BANJUL / AP Gambia’s new president was set to be inaugurated on Saturday as this tiny West African nation celebrates wider freedoms after a tense political standoff with its former leader. Several heads of state were scheduled to attend the ceremony for President Adama Barrow. He was sworn into office last month at Gambia’s embassy in neighboring Senegal as …

  MINSK / AP In more than two decades in power, the leader of Belarus has cast his nation as Moscow’s closest ally, securing tens of billions of dollars in Russian subsidies. At the same time, President Alexander Lukashenko has skillfully exploited Russia’s security fears by occasionally reaching out to the West to win concessions from Moscow. Now, the Kremlin …

  ISLAMABAD / AP Pakistani authorities shut down a second key border crossing into Afghanistan, halting trade supplies to the neighboring landlocked country and increasing tension between the two nations in the wake of a bloody suicide bombing at a beloved shrine in Pakistan, officials said on Saturday. The border closure at Chaman in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province came after …