Kerry warns on South China Sea during Mongolia visit

  Ulan Bator / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday warned Beijing against setting up an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the disputed South China Sea during a visit to Mongolia. Washington would consider the establishment of such a zone—which would require civilian aircraft to identify themselves to military controllers—”a provocative and destabilising act,” Kerry said in ...

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German right-wing leader blasts ‘dictator’ Merkel

  Berlin / AFP A German right-wing populist politician has attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “dictator” who is trying to “replace the German people” with migrants, a Sunday newspaper reported. Alexander Gauland, of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told a rally outside Berlin that Merkel’s liberal asylum policy was radically transforming the face of the country, the ...

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North Korea slams US for money launderer label

Seoul / AFP North Korea hit back at the United States on Sunday for labelling it a money-laundering state, describing it as a “nonsensical” effort that only revealed the flaws of existing sanctions pushed by Washington. The US on Wednesday branded Pyongyang a “global money laundering concern”, aiming to lock the impoverished by nuclear-armed country out of the world financial ...

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Clinton attacks on Trump fire up backers

  FRESNO / AP Hillary Clinton’s savage takedown of Donald Trump in her recent foreign policy speech has her supporters fired up. As the likely Democratic nominee toured California, crowds burst into applause at the mere mention of Thursday’s speech, in which Clinton cast Trump as dangerously unqualified to be president. Supporters say they feel more confident and excited in the ...

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7 killed as Taliban gunmen raid courthouse

  Puli Alam / AP Taliban gunmen stormed a court complex in a city south of Kabul on Sunday, killing at least seven people in the insurgents’ third so-called “revenge” attack for last month’s execution of Taliban-linked prisoners. The attack in Pul-i-Alam, capital of volatile Logar province, also left 23 prosecutors wounded as they were meeting to decide the fate of ...

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UK Brexit debate has echoes of 1975

  London / AFP It’s a snapshot from another political era. Forty-one years ago, in Britain’s last referendum on Europe, Margaret Thatcher hit the campaign trail clad in a woolly jumper emblazoned with a Union flag. But the 1975 poll, which saw Britain embrace membership of what was then the Common Market, has plenty in common with the current bitter and ...

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Iran rejects US charge of being terror sponsor

  TEHRAN/ AP Iran on Sunday rejected an annual US State Department report that called it the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. State TV quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari as saying the report is “false” and further evidence of the “lack of credibility of reports by the US State Department.” As in many previous years, the report identified ...

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Britain, too, is infected with political silliness

  LONDON Misery loves company, so refugees from America’s Republican Party should understand that theirs is not the only party that has chosen a leader who confirms caricatures of it while repudiating its purposes. Jeremy Corbyn, the silliest leader in the British Labour Party’s 116-year history, might kill satire as well as whatever remains of socialism. Labour was founded in ...

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Anger over fish deaths must jolt Vietnam govt

The pollution that caused mass death of fish and other marine life in Vietnam did not only spark widespread anger nationwide, but was also a rude awakening for its people who began to see vividly lack of transparency when handling public issues in their country. According to a figure given by an official on May 5, the disaster had killed ...

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Curbing our enthusiasm over rising US home prices

  Justin Fox Home prices in US went up in March. That was the news last Tuesday from S&P/Case-Shiller; all indications are that April was an up month too, and that this summer’s “selling season” will see continued price increases. Bit by bit, prices are regaining the ground lost during the long collapse from 2006 through early 2012. In some ...

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