Politics

  Geneva / AFP The UN’s rights chief warned on Wednesday that Donald Trump’s statements pointed to a “dangerous” figure emerging on the world stage if he won the US presidency. At a press conference in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said he was “not keen or intent on interfering in any political campaign.” ...

  BAGHDAD / AP Tensions between Turkey and Iraq continued to escalate on Wednesday as Iraq’s prime minister rejected Turkish claims that their forces must be included in an operation to retake the militant-held city of Mosul. “We will liberate our land through the determination of our men and not by video calls,” Haider Al Abadi said on his Twitter account, ...

  Bloomberg IS has dug trenches and rigged roads and buildings with explosives ahead of a US-led coalition offensive to dislodge the militants from their stronghold in Mosul in northern Iraq. “We’re certainly well aware that this is going to be a difficult challenge, a difficult operation,” U.S. Defense Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said. He also said that IS ...

  Bujumbura / AFP Burundi’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is carrying out a preliminary probe into atrocities committed during an 18-month political crisis. “The ICC is a tool being used to try and change power” in Burundi, charged Aloys Ntakirutimana, a lawmaker with the ruling CNDD-FDD, during a ...

  Juba / AFP South Sudan’s government was on Wednesday forced to deny President Salva Kiir had died, following days of rumours over his health that have heightened tensions in the capital Juba. “This is a mere lie, there is nothing as such, Salva Kiir has not even been sick,” Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told journalists in Juba, slamming “wild ...

  Brussels / AFP EU officials on Wednesday urged nearly a dozen laggard member states to accelerate their preparations to join by 2018 a bloc-wide system to share passenger information to help detect terrorists. Spurred by a wave of extremist attacks in France and Belgium, the European Parliament in April adopted the Passenger Name Record (PNR) system after resolving privacy concerns ...

  Port-au-Prince / AFP Haiti faces a humanitarian crisis that requires a ‘massive response’ from the international community, the United Nations chief said, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid following last week’s battering by Hurricane Matthew. The storm left at least 372 dead in the impoverished Caribbean nation, with the toll likely to rise sharply as rescue ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Tuesday told her government to prepare for large-scale defections from North Korea, just days after direct appealing to its citizens to flee their country. A recent spate of high-profile North Korean defections have provided a propaganda windfall for Seoul, which has spun them into a narrative of a Pyongyang leadership in ...

  Islamabad / AFP Pakistan’s government has imposed a travel ban on a leading journalist after he sparked an uproar by reporting that civilian officials had clashed with the military over its covert support for militants. Cyril Almeida, an assistant editor at Dawn, the country’s oldest and most prestigious English daily, announced early on Tuesday he had been placed on the ...

  Geneva / AFP A jailed scholar defending China’s mostly-Muslim Uighur minority was awarded a leading honour for human rights on Tuesday, a move swiftly condemned by Beijing. Ilham Tohti, who was handed a life sentence in 2014, won the Martin Ennals award for his outspoken criticism of Beijing’s policies towards Uighurs. “Ilham Tohti has worked for two decades to foster ...