Politics

  WASHINGTON / AP President Barack Obama will review military strategy against the IS group, press nations to admit more refugees and review progress around the world, despite new challenges, when he makes his final appearance at the UN General Assembly session in New York next week, the White House said. On the sidelines of the session, Obama has scheduled ...

United Nations / AFP A young Iraqi woman who survived rape and abuse as a sex slave of IS extremists became a UN goodwill ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking. Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman, called for justice for the victims of the extremist group and argued that the 2014 attack on the Yazidis ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkish police have detained more than 20 IS suspects, including a Syrian man believed to be organising an attack in Istanbul, a local newspaper reported on Saturday. Police arrested the man, identified as Ali al-Aggal and codenamed Azzov, believed to be the IS group’s organiser of Turkey attacks, in an operation in the Turkish capital Ankara, Haber-Turk ...

  Niamey / AFP Thirty-eight Boko Haram fighters have been killed during military search operations carried out by Niger and Chad troops in the Diffa region of southeast Niger this week, an official said. Two soldiers were lightly wounded in the action and “on the enemy side; 38 terrorists killed,” Niger defence ministry spokesman Moustapha Ledru said on state television. ...

  New Delhi / AFP A massive leak of secret technical data on Scorpene-class submarines did not originate in India but in France, Delhi’s naval chief said on Saturday, pointing to initial probe findings. Some 22,400 pages of classified documents detailing the combat capabilities of the subs made by French defence contractor DCNS for the Indian navy were leaked to an ...

  Islamabad / AFP A Pakistani court trying former military ruler Pervez Musharraf over a deadly raid on Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque passed an order on Saturday confiscating his property, a lawyer said. Former president Musharraf, who left Pakistan for Dubai in March for what was described as urgent medical treatment, is facing a string of court cases connected to ...

  Manila / AFP Rodrigo Duterte shot dead a justice department employee and ordered the murder of opponents, a former death squad member told parliament Thursday, in explosive allegations against the Philippine president. The self-described assassin testified under oath that he and a group of policemen and ex-communist rebels killed about 1,000 people between 1988 and 2013 on Duterte’s orders ...

  Geneva / AFP Twenty trucks loaded with desperately needed aid for eastern Aleppo have crossed into a buffer zone between Turkey and Syria, a high-level UN official said on Thursday. “The 20 trucks… have passed over the Turkish border, they are in the buffer zone between the Turkish and Syrian border,” Jan Egeland, head of the United Nations humanitarian ...

  Denpasar / AFP An explosion on a speedboat in Bali left two foreigners dead and 18 other tourists injured Thursday, sparking dramatic scenes as rescuers rushed to haul stunned and bloodied holidaymakers off the vessel. Dazed passengers, many covered in cuts and bruises, were taken to medical centres on the Indonesian holiday island after the blast, with TV footage showing ...

  The Hague / AFP The new prosecutor for a special tribunal set up to try crimes arising out of the late 1990s Kosovo conflict pledged on Thursday there would be “no unnecessary delays” in bringing charges. As court officials gave their first ever press conference, David Schwendiman vowed he would investigate cases “without fear or favour” but stressed “there ...