INTERNATIONAL

Donald Trump loomed large over the final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses, despite not being on stage. His absence was mocked by his rivals, who tried to fill the space vacated by Mr Trump’s boycott by attacking each other on immigration and other issues. Mr Trump decided to withdraw after Fox News refused to drop debate host Megyn Kelly, ...

Three to four million people could be infected with Zika in the Americas this year, the World Health Organization predicts. Most will not develop symptoms, but the infection has been linked to brain defects in babies. WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan said Zika had gone “from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions”. She has set up a ...

US scientists have urged the World Health Organisation to take urgent action over the Zika virus, which they say has “explosive pandemic potential”. Writing in a US medical journal, they called on the WHO to heed lessons from the Ebola outbreak and convene an emergency committee of disease experts. They said a vaccine might be ready for testing in two ...

The authorities in Sweden are making plans to expel as many as 80,000 failed asylum-seekers, the interior minister was quoted as saying. Anders Ygeman said that charter aircraft would be used to deport the migrants over several years. “We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000,” Swedish media quoted him as saying. Some 163,000 migrants ...

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira has stepped down from her job, shortly before plans to strip people convicted of terrorism of their citizenship go before parliament. Ms Taubira was known to disagree with the controversial proposals. The citizenship plans were put forward after the 13 November Paris attacks in which 130 people were murdered. “Sometimes staying on is resisting, sometimes ...

US police say they have arrested the leader of an armed militia which occupied a wildlife refuge in Oregon, with one person killed in a shoot-out. Ammon Bundy and four others were arrested during a traffic stop, police said. One person was injured. Two other activists connected to the group were later arrested in separate incidents, also in Oregon. The ...

A Swedish activist who was detained in China on charges of damaging national security has been released and deported. Peter Dahlin, 35, has been held since early January amid a crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists. Last week he appeared on state media apparently confessing to breaking the law through his organisation’s support of local Chinese rights lawyers. The ...

The Danish parliament will vote on Tuesday on a highly controversial proposal to confiscate asylum seekers’ valuables to pay for their upkeep. The proposal drew sharp criticism at home and abroad when it was announced earlier this month. Danish authorities insist the policy brings migrants in line with jobless Danes, who must sell assets above a certain level to claim ...

The Zika virus is likely to spread across nearly all of the Americas, the World Health Organization has warned. The infection, which causes symptoms including mild fever, conjunctivitis and headache, has already been found in 21 countries in the Caribbean, North and South America. It has been linked to thousands of babies being born with underdeveloped brains and some countries ...

A cold snap sweeping across East Asia has led to more than 50 deaths in Taiwan and stranded at least 60,000 tourists in South Korea. Taiwanese media reported a rash of deaths from hypothermia and cardiac disease following a sudden drop in temperature over the weekend. Meanwhile heavy snow forced the closure of the airport on the Korean holiday island ...