AFP, BANGKOK: Thailand's crackdown on people smuggling and trafficking networks has successfully dismantled the grim trade, police announced yesterday while admitting that dozens of suspects have yet to be apprehended. "The case will be submitted to the Office of Attorney General this afternoon…

AFP, KANO, Nigeria: At least 20 people were killed Monday when a young female suicide bomber detonated her explosives at a bus station in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, in an attack likely to be blamed on Boko Haram. The blast happened near a fish market in the Baga Road area of the city, which has been…

AFP, YANGON: Aung San Suu Kyi made a fresh call yesterday for changes to Myanmar's junta-era constitution as lawmakers began a debate that will test the army's determination to preserve its political power before landmark elections. The opposition leader has campaigned relentlessly for changes…

AFP, LOS ANGELES: James Horner, the celebrated composer of the scores of several Hollywood smash-hit films including "Titanic" and "Avatar," died Monday in a plane crash at the age of 61, US media reported. Hollywood trade magazine Variety reported the composer died when his private…

AFP, BEIRUT: Syrian Kurds and allied rebels advanced against the Islamic State group yesterday, capturing a strategic town a day after seizing a base from the jihadists near their Raqa bastion. A spokesman for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and a Britain-based monitor said the anti-IS…

AFP, TEHRAN: Iran's parliament approved a bill yesterday that lawmakers said would protect the country's nuclear programme, an intervention that comes as the government tries to seal a deal with world powers. The move quickly exposed tension between President Hassan Rouhani's government…

AFP, ITOMAN: Japan marked the 70th anniversary yesterday of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest episode in the Pacific War, which killed 200,000 people. The ceremony took place in Itoman, at the southern tip of Okinawa, near the spot where terrified locals had jumped from cliffs or were…

AFP, WASHINGTON: A US airstrike in northern Iraq has killed an Islamic State operative who was a person of interest in the 2012 Benghazi attack, the Pentagon said Monday. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said Ali Awni al-Harzi of Tunisia was killed in Mosul on June 15. The US Treasury and the…