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Kandahar / AFP Afghan troops have retreated from two districts in the southern province of Helmand, officials said on Monday, a move which highlights the challenge from Taliban fighters in the opium-producing region. “The Afghan army retreated from two army bases in Musa Qala and one base from Nawzad district” on Saturday, provincial governor Khan Rahimi said, leaving no troops ...

New Delhi / AFP Much of New Delhi’s water supply was cut off on Monday after members of an influential Indian caste sabotaged a canal as part of protests seeking preferential treatment that have killed at least 19 people. A representative of the Jat caste said they had called off their week-long protests which saw thousands of troops deployed in ...

Kampala / AFP Uganda’s main opposition leader was held by police on Monday at a police station outside the capital after being taken from his home where he had been under house arrest. Kizza Besigye has rejected the results of Thursday’s election won by veteran President Yoweri Museveni, and called on his supporters to join a protest march to the ...

BERLIN / AFP Ending Europe’s open-borders Schengen agreement would cost EU economies at least 470 billion euros ($520 billion) over a decade, according to a German study published on Monday. The impact on trade flows would also cost major trade partners the United States and China tens of billions of euros each, said the study by the Prognos institute on ...

Washington / AP Russia seeks permission to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from US intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the United States. Russia and the United States are signatories to the Open Skies Treaty, which allows unarmed observation flights over the entire territory of all 34 member ...

Lisbon / AFP Traditionally a country of emigration, Portugal has offered to take up to 10,000 migrants from countries struggling to cope with the influx, to help maintain its own population. Portugal’s socialist premier Antonio Costa last week sent letters to Austria, Greece, Italy and Sweden—countries that have seen refugees arrive in large numbers—offering to welcome up to 5,800 more ...

Bloomberg Wil VanLoh, a Houston private-equity manager, has links to a $1 million contribution to a group supporting Ted Cruz’s presidential bid. The group, Stand for Truth, disclosed today that it received $1 million in January from a Houston company identified as Trinity Equity. Trinity shares an address with Quantum Energy Partners, a private-equity firm VanLoh runs with $9 billion ...

DUBAI / WAM Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, on Sunday received Professor Carl-Henrik Heldin, Chairman of the Board of the Nobel Foundation, who took part in the opening ceremony of the second edition of the Nobel Museum Exhibition 2016, in Children’s City at Dubai Creek Park. The exhibition ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC) announced that its impact on the Abu Dhabi economy in 2015 surged by 26% to AED3.47 billion from AED2.76 billion in 2014. This follows a 13% growth in the number of events hosted by Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and Al Ain Convention Centre (AACC), which collectively hosted a total ...

London / Bloomberg Prime Minister David Cameron started selling his deal on Britain’s membership in the European Union to voters with a direct appeal to Boris Johnson, the last senior figure in his Conservative Party still to declare which side he’ll join in the campaign. “I would say to Boris what I say to everybody else, which is that we ...