July, 2016

• 17 July

  Turkey detains 6,000 after failed coup

  

    Istanbul / AFP Turkish authorities on Sunday pressed on with a ruthless crackdown against suspects in the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with 6,000 people including generals detained in action that has sparked international concern. World leaders including US President Barack Obama have strongly condemned the attempted putsch but also urged Turkey to respect the rule of law ...

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• 17 July

  Armenia group takes hostages in raid

  

    Yerevan / AFP An armed Armenian group with links to a jailed opposition leader seized a police building in Yerevan on Sunday, killing one policemen and taking several more hostage, including top officers. One of the gunman said they were demanding the resignation of President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of political prisoners but the country’s security services dismissed ...

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• 17 July

  Bahrain court orders Shiite opposition bloc dissolved

    Dubai / AFP A court on Sunday ordered the dissolution of Bahrain’s Shiite main opposition group Al-Wefaq, a judicial source said, despite international criticism of the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom’s intensified crackdown on dissent. The administrative court in Manama also ordered the funds of the group, accused by authorities of “harbouring terrorism” among other charges, to be seized by the ...

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• 17 July

  Myanmar’s Suu Kyi holds landmark rebel talks

  

    Yangon / AFP Myanmar’s de facto premier Aung San Suu Kyi held landmark talks with senior rebel leaders on Sunday, as she strives to seal a ceasefire with a patchwork of ethnic minority militias that have battled the national army for decades. Suu Kyi has made peace a flagship policy of her newly installed civilian-led government which replaced decades ...

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• 17 July

  21 die after consuming bootleg hooch in India

    New Delhi / AFP Twenty-one labourers died after drinking toxic homemade liquor in northern India, police said on Sunday, in the latest incident of alcohol poisoning in the country. Police in Uttar Pradesh state’s Etah district said the victims started to vomit and fall sick, complaining of severe stomach aches and blurred vision after consuming the illicit moonshine late ...

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• 17 July

  Two held as details emerge about France truck attacker

  

    Nice, France / AFP French investigators arrested two more people on Sunday as they pieced together details about the motives and planning of the Tunisian who rammed a truck into a crowd in an IS-claimed attack that killed 84. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel staked out the Nice promenade with his rented truck twice in the two days before he smashed the ...

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• 17 July

  Le Corbusier’s works listed among World Heritage Sites

    Paris / AFP UNESCO on Sunday listed Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s works — including the Indian city of Chandigarh which he planned in the 1950s— among its World Heritage Sites. The decision was announced as the World Heritage Committee meeting in Istanbul resumed for a day on Sunday, after being suspended a day earlier due to an abortive putsch bid ...

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• 17 July

  Most Americans pessimistic about race relations: Poll

    Washington / AFP An overwhelming majority of Americans think the next president should place “major” focus on improving US race relations, which most see as “generally bad.” The Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Saturday was taken shortly after the mass shooting of white police officers by a black sniper that followed two high-profile shooting deaths of black men at ...

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• 17 July

  Rebel-held parts of Aleppo ‘completely besieged’

  

    Aleppo / AFP Opposition-controlled parts of Syria’s battered northern city Aleppo came under total siege on Sunday, after government forces severed the last route out of the east. Beleaguered rebels have failed to thwart a major Russian-backed army offensive around Aleppo city, which has been devastated by the country’s five-year conflict. On Sunday, regime fighters descended on the Castello ...

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• 17 July

  Vietnam detains activists in Hanoni after S China Sea ruling

  Hanoi, Vietnam / AFP Scores of activists were detained in Vietnam’s capital on Sunday as they gathered to protest against China after it rejected a recent international ruling that dismissed its claims to much of the South China Sea. Anti-Chinese sentiment runs deep in communist Vietnam but the country’s authoritarian rulers move swiftly to tamp down expressions of public anger, ...

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