AFP, BEIJING: China should “significantly” increase military spending and build more nuclear weapons as a response to US President-elect Donald Trump, an editorial in the nationalistic Global Times newspaper said Thursday. China should “build more strategic nuclear arms and accelerate…

AFP, MIAMI: Life expectancy in the United States dropped last year for the first time since the peak of the HIV/AIDS crisis more than 20 years ago, as deaths rose from nearly every major cause, federal data showed Thursday. The total US population’s life expectancy in 2015 was 78.8 years, a decrease…

AFP, YANGON: At least 11 people have died this month in northern Myanmar in escalating clashes between security forces and armed insurgents that have undercut Aung San Suu Kyi’s bid for peace. Thousands have fled their homes in northern Shan state since the fighting erupted in late November, with…

AFP, ISLAMABAD: Junaid Jamshed, a pioneer of Pakistani pop who renounced music to become a Muslim evangelist and started one of the country’s most successful clothing boutiques was among 47 people killed in a plane crash Wednesday. He died alongside his second wife, Nahya, and is survived by his…

AFP, STOCKHOLM: One sings of peace, the other makes peace: Bob Dylan will not travel to Stockholm on Saturday to accept his Nobel prize, but Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will receive his award in Oslo for a deal signed with FARC rebels. In Stockholm, where the prizes for literature, medicine,…

AFP, MEUREUDU: Aftershocks rattled the survivors of a devastating Indonesian earthquake that killed more than 100 people, as officials urgently appealed Thursday for medicine and doctors to treat the hundreds injured. The shallow 6.5-magnitude quake levelled hundreds of homes, mosques and businesses…