New Zealand police today ruled  out laying criminal charges over the catastrophic collapse of  a office block that claimed 115 lives in the 2011 Christchurch  earthquake.
The CTV building crumpled then burst into flames after  the 6.3-magnitude tremor on February 22, 2011, killing those  trapped inside, including 65 foreign students mainly from  Japan and China.
After a four-year investigation, police said they did not  have enough evidence to proceed with negligent manslaughter  charges against the engineers responsible for the building.
"The evidence available is not sufficient to provide a  reasonable prospect of conviction in court," police said in a  statement.
The building's collapse accounted for almost two thirds  of the 185 deaths in New Zealand's worst quake for 80 years,  which flattened the downtown area of the South Island's  largest city.
A royal commission concluded in 2012 that the six-storey,  1980s-era office block was so badly designed it should never  have received 

New Zealand says no charges over killer quake building

PTI Automatic

Dutch prosecutors are  investigating how a Bosnian Croat war criminal managed to  dramatically take his own life, apparently after drinking  poison he had smuggled into a UN court, in scenes that were  broadcast live.
In shocking footage beamed around the world, Slobodan  Praljak drank from a small brown glass bottle and exclaimed he  had taken poison moments after UN judges upheld his 20-year  jail term for atrocities committed during the 1990s Balkans  conflict.
The 72-year-old died in hospital after being rushed from  the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia  (ICTY), casting a cloud over what should have been a  successful end to the court's tenure.
Prosecutors said their investigation would focus on what  killed Praljak and whether he had received any outside help in  obtaining the suspected poison.
"For the time being the inquiry will focus on assisted  suicide and violation of the Medicines Act," the Public  Prosecution Service said in a statement late ...

Dutch probe Bosnian war criminal's live UN court suicide

Japan will investigate 10 people who  have signalled they are from North Korea after their  dilapidated boat drifted into waters off the northern Japanese  island of Hokkaido, officials said today.
The coastguard spotted the vessel yesterday, the latest  in a recent spate of sightings of wrecked or capsized boats  from North Korea, sometimes with dead bodies aboard.
A crew member told the coastguard they were 10 North  Korean nationals sheltering from stormy weather, said  coastguard spokesman Yuuichi Chiba.
"They gestured 'yes' or 'no' to the questions we put on  our electronic message board," said Chiba.
"We are now towing the boat to calmer water and plan to  hold an on-site inspection inside the boat this afternoon," he  added.
The incident came days after a group of eight fishermen  claiming to be from North Korea washed up in northern Akita  prefecture.
And earlier this week, 10 bodies were found inside a  battered wooden boat in Akita.
Dozens of North Korean fishing vessels ...

Ten N Koreans drift into Japanese waters: coastguard

A Turkish-Iranian gold trader paid  millions of dollars in bribes to Ankara's former economy  minister to facilitate illegal gold transactions with  sanctions-hit Iran, the trader has testified.
Reza Zarrab had been due to go on trial on Tuesday in  Manhattan federal court, but the prosecution made clear that  Zarrab was, instead, their star witness.
The lone man in the dock is now Turkish banker Mehmet  Hakan Atilla, accused of violating sanctions against Iran,  bribery and money laundering.
The case has provoked the ire of Turkish President Recep  Tayyip Erdogan, further straining ties between NATO allies  Washington and Ankara.
Analysts believe revelations in the trial could implicate  Turks close to Erdogan. Ankara had demanded for months that  Zarrab be freed to avoid the trial.
Turkey has alleged the case is a conspiracy by the  movement run by Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric Fethullah  Gulen, whom Turkey blames for a coup attempt against Erdogan  last year.
Zarrab, 34, ...

Gold trader tells US court: I paid ex-Turk minister over Iran

Representatives for Norway, western  Europe's biggest oil producer, appeared in an Oslo court today  after environmental groups including Greenpeace brought a case  over drilling in the Arctic.
Greenpeace, along with environmentalist youth group Natur  og Ungdom (Nature and Youth), has sued the Norwegian state  over licences it awarded in 2016 for oil prospecting in the  Barents Sea.
A third group, called the Grandparents Climate Campaign,  has also joined the case against the state.
The plaintiffs accuse Norway of violating the Paris  Agreement on climate change and a section of the country's  constitution amended in 2014 that guarantees the right to a  healthy environment.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Cathrine Hambro, asked the  court in her opening remarks to determine whether the decision  to carry out oil prospecting was "within the existing  guidelines for decisions that can have irreversible  consequences," news agency NTB reported.
The organisations claim their lawsuit was the 

