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  HARARE / AP US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy has an admirer in Zimbabwe’s controversial president, who says the policy resonates with his own thinking. President Robert Mugabe, who turned 93 on Tuesday and is the world’s oldest head of state, spoke in a birthday interview with state-run media. “When it comes to Donald Trump, on the one ...

  MOSCOW / AP The Kremlin refrained from comment Tuesday on the appointment of the new U.S. national security adviser, but one lawmaker said he was likely to take a hawkish stance toward Russia. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster was named to the job Monday by President Donald Trump to replace retired Gen. Michael Flynn. Trump fired Flynn last week ...

  PESHAWAR / AP A group of suicide bombers with grenades and assault rifles struck outside a courthouse in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing six people in an attack claimed by a Taliban splinter group. The attack was the latest in a wave of militant assaults across the troubled country that has killed over 100 people since last week. The ...

  BEIRUT / AP A top adviser to the United Nations envoy for Syria said on Tuesday that their “main guidance” for the first intra-Syrian peace talks in 10 months will be a Security Council resolution that calls for political transition. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is putting the “finishing touches on arrangements” for Thursday’s start of talks in Geneva ...

  DUBAI / AP Bahraini lawmakers voted Tuesday to change the constitution to allow civilians to be tried in military courts, further empowering its security forces amid a crackdown on dissent at level unseen since its 2011 Arab Spring protests. The decision by the 40-seat Council of Representatives, the elected lower house of the tiny Gulf nation’s National Assembly, comes ...

  NGHIA BINH / AP The family of a Vietnamese woman arrested in the death of the half brother of North Korea’s ruler in Malaysia has confirmed she is their relative, but believes she didn’t knowingly participate in the killing. Kim Jong Nam died last week after apparently being poisoned in Kuala Lumpur’s airport. Speaking at their home in a ...

  JOHANNESBURG / AP The United Nations children’s agency is warning that almost 1.4 million children are at “imminent risk of death” as famine threatens parts of South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. The UNICEF announcement comes a day after famine was declared in parts of Unity state in South Sudan, where civil war has raged since late 2013 and ...

  Across Asia, the world has supposedly been witnessing the return of the strongman. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been grasping more and more control in his own hands since claiming power in 2012. Two years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and President Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”) in Indonesia won office by selling themselves as forceful economic ...

  Monday’s meeting of European finance ministers looks like the last chance for some form of agreement on the next leg of Greece’s 86 billion euro ($91.4 billion) bailout, before Dutch and French election complicate negotiations. Anything can still go wrong with seemingly unsolvable differences between the European authorities, the International Monetary Fund, and the Greeks. The worries are certainly ...

  US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have taken a tough line against Russia’s many recent provocations. Other than calling for all members of the alliance to pay their fair share of the military bill, however, they have offered no real plan of action. Russia’s aggressions call for a stronger response. While Mattis is ...