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COTONOU: The EU ambassador to Benin left the West African country on Friday after Cotonou ordered him to leave, accusing him of “subversive” activities.Oliver Nette, a German national, was on Wednesday told to leave. A government spokesman told journalists that bilateral cooperation had been “disturbed by the activities of this diplomat who has got involved in activities that we may consider subversive”.No further details have been given. Nette left on a flight from Cotonou to Brussels on Friday evening, an AFP journalist said.The EU, a major financial donor to Benin, has given hundreds of millions of euros to help develop good governance, agriculture and access to electricity. The decision to expel the ambassador comes as the country faces economic pain after its giant eastern neighbour Nigeria halted imports and exports across their shared border in a bid to halt smuggling. from The News International - World https://ift.tt/33EahXs

BEIRUT: Dozens of people in protest-swept Lebanon staged a candlelit vigil outside Iraq´s embassy on Saturday to denounce the excessive use of force against demonstrators there.Participants at the Beirut observance raised pictures of Iraqi protesters who have been killed in an unprecedented anti-government movement. Some raised the Lebanese flag, while one woman wrapped the Iraqi tricolour around her shoulders.Iraq´s grassroots protest movement has been the largest the country has seen in decades — but also the deadliest.More than 420 people have been killed and 15,000 others wounded since protests began on October 1, according to an AFP tally compiled from medics and an Iraqi rights commission.The toll spiked dramatically this week, when a crackdown by security forces left dozens dead in Baghdad, the Shiite shrine city of Najaf and the southern hotspot of Nasiriyah.Nasiriyah is the birthplace of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, who vowed to resign on Friday. Lebanon has also seen an u

SEOUL: North Korea on Saturday warned Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he could soon see a “real ballistic missile” while excoriating him as the “most stupid man ever known in history”.The colourful condemnation comes two days after the isolated state tested what it called a “super-large multiple launch rocket system”, with South Korea reporting that two projectiles came down in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.In the wake of the launch, which was supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Abe termed the fired weapons “ballistic missiles” that violated UN resolutions. “It can be said that Abe is the only one idiot in the world and the most stupid man ever known in history as he fails to distinguish a missile from multiple launch rocket system while seeing the photo-accompanied report,” a foreign ministry official said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA. “Abe may see what a real ballistic missile is in the not distant future and under his nose... Abe

THE HAGUE: Dutch police on Saturday arrested a suspect in the stabbing of three teenagers in a busy shopping street in The Hague, the city´s police force said. Police had earlier said they were investigating “several scenarios” and that it was “too early to speculate” about whether there was a possible terror motive.“Following the stabbing incident in Grote Marktstraat, a 35-year-old man has just been arrested in the centre of The Hague. The man has no fixed place of residence,” police said on Twitter.“He will be transferred to a police station where he will be questioned.” The victims were a 13-year-old boy and two 15-year-old girls, none of whom knew each other. They were all treated in hospital but released overnight. from The News International - World https://ift.tt/33DUZ4W

STOCKHOLM: The pilot of a propeller plane died Saturday after it crashed into the garden of a house in Ronneby, southeastern Sweden, police said. Police received word of the crash about 3:40 pm (1440 GMT).“A small propeller plane has crashed in the garden of a house in a residential area in Ronneby,” which has a population of about 13,000 people, police spokesman Rickard Lundqvist told AFP.The plane caught fire, sending heavy smoke billowing over the neighbourhood. Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire fairly quickly, the police said, and no one on the ground was injured. from The News International - World https://ift.tt/2L9gsMR

BEIJING: China has issued new rules banning online video and audio providers from using artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality technologies to produce “fake news.”The regulation published Friday by China´s cyberspace authority said that both providers and users of online video news and audio services are “not allowed” to use new technologies such as deep learning and virtual reality to create, distribute and broadcast “fake news.”“Fake news” has been generalised to mean anything from a mistake to a parody or a deliberate misinterpretation of facts. The rules come into effect on January 1, 2020. from The News International - World https://ift.tt/2OCiJ5t

