Politics

  Bloomberg Hong Kong begins voting on Sunday in a legislative election that will test the appeal of a new wave of anti-China activists and set the stage for future political fights over Beijing’s control over the city. The Legislative Council election is the first since police clashes with student protesters two years ago thrust the former British colony’s struggle ...

  Sirte / AFP Forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) said on Saturday they have launched a new attack on diehards of the IS group in the coastal city of Sirte. Backed by weeks of US air strikes, the pro-GNA forces have recaptured nearly all of what had been the extremists’ main stronghold in North Africa. “We ...

Detroit /AFP Donald Trump visits Detroit on Saturday insisting he is the change agent that America’s blackest big city needs in the White House, but residents have a message for the Republican presidential nominee: Not buying it. Many here acknowledge that Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, has fallen short in improving conditions in blighted communities. But in interviews ...

  Kuala Lumpur / AFP Malaysia reported its first locally transmitted case of the mosquito-borne Zika virus on Saturday, news likely to add to fears of a full-blown outbreak in the tropical nation. The patient was a 61-year-old male resident of the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah, the Ministry of Health said. It said local transmission was highly likely because ...

  Libreville / AFP Police arrested 1,000 people as security forces fanned out across Gabon’s capital on Thursday after a night of riots and looting that erupted when President Ali Bongo was declared winner of disputed polls. Thousands of angry protesters poured onto the streets of Libreville late Wednesday, accusing the government of stealing the election after Bongo won a second ...

  Berlin / AFP The father of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee boy whose body washed ashore on a Turkish beach a year ago, on Thursday denounced the world’s failure to stop the bloodshed in his home country. “The politicians said after the deaths in my family: Never again!” the bereaved father, Abdullah Kurdi, 41, told Germany’s Bild daily. “Everyone ...

  Karkamis / AFP Turkish military experts on Thursday cleared mines from the area of the Syrian town of Jarabulus captured from extremists last week, using controlled explosions that sent clouds of dust and smoke into the sky, an AFP photographer said. Pro-Ankara Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish aviation and tanks, took Jarabulus from IS fighters in a lightning operation and ...

  Istanbul / AFP On Sunday, Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh participated in a ceremony in Amman, Jordan, to mark the United States hitting its target of taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees in a year-old resettlement program. On Wednesday, the 47-year-old former construction worker and his family were walking grocery aisles, stocking up on roasted chicken, milk and lemons for their new ...

  Naypyidaw / AFP Delegates from one of Myanmar’s most heavily armed ethnic groups stormed out of peace talks on Thursday in an early blow to a landmark gathering aimed at ushering in a new era of peace. The five-day conference in the capital Naypyidaw has been hailed as the best chance in a generation for Myanmar to end wars ...

  Geneva / AFP The UN Syria envoy on Thursday criticised Damascus’ “strategy” of forced evacuation from Daraya following a brutal four-year government siege, warning that other besieged towns could follow. Staffan de Mistura told reporters in Geneva that there were “indications that after Daraya we may have other Darayas,” adding that “there is clearly a strategy at the moment to ...