Politics

  Bangkok / AFP Thai police on Sunday charged a woman with royal defamation after a mob demanded action over a Facebook post allegedly smearing the “heir and regent”, as the country mourns King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thailand has one of the world’s harshest lese majeste laws, with jail terms of up to 15 years for each count of defaming or ...

  Manila / AFP Typhoon Sarika lashed the main Philippine island of Luzon on Sunday, flattening homes and toppling trees and power pylons as more than 12,000 people fled to safer ground, officials said. Minor landslides and flooding were also reported a day after the cyclone brushed past the remote eastern island of Catanduanes and left one person drowned and three ...

  London / AFP The United States, Britain and the UN peace envoy to Yemen on Sunday urged the warring parties in the country’s civil war to declare a ceasefire they said could start within days. The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said: “We are here to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which will be declared ...

  Portsmouth / AFP Donald Trump has challenged his rival Hillary Clinton to a drug test before their next debate, suggesting the Democrat was “pumped up” on performance-enhancing drugs in a stunning new twist to the brutal White House race. The unsubstantiated attack from the Republican nominee came as a new poll out Sunday shows Clinton with a four-point lead ...

  Lausanne / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to build momentum behind a new drive to end the Syrian civil war on Sunday after high-level talks with Russia and the country’s neighbours. Kerry was due to fly to London to brief Washington’s European allies after “brainstorming” talks in Lausanne with the main players in Syria’s bloody five-year-old ...

  Jerusalem/ AFP Israel closed off the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the army said, as concerns rose over whether visits to a sensitive holy site could lead to violence. The restrictions barring Palestinians from entering would remain in place through Monday, but humanitarian cases would be allowed passage, said an army ...

  Dhaka / AFP Security was tightened in a Bangladesh southern city on Sunday ahead of the expected execution of a senior extremist whose group has been linked to the murder of foreign hostages, police said. Asadul Islam, a leader of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) who is also known as Arif, is due to hang in Khulna after the Supreme ...

  Beirut / AFP Turkish-backed rebels captured the emblematic northern Syrian town of Dabiq from the IS group on Sunday, dealing a major symbolic blow to the extremists. The defeat for IS came as US Secretary of State John Kerry was due to meet European allies in London as part of a new diplomatic push to end Syria’s conflict, which ...

  Baghdad / AFP Iraqi aircraft dropped “tens of thousands” of leaflets, some bearing safety instructions for Mosul residents, ahead of an operation to retake the city from extremists, the military said. Iraq has dropped leaflets over Mosul before, and has also done so as part of operations to retake other cities seized by the IS group in 2014 and ...

  Podgorica / AFP Montenegro said it had arrested 20 Serbs for planning to carry out attacks after voting wraps up in the Balkan nation’s tense parliamentary elections on Sunday. The attacks would have targeted the state and possibly “senior state officials”, Montenegro police chief Slavko Stojanovic said in a statement. The 20 were arrested on Saturday night and a 21st ...