Windhoek: Two Namibian opposition parties on Saturday cried foul over alleged fraud in this week’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which they say have caused delays in delivering election results.Partial results from this week´s general election showed the incumbent president Hage Geingob leading with over 56 percent of the vote. While the electoral commission’s chairperson Advocate Notemba Tjipueja called for patience as vote counting was being finalised, Geingob took to social media to thank Namibians for his re-election.“I wish to thank Namibians for re-electing me as their president,” he tweeted, promising to “bring tangible improvements in the lives of our citizens.”His South West Africa People´s Organisation (SWAPO) has ruled the sparsely populated nation since independence from South Africa in 1990. from The News International - World https://ift.tt/2rD5SqD

THE HAGUE: Dutch police kept up a huge manhunt on Saturday for an assailant who stabbed three youths in The Hague´s main shopping area.Officials said they were keeping an open mind about the motive for the attack, which came as shoppers hunted bargains on Black Friday. The incident caused panic in The Hague as it happened just hours after two people were stabbed to death in London allegedly by an ex-prisoner convicted of terrorism offences.The male attacker ran off after the stabbings at a department store in the city centre´s Grote Marktstraat, The Hague´s main shopping area. “We haven´t arrested a suspect yet. So we are currently very busy trying the find the suspect,” police spokeswoman Marije Kuiper told AFP.“It´s a little too early to speculate about that kind of thing,” she said when asked about a possible terrorist motive, adding that investigators were still looking at several possible scenarios.Police forensics officers were seen examining a knife found at the scene overnight.

HYDERABAD: Hundreds of people on Saturday laid siege to a police station where four men are being held over the latest gruesome rape-murder to shock India.Baton-wielding police pushed back crowds from the building in the southern city of Hyderabad where they said the 27-year-old veterinary doctor was gang-raped, killed and then her body burned.While the suspects were quickly detained, the killing sparked new outrage in a country that has been in the international spotlight over its handling of sex assaults since the brutal gang-rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus in 2012.“How anyone could subject another human being to such terrible, unprovoked violence is beyond imagination,” said former opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi on Twitter.Police had to bring in reinforcements to bolster security around the Hyderabad police station. The suspects were to appear before a magistrate for what was expected to be the start of “fast-track” proceedings later Saturday.But police we

WARSAW: Director Roman Polanski cancelled a visit planned for Saturday to a film school in his native Poland after students objected to his presence because of rape allegations against him.“At the request of Roman Polanski, the meeting at the cinema school in Lodz, which was to take place on Saturday November 30, has been cancelled,” the school said in a brief statement.The 86-year-old French-Polish director was at the Cinergia European Cinema Forum in Lodz on Friday where he received a “rebellious filmmaker” award. His latest film “An Officer and a Spy” was also screened. At Friday´s event, school director Mariusz Grzegorzek had said “99 percent of the students are awaiting his visit”. The school, once attended by Polanski, earlier had rejected as “inappropriate” an online calling for his visit to be cancelled. The appeal, which had been signed by 116 people as of Thursday, cited “at least five accusations” against him.The filmmaker pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in Calif

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed Saturday to review Britain´s sentencing system after a convicted terrorist released early from prison was suspected of stabbing two people to death in an attack around London Bridge.Police shot and killed Usman Khan after his suspected assault that seriously injured three other people was broken up by bystanders — one armed with a five-foot (1.5-metre) narwhal tusk and another a fire extinguisher.Video footage of the confrontation showed Khan, 28, being challenged by a man, reportedly a Polish chef, wielding the tusk — believed to have been taken from a nearby historic hall — and sprayed with the extinguisher. He had been conditionally released from jail last December after serving less than half of a 16-year prison sentence for terrorism, and was wearing a suspected fake explosive device. Moments later armed police officers arrived on the scene and shot him dead.Investigators have said they are not actively seeking others in relation to the i

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia´s defence minister, a key ally of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has criticised plans to transform the ruling coalition into a single party, highlighting growing divisions ahead of planned 2020 elections.Analysts say the public split between the country´s most powerful ethnic Oromo politicians could increase political uncertainty ahead of the May polls, and hinder Abiy´s reformist agenda.In an interview with Voice of America´s Affan Oromo language service on Friday night, Defence Minister Lemma Megersa criticised the move to merge the coalition of ethno-regional parties which has ruled the country for three decades.“I have had a different perspective from the beginning of the talks about the merger of EPRDF,” said Lemma, adding that “even if that is to happen it shouldn´t be done in a hurried way.”Nobel Peace Laureate Abiy´s plans to transform the Ethiopian People´s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) into one party have already been rejected by the Tigrayan People

