BAGHDAD/ AP In March, a senior commander with the IS group was driving through northern Syria on orders to lead militants in the fighting there when a drone blasted his vehicle to oblivion. The killing of Abu Hayjaa Al Tunsi, a Tunisian extremist, sparked a panicked hunt within the group’s ranks for spies who could have tipped off the …

  MANILA / AP The Philippine president-elect has encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighbourhoods. In a nationally televised speech late Saturday, Rodrigo Duterte told a huge crowd in the southern city of Davao celebrating last month’s …

Beirut / AFP US-backed Syrian rebels advancing on IS group fighters in the strategic northern town of Manbij have progressed to within five kilometres of the extremist bastion, a monitor said on Sunday. Supported by air strikes by the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias launched an …

Chittagong / AFP Suspected militants killed the wife of a senior anti-terror officer in the Bangladesh city of Chittagong on Sunday, the latest attack thought carried out by local extremists, police said. Three unidentified men stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Begum in the head as she walked her son to a school bus stop near her home, Chittagong Metropolitan Police …

  New Delhi / Tribune News Service India is widely expected to be the 35th member of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) this week, a move that will boost the country’s efforts to export and import missile technology subject to non-proliferation rules from friendly nations. If made partner in the regime, a precursor to being admitted into the Nuclear Suppliers’ …

  When Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, speaks to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on June 8, he may find it hard to convince lawmakers of his country’s promise. He shouldn’t: As China, Russia and Brazil slow down, India is barreling ahead. It’s one of the brighter spots among all the emerging markets. True, India’s economic …

  Leonid Bershidsky “Big data” is one of the tech world’s ubiquitous buzzwords. In the old days, people just called it data, but in Silicon Valley it’s not a thing unless it’s big. It’s not yet obvious, however, that data collected by various internet services is any more useful than those mined in more traditional ways — through surveys, for …

During his trip to Asia recently, US President Barack Obama took the opportunity to tell an audience in Vietnam why the Trans-Pacific Partnership is so important. Since the Vietnamese people may be the greatest beneficiaries of the agreement, this was an excellent venue to praise the power of globalization to bring about shared prosperity to people around the world. But …

  BLOOMBERG Gulf stocks were mixed as trading slumped in advance of the holy month of Ramadan, when business across the region slows. Dubai’s DFM General Index advanced 0.7 percent at the close and Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index climbed 1 percent. The Bloomberg GCC 200 Index, which tracks 200 of the largest and most liquid stocks in the six-nation …

  Bloomberg China’s quest for raw materials for its aluminum smelters and alumina refineries promises to deliver a 15-year boom for exporters of bauxite, according to Rio Tinto Group, which is spending $1.9 billion to raise output. Global demand is already growing rapidly and will outpace the 4 percent-a-year lift London-based Rio forecasts for aluminum in the medium-to-longer term, Alf …