Politics

  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 ...

  New York / AFP Donald Trump stepped up his attacks on Hillary Clinton as her campaign battled to silence suggestions that donors to her family’s charity paid for access when she was America’s top diplomat. The Democratic nominee, looking to make history as America’s first female commander-in-chief, is polling well ahead of her Republican rival but has hit choppy waters ...

  Karkamis / AFP Turkish tanks and hundreds of opposition fighters thrust deep inside Syrian territory on Wednesday in a lightning operation that within hours ousted IS extremists from a key Syrian border town. The air and ground offensive—the most ambitious launched by Ankara in the Syria conflict—made rapid progress towards Jarabulus with rebel fighters already proclaiming victory by the late ...

  Srinagar / AFP One protester was killed on Wednesday in fresh clashes with security forces armed with shotguns in Indian-administered Kashmir which is reeling from weeks of deadly violence, police said. As Home Minister Rajnath Singh arrived in the disputed region to discuss the unrest with local political, business and other leaders, thousands of residents rallied in Pulwama in ...

  Belgrade / AFP Serbian police have arrested a hunter after an Afghan migrant was shot dead in the country’s southeast near the border with Bulgaria, Belgrade said on Wednesday. Security forces were patrolling near the town of Pirot late Tuesday when they “heard a shot and then met six migrants, one of whom had been shot in the chest,” ...

  Riyadh / AFP Top US diplomat John Kerry arrives in Saudi Arabia to push for peace in Yemen after UN-brokered talks collapsed despite world concern over mounting civilian casualties. Over two days, Kerry is to meet Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir and other Gulf ministers. He will also meet UN Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed and Britain’s Under Secretary ...