AFP, WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday approved the deployment of 450 more US military trainers to Iraq, a cautious bid to reverse gains by the Islamic State group. The White House said the forces will join an already 3,100-strong mission to "train, advise and assist" the…

AFP, BEIJING: Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing yesterday, state media said, during her closely watched first visit that China hopes will establish a line of communication with the influential opposition leader. Suu Kyi met Xi at Beijing's Great Hall of the…

AFP, SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday urged Asia-Pacific nations to help fight jihadist groups as he opened a regional summit on the issue with a warning that Islamic State has global ambitions. Abbott told the conference -- attended by ministers and representatives of 30 nations…

AFP, ABUJA: Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday held talks with regional leaders on Boko Haram, with hopes a new fighting force will help crush the Islamists after six years of violence. Heads of state and government from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin jet in to Nigeria's capital,…

AFP, ROME , Italy: Russian President Vladimir Putin used a trip to Italy on Wednesday to press his case against international sanctions and was urged by Pope Francis to make a "sincere effort" for peace in Ukraine. After telling Italian premier Matteo Renzi that Western sanctions imposed over…

AFP, BANGKOK: A senior Thai palace aide who served the now disgraced ex-wife of the Crown Prince was arrested yesterday under the country's controversial lese majeste law, part of an ongoing probe that has decimated the former princess's family. Montri Sotangkul, 53, was a member of the household…

A teenager on work experience discovered a new planet 1,000 light years away, The Telegraph reports. Tom Wagg was 15 when he spotted a tiny dip in the light of a distant star during his week-long placement at Keele University, Staffordshire, UK. But it has taken astonomers two years of further research…

AFP, BEIRUT: At least 20 members of Syria's Druze minority have been killed in an unprecedented shoot-out with Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front in northwestern Syria, a monitor said yesterday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths came Wednesday in the village of Qalb Lawzah in…