Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka aims to make a record $3.5 billion from tourism this year on the back of its improved rights record under a new government after years of ethnic war, its tourism minister said on Monday. Tourism on the Indian Ocean island suffered heavily during a decades-long civil war that ended in 2009, but has been ...

  Bloomberg Foreign ownership of Malaysian government bonds dropped in September for the first time in 12 months, with the outflows likely to have been triggered largely by debt maturities. Overseas holdings decreased 0.4 percent to 213 billion ringgit ($51.4 billion), after climbing to a record in August, according to central bank data released in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. Sovereign ...

Vilnius / AFP Lithuanians fed up with economic inequality voted for change in round one of a general election, with Monday’s results showing the opposition set to oust the governing leftists in an October 23 run-off. The national elections commission said near full results showed the centrist Lithuanian Peasants and Green Union party (LPGU) winning 21.62 percent of the vote, ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Israeli authorities have arrested dozens of Palestinians after a shooting rampage in Jerusalem killed two people and wounded five others, police said on Monday. The arrests after Sunday’s attack included 31 Palestinians seeking to participate in celebrations in memory of the assailant as well as members of his family in east Jerusalem, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan ...

  Beijing / AFP A series of multi-storey buildings built by local villagers and packed with migrant workers collapsed in China on Monday, killing at least 17 people, the government and reports said. Four residential buildings caved in during the early hours at Wenzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the Lucheng district government said in a social media posting. ...

  Port-au-Prince / AFP Haiti’s death toll from monster Hurricane Matthew has risen to 372, civil defense officials said on Monday, as the impoverished country continues to dig out of massive destruction in the south. On the second day of a three-day national mourning, the authorities added 36 more people to tally of confirmed dead. Four others were listed missing. More ...

  Manila / AFP The Zika virus is set to spread through Asia, the World Health Organization warned Monday, with hundreds of cases reported in Singapore and two Thai babies diagnosed with Zika-linked microcephaly. The mosquito-borne virus has been detected in 70 countries worldwide including at least 19 countries in the Asia Pacific region, said WHO director for health security ...

  Taipei / AFP Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday called for a resumption of talks with China and pledged that “anything” can be on the table for discussion. Relations with Beijing have deteriorated under Taiwan’s first female president, whose China-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May after a landslide victory over the Kuomintang party (KMT). Tsai has refused ...

  Goma / AFP At least 10 people were killed in clashes between the army and suspected Ugandan rebels in east DR Congo, a local activist said on Monday, in an area that has suffered a string of massacres since 2014. The rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces, a partly armed group of Ugandan origin, are accused of a litany of ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s stock market rebounded on the back of banking shares on Monday while other major Gulf bourses were firm, with builder Drake & Scull leaping in Dubai after it replaced its chief executive. The Saudi stock index, which had tumbled 2.2 percent on Sunday as banks dropped because of concern about the impact of government ...