PARIS / AFP Home sharing site Airbnb aims to extend its network of tax agreements to 700 cities by the end of next year, Monday’s Financial Times has quoted its chief executive as saying. The company has already clinched 200 tax agreements that allow it to collect and remit hotel taxes to local authorities, Brian Chesky told the newspaper. ...

  London / AFP Prime Minister Theresa May promised Monday to boost research investment as she sought to reassure business leaders nervous about the “cliff-edge scenario” of Britain leaving the European Union. May told a Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference that her government would invest an extra £2 billion a year ($2.5 billion, 2.3 billion euros) in science research ...

  London / AFP The British government announced fresh investment in research and development on Monday, ahead of the first post-Brexit budget which is expected to signal a move away from the previous administration’s rigid fiscal targets. The government will increase research and development spending worth £2 billion ($2.5 billion, 2.3 billion euros) annually until 2020, Prime Minister Theresa May’s ...

  Aleppo / AFP Syrian regime forces advanced quickly in rebel-held areas of Aleppo on Monday, pressing a new offensive in defiance of international concern over the fate of the city and its residents. More than 100 civilians have been killed in the east since the regime’s latest offensive began on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights ...

  Damascus / AFP US President Barack Obama said he is “not optimistic” about Syria’s future, as the UN warned time is running out to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo which has been pounded by air strikes for nearly a week. Government forces launched a ferocious assault last Tuesday to recapture eastern Aleppo, killing 115 civilians so far. In ...

  Sanaa / AFP A 48-hour ceasefire ended on Monday in Yemen after failing to stem violence across the country, with both sides blaming each other for deadly “violations” of the US-backed truce. The ceasefire, aimed at ending the chaos and bloodshed that has gripped Yemen since March 2015, came into effect on Saturday following the intervention of US Secretary ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkish police detained on Monday the pro-Kurdish co-mayor of Mardin, state media reported, the latest municipal chief of a major southeastern city to be taken into custody in a growing crackdown. Ahmet Turk was detained along with Emin Irmak, co-mayor of central Artuklu district in Mardin, as part of a “terror probe”, the official news agency ...

  Yangon / AFP More than 1,000 houses in Rohingya villages have been razed in northwestern Myanmar, according to analysis of satellite images from Human Rights Watch released on Monday that fly in the face of government denials. Troops have poured into a strip of land along the Bangladesh border, an area which is largely home to the stateless Muslim ...

Seoul / AFP South Korea’s main opposition party voted on Monday to seek the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye after prosecutors named her a criminal suspect in a snowballing corruption case. But it remains unclear exactly when Park’s opponents will formally try to start the process, a difficult and lengthy one with no guarantee about the outcome. Members of the Democratic ...

  Washington / AFP As Donald Trump builds the team he has promised will drain the Washington swamp, the president-elect may temper concerns provoked by early controversial picks by hiring a respected but tough-talking Marine general. As the Republican billionaire’s motley crew of advisors gathered once again on Monday at his Trump Tower offices in New York, talk was of retired ...