Politics

  Washington / AFP President Barack Obama allowed US sanctions against Iran to be renewed on Thursday, but in a surprise move declined to actually sign the legislation that brings the sanctions into force. “The extension of the Iran Sanctions Act is becoming law without the president’s signature,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. The president, who had ...

  Ankara / AFP Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Turkey of “silencing” independent media in its bid to prevent scrutiny or criticism of its huge crackdown following the failed July coup. In a report, the US-based rights watchdog said Turkey’s “assault” on critical journalism had accelerated since the attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—but said it began several years ...

  Hasansham Camp / AFP Years of life under extremist rule and war have left thousands of Iraqi children old beyond their years and in desperate need of playtime to overcome their trauma. Malak, 11, says she has “come back from hell”. She huddles in a long black coat at the Hasansham displacement camp where thousands of people have lived since ...

  Paris / AFP The UN’s cultural agency called for emergency measures on Thursday to prevent further looting at the historic Iraqi city of Nimrud which has been wrecked by IS militants. Nimrud, founded in the 13th century BC on the Tigris river about 30 kilometres southeast of Mosul, was retaken by Iraqi forces on November 13 after it was overrrun ...

  Juba / AFP Despite a brief truce, hopes for peace have crumbled in South Sudan as its civil war hits the three-year mark with ethnic violence only getting worse and no end in sight. “South Sudan’s war continues to escalate and engulf more and more of the country,” said Alan Boswell, an independent analyst, who expects further major offensives with ...

  Yangon/ AFP A new Rohingya insurgency in Myanmar’s Rakhine is a “game-changer” for the troubled state, conflict experts said Thursday, warning the army’s crackdown risks setting off a spiral of violence and radicalisation among the Muslim minority. Troops have taken control of the north of the state since October 9 when armed men carried out raids on posts along the ...

  New York / AFP Donald Trump met with some of America’s most powerful tech executives in a bid to mend fences with a largely pro-Hillary Clinton industry and promote job creation and trade. The afternoon summit at Trump Tower in New York gathered some of the wealthiest and brightest brains in the tech industry around the same table as ...

  Washington / AFP New satellite imagery shows China has apparently installed “significant” defensive weapons on a series of artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, a US-based think tank said. Beijing has created seven islets in the Spratly Islands in recent years, built up from much smaller land protuberances and reefs. Although Beijing has said it does not ...

  Brussels / AFP British Prime Minister Theresa May urged her EU counterparts on Thursday to make Brexit “as smooth and orderly… as possible” as they prepared to discuss the process at a dinner without her. “We want that to be as smooth and orderly a process as possible. It is not just in our interests, it is in the interests ...

  Nagato / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bunkered down for talks on Thursday to try and resolve a territorial dispute that has prevented their countries from formally ending World War II hostilities. Abe is hosting Putin at a hot spring summit in his ancestral city of Nagato in the hopes of achieving a breakthrough ...