Politics

  Beijing / AFP Malaysia and China signed a defence deal and pledged closer cooperation in the South China Sea on Tuesday, signalling a potential strategic shift by Premier Najib Razak as his ties with the United States fray over a corruption scandal. Najib’s week-long trip marks another potential setback for Washington’s “pivot” towards Asia, two weeks after President Rodrigo Duterte ...

  Moscow / AFP A Russian activist jailed for staging solo anti-government protests claimed in a letter published on Tuesday that he was beaten and threatened with rape and murder in prison. Ildar Dadin, a 34-year-old activist serving a two-and-a-half year sentence at a prison in Russia’s northwestern region of Karelia, was the first person to be imprisoned under a ...

  Caracas /AFP Venezuela’s embattled government and opposition leaders agreed to hold talks to defuse a growing political crisis, but mistrust lingers after an attempt to recall the president was scuttled. With the mediation of the Vatican and the Union of South American Nations, the two sides agreed after hours-long talks which ended before dawn on an agenda that includes ...

  Manila / AFP Philippine church leaders on Tuesday renewed calls for an end to killings linked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war as millions of people took part in traditional ceremonies to remember the dead. Duterte’s bloody campaign to rid the country of criminals has been a feature of this year’s All Saints’ Day, with some people using the ...

  Fort Lauderdale / AFP Hillary Clinton battled to contain renewed FBI focus on her emails as Donald Trump blitzed western states in the tightening race for the White House. Nine days before the vote, the 69-year-old former secretary of state hit the campaign trail hard in the battleground state of Florida. Clinton blazed through brunch at an Irish pub, ...

  Madrid / AFP Spain’s conservative leader Mariano Rajoy was sworn in on Monday for a second term as prime minister, bringing a close to 10 months of political limbo. “I swear to faithfully fulfil the obligations of prime minister and to show loyalty to the king,” Rajoy said with his hand on the Spanish constitution, at a ceremony attended ...

  Calais / AFP French authorities were on Monday clearing the last shacks in the Calais “Jungle”, signalling the end of the notorious camp, as attention turned to the thousands of migrants sleeping rough in Paris. The authorities have said that nothing will be left of the notorious Jungle, home to around 6,000 migrants until a week ago, by Monday evening. ...

  Manila / AFP The Philippines and China have reached a “friendly” understanding allowing Filipinos to fish around a disputed shoal seized by Beijing in 2012, a senior aide to President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday. Duterte negotiated the understanding during his recent meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Manila’s national security adviser Hermogenes Esperon. As a ...

  Caracas / AFP Venezuela’s embattled government and opposition leaders agreed on Monday to hold extended talks aimed at defusing the nation’s increasingly tense political crisis. Vatican representative Claudio Maria Celli said in statement that the two sides have agreed to a “national dialogue plenary meeting” beginning next month. The two sides will meet on November 11, officials announced Monday, after ...

  Chisinau / AFP Moldova’s presidential election is set to go to a second round, preliminary results showed on Monday, after the leading pro-Russian candidate failed to secure an outright win in the ex-Soviet state. Moldova went to the polls Sunday in its first popular presidential election since the 1990s, seen as a tug-of-war between supporters of closer relations with Russia ...