Paris / AFP Engaged in a fierce tug of war with unions and some of his own party over labour reforms, France’s embattled Prime Minister Manuel Valls has staked his political career on staring down the crisis. Valls finds himself in a devilish position, says Frederic Dabi of polling firm IFOP. “If he withdraws the law, he will no ...

Seoul / AFP North Korea on Saturday warned South Korea of “merciless retaliatory strikes”, a day after the South fired warning shots at North Korean boats near their disputed sea border. The North’s military General Staff said from now on it would open fire without warning at any South Korean ships if they intrude “even 0.001 millimetres” into disputed waters ...

  BEIRUT / AP IS militants entered a Syrian opposition stronghold in the country’s north on Saturday, clashing with rebels on the edges of the town as the extremist group built on its most significant advance near the Turkish border in two years, Syrian opposition groups and IS media said. More than 160,000 civilians are trapped in the fighting, which ...

  Istanbul / AFP Two rockets fired on Saturday from inside Syria landed near the international airport of Gaziantep, a major Turkish border city, although nobody was hurt, the Turkish news agency Dogan reported. One of the projectiles landed in a residential complex for employees of Oguzeli airport, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) outside the city and another came down ...

  ANKARA / AP Turkey’s state-run news agency says US-led coalition airstrikes and Turkish artillery fire against the IS group in Syria have killed 104 militants. Anadolu Agency said on Saturday said the strikes came late Friday, hours after rockets fired from Syria hit a southern Turkish town and wounded five people. It said the airstrikes and artillery fire also ...

  Aden / AFP Yemeni authorities on Saturday arrested seven IS group suspects, including one ‘Westerner’, in second city Aden, a police officer said. The arrests are part of a government offensive against IS and Al-Qaeda, which have claimed a wave of deadly attacks in recent months in Yemen’s south and southeast. Among these were twin bombings claimed by IS ...

  Paris / AFP French President Francois Hollande will underline the need for European unity at a ceremony Sunday in Verdun to honour those killed in one of the bloodiest battles of World War I 100 years ago. To mark the centenary, Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will lay wreaths at cemeteries holding the dead of both sides in ...

  Kuala Lumpur / AFP Malaysia on Saturday received 68 Syrian refugees including 31 children out of a total of 3,000 it hopes to allow into the predominantly Muslim country with hundreds more expected soon. Last December, the Southeast Asian country accepted the first batch of 11 Syrian migrants who had relatives in Malaysia. Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi said ...

  Tehran /AFP Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged newly-elected lawmakers on Saturday to resist “schemes” from the West as parliamentarians met in Tehran for the first time since elections finished in April. “The turbulent state of the region and the world and the international adventurism of oppressors and their vassals have confronted the Islamic Iran with conditions more ...

WASHINGTON One cause for Syria’s torments is that regional powers have used proxy forces to advance their position in the “great game” of influence, without regard for the effects on the Syrian people. An example is the standoff between two Syrian Kurdish militia groups. One, known as the YPG, appears to be tacitly backed by an odd coalition that includes ...