Politics

  Seoul / AFP North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un declared a submarine-launched missile test the “greatest success”, state media said on Thursday, as the UN weighed a condemnation of the launch which appears to advance Pyongyang’s nuclear strike capability. The US mainland and the Pacific are now “within the striking range” of the North’s army, the official KCNA news agency ...

  Tokyo / AFP Russia has released a Japanese citizen detained on a disputed island claimed by both countries, Tokyo’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, ahead of diplomatic talks on the long-running territorial dispute. Tokyo and Moscow are working to resolve decades of tensions over four islands occupied by the Soviet Union in the closing days of World War II and ...

  Havana / AFP Colombia’s government and the FARC rebels have reached a historic peace agreement to end their half-century civil war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. After nearly four years of negotiations in Cuba, the two sides announced a final deal Wednesday, which President Juan Manuel Santos said would be put to a decisive referendum on October 2. ...

  Kabul / AFP At least 16 people were killed after militants stormed the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, officials said on Thursday, in a nearly 10-hour raid that prompted anguished pleas for help from trapped students. Explosions and gunfire rocked the campus after the attack began Wednesday evening, just weeks after two university professors—an American and an Australian—were kidnapped ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany’s military is preparing to pull out from a Turkish airbase as a row between the two NATO partners escalates, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Thursday. Germany in December agreed to send Tornado surveillance jets and tanker aircraft to the Incirlik base in southern Turkey to aid the multinational coalition fighting the extremist IS group and ...

  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 ...