Politics

  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 ...

  Mogadishu / AFP Guards thwarted a suicide attack on the Yemeni central bank on Saturday opening fire on the bomber’s vehicle and blowing it up before it reached the building, a security official said. The central bank has been based in the government-controlled second city of Aden since last month, when President Abedabbo Mansour Hadi ordered its relocation from ...

  Aleppo / AFP Fresh fighting shook Aleppo on Saturday as rebels battled to break a siege of the city by the Syrian regime, accused by Washington of using starvation as a weapon of war. Opposition fighters unleashed a barrage of rockets on the government-held western side of the divided city on Friday as they announced a major offensive aimed ...

  Istanbul / AFP The families of Turkish activists killed in a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship say they will not drop their legal cases despite a deal between Turkey and the Tel Aviv. Nine Turks died when Israeli marines stormed the “Mavi Marmara”, which was part of an aid flotilla to break a naval blockade of the ...

  Mazar-i-Sharif / AFP Armed men have burned down a girls’ school in northern Afghanistan, officials said on Saturday, with police blaming the Taliban for the assault as the militants expand their foothold across the country. The attackers burst into the school in northern Jawzjan province on Friday night, beat up the security guards and set the building on fire, a ...