A lawyer for Donald Trump's  transition team has alleged special counsel Robert Mueller  unlawfully received tens of thousands of emails, in the latest  attack on the credibility of the probe into Russian meddling  in the US election.
With the ex-FBI director's investigation making inroads  into the president's inner circle in recent weeks, Republicans  have cast doubt on its impartiality and pressed for a new  independent prosecutor to investigate anti-Trump bias.
This in turn has led to speculation that the  administration could be laying the groundwork for firing  Mueller.
In a letter to congressional committees, Trump campaign  lawyer Kory Langhofer alleged the General Services  Administration (GSA) "unlawfully produced" private materials,  including privileged communications which Mueller then used as  part of his Russia probe.
GSA is the government agency which supports presidential  transitions -- the interim period after a new president is  elected but before he takes ...

Trump team claims Russia investigator 'unlawfully' got emails

PTI Automatic

Germany should appoint an anti-  Semitism commissioner to counter growing hate speech against  Jews and Israel from both its home-grown far right and the  immigrant community, the interior minister said today.
Thomas de Maiziere spoke days after protesters in Berlin  burnt Israeli flags to protest the US decision to recognise  Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
"Every criminal act motivated by anti-Semitism is one too  many and a shame for our country," de Maiziere, the caretaker  minister since inconclusive September elections, told the Bild  am Sonntag newspaper.
"Anti-Semitism must never again take hold in Germany," he  said, pointing to a rise of "derogatory remarks, inappropriate  jokes and discriminatory behaviour against our Jewish  citizens".
He condemned the recent flag-burnings as "the symbolic  destruction of a country's right to exist", while Defence  Minister Ursula von der Leyen also said such expressions of  hate were "unbearable".
De Maiziere said when Germany has a new 

Germany vows to fight local and 'imported' anti-Semitism

IAAF chief Lord Sebastian Coe  believes Russia is showing a significant change in its  attitude to tackling the doping scandal that saw the nation  exiled from world athletics.
Russia has been banned from international athletics  competition since November 2015 after doping issues.
The country's anti-doping agency, RUSADA, is also yet to  be declared fully compliant by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Russian athletes have also effectively been banned from  next year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, unless they can  satisfy stringent drug-testing regulations in order to compete  as neutrals.
Coe indicated there are reasons for hope that Russia is  finally dealing with the problem, but he said the IAAF would  still resist setting any time-scale for the nation's  reintegration into athletics.
"We made a decision that in a way was quite different to  the one the IOC was confronted with," Coe told BBC Radio Five  Live on Sunday.
"I've had 149 or 150 positive tests in the sport, from  Russia 

Russia making progress over doping says Coe

Forget mistletoe, Christmas is not  Christmas in Italy without a slice of panettone -- and  festivities kicked off in Milan today with free slices of the  biggest Italian candied cake in the world.
Weighing in at 140 kilogrammes, the two-metre (over six  foot) high marvel was sliced up into 1,200 pieces for sweet-  toothed tourists and locals at the Victor Emmanuel II shopping  gallery near the city's Gothic cathedral.
"Panettone is the Christmas dessert par excellence.  Fashions may change, but panettone remains an unshakable  tradition," Angelo Bernasconi, owner of the San Gregorio  patisserie behind the giant dome-shaped delight, told AFP.
The Milanese factory makes the traditional cake with its  candied fruits and raisins not just for Italy but around the  world, with some 200 of the golden buns headed to a New York  caterer alone each week.
In the run-up to Christmas "we never stop," says  Bernasconi's partner Savino Moretti, who is retired but comes  twice a week to pass on his .

Italy bakes world's biggest Christmas cake panettone

Former world champion Nicol  David believes she can still win another major title despite  being well into her 35th year.
David lost a recent World Championship quarter-final to  the second-seeded Egyptian Raneem El Welily in four games.
But the Malaysian, an eight-time world title winner,  believes she is still gradually adapting to the profound  changes in tactics and techniques in the women's game in the  last two years.
David's last big title was the Hong Kong Open in December  2015, since when her superbly athletic and subtlely patterned  game has been rendered less effective by a lowering of the tin  by two inches to the 17 inches used in the men's game.
David does not believe age is the main factor in a  failure to add to her 81 titles, and thinks a world ranking at  six still provides an adequate platform from which to tackle  younger, more naturally aggressive players.
"It's just that I've had to learn so much in the last few  years," she said.
"The game is really different ..

