INTERNATIONAL

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to unveil plans to significantly increase deportations of failed asylum seekers. The measures include allowing access to asylum seekers’ phones and Sim cards to verify their identities and increasing the amount paid to voluntary returnees. Migration has become a heavily politicised issue in Germany ahead of elections later this year. An asylum seeker killed ...

The US Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination for attorney general, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, by a vote of 52 to 47. The confirmation follows a series of divisive hearings during which Democrats attacked Mr Sessions’ record on civil rights. Democrat Elizabeth Warren was silenced after recalling historic allegations of racism against Mr Sessions. The Alabama senator’s nomination was ...

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has ordered the deployment of about 440 troops to maintain law and order in parliament for his annual state of the nation address on Thursday. Opposition parties have condemned the decision as a “declaration of war”. Previous addresses by Mr Zuma have been marred by protests and brawls as opposition MPs demanded his resignation. Mr ...

Russia’s main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has been found guilty of embezzlement and handed a five-year suspended sentence. It bars him from running for president next year against Vladimir Putin. But Mr Navalny has vowed to take part in the race regardless. He denies the charges and says he will appeal against the verdict. His conviction came in a retrial ...

An appeals court has questioned whether President Donald Trump’s travel ban discriminates against Muslims. The executive order temporarily banned entry for all refugees and visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries, until it was halted last week. Judge Richard Clifton asked whether it could be discriminatory if it affected only 15% of the world’s Muslims. He is one of three judges ...

A French judge has ordered ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy to stand trial in an illegal campaign finance case. Mr Sarkozy faces accusations that his party falsified accounts in order to hide 18m euros (£15m; $20m) of campaign spending in 2012. Mr Sarkozy denies he was aware of the overspending, and will appeal against the order to stand trial. He lost the ...

At least 20 people have been killed in a suicide bombing at Afghanistan’s Supreme Court in Kabul, officials say. Another 45 people were injured. The number of casualties is expected to rise. The bomber targeted the car park of the court compound, reports say. The injured are being ferried to hospitals. There was no immediate claim for the attack, which ...

An inquiry examining institutional sex abuse in Australia has heard 7% of the nation’s Catholic priests allegedly abused children between 1950 and 2010. In one religious order, over 40% of church figures were accused of abuse. Over 4,440 people claim to have been victims between 1980 and 2015, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse was told. ...

Restoring President Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven mainly Muslim countries would “unleash chaos again”, lawyers for two US states argue. Counsel for Washington and Minnesota urged a federal appeals court in San Francisco to maintain its nationwide temporary restraining order. They are being backed by technology firms which say the travel ban is harmful to their businesses. Trump ...

US President Donald Trump has attacked the judge who blocked his travel ban, saying Americans should blame the courts “if something happens”. Mr Trump also said he had instructed border officials to check people entering America “very carefully”. The federal appeals court on Saturday rejected the Trump administration’s request to reinstate the ban. The ban, affecting people from seven mainly-Muslim ...