Donald Trump's scheduled medical  exam this week won't include a psychiatric evaluation, the  White House said today as questions mount over the US  president's mental fitness.
Responding to queries on the subject, spokesman Hogan  Gidley said simply: "No."
"He's sharp as a tack," Gidley told reporters on board  Air Force One.
Trump, 71, will be examined at the Walter Reed military  hospital in a Washington suburb Friday and the results are set  to be made public.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump published a  letter by his long term doctor Harold Bornstein that stated he  was in "excellent physical health."
Bornstein had previously written about Trump's health in  glowing terms, stating in 2015 he would be "the healthiest  individual ever elected to the presidency."
Angered by the publication of a bombshell book that  raised doubts over his mental faculties, Trump took to Twitter  this weekend to describe himself as "a very stable genius" and  "like, really smart.

Trump medical exam won't include mental fitness test: WH

PTI Automatic

US House Foreign Affairs  Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a reliable ally of President  Donald Trump in Congress, announced today he will not seek  re-election this year.
The 13-term Republican said he wants to spend his final  months in office focusing on "urgent threats" including the  regimes in North Korea and Iran, and Russian President  Vladimir Putin's efforts to "fracture western democracies."
"With this in mind, and with the support of my wife  Marie, I have decided not to seek re-election in November," he  said in a statement.
Royce represents a California district that Democrat  Hillary Clinton carried by about nine points in the 2016  presidential election.
Democrats have launched a grassroots effort to try to  regain control of Congress, and Royce's seat was a prime  target.
Several other Republican committee chairs have said they  are exiting after their chairmanships expire at the end of  this year due to term limits, including Judiciary Committee  Chairman Bob Goodlatte ..

House Foreign Affairs chair Royce retiring from Congress this

Asylum claims in France hit a record  100,000 last year, official figures showed today, as President  Emmanuel Macron's government draws up hotly-debated new  legislation on immigration.
Officials said the rate of arrivals was "historic", with  Albanians forming the biggest group of applicants despite  their country being considered safe by France.
"It confirms that France is one of the countries  receiving the most asylum claims in Europe," Pascal Brice,  head of France's refugee protection agency OFPRA, told AFP.
"It's a historic level," he added, though he noted the  numbers are just half of those seen in neighbouring Germany  last year.
Macron's government is preparing to unveil a bill on  immigration next month, but his centrist Republique En Marche  (Republic On The Move) party are divided on how to tackle the  issue.
Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe have vowed to  speed up the process for managing asylum requests and offering  improved conditions for successful ...

France sees 'historic' 100,000 asylum claims in 2017

Top officials from North and South  Korea will hold their first official dialogue in more than two  years today after months of high tensions over Pyongyang's  weapons ambitions.
The long-stalled talks come after the North's leader Kim  Jong-Un indicated in his New Year's speech that Pyongyang was  willing to send a delegation to the Winter Games in the South.
Seoul responded with an offer of a high-level dialogue,  and last week the hotline between the neighbours was restored  after being suspended for almost two years.
The talks at Panmunjom, the truce village in the  Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, will largely  focus on the North's participation in next month's Winter  Olympics in the South.
Seoul has been keen to proclaim the event in Pyeongchang,  just 80 kilometres south of the DMZ, a "peace Olympics" in the  wake of ICBM and nuclear tests by the North -- but it needs  the North to attend to make the description meaningful.
If the North agrees, one of the top ...

Koreas set for first official talks in two years

Britain's education minister, Justine  Greening, resigned from the government today after refusing  another Cabinet position in a reshuffle by Prime Minister  Theresa May, a Downing Street source said.
Greening was offered the welfare and pensions brief "but  declined to take it," the source added.
"The prime minister is disappointed but respects her  decision to leave the government."
Shortly after confirming Greening's departure, Downing  Street officially announced she would be replaced by Damian  Hinds, who had been serving as employment minister.
Greening, who represents a London constituency and backed  Britain remaining in the EU during the Brexit referendum  campaign, will return to the House of Commons backbenches.
Some Conservative colleagues immediately voiced their  support for her.
Fellow member of parliament Heidi Allen wrote on Twitter  she was "bitterly disappointed" at Greening's departure,  saying: "A dreadful shame we have lost such a progressive,  listening, ...

