International

A jailed councilman in Venezuela arrested on suspicion of involvement in a failed assassination attempt on President Nicolas Maduro has died of suicide, the government said Monday. The official suicide claim drew swift denial from opposition leaders close to Fernando Alban, and a few dozen of his supporters gathered outside the headquarters of Venezuela’s intelligence service yelling “Maduro killer!” contending ...

The death toll from a 5.9 earthquake that hit Haiti over the weekend rose to 15 people with 333 injured, authorities said Monday, as thousands of people slept outdoors fearing aftershocks would topple their cracked homes. Haiti’s civil protection agency said it will soon deploy 70 soldiers to the Nord-Ouest and Artibonite provinces that were hardest hit, noting it already ...

President Donald Trump has apologised to his new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for what he described as a “campaign of lies” during the confirmation hearings. He was referring to the acrimonious debate over Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination, after sexual assault allegations were made against him.   Mr Kavanaugh said he was not bitter despite the “contentious” confirmation.   He has ...

The Egyptian security forces killed at least 52 militants in restive North Sinai Province northeast of the capital Cairo, the armed forces said in a statement on Monday. A total of seven terrorist hideouts in northern and central Sinai were destroyed as part of the Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018, the statement said.  The army killed 26 militants, and seized a ...

Embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi vowed Monday to increase transparency over her government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis while pitching for foreign investment in Myanmar ahead of a regional summit in Tokyo. Suu Kyi, once garlanded as a global rights champion, has seen a sharp fall from grace due to her failure to speak up following a brutal military ...

The Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded Monday to Americans William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, former chief economist of the World Bank, for their work on the compatibility between the imperatives of innovation and the fight against global warming and economic growth.   The two winners “have developed methods that address some of the most fundamental and pressing challenges of ...

Pro-Russia Serb leader Milorad Dodik won a race to fill the Serb seat in Bosnia’s three-member presidency Sunday, deepening ethnic divisions in the country that faced a brutal war some 25 years ago.   Preliminary official results from the election gave Dodik 56 percent of the vote and his main opponent, Mladen Ivanic, 42 percent. The projections were made with ...

U.S. and North Korean officials are offering positive reviews for the latest meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.   In Washington, President Donald Trump tweeted that he looked forward to meeting Kim again in the near future. The state-run Korean Central News Agency is calling the talks between Pompeo and Kim ...

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who disappeared last week after a visit to his country’s consulate in Turkey, was once a Saudi insider. A close aide to the kingdom’s former spy chief, he had been a leading voice in the country’s prominent dailies, including the main English newspapers.   Now the 59-year-old journalist and contributor to The Washington Post is ...

China has confirmed it is holding the missing head of Interpol, Meng Hongwei.   Beijing said he was under investigation by the country’s anti-corruption body for unspecified breaches of the law.  Meng, also a vice-minister of public security in China, was reported missing after travelling from the city of Lyon in France, where Interpol is based, to China on 25 ...