Politics

  Manila / AFP The Zika virus is set to spread through Asia, the World Health Organization warned Monday, with hundreds of cases reported in Singapore and two Thai babies diagnosed with Zika-linked microcephaly. The mosquito-borne virus has been detected in 70 countries worldwide including at least 19 countries in the Asia Pacific region, said WHO director for health security ...

  Taipei / AFP Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday called for a resumption of talks with China and pledged that “anything” can be on the table for discussion. Relations with Beijing have deteriorated under Taiwan’s first female president, whose China-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May after a landslide victory over the Kuomintang party (KMT). Tsai has refused ...

  Goma / AFP At least 10 people were killed in clashes between the army and suspected Ugandan rebels in east DR Congo, a local activist said on Monday, in an area that has suffered a string of massacres since 2014. The rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces, a partly armed group of Ugandan origin, are accused of a litany of ...

  Port-au-Prince / AFP Haiti began three days of mourning on Sunday for hundreds killed in Hurricane Matthew as relief officials grappled with the unfolding devastation in the Caribbean country’s hard-hit south. Matthew was downgraded Sunday to a post-tropical cyclone after cutting a swath from Florida to North Carolina that left at least 17 dead. As of 1500 GMT, the storm ...

  Washington / AFP White House candidate Donald Trump desperately needs a strong debate performance against Hillary Clinton on Sunday, with stakes sky-high following intense scrutiny of his treatment of women and damaging footage of him making lewd remarks. His unprecedented, outside-the-establishment presidential bid, and the embattled Republican Party with it, was thrown into disarray by his misogynistic comments, with ...

  ADDIS ABABA / AP The Ethiopian government has declared a state of emergency effective immediately following a week of anti-government violence that resulted in deaths and property damage across the country, especially in the restive Oromia region. In a televised address on Sunday morning, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said the state of emergency was declared because there has been ...

  Berlin / AFP A bombing targeting Shiites in Baghdad killed at least five people and wounded 21 others on Sunday, Iraqi officials said, an attack claimed by the IS extremist group. The attack struck the Baghdad Jadida area near a tent where Shiite Muslims provide refreshments to passersby as part of annual commemorations of the death of Imam Hussain, a ...

  Vilnius / AFP Lithuanians fed up with economic inequality and mass emigration voted on Sunday in round one of a tight general election, which could oust the governing Social Democrats. Russia’s latest deployment of nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to its neighbouring Kaliningrad exclave rattled nerves just a day ahead of the vote. But the reassurance provided by NATO’s beefed up presence ...

  Bloomberg Georgian Dream won parliamentary elections, retaining power by edging the party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, according to preliminary results from the Central Elections Commission. The party received 49.3 percent of the vote in the Black Sea country with 26.5 percent for United National Movement, according to the commission website. The Alliance of Patriots of Georgia party exceeded ...

  Beirut / AFP Syrian government forces on Sunday kept up their blistering assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo after a divided UN Security Council failed to agree on a truce to “save” the war-battered city. Regime forces and their allies were advancing street by street in the eastern sector which has been out of government hands since 2012. “Clashes on ...