UK minister resigns after rejecting PM's reshuffle: govt

Twenty-nine people died and  more than 80,000 were affected after tropical cyclone Ava tore  through Madagascar last week, authorities said today.
Seventeen people died today, after a house crumbled  following a mudslide in the Ivory suburb, south-east of the  capital Antananarivo.
"On a national scale, the provisional toll is 29 dead, 22  missing, 17,170 displaced and 83,023 affected," the National  Bureau for Risk and Catastrophe Management said in a  statement.
The cyclone, which made landfall on Friday morning,  lashed the eastern part of the African island off Mozambique  with violent winds and heavy rains before moving off the  territory on Saturday night.
The cyclone caused flash flooding in the capital  Antananarivo and the port city of Toamasina and in the eastern  town of Tamatave. Several homes were without power and roads  cut off by felled trees.
Madagascar, one of the world's poorest countries, is  regularly hit by cyclones.
In March last year, cyclone Enawo killed at ...

29 killed, 80,000 affected by Madagascar cyclone

Scoreboard at the close on day two in  the fifth Ashes Test between Australia and England here today:
England first innings (overnight 233-5)
A. Cook
lbw b Hazlewood
39
M. Stoneman
c Paine b Cummins
24
J. Vince
c Paine b Cummins
25
J. Root
c M. Marsh b Starc
83
D. Malan
c Smith b Starc
62
J. Bairstow
c Paine b Hazlewood
5
M. Ali
c Paine b Cummins
30
T. Curran
c Bancroft b Cummins
39
S. Broad
c Smith b Lyon
31
M. Crane
run out (M.Marsh/Bancroft) 4
J. Anderson
not out
0
Extras (lb2, w2)
4
Total (all out; 112.3 overs)
346
Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-88, 3-95, 4-228, 5-233, 6-251,  7-294, 8-335, 9-346, 10-346.
Bowling: Starc 21-6-80-2, Hazlewood 23-4-65-2, Cummins  24.3-5-80-4 (2w), Lyon 37-5-86-1, M. Marsh 7-0-33-0.
Australia first innings
C. Bancroft
b Broad
0
D. Warner
c Bairstow b Anderson  56
U. Khawaja
not out
91
S. Smith
not out
44
Extras (b1, nb1)
2
Total (2 wickets; 67 overs)
193
Fall of wickets: 1-1 (Bancroft), 2-86 (Warner)
To bat: S. Marsh, M. Marsh, T. Paine, M. Starc, P.  ...

Sydney, Jan 5 (AFP) Scoreboard at the close on day two in

The Association of Southeast Asian  Nations (ASEAN) needs to beef up its disaster management  efforts after the region was hammered by deadly storms that  left a path of destruction in their wake, its new chief said  today.
Secretary-general Lim Jock Hoi, a veteran Bruneian  diplomat, pointed to a tropical storm that battered the  southern Philippines last month leaving at least 240 dead and  tens of thousands displaced.
Also in December, a tropical cyclone pounded Indonesia's  main island of Java and killed at least 41 people, with tens  of thousands forced from their homes by severe flooding and  landslides.
"Our region is disaster-prone," Lim said at his  inauguration ceremony at ASEAN's Secretariat in Jakarta.
"This underscores the need to strengthen ASEAN  cooperation in disaster management and humanitarian  assistance."
The 10-member group has tended to focus much of its  endeavours on regional diplomacy and economic growth.
Lim takes over from Vietnam's Le Luong Minh who said  .

New ASEAN chief vows disaster relief boost after deadly storms

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip  Erdogan today slammed the conviction in the US of a top  Turkish banker in a trial on Iran sanctions busting, saying it  was part of a "chain" of plots against his nation.
"What we are seeing in America is a chain of serious  plots," Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul airport after the  conviction of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, deputy chief executive of  Turkish lender Halkbank.
"If this is the US understanding of justice then the  world is doomed. There can be no such understanding of  justice.

Erdogan: US verdict part of serious plot chain against Turkey

Pro-regime rallies were due to reach  Tehran today with authorities seeking to put the past week's  unrest to bed, as Washington slapped fresh sanctions on Iran  and called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
Iranian officials announced 40 rallies across the  province of Tehran after Friday prayers, building on huge  pro-government marches seen in many other cities over the  previous two days.
The US imposed sanctions against five Iranian firms  alleged to have been working on an illegal ballistic missile  program, linking the move to the protests.
"These sanctions target key entities involved in Iran's  ballistic missile program, which the Iranian regime  prioritises over the economic well-being of the Iranian  people," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
On the streets of Tehran, a heavy police presence  lingered though there were no reports of fresh protests  overnight.
There were some reports of small anti-government  demonstrations in provincial towns, but these .

