BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States said on Saturday it was directly communicating with North Korea, seeking to start a dialogue with Pyongyang as its advancing nuclear and missile programs stoke fears of an armed confrontation.
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s ambassador to Myanmar was forced to interrupt Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson earlier this year as he tried to recite a nostalgic colonial poem by Rudyard Kipling in public during a visit to the country’s most famous Buddhist site.
VIENNA (Reuters) – The number 2 figure in Austria’s ruling Social Democratic Party has said he is resigning over a smear campaign against the main conservative party’s leader, adding to a sense of disarray on the centre-left of politics weeks before a parliamentary election.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday pressed the case for the central government in Baghdad to receive the income from Kurdistan’s oilfields, saying the money would be used to pay Kurdish civil servants.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes killed 28 people in a village in rebel-held Idlib province overnight, including four children.
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Around half the opposition members of Cambodia’s parliament have left the country in fear of a crackdown by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government, a deputy party leader said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Communist Party members should study contemporary capitalism but must never deviate from Marxism, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, offering a clear signal there will be no weakening of party control weeks ahead of a key Congress opening.
SEOUL (Reuters) – Several North Korean missiles were recently spotted moved from a rocket facility in the capital Pyongyang, South Korea’s Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) reported late Friday amid speculation that the North was preparing to take more provocative actions.
BEIJING (Reuters) – The southwestern Chinese megalopolis of Chongqing will purge the “vile influence” of its former top official Sun Zhengcai after he was expelled from the Communist Party for corruption, the city government said, praising the move as “brilliant”.