Environmentalists take Norway to court over Arctic drilling

The US Justice Department says  it has asked prosecutors to examine alleged misconduct at the  Clinton Foundation and the controversial Obama-era sale of a  uranium firm to Russia, and whether a special counsel might be  needed to investigate.
The move, disclosed in a letter to lawmakers, came as  Attorney General Jeff Sessions was poised to testify today  about election year contacts between members of the Trump  campaign and Russia.
As the former head of the Trump campaign's foreign policy  advisory team, Sessions can expect a tough grilling from  Democrats about what he knew about the contacts.
Sessions has previously testified under oath that he had  no knowledge of any collusion with the Russians, but a probe  by special counsel Robert Mueller has uncovered contacts by  lower level campaign advisers.
As the Russia election meddling probe has heated up, US  President Donald Trump as well as Republican lawmakers have  called for a probe into Hillary Clinton and the sale of a  ...

US Justice Department mulls special prosecutor to probe

Malaysia's first locally-born  giant panda headed to its homeland China today, with officials  bidding a sad goodbye to the female cub.
Two-year-old Nuan Nuan, whose name means "warmth", was  born in Malaysia's national zoo in August 2015 a year after  her parents Feng Yi and Fu Wa arrived in the country on a 10-  year loan from China.
In the wild, giant pandas can only be found in China's  mountainous central regions where their favourite food,  bamboo, grows in abundance.
But as part of its policy of "panda diplomacy", Beijing  loans the animals to countries worldwide as a goodwill  gesture.
Its agreement with Malaysia provides that cubs born in  captivity must be handed back to China at the age of two.
Nuan Nuan was placed inside a container Tuesday and  lifted into a Malaysia Airlines freighter for a four and a  half hour flight to the Chinese city of Chengdu -- home to a  special research base for giant panda breeding.
The cub was seen lying comfortably on its stomach with  ...

Sad farewell as Malaysia-born panda heads to China

US President Donald  Trump said today that he personally asked Chinese leader Xi  Jinping to intervene on behalf of three US college basketball  players arrested in China for alleged shoplifting and  expressed hope they would soon be sent home.
Trump told reporters that he brought up the case in talks  with Xi during his two-day state visit to Beijing last week.
"He was terrific, and they're working on it right now.  And hopefully everything is going to work out," Trump told  reporters in the Philippines aboard Air Force One at the  conclusion of his five-nation tour of Asia.
"But that was not a good subject. That was not something  that should have happened," Trump added, calling it a "very,  very rough situation with what happened to them," providing no  details.
UCLA players LiAngelo Ball -- the younger brother of Los  Angeles Lakers rookie star Lonzo Ball -- and teammates Cody  Riley and Jalen Hill were arrested last Tuesday in Hangzhou  ahead of their regular-season-opening game .

'Terrific' Xi working to release arrested UCLA players:Trump

The European Union's policy of  helping the Libyan authorities intercept migrants in the  Mediterranean and return them to "horrific" prisons in Libya  is "inhuman", the United Nations said today.
"The suffering of migrants detained in Libya is an  outrage to the conscience of humanity," the UN human rights  chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement, which blasted  "the European Union's policy of assisting the Libyan Coast  Guard to intercept and return migrants in the Mediterranean  (as) inhuman.

EU cooperation with Libya to stem migrant flow 'inhuman': UN

Months into a dispute that has seen  Doha cut off from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Qatar's emir said  today his country was "a thousand times better off" without  them.
In a speech to the Shura Council, the upper house of  parliament, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said his  government had nonetheless put in place contingency plans as  he expected the bitter political dispute with his neighbours  and former allies to drag on.
"We do not fear the boycott of these countries against  us, we are a thousand times better off without them," the emir  told members of the council and foreign dignitaries in Doha.
"But vigilance is required," he added.
Sheikh Tamim nonetheless said his government was working  on "introducing a number of food security projects" and had  "given special attention to water security" as it looked to a  future without its former Arab allies.
Iran, Turkey and most recently Spain have stepped in to  help Qatar secure food imports amid a boycott by four Arab  ...

