Politics

  Moscow / AFP Russian authorities said on on Tuesday they have charged Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev with bribe-taking after he was detained on suspicion of taking a two-million-dollar payoff over a deal involving state oil giant Rosneft. The Investigative Committee, the country’s main federal investigative body, said in a statement it had charged the minister with “receiving bribes” after he ...

  Marrakesh / AFP UN chief Ban Ki-moon voiced hope on Tuesday that Donald Trump will “vary” his stance denying climate change as world leaders gathered in Morocco to keep a planetary rescue plan on track. A week after the election to the White House of Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax” and has threatened to “cancel” the ...

  Hong Kong / AFP A Hong Kong court on Tuesday ruled to disqualify two pro-independence lawmakers from parliament, a week after Beijing said it would not allow the pair to be sworn into office as fears grow of the city’s liberties coming under threat. Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching deliberately misread their oaths of office, inserted expletives and draped ...

  Moscow/AFP Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that jets from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier deployed in the eastern Mediterranean had launched their first strikes on Syria. “For the first time in our naval history, the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov started taking part in combat,” Shoigu said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in the Black ...

  Riyadh/ AFP Arab leaders must treat the region’s 100 million young people as an asset, not a liability, the UN’s youth envoy said in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. “This is a generation that is so willing to contribute,” but is beset by obstacles in the 22-nation region plagued by conflict since a wave of Arab uprisings demanding reform erupted after ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia’s security service said on Tuesday it had detained five suspects with ties to the IS extremist group who were plotting to carry out attacks in the country. The FSB security service said in a statement it had “thwarted the activities of a group created to perpetrate crimes of a terrorist and extremist nature” in Moscow and ...

  Rome/ AFP A farming crisis in war-torn Syria has reduced food production to a record low and raised fears people in the conflict-hit country will be forced to flee famine, the UN’s food agency said on Tuesday. “Widespread insecurity and unfavourable weather conditions” in parts of the country continue to “hamper access to land, farming supplies and markets”, the Rome-based ...

  Madrid / AFP Spanish police were searching on Tuesday for several Algerians who fled a migrant detention centre following a riot, the sixth such incident since August as calls mount to close the facilities. In the latest incident, which took place on Monday evening, nine Algerians escaped from a holding centre in Murcia, a region in the south east, ...

  France /AFP Burundi’s brutal regime has set the small central African country on a “descent into hell”, a prominent human rights group said on Tuesday, warning of the risk of genocide. “Since April 2015, when large popular protests broke out against the decision of President Pierre Nkurunziza to seek a third term, Burundi has been in violent political crisis,” ...

  Dhaka / AFP Around 200 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a surge in violence after security forces took control of Myanmar’s Rakhine state last month are stranded at the Bangladesh border, community leaders said on Tuesday. Bangladeshi border guards pushed back the Rohingya—mostly women and children—to the Myanmar side on Monday, community leaders said. “We heard they are 200 in number. ...