Britain's commitment to EU security is "unconditional" and will not be used as leverage in its negotiations to leave the bloc, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said today.
	In formally notifying the EU this week of Britain's intention to leave, Prime Minister Theresa May upset European capitals with her warning that failure to clinch a deal on trade would weaken the fight against terrorism.
	"I want to stress the UK's commitment to the defence and security of this region, Europe, is unconditional," Johnson said upon arriving for talks with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
	"It is not some bargaining chip in any negotiations that may be taking place elsewhere in this capital. We make an unconditional commitment to the defence and security of Europe."
	He added: "We profoundly believe it is in the interest of the stability and prosperity of the whole transatlantic area."
	The row came as some of the EU's top leaders fleshed out their strategy for the tough talks ahead as the ..

UK security ties to EU no 'bargaining chip': Johnson

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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said today he would hold talks with NATO allies about "Russia's aggression in Ukraine", signalling a tougher stance toward Moscow from the Trump administration.
	"We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson said upon arriving in Brussels for his first NATO talks.
	Tillerson joined the talks listing the Trump administration's top priority as pushing NATO allies to meet their pledges to boost defence spending as Washington says it has borne a "disproportionate" share of the costs for too long.
	State Department officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine.
	Tillerson's remarks appeared likely to ease concerns that US President Donald Trump is more interested in cultivating ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin ...

Tillerson denounces 'Russian aggression in Ukraine'

Adrift and alone in the Pacific Ocean, Rolando Omongos prayed to live long enough to bring home news of the death of his uncle, whose corpse he had cast off at sea.
	The 21-year-old Filipino fisherman was stranded in January after a storm separated him and his uncle from their main fishing vessel, leaving the pair on a tiny boat without fuel, food or fishing tools.
	His prayer was answered when -- having survived for 58-days by eating moss and drinking rainwater, but too weak to stand -- he managed to hail a passing ship by waving his ragged shirt.
	Still in shock and tearful, his hands blistered by the sun, Omongos told reporters of his ordeal after returning to Manila yesterday.
	Omongos said he lived off the tiny plants that grew on the boat and rainwater he collected using plastic containers. He lost 40 kilogrammes in weight.
	When Omongos' uncle died he tied the body to the boat for a week, but had to loosen it into the sea when it began to decompose.
	"I just thought, Lord, I ...

Philippine fisherman's tale of 58 days adrift

Six employees of the US embassy in Kabul have been dismissed for using or possessing drugs, an official said, in an embarrassment to Washington which has splurged billions on Afghan counter-narcotics efforts.
	The sacking followed an embassy investigation after staff noticed a person wandering around the premises "in a state of confusion and appearing to be intoxicated", the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.
	"We can confirm that six individuals were involved and that all of them were contract employees," the US State Department told AFP late yesterday.
	"No State Department employees were involved in the incident."
	It was not immediately clear what kind of drugs the employees were using.
	Over the last 15 years, the US government has spent billions of dollars on a war to eliminate drugs from Afghanistan, but the country still remains the world's top opium producer.
	Opium production is a major source of income for the Taliban insurgents.
	Last year, Afghanistan saw a ..

US embassy in Kabul fires six over drugs

South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa launched a stinging verbal attack on President Jacob Zuma today, criticising a cabinet purge in which Indian-origin finance minister Pravin Gordhan was sacked.
	"I am told him that I would not agree with him on his reasoning to remove the minister of finance. And I am told him that this I would articulate publicly," Ramaphosa told reporters.
	"There are quite a number of other colleagues and comrades who are unhappy about this situation, particularly the removal of the minister of finance who was serving the country with absolute distinction."
	Gordhan was reportedly sacked because of an alleged intelligence report into meetings he held in London earlier this week.
	"For him to be removed for this type of reasoning is to me unacceptable," Ramaphosa said.
	Zuma made 20 new government appointments after a dramatic overnight cull that sent the rand currency plunging and triggered accusations that he was promoting corruption.
	"The president .

S Africa deputy president says cabinet purge 'unacceptable'

Opposition parties in the Maldives accused the government today of waging a revenge campaign against their leaders after they narrowly failed to seize control of parliament.
	Mohamed Nasheed, the leader of the main opposition party, was slapped with fresh terrorism charges this week just days after he remotely lead an effort to wrestle control of parliament.
	The bid failed after President Abdulla Yameen ordered troops to remove the dissenting MPs from the floor of parliament, causing chaotic scenes.
	Nasheed, the head of the Maldivian Democratic Party, was sentenced to 13 years prison in 2015 and has been living in self-imposed exile in London since last year.
	"President (Abdulla) Yameen has instigated new charges of terrorism against Nasheed," the joint opposition statement said.
	The charges stemmed from when Yameen was briefly detained in 2010 allegedly under orders from Nasheed, who was president at the time.
	The opposition said several others who support Nasheed's bid to oust .

