Syria war: Kerry to meet European foreign ministers
US secretary of state says "we're not letting any grass grow under our feet", a day after collapse of talks in Lausanne.
John Kerry is due to meet European foreign ministers in London to discuss the conflict in Syria, a day after "tense, difficult" talks with Russia ended inconclusively.
The diplomats are to discuss on Sunday the results of the US secretary of state' meeting on Saturday in Switzerland, which included the foreign ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and how to reduce the violence in Syria.
Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria's civil war, which has cost more than 400,000 lives since 2011.
Millions march in a sea of saffron - the silent rage of India’s ignored farmer caste
The rape and murder of a 15-year-old Maratha girl, allegedly by ‘untouchables’, has turned old grievances into a social media sensation
The crowds gather at 10am – a sea of saffron flags held by millions of marchers dressed in white cotton, the colour of mourning. Amid the chaos of the traffic, there is that rare thing: silence.
Over the past two months, at least a dozen cities in the western state of Maharashtra have exploded in an unprecedented outburst of popular uprising from the Maratha community, made up of the landowning farmer castes. The Marathas comprise a third of Maharashtra’s 114 million population. Their marches, which started with a few hundred thousand protesters, now gather millions in a different city almost every other weekend.
The marches are silent until the end, when the crowd stands to sing the national anthem before dispersing. During the demonstrations, young women approach politicians with a list of demands. Organisers say the biggest march will be held in Mumbai, the state’s capital and the country’s financial heart, in December.Opinion: Political death cult in Iraq
The fight against 'IS' could end in Mosul. Yet that could only be the beginning, says Kersten Knipp.
Saddam Hussein never liked Shiites. Not even when he was a child in Tikrit, where people said unflattering things about them. They were labeled as potential traitors, much more loyal to Iran, the strongest Shiite nation in the region, than their own country. Later, in 1980, when Saddam led his country in an eight-year war with Iran, he was forced to deal with a number of Shiites who rose up against his government - a prelude to the open rebellion that would erupt in early 1991 after his failed invasion of Kuwait. At the time the United States encouraged the rebellion.
When Saddam sent his troops to Shiite cities in Southern Iraq to exact revenge, US President George H. W. Bush declined to intervene. As a result, thousands of Shiites were displaced, deprived of their livelihood or killed. Things went on that way throughout the 1990s, and consequently, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq seemed like a liberation for Shiites.
Ban promises more aid as desperate Haitians loot UN trucks
Latest update : 2016-10-16
Haitians desperate for relief from hunger and sickness in the wake of Hurricane Matthew looted United Nations trucks on Saturday during a short visit to a hard-hit port town by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who promised more aid.
The Category 4 hurricane tore through Haiti on Oct. 4, killing about 1,000 people and leaving more than 1.4 million in need of humanitarian aid, including 175,000 made homeless.
Flooding has triggered a new wave of cholera infections, a disease introduced to Haiti by U.N. peacekeepers a few months after the country’s last major humanitarian crisis, a destructive 2010 earthquake.
“We are going to mobilize as many resources and as much medical support as we can to first of all stop the cholera epidemic and second support the families of the victims,” Ban said at a news conference. He promised a new trustee fund to tackle cholera.
Coronation of Thailand's Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn delayed more than a year
Bangkok: The coronation of Thailand's Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn will be delayed more than a year as Thais mourn the death of their long-reigning king, Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The 64-year-old Crown Prince will ascend to the throne after funeral rites for his father have been completed, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has announced. Mr Prayuth has declared a one-year mourning period.
The royal succession had been expected to be immediate when the king died after a long illness on Thursday. Bhumibol ascended to the throne the same day in 1946 that his older brother, King Ananda Mahidol, died from a gunshot wound.For many, South Africa's top anti-corruption fighter restored a little faith
PATH TO PROGRESS Lawyer Thuli Madonsela was appointed public protector seven years ago. As she steps down, her legacy has been to remind people that the young democracy still has institutions that work.
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — As South Africans prepared for the retirement of their highly celebrated anticorruption ombudsman Friday, few places captured the public’s admiration more succinctly than an ad for a popular local chicken joint.
“Always the griller,” it read. “Never the chicken.”
The statement was apt. Seven years ago, when South African president Jacob Zuma appointed lawyer Thuli Madonsela to the post of public protector – which investigates government graft and fraud – he told her that her work would be to take on investigations without “fear or favor.”
But he surely did not anticipate how close to the bone his own advice would cut. Over the course of her tenure, which ends today, Madonsela relentlessly pursued cases against many of the country’s most powerful people – including, on multiple occasions, the president himself. 
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