AFP, NANJING, China: The revolutionary Solar Impulse 2 aircraft took off early Sunday for a six-day, six-night flight over the Pacific Ocean, the most ambitious leg of its quest to circumnavigate the globe powered only by the sun. Pilot Andre Borschberg, 62, left the ground in Nanjing, in eastern China,…

AFP, GENEVA: US Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in a cycling accident in France on Sunday and will fly back to the United States for treatment, cutting short a European trip. Kerry, 71, a keen cyclist, was hospitalised in the Swiss city of Geneva after the accident across the border in the…

AFP, HYDERABAD, India: Scattered rain on Sunday brought much-needed but only temporary relief to parts of India hit by a long heat wave as the death toll from the blistering temperatures crossed 2,200, officials said. Thunderstorms struck sections of southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana,…

AFP, SINGAPORE: An Asia-Pacific security summit was briefly put on lockdown Sunday after police shot dead a local motorist who tried to flee a checkpoint in a car later found to contain drugs, officials said. The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue attended by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and counterparts…

AFP, SINGAPORE: China on Sunday rejected US demands to stop reclamation works in the South China Sea, saying it was exercising its sovereignty and using the controversial outposts to fulfil international responsibilities. Admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of the general staff department in the People’s…

AFP, DAMASCUS: A fire at a small clinic in northeast Syria on Sunday killed 27 people, mostly children, and injured about 30 others, official media said. State news agency SANA, citing police, said dry branches had caught fire and the blaze spread to a fuel tank which exploded. “At least 27 people…

AFP, BEIRUT: The UN envoy to Syria condemned regime bombing of civilian areas as “totally unacceptable” after more than 90 people were killed in a day of heavy air raids. Across the border in Iraq, pro-government forces pressed their operation aimed at sealing off jihadists who captured…