, state media and insurgents confirmed on Sunday, in the latest blow to peace efforts. Fighting has blighted Myanmar’s border regions for decades, pitting various ethnic minority groups seeking autonomy or independence against the notoriously abusive military. The latest ...

Washington / AFP President Barack Obama declared that Bashar Al-Assad’s Syrian regime, Iran and Russia are responsible for the carnage in Aleppo and argued there was nothing Washington could have done to stop the war, short of a military takeover of Syria. And he warned Assad, who has been engaged in a brutal civil war against opposition forces since 2011, that ...

  Kandahar / AFP Gunmen on motorcycles shot dead five female airport workers and their driver in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, underlining the dangers facing employed women in the conservative, conflict-torn country. The women, employees of a private company that provides luggage and body search services for female passengers, were in a van driving to the airport in Kandahar when three ...

  Tehran / AFP Iran formally requested a meeting of the commission that oversees its nuclear deal with world powers to complain about the renewing of sanctions by the United States, state television reported on Saturday. The request was made in a letter by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, calling for “a ...

  Istanbul / AFP Thirteen Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded on Saturday in a suicide car bombing targeting off-duty conscripts blamed on Kurdish militants, the latest in a string of attacks to rock Turkey in recent months. The government said all signs so far suggested the the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was behind the bombing in the ...

  Qayyarah / AFP The battle to retake Mosul from the IS group is leaving a legacy of environmental damage and health risks that will pose dangers to people for years to come. Iraqis have already paid the initial price from burning oil wells and a sulphur factory that IS set alight south of Mosul, Iraq’s last extremist-held city which is ...

  Beijing / AFP China has objected to the Dalai Lama meeting with Indian President Pranab Mukherjee earlier this month, saying the talks had negatively impacted ties between the Asian neighbours. The Tibetan spiritual leader met with Mukherjee at the Indian presidential palace in New Delhi during a child welfare summit attended by Nobel laureates and world leaders on December 10-11. ...

  Caracas / AFP Desperate Venezuelans looted delivery trucks and clashed with police as a botched plan to introduce new banknotes left people without cash—the latest shortage in a spiraling economic crisis. President Nicolas Maduro blamed opposition politicians for the unrest, claiming that there were pictures and videos of some opposition members of the National Assembly involved in “attempts of ...

  Paris / AFP A French anti-terrorist judge has charged three more men suspected of helping to arm the radical who crushed 86 people to death with a truck in Nice, a judicial source said on Saturday. The three, who were among 11 arrested on Monday in Nice and the western city of Nantes, were remanded into custody on Friday, said ...

  Warsaw / AFP Dozens of Polish MPs protested in parliament over plans to restrict journalists’ right to cover proceedings, as thousands of demonstrators marched outside in support for their stance. The demonstration at the gates of parliament in Warsaw was called by the KOD pro-democracy movement, which is critical of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party’s policies on ...