Benghazi / AFP Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government launched an offensive on Sunday aimed at retaking key eastern oil ports seized last week by fighters from a rival administration. The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord has struggled to assert its authority over the country since the GNA was formed in December last year. Oil is Libya’s key ...

  Washington / AFP Syrian children love playgrounds like kids all over the world but in rebel-held towns near Damascus swing sets are made of spent rockets and jungle gyms are tucked underground. Eastern Ghouta, a besieged opposition stronghold east of Damascus, has been battered by regime air strikes and shelling since Syria’s conflict erupted more than five years ago. ...

  Srinagar / AFP Militants armed with guns and grenades killed 17 soldiers in a raid on Sunday on an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, the worst such attack for more than a decade in the disputed Himalayan region. The rebels broke into the base near the town of Uri before dawn and lobbed the grenades at tents and barracks ...

  Peshawar / AFP The death toll from a Taliban suicide bomb attack on a mosque in northwest tribal Pakistan has risen to 36, including eight children, officials said on Sunday. The Friday attack targeted a mosque in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the army has been fighting Taliban militants. “We have now compiled a list of victims ...

  New York / AFP An explosion rocked one of the most fashionable neighborhoods of New York on Saturday night, injuring 29 people, one seriously, a week after America’s financial capital marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Mayor Bill de Blasio indicated the blast was not accidental, even if there was no known link to terrorism. “We believe it ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire from critics after admitting part of his recent “Change Begins With Me” speech was copied from US President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory speech. Buhari announced the social initiative earlier this month urging Nigerians to stop bribing and littering in a programme that continues his “war against indiscipline” launched ...

  AWEIL / AFP South Sudan’s government is challenging a new report by a U.S.-based watchdog group that says the country’s leaders have amassed wealth abroad amid a conflict in which tens of thousands have been killed. A spokesman for President Salva Kiir says the allegations by The Sentry report “can only jeopardize the pursuit of peace and stability in my ...

  Moscow / AFP Russians went to the polls Sunday in parliamentary polls, with parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin set to maintain their dominance despite the longest economic crisis of his rule. The nationwide election follows a tumultuous few years that have seen the country seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, plunge into its worst standoff with the West since ...

  The betting is that the Federal Reserve won’t raise interest rates at this week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, its key policymaking body. There are already complaints that the Fed, which cut short-term rates to near zero in late 2008, is waiting too long to reverse low rates. Last December, the Fed increased rates by a quarter ...

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