BUDAPEST / AFP Hungary’s populist strongman Viktor Orban was banking on voters on Sunday to defy the European Union and reject its troubled refugee quota plan, but low turnout threatened to taint his camp’s expected referendum win. Surveys showed the referendum turnout might not reach the required 50-percent threshold and therefore be deemed invalid. But Orban has already downplayed ...

  Tripoli / AFP Libyan pro-government forces killed at least 10 IS group extremists as they attempted to flee their besieged stronghold of Sirte, the country’s unity government said on Sunday. “Our forces exterminated a group from the IS gang that were trying to escape,” said the forces in a statement. They said their fighters had recovered the bodies of ...

  AFP Hillary Clinton said she raised a record $154 million in September in her race for the White House against Donald Trump. In August, Clinton raised $143 million and Trump $90 million. It is common for campaign donations to increase as the election approaches. This year the voting is on November 8. The money is in fact divided between ...

  Sao Paulo /AFP Brazilians furious at recession and corruption voted on Sunday in municipal elections amid heightened security after a series of murders of candidates. Voting, which is mandatory in Brazil, got underway at 8:00 am (1100 GMT), with long lines immediately forming outside polling stations. Among the first to cast his ballot in the financial capital Sao Paulo ...

  Baku / AFP Pope Francis on Sunday called for a “stable peace” as he visited mainly Muslim Azerbaijan, several months after pushing for an end to a festering territorial feud while in arch-foe Armenia. The pontiff met in private with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev — who is accused by rights groups of ruthlessly stamping out dissent in the energy-rich ...

  Bogota / AFP Colombians voted in a referendum on Sunday on whether to ratify a historic peace accord to end a 52-year war between the state and the communist FARC rebels. The accord will effectively end what is seen as the last major armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and ...

  Rosy Scenario is alive and well. There is a long and dubious tradition among politicians of projecting high — usually unrealistic — rates of economic growth as a way of avoiding unpopular political choices. We can do everything, because rapid growth and torrents of tax revenues will pay the bills. That’s Rosy’s message, and Donald Trump has eagerly embraced ...

Wall Street equity analysts sure are a gloomy lot these days. Based on the average estimate of forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg, they expect the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to finish the year 1 percent lower than yesterday’s close. This is noteworthy because it’s so out of character. Most of the time — 82 percent during the past decade, to ...

  For a few years it seemed that Americans were moving to the cities, but now the trends are toward the suburbs once again. Long-turn trends favor suburbs even more. THE SHARING ECONOMY One reason is the rise of Uber and other ride-sharing services. Uber helps users virtually everywhere, but in cities there are subways and buses and walking might ...

  British Prime Minister Theresa May announced during the ruling Conservative party’s annual meeting on Sunday that the UK will start the Brexit process before April 2017. There has been mounting pressure on her to expedite the departure from the European Union. Since she assumed office, May had been playing her cards close to her chest — being quite ambiguous ...