Politics

  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 ...

  Paris / AFP Big cities worldwide have expanded faster than their rapid transit systems, leading to higher levels of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and commuter misery, a report released Tuesday showed. “Low-density, car-oriented development — known as ‘sprawl’ — has been the predominant urban form for cities in the past century,” said Michael Marks, a researcher at the non-profit, New ...

  Aleppo / AFP Regime ally Russia carried out its heaviest strikes in days on Syria’s Aleppo on Tuesday, as at least five children were killed in rebel fire on a school in the war-torn country’s south. The raids in Aleppo killed at least 12 civilians, a monitor said, and caused massive damage in several residential areas of the city’s ...

  ANKARA / AP Turkey can’t be excluded from a possible operation to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul, Turkey’s president said on Tuesday, telling Iraq’s leader to “know his place.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks were likely to add to tensions between the two neighbours, which are key US partners in the fight against the IS group. In a speech ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia and Egypt will hold joint military drills involving airborne troops on Egyptian soil for the first time this month, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday. “The joint Russian-Egyptian drills will happen in mid-October 2016 on the territory of Egypt,” it said, without specifying their start date. The drills, called “Protectors of Friendship-2016”, will include 500 ...

  Beijing / AFP China and Russia blasted Washington on Tuesday for its decision to deploy a missile defence system in South Korea in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. Speaking at the 7th annual Xiangshan regional defence forum in Beijing, top military officials from the countries said the move by Seoul and Washington represented a threat to regional stability and was ...

  Lashkar Gah / AFP Afghanistan has deployed hundreds of commandos backed by NATO air strikes in Lashkar Gah to drive Taliban insurgents from the southern city after the militants killed 14 people in a coordinated attack, officials said on Tuesday. The assault Monday marked the insurgents’ latest attempt to seize the capital of Helmand province, underscoring unravelling security as ...

  Karbala / AFP Thousands of Iraqi security personnel guarded areas in and around Karbala on Tuesday to protect hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims flocking to the shrine city for annual mourning rituals. Shiites in Iraq have come under frequent attack by extremists of the IS group who still control some territory in Anbar province, to the west of ...

  Istanbul / AFP President Vladimir Putin on Monday said non-OPEC member Russia was ready to work with the cartel in imposing measures to limit oil production, in comments that propelled the price of crude to its highest levels in a year. Eyes have turned to Russia, the world’s top oil producer alongside Saudi Arabia, to see if it will ...