Ramallah / AFP Israeli troops arrested the Hamas representative on the organising committee for October Palestinian municipal elections on Wednesday, the radical movement said. Hamas condemned what it called an “attempt to influence” the outcome of the elections, the first in the Palestinian territories since 2012. “We condemn the arrest of Sheikh Hussein Abu Kweik,” a Hamas statement said, adding …

  Sri Nagar / AFP Suspected militants killed two soldiers and one police officer in an ambush on a convoy overnight in Indian-administrated Kashmir, an official in the troubled region said on Wednesday. An unknown number of gunmen opened fire on the two army trucks and a police car travelling through Baramulla district, 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of the region’s …

  Sydney/ AFP Australia agreed on Wednesday to close a camp for asylum-seekers on Papua New Guinea, one of two controversial Pacific island centres attracting growing criticism, but said none of the hundreds of men there now would be resettled on its soil. Canberra’s policy of sending asylum-seekers who arrive by boat to outposts on Papua New Guinea and the tiny …