Politics

  Hong Kong / AFP Thousands of people attended a pro-Beijing rally in Hong Kong on Sunday in support of China’s decision to effectively bar two pro-independence legislators from taking office, as fears grow of the city’s freedoms being under threat. Beijing’s ruling last week preempted a decision by the Hong Kong courts over whether lawmakers Baggio Leung and Yau ...

  Beirut /AFP Syrian government forces regained control on Saturday of areas they lost over the past two weeks to a rebel offensive on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo, ending a major attempt by insurgents to break the siege on eastern parts of the city, an activist group and pro-government media said. The insurgents had seized a ...

  Quetta / AP At least 43 people died and 35 others were injured when a bomb exploded at a Sufi shrine in southern Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province on Saturday, officials said. The blast hit a crowd of worshippers participating in a ceremony at the shrine of Sufi saint Shah Noorani in Khuzdar district, some 760 kilometres (472 miles) south of ...

  BAGHDAD / AP A suicide car bomber from the IS group attacked Iraqi special forces in Mosul on Saturday, setting off heavy fighting in the northern city. The early morning attack in the Qadisiya neighborhood, which the troops entered a day earlier, was followed by a barrage of gunfire, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi officers said. Fighting was also ...

  Kabul / AFP Four people were killed on Saturday in a huge explosion inside the largest US military base in Afghanistan, NATO said, with local authorities blaming a suicide attacker in a major breach of security. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing inside the heavily fortified Bagram Airfield, north of the capital Kabul, which left 14 others wounded ...

  Yangon /AFP Myanmar’s military said its troops killed six people and lost two soldiers in clashes with attackers in Rakhine state on Saturday, in the latest flare-up of violence in the crisis-hit region. Northern Rakhine, which is home to the Muslim Rohingya minority and borders Bangladesh, has been under military lockdown ever since surprise raids on border posts left ...

  Nicosia / AFP Five days of UN-sponsored talks on ending the decades-old division of Cyprus have adjourned without a breakthrough but negotiators vowed on Saturday to press on even as prospects fade for a deal this year. The much-heralded talks between Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders in the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin were supposed to produce a map of ...

  Yangon/ AFP An Asian news network on Saturday called for the release of two Myanmar media executives jailed for alleged defamation, the latest case to highlight limits on free speech under the country’s new democratic government. The CEO of Eleven Media Group and a chief editor of a newspaper it publishes were detained by police on Friday over a ...

  New York /AFP Demonstrators took to the streets of Miami, New York, Portland and other US cities for a third straight night of nationwide protests to oppose Donald Trump’s election as president. People gathered in New York’s Washington Square neighborhood in lower Manhattan on Friday, some carrying enormous red balloons and placards with hearts and the words “peace and ...

  Addis Ababa /AFP Authorities have arrested more than 11,000 people since Ethiopia declared a state of emergency in early October amid violent protests, state TV said on Saturday. Ethiopia has been in political crisis for around a year with frequent outbreaks of violence as authorities have brutally cracked down on anti-government demonstrators. “Some 11,607 individuals have so far been ...