Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that "defending" his country in a time of war was more important than any international tribunal that may be brought against his government later.
	His comments to Belgian media came as rights watchdog Amnesty International accused the regime of hanging 13,000 at an infamous prison near Damascus.
	According to an English-language transcript of the interviews published by Syrian state news agency SANA yesterday, Assad accused UN institutions of acting unfairly towards his country.
	"We all know that the United Nations institutions are not unbiased, they are biased because of the American influence and the French and British, mainly," he said.
	"They are only politicised to implement the agenda of those countries," he added.
	Syria's conflict first broke out in March 2011 with widespread protests that descended into violence.
	Asked whether he was concerned about a potential court case brought against the regime at the UN's highest court in The .

Assad says 'defending' Syria more important than UN tribunal

PTI Automatic

BP returned to profit in 2016 as cost-cutting and lower charges linked to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill offset weaker crude prices, the British energy giant announced today.
	Profit after tax stood at USD 115 million (108 million euros) compared with a net loss of USD 6.5 billion in 2015, BP said in an earnings statement.
	BP took another huge charge linked to its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill -- but at USD 4.0 billion it was lower than in 2015.
	The latest charge brought the overall cost to BP to around USD 63 billion, or USD 44 billion after tax.
	"We have delivered solid results in tough conditions and are well prepared for any volatility in oil pricing," BP chief executive Bob Dudley said in the statement.
	"We have adapted by cutting our controllable cash costs by USD 7 billion from 2014, a full year earlier than planned.
	"Continued tight discipline on costs remains essential. Everything we have done during the year has made us a more resilient and competitive ...

BP returns to profit in 2016 on slashed costs

The Speaker of Britain's House of Commons came under fire today for saying he was "strongly opposed" to Donald Trump addressing parliament during the US president's state visit later this year.
	John Bercow said such a speech was "not an automatic right" and that "opposition to racism and sexism" needed to be considered, in a shock tirade that had MPs from the ruling Conservative Party accusing him of hypocrisy and disregarding his duty of neutrality.
	The speaker said he was already against Trump addressing lawmakers in Westminster Hall, and that he was "even more strongly opposed" in the wake of the president's travel ban on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.
	But Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who has been critical of Trump's travel ban, said the fact that the speaker had become the story was "a bad place to be".
	He pointed out that the speaker had welcomed Chinese president Xi Jinping, despite human rights concerns, and the emir of Kuwait, which bans British dual ...

UK speaker criticised over Trump parliament tirade

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today he was grateful to US President Donald Trump for revealing "the real face of America".
	"We are thankful to this gentleman... He showed the real face of America," Khamenei said in a speech to military officers in Tehran.
	"What we have said for more than 30 years -- that there is political, economic, moral and social corruption in the ruling system of the US -- this gentleman came and brought it out into the open in the election and after the election.

Trump reveals America's 'real face': Iran's Khamenei

Thailand's new king has chosen who will be the country's top monk, the leader of the ruling junta said today, ending a lengthy power struggle over the venerated post.
	The post of Supreme Patriarch has been left open for more than three years as Thailand's various Buddhist factions tussle over a successor.
	Critics of the ecclesiastical hierarchy said the squabble was both unedifying and tainted by temporal politics.
	Last month coup leader turned Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha said power to make the appointment had been granted to King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
	That move bypassed the group of 19 senior monks -- known as the Sangha -- who traditionally chose the top religious leader from among their ranks.
	The junta's decision also makes debate over the appointment impossible since the king is protected from any criticism by a powerful lese majeste law.
	Today the new Supreme Patriarch was named as Somdet Phra Maha Muniwong.
	"I learned today that the king has endorsed (the new Supreme 

Thai junta chief says king has chosen new Buddhist leader

Manila expects China to try to build on a reef off the Philippines' coast, the country's defence secretary said today, a move he said would be "unacceptable" in the flashpoint waterway.
	In an interview with AFP, Delfin Lorenzana said he believed China would eventually reclaim the Scarborough Shoal, which sits just 230 kilometres from the main Philippine island of Luzon.
	Beijing has already built up a number of islets and reefs in the South China Sea, installing military facilities on several of them.
	Analysts say that similar installations on Scarborough Shoal could give China effective military control over the disputed waterway -- something the US has said it is not prepared to accept.
	"They encroached," Lorenzana said of a 2012 confrontation that saw Philippine vessels displaced. "They occupied three islands there plus they are trying to get Scarborough. So to us that is unacceptable".
	"If we allow them, they will build. That's very, very disturbing. Very much (more) ...