HANOI: Vietnam blocked a Catholic priest from travelling to Japan to attend a mass by the Pope, he said Thursday, accusing the government of targeting him because of his environmental activism.Communist Vietnam has long been .uneasy about organised religion, and has a touchy relationship with the country´s Catholic churches which yield significant influence in some areas.That includes central Vietnam, where priests led lawsuits and protests after a toxic chemical spill in 2016 killed tonnes of fish and decimated livelihoods in central Vietnam.Priest Nguyen Dinh Thuc was among those helping fishermen after the environmental disaster, and on Wednesday was barred from travelling to Tokyo to attend a mass led by the Pope.“As a priest, I helped them to fight for a better life,” said Thuc, who is from central Nghe An province.He planned to travel to Tokyo to see the Pope, who will head to Japan on Saturday from Thailand.Thuc said 12 other priests and two parishioners he was travelling with w

NASIRIYAH: Iraqis kept up anti-government protests in Baghdad and the south on Saturday, unsatisfied with the premier´s vowed resignation and insisting on the overhaul of a system they say is corrupt and beholden to foreign powers.Protesters have hit the streets since early October in the largest grassroots movement Iraq has seen in decades, sparked by fury at poor public services, lack of jobs and endemic government graft.The decentralised demonstrations were met with violence from security forces and armed groups, leaving more than 420 people dead and 15,000 wounded according to an AFP tally compiled from medics and an Iraqi rights commission.The toll spiked dramatically this week, when a crackdown by security forces left dozens dead in Baghdad, the Shiite shrine city of Najaf and the southern hotspot of Nasiriyah — the birthplace of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.Facing pressure from the street and the country´s top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Abdel Mahdi announced o

TEHRAN: Air pollution forced the closure of schools and universities in parts of Iran on Saturday, including Tehran, which was cloaked by a cloud of toxic smog, state media reported.The young and elderly and people with respiratory illnesses were warned to stay indoors and sporting activities were suspended for the start of the working week in the Islamic republic.The decision to shut schools and universities in the capital was announced late Friday by deputy governor Mohammad Taghizadeh, after a meeting of an emergency committee for air pollution.“Due to increased air pollution, kindergartens, preschools and schools, universities and higher education institutes of Tehran province will be closed,” he said, quoted by state news agency IRNA.Schools in the capital would also be closed for a second day on Sunday, Taghizadeh said later.“Having examined the index of pollutants in Tehran... it was decided for all schools to be closed tomorrow in Tehran province, except for the counties of Fir

TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday disputed death tolls issued abroad for bloodshed that erupted during protests in the country over fuel prices, after a rights group said over 160 demonstrators were killed.The demonstrations flared in mid-November, after the price of petrol in the Islamic republic went up overnight by as much as 200 percent.Officials in Iran have yet to say how many people died in the ensuing violence that saw banks, petrol pumps and police stations set on fire.London-based human rights group Amnesty International said in a tweet on Friday that the crackdown claimed the lives of 161 demonstrators.But Iran´s deputy interior minister, Jamal Orf, disputed such figures.“Statistics by international organisations on those killed in the recent incidents are not credible,” he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.Orf accused the sources that reported the figures of “exaggerating” them.The prosecution service, he added, was set to announce the figures based on those it receives

TUNIS: For the UN´s Libya envoy, US-Russia tensions top a list of “complications” in efforts to heal international divisions on the North African state´s conflict, he told AFP in an interview.Ghassan Salame said “the road is (still) full of obstacles and complications” towards convening inter-Libyan peace talks that could be held in Geneva “probably in the first half of January”.“We´ve recently had many complications, primarily of course concerning this Russian-American tension on the possible presence (in Libya) of Russian security firms,” said Salame.Washington has repeatedly voiced concern over alleged Russian meddling in the conflict that is being exploited by several outside powers for a proxy war.Russia is suspected of providing military support to eastern Libya´s strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose forces on April 4 launched a now stalled assault on the Tripoli base of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).In early November, Russia denied media reports