David won't give up quest for more glory

Pope Francis celebrated his  81st birthday today with a hero cake and a message urging the  world -- and children in particular -- to join in the holiday  mood and be joyful.
The Argentine pontiff thanked the crowds gathered in  Saint Peter's Square for the Angelus prayer as they sang happy  birthday, and was expected to slice into his birthday cake  after lunch.
It sports a picture of the pope carrying the world on his  shoulders, designed by Italian graffiti artist MauPal.
The artist -- whose real name is Mauro Pallotta --  famously depicted Francis as Superman in 2014 and has since  begun supporting Vatican charitable projects by selling T-  shirts bearing the flying pope.
The pear and cinnamon delight shows Francis in his white  cassock, holding up with one hand the world, which is divided  in two but stitched back together -- a symbol of the pope's  unifying force, Rome pastry maker Hedera said.
Francis's birthday this year falls on Gaudete Sunday,  which the church marks as a ...

Cake for 'joyful' pope on his 81st birthday

At least 11 Afghan police officers  were killed today when Taliban fighters assaulted their  checkpoints in volatile Helmand province in southern  Afghanistan, authorities said.
The assaults on two police post are the latest in a  series of deadly attacks on Afghan security forces claimed by  the Taliban.
Taliban insurgents launched the attacks in the early  morning in the Qalai Sang area of the provincial capital  Lashkar Gah.
"Our police fought them back, but unfortunately 11 of our  police were martyred and two wounded," provincial governor  Hayatullah Hayat told AFP, adding that the militants fled  after the attack.
Provincial police chief Ghafar Safi said 15 Taliban  fighters were also killed during the skirmish.
After 16 years of war the resurgent militants show no  signs of fatigue, ramping up their campaign against  beleaguered government forces, underscoring rising insecurity  in the war-torn country.
Afghan police and troops -- beset by a high death toll,  desertions and ...

Eleven killed in attacks on police in Afghanistan

Australia were confident rain would  not deny them the Ashes despite play being abandoned early on  the fourth day of the third Test against England in Perth on  Sunday.
The home side lead the five-Test series 2-0 and a win in  the last-ever Ashes Test to be played at the WACA Ground would  see them regain the urn, and at stumps on the fourth day they  could smell victory despite the showers sweeping across Perth  and predicted to continue into the final day's play.
Trailing by 259 runs in the first innings after Australia  declared at 662 for nine, England were 132 for four when  stumps was called early after a rain-interrupted final  session, with Dawid Malan on 28 and Jonny Bairstow on 14,  still behind by 127 runs.
Australian pacemen Josh Hazlewood, who claimed the  wickets of opener Alastair Cook and Mark Stoneman said the  home side didn't expect rain to stand in their way.
"We've looked at it (weather forecast) a little bit," he  said.
"I think there is just some rain tomorrow .

Australia poised to secure Ashes despite rain

Scoreboard at stumps on day four in  the third Ashes Test in Perth today:
England first innings 403
Australia first innings
C Bancroft lbw b Overton
25
D Warner c Bairstow b Overton
22
U Khawaja lbw b Woakes
50
S Smith lbw b Anderson
239
S Marsh c Root b Ali
28
M Marsh lbw b Anderson
181
T Paine not out
49
M Starc run out
1
P Cummins lbw b Anderson
41
N Lyon c Ali b Anderson
4
Extras (b4, lb16, nb1, w1)
22
Total (for nine wickets; 179.3 overs)
662
Fall of wickets: 1-44, 2-55, 3-179, 4-248, 5-549, 6-560,  7-561, 8-654, 9-662
Bowling: Anderson 37.3-9-116-4, Broad 35-3-142-0, Woakes  41-8-128-1, Overton 24-1-110-2, Ali 33-4-120-1, Root 3-0-13-0,  Malan 6-1-13-0.
England second innings
A Cook c and b Hazlewood
14
M Stoneman c Paine b Hazlewood
3
J Vince b Starc
55
J Root c Smith b Lyon
14
D Malan batting
28
J Bairstow batting
14
Extras (lb4)
4
Total (for four wickets; 38.2 overs)
132
Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-29, 3-60, 4-100
Bowling: Starc 10-3-32-1, Hazlewood 9-3-23-2, M Marsh 3-  1-14-0, .

Perth, Dec 17 (AFP) Scoreboard at stumps on day four in

Four people were killed and seven  injured today in a fire at an establishment near Tokyo  offering sexual services, Japanese police said.
Aerial footage on public broadcaster NHK showed grey  smoke pouring from a concrete building in the city of Saitama,  25 kilometres north of Tokyo, as dozens of firefighters  battled the blaze.
It took about five hours to extinguish the fire.
"A man who appeared to be in his 40s and two women who  appeared to be in their 20s died after being sent to a  hospital," a police spokesman told AFP.
"We also found a body whose gender is undetermined inside  the establishment," he added.
The seven people were slightly injured and treated in  hospital.
The emergency services received calls from people inside  the establishment saying they could not escape because the  building was filled with smoke, according to NHK.
Police are investigating what caused the fire and the  identity of the people who died.