China likely to build more islands: Philippines

A Myanmar state commission probing allegations the military has killed, tortured and raped Rohingya Muslims rejected accusations it is not credible, saying today it was focused on the "truth" and not pleasing the UN.
	Last week the United Nations' human rights office said Myanmar's military had likely killed hundreds of Rohingya during a continuing crackdown in a "calculated policy of terror" against the Muslim minority.
	Almost 70,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since the army launched "clearance operations" four months ago to find Rohingya militants they accused of carrying out deadly raids on police border posts.
	The report by the UN's rights body OHCHR said the accounts of torture, murder and gang-rape at the hands of security forces were so severe they may amount to ethnic cleansing.
	Among the brutal testimonies published were accounts of children butchered with knives while their mothers were raped by security forces.
	For months Myanmar dismissed similar testimony ...

Myanmar rejects UN criticism of Rohingya abuse investigation

Turkey today condemned a new Israeli law legalising dozens of Jewish settlements built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, as a senior government minister was visiting Tel Aviv in the first such trip in seven years.
	"We strongly condemn Israeli Parliament's adoption of a law that gives approval to various settlements consisting of 4,000 units built on the private property of the Palestinians," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.
	The ministry said the "unacceptable" Israeli policy contradicted UN Security Council resolutions and was "destroying the basis for the two-state solution".
	The new law will allow Israel to legally seize Palestinian private land on which Israelis built without knowing it was private property or because the state allowed them to do so.
	Critics say it will legalise the "theft" of the land even Israeli law has accepted as Palestinian.
	Ankara's reaction comes as Tourism Minister Nabi Avci was due to meet with his Israeli ...

Turkey condemns 'unacceptable' Israeli settlement law

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is to face trial over the allegedly fraudulent financing of his doomed 2012 bid for re-election, a legal source said today.
	The prosecution claims Sarkozy greatly exceeded a spending limit of 22.5 million euros (USD 24 million) by using false billing from a public relations firm called Bygmalion.
	The source said one of two judges in charge of the case, Serge Tournaire, had decided on February 3 that the case should go to trial after the failure of Sarkozy's legal efforts to prevent it in December.
	Bygmalion allegedly charged 18.5 million euros to Sarkozy's rightwing party -- which at the time was called the UMP, but has since been renamed the Republicans -- instead of billing the president's campaign.
	Executives from the company have acknowledged the existence of fraud and false accounting and the trial will focus on whether Sarkozy himself was aware or taking decisions about it.
	Only one other president -- Jacques Chirac -- has been tried .

Sarkozy to face trial over 2012 campaign financing

The president's executive order summarily denied entry to all refugees for 120 days

Donald Trump faces deadline in court battle over travel ban

Agencies

Russia will miss August's World Athletics Championships in London after their doping ban was extended, world governing body president Sebastien Coe said.
     Coe said Russia, whose 15-month ban from athletics was prolonged at the IAAF's Council meeting in Cap d'Ail near Monaco, could not be reintegrated into the sport before November.
     Double Olympic 1500-metre champion Coe was speaking after the IAAF Council approved the Taskforce's recommendation that Russia was "not ready for reinstatement".
     Russia has been barred from international competition since November 2015 following a damaging report alleging that state-sponsored doping was rife in the country.
     The ban had already been extended in March and then June 2016, preventing Russia's athletes from competing at the Rio Olympics.
     The Taskforce, which was set up to oversees Russia's reintegration into international athletics, produced recommendations detailing a roadmap to reinstatement.
     But while ...

