Ousted South Korean president Park  Geun-Hye is to be charged with accepting millions of dollars  worth of bribes from the state spy agency, news reports said  today.
Park allegedly received between 50 and 200 million won  (now USD 47,000 to USD 188,000) from the National Intelligence  Service (NIS) every month from soon after her swearing-in in  early 2013 until mid-2016, prosecutors told South Korean  media.
The cash -- said to total 3.8 billion won -- was  reportedly delivered by NIS agents to Park's aides in  uncrowded parking lots or in back alleys near the presidential  Blue House.
The money came from the spy agency's "blind budget" --  millions of dollars of special funds that can be spent without  receipts for anti-espionage activities -- Yonhap news agency  said.
It remains unclear how Park spent the funds but news  reports said she used them for personal purposes or to  bankroll supporter groups.
Park is already on trial on 18 charges including bribery,  coercion and abuse ..

S Korea's Park 'took money from spy agency': reports

PTI Automatic

Australia claimed the big wicket of  Alastair Cook to take the early ascendancy on the opening day  of the fifth Ashes Test, here today.
Cook, who carried his bat through the England first  innings in the fourth Melbourne Test for an unbeaten 244,  looked on his way to another big score until Josh Hazlewood  struck in the 33rd over.
Hazlewood's leg before wicket appeal was turned down on-  field, but on review the ball was found to be just pitching in  line with the left-hander's leg stump and hitting middle and  Cook was given out for 39 off 104 balls.
It was the third time in the series Cook has fallen lbw  and it left him just five runs short of 12,000 career Test  runs in his 152nd Test match.
At tea, England were 122 for three after winning the toss  with skipper Joe Root and Dawid Malan both having reached 16  not out.
Fellow opener Mark Stoneman earlier hit some nice drives  among his four fours before he nicked a rising Pat Cummins  delivery to Tim Paine for 24 off 24 balls in 

Australia snare Cook on review to rock England

Injured Japanese star Kei  Nishikori pulled out of the Australian Open today, while Novak  Djokovic says he will test his problem elbow at an exhibition  before deciding whether to play.
Asian number one Nishikori has not played competitively  since last August after suffering a torn tendon in his right  wrist during a practice session at Cincinnati.
He said he still wasn't ready for a gruelling Grand Slam  campaign.
"I am very sorry to announce that I will miss the Aussie  Open this year," he said on his website of the opening major  of the year, starting in Melbourne on January 15.
"The Aussie Open is my favourite Slam ... it's my 'home'  Slam," he added.
"It's the Slam that takes incredible care of the players  and their teams, and it hurts that I will have to miss it this  year.
"My rehab is going well but I am just not ready 100  percent to come back yet in best of five set matches."
Nishikori is not the only leading player struggling with  injury, with a who's who of the top ...

Nishikori out of Aussie Open, Djokovic races clock

The European Union will "survive"  Britain's Brexit departure and will remain strong, the bloc's  foreign policy chief has said.
"Many believed that the referendum in the United Kingdom  (on leaving the EU) was going to be the beginning of the end  of the European Union," Federica Mogherini said during a two-  day visit to Cuba.
"I'm very positive on the fact that the Union is not only  going to survive, but it's going to go deeper," Mogherini  said.
"The world needs the European Unions to stay strong, and  so, this is what are we are going to do," she said.
Britons voted 52 to 48 percent in June 2016 in favor of  quitting the EU, putting their country on track to become the  first to leave the bloc.
Britain began what is expected to be two years of  difficult divorce negotiations with a formal notification by  letter to the EU president in March 2017.
The talks between London and Brussels are set to move on  to transition arrangements, trade and security as Britain  prepares to leave 

EU will 'survive' Brexit, remain strong: Mogherini

Peru's defense minister has resigned,  becoming the second cabinet member to step down after  President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski controversially pardoned  former leader Alberto Fujimori, who had been incarcerated for  murder and other rights abuses.
Diego Nieto's departure, confirmed to AFP by a ministry  official, comes after the culture minister Salvador del Solar  resigned. The head of the country's public broadcaster has  also quit.
The political turmoil follows street protests triggered  by Kuczynski's December 24 pardon.
Fujimori, 79, had been imprisoned for more than a decade,  serving a 25-year sentence for commanding death squads and  other brutality during his 1990-2000 rule.
He is currently in a clinic, where he was transferred  after suffering low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat.  His family posted a video of him pleading for forgiveness from  the Peruvian people.
The pardon is being viewed by many in Peru as a reward by  Kuczynski to Fujimori's family, after ...

