AFP, Seoul
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in South Korea on Saturday ahead of a trilateral Northeast Asian leadership summit that Beijing hopes will improve trade links and help bolster its slowing economy.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was expected to fly in early Sunday ahead of the afternoon three-way sit-down with Li and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye.
Pakistanis vote in local polls
Reuters, Lahore
Tens of millions of Pakistanis voted on Saturday in local government elections for the first time in ten years, polls seen as a referendum on the ruling party midway through its term.
Elections are being held in two of Pakistan’s four provinces – the central province of Punjab and southern province of Sindh.
Israel legalises hundreds of West Bank settler homes
AFP, Jerusalem
Israel has retroactively legalised some 800 homes in four settlements in the occupied West Bank, the interior ministry said.
They included 377 homes in the Yakir settlement, 187 in Itmar and 94 in Shilo in the northern West Bank, as well as 97 more in Sansana in the south of the occupied Palestinian territory, it said.
IS beheads four Iraqi Kurd fighters
AFP, Baghdad
The Islamic State group beheaded four Iraqi Kurdish fighters following a joint raid with American special forces against the jihadists, according to a video posted online.
The US-Kurdish operation last week, which freed some 70 people from an IS prison, deepened American involvement in the war against the jihadists and led to the first US combat fatality in Iraq since its 2011 withdrawal from the country.
The video sought to portray the operation as a failure, with speakers saying the attacking forces were unable to overcome numerically inferior jihadists and displaying used first aid supplies that were left behind.
2,000 militants killed in Turkey
Reuters, Istanbul
Turkey has killed around 2,000 militants in recent operations inside and outside its borders and the operations will continue, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
“Now 2,000 terrorists have been killed inside and outside of the country,” Erdogan said in comments broadcast by television station AHaber.
15 killed in Philippine market fire
AFP, Manila
Fifteen people including six children perished today after they were trapped in a burning market in the southern Philippines, police said.
The victims were sleeping in the padlocked building when the fire, believed to have been triggered by faulty electrical wiring, broke out before dawn, Chief Inspector Joel Tuttuh told AFP.
Vendors and their families regularly spend the night inside the decrepit market in the port city of Zamboanga to watch over their merchandise, mostly used clothes and vegetables, he said.
