Kim Jong-Nam identity confirmed using child's DNA:

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An Australian woman kidnapped in Afghanistan last year has been released, officials said today.
	The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said the woman was an aid worker abducted in November last year in the Afghan capital Kabul, reportedly at gunpoint.
	"An Australian woman kidnapped in Afghanistan has been released," the department of foreign affairs said in a statement, thanking authorities in Afghanistan for their support and assistance.
	"Her family welcomes her safe return and asks that the media respect their privacy at this time."
	Australia warns its nationals not to travel to Afghanistan, saying in its latest advisory last month that "aid workers, journalists, and employees of foreign companies could be kidnap targets".
	"Do not travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack," it added.
	Last August, an Australian aid worker, Katherine Jane Wilson, was rescued by Afghan special forces.
	She had been ...

Kidnapped Australian woman released in Afghanistan

A nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea today for joint military exercises, the US Navy said, in the latest show of force against the North.
	The USS Carl Vinson berthed in the southern port of Busan as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began a tour of the region, where tensions have spiked in recent weeks with missile launches from the nuclear-armed North and the brazen assassination of Kim Jong-Un's half-brother in Malaysia.
	Pyongyang has long condemned the annual joint drills, which involve tens of thousands of troops, as provocative rehearsals for invasion, while Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature.
	The aircraft carrier and a US destroyer will conduct naval drills including an anti-submarine manoeuvre with South Koreans in waters off the Korean peninsula as part of the annual Foal Eagle exercise. Yonhap news agency said the navy drills will kick off next week.
	"The importance of the exercise is to continue to build our alliance 

US carrier in South Korea for show of force to North

Two Turkish soldiers were killed today in a roadside bomb attack in the southeast blamed on Kurdish militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), local media reported.
	The attack took place when security forces were scanning mines on a highway between Mardin and Diyarbakir provinces, the private Dogan news agency reported.
	The explosives had been placed by PKK militants who blew them up when a vehicle loaded with soldiers passed by, Dogan said.
	The PKK is proscribed by Ankara, the United States and the European Union as a terror group.
	The group has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 during which over 40,000 people have been killed.

2 Turkish soldiers killed in roadside attack blamed on PKK

Washington's top diplomat was to fly into Tokyo today to begin a first tour of Asian capitals under the shadow of North Korea's nuclear posturing.
	Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has promised to take a tough line on Kim Jong-un's isolated regime as he talks to allies Japan and South Korea and to rival great power China.
	The former oilman will also talk commerce, after President Donald Trump's belligerent campaign rhetoric raised the spectre of a trade war between the United State and China.
	But US officials confirmed North Korea's provocative behaviour would be "front and centre" as Tillerson meets Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday.
	After Tokyo, it will be on to Seoul, a city already within range of North Korea's artillery and rocket batteries, for talks with the acting leader after a corruption scandal saw President Park Geun-Hye ousted last week.
	And then at the weekend, there will be his much anticipated trip to Beijing, amid ...

Top US envoy begins Asia tour amid North Korea crisis

South Korean prosecutors today ordered ousted president Park Geun-Hye to appear before them next week for questioning over the corruption scandal that triggered her dramatic downfall.
	Park, who was dismissed by the Constitutional Court last Friday, will be required to attend a prosecutors' office in Seoul next Tuesday, a spokesman said.
	A criminal suspect in the scandal, Park had repeatedly refused to make herself available for questioning by the prosecutors before the country's highest court confirmed a parliamentary impeachment motion against her.
	Friday's final ruling stripped her of power and executive privileges, including protection from criminal indictment, and she left the presidential palace at the weekend.
	Park's lawyer said Wednesday she would "cooperate" with the probe.
	She is set to become the fourth former South Korean leader to be questioned by prosecutors over corruption scandals.
	Two former army-backed leaders who ruled in the 1980s and the early 1990s -- Chun ..