Pro-regime rallies due in Tehran as US imposes sanctions

An Australian warship has made its  second large drugs bust in the Arabian Sea within a week,  seizing 3.5 tonnes of hashish with an estimated street value  of USD 142 million, officials said today.
It followed HMAS Warramunga making an eight-tonne hashish  haul in late December during manoeuvres in the area as part of  the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) naval partnership.
The latest seizure occurred on January 3 with support  from a British Royal Navy helicopter, with crew from the  frigate boarding a suspect vessel in international waters.
HMAS Warramunga commanding officer Dugald Clelland said  it was a complex night operation.
"The Royal Navy helicopter was able to cue us onto a  suspect vessel, which Warramunga's boarding party searched in  challenging conditions," he said.
"The boarding party did a first-rate job locating and  seizing more than three-and-a-half tonnes of illicit  narcotics."
Officials did not say where in the Arabian sea the drugs  were seized, where the ...

Australian warship makes second big drugs bust in Arabian Sea

Amid a frantic rush to patch a  computer security flaw, experts struggled today to determine  the impact of a newly discovered vulnerability which could  affect billions of devices worldwide.
Cybersecurity researchers called for computer systems to  urgently install updates a day after the release of details of  the so-called Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affecting  the chips powering most modern PCs and many mobile devices.
Researchers on Wednesday published details of the flaw,  which unlike many other vulnerabilities stems from the chip  itself and how it safeguards private data stored on computers  and networks.
The researchers at Google showed how a hacker could  exploit the flaw to get passwords, encryption codes and more,  even though there have been no reports of any attacks using  the vulnerability.
"The full extent of this class of attack is still under  investigation and we are working with security researchers and  other browser vendors to fully understand the ...

Tech firms rush out patches for 'pervasive' computer flaw

Fewer than 100 North Koreans a month  defected to the South last year, Seoul said today, the lowest  for 15 years as Pyongyang and Beijing both tighten controls on  movement.
A total of 1,127 North Koreans came to the South last  year, down 21 percent from 2016, according to data from the  unification ministry. It was the lowest figure since 2001.
The vast majority of defectors from the impoverished  North, which suffers chronic food shortages and is subject to  UN Security Council sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons  and ballistic missile programmes, go first to China.
They sometimes stay there for several years before making  their way to the South, often via a third country.
"This decrease in arrivals is extremely concerning  because it's not that life became that much better in North  Korea, it is because the Chinese authorities, while signing up  for increased sanctions on the North Korean economy, also  stepped up their crackdowns on North Korean refugees," said  Sokeel ...

North Korean defector numbers slump as controls tighten

Japan stressed today that a decision  by the US and South Korea to delay a huge military drill was  not tantamount to an easing of the pressure on North Korea.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tokyo,  Washington, and Seoul remained committed to applying maximum  pressure on the secretive regime.
The three allies "have confirmed a shared policy to  further increase pressure against North Korea," Suga told a  regular press briefing.
"Including this case (the delaying of the drill), Japan,  the US and South Korea closely share information and align  policies regarding North Korea," Suga said.
"The decision on the timing of the joint exercise is not  designed to compromise the increased pressure on North Korea,"  he said.
US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon  Jae-In yesterday agreed to delay the giant Foal Eagle and Key  Resolve joint military drills until after the Winter Olympics,  which begin in Pyeongchang on February 9.
In a further sign of possibly ...

Delaying drills does not reduce pressure on N.Korea: Japan

Steve Smith racked up another  milestone as he continued to torment England and Usman Khawaja  neared a century to put Australia in a strong position after  day two of the final Ashes Test in Sydney on Friday.
The Australian skipper became the second fastest  batsman to reach 6,000 Test runs in his 111th innings, second  only to the legendary Don Bradman.
Smith, with three centuries in this five-match series,  has been the bane of the England team and was potentially  heading towards another ton.
At the close, Smith was on 44 with Khawaja reaching  his highest score of the series on 91 in Australia's 193 for  two in reply to England's 346 first innings.
So far in the series Smith has scored 648 runs at 162.
The pair shared in a 107-run partnership after the  loss of openers Cameron Bancroft and David Warner.
Khawaja raised his third fifty of the series with a  six down the ground off Moeen Ali.
Debutant Mason Crane, the youngest specialist spinner  at 20 to play for England in 90 ...

Smith milestone as Aussies chip away at England lead

A giant winter "bomb cyclone" has  walloped the US East Coast with heavy snow and freezing cold  that made for treacherous travel conditions and bone-chilling  misery.
Four people were reported killed in the southeastern  states of North and South Carolina, where icy roads sent  vehicles skittering.
The National Weather Service said early today that very  cold temperatures and wind chills will follow for much of the  eastern third of the US through the weekend.
A cold wave gripping a large section of the United States  had already been blamed for a dozen deaths.
Thousands of flights were cancelled and schools closed in  many localities as snow piled up and blizzard conditions began  taking hold in the northeast.
Officials closed the runways at La Guardia and Kennedy  Airports in New York.
Temperatures were so low in northern New York that  Niagara Falls -- the giant waterfalls straddling the US-  Canadian border -- froze.
Snowfall eased by nightfall but temperatures were set to  ...