Russia banned from London World Championships - IAAF

An "unshackled" Alastair Cook still has several years ahead of him as an England player despite resigning the Test captaincy, according to predecessor Andrew Strauss.
     Opening batsman Cook quit yesterday after a record 59 matches as England's Test captain, saying in an England and Wales Cricket Board statement it had been an "incredibly hard" but "correct" decision.
     He added he hoped to "carry on as a Test player".
     Cook, England's leading scorer in Tests with 11,057 runs, succeeded Strauss as captain in August 2012.
     By then Strauss had exited the international stage, having lost form in a series defeat by South Africa which was overshadowed by an off-the-field row involving star batsman Kevin Pietersen -- finally axed by England in 2014 after a team led by Cook suffered a 5-0 Ashes thrashing in Australia.
     But Strauss, now the ECB's director of cricket, said former opening partner Cook would thrive without the captaincy.
     "I think he's dealt with the twin ...

'Unshackled' Cook can thrive without captaincy: Strauss

Myanmar's leadership was fending off a barrage of criticism today over the Rohingya crisis, which a UN rights official said was destroying hope for the country's first elected government in a generation.
	More than 66,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape a military crackdown in the north of Rakhine state, bringing accounts of rape, arson and mass killings at the hands of security forces.
	The bloodshed has tarnished the image of the young government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which took power in March riding a wave of optimism after winning the first free elections in a generation.
	Hopes the Nobel laureate would usher in a more open era after half a century of military rule have faded as the government has dismissed accounts of abuses as lies and "fake news".
	Today, the UN's rights official for Myanmar warned the government's denials were destroying faith in Suu Kyi's fledgling administration.
	"The government's response to all of these problems seems to currently be to defend, .

Myanmar faces barrage of criticism over Rohingya crisis

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today he wants relations with the United States to be "stronger than ever" after Donald Trump becomes president.
	Netanyahu congratulated his "friend" Trump in a tweet before his inauguration, saying he was looking forward "to working closely with you to make the alliance between Israel&USA stronger than ever".
	Meanwhile, Israel's leftwing newspaper Haaretz reported today that security services have presented Netanyahu with a series of scenarios about potential Palestinian violence if Trump follows through on his promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
	Such a transfer would break with the consensus of the vast majority of the international community, which does not recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
	Israel captured east Jerusalem during the 1967 war and later annexed it, declaring all of the city its unified capital.
	Also today, Israeli forces arrested five Palestinians who were taking protesting in the ...

Netanyahu seeks 'stronger than ever' ties with Trump

More than 23,000 child refugees and migrants could risk respiratory infections, "even death from hypothermia," due to sub-freezing temperatures across Europe, warned the UN children's fund UNICEF today.
	"With no sign of a let-up in the extreme cold weather and storms sweeping Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, refugee and migrant children are threatened by respiratory and other serious illnesses -- and even death from hypothermia," UNICEF said in a statement.
	An estimated 23,700 migrant and refugee children, including infants and newborns, remain stranded in Greece and the Balkans, where temperatures in some parts have plunged below minus 20 degrees Celsius.
	In Greece, especially the islands where thousands of refugees shelter in flimsy tents, some regions have experienced heavy snowfall for the first time in years.
	"Infants and the very young generally have less body fat to insulate them against the cold, making them more susceptible to respiratory problems and potentially ...

Europe cold front endangers 23,000 child migrants: UNICEF

Mexican drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of the world's most notorious criminals, will be arraigned on drugs, firearm and conspiracy charges in New York today, one day after being extradited to the United States.S
	His Sinaloa cartel is responsible for distributing hundreds of thousands of kilos of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana throughout the United States, reaping billions of dollars in profits, US prosecutors say.
	Guzman was extradited from Mexico yesterday, flown to Long Island and transferred by convoy to a jail in New York under heavy armed guard.
	"Today marks a milestone in our pursuit of Chapo Guzman," Attorney Robert Capers told a news conference today.
	"Mr Guzman will be arraigned later today in the United States district court right here in Brooklyn on a 17-count sweeping indictment," Capers added.
	The charges include leading and continuing criminal enterprise for alleged drug trafficking from late 1989 to September 2014, with multiple ...

