Politics

  Beirut / AFP Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff was stripped of the country’s presidency on Wednesday in a Senate impeachment vote ending 13 years of leftist rule in Latin America’s biggest economy. Rousseff, 68, was convicted by 61 of the 81 senators of illegally manipulating the national budget. The vote, passing the needed two-thirds majority, meant she was immediately removed from office. ...

  Srinagar / AFP A teenager was shot dead in Indian-administered Kashmir on Wednesday as thousands of protesters engaged in fresh clashes with security forces after weeks of deadly violence, police and witnesses said. Paramilitary troops fired live rounds as residents demonstrated against an earlier raid by soldiers searching for protest leaders in the northern village of Nadihal, a police ...

  Manila / AFP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday he planned to meet a fugitive Muslim rebel wanted over a deadly siege, promising to ignore an arrest order in an effort to forge peace. The announcement was the latest dramatic attempt by the firebrand leader to end decades-long insurgencies with Muslim and communist rebels that have claimed more ...

  Caracas / AFP Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro vowed to jail opposition leaders if they incite violence during upcoming protests seeking a referendum on removing him from power. Maduro, blamed by opponents for a devastating economic crisis, accused opposition leaders of plotting a “terrorist coup” against him before Thursday’s nationwide protests. “We must defeat the coup d’etat without impunity,” he told ...

  Washington / AFP The United States rebuked Israel on Wednesday over what it said was its accelerated building of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank in the face of mounting international concern. “We are deeply concerned by the government of Israel’s announcement today to advance plans for over 500 new settlement units in the West Bank,” a senior ...

  Tokyo / AFP Surging flood water and mud brought by a devastating typhoon killed nine people in an elderly care home in northern Japan, officials said on Wednesday, after the third storm in two weeks ripped through the country. The bodies were discovered in a riverside care complex half buried in mud, uprooted trees and rubble after Typhoon Lionrock tore ...

  Washington / AFP Donald Trump announced he will travel to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with the country’s president just hours ahead of his much-anticipated Arizona speech on immigration. The Republican presidential nominee’s surprise trip south of the border comes as debate about his immigration policies is reaching fever pitch. Although his visit holds potential political peril, Trump could ...

  Beirut / AFP Top IS group strategist Abu Mohamed Al Adnani has been killed in Syria, the group said, robbing the extremists of their propaganda chief and a key architect of attacks in the West. The United States said coalition forces had targeted Adnani, who had a $5 million bounty on his head, in an air strike in Aleppo ...

  Tehran / AFP Key Damascus supporter Tehran urged Ankara on Wednesday to quickly wrap up its week-old military intervention in Syria, saying it was an “unacceptable” violation of Syrian sovereignty. Turkey’s cross-border offensive, which it says is aimed against US-backed Kurdish militia as well as the IS extremist group, marks the first major ground intervention by a foreign power carried ...

  Astana / AFP Kazakhstan said on Wednesday it had arrested 21 members of radical groups plotting terror attacks in public places, after two deadly attacks that fuelled fears of rising extremism. The security service of mainly Muslim Kazakhstan said in a statement that it had arrested 21 people from three groups after detaining them in two western regions bordering Russia. ...