Idlib / AFP The frail cries of four-month-old Wahida made the rescue worker who carried her out of the rubble in Syria’s Idlib break down in sobs. The full story is one of tragedy. “I was in the shop when the airplane began carrying out air strikes,” recalls 32-year-old father Yehya Maatouq almost matter-of-factly. He was speaking to AFP on …

  Kunduz / AFP Explosions echoed across Kunduz as Afghan commandos began to push back a Taliban assault on Monday, forcing residents to shelter in their homes one year after militants briefly seized the strategic provincial capital. Government helicopters were targeting gunmen from the air in a bid to repel the attack, a day before President Ashraf Ghani is due …

  Moscow / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a halt to an agreement with the United States on plutonium disposal, citing Washington’s “unfriendly actions”. The deal, signed in 2000, was meant to allow both nuclear powers to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium from their defence programmes, a move seen as a key step in the disarmament process. The two …