Politics

  Des Moines / AFP Hillary Clinton embarks this weekend on the frenetic final 10 days of her White House campaign, determined to shake off renewed controversy over the FBI probe into her private emails. The 69-year-old Democrat—vying to become America’s first female president—is still the frontrunner to win the November 8 election over her Republican rival Donald Trump. Clinton has ...

  Manila / AFP Chinese vessels have left the contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, a Philippine official said on Saturday, less than a week after President Rodrigo Duterte visited Beijing pledging closer ties. The firebrand leader used the trip to vaunt his move away from traditional ally the United States in favour of Beijing—which was previously at ...

  Beijing / AFP Political concerns over the North Korean regime are stopping vital relief aid from reaching the victims of a major flood there, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Saturday. Nearly 70,000 people are estimated to have lost their homes in disastrous flooding in North Hamgyong province in August and September ...

  Madrid / AFP Spain turns the page on a 10-month political crisis on Saturday as lawmakers ready to vote the conservatives back in power, although at the head of a government with unprecedented opposition. Aided by divisions among his rivals, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is widely expected to win a crunch parliamentary confidence vote on Saturday evening which will see ...

  Yangon / AFP Allegations that Myanmar soldiers are killing, raping and torturing villagers in Rakhine, a restive region that is home to the persecuted Muslim Rohingya, must be independently investigated, rights groups said. Northern Rakhine has been under a military lockdown since an attack on border guards three weeks ago left nine policeman dead. The government has blamed the ...

  Bangkok / AFP Thousands of Thais streamed into the gates of Bangkok’s Grand Palace on Saturday as the public was granted its first chance to enter the throne hall where the body of late King Bhumibol Adulyadej is lying in state. Bhumibol, who died aged 88 two weeks ago, was adored by many of his subjects and seen as an ...

  Islamabad / AFP Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday removed a key minister from his cabinet over a media leak that sparked a rift between his government and the powerful army, his office said. Pervez Rasheed, the information minister, was asked to step down over his alleged role as a source for the report, which said civilian officials ...

  Al Qayyarah / AFP Iraqi paramilitary forces launched an operation on Saturday to retake Tal Afar from the IS group, opening a new front in the nearly two-week-old offensive to recapture extremist-held Mosul. Forces from the Hashed Al-Shaabi, a paramilitary umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias, have largely been on the sidelines since the launch of the Mosul operation. ...

  Bangui / AFP Twenty-five people were killed, six of them gendarmes, in two days of violence around the town of Bambari in the troubled Central African Republic, the UN force MINUSCA said on Saturday. Six police and four civilians were killed in an ambush by armed men Friday morning, while on Thursday, 15 people died in fighting on the town’s ...

  Kano /AFP Two suicide bombings rocked Nigeria’s northeast city of Maiduguri on Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring scores of others, emergency services said. One explosion happened outside a gas station, while the other was near the Bakassi camp for internally displaced persons (IDP), underscoring the continued threat from Boko Haram extremists who are suspected of being ...