'Bomb cyclone' pounds eastern US, four reported dead

Ousted Uber boss Travis Kalanick  plans to sell 29 per cent of his stake in the US ridesharing  giant for about USD 1.4 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing an  unnamed source familiar with the matter.
Kalanick, who co-founded the company and owns 10 per cent  of it, would sell the shares as part of the deal that will see  a group of investors led by Japanese tech titan SoftBank  acquire a major stake in Uber.
The new investment, which will be finalised in January,  was based on calculations valuing Uber at USD 48 billion,  Bloomberg said yesterday.
Uber is seeking to move past a series of scandals and  missteps and reform its board structure as it gears up for a  2019 public share offering.
Kalanick was ousted as CEO in June, but retains a seat on  Uber's board.
Even as Uber has seen unprecedented growth by expanding  to dozens of countries, it has been hurt by missteps including  allegations of executive misconduct, a toxic work atmosphere  and potentially unethical competitive ...

Uber ex-boss wants to sell 29 pc of shares for $1.4 bn: report

The death toll from a fire that  ripped through an apartment building in New York's Bronx  district last week has risen to 13, after a 27-year-old man  died of his injuries, police said.
The latest victim was identified as Holt Francis. Three  other members of his family -- wife Karen and their two young  daughters -- were already confirmed dead in the December 28  blaze, the deadliest in New York in more than 25 years.
Investigators found that a three-year-old boy playing  with the stove in his family apartment accidentally ignited  the fire.
Flames shot up through the building's stairwell after the  boy's mother fled her apartment with her two children, leaving  the door ajar, the city's fire commissioner told reporters.

Death toll from New York building fire hits 13

England claimed the big wicket of  David Warner to have Australia two down in their chase after  the tourists' first innings 346 on day two of the final Ashes  Test in Sydney on Friday.
The Australian vice-captain reached his fourth half-  century of the series before James Anderson coaxed an edge for  wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow.
Warner was on his way for 56 off 104 balls as  Australia reached tea at 96 for two with Usman Khawaja on 36  and Steve Smith not out three to trail the tourists by 250  runs.
Cameron Bancroft was earlier bowled for a seven-ball  duck to ramp up the pressure on the struggling opening  batsman.
Stuart Broad got one to nip back and knock over  Bancroft's middle stump to continue the opener's run of outs  after an unbeaten 82 in the second innings of the first  Brisbane Test.
England's maligned tail earlier piled on runs before  the tourists were bowled out at lunch.
Newcomer Tom Curran smacked 39 off 65 balls, Moeen Ali  hit 30 and Stuart Broad clubbed two ...

England snare Warner wicket in blow for Aussies

Nuclear-armed North Korea today  accepted the South's offer of talks next week, hours after  Seoul and Washington agreed to defer joint military exercises  which always infuriate Pyongyang until after the Winter  Olympics.
The meeting, the first since December 2015, will take  place in Panmunjom, the truce village in the heavily fortified  Demilitarised Zone that divides the peninsula.
Tensions have been high after the North carried out  multiple missile launches in 2017, including a number of  ICBMs, and its sixth atomic test, by far its most powerful to  date.
The tentative rapprochement comes after the North's  leader Kim Jong-Un warned in his New Year speech that he had a  nuclear button on his desk, but at the same time offered Seoul  an olive branch, saying Pyongyang could send a team to next  month's Winter Olympics in the South.
Seoul responded with an offer of talks between the two,  and earlier this week the hotline between them was restored  after being suspended for almost 

North Korea accepts South's offer of talks next week

Two penalties helped Real Madrid  to a healthy 3-0 win in the first leg of their Copa Del Rey  tie with second-tier Numancia on Thursday, while Barcelona  were held to a 1-1 draw as the La Liga giants rested their  stars.
Gareth Bale was one of a handful of Real first-team  regulars on display at the Estadio Los Pajaritos, and was on  hand to slot home the first from the penalty spot ten minutes  before the break after Lucas Vazques was clumsily brought down  in the box by Carlos Gutierrez.
They survived a serious scare in the 76th minute when  Inigo Perez snatched the ball from Marcos Llorente and  launched a 40-yard shot over the head of keeper Kiko Cassila  that thumped the crossbar and came agonisingly close to  crossing the line.
Real sealed the win with another spot kick a minute  from the end, again won by Vasquez but this time slammed home  by substitute Isco, and Baroja Mayoral completed the rout a  minute later with a close range header.
"We had a few problems in the second .

AFP

AFP

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