Politics

  Berlin / AFP German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday on the EU and North African countries to do deals modelled on a controversial agreement with Turkey to stem migrant flows to Europe. Under the EU-Turkey agreement, Ankara agreed to take back one Syrian who made it to Greece in return for being allowed to send one from its massive ...

  Paris / AFP Seven people with links to terrorist networks, at least three of whom were planning attacks, have been arrested in France this month, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Tuesday. Cazeneuve said at a press conference that French police had arrested as many people for terror links in the first half of 2016 as for the whole ...

  Brussels / AFP Turkey said on Monday the Syrian border region must be “completely cleansed” from the IS group, after a weekend suicide bombing in Gaziantep blamed on the extremists left at least 54 dead. In a sign of a key battle to come, Syrian rebel fighters have amassed on the Turkish side of the border in preparation for an ...

  Tripoli / AFP Fighters of Libya’s unity government, backed by US air strikes, have recaptured more ground from extremists holed up in the centre of the coastal city of Sirte, loyalist forces said on Monday. “Our forces have retaken the internal security building used as a prison by the IS” group, as well as a courthouse, the Al-Naga district ...

  Beijing / AFP China’s state broadcaster has questioned the authenticity of the video of Syrian boy Omran which went viral worldwide, alleging it may have been faked as part of a Western “propaganda war”. The video showed the stunned-looking four-year-old covered in blood and dust after an air strike in Aleppo last week, with the US State Department calling ...

  Nairobi / AFP With a peace deal unravelling in South Sudan and extremist attacks continuing in Somalia, US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Monday. The two discussed regional security and terrorism before Kerry met with the foreign ministers of Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda for talks focusing on a ...

  Cairo / AFP Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said his Russian counterpart and close ally Vladimir Putin wants to host an Israeli-Palestinian summit to revive peace talks, in an interview published on Monday. Sisi told state newspaper editors that he believed Israel was increasingly convinced of the need for a peace deal, saying it was a “positive sign.” But ...

  Nasiriyah / AFP A powerful typhoon struck near Tokyo on Monday, the first for 11 years to hit the densely populated region, temporarily shutting down Japan’s biggest airport and grounding more than 500 flights nationwide. Typhoon Mindulle made landfall at about 12:30 pm (0330 GMT) in Tateyama city, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency ...

  Tehran / AFP Iran said on Monday that Russian raids on Syria from one of its airbases had ended for now, shortly after accusing Moscow of “showing off” when it revealed the bombing missions. “It was a specific, authorised mission and it’s over for now. They conducted it and they are gone now,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea and the United States kicked off large-scale military exercises on Monday, triggering condemnation and threats of a pre-emptive nuclear strike from North Korea. The two-week annual Ulchi Freedom drill, which plays out a scenario of full-scale invasion by the nuclear-armed North, is largely computer-simulated but still involves around 50,000 Korean and 25,000 US soldiers. ...