Seoul, South Korea | AFP | South Korea’s top court on Tuesday ordered a Japanese steel giant to pay compensation over forced wartime labour, a decision likely to further strain ties between the two neighbours. South Korea and Japan are both democracies and US allies faced with an increasingly assertive …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s eastern Mpumalanga province has the most polluting cluster of coal-fired power stations in the world producing record levels of nitrogen dioxide, a report by environmental campaign group Greenpeace said Monday. Mpumalanga, which borders Mozambique, is the hub of South Africa’s coal industry …

Frankfurt am Main, Germany | AFP | German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a bitter political reality on Monday after the parties in her fragile coalition suffered heavy losses in a key regional election and a junior partner made threats to quit. Sunday’s blow for Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) …

Washington, United States | AFP | A group of Pittsburgh Jewish leaders wrote an open letter to President Donald Trump Sunday telling him he bears responsibility for a deadly shooting at a synagogue in the US city. A mostly elderly group of 11 people were gunned down in the bloody …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Neglected by rival authorities in Tripoli and the country’s east, Libya’s southern desert has increasingly become a hideout for foreign rebel groups that stand accused of stoking growing insecurity. “Kidnapping, theft and banditry have multiplied” in the region, said Ali Akri Molia, commander of a …

Libreville, Gabon | AFP | Gabonese President Ali Bongo, hospitalised in Saudi Arabia since Wednesday, was taken into medical care after suffering a bout of exhaustion during a trip to Riyadh, his office said Sunday. The 59-year-old leader was in the Saudi capital for a flagship economic forum when he …

Monrovia, Liberia | AFP | Liberian President George Weah, who overcame childhood poverty to become one of the world’s top footballers, has abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students in the poor West African country’s state universities. Speaking Wednesday on the campus of the University of Liberia in the name of …

Washington, United States | AFP | Twitter reported Thursday stronger-than-expected profits and revenues in the third quarter, igniting a strong rally in shares of the key social network. The San Francisco group delivered a $789 million profit, including one-time gains, compared to a net loss of $21 million in the …

The Hague, Netherlands | AFP | Scientists on Thursday unveiled a revolutionary way of screening children for tuberculosis, which they say will prevent hundreds of thousands each year from contracting the world’s deadliest infectious disease. A multinational team based at the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in The Hague have developed a …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | It is a conflict at once cultural, generational and political: rap music in DR Congo is staging a frontal assault on rumba, accusing its ageing stars of only singing of love and other banalities. DRC’s growing army of rappers say their urban lyrics reflect …