Seoul / AFP Ban Ki-moon arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for a six-day visit that has fuelled speculation the UN chief is lining up a tilt at the presidency of his home country. Ban’s schedule involves a number of international gatherings, including a peace forum in the southern island of Jeju where he arrived late afternoon on a …

  Beijing / AFP The disputed rocks and reefs of the South China Sea are more than an ocean away from the landlocked African nation of Niger. But that has not stopped the strife-ridden, largely desert country of 17 million people adding its voice to a growing diplomatic chorus that Beijing says supports its rejection of an international tribunal hearing …

  LONDON Sixty-five years ago, what has become the European Union was an embryo conceived in fear. It has been stealthily advanced from an economic to a political project, and it remains enveloped in a watery utopianism even as it becomes more dystopian. The EU’s economic stagnation — in some of the 28 member nations, youth unemployment approaches 50 percent …