Beirut / AFP US-backed rebels advanced on a key IS group supply line between Syria and Iraq overnight, seizing a small airbase near the border, a monitor said on Wednesday. The New Syrian Army said the operation—launched on Tuesday—is aimed at the severing the supply line through the Albu Kamal crossing that links areas under IS control in eastern …

  Washington, / AFP South Korea, Japan and the United States held an unprecedented trilateral missile defence exercise, aimed at countering the growing threat from nuclear-armed North Korea which denounced it as a “military provocation.” The drill in waters off Hawaii came less than a week after North Korea flight-tested a powerful new medium-range ballistic missile that leader Kim Jong-Un …

  Seoul/ AFP A high-profile South Korean politician and presidential hopeful resigned as the head of his new opposition party that has been rocked by a bribery scandal. Ahn Cheol-Soo, a former IT software tycoon, stepped down as co-leader of the People’s Party, amid allegations that its members received tens of thousand of dollars in kickbacks from two local companies …