INTERNATIONAL

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has declared victory in the Kentucky primary as she moves nearer the presidential nomination. With most of the votes counted in the state and less than 0.5% ahead, Mrs Clinton was declared the unofficial winner by one state official. In the night’s other primary contest Senator Bernie Sanders won in Oregon. Front-runner Mrs Clinton ...

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he is willing to meet the North Korean leader to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. “I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him,” the businessman said of Kim Jong-un. Such a meeting would mark a significant change of US policy towards the politically isolated regime. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton ...

Around 12,000 people have been urged to leave Canada’s oil sands camps near the fire-hit town of Fort McMurray as a resurgent wildfire heads towards them. A regional official told the BBC that 8,000 people were given precautionary evacuation orders late on Monday, in addition to some 4,000 who had already been advised to leave. More than 80,000 people fled ...

Thai authorities are set to close the island of Koh Tachai, saying heavy tourism is negatively affecting natural resources and the environment. The island, off Phang Nga province, is part of the Similan National Park. Almost all Thai marine national parks close from mid-May to mid-October, for monsoon season, but Tachai will not reopen, the Bangkok Post reported. The park ...

Tight security is in place in Hong Kong as the most senior official from Beijing to travel there since the pro-democracy protests of 2014 arrives. Zhang Dejiang, the man responsible for Hong Kong affairs in Beijing, arrives amid concerns over the territory’s freedoms and interference by China. More than 6,000 police have been deployed, drones banned and tall barriers put ...

India is set to divert water from its rivers to deal with a severe drought, a senior minister has told the BBC. Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti said transferring water, including from major rivers like the Brahmaputra and the Ganges, to drought-prone areas is now her government’s top priority. At least 330 million people are affected by drought in India. ...

Angelina Jolie Pitt, the UN refugee agency’s special envoy, has warned that the international humanitarian system for refugees is breaking down. Ms Jolie Pitt has been speaking as part of the BBC’s World on the Move day of coverage of global migration issues. She warned against a “fear of migration” and a “race to the bottom” as countries competed to ...

Save the Children is calling for greater international commitment to ensure child refugees remain in school. The charity’s new report, A New Deal for Refugees, says no child should be out of school for more than a month. It comes as countries struggle to respond to a huge displacement of people fleeing conflict and hardship. Another call for a greater ...

The Islamic State (IS) group has staged a suicide attack on a gas factory near Baghdad in which 14 people were killed and 20 wounded, Iraqi officials say. The assault began when three car bombs exploded at the gate of the plant in Taji, north of the capital. Six men wearing explosive belts rushed in and blew up gas tanks, ...

Seventeen women who have served as ministers in France say they will no longer be silent about sexual harassment in politics. All 17 signatories to the declaration are current or former ministers. Among them is Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund and France’s former finance minister. On Monday, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly, Denis Baupin, ...