Politics

  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 ...

  Nasiriyah / AFP Iraq on Sunday hanged 36 men convicted over the 2014 massacre by extremists and allied militants of hundreds of military recruits, officials said. They had been found guilty of involvement in the “Speicher” massacre, named after a base near Tikrit where up to 1,700 recruits were kidnapped before being executed in a massacre claimed by the ...

Tehran / AFP Iran released images of its first domestically built long-range missile defence system on Sunday, a project started when the country was under international sanctions. Images on multiple state news agencies showed President Hassan Rouhani and Minister of Defence Hossein Dehghan standing in front of the new Bavar 373 missile defence system. The system was designed to intercept ...

  Manila / AFP President Rodrigo Duterte threatened on Sunday to withdraw the Philippines from the United Nations, as he launched another profanity-laced tirade against the organisation for criticising his bloody war on crime. More than 1,500 people have been killed since Duterte took office and immediately began his law-and-order crackdown, according to police statistics, triggering fierce criticism from the ...

  Tokyo / AFP Tokyo protested to Beijing on Sunday after Chinese coast guard ships sailed into territorial waters surrounding disputed islands in the East China Sea, Japan said. Four Chinese vessels entered the waters surrounding islets, called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, around 10.00 am local time (0100 GMT), according to Japan Coast Guard. They left ...

  Hong Kong / AFP Hundreds of protesters marched through Hong Kong’s main streets on Sunday against a ban on pro-independence candidates from running in an upcoming legislative election, as fears grow over Beijing’s influence in the city. In the last month five candidates who advocate a split from China were rejected from standing in the September 4 vote, with officials ...

  Seoul/ AFP South Korea warned on Sunday of possible North Korean assassinations and kidnappings in revenge for recent high-profile defections to the South. With tensions also high before a large-scale South Korea-US military exercise starting on Monday, the Unification Ministry in Seoul said Pyongyang was bent on provocation. A ministry official told reporters the defection to Seoul of North Korea’s ...

  Bangkok / AFP Two Chinese nationals will go on trial this week for their alleged roles in a deadly bombing at a Bangkok shrine one year ago, an attack whose motive remains clouded in mystery following a murky and at times surreal investigation. The trial, which starts on Tuesday, is being held at a military court in Bangkok and ...

  Srinagar / AFP Indian soldiers killed three suspected rebels in a gun battle on Sunday in Indian-administered Kashmir, the army said, as the region reels from weeks of deadly violence between protesters and security forces. The rebels were killed in Tangdhar north of the main city of Srinagar after crossing over from the Pakistani side of the heavily militarised border ...