TIRANA: The death toll from a powerful Albanian earthquake rose to 50 as the search for survivors was called off, Prime Minister Edi Rama said Saturday.The 6.4 magnitude quake that hit the Balkan country before dawn on Tuesday was the most deadly and destructive in decades, and left about 5,000 people homeless.“The number of the earthquake victims reached 50 and rescue operations have ended,” Rama told a cabinet meeting while struggling to hold back tears.Entire families were crushed in their homes while they were sleeping, forcing relatives and neighbours to watch in agony as rescue teams pulled bodies from the ruins this week.About 900 people were injured, of whom 41 are still hospitalised, according to the defence ministry.The damage was the worst near the Adriatic coast in the port city of Durres and the town of Thumane, where scores of people were trapped beneath the wreckage of apartment buildings and hotels. The funeral of eight members of the Lala family, including four childre

ALGIERS: Several hundred Algerians marched Saturday in support of a presidential election rejected by a mass protest movement that has rocked the North African country since February.The march was organised by the UGTA trades union group which is close to the National Liberation Front of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who quit in April under pressure from the street.The UGTA supported Bouteflika during his 20 years at the helm in Algeria.Pro-regime “spontaneous” rallies have been held across the country as the December 12 polling day nears, but Saturday´s was the first staged by a group close to the regime.“No to foreign interference!” read one placard in response to a European Parliament resolution on Thursday.The resolution condemned “the arbitrary and unlawful arrest and detainment of, attacks on and intimidations of journalists, trade unionists, lawyers, students, human rights defenders and civil society and all peaceful protesters” in Algeria.Algiers denounced what it call

BRAUNSCHWEIG, GERMANY: Germany´s far-right AfD party is poised to rejuvenate its leadership on Saturday at a congress hit by massive protests, with its increasingly influential radical wing seeking to tighten its grip on the group.The anti-migrant party´s extremists have the upper hand after electoral gains in eastern regions in September and October that have caused widespread domestic and international alarm.Underlining the polarising effect the party has on Germany, thousands of protesters gathered outside the congress hall in the city of Braunschweig in a noisy demonstration against what they call a racist party.Crying “Get lost!” and “All of Germany hates the AfD”, the protesters greeted arriving AfD delegates with whistles.On the eve of the congress, around a thousand protesters, all dressed in black, also marched through the centre of the city against the far-right outfit.Wary of any negative association, automaker Volkswagen, whose name is on the hall used by the AfD, has reque

LAGOS: A dozen officers are squeezed into the dimly lit Lagos State Police Gender Unit between worn desks and witnesses writing statements, as the force struggles to cope with an increasing number of reports of sex abuse in Nigeria.Recent figures are scarce but according to the United Nations, one in four women in the country experiences sexual abuse before they turn 18.Lagos is the only one of the 36 states in Africa´s most populous nation with a force dedicated to tackling gender-based violence.Conditions in the unit — one of 12 serving the chaotic megacity of 20 million — are basic.It has no interrogation room, no dedicated vehicle and no computers.Wedged in a corner behind mounds of loose files, officers point to a small plastic chair where alleged victims — most frequently children, with many aged around just 10 — are brought to give statements.“You can see, we´re just managing,” Detective Inspector Alaba Munisola, the head of the unit, told AFP.“The number of reported cases has b

BENI, DR CONGO: The United Nations peacekeeping chief arrived on Saturday in eastern DR Congo where anti-UN protests have erupted after militia attacks that have left more than 100 people dead since the start of the month.The arrival of UN Under-Secretary General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beni came several days after an angry mob stormed a UN base in the town in protest over a perceived failure of peacekeepers to stop militia violence.Lacroix will visit the base of the UN mission, known by its French acronym MONUSCO, mobbed by protesters on Monday, and hold talks with the Congolese army and local authorities, a UN spokesman said.At least seven people have been killed in clashes during the anti-UN protests this week.The east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been troubled for years by militia violence, but most recent attacks are blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces or ADF, a shadowy armed group with links to Ugandan Islamists.DR Congo forces launched operation

By BY MICHAEL CROWLEY from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2OD7lGl

VALLETTA: Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat came under increasing pressure to resign on Friday as protesters cried foul over the latest twist in the case of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.An intensifying probe into the murder of Galizia, who was killed by a car bomb in October 2017, has destabilised his government. The Times of Malta said Muscat told associates Friday he plans to resign imminently, though AFP was not able to immediately confirm the report. This week saw two ministers and Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri step down from their posts. Arrested on Tuesday, Schembri was released on Thursday, sparking accusations of a cover-up.Early Friday, Muscat said the main suspect in Galizia’s killing, tycoon Yorgen Fenech, would not be granted immunity to disclose what he knows about the case. He was later released on bail. “Every minute (Muscat) remains in office he increases the risk of justice not being done,” opposition leader Adrian Delia said.Muscat has been heav

