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  Tripoli / AFP The head of Libya’s UN-backed unity government called for urgent talks on Wednesday after forces loyal to a rival administration seized the main eastern oil ports in defiance of world powers. The fighting between the two sides — the first since the unity government started work in the capital Tripoli in March — was the latest ...

  Jakarta / AFP Indonesia’s top Islamic clerical body said on Wednesday it has issued a fatwa against intentionally starting forest fires in a bid to stop the blazes that cloak Southeast Asia in haze every year. The religious edict by the Indonesian Ulema Council said it was “haram”, or against Islamic law, for Muslims to start fires on purpose ...

  Seoul / AFP Floods in North Korea that have left hundreds dead or missing are the “worst disaster” to hit the country since World War II, state media said on Wednesday. The official KCNA news agency did not give exact numbers of those killed or unaccounted for, but a UN report said 138 people have died and 400 are ...

  Colombo / AFP Exiled Maldives opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed has said he is in talks with the former president, who repeatedly threw him in jail, to “legally topple” the current leader of the troubled honeymoon islands. Nasheed became the first democratically elected president of the Maldives in 2008, but now lives in exile in London after he was jailed ...

  Taipei / AFP Parts of Taiwan were brought to a standstill on Wednesday as super typhoon Meranti skirted past the island’s southern tip, bringing the strongest winds in 21 years and disrupting traffic ahead of a major holiday. Although typhoon Meranti did not make landfall, the storm brought violent winds and torrential rain to eastern and southern Taiwan. At ...

  Aleppo / AFP Besieged Syrian civilians waited desperately for aid on Wednesday as relief convoys remained on hold despite a significant drop in violence under a ceasefire brokered by Washington and Moscow. The truce that began at sundown on Monday is part of the latest bid to end a five-year conflict that has killed more than 300,000 people. The ...

  Nicosia / AFP Cypriot leaders will meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon later this month, his envoy said on Wednesday, as they push for a deal on reunifying the Mediterranean island this year. Espen Barth Eide said that Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci would meet Ban in New York on September 25 to try ...

  Almaty / AFP Uzbekistan’s acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has carried out his first reshuffle, the authorities said Wednesday, in a sign of his growing authority following the death of long-reigning strongman Islam Karimov. Mirziyoyev was boosted from prime minister to acting leader of the Central Asian nation last week after Karimov died aged 78, following 27 years of ruthless ...

  Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka on Wednesday announced it was planning to relocate farmers living on the edges of forests inhabited by elephants to reduce the numbers killed on both sides. Wildlife minister Gamini Jayawickrama Perera said the island’s elephant population had dropped to 6,000, from 7,379 counted five years ago, as deadly encounters between animals and humans increase. ...

  Bloomberg Congolese former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda on Wednesday again refused to attend his war crimes trial on the seventh day of a hunger strike which is posing a legal dilemma for international judges. Ntaganda is protesting his treatment in detention and has said he is “ready to die”, accusing the International Criminal Court of failing to give him ...