Politics

  Jerusalem / AFP Israeli authorities have arrested dozens of Palestinians after a shooting rampage in Jerusalem killed two people and wounded five others, police said on Monday. The arrests after Sunday’s attack included 31 Palestinians seeking to participate in celebrations in memory of the assailant as well as members of his family in east Jerusalem, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan ...

  Beijing / AFP A series of multi-storey buildings built by local villagers and packed with migrant workers collapsed in China on Monday, killing at least 17 people, the government and reports said. Four residential buildings caved in during the early hours at Wenzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the Lucheng district government said in a social media posting. ...

  Port-au-Prince / AFP Haiti’s death toll from monster Hurricane Matthew has risen to 372, civil defense officials said on Monday, as the impoverished country continues to dig out of massive destruction in the south. On the second day of a three-day national mourning, the authorities added 36 more people to tally of confirmed dead. Four others were listed missing. More ...

  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 ...