Politics

  Beirut / AFP Air strikes on a village in the Syrian province of Idlib killed at least 21 civilians on Sunday, among them three children, a monitor said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which earlier reported an initial toll of 14, said dozens more had been injured in the strikes on the village of Kafr Nabal. It ...

  London / AP The Syrian regime’s advances in war-torn east Aleppo do not represent a “victory for Assad” or his Russian ally Vladimir Putin, British foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday. “I really think that it’s a mistake to think whatever happens in Aleppo and other areas of rebel-held Syria could amount to a victory for Assad or for ...

  Aleppo / AFP For much of the past four years, taking a bus between the two sides of Syria’s divided second city Aleppo meant an arduous, and sometimes dangerous, 10-hour road trip. But on Saturday, the trip took just half an hour, as buses travelled directly from the government-held west to recently recaptured neighbourhoods in the east. At least 10 ...

  New Delhi / AFP Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan on Sunday of waging an “undeclared war” and said Taliban insurgents battling his government would not last a month without sanctuary in the neighbouring state. Ghani also urged Pakistan to spend around $500 million pledged in aid for Afghanistan to tackle extremism instead. “Despite our intense engagement with Pakistan ...

  Ramallah / AFP Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party is to announce results of a vote for its ruling bodies Sunday, an election watched closely for clues of how the 81-year-old sees his succession. The election for both the party’s central committee and its parliament, known as the revolutionary council, is also expected to sideline Abbas opponents — a key ...

  Beijing / AFP China protested to Washington on Saturday after US President-elect Donald Trump broke with decades of foreign policy and spoke with the president of Taiwan. It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s telephone call with Tsai Ing-wen marked a deliberate pivot away from Washington’s official “One China” stance, but it fuelled fears he is improvising on international ...

  Moscow / AFP Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday ahead of a visit to Japan by President Vladimir Putin that the countries’ leaders are pushing to end a territorial row dating back to World War II. Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been strained for decades over of the status of four Pacific islands near Japan’s north ...

  Libreville/ AFP Gabon’s parliamentary elections, which had been due to take place this month, have been postponed for up to seven months, the interior ministry said, citing a lack of funds. The decision to delay the vote, which must now take place no later than July 29, 2017, was taken by Gabon’s constitutional court after the electoral commission told ...

  Rome/ AFP With campaigning over, media silence was imposed across Italy on Saturday on the eve of a constitutional referendum seen as crucial to the future of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. In the frantic final round of campaigning which ended on Friday, Renzi’s domestic rivals vowed to knock down referendum proposals to streamline parliament and force the centre-left leader out ...

  New Delhi / AFP Britain’s former premier said on Saturday the election of France’s Marine Le Pen would be a “big body blow” for Europe, saying he hoped for the victory of a mainstream party. David Cameron said the recent rise of “anti-system, populist” and “quite extreme political parties” in western Europe did not mark the end of globalisation, but ...