Politics

  United Nations / AFP The race to become the next UN chief takes a decisive turn on Wednesday when the big powers at the Security Council will for the first time indicate which candidates they are prepared to block. During the sixth straw poll to pick the new secretary-general, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States will use pink ...

  Ankara / AFP Iraq and Turkey on Wednesday were summoning their respective ambassadors in an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the two neighbours ahead of a planned operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from extremists. Ankara called in the Iraqi ambassador while Baghdad said it had decided to summon the Turkish envoy following bitter verbal exchanges, the two ...

  Baghdad / AFP An air strike killed 21 Iraqi pro-government Sunni tribal fighters early on Wednesday in an area south of the country’s extremist-held second city Mosul, a commander and a minister said. It was unclear whether it was the Iraqi military or the US-led coalition against the IS group — the two forces flying armed aircraft in Iraq — ...

  ERBIL / Reuters The battle for Mosul will be a make-or-break moment for Iraq that could split the country along ethnic and sectarian lines, said the former regional governor who has assembled a force which will take part in the campaign. Iraq has been preparing for more than a year for its offensive to drive IS out of its ...

  Tbilisi / AFP Georgia was probing on Wednesday the attempted murder of an opposition lawmaker whose car exploded in central Tbilisi just days before parliamentary polls. Givi Targamadze, who is running for office for the ex-Soviet republic’s main opposition United National Movement (UNM) party, told journalists that an explosive device planted in the back of his car detonated on ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia on Wednesday said two of its warships were heading back to join its forces in the Mediterranean amid an upsurge in tensions with Washington over Syria. The announcement comes a day after Moscow said it had dispatched its S-300 air defence missile system to its naval facility at Tartus in Syria. The two Buyan-class corvettes ...

  Geneva/ AFP An air strike was responsible for the attack on an aid convoy in Syria that killed 18 people last month, a UN expert said on Wednesday. “With our analysis we determined it was an air strike,” said Lars Bromley, a researcher at the United Nations body UNOSAT, which collects and analyses satellite images. US officials have said ...

  Aleppo / AFP Syrian regime forces advanced against rebels during intense street battles in the heart of Aleppo on Tuesday, after the United States abandoned talks with Russia aimed at reviving a ceasefire deal. The UN rights chief appealed for action to halt the “ghastly avalanche of violence” unfolding in Syria’s second city, which is reeling from some of ...

  Hasakeh / AFP A suicide bomber struck a wedding in northeast Syria as the bride and groom were exchanging vows, killing 34 people and wounding dozens, the local Kurdish government said. The bomber blew himself up late Monday in the village of Tall Tawil in Hasakeh province where a Kurdish party official was getting married. The IS extremist group ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkey on Tuesday suspended more than 12,000 police officers over alleged links to Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused of masterminding the failed July coup, in the latest move under the controversial state of emergency. Meanwhile, a prominent pro-Kurdish television channel was raided and broadcasts cut under the emergency laws, over accusations of supporting Kurdish militants. Of ...