Bangkok/ AFP Seventeen girls died after a fire swept through the dormitory of a school for children of hill tribes in northern Thailand, officials said on Monday, with a survivor describing fleeing as flames engulfed the building. The fire started late Sunday night, meaning many of the children at the school run by a Christian charity were asleep as …

  Nicosia/ AFP Cypriots disaffected by three years of economic downturn have protested at the polls, staying away in droves and electing two far-right lawmakers in an echo of the populist wave sweeping Europe. Final results released on Monday showed that 3.7 percent of voters backed the National Popular Front (ELAM), a party which defends the Athens-inspired coup of 1974 …

  Seoul / AFP South Korea on Monday rejected the latest proposal by the North to hold military talks, saying Pyongyang first needed to take steps towards abandoning its nuclear arsenal. The North’s leader Kim Jong-Un offered the military dialogue during a speech to a recent congress of the ruling Workers’ Party—the first event of its kind for more than …

  Aden / AFP Twin bombings claimed by the IS group hit Yemeni forces in Aden on Monday, killing at least 41 people in the latest of a spate of attacks in the southern city. The attacks in Aden—which is serving as the temporary government headquarters after rebels forced authorities from the capital—follow a major military operation against extremists in …

  Hanoi / AFP President Barack Obama on Monday confirmed Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US air strike, hailing his death as an “important milestone” in efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan. Saturday’s bombing raid, the first known American assault on a top Afghan Taliban leader on Pakistani soil, marks a major blow to the militant movement, …

  Istanbul / AFP Nearly half of the schools run by the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees have been hit by conflict in the last five years, it said on Monday on the sidelines of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier reminded participants on the opening day of the two-day summit that attacks on …

  Beirut/ AFP More than 120 people were killed on Monday in a wave of bombings claimed by the IS group in northwestern Syria, the deadliest attacks yet in the regime’s coastal heartland. Seven near-simultaneous explosions targeted bus stations, hospitals and other civilian sites in the seaside cities of Jableh and Tartus, which until now had been relatively insulated from Syria’s …

  Vatican City / AFP Pope Francis met the grand imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque at the Vatican on Monday in a historic encounter that was sealed with a hugely symbolic hug and exchange of kisses. The first Vatican meeting between the leader of the world’s Catholics and the highest authority in Sunni Islam marks the culmination of a significant improvement …

  Near Fallujah / AFP Iraqi forces battled the IS group on Monday in the opening stages of an operation to retake Fallujah, one of the toughest targets yet in Baghdad’s war against the extremists. As Iraqi forces struck targets in and around the extremist bastion, which saw deadly battles in 2004 between insurgents and American forces, IS claimed bombings …

The raw Sunni recruits in crisp camouflage uniforms, popping off rounds at the firing range at a US training camp here, illustrate the dilemma for the US as it seeks to form a strong military force to drive the IS from its capital, Raqqah. The US could try to build the Sunni army it would want, ideally, to capture Raqqah, …