Politics

  Berlin / AFP Germany expects up to 300,000 asylum seekers to arrive this year, less than one-third of the total during 2015’s record influx, the Federal Office for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF) said on Sunday. BAMF chief Frank-Juergen Weise told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Germany’s healthy economy and improvements to refugee services meant that the country was ...

  Yangon / AFP Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi faces what could be the toughest test of her leadership yet when she opens a major ethnic peace conference Wednesday aimed at ending wars that have blighted the country since its independence. The five-day talks will bring hundreds of ethnic minority rebel leaders to the capital, along with military top brass ...

  Brasília / AFP Angry quarrels erupted at suspended Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment trial, while her key ally, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, faced corruption charges on a day of turmoil for Latin America’s largest country. Day two of Rousseff’s Senate trial in the capital Brasilia began with shouting matches that forced Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski to ...

  Bogota / AFP Colombia’s defense minister insisted the historic ceasefire with FARC rebels will not end the country’s commitment to fight crime, as a judge issued arrest warrants for leaders of another group also pushing for a peace deal. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos ordered a definitive ceasefire with the Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ...

  United Nations / AFP The UN Security Council strongly condemned North Korea for test-firing ballistic missiles and agreed to take “significant measures” in response the latest series of launches. The 15-member council issued the toughly-worded condemnation in a unanimous statement drafted by the United States and backed by China, Pyongyang’s main ally. Council members agreed to “continue to closely ...

  Idomeni / AFP Inside the sleepy canteen of Idomeni, the Greek railway post on the border with Macedonia, the ring of a phone breaks the endless silence. Stratos, the manager, jots down the order: five portions of okra, three of chicken, four salads, 10 bottles of water. There is no address. The delivery is made out to the wooded hills ...

  Geneva / AFP Washington and Moscow have made key steps towards agreeing a new ceasefire in Syria, but a final deal has not been reached, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart said after talks. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the comments after the marathon talks at a luxury hotel on the shores of ...

  Moscow / AFP At least 16 migrant workers mostly from Kyrgyzstan died in a fire that broke out at a Moscow warehouse early Saturday, Russian authorities said. “When the fire was being put out, a room that had been cut off by the flames was discovered,” TASS news agency quoted the regional branch of the emergency ministry’s press service ...

  N’Djamena / AFP Four Chadian soldiers have been killed after a mine planted by Boko Haram extremists destroyed their vehicle, a security source said on Saturday. “An army car hit a mine planted by Boko Haram at Kaiga Kindji, near the border of Chad and Niger. There were four dead and a dozen wounded,” said the security source, who ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkey on Saturday sent more tanks into Syria to bolster a military offensive against extremists and Kurdish fighters, as a diplomatic push for a new ceasefire in Syria gathered pace. An AFP photographer in the village of Karkamis on the Turkish side of the border saw six more tanks roll over the frontier as mop-up operations continued ...