Qatar 'thousand times better off' without Gulf allies: emir

A fifth woman has accused  Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct,  claiming he assaulted her when she was a teenager, as the  evangelical conservative came under mounting party pressure to  quit the Alabama election.
Moore -- a former state supreme court judge running a  tight race against a Democratic lawyer -- denies any  wrongdoing, calling the allegations "absolutely false."
But Beverly Young Nelson claimed the now 70-year-old  grandfather sexually assaulted her when she was a 16-year-old  waitress and he was a county district attorney twice her age  around January 1978.
Nelson, who is now a 55-year-old businesswoman in  Alabama, told reporters in New York yesterday that Moore, a  regular in the restaurant where she worked, one night offered  to drive her home after she finished her shift.
But he instead parked between a dumpster and the back of  the restaurant, in a dark and deserted spot, locking the car  so she could not get out.
Moore then groped her and ..

5th woman accuses US Republican candidate of sexual misconduct

Austrian activist Max Schrems  can sue Facebook over alleged privacy breaches, but cannot  bring a class action lawsuit against the US social media  giant, the adviser to the EU's top court said today.
Schrems is suing Facebook's Irish division in an Austrian  court for various alleged rights violations including tracking  of user data and involvement in the US National Security  Agency's PRISM surveillance programme.
He had also lodged cases on behalf of seven other  Facebook users in Austria, Germany and India.
Facebook had challenged the jurisdiction of the Austrian  courts in the case, and argued that Schrems's professional  activities on his account meant he was no longer a private  consumer.
The advocate general to the European Court of Justice  said in a legal opinion that Schrems "may be able to rely on  his consumer status in order to sue Facebook Ireland before  the Austrian courts."
"However, Schrems cannot rely on his consumer status with  respect to claims assigned to him 

Austrian activist can sue Facebook: EU court adviser

Dozens of rare grey-headed flying  foxes have been shot in remote bushland near Australia's  eastern coast, authorities said today as locals told of a  "horrific scene" when the carcasses were discovered.
The alleged killings followed a spate of animal  mutilations in Victoria state involving native species  including the kangaroo, wallaby and koala.
The flying fox, Australia's largest bat, is listed as a  "vulnerable" species nationally with its survival ranked as a  "critical priority" under local laws.
Rescuer Sammy Ringer said she was alerted to the deaths  last week when a local resident in Conondale, a small town in  the south of Queensland state, heard some shots being fired.
"As we got further into the colony, there was a pretty  horrendous smell of bats that had been shot previously," she  told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Tuesday.
"They had been lying on the ground for maybe a week or  two."
Ringer, leading a small group of people into the bush,  said it was a ...

Rare flying foxes shot in 'horrific' Australia attack

The United Arab Emirates today  said two Swiss journalists had been "stopped for questioning"  after the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi last week but  declined to confirm their arrest.
The statement comes after Swiss public broadcaster RTS  said two of its journalists, accredited to cover the opening,  were arrested on Thursday while shooting images in an outdoor  market and held for two days.
The National Media Council, the UAE's media regulatory  body, today released a statement saying reporter Serge  Enderlin and cameraman Jon Bjorgvinsson had been "stopped for  questioning" in an industrial area of Abu Dhabi and later  released without charge.
"After the official opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi,  police witnessed the journalists trespassing at a secured  location in Mussaffah and stopped them for questioning," the  council said, without providing a date or further details.
"Police later transported the reporters for further  questioning at the police station and subsequently ...

UAE says Swiss reporters 'stopped for questioning' after

The United States has said it  would impose anti-dumping duties on imports of hardwood  plywood products from China, which last year totalled USD 1.12  billion.
It was the latest move by the Commerce Department  yesterday against Chinese goods it deems to have benefited  from state subsidies, including fresh duties against aluminium  foil unveiled last month.
President Donald Trump is returning from an 11-day tour  of Asia, where he has said US interests have been ill-served  by global trade, while his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping  defended the "irreversible" tide of globalisation.
Annually, the US runs a steep trade deficit in goods with  China of about USD 350 billion.
The Commerce Department "determined that exporters from  China sold hardwood plywood products in the United States at  183.36 per cent less than fair value," a statement said.
It also determined China was providing subsidies to  producers ranging from 22.3 per cent to 195 per cent, and said  it would impose tariffs .

US imposes anti-dumping duties on Chinese hardwood plywood

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, once  seen as a possible first Japanese female prime minister,  stepped down as leader of her party today after suffering a  crushing election defeat last month.
Vowing to do away with "old politics," the charismatic  former television anchorwoman launched a new party in  September that aspired to offer an alternative to the long-  governing Liberal Democratic Party and its leader Prime  Minister Shinzo Abe in the October 22 snap elections.
Her new "Party of Hope" fielded 235 candidates for the  poll but won a mere 50 seats while Abe's ruling coalition  grabbed a two-thirds majority.
Koike's support imploded partially because she failed to  stand herself in the election -- confusing voters who did not  know who would be premier if she won.
In opinion polls conducted by the Sankei Shimbun at the  weekend, support for her party dropped to 3.9 per cent from  9.5 per cent last month, with more than 77 per cent of  respondents calling on her to concentrate on ..

