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  Singapore / AFP A Singapore firm headed by a scion of one of Asia’s richest families has bought a 49 percent stake in Rolling Stone, with plans to diversify the iconic magazine into new business including live events and merchandising. BandLab Technologies, a music and technology start-up headed by 28-year-old Kuok Meng Ru, bought the stake for an undisclosed ...

  CANBERRA / AFP Australia’s trade minister will lead the country’s first business delegation to visit Iran in 14 years after sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program were eased. Steven Ciobo said he will leave on Tuesday for the visit that will include reopening an Australian trade office that closed in 2010. Ciobo said he will be accompanied by 20 representatives ...

  Seoul / AFP Tens of thousands of unionised workers at South Korea’s Hyundai Motor staged their first full strike on Monday for more than a decade after negotiations over a wage increase stalled. Nearly 50,000 workers at Hyundai Motor’s three plants across the country — including the main one in the southern city of Ulsan — walked off the ...

  AFP China’s coal imports from North Korea have surged in recent months, government data showed on Monday, raising questions about Beijing’s commitment to international sanctions intended to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. As the isolated country’s sole ally and main provider of trade and aid, Beijing’s participation in the UN-imposed restrictions is crucial for their success. But in August China ...

  Aleppo / AFP Residents of Syria’s Aleppo faced worsening food and medical shortages on Monday as warplanes again pounded the city after Western powers at the UN accused Russia of war crimes. A fresh wave of intensive air strikes hit the city’s opposition-controlled east from dawn on Monday, an AFP correspondent in the city said, on the morning after ...

  Bloomberg NATO will start deploying surveillance aircraft next month to support the US-led fight against IS extremists, Alexander Vershbow, deputy secretary general of NATO, said on Monday. The deployment of the airborne warning and control systems will take place after alliance defense ministers meet in October, Vershbow said at a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “The aircraft will ...

  Islamabad / AFP Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Pakistan’s police of routinely carrying out extra-judicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests, and called on Islamabad to implement urgent reforms of its under-resourced forces. The findings were contained in a new report based on interviews with more than 30 police officers and 50 victims or witnesses of abuse across three ...

  Riyadh / AFP The Saudi-led coalition fighting in support of Yemen’s government would prefer a broad political settlement to a ceasefire, its spokesman said on Monday. “I think now it’s not a question of talking about a ceasefire,” Major General Ahmed Assiri said. Late on Sunday a Houthi rebel leader, Saleh Al Sammad, proposed a truce on the country’s ...

Istanbul / AFP Three members of the Turkish security forces were killed and seven others wounded on Monday in a roadside bombing by Kurdish militants in southeastern Turkey, media reported. The bomb planted by rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) exploded on a highway in Mardin province when a vehicle carrying members of the security forces passed by, ...

  Geneva/ AFP Italians were up in arms on Monday after the southern Swiss canton of Ticino voted for a measure that would force employers to prioritise local residents over commuters living in Italy. The text, entitled “Ours first”, was put to a popular vote by the populist right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), and was accepted Sunday by 58 percent ...