Politics

  Denpasar / AFP An Australian woman and her British boyfriend went on trial on Wednesday accused of beating a policeman to death on a popular beach on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. David Taylor and Sara Connor appeared separately in court accused of murdering Balinese policeman Wayan Sudarsa, whose battered body was found on Kuta beach in August. ...

  London / AFP Political novice and former reality TV star Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton to take the US presidency, stunning America and the world in an explosive upset fueled by a wave of grassroots anger. The Republican mogul immediately pledged to unite a deeply divided nation. But global markets had already plunged into turmoil and the long-standing ...

  Marrakesh / AFP Stunned participants at UN climate talks in Marrakesh insisted on Wednesday that climate change denier Donald Trump cannot derail the global shift to clean energy, although some called his victory in US presidential elections a “disaster”. Trump “cannot prevent the implementation” of the landmark Paris pact, inked in the French capital last December, said Segolene Royal, ...

  Brussels / AFP Vladimir Putin was the first global leader to welcome Donald Trump’s stunning election victory, which left much of the rest of the world anxious at the prospect of the businessman and reality-TV star at the helm of the world’s biggest economy and most powerful military. Putin sent a congratulatory telegram to Trump, and said later at ...

  Washington / AFP A polarized America went to the polls on Tuesday to pick its 45th president, choosing to elect either Hillary Clinton as the nation’s first female commander in chief or billionaire businessman Donald Trump after a long and rancorous campaign that upended US politics. The winner will inherit an anxious nation, angry and distrustful of leaders in Washington. ...

  Tallinn / AFP Estonia’s Prime Minister Taavi Roivas on Tuesday refused to step down a day after his three-party coalition collapsed, opting instead to face a confidence vote in parliament, reports said. The small Baltic eurozone and NATO member that is due to assume the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of 2017 plunged into political chaos on ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Tuesday agreed to dump her nominee for prime minister and cede control of some state affairs in a major climbdown forced by a corruption scandal battering her administration. The same scandal saw prosecutors carry out a morning swoop on the offices of South Korea’s largest conglomerate Samsung Electronics, looking for incriminating ...

  Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka slammed China’s ambassador on Tuesday for criticising Colombo’s attitude to aid in the local media, as the island nation distances itself from its once-close ally and economic lifeline. Colombo took exception to ambassador Yi Xianliang’s comments at a press conference last week, where he said his host nation should stop criticising “expensive” loans granted ...

  Budapest /AFP Hungary’s radical right Jobbik dealt all-powerful Prime Minister Viktor Orban a rare defeat on Tuesday as it blocked his bid to change the constitution to bar the resettlement of refugees. While all 131 MPs of Orban’s ruling right-wing coalition voted in favour, the bill failed to pick up an extra two votes to reach a required two-thirds ...

  Hong Kong/ AFP British banker Rurik Jutting was found guilty of the horrifying murder of two Indonesian women at his upscale Hong Kong apartment and jailed for life on Tuesday, in a case the judge said was “sickening in the extreme”. Cambridge graduate Jutting, 31, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Sumarti Ningsih and Seneng Mujiasih two years ago ...