Four killed, seven hurt in Japan sex service fire

Landslides triggered  by Tropical Storm Kai-Tak have killed 26 people and 23 more  are missing in the eastern Philippines, authorities said  today.
The deaths were reported in the small island province of  Biliran, a day after the storm pounded the east of the  archipelago nation.
Kai-Tak tore across the major islands of Samar and Leyte  on Saturday, toppling power lines in 39 towns or cities and  damaging roads and bridges, the national disaster agency said.
Some 87,700 people were forced from their homes in the  region. But the previous death toll had stood at just three.
"There is a total of 26 people dead from landslides in  four towns of Biliran. We have recovered the bodies," Sofronio  Dacillo, provincial disaster risk reduction and management  officer, told AFP.
Gerardo Espina, governor of the island province just east  of Leyte, gave the same figure for deaths in an interview on  ABS-CBN television. He said 23 people were missing.
The national disaster risk reduction agency ...

26 dead in landslides after Philippine storm: officials

The number of new asylum seekers in  Germany has fallen for a second year in a row following the  mass influx that peaked in 2015, the government said today.
For all of 2017, "I presume a total of fewer than 200,000  migrants," Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere was quoted as  saying by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
The EU's top economy has taken in more than one million  asylum seekers since 2015, around half from conflict-torn  Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, in a mass intake that sparked a  xenophobic backlash.
The total for 2015 reached 890,000, but arrivals slowed  sharply after several Balkans transit countries shuttered  their borders and the EU in March 2016 reached a deal with  Turkey to stop crossings to the Greek islands.
Arrivals of new asylum seekers to Germany fell back to  around 280,000 in 2016.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under strong pressure  for her liberal immigration policy, and her Bavarian allies  the CSU have long pushed for a maximum intake of 200,000  .

Migrant arrivals in Germany fall for second year in a row

Landslides triggered by Tropical  Storm Kai-Tak have killed 26 people in the central Philippine  island of Biliran, authorities said today, a day after the  storm pounded the east of the archipelago nation.
"There is a total of 26 people dead from landslides in  four towns of Biliran. We have recovered the bodies," Sofronio  Dacillo, Biliran provincial disaster risk reduction and  management officer, told AFP.
Gerardo Espina, governor of the island province east of  the much larger island of Leyte, gave the same figure for  deaths in an interview on ABS-CBN television.

26 dead from landslides after Philippine storm: officials

Iran shut primary schools in the  capital and other parts of the country on Sunday due to  choking levels of air pollution.
Local authorities late Saturday announced the closure of  all primary schools in the province of Tehran, which is home  to 14 million residents, except in two towns.
A blanket of smog has covered neighbourhoods in the  capital in the past few days.
Airborne concentration of fine particles (PM2.5) hit 185  microgrammes per cubic metre in the south of Tehran and 174 in  its centre on Sunday morning, local authorities said.
Authorities also ordered mines and cement factories in  Tehran province to close and reinforced regular traffic  restrictions in the capital's centre.
They called on the elderly, children, pregnant women and  people with heart problems to stay indoors.
In the northwestern cities of Tabriz and Urmia, schools  remained closed for the second day straight on Sunday,  official news agency IRNA said.
Every year, Tehran suffers some of the worst ...

Heavy air pollution shuts schools in Iran

Flights at Israel's main airport  were suspended today as part of a strike against plans by  pharmaceutical giant Teva to shed employees, airport sources  said.
Air traffic at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv came to a  halt at 0600 GMT after the Jewish state's powerful Histadrut  trade union called for the strike which was set to last for  four hours.
Many flights set to depart on Sunday morning were  rescheduled to leave earlier so only seven flights were  cancelled due to the strike, the sources said.
Teva will make 1,750 employees redundant in Israel as  part of plans to slash 14,000 jobs globally over two years,  according to Histadrut head Avi Nissenkorn.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world's largest  producer of generic drugs, has said its reductions would be  across-the-board and in all its locations.
The cuts would amount to more than a quarter of the  Israeli drugmaker's global workforce of over 55,000, of which  fewer than 7,000 work in Israel.
The "solidarity" strike ..

Strike stops flights at Israel's main airport

A three-man space  crew featuring American and Japanese rookie astronauts as well  as an experienced Russian cosmonaut blasted off today for a  six-month mission at the International Space Station.
Scott Tingle of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and  Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency  powered into the sky in a Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft from the  Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:21 pm (local time),  according to footage aired by the Russian space agency.

