Jakarta / AFP The Indonesian air force Thursday held a major exercise around its islands in the South China Sea where there have been clashes with Chinese vessels in waters claimed by Beijing. Thousands of personnel as well as F-16, Sukhoi and Hercules planes took part in the drill around the remote Natuna islands in the far northwest of …

  Manila / AFP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity has soared during his first three months in office, an independent survey showed on Thursday, in an apparent endorsement by Filipinos of his brutal war on crime. Defence ally the United States, the United Nations and the European Union have led global condemnation of Duterte’s unprecedented crime crackdown, which has left more …

  Brazilian bank workers are in a funk. Inflation is eating away at their salaries, even as banks are still making pretty good money in the face of Brazil’s recession. So on Sept. 6, tellers, clerks and other bank employees did what union bosses told them to do: They walked off the job. On Oct. 4, employees rejected a 7 …