Peru defense minister resigns after Fujimori pardon

At least 31 loggers are believed to  have been abducted by Boko Haram jihadists after they went  missing in northeast Nigeria, security sources said.
The alleged kidnapping took place just days after 30  troops vanished following a raid on a military base in the  same region amid a surge in bloody violence.
Sources told AFP the loggers, mostly in their twenties,  had left the town of Gamboru on the border with Cameroon  Tuesday morning to fetch firewood in a Boko Haram hotspot.
"All 31 have not been seen since Tuesday and it is  obvious they were seized by Boko Haram," said Umar Kachalla, a  militia in Gamboru fighting Boko Haram alongside the military.
The loggers had left for Wulgo village in nearby Marte  district, 15 kilometres away, with their axes and wooden carts  to collect wood to sell and raise money to buy food, Kachalla  said.
Two weeks ago, Boko Haram gunmen shot dead 10 loggers  from Gamboru in the bush outside Wulgo while collecting  firewood, said another militia Shehu 

Over 30 loggers 'abducted by Boko Haram' in Nigeria: sources

The head of Lebanon's powerful  Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement has said he was confident  protests in Iran would be brought under control and leave US  President Donald Trump disappointed.
"There is nothing to worry about and what happened in  Iran is well contained," Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview  to Al-Mayadeen, a TV channel close to his movement.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief proclaimed the "end of  the sedition" yesterday as tens of thousands of people rallied  in a show of solidarity with the regime.
Protests over economic problems broke out in Iran's  second city Mashhad last week and quickly spread across the  country, turning against the regime as a whole.
The rare protests drew vocal support from Trump, who on  yesterday vowed to back demonstrators and called the Iranian  "brutal and corrupt".
"Trump's hopes have been disappointed," Nasrallah said,  as will the hopes of "all those who bet that the protests  would grow and lead to the fall of the regime and chaos 

Iran protests will leave Trump disappointed: Hezbollah

A convicted paedophile appeared  before a court in Berlin today charged with raping six  children - the youngest just five years-old - while working in  India, local media reported.
The 59-year-old man, named as Karl-Heinz N, was convicted  in 1996 by a court in Thailand for sexual offences against  minors, the reports said.
According to the regional RBB television channel,  investigators in Germany discovered more than 250,000 images  and videos of child pornography on a hard drive at the man's  Berlin flat.
He is accused of raping six children between five and 11  years old in 2015-2016 while working in India, the DPA news  agency said.
The man "had a large number of boys and young teenagers,  some of which lived nearby, who worked for him on whom he  performed sexual acts and filmed them," prosecutors were  quoted as saying by DPA.
RBB said the man had spent four years in a Thai jail  before being freed under an amnesty.

Germany paedophile on trial for raping Indian children

Alcohol damages the DNA of stem cells  responsible for producing new blood, according to a mouse  study which may explain the link between drinking and cancer,  scientists said today.
Health watchdogs have long warned that alcohol  consumption contributes to seven types of cancer - of the  mouth, throat, larynx or voice box, oesophagus or food pipe,  breast, liver and bowel.
What was not well understood was: how?
For the new study, published in the science journal  Nature, researchers gave lab mice diluted alcohol, known  chemically as ethanol.
They then used chromosome and DNA analysis to examine  genetic damage caused by acetaldehyde, a chemical produced  when the body processes alcohol.
"They found that acetaldehyde can break and damage DNA  within blood stem cells, leading to rearranged chromosomes and  permanently altering the DNA sequences within these cells,"  Cancer Research UK, which helped fund the research, said in a  statement.
"It is important to understand how the DNA ...

Mouse study shows how alcohol may cause cancer

A baby girl who died in Alaska some  11,500 years ago belonged to a formerly-unknown population  group whose discovery has shed light on the peopling of the  Americas, a study of her genome revealed today.
By decoding the child's genetic fingerprint, scientists  could look back on the history of the first people to conquer  the New World, and conclude they likely arrived from Siberia  some 20,000 years ago.
"The study provides the first direct genomic evidence  that all Native American ancestry can be traced back to the  same source population during the last Ice Age," researcher  Ben Potter of the University of Alaska told AFP.
Potter and a team analysed the DNA of an infant whose  remains were unearthed at the Upward Sun River archaeological  site in Alaska in 2013.
She was named Xach'itee'aanenh T'eede Gaay (Sunrise  Girlchild) by the indigenous community, and her genome  "provided an unprecedented window into the history of her  people", said Potter.
The team had expected the ...

