Manila / AFP President Rodrigo Duterte threatened on Sunday to withdraw the Philippines from the United Nations, as he launched another profanity-laced tirade against the organisation for criticising his bloody war on crime. More than 1,500 people have been killed since Duterte took office and immediately began his law-and-order crackdown, according to police statistics, triggering fierce criticism from the ...

  Tokyo / AFP Tokyo protested to Beijing on Sunday after Chinese coast guard ships sailed into territorial waters surrounding disputed islands in the East China Sea, Japan said. Four Chinese vessels entered the waters surrounding islets, called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, around 10.00 am local time (0100 GMT), according to Japan Coast Guard. They left ...

  Hong Kong / AFP Hundreds of protesters marched through Hong Kong’s main streets on Sunday against a ban on pro-independence candidates from running in an upcoming legislative election, as fears grow over Beijing’s influence in the city. In the last month five candidates who advocate a split from China were rejected from standing in the September 4 vote, with officials ...

  Seoul/ AFP South Korea warned on Sunday of possible North Korean assassinations and kidnappings in revenge for recent high-profile defections to the South. With tensions also high before a large-scale South Korea-US military exercise starting on Monday, the Unification Ministry in Seoul said Pyongyang was bent on provocation. A ministry official told reporters the defection to Seoul of North Korea’s ...

  Bangkok / AFP Two Chinese nationals will go on trial this week for their alleged roles in a deadly bombing at a Bangkok shrine one year ago, an attack whose motive remains clouded in mystery following a murky and at times surreal investigation. The trial, which starts on Tuesday, is being held at a military court in Bangkok and ...

  Srinagar / AFP Indian soldiers killed three suspected rebels in a gun battle on Sunday in Indian-administered Kashmir, the army said, as the region reels from weeks of deadly violence between protesters and security forces. The rebels were killed in Tangdhar north of the main city of Srinagar after crossing over from the Pakistani side of the heavily militarised border ...

  An aging America reduces the economy’s growth — big time. That’s the startling conclusion of a new academic study, and if it withstands scholarly scrutiny, it could transform our national political and economic debate. We’ve known for decades, of course, that the retirement of the huge baby-boom generation — coupled with low birthrates — would make the United States ...

Lots of presidential-campaign observers have been questioning the numbers in Hillary Clinton’s plan to make public colleges and universities “free” for students whose families earn below a set threshold. And I will admit that I am a longtime skeptic of proposals to further subsidize higher education. But one thing critics such as myself tend to overlook is the positive value ...

  New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, on most days simply a bore to pass through, descended into chaos last weekend. Waves of confusion rippled through its terminals when passengers, thinking a terrorist attack was underway, stampeded haphazardly in search of refuge. It was all for nothing. There was no attack, no “active shooter.” Evidently, a crowd watching the Olympics ...

  With plunging copper prices, weak currency, ballooning budget deficit and skyrocketing inflation, Zambia is grappling with an unprecedented economic challenge. And the newly re-elected President Edgar Lungu has an extremely tough job at hand — to remedy the various ills ailing the country’s economy. There was a time when the southern African nation had seen the GDP growing at ...