Politics

  Tokyo / AFP The wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited Pearl Harbor, bombed by Japanese planes nearly 75 years ago in an attack that brought the United States into World War II. It was not clear exactly when Akie Abe made the visit. But she posted 11 pictures on her official Facebook page, apparently early Monday. “I offered ...

  Tokyo / AFP A mother in Japan is under investigation for murder after her four children, including a girl as young as three, were found dead at home, Japanese media reports and police said on Monday. Local media reported the victims were killed by their mother before she tried to take her own life. A 10-year-old boy, two six-year-old girls, ...

  London / AFP Voting starts on Monday to decide if veteran leftist Jeremy Corbyn will remain leader of Britain’s Labour party, with an ill-tempered campaign deepening divisions that threaten the party’s future. Ballots and online voting forms were being sent to party members, who have until September 21 to decide whether to replace Corbyn with MP Owen Smith, previously ...

  Tokyo / AFP The foreign ministers of Japan, China and South Korea will meet this week in Tokyo, with their countries at odds over territorial disputes and a US missile defence system. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, China’s Wang Yi and South Korea’s Yun Byung-Se will have dinner on Tuesday before formal talks on Wednesday, Japan’s foreign ministry said in ...

Oslo/ AFP The Philippine government said Monday it hoped to reach a peace deal with communist guerrillas within a year, as the two sides kicked off talks in Norway aimed at ending one of Asia’s longest insurgencies. “On the part of the (government) panel, we have imposed a timeline of nine to 12 months,” Silvestre Bello, the government delegation’s head of ...

  Brussels / AFP A suicide bomber as young as 12 killed at least 51 people at a wedding in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, pointing the finger at the IS group. Erdogan said Saturday’s blast in Gaziantep near the Syria border “was the result of a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 who either detonated (the ...

  Khartoum / AFP South Sudan’s new Vice President Taban Deng Gai on Sunday started a two-day visit to Khartoum for talks on thorny issues outstanding since Sudan’s north-south split in 2011. Deng’s first visit to Sudan as vice president comes weeks after he replaced former rebel leader Riek Machar following clashes in Juba that left hundreds dead in July. ...

  Mogadishu / AFP At least 10 people were killed on Sunday in two explosions in a town in central Somalia, police said. The Shabaab militant group claimed responsibilty for the blasts in the town of Galkayo, some 700 kilometers (440 miles) northeast of Mogadishu. “There were two car bomb blasts which targeted the local government headquarters. More than 10 ...

  Baghdad / AP Traffic began to file through central Baghdad’s busy Karradah street on Sunday for the first time in nearly two months. After the July 3 attack that killed close to 300 people, the street was sealed off and within days the shells of the charred buildings around the scene of the blast were covered in death notices. For ...

  Kunduz / AFP Afghan forces have recaptured a district that had fallen briefly to the Taliban, officials and residents said on Sunday, after thousands of people fled their homes in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunduz province. Khan Abad district, which is around 30 kilometres east of Kunduz city—the provincial capital where militants last year scored their biggest ever victory—had fallen to ...