TORKHAM / AP Thousands of Afghans gathered at the Pakistani border to return home on Tuesday as Pakistan temporarily reopened two main crossings that had been closed last month after a wave of militant attacks. The Torkham and Chaman crossings were to remain open through on Wednesday for nationals from both countries with valid visas who want to return …

  BEIRUT/ AP The top generals from Turkey, the United States and Russia met on Tuesday to discuss developments in Syria and Iraq as Syrian government forces made fresh gains fighting the IS group. The surprise meeting between Turkey’s Gen. Hulusi Akar, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, …

  WASHINGTON / AP The senior Army officer tapped by President Donald Trump to be his national security adviser faces questions from senators during a rare closed-door meeting amid intense scrutiny of the White House for alleged Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster’s appearance before the Armed Services Committee, slated for Tuesday, is unusual because national …

  MOGADISHU / AP United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Somalia’s new President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in Mogadishu on Tuesday to start of what he calls an emergency visit to Somalia to highlight the country’s famine crisis. “People are dying. The world must act now to stop this,” the UN chief tweeted to announce his arrival in this Horn of …

  KUALA LUMPUR / AP North Korea barred Malaysians from exiting its borders and Malaysia followed suit on Tuesday, turning ordinary citizens into pawns in the diplomatic battle surrounding the investigation into the bizarre death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother. The tit-for-tat directives come as relations between the two countries disintegrate over the poisoning of Kim …

  The conflict between Ukraine and Russia entered a new phase recently. The separatist, pro-Russian “people’s republics” of eastern Ukraine announced they were taking over Ukrainian oligarchs’ assets on their territory. Few people outside Ukraine know that throughout the three-year hostilities, these factories and mines paid Ukrainian taxes, and their output was counted toward Ukraine’s gross domestic product. If the …

  It’s that time of year when Australia’s bank executives go through their equivalent of a reality-TV audition. Like an episode of the X Factor, the parliamentary hearings into the four major banks are conducted in an atmosphere of high theater. Chief executives attempt to carry off pitch-perfect performances while the parliamentarians sat in judgment try to launch a few …

  One simple chart is creating a lot of buzz in markets. It shows that for the first time in history, one bitcoin is worth more than one troy ounce of gold. Despite the flurry of discussion this factoid has generated, many are stupefied, not quite knowing what to do with this information or how to trade on it. Maybe …

  Bloomberg Here’s another way of thinking about how far stocks have come in nine years. Relative to balances in money market funds and cash among mutual fund managers, the value of global equities is the highest in almost two decades. That observation courtesy of Ned Davis Research, which framed the comparison as an indication “cash is underweight” in Planet …

  DUBAI / Reuters Most Gulf stock markets fell on Tuesday as blue chip Emaar Properties pulled down Dubai and stocks going ex-dividend hit Qatar, although Saudi Arabia closed marginally higher. Dubai’s index slipped 1.5 percent as Emaar lost 3.8 percent after it proposed a cash dividend of 15 percent for 2016, unchanged from the previous year despite a 28 …