Ancient infant helps scientists unravel America's genetic

Petrobras has agreed to pay  USD 2.95 billion to settle a class action suit in New York  brought on behalf of investors harmed by a huge corruption  scandal at the Brazilian state oil giant, the company said  today.
"The agreement, which is subject to approval by the  court, is intended to resolve all pending and prospective  claims by purchasers of Petrobras securities in the United  States and by purchasers of Petrobras securities that are  listed for trading in the United States," Petrobras said in a  statement filed with Brazilian and US market regulators.
The oil company, which admits no guilt under the  settlement, proposes making the payment in two USD 983 million  installments, followed by a third payment of USD 984 million.
The first payment would be made within 10 days of the  settlement's preliminary approval by the judge, the second  within 10 days of a definitive green light and the final one  within six months or by January 15, 2019, whichever comes  first.
The ...

Petrobras agrees to pay nearly USD 3 bn to settle US suit

An Israeli military court has  charged three Palestinians with planning "terrorist" attacks  on behalf of arch-foe Iran, security agency Shin Bet said  today.
Shin Bet said its agents and the Israeli military had  arrested three men from the city of Hebron in the occupied  West Bank but its statement did not specify when.
The agency named the alleged ringleader as Mahmud  Makharmeh, 29, a computer engineering student and said his  accomplices were Nur Makharmeh, 22, and Diaa Sarakhneh, 22.
It did not say if the Makharmehs were related.
The statement said the group "was run by Iranian  intelligence and was recruited and financed by an Iranian  intelligence operative living in South Africa."
"It has been learned that Iranian intelligence has been  using South Africa as a significant centre for locating,  recruiting and operating agents against Israel," the English-  language statement added.
It said Mahmud Makharmeh travelled to South Africa where  he met several times with Iranian ...

Israel charges Palestinians with spying for Iran

US President Donald Trump  unleashed a spectacular denunciation of one of his closest  political allies today, describing his former White House  chief strategist Steve Bannon as insane and irrelevant.
"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency.  When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his  mind," Trump said in a statement that was notably abrasive,  even for America's combative 45th president.
Trump said Bannon -- who engineered the New York real  estate mogul's link to the nationalist far right and helped  create a pro-Trump media ecosystem -- was "only in it for  himself.

Trump denounces ex aide Bannon, says he's 'lost his mind'

Peruvian rescue workers were combing a  river today for 16 people missing after the bridge they were  on collapsed in a valley northwest of the mountain-top ruins  of Machu Picchu, officials said.
The bridge, close to the village of Kimbiri, collapsed  yesterday following hours of heavy seasonal rains in the  southeastern region. At least 30 people were walking across it  at the time, the civil defense authority said.
Fifteen of the people were saved and taken to hospital  with injuries.
But 16 plunged into the Kimbiri river and were swept  away.
An army helicopter, navy launches and a fire brigade were  searching for them, officials said. Fire officers said the  rains had greatly strengthened currents in the river.
The bridge was built in 2015 and was closed to traffic  for maintenance, according to local authorities in Kimbiri.
The village is around 150 kilometres northwest of the  Machu Picchu ruins.

Peru bridge collapse drops dozens into river; 16 missing

Former White House chief  strategist Steve Bannon has described a meeting between  President Donald Trump's son Don Jr and a Russian lawyer  during the 2016 presidential election campaign as "treasonous"  and "unpatriotic," The Guardian reported today.
Bannon made the scathing comments in a book to be  published next week -- the "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump  White House," by journalist Michael Wolff, the newspaper said.
"They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on  national TV," Bannon reportedly said.
Bannon, who left the White House in August, was also  quoted as saying that the investigation by special counsel  Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016  presidential election will focus on money laundering.
Bannon, an executive with right-wing news outlet  Breitbart News, joined Trump's White House bid two months  after the June 9, 2016 meeting between Russian lawyer Natalia  Veselnitskaya and Trump campaign officials.
Besides Donald Trump Jr, Trump's son-in-law .

