Chennai / AFP Tens of thousands of mourners filed past the coffin of the Indian politician Jayalalithaa Jayaram on Tuesday in an emotional farewell to the former movie star who enjoyed almost god-like status in the state of Tamil Nadu. The 68-year-old Jayalalithaa, described by her party as the Iron Lady of India, died late Monday after suffering a massive ...

  Ankara/ AFP Turkish police on Tuesday detained a former advisor to the main opposition party leader over alleged links to the group led by the US-based Islamic preacher blamed for the July failed coup, state media reported. Fatih Gursul was a former science, technology and communications advisor to the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, ...

Brussels /AFP South Korea’s scandal-hit President Park Geun-Hye said on Tuesday she would accept the result of a looming and possibly lengthy impeachment process, but defied pressure to resign immediately. An opposition-sponsored impeachment motion is almost certain to be adopted by the national assembly on Friday, with some 30 rebel MPs from Park’s Saenuri party saying they will vote in ...

Dhaka / AFP More than 20,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks to escape a bloody crackdown by the army in neighbouring Myanmar, humanitarian officials said on Tuesday. Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border to try to stem the tide of refugees since an eruption of unrest in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine in early October. ...

  How China manages its currency is likely to be the global economic story of 2017. Despite the government’s best efforts, capital continues to leave the country at a brisk pace, with a balance-of-payments deficit through the third quarter of $469 billion. Attempts to arrest this flow probably won’t work. But they may well create new risks. Capital outflows began ...

  Last month’s Circles drama highlights the struggle Jack Ma’s empire faces in expanding its financial services business. To recap, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and its affiliate Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co. added social features to Alipay’s smartphone app to help promote engagement. In theory, more engagement should lead to greater use of its marquee function, ...

  There’s new data out on the taxes that people and corporations in the world’s affluent nations paid in 2015. The US total tax burden of 26.4 percent of gross domestic product (that includes state and local taxes) once again lands us pretty far down in the rankings. Of the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ...

  The embattled Korean President Park Geun-hye defies pressure to resign. But the scandal-hit Park is ready to accept the result of looming and possibly lengthy impeachment process. The scandal that has served a body blow to Park and crippled the government pertains to her friendship with long-time confidante Choi Soon-Sil. Dubbed as female Rasputin, Choi has been charged with ...

  Matteo Renzi came to power promising to change Italy or change his job. On Sunday, Italians made that choice for him, rejecting the constitutional reform on which he’d staked everything. It’s tempting to plot a continuous line from the UK’s June vote to leave the European Union through to the election of Donald Trump to the Italian referendum on ...

  The emphatic rejection of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s proposed constitutional reform returns Italy to a state of political and economic uncertainty. As Renzi prepares to hand in his resignation, President Sergio Mattarella must establish whether the governing Democratic Party is stable enough to support another prime minister as he seeks to avoid the early election that could open the ...