Politics

  Hong Kong / AFP Hundreds of lawyers and law students, all dressed in black, marched silently through Hong Kong on Tuesday in protest at a ruling by China which effectively bars two pro-independence legislators from taking office. They snaked peacefully through the city from the high court to the court of final appeal after the unprecedented decision on Monday, ...

  Ramallah/ AFP A museum dedicated to Yasser Arafat, including the room where the Palestinian leader spent much of his final years under Israeli siege, will open on Wednesday ahead of the anniversary of his death. Current Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will formally open the Yasser Arafat Museum next to the gravesite of the fighter-turned-statesman in Ramallah in the occupied ...

  Ain Issa/ AFP A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed closer to Raqa and Iraqi forces seized a key town near Mosul as offensives advanced on Monday against the two IS group strongholds. After announcing the start of the long-awaited offensive on Raqa on Sunday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance said it had moved south towards the city despite fierce extremist ...

  Ankara /AFP Turkey on Monday warned the United States not to allow demographic changes in the Syrian city of Raqa after Kurdish-Arab forces launched a US-backed operation to capture the extremist bastion. Turkish forces are conspicuously absent from the operation, even though they are present in northern Syria in their own incursion in support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels against ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia on Monday said its air force was continuing to hold off on strikes against war-ravaged Aleppo, after rebels snubbed Moscow’s offer to quit Syria’s second city. “The ceasefire in the operation of the Russian air force is continuing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. Russia has halted air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo since October 18, ...

  Bamako / AFP A peacekeeper from Togo and two Malian civilians were killed in an attack on a military convoy in Mali, rounding off a bloody week for foreign forces stationed there, a UN statement said. Seven other peacekeepers, also from Togo, were wounded in the attack in the central Mopti region on Sunday, according to the statement by ...

  Kabul /AFP The United Nations is investigating claims that up to 32 civilians were killed in a US airstrike in the volatile Afghan province of Kunduz last week, calling any loss of civilian life “unacceptable”. The strike early last Thursday triggered angry protests in Kunduz, with local officials saying at least 30 people had been killed, many of them ...

  Marrakesh / AFP UN talks to implement the landmark Paris climate pact opened in Marrakesh on Monday, buoyed by gathering momentum but threatened by the spectre of climate change denier Donald Trump in the White House. Diplomats from 196 nations are meeting in Morocco to flesh out the planet-saving plan inked in the French capital last December. “We have ...

  Jerusalem / AFP At least 25 soldiers were killed in weekend fighting between rival Puntland and Galmudug regional forces in the Somali town of Galkayo, military officials on both sides said on Monday. “We have lost 12 men and there are more than 10 wounded,” said Puntland commander Jumale Jama Takar, while his Galmudug counterpart Abdirahman Qoje said: “We ...

  Leesburg / AFP White House rivals Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were still flailing for a knockout blow on Monday as a presidential race that has cast a pall over US democracy neared its end. With one day of campaigning left, both sides had packed schedules in the swing states that will decide whether the Democrat can convert her slim ...