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Beirut / AFP Syrian government forces advanced against rebels inside Aleppo on Thursday, making their biggest gains in the ravaged city in years just hours after announcing they would ease their air bombardment. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said loyalist fighters now controlled around half of the Bustan al-Basha district near the centre of the divided metropolis. “It’s the ...

  Beirut / AP The UN envoy for Syria has urged Al Qaida-linked fighters in the rebel-held eastern parts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to leave the area. Staffan de Mistura also asked Russian and Syrian forces if they would immediately stop their “aerial bombing” of Aleppo, providing militants from the Fatah Al Sham Front group — formerly ...

  Ankara / AFP Turkey insisted on Thursday that its troops will remain in Iraq despite Baghdad’s growing anger ahead of a planned operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from IS extremists. Baghdad has accused Ankara of risking a regional war by keeping its forces inside Iraq, with the dispute complicating plans for the ambitious American-backed Mosul operation. ...

  Washington / AFP Recruits into the IS group are better educated than their average countryman, contrary to popular belief, according to a new World Bank study. Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group, said the newly released study titled “Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism”. The study, which aimed ...

  United Nations / AFP The Security Council on Thursday unanimously backed Antonio Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal who was the UN’s refugee chief for a decade, to be the next secretary-general. During a closed-door meeting, the 15 council members adopted a resolution formally presenting Guterres as their choice to be the world’s diplomat-in-chief. Applause rang out in ...

  Rome / AFP Departing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday hailed his likely successor Antonio Guterres as a “superb choice”, ahead of the former Portuguese prime minister’s expected backing by the Security Council. “I know Mr Guterres very well and consider him a superb choice,” Ban, who has served as UN chief since January 2007, said in Rome, ...

  Kapitan-Andreevo / AFP The EU launched its beefed-up border force on Thursday in a rare show of unity by the squabbling bloc as it seeks to tackle its worst migration crisis since World War II. European Union officials inaugurated the new task force at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, the main land frontier for migrants seeking to ...

  Jakarta / AFP The Indonesian air force Thursday held a major exercise around its islands in the South China Sea where there have been clashes with Chinese vessels in waters claimed by Beijing. Thousands of personnel as well as F-16, Sukhoi and Hercules planes took part in the drill around the remote Natuna islands in the far northwest of ...

  Manila / AFP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity has soared during his first three months in office, an independent survey showed on Thursday, in an apparent endorsement by Filipinos of his brutal war on crime. Defence ally the United States, the United Nations and the European Union have led global condemnation of Duterte’s unprecedented crime crackdown, which has left more ...

  Brazilian bank workers are in a funk. Inflation is eating away at their salaries, even as banks are still making pretty good money in the face of Brazil’s recession. So on Sept. 6, tellers, clerks and other bank employees did what union bosses told them to do: They walked off the job. On Oct. 4, employees rejected a 7 ...