NEWS ANALYSIS

Beirut, Lebanon | AFP |  Syria’s eight-year war has seen the Damascus regime lose control of key oil fields and caused state hydrocarbon revenues to plummet by billions of dollars. Weak production has forced President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to import oil, but Western sanctions on Damascus and Tehran are hampering incoming …

Wiesbaden, Germany | AFP | An Iraqi man faces his verdict in Germany Wednesday over the rape and murder of a teenage girl that fuelled far-right protests against a mass influx of mostly Muslim migrants. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and other extremists have seized on the brutal killing of …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Can Lagos hold back the waves? Sprawled around a lagoon, Nigeria’s frenetic economic capital faces a threat from the Atlantic on its doorstep. The ocean has pounded the soft, sandy shoreline on a timescale far surpassing human history — but now its waves spell a major …

Manila, Philippines | AFP |  Long before Lito Ramirez was one of the Philippines’ first homegrown rugby stars he was a six-year-old orphan addicted to sniffing glue, who survived on trash and begging. If there was any luck in his hellish world, it was that the brand of glue he and …

Manchester, United Kingdom | AFP | Four years of planning will be put on the line for England when they face holders Australia in a blockbuster Cricket World Cup semi-final at Edgbaston on Thursday. England’s woeful first-round exit at the 2015 edition prompted a complete rethink of their approach to one-day …

Al-Rimela, Sudan | AFP |  Amidst mounds of sand capped by hand-written signs naming the dead, Khadom embraces the tomb of her son, one of the more than 200 killed in Sudan’s months-long turmoil. It was an April morning when a freshly-shaven Al-Moez drank his tea before heading out to the …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The long, loud nights of Kinshasa’s street life are set to be shortened by the new governor of DR Congo’s unruly capital, as part of a city-wide crusade against “dirtiness”. In less than a month, the bars spilling out on to the city’s highways and …

Africans quiet as the EU builds an invisible but vicious wall of torture, slavery and blood in the deserts of North Africa | Hussein Lumumba Amin | Many African refugees, including women and toddlers, drowned recently after their boat capsized in the vast Mediterranean Sea. They were attempting to migrate …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | Sweden’s top court on Tuesday rejected a Beijing extradition request for a Chinese man accused of economic crimes because of risks of persecution and the death penalty in China. Qiao Jianjun, a former official of the Chinese state grain administration, is wanted by Beijing under a …

Paris, France | AFP | Spitting is frowned upon in polite society — unless of course the spitter is engaged in tasting wines. “It’s by spitting out the wine that you will be even more distinguished in society,” pleads Pierre-Jules Peyrat, a Paris sommelier. Holding forth before a rapt crowd at …