Madrid / AFP Spain’s conservative leader Mariano Rajoy was sworn in on Monday for a second term as prime minister, bringing a close to 10 months of political limbo. “I swear to faithfully fulfil the obligations of prime minister and to show loyalty to the king,” Rajoy said with his hand on the Spanish constitution, at a ceremony attended ...

  Calais / AFP French authorities were on Monday clearing the last shacks in the Calais “Jungle”, signalling the end of the notorious camp, as attention turned to the thousands of migrants sleeping rough in Paris. The authorities have said that nothing will be left of the notorious Jungle, home to around 6,000 migrants until a week ago, by Monday evening. ...

  Manila / AFP The Philippines and China have reached a “friendly” understanding allowing Filipinos to fish around a disputed shoal seized by Beijing in 2012, a senior aide to President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday. Duterte negotiated the understanding during his recent meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Manila’s national security adviser Hermogenes Esperon. As a ...

  Caracas / AFP Venezuela’s embattled government and opposition leaders agreed on Monday to hold extended talks aimed at defusing the nation’s increasingly tense political crisis. Vatican representative Claudio Maria Celli said in statement that the two sides have agreed to a “national dialogue plenary meeting” beginning next month. The two sides will meet on November 11, officials announced Monday, after ...

  Chisinau / AFP Moldova’s presidential election is set to go to a second round, preliminary results showed on Monday, after the leading pro-Russian candidate failed to secure an outright win in the ex-Soviet state. Moldova went to the polls Sunday in its first popular presidential election since the 1990s, seen as a tug-of-war between supporters of closer relations with Russia ...

  Bartalla / AFP Iraqi special forces advanced on the eastern city limits of Mosul on Monday, tightening the noose as the offensive to retake the IS group stronghold entered its third week. Elite counter-terrorism forces were facing mortar fire as they pushed from the Christian town of Bartalla towards Mosul’s eastern suburbs, AFP correspondents at the front said. As an ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkish police detained the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, state media reported on Monday, while the daily said several of its writers were taken into police custody. Murat Sabuncu was detained while authorities searched for executive board chairman Akin Atalay and writer Guray Oz, the official news agency Anadolu said. The daily said Oz had in ...

  Kabul /AFP Afghanistan is losing a multi-billion dollar war on drugs as it combats terrorism, a minister warned, denouncing a lack of political will and dwindling foreign aid to fight narcotics. The comments from Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, deputy minister of interior for counter-narcotics, come after the UN last week reported a 10 percent jump in opium cultivation this year ...

  Beirut / AFP Lebanon’s Michel Aoun, a former general backed by the powerful Hezbollah movement as well as longtime rivals, was elected president on Monday ending a political vacuum of more than two years. The deeply divided parliament took four rounds of voting to elect Aoun, whose supporters flooded streets and squares across the country to celebrate his victory. ...

  Tehran / AFP Iran’s foreign ministry has rejected accusations from the United States that it has been shipping arms to the Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen, according to media reports on Monday. A US admiral said on Thursday that warships from the US Navy and allied nations had intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to the Arabian Peninsula country ...