Trump Tower meeting with Russians 'treasonous': Bannon

The  Palestinian Authority said today it had agreed to restore  payments for electricity in the Gaza Strip after a cut in June  worsened a power crisis in the blockaded enclave.
The electricity payments have been a key issue in ongoing  efforts at reconciliation between Hamas, the Islamist movement  that runs the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian president Mahmud  Abbas's Fatah.
A cut in PA payments to Israel to supply power to Gaza in  June reduced the amount being delivered to the Palestinian  territory by some 50 megawatts.
Many residents had been left with around four hours of  electricity per day as a result.

Palestinian Authority agrees to restore Gaza electricity

Israel's parliament today gave  preliminary approval to a bill making it easier for  "terrorists" to be sentenced to death after a push by right-  wing politicians for the deeply controversial legislation.
The bill, approved 52-49, would ease the requirements  military courts must meet to sentence those convicted of  "terrorist" crimes to death. Israel has not carried out any  executions since 1962.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voted in favour of the  legislation, saying it was necessary in extreme cases. It  requires three more votes in parliament to become law.
As the law stands now, a panel of three military judges  must unanimously approve any death penalty in military courts.
The bill, put forward at the initiative of Defence  Minister Avigdor Lieberman, would change the requirement to a  majority instead of unanimity.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank face military  courts when arrested by Israel.
Israel abolished the use of capital punishment for murder  in civil ...

Israeli lawmakers advance bill on death penalty for terrorists

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief  announced the "end of the sedition" today as tens of thousands  rallied in a show of strength for the country's Islamic rulers  after days of deadly unrest.
General Mohammad Ali Jafari said the Guards only  intervened "in a limited way" against fewer than 15,000  "trouble-makers" nationwide, adding that a large number had  been arrested.
Protests over economic problems broke out in Iran's  second city Mashhad on December 28 and quickly spread across  the country, turning against the regime as a whole.
A total of 21 people have died in the unrest, with  protesters attacking government buildings and police stations  in some areas.
"Today we can announce the end of the sedition," Jafari  said, quoted on the Guards' website.
"A large number of the trouble-makers at the centre of  the sedition, who received training from counter-  revolutionaries... have been arrested and there will be firm  action against them," he said.
Jafari spoke after thousands of ..

Iran general declares 'end of the sedition'

A homeless man hailed as a hero for  apparently coming to the aid of victims of the Manchester  Arena terror attack last year admitted today he had instead  robbed them.
CCTV footage played in court showed Chris Parker  wandering between victims bleeding on the floor after the  bombing outside a pop concert in the northern English city in  which 22 people were killed.
Parker, 33, was seen in the footage taking a purse from  the handbag of Pauline Healey, whose 14-year-old granddaughter  lay dying nearby, and he later used her bank card at a local  McDonald's, the court heard.
He was interviewed by British media in the aftermath of  the attack carried out by Salman Abedi, saying he had been  begging outside the concert arena when the bomb went off.
A tearful Parker told the Press Association news agency  at the time: "I heard a bang and within a split second I saw a  white flash, then smoke and then I heard screaming."
"It knocked me to the floor and then I got up and instead  of ...

Manchester attack 'hero' admits stealing from victims

Investors are suing  Germany's biggest lender Deutsche Bank for 740 million euros,  alleging they were underpaid for shares in subsidiary  Postbank, local media reported today.
At the heart of the suit is the question of when Deutsche  took control of Postbank from its previous owner, logistics  firm Deutsche Post.
The investors argue that Deutsche Bank was already in de  facto control of Postbank two years before it launched a full  takeover of the bank.
"Deutsche Bank intervened significantly in Postbank's  business and took over control" as early as 2008, two years  before it bought out the plaintiffs' shares, their Munich-  based lawyer Oliver Krauss told business weekly  WirtschaftsWoche.
The shareholders say they should therefore have been paid  the value of their stock as it stood in September 2008 --  around 64 euros per share -- when Deutsche controlled just 30  percent of Postbank, rather than the 25 euros they received in  the full takeover two years later.
Some 31 German ..

Deutsche Bank faces new 740 mln-euro claim

Iran's Revolutionary Guards today  said that the unrest that had rocked Iran over several days  was at an end, and that a maximum of 15,000 people had taken  part nationwide.
"Today we can announce the end of the sedition," Mohammad  Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said on its  website.
"There were a maximum of 1,500 people in each place and  the number of trouble-makers did not exceed 15,000 people  nationwide," he added.

AFP

AFP

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