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  Moscow / AFP Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday accused the US-led coalition in Syria of failing to rein in hardline rebels, and said the chance of a political settlement was now remote. He said the coalition was “putting spokes in the wheel” of Russia’s military operation in the country and failing to “act in unison”. “As a ...

  Islamabad / AFP Amnesty International has called on Pakistan to release hundreds of opposition activists detained before a planned mass protest, as police used tear gas and rubber bullets overnight to prevent demonstrators from entering Islamabad. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is under growing pressure from opposition parties, mainly Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), over corruption. It plans to lock ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korean prosecutors on Monday questioned the woman at the centre of a political scandal that has shattered public confidence in President Park Geun-Hye, with allegations of fraud and meddling in state affairs. In the wake of mass street protests in Seoul and other cities to demand Park’s resignation, Choi Soon-Sil—who has denied any criminal wrongdoing—submitted to ...

  Yangon / AFP Myanmar police said on Tuesday they have brought charges punishable by a long jail term against the captain of an overloaded river ferry that sank last month, killing dozens of people. A total of 73 people, including scores of teachers and university students, died when the boat capsized on the Chindwin River on its way to the ...

  Calais / AFP Initially caught off guard, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has swung between defiance, counter-attack and painting Donald Trump as a mortal danger since the FBI director revived her email scandal. The decision, announced by James Comey in a letter to lawmakers last Friday, initially dumbfounded Clinton and her allies, throwing what was already America’s ugliest presidential election into spasms ...

  Beijing / AFP Chinese president Xi Jinping met with the leader of Taiwan’s opposition party on Tuesday, state media reported, as Beijing’s relations with the island’s new president deteriorate. Cross-strait ties have worsened under Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen whose China-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May after a landslide victory over the Kuomintang (KMT). Tsai ...

  Tokyo / AFP Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday for talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, her first visit since becoming her country’s de facto leader earlier this year. She and Abe are expected to discuss economic assistance and Myanmar’s peace-building process with its ethnic minorities, according to a Japanese foreign ministry official. Japan hopes ...

  Beijing / AFP Malaysia and China signed a defence deal and pledged closer cooperation in the South China Sea on Tuesday, signalling a potential strategic shift by Premier Najib Razak as his ties with the United States fray over a corruption scandal. Najib’s week-long trip marks another potential setback for Washington’s “pivot” towards Asia, two weeks after President Rodrigo Duterte ...

  Moscow / AFP A Russian activist jailed for staging solo anti-government protests claimed in a letter published on Tuesday that he was beaten and threatened with rape and murder in prison. Ildar Dadin, a 34-year-old activist serving a two-and-a-half year sentence at a prison in Russia’s northwestern region of Karelia, was the first person to be imprisoned under a ...

  Caracas /AFP Venezuela’s embattled government and opposition leaders agreed to hold talks to defuse a growing political crisis, but mistrust lingers after an attempt to recall the president was scuttled. With the mediation of the Vatican and the Union of South American Nations, the two sides agreed after hours-long talks which ended before dawn on an agenda that includes ...