OSLO: The 164 signatory countries to the Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) agreed on Friday to accelerate the work to achieve the goal of a “mine-free” world in 2025, Norway’s foreign ministry said.“Countries have now agreed that it is necessary to speed up mine clearance over the next five years,” Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Soreide said in a statement following a meeting in Oslo.According to Landmine Monitor, an annual report by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, 6,897 people were killed or injured by mines and other explosive remnants of war in 2018 and the report noted that it was the fourth year in a row with “exceptionally high numbers of recorded casualties.”Of those, 3,789 were victims of so called improvised mines, the highest recorded number to date. Under the “Oslo Action Plan,” adopted on Friday, states undertake to “identify mined areas and put in place national plans for mine clearance.”They also commit to measuring their progress in the final stretch bef

HARARE: Dozens of Zimbabwean lawyers took to the streets on Friday to protest against police brutality that has escalated since President Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power in 2017.Wearing black court robes and bandages smeared with tomato ketchup, the lawyers carried boards that read “stop state sanctioned violence” and “no to police brutality”.The group marched from the High Court in the capital Harare to the Ministry of Home Affairs, where they deposited a petition. They then proceeded to police headquarters to hand over a second petition.“We are here to march against police brutality, not only as concerned citizens but as concerned officers of the court and custodians of the law,” 25-year old Sandra Dhizwani told AFP.Zimbabwean security forces have violently quashed protests in the past. Riot police brutalised supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) earlier this month, drawing widespread condemnation from within and outside Zimbabwe.“We are concerned that th

ErdoganAg AFPISTANBUL: The dispute within Nato over Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria escalated on Friday when the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responded to criticism from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, by saying that Macron needed to check whether he was brain dead.Claiming Macron was inexperienced and did not know what terror was, Erdogan said Macron’s criticisms of the Turkish invasion reflected “a sick and shallow understanding”.He also warned Macron against any attempt to expel Turkey from Nato, saying it was not up to the French president. There is no provision within Nato for one of its members to be expelled.“I am talking to France’s President Emmanuel Macron, and I will also say this at Nato. First of all, have your own brain death checked. These statements are suitable only to people like you who are in a state of brain death,” Erdogan said in a televised speech.The row between the two men was sparked when Macron said in an Economist interview that he fe

TIRANA: Albania’s prime minister said the country had been “wounded” by the violent earthquake this week that killed whole families and pulverised buildings, as he gave a new toll on Friday of 49 dead and 5,000 displaced.The 6.4 magnitude quake that jolted Albania before dawn on Tuesday was the most deadly and destructive in decades. Entire families were crushed by their homes while they were sleeping.“We have all been touched and wounded” by the tragedy, said Prime Minister Edi Rama, his voice strained as he mentioned the death of a close friend of his son, a medical student whose body was found in the rubble with her brother and two parents.The damage was most concentrated near the Adriatic coast in the port city of Durres and the town of Thumane, where scores of people were trapped beneath the wreckage of toppled apartments and hotels. from The News International - World https://ift.tt/2qYc4JI

SYDNEY: Protesters across Asia kicked off a fresh round of global demonstrations against climate change on Friday, with bushfire-ravaged Australia taking the lead.Hundreds of people gathered outside the offices of the conservative Liberal party, as protesters in several Asia-Pacific cities heeded the call to action from 16-year-old climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg.The protests have taken on extra urgency in Australia, the country´s southeast has been devastated by hundreds of damaging brushfires in recent weeks. Brandishing placards that read "You´re burning our future" and chanting "we will rise", the demonstrators turned out as Sydney was again enveloped in toxic smoke caused by the fires that have blanketed the city for much of the last month."My home town was on the front lines," said student Sam Galvin who was protesting in Melbourne. "That kind of shocked me into realising that this is something that is happening and it´s time I do somet

