Luxembourg / AFP EU President Donald Tusk insisted on Thursday there would be no talks with Britain before London triggers the divorce process, saying he wants to “protect the interests” of the bloc’s remaining members. Tusk added that in the wake of the Brexit vote, the 27 EU leaders who are meeting without Britain in Slovakia on September 16 ...

  Rawalpindi /AFP Pakistan’s military on Thursday admitted for the first time that the IS group had a presence in the country but said it had apprehended hundreds of its militants and prevented them from carrying out major attacks. The army’s spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said forces had foiled planned attacks by IS on foreign embassies and Islamabad airport, ...

  Singapore / AFP Malaysia on Thursday reported its first suspected case of Zika, a 58-year-old woman believed to have contracted it in neighbouring Singapore where more than 100 cases have been confirmed. The Malaysian woman had made a brief trip in late August to visit her daughter, who has already been confirmed as having the Zika virus, Malaysia’s health ...

  Phoenix /AFP White House hopeful Donald Trump issued a stern anti-immigration warning after visiting Mexico, saying people who cross into the United States illegally would never obtain legal status. It was one in a series of stark declarations that framed a sweeping plan to crack down on illegal immigration following his more measured tone earlier in the day, when ...

  Hanoi / AFP Three Russian fraudsters, including one who tried to escape prison using a spoon and a toothbrush to dig a tunnel, have been jailed in Vietnam for using fake ATM cards to steal $13,400. The men, aged between 30 and 43, were detained last October pending trial when one of them made a last-ditch attempt to flee. ...

  Don’t expect a second War on Poverty, regardless of who wins the US election. Picking up where Lyndon Johnson left off in the 1960s would seem a logical response to the campaign’s relentless criticism of economic inequality. But appearances are deceiving. Most proposals to reduce inequality — conspicuously from Hillary Clinton — are aimed at the middle class. Spillovers ...

  One of the surprises of the 2008 global financial crisis is that the “great recession” that followed did not trigger much of a protectionist backlash. Developments this week suggest that, in the absence of more enlightened and coordinated political leadership, this may be changing. As output collapsed after the financial system’s “sudden stop” in the fall of 2008, and ...

  Many things have gotten harder as the world settles into a protracted spell of low oil prices and sluggish growth — from avoiding deflation to creating jobs. One thing has gotten easier, as well as more urgent: eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies. Governments have long paid lip service to this idea. The G-20 has been promising to phase out fuel subsidies ...

Never before has a G20 summit faced such diverse and gruelling challenge as the September 4-5 Hangzhou meet encounters. Themed aptly as ‘Towards an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy’, the world is eagerly awaiting the event, hoping it delivers something beyond just pledges — A strategy towards an effective global economic synergy. The meeting comes at a very ...

  Well before the Brazilian Senate threw Dilma Rousseff out of office on Wednesday, by a commanding 61 votes to 20, even her most fervent supporters sensed her days as head of state were numbered. Yet to judge by the commotion from her loyalist rearguard, you’d think a political comeback were underway. The suspended president took the stand at her ...