German election: Merkel wins fourth term, AfD nationalists rise
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected for a fourth term while nationalists have made a historic surge in federal elections.
Her conservative CDU/CSU bloc has seen its worst result in almost 70 years but will remain the largest in parliament.
Its current coalition partner, the social democratic SPD, says it will go into opposition after historic losses.
The nationalist AfD has won its first seats and is set to be the third party, a result that sparked some protests.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the right-wing, anti-Islam party's headquarters in Berlin on Sunday night, some with placards saying "Refugees are welcome".
Iraqi Kurds polarised as region holds historic referendum on independence
Excitement has been building in Erbil, where veteran Kurdish president Massoud Barzani is popular, but 150 miles to the east, in Sulaimaniya, it’s business as usual
Its streets bustled with Sunday shoppers. Its teahouses brimmed with men who preferred playing dominoes to talking politics. And on boulevards and in town squares, there was hardly a Kurdish flag to be seen.
On the eve of a historic day in Kurdistan, the region’s two biggest hubs were a tale of two cities. In Erbil, the centre of Monday’s independence referendum, a festival feel that had built for the past week had taken over neighbourhoods. Flags fluttered from street poles, and car windows and shops were festooned with banners proclaiming the dawn of self-determination.
In Sulaimaniya, 150 miles to the east, there was no sign of celebration, or of a vote on an issue that has defined the Kurdish cause for centuries. In the Shab teahouse, a business-as-usual feel belied the imminent day of reckoning. A lone Kurdish flag was pinned among framed photos of revolutionaries, poets and scholars. None were of the Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani, who will take the Kurds of Iraq to the polls on Monday.
German far-right AfD MP quits party whip hours after being elected
Tokyo governor to head new political party
Popular Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike announced on Monday she would lead a new political party into national elections expected next month, hoping to repeat her success in local polls.
Former TV anchorwoman Koike, 65, launched the new party called "Kibo no To" (Party of Hope) just hours before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was expected to call a snap election for as early as October 22.
"I'm launching a new party and I want to be directly involved in it," Koike told reporters, adding that she will remain as Tokyo governor while becoming the head of the new party.
"Japan is facing a difficult time considering the situation in North Korea. Economically, the world is making a big move while Japan's presence is gradually declining," said Koike.
Rohingya crisis: A month of misery in Myanmar's Rakhine
Monday marks one month since recent crisis began in Rakhine forcing 430,000 people to flee their homes to Bangladesh.
Hundreds of people continue to cross the border into Bangladesh one month since the start of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar's Rakhine state where raids by Rohingya fighters prompted a major army crackdown.
Bangladesh since August 25 faces the unenviable dual task of looking after 430,000 wretched people and trying to persuade Myanmar to take them back. At least 240,000 of them are children.
The influx adds to about 300,000 Rohingya already in camps around the Bangladesh town of Cox's Bazar.
DOZENS OF CIVILIANS KILLED WHEN U.S. BOMBED A SCHOOL AND A MARKET IN SYRIA
U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT bombed a school and a crowded marketplace in attacks that killed dozens of civilians in Syria this March, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. Titled “All Feasible Precautions?: Civilian Casualties in Anti-ISIS Coalition Airstrikes in Syria,” the report investigated two airstrikes conducted in and around the northern Syrian city of Tabqa. Investigators who visited the sites and interviewed locals and survivors found that the strikes had caused huge numbers of civilian deaths. The documentation adds to a drumbeat of criticism about a U.S. air campaign in Syria that has already been accused of inflicting massive civilian casualties in support of ground operations against Islamic State by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
The attacks documented in the report include a March 20 airstrike that targeted a school housing displaced people in the suburban town of Mansourah, outside of Tabqa, as well as another strike that hit a packed marketplace in Tabqa City two days later. Investigators from Human Rights Watch visited the sites of both attacks this July and collected the names of at least 84 civilians who had died in the bombings, including 30 children. While witnesses who spoke to investigators acknowledged that there had been Islamic State members, along with their families, around the areas of the bombings, they also said that there had been many civilians nearby who had no connection to the group.
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