Kunduz / AFP Taliban militants on Saturday captured a district in northeastern Kunduz province, near the provincial capital where militants scored their biggest victory in 14 years last September. The militants, waging a bloody insurgency to topple the Western-backed Kabul government, have intensified their attacks nationwide and tightened their grip on the besieged capital of Helmand province southwest of Kunduz ...

  Washington / AFP US Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko in a phonecall urged a speedy resolution to the conflict with pro-Russian separatists amid a spike in tensions with Moscow, the White House said. Biden and Poroshenko “expressed concern over the recent surge in fighting in eastern Ukraine, where ceasefire violations by combined Russian-separatist forces are at ...

  Ankara/ AFP Donald Trump sought to reboot his flagging presidential bid, dismissing his tainted campaign chairman and seeking to broaden his shrinking support base by appealing to black voters and visiting flood-ravaged Louisiana. The resignation of the seasoned Republican strategist Paul Manafort—under fire for his pro-Kremlin ties and role in a Ukrainian corruption scandal—represents the Republican nominee’s latest effort to ...

  Manila / AFP The Philippine government and communist guerrillas have agreed to ceasefires from Sunday, both sides said, ahead of crucial peace talks next week to end one of Asia’s longest insurgencies. Both sides said a break from the fighting will create a conducive environment at the negotiations next week in Norway, which are aimed at reaching a political ...

Istanbul / AFP Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Saturday insisted the United States was Turkey’s “strategic partner, not our enemy” despite Ankara’s anger at Washington for failing to extradite Fethullah Gulen, whom it blames for last month’s failed coup. “There can be ups and downs in the two countries’ relations (but) we need to remove elements that harm our relations,” Yildirim ...

  The IS hasn’t had much success yet in recruiting militants among the vast Muslim populations in Southeast Asia. But what happens when the caliphate’s capitals in Syria and Iraq are destroyed, and hundreds of foreign fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines try to go home? Experts here in Australia see the counterterrorism challenge as a regional problem, rather ...

  By now, almost every finance aficionado knows about the problems in the hedge-fund industry. With almost $3 trillion in assets under management, the industry has been bedeviled by complaints of underperformance and high fees. Large institutions that put money into hedge funds are now reversing course, led by endowments and pension funds. Redemptions totaled $20.7 billion in the three ...

  The U.S. Federal Reserve appears to be paying more attention to how its policies affect black Americans. This is a wise move, because blacks stand to gain a lot more than others from the Fed’s efforts to support economic growth. The minutes of the Fed’s July policy-making meeting noted that officials had discussed unemployment rates and other measures of ...

  An escalation of tension between Russia and Ukraine augurs bad for both. The two countries are going through throes of deplorable financial crisis and the diplomatic flareup will only worsen the already dismal situation. The hostilities have badly hit their economies and it is in the interest of both that the conflict is not allowed to intensify further. The ...

  Hillary Clinton thinks corporate taxes are too low. Donald Trump thinks corporate taxes are way too high. They’re both wrong, and the economic consequences could be huge if either nominee’s tax proposal becomes law. Trump would slash the rate to 15 percent and allow millions of partnerships and single-owner firms set up by hedge fund managers, lawyers and other ...