SACLAY, France: As the pace of global warming outstrips our ability to adapt to it, scientists are delving deep into the distant past, hoping that eons-old Antarctic ice, sediments and trees chart a path to navigate our climate future."What interests us is to understand how the climate works," says Didier Roche of France´s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). At the Laboratory for Climate and Environment Sciences (LSCE), just outside Paris, the aim is to establish a comprehensive record of climate change dating back hundreds of thousands of years, to chart the repeated warming and cooling cycles the Earth has gone through and to try to understand what drives them. Get that far and it becomes possible to determine what part humans play in the current global warming phase through the massive greenhouse gas emissions, principally CO2 and methane, that have come with industrialisation and population growth. A key research tool are the cores of ice, some dating back 800

LIBREVILLE: Oil-rich Gabon has detained eight people for theft and money-laundering as the government intensifies a crackdown on corruption, the prosecutor for the capital Libreville said Thursday.The revived anti-graft drive has seen a string of top-level arrests in the central African country, as accusations that millions of euros have disappeared from state coffers swirl around top officials. "Eight people have been placed in preventive detention," said prosecutor Andre Patrick Roponat, adding that they were accused of "siphoning off public funds and money-laundering."The group appeared before a judge on Wednesday along with eight others who were released on bail, Roponat said. Pro-government newspaper L´Union reported this week that more than 85 billion CFA francs ($142 million) have "evaporated" over the past two years from the funds of the Gabon Oil Company.The current investigations are a follow-up to Operation Mamba -- an anti-corruption campaign l

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out on Friday at counterpart Emmanuel Macron over his criticisms of Nato, saying it was the French president who was suffering "brain death"."I am talking to France´s President Emmanuel Macron, and I will also say this at Nato. First of all, have your own brain death checked. These statements are suitable only to people like you who are in a state of brain death," Erdogan said in a televised speech.He was referencing Macron´s much-publicised claim that Nato was suffering "brain death" due to the lack of strategic cooperation among members. "You know how to show off but you cannot even properly pay for Nato. You are a novice," Erdogan said."Believe me, Macron is very inexperienced. He doesn´t know what fighting against terror is. That is why yellow vests invaded France," he added, referring to the French protest movement of the past year. Macron has strongly opposed Turkey´s militar

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a pitch to Brexit-backing opposition voters Friday alongside a former Labour member of his 2016 referendum team, insisting only a vote for him in next month´s election would get Britain out of the EU.With just under two weeks to go until the December 12 vote, opinion polls suggest the Conservative leader is heading for a comfortable majority in the House of Commons. Johnson has promised that if this happens, he will take Britain out of the European Union on January 31, and deliver a new trade deal by the end of next year. But wooing Brexit-backing voters remains crucial and at a press conference in London, Johnson sought to emphasise that the entire "leave" project hung in the balance. "If there´s a Conservative majority government, we can deliver the change that people voted for," he said. Johnson stood alongside Tory colleague Michael Gove and Gisela Stuart, a former MP with the main opposition Labour party, who together c

TORONTO, Canada: Five Americans and two Canadians were killed when a light aircraft crashed in a wooded area on the north shore of Lake Ontario, Canada´s transport safety agency said Thursday.The US-registered single-engine Piper PA-32 departed Toronto´s Buttonville Airport and was apparently headed to Quebec City when it crashed on approach to the Kingston, Ontario airport on Wednesday just after five pm (2200 GMT), Transportation Safety Board (TSB) investigator Ken Webster told a press conference.Emergency services, including police on all-terrain vehicles and a military search and rescue helicopter, were dispatched to locate the downed plane, which was found in thick rush. "Five Americans and two Canadians were aboard," TSB spokeswoman Nora Vallee told reporters. Canadian media reported that the pilot was from the state of Texas and the plane was carrying his spouse, three children aged three, 11 and 15 along with two Canadians. from The News International - World https:

NEW DELHI: India, anxious to counter China´s influence in the region, on Friday offered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Sri Lanka as the island´s new president made his maiden overseas trip in New Delhi.Gotabaya Rajapaksa´s visit to India just 12 days after he became president is being intensely watched as New Delhi and Beijing compete to control the Indian Ocean and its strategic sea routes.Sri Lanka has been traditionally been allied to India but China invested and loaned billions of dollars to the island nation during the decade-long reign of Rajapaksa´s elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa.After talks with the new leader, India´s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country would give $400 million in credit to Sri Lanka to improve its economy and infrastructure. He offered another $50 million to boost Sri Lanka´s security and intelligence gathering -- notably after the April 21 attacks by Muslim radicals that killed 258 people. from The News International - World https://if

