Istanbul / AP President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned the European Union that Turkey could extend by at least another three months a state of emergency that has been in place since the failed July coup. In a a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan launched another stinging attack on the EU after the European Parliament voted on Thursday to back ...

  Hasakeh / AP A string of explosions on Saturday rocked a munitions storage site in northeastern Syria used by the US-led coalition battling the IS group, a monitor and a local official said. “At least five explosions occurred on Saturday morning at the arms and munitions depots in a base close to Tal Tamer” northwest of the city of Hasakeh, ...

  Seoul / AFP Up to 1.3 million protesters braved sleet and freezing temperatures in Seoul on Saturday to demand President Park Geun-Hye resign over a corruption scandal or face impeachment. People beat drums and chanted “Park get out now” as they walked towards the presidential Blue House that had been cordoned off by thousands of police deployed in the South ...

  Manila /AFP Up to 100 extremists from a group behind a deadly bombing in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s home city were on Saturday under siege in a remote mountain town, officials said. Residents of Butig, which has a population of 17,000, have fled after the IS-linked militants holed themselves up in an abandoned government building, Philippine military spokesman Brigadier-General ...

  Teknaf / AFP Alam’s short life ended on Saturday in a dark, tattered tent in Bangladesh, the Rohingya child’s skeletal body succumbing to illness contracted while fleeing Myanmar where his stateless people are under attack. He was six-months-old. Alam died hours after arriving at makeshift refugee camp close to Teknaf, the gateway to Cox’s Bazar, a poor, densely populated coastal ...

  Islamabad/ AFP Pakistan on Saturday appointed General Qamar Javed Bajwa as its new military chief, the prime minister’s office said, in a surprise pick for arguably the most powerful role in the country. Bajwa will take over from the hugely popular General Raheel Sharif, who won the hearts of millions with his bruising campaign against Islamic militants. “President Mamnoon ...

  Havana / AFP Cuba’s historic revolutionary leader Fidel Castro died late Friday aged 90, after defying the United States during a half-century of iron-fisted rule and surviving the eclipse of global communism. One of the world’s longest-serving rulers and modern history’s most singular characters, Castro defied 11 US administrations and hundreds of assassination attempts. His younger brother, President Raul ...

  Buenos Aires / AFP Mass marches to condemn horrific violence against women swept Latin America, after a series of brutal murders stoked outrage over a long-smoldering problem in the region. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Buenos Aires, the latest in a series of massive protests organized by a burgeoning movement against domestic violence and a ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia pulled out of planned talks with non-OPEC nations. including Russia, as disagreements about how to share the burden of supply cuts stood in the way of a deal to boost prices just days before a make-or-break meeting in Vienna. OPEC officials were scheduled to meet with non-members including Russia on Monday before a ministerial meeting in ...

  AFP Kuwaitis went to the polls on Saturday for the first election contested by the opposition in nearly four years amid fresh disputes over cuts in subsidies due to falling oil revenues. Turnout was high at many of the 100 polling stations with some centres reporting 70 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots with two hours to ...