Politics

  Aleppo / AFP An air strike and artillery fire hit the two largest hospitals in rebel-held parts of Syria’s Aleppo on Wednesday, in what rights groups said was a deliberate strategy of targeting civilian infrastructure. President Bashar Al Assad’s forces and his ally Moscow have carried out a barrage of air strikes on opposition-controlled eastern Aleppo since Syria’s regime ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Israeli ex-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres died on Wednesday, some two weeks after suffering a major stroke. Peres, who was 93, held nearly every major office in the country, serving twice as prime minister and also as president, a mostly ceremonial role, from 2007 to 2014. He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkey said on Wednesday that courts have placed 32,000 suspects under arrest on charges of links to a group run by the US-based preacher blamed for the July coup bid, as the country braces for the most extensive trials in its history. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told NTV television that 70,000 people had been investigated after the ...

  Manbij / AFP Children rushed out into the schoolyard for break time on the first day of classes in the Syrian town of Manbij, ignoring the IS group insignia on a nearby wall. They were savouring more than just the late September sun: it was their first normal schoolday after two years of brutal extremist rule over their hometown. “We ...

  White Plains / AFP Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton jumped back onto the campaign trail on Tuesday after a bitter first head-to-head debate in which Clinton frequently forced her prickly opponent on to the back foot. The White House hopefuls sparred over temperament, stamina, judgment, and other issues in a televised match-up Monday night that seemed to have gone ...

  New York / AFP New York unveiled a major public campaign to fight Islamophobia, stressing the equal rights of the city’s hundreds of thousands of Muslims. The campaign — launched in the wake of a Manhattan bomb attack blamed on a radicalized Afghan-American — initially will use social media to spread the message under the hashtag #IAmMuslimNYC. “Now more than ...

  Dresden / AFP Bomb attacks hit a mosque and an international convention centre in the eastern German city of Dresden, police said on Tuesday, adding that they suspected a xenophobic and nationalist motive. No one was injured in the blasts in a city that has become a hotspot for far-right protests and hate crimes following Germany’s huge migrant influx. “Although ...

  Geneva / AFP The United States should give African Americans reparations for slavery, UN experts said on Tuesday, warning that the country had not yet confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.” Amid a presidential election campaign in which racial rhetoric has played a central role, the UN working group on people of African descent warned that blacks in the US ...

  GENEVA / AP More than nine out of 10 people worldwide live in areas with excessive air pollution, contributing to strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other problems, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. The UN health agency said in a new report that 92 percent of people live in areas where air quality exceeds WHO limits, with ...

  Riyadh / AFP Thousands of Saudis have signed a petition urging an end to the guardianship system giving men control over the work, study, marriage and travel of female relatives, activists said on Tuesday. The petition calls for the kingdom’s women to be treated “as a full citizen, and decide an age where she will be an adult and ...