S Korean prosecutors summon Park for questioning

A cricket match in country Australia has turned ugly with a batsman shoulder-barging a celebrating bowler, knocking him over and sparking an onfield clash.
     The incident, which has gone viral online, came just days after cricket's law-makers, the Marylebone Cricket Club, announced new rules to penalise bad on-field behaviour.
	Footage from the incident last weekend shows a paceman for Yackandandah in Victoria state running towards the Eskdale batsman after bowling him out.
	The celebration wasn't appreciated with the batsman dropping his shoulder into him, knocking him to the ground.
	That prompted a fielder to charge at the batsman and push him over with fellow fielders rushing in to break up the melee.
	"I understand people are passionate about their sport and where they come from -- they look after their hometowns -- but this is overstepping the mark, and it's a big overstep," chair of the regional Albury Wodonga cricket competition Michael Erdeljac told Win News ...

Players floored as Aussie game turns ugly

Hong Kong's troubled flagship airline Cathay Pacific swung to a USD 74 million loss in 2016, the firm said today, citing "intense competition" from rival carriers.
	Low-cost carriers from mainland China ate in to Cathay's market share and demand from business passengers fell as the firm prepares a wholesale review of its operations, said chairman John Slosar, who added that 2017 would be similarly "challenging".

Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific swings to US$74mn loss

Leicester City manager Craig Shakespeare believes his team could become the Champions League's surprise package after they eliminated Sevilla to reach the quarter-finals.
     Toiling domestically and beaten 2-1 in the first leg of the last 16 tie, Leicester roared back to win 2-0 in Tuesday's return leg, sending them into Friday's last-eight draw.
	Shakespeare, promoted following Claudio Ranieri's dismissal, feels the feat stands "right up there" with last season's fairytale Premier League title win and said there could be more miracles still to come.
	"We know there's going to be some terrific teams, as in the previous round," said Shakespeare, who was taking charge of only his fourth game as a manager.
	"We have to be delighted with the performance in knocking Seville out, because their record in Europe is there for everyone to see.
	"But we're in there on merit, make no mistake about that. We might just be the surprise team.
	"But we know the quality of teams in there is getting ..

Leicester's Shakespeare eyes Champions League surprise

South Korean prosecutors today ordered ousted president Park Geun-Hye to appear before them next week for questioning over the corruption scandal that triggered her dramatic downfall.
	Park, who was dismissed by the Constitutional Court last Friday, will be required to attend a prosecutors' office in Seoul next Tuesday, a spokesman said.
	"We have sent the order... To Park's lawyer this morning. The summons date is 9:30 am (local time) on March 21," he said in a statement.
	Park, a criminal suspect in the scandal, had repeatedly refused to make herself available for questioning by the prosecutors before the country's highest court confirmed a parliamentary impeachment motion against her.
	Friday's final ruling stripped her of power and executive privileges, including protection from criminal indictment, and she left the presidential palace at the weekend.
	Park's lawyer said Wednesday she would "cooperate" with the probe.
	She is set to become the fourth former South Korean leader to .

South Korean prosecutors summon Park for questioning

A woman suffered burns to her face and hands after her headphones caught fire during a flight to Australia, officials said today as they warned about the dangers of battery-operated devices on planes.
	The passenger was listening to music on her own battery-operated headphones as she dozed on the flight from Beijing to Melbourne on February 19 when there was a loud explosion.
	"As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face," she told the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) which investigated the incident.
	"I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck. I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor.
	"They were sparking and had small amounts of fire."
	Flight attendants rushed to help and poured a bucket of water on the headphones, but the battery and its cover were both melted and stuck to the floor.
	Pictures show the woman, who was not named, with a blackened face and neck and blisters on her hands, with ...

Headphone batteries explode on flight to Australia

- The US State Department on Tuesday urged North Korea to pardon an American student who was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor for stealing a political banner from a hotel.
	The call for the "immediate release" of Otto Warmbier, who is in his 20s, came as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on his way to Japan, South Korea and China to discuss Pyongyang's drive to field a nuclear-armed missile.
	"We believe his sentence of 15 years hard labor is unduly harsh for the actions that Mr. Warmbier allegedly took," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.
	"And we urge North Korea to pardon him and grant him special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds."
	Toner also asked that the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which offers limited consular services to US nationals incarcerated in North Korea, be allowed regular access to the student.
	Warmbier was handed the tough sentence on March 16 last year by North Korea's supreme court after he admitted stealing a ...

