Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena has asked Donald Trump to pressure the UN Human Rights Council to drop war crimes allegations against the country’s troops. Sirisena’s office said on Sunday he had sent a “special message” to president-elect Trump seeking US intervention at the council, where Sri Lanka faces censure for wartime atrocities. “I sent a special …

  MOSCOW / AP Russian news reports say a prominent young chess grandmaster has died after falling from a balcony apparently while undertaking the extreme sport of parkour. The reports cited police as saying 20-year-old Yuri Eliseev died late Saturday after falling from the 12th story of his apartment building in Moscow. Eliseev was the world under-16 chess champion in …

  Paris / AFP Written off as finished on more than one occasion, Republicans party presidential candidate Alain Juppe is living proof that in French politics death is often temporary. Juppe, 71, who faced Francois Fillon in Sunday’s rightwing primary runoff, has rebounded from what seemed like hopeless lows to have a shot at the presidency. The first major difficulties came …