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  Geneva /AFP More than 100 countries pledged on Wednesday to clear unexploded cluster munitions used in conflict zones worldwide by 2030, a new step in the unfinished battle to prevent deaths by the weapons. Parties to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions set their first target date for clearing the explosives which are estimated to have killed and maimed ...

  Hong Kong/ AFP US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden sought shelter among Hong Kong refugees after he leaked a huge trove of secret documents in the southern Chinese city, reports said on Wednesday. The former intelligence contractor had quit his job with the National Security Agency and travelled to Hong Kong in May 2013 where he initiated one of the ...

  Vientiane / AFP President Barack Obama attends a farewell dinner with Southeast Asian leaders on Wednesday, capping eight years of careful courtship that has created new friends, but left links frayed with America’s oldest regional ally—Thailand. When Obama looks around the gala dinner table in Vientiane, he will find a bevy of new partners. His engagement with former Communist foes ...

  London / AFP Syria’s opposition on Wednesday set out detailed plans for the transition to a democratic state without President Bashar Al-Assad at talks in London with British foreign minister Boris Johnson. Ahead of his meeting with the broad-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Johnson told The Times newspaper that the proposals would include a six-month negotiating phase between the regime ...

  Vienna / AFP The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday Austria is in danger of breaking a decades-old tradition of helping those in need, after Vienna moved a step closer to potentially shutting its borders to migrants. “Since World War II, Austria has always adhered to the tradition of protecting refugees. Access to the asylum process has always been a ...

  Istanbul / AFP Washington and Ankara are ready to work together to push IS extremists out of their self-declared Syrian capital of Raqa, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in comments published on Wednesday. Erdogan said he had agreed with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in China to do “what is necessary” to drive ...

  Berlin / AFP Chancellor Angela Merkel called on her ruling coalition on Wednesday to resist pressure to change its refugee policy after a stinging defeat to the upstart anti-migrant AfD in regional polls at the weekend. In her first address to parliament since Sunday’s election in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Merkel defended her welcoming stance to refugees ...

  Paris/ AFP Gabon’s Ali Bongo on Wednesday rejected criticism of his disputed presidential election victory, accusing EU observers of bias towards his rival and insisting that only the country’s top court could order a recount. Oil-rich Gabon has been in turmoil since the August 27 poll, in which Bongo’s rival Jean Ping also claimed victory. Several people have been killed ...

  Bloomberg China’s four biggest banks reported that staff numbers fell by the most in at least six years in the first half, highlighting the possibility that employment has peaked at the firms that are the world’s biggest providers of banking jobs. A decline of 1.5 percent from the end of last year left 1.62 million workers at Agricultural Bank ...

  Bloomberg Malaysia’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged following July’s surprise cut, as policy makers wait to see if the government will adopt additional stimulus measures in its budget next month. Bank Negara Malaysia kept the overnight policy rate at 3 percent, it said in a statement in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday. The decision was predicted by 14 ...