A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the Philippines today, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
	It struck at a shallow depth in the Mindanao region, with the US National Weather Service warning that hazardous tsunami waves were possible off the coasts of the Philippines and Indonesia.

6.8-magnitude quake off the Philippines: USGS

PTI Automatic

6.8-magnitude quake off the Philippines: USGS. (AFP)

Russia today warned at the United Nations that military options to address the threat from North Korea's nuclear and ballistic programs were "completely unacceptable" and would have "catastrophic consequences."
	Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the Security Council that China's proposals to re-start talks with North Korea should be seriously examined and that sanctions alone would not work.
	North Korea "is conducting itself in an inappropriate way," Gatilov told the council.
	"At the same time, options of using force are completely unacceptable and could lead to catastrophic consequences."
	The Security Council was meeting to try to agree on a global response to North Korea that the United States maintains must involve China ramping up pressure on its Pyongyang ally.
	North Korea is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five atomic tests, two of them last year.
	Gatilov said ...

Russia says military options for N Korea 'unacceptable'

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said today that accession talks with Turkey have not been halted and she still wants it to join, if Ankara can meet necessary conditions.
	Her remarks, following a EU foreign ministers meeting in Valletta, came after recent calls from some countries that negotiations over Turkey's potential membership of the bloc should be stopped.
	The talks in Malta highlighted sharp differences on ties with Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's victory in a referendum to reform the constitution gave him increased powers.
	Germany urged its EU peers not to end accession talks despite deep misgivings over Turkey's rights record, saying the country is key to European interests, not least as a NATO ally.
	Austria however reiterated its demand that negotiations be ditched, saying Erdogan had violated the EU rule of law and eschewed democratic norms that candidate countries must put in place.
	After a "very frank and open" meeting with the foreign ...

EU's Mogherini says still wants Turkey to join

An explosion today rocked a central district of Baghdad that has been repeatedly hit by car bomb attacks in the past, a correspondent reported.
	It was not immediately clear what the target of the blast, which occurred just before 11:00 PM (0130 IST), was but the explosion lit up the sky in the Karrada neighbourhood and sent debris flying the area, the AFP correspondent said.

'Explosion rocks central Baghdad'

Global press freedom has hit a 13-year low, threatened by US President Donald Trump's media bashing and restrictions pursued by both democratic and authoritarian governments, a watchdog said today.
	Freedom House, a US-based human rights organisation, highlighted growing concerns over efforts by governments around the world to clamp down on media and dissent.
	"Political leaders and other partisan forces in many democracies - including the United States, Poland, the Philippines and South Africa - attacked the credibility of independent media and fact-based journalism, rejecting the traditional watchdog role of the press in free societies," said Jennifer Dunham, who headed the research.
	The 2016 study of 199 countries concluded that just 13 percent of the world's population enjoys a "free press" with robust news coverage and protections for journalists.
	Another 42 per cent of the world's population has a "partly free" press and 45 per cent live in countries where the media ...

Global press freedom at 13-year low: survey

German airlines will no longer require two people to be in the cockpit at all times, an industry group said today, abandoning a rule introduced after a deadly crash in 2015.
	"An evaluation has shown that the two-person rule does not increase security, rather other risks to air security arise," the statement from the German Aviation Association (BDL) said.
	The requirement to have two people in the cockpit at all times was introduced after Germanwings copilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew a passenger plane into a French mountainside, killing 144 passengers and six crew in March 2015.
	Black box recordings showed that Lubitz, who had been treated for mental health problems in the months before the disaster, locked himself into the cockpit alone.
	The BDL's decision follows an easing of the two-person rule at the EU level by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in August last year.
	Instead of a blanket requirement, the EASA recommended using the measure only on a case-by-case .

