PENGJIA ISLET / AP President Ma Ying-jeou on Saturday visited a small island in the East China Sea to reassert Taiwan’s sovereignty and its role in the contested region, one of the key issues of his administration that ends next month. Ma’s visit on Saturday to Pengjia, roughly 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Taiwan proper, was his administration’s second …

Mogadishu / AFP Two members of Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shabab extremist group were executed by firing squad on Saturday for the murder of a journalist killed by a car bomb last year, a judge said. Abdirisak Mohamed Barow et Hassan Nur Ali, who admitted being Shebab members during their trial, were shot on Saturday morning in Mogadishu, Abdulahi Hussein Mohamed, deputy …

CAIRO / AP The Saudi-led coalition behind a year-long military campaign against Yemen’s Shiite rebels is ready to commit to a cease-fire as long as the rebels abide by a UN Security Council resolution that calls for their pullout from Yemeni cities, the alliance’s spokesman said. Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al Asiri told The Associated Press that the Yemeni rebels known …