Sydney / AFP Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday declared victory for the ruling conservatives after the Labor opposition conceded defeat, but faced a tough time ahead after the narrow mandate in the closely fought election. The declaration ended eight days of uncertainty about the new government’s identity. A tight race between the two major parties left neither …

  Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative ruling coalition and its allies appear set to win a majority in Sunday’s upper house election, an NHK exit poll showed, though it’s unclear if they’ll gain the two-thirds majority allowing him to press ahead with plans to revise the pacifist constitution and assemble a package of fiscal stimulus. Abe’s Liberal Democratic …

  Beirut / AFP The IS extremist group lost 12 percent of the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2016, according to an analysis by British think-tank IHS. The analysis published on Sunday says the extremist group, which proclaimed its self-styled “caliphate” in the two countries in 2014, is continuing to lose ground after …