Sudan’s military on Thursday rejected accusations made by Amnesty International that government forces killed scores of civilians including many children in suspected chemical weapons attacks in war-torn Darfur. Amnesty said government forces carried out more than 30 such attacks on several villages between January and September in Darfur’s thickly forested …
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Russia has a “special responsibility to calm violence and give a political process a chance” in Syria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. “The latest offensive by the Syrian regime against Aleppo — supported by Russia — has made the suffering of the …
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The US economy grew faster than originally thought in the second quarter of this year, with Commerce Department figures released Thursday showing a 1.4 percent annual rate. The Commerce Department’s previous second-quarter GDP estimate had been a gloomier 1.1 percent. Thursday’s figures however surpassed an analyst consensus, which had called …
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by Abhaya SRIVASTAVA with Masroor GILANI in Islamabad Indian commandos carried out a series of lightning strikes Thursday along the de facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir, provoking furious charges of “naked aggression” from its nuclear-armed neighbour. Amid anger in India over a recent deadly assault on one of its …
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by Jerome CARTILLIER The United States is ready to send around 600 troops to Iraq to train local forces for an upcoming offensive on the Islamic State group stronghold of Mosul, US officials told AFP on Wednesday. IS seized Mosul along with other areas in June 2014, but the country’s …
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Algerian Energy Minister Noureddine Boutarfa on Wednesday pressed demands for action on an oil supply glut and higher investment to stabilise the market as an informal OPEC meeting in Algiers began. “We must act on supply to re-stabilise the market” which has been hit by a massive surplus that has …
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks Wednesday on the two largest hospitals in rebel-held parts of Syria’s Aleppo as “war crimes.” “Let us be clear. Those using ever more destructive weapons know exactly what they are doing. They know they are committing war crimes,” Ban told the Security Council. “Imagine …
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Gunmen killed three Egyptian policeman and a civilian on Wednesday in the Sinai Peninsula, where the military is battling a jihadist insurgency, the interior ministry said. The gunmen in a car intercepted a taxi carrying the policemen in the north Sinai capital El-Arish and killed them along with the driver, …
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The diplomatic “Quartet” piloting efforts to nudge Israel and the Palestinians towards a negotiated solution to their conflict on Friday heard from France and Egypt on their parallel peace-making efforts. The Quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — is tasked with overseeing international peace …
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Egyptian rescue workers have recovered 168 bodies from a migrant shipwreck off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, the health ministry said Sunday. Survivors have said up to 450 migrants were on board the overcrowded fishing vessel headed to Italy from Egypt when it keeled over Wednesday off the port city of Rosetta. Egypt’s …
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