Washington / AFP An overwhelming majority of Americans think the next president should place “major” focus on improving US race relations, which most see as “generally bad.” The Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Saturday was taken shortly after the mass shooting of white police officers by a black sniper that followed two high-profile shooting deaths of black men at …

  Aleppo / AFP Opposition-controlled parts of Syria’s battered northern city Aleppo came under total siege on Sunday, after government forces severed the last route out of the east. Beleaguered rebels have failed to thwart a major Russian-backed army offensive around Aleppo city, which has been devastated by the country’s five-year conflict. On Sunday, regime fighters descended on the Castello …

Hanoi, Vietnam / AFP Scores of activists were detained in Vietnam’s capital on Sunday as they gathered to protest against China after it rejected a recent international ruling that dismissed its claims to much of the South China Sea. Anti-Chinese sentiment runs deep in communist Vietnam but the country’s authoritarian rulers move swiftly to tamp down expressions of public anger, …