Maldives opposition face crackdown after failed bid

An outspoken maverick today won the nomination of South Korea's conservative party for the next presidential election, and immediately denounced the leaders of the United States, Russia, China and Japan.
	Hong Joon-Pyo, governor of the southern province of South Gyeongsang, became the Liberty Korea party's standard-bearer for the poll on May 9, securing 54 per cent of votes in a nationwide primary.
	The 62-year-old prosecutor-turned-politician is renowned for his incendiary rhetoric and declared following his victory: "The time calls for a strongman with determination and a hot temper.
	"The leaders of the four great powers are far-right nationalists, so the outlook will be gloomy for South Korea if a weak leftist government is established."
	But his chances of victory in the presidential election -- and therefore of moving into the Blue House -- are minimal.
	Park Guen-Hye was the party's candidate at the last poll -- when it was known as Saenuri -- and secured the largest vote share 

Party of S Korea ex-leader Park picks maverick for poll

Interpol has issued high-priority red notices for the arrest of three Serbians, two of them lawyers, accused of witness tampering, the UN's former Yugoslavia war crimes court announced today.
	"The red notices, which seek the location and arrest of the accused Petar Jojic, Jovo Ostojic and Vjerica Radeta were issued by Interpol at the request of the Tribunal's Registry," the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said.
	"The red notices are effective as from 16 March 2017," it added in a statement issued in The Hague.
	The case against the three suspects has dragged on for more than two years, after the ICTY issued arrest warrants in January 2015 for three associates of radical Serb Vojislav Seselj.
	Defence lawyers Jojic and Radeta, and former war-time associate, Ostojic were charged in December 2014 with "having threatened, intimidated, offered bribes to, or otherwise interfered with two witnesses," in two cases involving Seselj.
	Ultranationalist Seselj was ...

Interpol issues red notices for Serbs wanted in UN case

UN chief Antonio Guterres called today from Iraq for greater international solidarity with the people of Mosul, who have faced years of jihadist rule and months of deadly fighting.
	"These people have suffered enormously, and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community," Guterres told journalists during a visit to the Hasan Sham Camp for Iraqis displaced by the battle for the city.

UN chief at Iraq camp urges more solidarity with Mosul people

Unemployment in Germany hit a new record low in March, official data showed today, as Europe's largest economy continues to defy economic uncertainty with a strong performance.
	The out-of-work figure fell to 5.8 per cent this month, the Federal Labour Agency said, beating analysts' forecasts.
	A 0.1-percentage point fall from the level it had held since January placed it at a new all-time low since German reunification in 1990.
	"The number of unemployed sank significantly as spring begins to breathe life into the economy," said the agency's chief Detlef Scheel in a statement. "Growth in employment is holding steady and demand from companies for new employees remains high."
	In seasonally-adjusted figures, the number of people registered as out of work fell by 30,000 in March.
	Jobs, wages and working conditions are set to be a key battleground in German elections slated for September, with left-wing politicians pushing for higher wages and more unemployment ...

German unemployment hits new record low

A woman's body was found today and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from towns in two Australian states after torrential rain caused by a powerful tropical cyclone.
	Category four Cyclone Debbie hit northeastern Australia on Tuesday between Bowen and Airlie Beach in Queensland state, ripping up trees, washing boats onto land and causing widespread damage.
	Debbie was downgraded to a tropical low as it tracked southeast, but continued to pack damaging gusts and dump huge amounts of rain all the way down the east coast to New South Wales state, south of Queensland, and Sydney.
	NSW Police said the body of a woman who "disappeared in floodwaters overnight from a rural property" near Murwillumbah just south of the Queensland border was found on Friday.
	Lismore, south of Murwillumbah near the NSW coast was hard hit, with the State Emergency Service (SES) warning of three-metre high flood levels in the town.
	Earlier Friday, SES acting deputy commissioner Mark Morrow said he had .

One dead as cyclone flooding overwhelms Australian towns

The body of Kim Jong-Nam, half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, has arrived in Pyongyang, Chinese officials confirmed today.
	"The body of the DPRK citizen who died in Malaysia and relevant DPRK citizens have returned to the DPRK today via Beijing," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said during a regular press briefing.

Kim Jong-Nam's body returned to N Korea: China

The European Union demanded that Britain make "sufficient progress" on its divorce before any talks on a future trade deal can start as it laid out its tough Brexit negotiating plans today.
	EU president Donald Tusk's draft guidelines say the other 27 countries are ready for a transitional deal after Britain's exit in March 2019, but that such an arrangement would have to be under EU rules.
	British Prime Minister Theresa May had in her letter triggering the two-year exit process on Wednesday called for talks on the divorce and a future deal to run in parallel as soon as negotiations start.
	The EU has proclaimed its unity on Brexit, even as it reels from Britain's intention to become the first member state to leave in the bloc's 60-year history.
	Tusk's strategy will now be sent out to the leaders of the 27 remaining EU countries ahead of a special summit on April 29 when they will agree on them so that talks can start in May.
	Germany and France had already set out a united and ...