Mexico's 'El Chapo' to be arraigned in US court Friday

Andy Murray and Roger Federer put on a masterclass today as they swept into the last 16 of the Australian Open, hoping to take advantage of Novak Djokovic's shock exit.
     Murray swamped Sam Querrey 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 and Federer humbled Tomas Berdych 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 in just 90 minutes, maintaining his 100 percent record over his old rival at Melbourne Park.
     Women's world number one Angelique Kerber also hit form as she dropped only four games against Kristyna Pliskova to race into a fourth-round meeting with America's Coco Vandeweghe.
     Murray and Federer had both watched from afar on Thursday as Djokovic, the defending champion and six-time winner, suffered a stunning defeat to 117th-ranked Denis Istomin.
     Querrey also upset Djokovic at Wimbledon last year but Murray, made a knight in Britain's New Year honours, never looked like slipping on any banana skins in round three.
     He put Querrey away 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 in just under two hours, winning 77 percent of points on his ...

Murray, Federer masterclass wows Aussie Open

They may be richer and more numerous than ever, but the world's urban dwellers can be forgiven a sense of dread as threats pile up from climate change, terrorism and anarchic growth.
	The fragility of fast-growing cityscapes has been exercising political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
	One projection from the Brazilian consultancy Igarape said cities will account for two-thirds of the world's population by 2030, from just over half now. The bulk of that growth will come from just three countries: China, India and Nigeria.
	Already the motors of the world economy, some "super-cities" will increasingly resemble nation states with power and influence to go with their teeming populations.
	But a major theme of the Davos meeting was how they must show "resilience" with proper urban planning.
	Inside the forum's main congress hall, a data visualisation by Igarape was projected onto a big screen to rank cities: the higher the number, the more vulnerable .

The world's cities: vital, but fragile

Rescuers in Peru were working today to save seven miners trapped for nearly four days by a landslide, the emergency services said.
	An avalanche of mud and rocks driven by heavy rain trapped the men on Monday in the mine where they were working in the southern Acari district.
	"Rescue work is continuing," Jacqueline Choque, head of emergency operations for the surrounding Arequipa region, said late yesterday.
	"Extra teams have arrived to help with extracting the water, which has brought down mud, earth and stones. We need a submergible pump" to extract the mud, she added.
	One of the miners escaped and alerted authorities, officials said. At first rescuers had been able to hear sounds from one of the trapped miners, but Choque said that the sounds stopped on Wednesday.
	"There is hope that they are still alive since there are various caverns in the mine and they could have found a safe place."
	Peru is a major mining country, exporting copper, gold and other minerals.
	The incident ..

Rescuers seek trapped miners in Peru

A Samsung probe into the exploding batteries that forced the electronics giant to scrap its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones has found irregularly sized batteries caused overheating, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
	The South Korean conglomerate was forced to discontinue its flagship Note 7 after a chaotic recall that saw replacement phones also catching fire, with the debacle costing the company billions in lost profit and reputational damage.
	Samsung is set to unveil the results of its investigation Monday, but sources told the WSJ that the findings indicated some of the problematic batteries were irregularly sized, causing overheating, while others had manufacturing problems.
	Samsung announced a recall of 2.5 million units of the oversized Galaxy Note 7 smartphone in early September after several devices exploded or caught fire.
	When replacement phones also started to combust, the company eventually decided to kill off the Note 7 for good.
	The company blamed faulty batteries ..

Samsung probe finds faulty batteries triggered fire: report

Rising oil prices will lead to higher inflation in the eurozone over the next two years than previously expected, a European Central Bank survey said today.
	The report comes a day after ECB president Mario Draghi said it was still too early for the bank to start scaling back its easy money policies despite a recent spike in consumer prices.
	According to the ECB's quarterly survey of professional forecasters, eurozone inflation is expected to rise by 1.4 per cent in 2017 and 1.5 per cent next year, up from a previous estimate of 1.2 and 1.4 per cent.
	"These upward revisions largely reflect the increase in the price of oil," the ECB said in a statement.
	The forecasters also gave their first readings for 2019, when they predict inflation will hit 1.6 per cent -- still a way off the ECB's goal of keeping the rate below but close to 2 per cent.
	The Frankfurt-based institution has embarked on an unprecedented effort to drive up growth and inflation in the region using a combination of .

AFP

AFP

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