Istanbul / AFP Six suicide attacks in eight months and a spat with Russia have added to concerns for the Turkish economy as tourists flee, taking billions of dollars in spending elsewhere, and foreign investors skirt the troubled country. Days after a suspected IS extremist blew himself up on a top shopping street in Istanbul, hotels, restaurants and retailers in ...

Damascus / AP Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes drove IS fighters from Palmyra on Sunday, ending the group’s reign of terror over a town whose famed 2,000-year-old ruins once drew tens of thousands of visitors each year. Government forces had been on the offensive for nearly three weeks to try to retake the central town, known among Syrians ...

Jerusalem / AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the military on Sunday following uproar over footage of a soldier lethally shooting a Palestinian attacker who had already been shot and subdued. Netanyahu said the incident in question does not reflect the military’s conduct, and that criticism of the armed forces as a whole over the incident is “outrageous and ...

Dhaka / AFP Four Bangladeshis have been killed in gunfights between rival groups in the war-torn Libyan city of Benghazi, a minister said on Sunday. State minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam said he did not yet have full details on the dead. Alam said embassy officials had received three bodies and they were being stored in a hospital in ...

Makhmur / AFP Thousands of desperate civilians were fleeing fighting on Sunday on the new front opened by Iraqi forces against the IS group south of the city of Mosul. Families crammed in the back of pickup trucks, sometimes bringing dead and wounded with them, emerged from the dust after crossing the front line and were met by Kurdish forces. ...

Naypyidaw / AFP Myanmar’s powerful army chief vowed on Sunday to keep the nation “on the path to democracy”, days before Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government takes office after decades of army rule. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing made the remarks at an annual display of military might by Myanmar’s armed forces, a body that long crushed democratic aspirations ...

Idomeni / AFP Hundreds of hopeful refugees flooded back to Greece’s overwhelmed Idomeni camp on the border with Macedonia on Sunday following rumours that the closed frontier would be forced open. The renewed influx came as Greek authorities were trying to evacuate an estimated 11,500 people who were stranded at the squalid camp after Balkan states slammed shut their borders, ...

We are a very wealthy society, and we shouldn’t forget it. Donald Trump apparently has — along with many other people. Visiting recently with The Washington Post editorial board, here’s how Trump explained his suggestion that the United States limit its overseas military commitments, including support for NATO, founded in 1949: “I think that we are not in the position ...

Global economy is facing uncertainties as never before. It’s challenges galore out there. The business ecosystem is changing in the flicker of an eyelid. And the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are not untouched by these swift changes. No wonder then the UAE government has a tough task ahead: not just to support the segment but also to ensure that ...

On Wednesday, the Philippine government said that it had created a new task force to coordinate its policy on the South China Sea – which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea – amid rising tensions with China and ahead of a verdict on a case which it has filed against Beijing. According to a document issued by the presidential office ...