Japan's Koike steps down as party head

A bombing hit a security post in  Yemen's government bastion of Aden today, killing and wounding  several people, witnesses and police sources said.
Witnesses in the southern Aden province told AFP they  heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire at the main office  of UAE-trained security forces in charge of guarding state-  owned facilities.
They said 10 people had been killed in the attack and  more wounded. The number of casualties could not be confirmed  by government sources.
It was not immediately clear how the bombing was carried  out. One police source said it appeared that explosives in a  vehicle had been remotely detonated during the attack. Another  said there had been a suicide bomber inside the car.
The Zayed bin Sultan mosque, which is located near the  security office and funded by the UAE, was also damaged in the  attack.
The United Arab Emirates, which has trained government  forces in southern Yemen, is a key member of a Saudi-led  military coalition fighting ...

Blast hits security post in Yemen govt bastion

Tens of thousands of Iranians spent  a second night in the open after a 7.3-magnitude quake struck  near the border with Iraq, killing more than 400 people.
Residents who had fled their homes when Sunday's quake  rocked the mountainous region spanning Iran's western province  of Kermanshah and neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan braved chilly  temperatures as authorities struggled to get aid into the  quake zone.
Iran has declared Tuesday a national day of mourning as  officials outlined the most pressing priorities and described  the levels of destruction in some parts as "total".
President Hassan Rouhani visited the city of Kermanshah  today and promised that the government would move swiftly to  help those left homeless by the disaster.
"I want to assure those who are suffering that the  government has begun to act with all means at its disposal and  is scrambling to resolve this problem as quickly as possible,"  he said.
Rouhani said that all aid would be channelled through the  Housing .

Iran quake survivors spend second night in the open

China now has more high-performance  supercomputers than ever before, again besting the United  States in global rankings, a supercomputer tracking  organisation said.
The standing corresponds with China's growing reputation  as the global leader in supercomputers, as the Asian power  prepares to launch in June 2018 a prototype exascale computing  machine -- a "super supercomputer".
Some 202 of the world's fastest supercomputers are in  China -- compared with 143 in the US -- according to Top500, a  site that has tracked supercomputer development for more than  two decades.
The list, produced twice a year, rates supercomputers  based on speed in a benchmark test by experts from Germany and  the US.
"It is the largest number of supercomputers China has  ever claimed on the Top500 ranking," the survey said on  Monday, "with the US presence shrinking to its lowest level  since the list's inception."
Supercomputers are vital tools for advanced scientific  work because of their ability to .

China maintains reign over world supercomputer rankings:survey

England captain Joe Root today  told Australia to "bring it on", vowing to fight fire with  fire as his team expect a hostile reception at next week's  first Ashes Test in Brisbane.
Root said he was unfazed by talk that Australia would  target him as he prepared for the first of five Ashes Tests at  the Gabba and said his side will be hitting back hard.
"From our point of view, we'll be targeting every single  one of them (the Australians)," the 26-year-old told reporters  ahead of a second four-day warm-up match against the Cricket  Australia XI in Townsville.
"Bring it on. It's what it's about. You want that  competitive element to it and there are little in-house  rivalries if you like.
"It should be a great series and they've got some great  players within their squad and some good characters as well...  They've got a lot of quality in their attack but we've got a  lot of quality in our team as well."
Root said he expected a "hostile... very loud and rowdy  atmosphere" in ...

Root tells Australia to 'bring it on' for Ashes

US President Donald Trump  personally asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to intervene in the  case of three US college basketball players arrested in China  for alleged shoplifting, a report said today.
Trump brought up the case in talks with Xi during his  two-day state visit to Beijing last week, the Washington Post  reported, citing unnamed sources.
The story said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee  Sanders also confirmed via email that Trump had raised the  matter.
UCLA players LiAngelo Ball -- the younger brother of Los  Angeles Lakers rookie star Lonzo Ball -- and teammates Cody  Riley and Jalen Hill were arrested last Tuesday in Hangzhou,  near Shanghai.
The UCLA and Georgia Tech squads had taken a side trip to  the Hangzhou headquarters of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba  a few days ahead of their weekend regular-season-opening game  in Shanghai.
The players were arrested on suspicion of stealing from a  Louis Vuitton store and later freed on bail, ESPN reported,  adding 

AFP

AFP

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