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  AFP The German central bank’s call for people to work until age 69 has reignited a fierce debate in Europe’s fast-ageing top economy, with analysts backing it while politicians show their opposition ahead of key elections. Economy Minister and Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel was swift to condemn it, saying: “A factory worker, a shop assistant, a nurse, a care-giver would ...

  Brussels / AFP A suicide bomber as young as 12 killed at least 51 people at a wedding in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, pointing the finger at the IS group. Erdogan said Saturday’s blast in Gaziantep near the Syria border “was the result of a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 who either detonated (the ...

  Khartoum / AFP South Sudan’s new Vice President Taban Deng Gai on Sunday started a two-day visit to Khartoum for talks on thorny issues outstanding since Sudan’s north-south split in 2011. Deng’s first visit to Sudan as vice president comes weeks after he replaced former rebel leader Riek Machar following clashes in Juba that left hundreds dead in July. ...

  Mogadishu / AFP At least 10 people were killed on Sunday in two explosions in a town in central Somalia, police said. The Shabaab militant group claimed responsibilty for the blasts in the town of Galkayo, some 700 kilometers (440 miles) northeast of Mogadishu. “There were two car bomb blasts which targeted the local government headquarters. More than 10 ...

  Baghdad / AP Traffic began to file through central Baghdad’s busy Karradah street on Sunday for the first time in nearly two months. After the July 3 attack that killed close to 300 people, the street was sealed off and within days the shells of the charred buildings around the scene of the blast were covered in death notices. For ...

  Kunduz / AFP Afghan forces have recaptured a district that had fallen briefly to the Taliban, officials and residents said on Sunday, after thousands of people fled their homes in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunduz province. Khan Abad district, which is around 30 kilometres east of Kunduz city—the provincial capital where militants last year scored their biggest ever victory—had fallen to ...

  Nasiriyah / AFP Iraq on Sunday hanged 36 men convicted over the 2014 massacre by extremists and allied militants of hundreds of military recruits, officials said. They had been found guilty of involvement in the “Speicher” massacre, named after a base near Tikrit where up to 1,700 recruits were kidnapped before being executed in a massacre claimed by the ...

Tehran / AFP Iran released images of its first domestically built long-range missile defence system on Sunday, a project started when the country was under international sanctions. Images on multiple state news agencies showed President Hassan Rouhani and Minister of Defence Hossein Dehghan standing in front of the new Bavar 373 missile defence system. The system was designed to intercept ...

  Bloomberg Bank of East Asia Ltd., (BEA) the Hong Kong lender facing pressure from Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, said first-half profit dropped 38 percent as China’s slowing economy dragged on lending and caused loan impairments to surge. The shares fell the most in two weeks. Net income fell to HK$2.1 billion ($270 million) for the six months ended June ...

  Singapore / Bloomberg Rabobank Groep, the second-largest Dutch bank by assets, said first-half profit fell 39 percent, hurt by legal costs and restructuring expenses. Net income dropped to 924 million euros ($1 billion) from 1.5 billion euros a year earlier, the closely held bank said in a statement on Thursday. The lender increased provisions by 514 million euros to ...