Politics

  Harare / AFP Zimbabwean police have announced a fresh ban on protests in the capital Harare, state media said on Tuesday, in another attempt to end demonstrations against veteran ruler President Robert Mugabe. The order came hours after a coalition of opposition parties said they would stage mass rallies across the country on Saturday to push for reform before ...

  Manila / AFP The Philippines assured the United States on Tuesday it will honour its obligations as a military ally following volleys of profane tirades by unpredictable President Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte said he was “not a fan” of Washington and on Monday called for the small number of US military advisers to leave the southern Philippines. On Tuesday Duterte ...

  Bloomberg European Union President Donald Tusk lashed out at his Polish compatriots, telling them to stop attacking the bloc as a spat between Luxembourg and Hungary underlined the east-west tension he’s struggling to defuse ahead of this week’s summit of European leaders. In untypically blunt remarks, Tusk told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Beata Szydlo in Warsaw that the ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia gears up for parliamentary elections on September 18 in the grips of its longest economic crisis since President Vladimir Putin took charge in 2000. Despite falling incomes and rising poverty, parties loyal to the Kremlin strongman look set to dominate the vote yet again. What role is the crisis playing in the vote and can ...

  Brasília / AFP Fresh off his predecessor’s impeachment, Brazilian President Michel Temer is launching reforms meant to save the tanking economy, but his austerity plan risks triggering backlash — including among his allies. The center-right president was sworn in on August 31 to serve out the rest of predecessor Dilma Rousseff’s term, after she was removed from office on charges ...

  Lusaka / AFP Zambian President Edgar Lungu called for national unity in his inauguration speech on Tuesday, as a defeated opposition candidate dismissed the ceremony as “illegal and unconstitutional”. Lungu, who first took power last year, won the August 11 election by around 100,000 votes but his opponent Hakainde Hichilema has alleged that the result was riddled with fraud. ...

  Tripoli / AFP Libya’s UN-backed unity government lost control on Monday of a third oil port seized by rival forces, raising fears of a major outbreak of fresh violence in the chaos-ridden country. The loss comes after fighters backing a rival administration in east Libya seized two other terminals from guards loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) ...

  Vientiane / AFP US President Barack Obama warned Beijing on Thursday it could not ignore a tribunal’s ruling rejecting its sweeping claims to the South China Sea, driving tensions higher in a territorial row that threatens regional security. The dispute has raised fears of military confrontation between the world’s superpowers, with China determined to cement control of the strategically vital ...

  Vientiane / AFP With months left in office, US President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was not ready to give up on an eight-year-old promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Obama urgently wants to shutter the facility before he leaves the White House at the start of next year but his efforts have been continually thwarted by ...

  Paris / AFP Salah Abdeslam, thought to be the sole surviving member of the extremist team that attacked Paris in November 2015, on Thursday refused to answer questions from French anti-terror judges for a third time. “He exercised his right to silence,” Frank Berton told reporters after his 26-year-old client appeared at Paris’s main courthouse. The lawyer said he was ...