Two rookie astronauts, cosmonaut blast off to ISS

A Taiwanese steel firm behind a toxic  spill that killed tonnes of fish in central Vietnam last year  was fined for a second time for illegally burying "harmful"  waste, official sources said today.
The deadly dump from Formosa's USD 11 billion steel plant  in Ha Tinh province sparked one of the country's worst  environmental catastrophes, decimating livelihoods along  swathes of coastline and prompting months of rare protests in  the authoritarian country.
The firm was initially fined USD 500 million for pouring  toxic chemicals -- including cyanide -- into the ocean in  April 2016, and has now been ordered to pay an additional USD  25,000 on separate charges of burying harmful solid waste in  the ground, according to the official Cong Ly newspaper.
A local contractor will also be fined USD 20,000 for  helping to dispose of the 100 cubic metres of waste, added  Cong Ly, the mouthpiece of the Supreme Court.
An official in Ha Tinh province confirmed the latest fine  to AFP today, ...

Taiwan steel firm behind toxic dump in Vietnam fined again

England finally found a way to remove  Australian captain Steve Smith on the fourth day of the third  Ashes Test in Perth today.
Smith was one of three Australian wickets to fall in  quick succession before lunch in a marked reversal of  England's fortunes from their horrendous third day.
However, it did not stop Australia from extending their  lead to a massive 240 as they reached 643 for 7 at lunch on  the fourth day, with Tim Paine on 41 and Pat Cummins on 36, in  reply to England's 403 all out.
The home side lead the five-Test series 2-0 and have five  sessions remaining to secure the Ashes with by winning the  last-ever Test to be played the WACA Ground.
England's hopes of staying alive in the five-match series  seemed to be resting with the weather, as rain was forecast to  hit Perth later on Sunday afternoon.
Smith resumed on 229 and added just 10 runs before being  adjudged leg before wicket on review after James Anderson's  confident shout had been turned down by on-field ...

Smith's epic ends as Australia stretch lead to 240

Atletico Madrid leapfrogged Valencia  into second in La Liga thanks to Fernando Torres's first goal  at the Wanda Metropolitano to edge out Alaves 1-0.
Valencia remain five points off leaders Barcelona in  third after falling to a second defeat in three matches 2-1 at  Eibar.
Barca can regain their six-point lead over Atletico and  open up an 11-point gap over Real Madrid ahead of next  weekend's El Clasico between the two with victory over  Deportivo la Coruna on Sunday.
Atletico remain unbeaten in La Liga this season, but had  to wait until 16 minutes from time to breakdown a dogged  Alaves, who had won their first two matches since Abelardo  Fernandez was named the club's third coach of the season  earlier this month.
Torres had only been on the pitch six minutes when he  stretched to fire home Sime Vrsaljko's cross for his first  league goal of the season.
"I'm very happy to get the goal. When you score you  always have the feeling that you have done a good job," Torres  told BeIN 

Torres lifts Atletico above beaten Valencia

Cristiano Ronaldo insisted he  wants to finish his playing career at Real Madrid after making  more history with the goal that saw the Spanish giants crowned  world champions.
Ronaldo scored the only goal of the Club World Cup final  against Gremio to win the tournament for the fourth time and  become the all-time top scorer in the competition with seven  goals.
"I would really like to, but things don't depend on me.  What depends on me is what I do on the pitch," said Ronaldo,  when asked if he planned to retire at Madrid.
"I am not the one who runs the club, that is for those in  charge.
"My job is on the pitch and I think I am doing it well,  the rest I can't control."
Ronaldo, 32, signed a new deal to 2021 with the club just  over a year ago, but sparked speculation over his future after  leading Madrid to the Champions League in June due to his  apparent discontent with the club's lack of involvement in a  tax case brought against him by Spanish prosecutors.
The Portuguese ...

A modern day Di Stefano, Ronaldo wants to retire at Real

Cristiano Ronaldo's second-half  free-kick ensured Real Madrid picked up a fifth trophy of 2017  by beating Gremio 1-0 in Abu Dhabi to retain the Club World  Cup.
A third Club World Cup in four years brings Madrid level  with rivals Barcelona as the most successful side in the  competition's history and adds to the La Liga, Champions  League, UEFA Super Cup and Spanish Super Cup titles already  won by Zinedine Zidane's men this year.
Ronaldo was once again Real's man for the big occasion as  his strike went through the Gremio wall eight minutes after  the break to ensure the European club champions were also  crowned world champions for a fifth straight year.
"We wanted to win because Real Madrid have never won five  trophies in one year," said Ronaldo.
"I think we played a very good game and deserved to win."
Ronaldo has now scored 15 goals in 20 appearances for  Madrid this season despite a slow start in La Liga.
"The numbers speak for themselves," added the Portuguese.  "I give my .

AFP

AFP

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