EU says Brexit trade talks possible if 'progress' on divorce

Kim Jong-Nam's body returned to N Korea: China (AFP)

The Palestinians reacted angrily today after the Israeli cabinet approved the building of the first officially sanctioned new settlement in the occupied West Bank in more than 20 years.
	The security cabinet gave its unanimous backing to the new settlement late on Thursday as what is widely seen as the most right-wing government in Israeli history presses ahead with settlement expansion in defiance of international criticism.
	Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi said the move showed "blatant disregard for Palestinian human rights".
	"Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace," she said.
	The new settlement will be constructed near the former wildcat Jewish outpost known as Amona, which was razed in February in accordance with an Israeli High Court order.
	It will be the first entirely new settlement that an Israeli government has approved in more than 20 years.
	In recent years, ...

Palestinian fury after Israel backs new settlement

A prominent Taiwanese activist-turned-lawmaker who stormed parliament in 2014 protesting a China trade pact was acquitted with 21 other demonstrators today over their roles in the so-called "Sunflower Movement".
	The rallies three years ago, which saw thousands take to the streets and some 200 people occupy parliament for weeks, expressed growing anti-China public sentiment and contributed to the plummeting popularity of Taiwan's former Beijing-friendly Kuomintang government.
	Taiwan, now under a Beijing-sceptic leadership, has been self-ruling since splitting from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war -- but it has never formally declared independence and China still sees it as part of its territory.
	Prosecutors charged Huang Kuo-chang -- an academic who was a key face of the movement and has since joined parliament -- with incitement and interfering with public functions in 2015, along with 21 others.
	But Taipei District Court found them not guilty Friday, saying their actions ...

Taiwan court acquits 'Sunflower Movement' protesters

Nine Malaysians freed by Pyongyang made an emotional return home today, after Kuala Lumpur sent back the body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korea's leader to end a bitter diplomatic feud.
	Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur airport, triggering a major clash between Malaysia and North Korea, which saw them expel each other's ambassadors and bar citizens from leaving.
	But a deal announced by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and confirmed by North Korean state media on Thursday said the two countries had lifted their respective travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send Kim's body to North Korea.
	The Malaysians -- three embassy staff and six family members, including a baby and three other children -- landed in Kuala Lumpur before sunrise where they were met on the tarmac by Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.
	There were emotional scenes as they were embraced by tearful relatives who had also gathered to meet them.
	Mohamad ...

Malaysians' emotional return from Pyongyang in Kim body swap

The Donald Trump administration has appealed the ruling of a US federal judge who had a day prior maintained his freeze on the president's revised travel ban.
	The Justice Department's filing means the case will land back at the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a halt of Trump's first travel ban before the US president revised it.
	The appeal comes a day after US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii dealt another blow to the White House, issuing a longer-lasting suspension of the president's travel restrictions by changing it from a temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction.
	Such an injunction generally has no set expiration date, said Hawaii state Attorney General Doug Chin, meaning Trump will be barred from enforcing the ban while it is contested in court.
	Trump's revised travel ban aims to close US borders to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and all refugees for at least 120 days.
	The original executive order .

Trump administration appeals latest ruling blocking travel ban

The state of emergency in force almost non-stop for 16 months in Mali was extended by 10 days from today, the government said.
	The measure has been renewed  several times since jihadists stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in November 2015, killing 20 people in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda's regional branch.
	The fresh extension would allow the government to "further strengthen prevention and counter-terrorism measures, and increase the operational capabilities and processes of the armed forces and security," the statement released yesterday said.
	There remained "the threat of terrorism in Mali and in the region, as well as risks to people and goods," it added.
	The new state of emergency will be extended again if such a measure is justified, the government said.
	The decree hands extra powers to security forces and restricts public gatherings.
	Mali's north fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012 who hijacked the rebel uprising, though the ...

Mali's state of emergency extended by 10 days

A Japanese whaling fleet returned to port today after an annual Antarctic hunt that killed more than 300 of the mammals as Tokyo pursues the programme in defiance of global criticism.
	The fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, with plans to slaughter 333 minke whales, flouting a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand.
	The fleet consisted of five ships, three of which arrived in the morning at Shimonoseki port in western Japan, the country's Fisheries Agency said.
	More than 200 people, including crew members and their families, gathered in the rain for a 30-minute ceremony in front of the Nisshin Maru, the fleet's main ship, according to an official of the Shimonoseki City government.
	In a press release, the agency described the mission as "research for the purpose of studying the ecological system in the Antarctic Sea".
	But environmentalists and the International Court of Justice (IJC) call that a fiction and say the real purpose is ...

Japan kills 333 whales in annual Antarctic hunt

The salvaged wreck of South Korea's Sewol ferry today started its final journey to shore, officials said, as investigators prepare to comb it for remains.
	A semi-submersible ship carrying the wreck left for the southwestern port of Mokpo, the maritime ministry said in a press statement.
	Nearly three years after it went down with the loss of more than 300 lives, the wreck had been safely placed on the giant lifting ship to bring it to shore.
	The ship will sail more than seven hours to Mokpo, 105 kilometers east.
	Almost all the victims were schoolchildren and it is thought that nine bodies still unaccounted for may be trapped inside.
	The lifting ship was accompanied by a small vessel carrying relatives of the nine missing, as well as five patrol boats.
	When the wreck is landed at Mokpo, investigators will comb through it in search of any remains and personal belongings.
	Underwater fences have been installed surrounding the area where the Sewol sank and divers will also search the 

AFP

AFP

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