AFP, ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday banned all public gatherings in Islamabad for two months, setting the stage for confrontation ahead of a major protest aimed at paralysing the capital and unseating Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The premier is under growing pressure from opposition parties over his…

AFP, PARIS: Nearly three-fifths of all animals with a backbone—fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals—have been wiped out since 1970…

AFP, ANKARA: Turkish authorities ordered the detention of 73 air force pilots as part of the probe into the group blamed for July’s failed coup, state media reported Thursday. At least 45 had already been detained after police operations began Thursday across the country including the central…

AFP, NAIROBI: Kenya’s government on Thursday announced a 60-day dusk to dawn curfew in the northeastern town of Mandera, hit by two deadly terrorist attacks in three weeks. Interior minister Joseph Nkaissery issued the order two days after Shabaab militants killed 12 people at a hotel in Mandera…

AFP, SANAA: Abdullah Sarhan laments having to sell his furniture to feed his family, but he is only one of thousands in Yemen struggling since rebels stopped paying salaries two months ago. The situation gets worse by the day for the inhabitants of Sanaa, controlled by the Huthi rebels since September…

AFP, GENEVA: Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders have agreed to continue their talks next month in Switzerland to reach an agreement on reunification of the island before the end of 2016, a UN spokesman announced Wednesday in Geneva. Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci and the president of the Republic…

AFP, CALAIS, France: Dozens of migrants stranded in the Calais “Jungle”, some of them children, desperately sought a way out Thursday as diggers begin tearing down the last remaining shelters in the burnt-out camp in northern France. A day after the official operation to evict the migrants…