Beijing’s top man in Hong Kong urges city to focus on economy, not politics
HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s most senior official in Hong Kong said on Monday the city should shift its focus away from worrying about political reform and concentrate instead on economic development and improving people’s livelihoods.
Woman dies after Taiwan water park blaze, over 200 casualties serious
TAIPEI (Reuters) – A young woman died on Monday, the first fatality among nearly 500 casualties from a weekend blaze at a Taiwan water park, officials said, as investigators focused on the colored powder that rained fire as it was sprayed over revelers…
Cameron: IS militants are plotting ‘terrible’ UK attacks
LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Monday that Islamic State militants based in Syria and Iraq were planning specific attacks against Britain and posed an existential threat to the West.
China arrests prominent rights activist for defamation, subversion
BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese authorities have formally arrested and charged a prominent rights activist who had called for official accountability over what he said were miscarriages of justice, his lawyer said on Monday.
Cautious Merkel on verge of biggest risk with ‘Grexit’
BERLIN (Reuters) – “If you break it, you own it,” former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell warned President George W. Bush before his invasion of Iraq.
Kuwait says mosque bomber was young Saudi man, detains driver
KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait identified the suicide bomber behind its worst militant attack as a young Saudi Arabian man and said on Sunday it had detained the driver of the vehicle that took him to a Shi’ite Muslim mosque where he killed 27 people.
Media reports allege Australian politics infiltrated by Italian mafia
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Two Australian media organisations reported on Monday that Australian politics has been infiltrated at high levels by the Italian mafia, although there was no suggestion of direct links between lawmakers and the criminal syndicate.
Japan PM Abe’s ratings slip amid doubts about his security policy
TOKYO (Reuters) – Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is slipping in the face of doubts about his more muscular security policy, a newspaper survey released on Monday showed, amid concerns Abe’s ruling party wants to muzzle its …
Libyan factions sit at the same table in UN peace talks
SKHIRAT, Morocco (Reuters) – Officials from Libya’s rival parliaments sat at the same table for the first time on Sunday at the latest round of United Nations-backed peace talks in Morocco, a move negotiators saw as an important step to forming a unity…
British PM calls for dealing with Islamic State threat at ‘source’: The Telegraph
(Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron said that Friday’s attack at a Tunisian hotel demonstrated the “level of evil” Britain is dealing with and drew parallels with previous attacks at magazine offices in Paris and in schools in Pakistan.
