Ankara / AFP Turkey’s government on Sunday dismissed nearly 1,400 military personnel, including a top aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest round of a sweeping purge following a failed coup. The announcement in the official gazette came as Erdogan sought to tighten his grip over the country by bringing the armed forces and spy agency under his ...

  Ankara / AFP The United States must extradite Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen to Turkey to remove any suspicion that Washington was involved in the failed July 15 coup, the mayor of Ankara Melih Gokcek said. Gokcek, mayor for over 22 years and one of the most senior figures in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip ...

  Washington / AFP Washington has warned that those who perpetrate atrocities in South Sudan’s civil war will be held responsible for their crimes. The United States served as a midwife in the creation of the South Sudan, formed in July 2011 by partitioning Sudan. But South Sudan descended into war in December 2013, and a peace deal signed last year ...

  Kuwait City / AFP The Yemeni government said Sunday it has accepted a UN-proposed peace agreement to end more than a year of armed conflict, but there has been no word from the rebels. The announcement by the Saudi-backed government came after a high-level meeting in Kuwait’s capital chaired by Yemen’s President Aberabbo Mansour Hadi. “The meeting approved the draft ...

  Bloomberg Russia’s economy contracted the least since it slipped into recession at the start of last year as industry and farming added to oil’s biggest quarterly gain since 2009 to steady the world’s biggest energy exporter. Gross domestic product shrank 0.6 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier after a decline of 1.2 percent in the previous ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Stock markets in the Gulf were soft in early trade on Sunday, weighed down by weak oil prices and a lacklustre set of second-quarter corporate results. Riyadh’s stock index lost 0.2 percent after 40 minutes of trade as the petrochemical sector dropped 0.4 percent. The September Brent oil contract settled at $42.46 a barrel on Friday, ...

  AFP Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy “Umbrella Revolution” was re-imagined as a zombie apocalypse by gamemakers who transformed politicians and protesters into the walking dead using virtual reality technology at a comic and games expo recently. Teenagers and video game enthusiasts packed the Ani-Com show at the city’s harbourfront convention centre and queued for “Hong Kong Infected”, where they shot ...

  AP You’d be wrong to think that Facebook’s Messenger app is all about messaging. Although people typically install it on their phones to chat privately with their Facebook friends, Facebook also uses Messenger to bring features and capabilities that might not make sense, or even be possible, as part of the main Facebook service. And of course, a separate ...

AP The little robot that caused a big stir when it hit crowdfunding site Indiegogo is now a retail reality. After passing its funding goal by some 300%, Riley, the AppBot, is now officially on sale at a number of retail outlets and on Amazon for $229. As homes get smarter and connectivity becomes the norm, it’s only going to ...

  Relaxnews The Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences and Samsung are pooling their considerable resources in order to build a connected health and lifestyle platform that will interact with everything from smart TVs to wearables in order to help people make healthier choices. As more and more areas of our lives — from the homes we live in to the ...