New York / AFP Donald Trump stepped up his search on Tuesday for a secretary of state with loyalists at loggerheads over prospective candidates: erstwhile critic Mitt Romney, scandal-clad general David Petraeus and Senator Bob Corker. Trump’s quest for America’s next top diplomat, the most prestigious position in the cabinet and the statesman who will have to grapple with …

  Manila / AFP The Philippines criticised on Tuesday as “irresponsible and alarming” a UN envoy’s warning that life sentences meted out to two ex-Khmer Rouge leaders should serve as a warning to Manila over human rights abuses. Last week, a United Nations-backed court in Cambodia upheld life sentences for crimes against humanity for two senior leaders of the Khmer …

  Manila / AFP Seven military bodyguards of President Rodrigo Duterte and two other soldiers were wounded on Tuesday in an ambush by suspected militants on the eve of his planned visit to the southern Philippines, the military and president said. Military spokesmen said a bomb hit the soldiers’ convoy as it drove on a road in a southern region …