Politics

  Moscow / AFP The Kremlin on Wednesday demanded an explanation after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara intervened in Syria solely to topple President Bashar Al-Assad. Turkish forces are pressing on with a three month operation inside war-torn Syria in support of anti-Assad forces, while Russia is the chief ally of the Syrian president in the conflict that ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkey is seeking multiple life sentences for nearly 70 suspects, including the leader of the main Syrian Kurdish political party, over a deadly bombing in Ankara this year blamed on Kurdish militants, state media said on Wednesday. Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) leader Salih Muslim and several prominent Kurdish militants have been indicted over the ...

  Mosul / AFP Up to 500,000 civilians in Mosul are facing a “catastrophic” drinking water shortage, the UN warned on Wednesday, as Iraqi forces advance against the IS group in the city. Already suffering from a severe lack of food and electricity, civilians in Iraq’s second city are now also running out of drinkable water, said Lise Grande, UN humanitarian ...

  Kuala Lumpur/ AFP Myanmar’s membership of ASEAN must be reviewed because of its “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslim minority, a senior Malaysian minister warned on Wednesday. Khairy Jamaluddin said the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ principle of non-interference in member states’ domestic affairs was void in the context of such violence. Myanmar’s army has carried out a bloody ...

  Sikasso / AFP Amadou Sanogo, a former army captain who staged a military coup in Mali in 2012, went on trial Wednesday charged with the murder of several soldiers whose bodies were found in a mass grave. “I’m in fine spirits. I was waiting for this day,” Sanogo said at the opening of the trial, held in a packed concert ...

  New York / AFP Donald Trump dined Tuesday at one of New York’s swankiest restaurants with Mitt Romney, his erstwhile foe turned potential frontrunner in the race to become America’s next secretary of state. The dinner came as the president-elect got a shot in the arm by a manufacturing company announcing a deal to keep nearly 1,000 jobs in ...

  Bogota / AFP Colombia’s Senate has approved a revised peace accord between the government and the FARC rebel group, taking a first step toward ratifying an agreement that was rejected by voters. The text, which was renegotiated after an earlier version was given a thumbs down in the October 2 national referendum, now must be approved by the lower house ...

  Beijing / AFP Prime Minister Theresa May hit back on Wednesday at the European Union’s refusal to open talks on the future of EU citizens in post-Brexit Britain before formal divorce talks begin. EU President Donald Tusk on Tuesday rebuffed a call by British lawmakers to put the status of Europeans in the UK and Britons living elsewhere in ...

  Kiev / AFP Ukraine ratcheted up tensions with Moscow on Wednesday by warning the Kremlin its military intended to hold two days of rocket launching exercises near the border with Russian-annexed Crimea. The tests would begin on Thursday and almost certainly further damage relations between two former Soviet neighbours that treat each other as open foes. Rocket exercises near the ...

  Nicosia / AFP Rival Cypriot leaders can overcome their differences in stalled peace negotiations if they show “flexibility”, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Wednesday after talks with the two sides. “I welcome the progress that has been made in recent months and I salute the courage and determination that is being shown by the leaders on both ...