Washington urges North Korea to pardon US student

More than 800 health workers have died in "acts of war crimes" in Syria since 2011, in hospital bombings, shootings, torture and executions perpetrated mainly by government-backed forces, researchers said today.
	The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, have turned the violent withholding of healthcare into a weapon of war, according to an analysis published in The Lancet medical journal.
	This "weaponisation" of healthcare, it said, "has translated into hundreds of health workers killed, hundreds more incarcerated or tortured and hundreds of health facilities deliberately and systematically attacked."
	In the crosshairs, an estimated 15,000 doctors -- about half the pre-war number -- fled the country, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians without access to basic care.
	"The international community has left these violations of international humanitarian and human rights law largely unanswered," the authors of the report said.
	It was compiled by experts from universities in ...

Over 800 health workers killed in Syrian 'war crimes': Report

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prompted a fresh outcry in The Netherlands with a jibe about the Srebrenica massacre, warning of retaliation in a spiralling diplomatic crisis.
	Keeping an uncompromising tone in a tumultuous dispute that risks wrecking the entire Ankara-Brussels relationship, Erdogan yesterday said a 'yes' vote in a April 16 referendum on expanding his powers would be the best response to Turkey's "enemies".
	He said the Dutch character was "broken" after its peacekeepers failed to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, comments described as "repugnant" by The Netherlands.
	Ankara had a day earlier announced it was suspending high-level relations after The Netherlands prevented two Turkish ministers from holding rallies to woo expatriate support ahead of the referendum.
	The Dutch ambassador to Ankara -- currently outside the country -- has also been blocked from returning to his post.
	Erdogan also late 

Erdogan angers Dutch with Srebrenica jibe

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has placed a Jordanian woman who assisted in the 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizza parlor on its "Most Wanted Terrorist" list.
	The Justice Department unveiled charges against Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi yesterday, who was jailed in Israel for eight years in the attack that killed 15, before gaining release in an Israeli prisoner swap with Hamas in 2011.
	US authorities had hoped to have Tamimi extradited from Jordan but said they were frustrated by laws that ban extradition of Jordanian nationals.
	The Justice Department said Tamimi, now in her mid-30s, escorted a Hamas suicide bomber to Jerusalem on August 9, 2001, where he detonated a bomb, hidden inside a guitar, in a Sbarro pizza shop.
	The bomb killed 15, including two Americans, and wounded another 122.
	After her capture, Tamimi pleaded guilty at trial and was sentenced in 2003 to 16 life prison terms.
	But she was released in 2011 in the prisoner swap.
	The US indictment unveiled .

Woman in 2001 Israel pizza shop bombing on FBI 'Most Wanted'

Brazil's prosecutor general Rodrigo Janot has requested permission to open 83 corruption probes against politicians in an escalation of a vast graft scandal already shaking Latin America's biggest country.
	Janot sent his request to the Supreme Court yesterday, which handles cases involving serving members of Congress or the government, his office said in a statement.
	There was no immediate indication of which politicians were being targeted.
	However, Janot also asked the court to unseal the cases so that the details can be made public, "considering the necessity to promote transparency and to safeguard the public interest."
	It was not clear how quickly the Supreme Court would give its response to Janot's request for a green light.
	The complaints against the politicians ramp up the so-called Car Wash probe, which has uncovered massive embezzlement and bribery based on state-oil company Petrobras.
	The accusations in Janot's list are based on a deluge of testimony in plea bargains .

