WORLD

Beijing – China has freed a prominent human rights lawyer on bail, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, after he admitted to his crimes in what critics called a show trial. Xie Yang, who had worked on cases considered politically sensitive by China’s ruling Communist Party, was among hundreds of legal staff and activists detained in the so-called “709 crackdown” in ...

Seoul – South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-In and US President Donald Trump agreed on Wednesday on “close cooperation” in dealing with North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, Seoul’s presidential office said. In their first phone call since Moon’s inauguration, the two leaders “agreed on close cooperation in resolving security concerns on the Korean peninsula including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions”, the ...

Bulawayo – A 26-year-old man reportedly drowned after he slipped from a rock and fell into a dam while taking selfies during an outing with friends inside Matopo National Park in Zimbabwe over the weekend. According to the state-owned Chronicle newspaper, Tichawana Nyamande’s body was retrieved from Maleme dam on Monday following the tragedy on Sunday. Nyamande slipped and fell ...

Benghazi – Forces loyal to a powerful Libyan general say they have lost 17 fighters in their two-day push to clear central parts of Benghazi from Islamists and their allies. Riyadh al-Shahiebi, of the special forces media office, said Tuesday that troops loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter have entered the Souq al-Hout and Sabri areas, but their advance has ...

Harare –The first batch of the 300 cattle donated by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to the African Union (AU) in 2016 has been auctioned in the southern African country’s capital Harare, a report says. According to the state-owned Herald newspaper, the official figure for the auction was not yet available but it was believed that at least 100 plus cattle ...

Tunis – Tunisia’s president has taken the unusual step of ordering the army to protect businesses struggling because of weeks of protests over unemployment and corruption. President Beji Caid Essebsi announced on Wednesday in Tunis that “the state must protect the people’s resources” after protests in Tunisia’s impoverished inland provinces in recent weeks. Sit-ins and other demonstrations have blocked roads ...

Liberal candidate Moon Jae-in has claimed victory in South Korea’s presidential election. Mr Moon favours greater dialogue with North Korea, in a change to current South Korean policy. “I will be president for all South Koreans,” he told cheering supporters in Gwanghwamun Square in the capital Seoul. The early election was called after a corruption scandal led to the impeachment ...

The remains of at least 7,000 people may be buried beneath the University of Mississippi, officials estimate. The bodies of the state’s first mental institution – called the Insane Asylum – stretch across 20 acres of campus where administrators want to build. Officials predict that it may cost up to $21m (£16m) to exhume and rebury each body – more ...

Parents of the missing Chibok girls are slowly learning if their daughters are among the 82 freed by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria two days ago. The girls’ names were put on Twitter by the president’s office on Sunday. They were flown to the capital Abuja. But in Chibok, their home region in north-eastern Nigeria, not everyone has access to ...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s defense minister on Monday lashed back at Saudi Arabia, slamming the kingdom’s deputy crown prince over belligerent comments last week that underscored the deep rivalries between the Sunni and Shiite power. In a wide-ranging interview, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman said there was no space for dialogue with rival Iran due to its Shiite ambitions ...