May, 2016

• 11 May

  Brazil’s Senate opens Rousseff impeachment vote session

  

    Brasília / AFP Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday launched a pivotal debate on the future of President Dilma Rousseff, who faces likely suspension and an impeachment trial that could end 13 years of leftist rule in Latin America’s biggest country. Even allies of Rousseff, 68, said she had no chance of surviving the vote, expected later in the day after ...

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• 11 May

  Families, friends split over Brazil political crisis

  Rio De Janeiro / AP Like Brazil itself, Dayse Lima’s family is deeply split over the political firestorm threatening to force President Dilma Rousseff from power. Lima, a 54-year-old government worker and staunch Rousseff supporter, got so angry at her son Gustavo for bashing the president that she stopped speaking to him. Gustavo, a 27-year-old energy analyst who lived with ...

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• 11 May

  Duterte set for wild foreign policy ride

  

    Manila / AFP After proposing a jet-ski mission to defend remote islands against China, daring the United States to sever ties and joking about burning Singapore’s flag, Rodrigo Duterte is set for a wild foreign policy ride as the next Philippine president. The firebrand politician stormed to victory in national elections this week using an incendiary brand of populism ...

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• 11 May

  India to seek tycoon Mallya’s extradition from Britain

    New Delhi / AFP India will seek to extradite indebted tycoon Vijay Mallya, the country’s finance minister said on Wednesday, after Britain turned down its request to deport him. Arun Jaitley told parliament that Britain had refused to deport Mallya, who left India owing $1.34 billion, because he entered the country on a valid passport, even though it was ...

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• 11 May

  Son of Pakistan’s ex-PM home after 3-yr hostage ordeal

  

    Juba / AFP The freed son of a former Pakistani premier reunited with his family in a shower of rose petals in Lahore on Wednesday, three years after he was kidnapped then taken to Afghanistan. Ali Haider Gilani, son of Yousaf Raza Gilani, was rescued during a counter-terror raid by US and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday. Crowds ...

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• 11 May

  Buhari to Cameron: Return stolen assets

  

    London / AFP Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday that he did not want an apology from Prime Minister David Cameron for calling his country “fantastically corrupt”, but said Britain could return assets stolen by officials who fled to London. “I am not going to demand any apology from anybody. What I am demanding is the return of ...

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• 11 May

  Baghdad car bombs kill 86

    Baghdad / AFP Three car bombs in Baghdad, including a huge blast at a market in a Shiite area, killed at least 86 people on Wednesday, the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital this year. The attacks, the deadliest of which was claimed by the IS group, came with the government locked in a political crisis that some have ...

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• 11 May

  Obama visit will revitalise anti-nuclear push: Japan

    Tokyo / AFP Barack Obama’s trip to Hiroshima this month is a chance for him to see how the city suffered after its atomic bombing, and to renew his push for global nuclear disarmament, local officials said on Wednesday. On May 27, Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, the White House said on Tuesday, ...

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• 11 May

  Army, rebels trade fire in Syria’s Aleppo as truce end looms

    Aleppo / AFP The Syrian army exchanged fire with rebels in battleground second city Aleppo even before the expiry at midnight on Wednesday of a Russian- and US-brokered ceasefire. Two people were wounded early Wednesday when regime aircraft strafed rebel positions in two eastern neighbourhoods of the divided city with heavy machinegun fire, an AFP correspondent reported. Late Tuesday, ...

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• 11 May

  Clashes as B’desh hangs hardliner leader

  

    Dhaka / AP Clashes erupted in Bangladesh on Wednesday after the execution of a top hardliner leader, heightening tension in a country reeling from a string of killings of secular and liberal activists. Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-E-Islami party, was hanged at a Dhaka jail late Tuesday for the massacre of intellectuals during the 1971 independence war ...

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