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  Ankara / AFP A group of former US diplomats held closed door talks at the weekend with senior Pyongyang officials, even as international efforts gather pace to further isolate North Korea, diplomatically and economically. The two-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur, which was confirmed by the South Korean and US governments, was the latest in a series of unofficial talks commonly ...

  Valletta / AFP A small passenger aircraft crashed on takeoff at Malta’s international airport on Monday, killing all five people onboard, officials said. In a statement, the airport said the aircraft, a Fairchild Metroliner turboprop, was involved in an accident “upon takeoff.” “We can confirm that the five crew on board are deceased,” it said, adding that the airport ...

  Manila / AFP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s fiery rhetoric and deadly crime war are becoming a growing concern around the world, the top US envoy for Asia warned on Monday in Manila. US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel met with the Philippines’ defence and foreign ministers on Monday, after Duterte last week ...

  Islamabad / AFP Two children and another civilian were killed along with a soldier in firing across the border between India and Pakistan, officials from both sides said on Monday, as tensions soar between the nuclear-armed rivals. Pakistan’s military said an 18-month-old girl and another civilian were killed on its side of the border in “unprovoked firing” by the ...

  New Delhi / AFP Indian police on Monday killed at least 21 rebels in a shoot-out in eastern India, a local officer said, one of the deadliest incidents this year in a long-running Maoist insurgency. Police said they ambushed a meeting of 30 to 40 Maoists in a forest near the border of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states, triggering a ...

  Geneva / AFP The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere averaged a record 400 parts per million in 2015, an ominous milestone for the planet’s health, the UN said on Monday. The greenhouse gas has previously passed the 400 ppm threshold on certain months in specific locations but never on an annual global basis, the United Nations World ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s stock market closed higher for a fourth straight session on Monday after last week’s mega international bond sale by the government boosted sentiment, but Egyptian shares dropped further as a chronic dollar shortage weighed on sentiment. Riyadh’s stock index rose 1.0 percent, taking its gains over the last four sessions to 6.2 percent. It ...

  London / AFP Eurozone stock markets marched higher Monday following bright economic data, showing business activity in October at a 10-month high. Frankfurt gained 0.8 percent in value and Paris won 0.7 percent. London meanwhile London erased earlier gains to trade virtually flat around midday compared with Friday’s closing level. “A positive swell of data has continued to boost ...

  Bloomberg Rockwell Collins Inc., with its $6.4 billion takeover of B/E Aerospace Inc., is betting big that airplanes will get smarter as everything from lie-flat seats to toilet valves flash data in real time to airline crews and maintenance workers on the ground. The acquisition is the largest in the avionics company’s 83-year history, eclipsing its $1.39 billion takeover ...

  Bloomberg From the annals of Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction comes news that the Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart is considering getting into bricks and mortar. The company that made a name for itself helping shoppers avoid physical stores may end up inviting them in. It’s not as preposterous as it sounds. Nor is it just a copy of Amazon’s ...