German airlines to scrap 'two-person' cockpit rule

US growth slid to its lowest level in three years in the first quarter, a disappointing start to Donald Trump's presidency on the eve of his first 100 days in office.
	GDP increased only 0.7 per cent in the first three months of the year as consumer spending and government expenditures tumbled to their lowest levels in years, the Commerce Department reported today in its preliminary data.
	Though only slightly below the 0.8 per cent increase in the same quarter of last year, the result was down sharply from the 2.1 per cent expansion seen in the fourth quarter of 2016.
	It was well below analyst expectations for 1.1 per cent GDP growth. The last time growth in the first quarter was more disappointing was the 1.2 per cent drop in the 2014.
	Trump, who hits his first 100 days in office tomorrow, rose to power on a message of nationalist economic revival. He has also taken credit for increased consumer and business confidence, growing employment and record gains for stocks in recent ...

US growth hits 3-year low in Trump's 1st quarter

Explosion rocks central Baghdad. (AFP)

Three people were shot dead at a football match in a crime-plagued area of southwestern Mexico, police said today.
	Spectators and players fled as shooting broke out at the game last night in the coastal city of Acapulco, a source in the Guerrero state police said.
	Gunmen ran around the pitch and chased three young men into a nearby alley where they shot them dead, he said. He gave no indication of the motive for the killings.
	Guerrero is one of the poorest states in Mexico, a country stricken by violence related to drug gangs.

Three killed at Mexico football match: police

Faced with a shortage of polio vaccine, the World Health Organization urged countries today to resort to smaller, fractional doses to ward off outbreaks of the crippling disease.
	"We do have a problem with the vaccine in the sense of not having enough of it," Alejandro Cravioto, head of WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), told reporters in a telephone conference.
	"But the recent evidence that we reviewed shows that even if we give a smaller dose of vaccine under the skin instead of inside the muscle, we can have the same impact of protection as before," he said.
	SAGE, which advises the UN health agency on immunisation policies, called for two smaller doses of the vaccine to be injected under the skin at six and 14 weeks after birth, instead of a single, larger intermuscular dose.
	This makes it possible to "reduce the volume" of vaccine administered, WHO senior health advisor Philippe Duclos told AFP.
	French group Sanofi and Serum Institute of India make the main ...

WHO urges polio vaccine dose cut amid global shortage

The US Senate unanimously passed a one-week stopgap spending bill today, assuring there is no embarrassing government shutdown on the 100th day of Donald Trump's presidency.
	After weeks of tense negotiations over federal spending, the measure sailed through Congress just hours before a midnight deadline, giving lawmakers one week to finalize a broader bill that funds government through September.
	Trump is expected to sign the short-term measure tonight in order to avoid a shutdown.

US Senate passes short-term spending bill to avert shutdown

Fierce clashes between jihadists and Islamist rebels near Damascus left at least 40 dead and 70 wounded today, a monitoring group said.
	The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes pitted the Saudi-backed rebel faction Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) against Fateh al-Sham, Al-Qaeda's former branch in Syria, and Faylaq al-Rahman, which is backed by Qatar and Turkey.
	"There were at least 15 dead among the ranks of Jaish al-Islam and 23 among its adversaries" as well as two civilians, the Britain-based Observatory said.
	Another 70 were wounded.
	Jaish al-Islam said its opponents had provoked the clashes by harassing reinforcements headed for Qabun, east of the Syrian capital, a front with regime forces.
	Faylaq al-Rahman denied the allegation.
	In May 2016, more than 300 people were killed in a battle between the two sides.

40 dead in rebel-jihadist clashes near Damascus: monitor

Two Bulgarian men were jailed today for 10 years and a woman for six years for trafficking two pregnant women to sell their babies in neighbouring Greece.
	The sentences issued by a court in the Black Sea city of Burgas were among the heaviest for a crime that has become common in the region over recent years but has been tough to prove and punish, prosecutors said.
	The practice consists of recruiting poor pregnant women, usually from the Roma minority, and transferring them to Greece to give birth and sell their baby to couples there, who are ready to pay up to 15,000 euros (USD 16,300) for a baby boy.
	Any payment is considered illegal, but the Greek legal system does not help solving the problem as it allows the mother to simply sign her child away in front of a notary, investigators say.
	The mothers usually get a fraction of the money with the bigger chunk pocketed by the traffickers.
	Two men, aged 47 and 50, from the small town of Kameno near Burgas were jailed for 10 years ...

