Politics

  Qayrarah / AFP Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes on Thursday pushed the IS group from Qayyarah, a northern town considered strategic for any future offensive against the jihadists’ last stronghold of Mosul. “We control all parts of the town and managed, in very limited time, to root out IS ,” Lieutenant General Riyadh Jalal Tawfik, who commands ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkey on Thursday said it had “every right” to intervene if Syrian Kurdish militia do not withdraw east of the Euphrates River in Syria, as promised by the United States. The Syrian Kurdish forces “must move to the east of the Euphrates and Turkey is following this very closely,” Defence Minister Fikri Isik told NTV television. ...

  JEDDAH / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry was holding talks with his Gulf counterparts and a British minister in Saudi Arabia on Thursday on the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Libya. The coordination with Washington’s major Middle East allies came on the eve of Syria talks in Geneva between Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. After a ...

  Washington / AFP Four Iranian warships sped close to two US Navy guided missile destroyers with their weapons uncovered in the Strait of Hormuz in an “unsafe and unprofessional” encounter between the longtime foes, American defense officials said. The USS Nitze shot warning flares, sounded its whistles and attempted unsuccessfully to communicate with the Iranian boats during Tuesday’s incident, ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia on Thursday launched large-scale snap military drills, putting its troops on full combat readiness in districts bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, the defence minister said. “In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (President Vladimir Putin), a spot check started today,” Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said ...

  Accumoli / AFP A powerful pre-dawn earthquake devastated mountain villages in central Italy on Wednesday, leaving at least 73 people dead, dozens more injured or trapped under the rubble and thousands temporarily homeless. Scores of buildings were reduced to dusty piles of masonry in communities close to the epicentre of the pre-dawn quake, which had a magnitude of between ...

  Pattani / AFP A car bomb exploded in a nightlife district in Thailand’s deep south, killing one and wounding more than 30, in a nation already on edge after a bombing spree that targeted tourist towns. The latest blast struck late Tuesday outside a hotel in Pattani, one of three Muslim-majority southern provinces battered by a long-running and shadowy rebellion ...

  Yangon / AFP Former UN chief Kofi Annan will advise Myanmar’s new government on resolving conflicts in Rakhine, a region divided on religious grounds and home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya, it was announced on Wednesday. The country’s western state is deeply scarred by bouts of sectarian bloodshed in 2012 that forced more than 100,000 Rohingya into squalid displacement camps. ...

  Seoul / AFP North Korea on Wednesday test-fired a submarine-launched missile 500 kilometres (around 300 miles) towards Japan, marking what weapons analysts called a clear step forward for its nuclear strike ambitions. The flight distance, which was tracked by South Korea’s military Joint Chiefs of Staff, far exceeded any previous SLBM tests, suggesting significant progress in technical prowess. A ...

  Manila / AFP President Rodrigo Duterte has said his threat to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations for criticising his deadly crime war was just a “joke”, while attempting a light-hearted wordplay on genocide. Duterte on Sunday said he may withdraw the Philippines from the world body after a UN human rights expert said last week his encouragement ...