AFP, MANILA: More than 700,000 people in the central Philippines fled to safer areas for fear of giant waves, floods or landslides as Typhoon Melor slammed into the archipelago nation Monday, officials said. Melor brushed the northern tip of Samar, a farming island of 1.5 million people, early Monday…

AP, Paris: Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front collapsed in French regional elections Sunday, failing to take a single region after dominating the first round of voting, pollsters projected. The conservatives surged against the governing Socialists, changing the political map of France. The…

AFP, PRISTINA: Kosovo’s opposition released tear gas in parliament for a sixth time Monday, despite a recent reprimand from the US secretary of…

AFP, CAIRO: Egypt said Monday it still has no evidence that a “terrorist action” had downed a Russian plane at the end of October in the Sinai Peninsula, as stated by Moscow. The jihadist Islamic State group said it smuggled a bomb on board that blew up the Russian jet on October 31, killing…

AFP, KARLSRUHE, Germany: German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged Monday to “tangibly” stem a massive refugee influx to quell a rebellion in her conservative ranks but firmly rebuffed calls to slam the door shut. At a pivotal party congress of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Merkel…

Arms manufacturers in North America and Western Europe dominated international arms sales in 2014, but their market share dropped while Russian and Asian companies saw theirs rise, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported yesterday, reports AFP from Stockholm. Total turnover…