TIRANA: Albania´s prime minister said the country had been "wounded" by the violent earthquake this week that killed whole families and pulverised buildings, as he gave a new toll on Friday of 49 dead and 5,000 displaced.The 6.4 magnitude quake that jolted Albania before dawn on Tuesday was the most deadly and destructive in decades. Entire families were crushed by their homes while they were sleeping."We have all been touched and wounded" by the tragedy, said Prime Minister Edi Rama, his voice strained as he mentioned the death of a close friend of his son, a medical student whose body was found in the rubble with her brother and two parents. The damage was most concentrated near the Adriatic coast in the port city of Durres and the town of Thumane, where scores of people were trapped beneath the wreckage of toppled apartments and hotels. Loved ones and neighbours have watched in agony this week as rescue teams pulled corpses from the ruins. from The News Interna

BEIJING: China’s outbound investment has boosted the economic development of countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) and brought tangible benefits for local peoples, said Su Wei, Deputy Secretary General of China’s National Development and Reform Commission(NDRC).Su made the remark at the opening ceremony of 11th China Overseas Investment Fair (COIFAIR) here, reports Gwadar Pro net.The two-day fair themed “Collaborating on High Quality Construction for Prosperous Belt and Road Development” has attracted 2,800 participants from around 110 countries and regions.In his keynote speech, Su said China’s investment has brought capital and technologies to the destinations countries, boosted the industries’ development and created job opportunities, which has increasingly become an important force to promote the two sides’ mutually-beneficial development. China's non-financial outbound direct investment (ODI) in 56 countries participating in BRI had amounted to $11.46

JOHANNESBURG: A South African court on Friday dismissed former president Jacob Zuma´s attempts to appeal against a corruption trial in which he faces charges related to a 1990s arms deal involving France´s Thales.The High Court in the southeastern city of Pietermaritzburg ruled that "Mr Zuma´s leave to appeal is dismissed". Zuma filed an appeal last month ahead of the initial October 15 trial date, in a case that has seen numerous legal turns over a decade and a half. He is alleged to have taken bribes worth four million rand ($270,000, 240,000 euros) related to a $3.4 billion arms deal in 1999 when he was deputy president. In all Zuma faces 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering related to the purchase of fighter jets, patrol boats and military equipment when he was deputy to the country´s second black president, Thabo Mbeki. Both Zuma and French defence company Thales, which supplied equipment for navy vessels, deny the charges. from The News International - World ht

HONG KONG: Hundreds of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have rallied outside the British Consulate, urging the city’s former colonial ruler to emulate the US and take concrete action to support their cause.The rally came as police ended a blockade of a university campus after 12 days.Waving British flags, the activists urged Britain to ensure that Hong Kong political dissidents do not suffer the same fate as Simon Cheng, a former British Consulate employee in the city who claims he was detained and tortured by Chinese secret police.The rally came a day after US President Donald Trump signed into law two Bills to support democracy and human rights in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.“The UK should enforce similar laws and should have done even more to support the protest movement”, said a masked rally organiser. Activists handed a petition to a British Consulate official before leaving.Beijing denies torturing Cheng and says he was held for soliciting prostitution during a busines

LONDON: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was caught up in traffic just few meters away from the shooting site in London Bridge area where the police killed a man brandishing a knife.Sharif was on his way to appointment at London Bridge Hospital Friday afternoon when the police sealed the area near the hospital because of shooting. Hassan Nawaz Sharif confirmed that he advised his father to return instead of trying to reach the hospital.Sharif was only five minutes away from the hospital when police locked down the area. He stayed stuck in the traffic for over an hour until the police decided to divert the traffic to alternate routes after clamping down the entire area following the knife attack and shooting by the police.Sharif arrived home two hours later without attending his appointment at the London Bridge Hospital. The police said they were dealing with a “serious incident” on London Bridge after reports of a “man running around with a knife” on iconic central London landmark.Me

MUMBAI: India’s economy grew at its slowest pace in more than six years in the July-September period, down to 4.5 per cent from 7.0 per cent a year ago, according to government figures released on Friday that piled more pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The expansion in Asia’s third-largest economy fell from 5.0 per cent in April-June and marked the sixth consecutive quarterly contraction. The GDP growth, now well below the level needed for India to provide the millions of jobs required each year for new entrants to the labour market, poses a major headache for Modi.His government is struggling to kickstart what was once the world’s fastest growing major economy as consumer demand shrinks and unemployment surges to a four-decade high.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced several reforms, easing restrictions on foreign investment in key sectors, slashing corporate taxes, and launching a privatisation drive aimed at reviving moribund state firms.The central bank, the R