Bulgarians jailed for baby sale in Greece

Twenty-nine people have been killed in three days of clashes between rival factions of a militia group in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, an official said today.
	The two factions are fighting for control of the village of Bweru. "The death toll on Friday is 29 people dead," a local administrator, Dieudonne Tshishiku, told AFP.

Militia clashes kill 29 in eastern DR Congo: official

New clashes erupted today between the Turkish army and a Syrian Kurdish militia seen as a terror group by Ankara but as a key ally by the United States in the fight against jihadists, the Turkish army said.
	Rockets fired from an area in Syria controlled by the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) targeted a Turkish army command post in the Ceylanpinar district of Turkey's southern Sanliurfa province.
	The Turkish army fired back, killing 11 "terrorists", it said. There were no reports of casualties on the Turkish side.
	This was the third day in a row clashes have been reported across the tense border after the Turkish air force earlier this week bombed YPG targets in Syria.
	The US State Department has said it was "deeply concerned" that the strikes were conducted "without proper coordination either with the United States or the broader global coalition" against the Islamic State group (IS).
	Russia's foreign ministry on Wednesday meanwhile said Turkey's bombing raids were ...

Turkish army, Syrian Kurdish militia in new clashes: army

Major transport networks, schools and banks partially shut down across much of Brazil today in what protesters called a general strike against austerity reforms in Latin America's biggest country.
	Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city and financial powerhouse, was worst hit.
	Police used tear gas to clear highways of protesters. But bus services, the metro and trains all stopped working, bringing the city temporarily to a standstill.
	In Rio de Janeiro, protesters lit fires on a major bridge, disrupting commuter traffic, while police used tear gas to force a small crowd of protesters from outside the main bus station. Many banks were shut.
	However, the city appeared to be less affected, with private businesses such as restaurants, cafes and shops opening normally.
	In the capital Brasilia and in Belo Horizonte, another major city, the metro systems were completely closed down. Curitiba, the city where Brazil's huge "Operation Car Wash" anti-corruption investigation is based, was ...

Anti-austerity strike snarls cities across Brazil

Bernie Ecclestone was accused today of having "made us look like idiots" by the chief executive of Malaysia's Sepang International Circuit after the former Grand Prix supremo admitted deliberately over-charging tracks to stage Formula One races.
     "I don't understand why he made those kinds of statements," Razlan Razali told AFP in an interview in London.
     "As a loyal customer of his for the last 19 years, it showed a total lack of respect, I think, and made us look like idiots in some ways."
     This year will witness the last Malaysian Grand Prix for the foreseeable future, with the race disappearing from the calendar a year earlier than planned after a combination of low attendances and high fees, with the government spending some $67.6 million annually to stage a race first run in 1999, no longer something that Sepang International Circuit (SIC) officials and their political bosses could tolerate.
     Earlier this month 86-year-old British businessman Ecclestone, ousted ..

Ecclestone made us 'look like idiots': Sepang boss

Romanian tennis great Ilie Nastase apologised Friday for racist comments about Serena Williams and for a foul-mouthed and abusive Fed Cup tirade that saw him suspended by the International Tennis Federation.
     "My words during the Fed Cup have rightfully caused controversy and upset the audience, the press and, most painfully for me, the tennis world," the former world number one and two-time Grand Slam winner, 70, said on Facebook.
     He said that his comments last Friday about the pregnant Williams -- he was overheard by a journalist talking about her baby being "chocolate with milk" -- was a "spontaneous" reaction to hearing she was expecting a child.
     "I am fully aware that nothing can truly excuse my statements - not the tension of a high-stakes game, not my traditionally irreverent attitude, not the unfortunate escalation of the situation," he said.
     "My life remains dedicated to tennis and its audiences, so please accept my apologies, for whatever they may be worth 

Nastase says sorry

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the United Nations today that "all options" to respond to any future North Korean missile or nuclear tests "must remain on the table."
	"The threat of a North Korean nuclear attack on Seoul or Tokyo is real, and it is likely only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland," Tillerson told a Security Council meeting on the threat from North Korea.

'All options' must remain on table on NKorea: Tillerson

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned at the United Nations today against military action to respond to the threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes.
	"The use of force does not solve differences and will only lead to bigger disasters," Wang told the Security Council.

AFP

AFP

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