Paris / AFP Three French soldiers have been killed in Libya, the defence ministry said on Wednesday, in the first confirmation that France has troops in the country where the IS extremist group has rear bases. “Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian regrets the loss of three French officers who died while on mission in Libya,” the ministry said in …

  Taipei / AFP Taiwanese lawmakers and fishermen headed to an island in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday to protest at an international tribunal ruling which undermined Taipei’s claims there. Eight lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) boarded a military plane to the Taiwan-controlled Taiping island in the Spratlys archipelago. Five fishing …

Washington / AFP With extremist attacks proliferating around the world, the United States has reassembled its coalition partners for meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to review a two-year-old war that has so far failed to eliminate the IS extremist group. The militant group may have lost ground in Iraq and Syria, but in recent weeks it has claimed horrific attacks in …