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Militants from the so-called Islamic State have launched a dawn counter-attack as Iraqi government troops push into the city of Falluja. A day after troops advanced through the southern suburb of Nuaimiya, scores of IS fighters attacked them, army officers told news agencies. The army defeated the attackers but suffered casualties, the sources said. Aid workers are increasingly concerned for ...

Police in Greece and the Czech Republic have arrested more than 20 people suspected of forging travel documents for migrants trying to enter Europe. European police agency Europol said visas and passports were sold for up to £2,500 ($3,600) and sent across the EU, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Greek police said the criminal networks were also involved in ...

Japanese game-maker Nintendo is about to release two new games in its hugely popular Pokemon series. But a decision to use only Mandarin Chinese names for the characters has proved controversial in Hong Kong. The BBC looks at why fans and linguists are so riled. 1. What’s in a name – Beikaciu or Pikaqiu? Pokemon characters’ names used to be ...

Mohamed Abdelaziz, secretary general of movement fighting for independence of Western Sahara, dies in Algerian hospital. Mohamed Abdelaziz, the secretary general of the Polisario Front, a movement fighting for independence of the largely desert region of Western Sahara, has died. Abdelaziz, 68, died on Tuesday afternoon after a lengthy battle with cancer in an Algerian hospital, the official website of ...

More than 45 million people are living in modern slavery, with Asia accounting for two thirds of the victims, a new report says. The 2016 Global Slavery Index, from the Walk Free Foundation in Australia, defines slavery as “situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception”. Modern forms ...

A Turkish court has convicted a former Miss Turkey of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, giving her a 14-month suspended prison sentence. Merve Buyuksarac, 27, was found guilty of insulting a public official for postings she made on social media. She denied insulting Mr Erdogan. Her lawyer says he will file a formal objection to the verdict and take the ...

27 May, 2016 Barack Obama on Friday paid tribute to the 140,000 people killed by the world’s first atomic bomb attack and sought to bring global attention to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. “Death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Obama said, ...

27 May, 2016 Mamata Banerjee was sworn in today as the chief minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time at Kolkata’s historic Red Road. She will be leading a cabinet of 42 members including her. 17 new faces will be among the cabinet of Banerjee’s new term in Bengal. Officials said an elaborate security cover has been arranged ...

Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam posted the flag of the so-called Islamic State (IS) group on his Facebook page three weeks before the attacks, Belgian website RTBF reports. Authorities were aware of the flag but did not act upon it, it added. IS militants staged bomb and gun attacks on several targets in Paris on 13 November, murdering 130 people ...

Around 12,000 people have been urged to leave Canada’s oil sands camps near the fire-hit town of Fort McMurray as a resurgent wildfire heads towards them. A regional official told the BBC that 8,000 people were given precautionary evacuation orders late on Monday, in addition to some 4,000 who had already been advised to leave. More than 80,000 people fled ...