Brazil prosecutor seeks 83 graft probes against politicians

Canada's leftist New Democratic Party urged Ottawa today to scrap an agreement it has with Washington on divvying up refugees.
	"The US is no longer a safe country for refugees, and refugees continue to risk life and limb to come to Canada," New Democratic Party MP Jenny Kwan said in a statement.
	"The Liberal government must immediately suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement, so that refugees in the US can apply legally and cross safely into Canada," she said.
	The comments follow a wave of border jumpers from the United States who have risked their lives trudging through snow and wilderness in bone-chilling cold to seek asylum in Canada.
	The so-called Safe Third Party Agreement prevents them from lodging claims in Canada if they first landed stateside.
	But a loophole in the 2004 accord -- which the opposition Tories want closed -- allows arrivals to file a claim if they have bypassed border checkpoints to get into the country.
	Detractors of the accord say the agreement actually 

Leftist party urges Canada to scrap refugee deal with US

President Donald Trump insists his amended travel ban will survive any legal challenge and it's time to see if he's right, with the first court hearings on it scheduled for tomorrow.
	"SEE YOU IN COURT," Trump tweeted after his first executive order on immigration was stayed by a judge on February 3.
	It would seem people have taken him at his word, given the number of complaints -- by states and rights groups -- filed against his travel ban. The new iteration is supposed to take effect Thursday.
	It bars all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travelers from six mostly-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Iraq was dropped from the initial list.
	Two federal courts, one in Hawaii and another in Maryland, have scheduled hearings for Wednesday on the new measure, the most controversial of Trump's young administration. A hearing could also come as soon as Wednesday in a third challenge filed by six US ...

Trump's new travel ban faces day in court

Two suspected members of Yemen's Al-Qaeda were killed today in an air raid on the southern Hadramawt province, a security official said.
	The two, going by the names Abu Jandal al-Hadrami and Abu Hashim al-Sharuri, were killed in what appeared to be a US air strike, the official said, requesting that his name be withheld.
	The United States has conducted more than 40 air raids, including drone strikes, against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in March alone.
	Many of the strikes have targeted towns in southern provinces where the radical group is known to operate.
	At least 25 suspected AQAP members have been killed in the raids.
	The United States regards AQAP as the jihadist network's most dangerous branch. However, Washington rarely reports on its drone raids on Yemen, which began in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
	More than two years of civil war between government forces and Shiite rebels in Yemen have created a power vacuum which AQAP has exploited to ..

2 Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen strike: security source

Scientists in India have uncovered a pair of 1.6 billion-year-old fossils that appear to contain red algae, which may be the oldest plant-like life discovered on Earth, according to a study today.
	Until now, the oldest known red algae was 1.2 billion years old, said the paper in the journal PLOS Biology.
	Scientists often debate the question of when complex life began on Earth, but they generally agree that large multicellular organisms became common about 600 million years ago.
	This discovery could lead experts to rewrite the tree of life, said lead author Stefan Bengtson, professor emeritus of paleozoology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
	"The 'time of visible life' seems to have begun much earlier than we thought," he said.
	No DNA remains in the fossils to be analyzed.
	But the material structurally resembles red algae, embedded in fossil mats of cyanobacteria, called stromatolites, inside a 1.6 billion-year-old Indian phosphorite.
	"You cannot be a hundred percent ...

Algae fossil in India may be world's oldest plant life

Nepal police today demolished the largest remaining settlement of people displaced by a powerful earthquake that struck nearly two years ago, a move that will leave hundreds homeless.
	Around 100 families were still living in the camp in Kathmandu when police wearing riot gear used bulldozers to flatten the bamboo and tarpaulin structures.
	"The gods will curse the government. We don't have our home and can't rent a room from our earnings in Kathmandu," said Kabita Limbu, tears rolling down her face.
	Limbu's husband fainted when their tent was destroyed before the couple were able to retrieve their processions.
	Apsana Tamang, 19, was breastfeeding her one year-old baby in her makeshift home when the authorities arrived early morning.
	"I have nowhere to live as my parents' house in Kavre district was also damaged in the earthquake," said Tamang, who was pregnant when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal killing more than 9,000 people.
	"We have received nothing from the government 

AFP

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