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BERLIN: Tens of thousands of protesters, primarily in Europe and Asia, hit the streets on Friday to make a fresh call for action against global warming, hoping to raise pressure on world leaders days before a UN climate summit.Carrying signs that read "One planet, one fight" and "The sea is rising, so must we", thousands flocked to Berlin´s Brandenburg Gate for the latest "Fridays for Future" protest inspired by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg.In total, about 630,000 people demonstrated across more than 500 cities in Germany, the Fridays for Future movement said.In Hamburg alone, some 30,000 mainly young people gathered and another 17,000 congregated in Munich to voice alarm at rising temperatures, police said.Thunberg, meanwhile, was on a boat sailing across the Atlantic, but tweeted a photo of herself holding a sign that said "School strike for climate."Rallies took place across Europe, although on a smaller scale than during September´s wa

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NASIRIYAH, Iraq: Iraq´s southern hotspot of Nasiriyah was in bloody upheaval Thursday after a government crackdown killed 25 protesters and thousands defied a curfew to march in their funerals, following the dramatic torching of an Iranian consulate.Iraq´s capital and south have been torn by the worst street unrest since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, as a protest movement has vented their fury at their government and its backers in neighbouring Iran. Late Wednesday, protesters outraged at Tehran´s political influence in Iraq burned down the Iranian consulate in the shrine city of Najaf, yelling “Victory to Iraq!” and “Iran out!”In response, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi early Thursday ordered military chiefs to deploy in several restive provinces to “impose security and restore order”, the army said. But by the afternoon, after the protesters´ deaths, the premier had already removed one of the commanders, General Jamil Shummary. Shummary had been dispatched to

TEHRAN: Iran has arrested eight people it accused of CIA links and sending abroad information on recent urban unrest, days after the United States said it had received thousands of messages on a protest crackdown in the Islamic republic.New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused Tehran of “deliberately covering up” more than 140 deaths that it said came when security forces suppressed demonstrations against a sharp fuel price hike.Iran said that among the more than 500 people arrested were eight who were “linked to the CIA”, state news agency IRNA said late Wednesday, citing the head of the intelligence ministry’s counter-espionage department.“Some elements who tried to collect information about the recent riots and send them out of the country... were identified and arrested,” the director-general was quoted as saying. Six of them were alleged to have been at “the riots and carrying out orders,” IRNA reported, without naming the official.Two others were arrested before they could l

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron stood by his claim Thursday that NATO is suffering “brain death” with no strategic cooperation among members, after talks with alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg ahead of a high-stakes meeting outside London next week. “I totally stand by raising these ambiguities because I believe it was irresponsible of us to keep talking about financial and technical matters given the stakes we currently face,” Macron said at a joint news conference after the talks. “A wake-up call was necessary,” he said, regarding NATO´s failure to address pressing challenges such as relations with Russia, the subject of Turkey, or even “who is the enemy?”It is no longer Russia or China, Macron said: “Our common enemy... is the terrorism which has struck us all. Macron´s “brain death” comment, published in an interview with the Economist magazine this month, drew sharp criticism from allies, not least Stoltenberg, who warned against undermining the transatlantic alliance. Stoltenberg

MIKOLOW, Pologne: Silently the eight propellers of the Hermes V8MT drone begin to spin and the large yellow aircraft rises up, locates its direction and moments later disappears into the sky in southern Poland.Today the drone is making a successful 8.5-kilometre (5.3-mile) test flight near the headquarters of the Polish firm Spartaqs in the town of Mikolow; soon it will be making journeys between a blood bank and the Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw.It will follow a route marked by radio beacons and fly over waterways for the most part so as not to injure anyone lest it fall. Once the necessary permits arrive, Hermes could be used to save lives, transporting blood and medicine in emergencies. In the future, with a special pod in its cargo, it could even transport hearts for transplants.“Flying at a rate of more than 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour and with no risk of getting stuck in a traffic jam, the drone would be much faster than an ambulance,” said Spartaqs company founder and c