UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used his first address at the World Economic Forum in Davos today to push for a new partnership with business to help fight climate change and reduce poverty.
	Guterres took over from Ban Ki-moon on January 1 with an ambitious plan to reform the United Nations at a time when it is struggling to raise funds for its humanitarian work and to address global crises.
	The UN chief singled out business as the "best allies" to shield the Paris climate deal from "the possibility of less supportive action of some governments", in a veiled reference to US President-elect Donald Trump.
	Trump, who takes office on Friday, has expressed skepticism about climate change, raising fears that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris deal on combating global warming.
	"I would say that the best allies of all those who want to make sure that the Paris agreements are implemented, the best allies today in the world are probably in the business sector and it is .

New UN chief at Davos seeks allies in business

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Nigeria today gave details of a formal probe into a botched air strike that killed at least 70 people, as aid workers feared the bloodshed could affect vital humanitarian programmes.
	More than 100 people, many of them children, were injured in the bombing at a camp for people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in Rann, in the country's northeast, on Tuesday.
	Six local Red Cross workers who were distributing food to between 20,000 and 40,000 people living in makeshift shelters at the camp were among the dead.
	The Nigerian Air Force said a board of inquiry comprising six senior officers would investigate the bombing, and had initially been presented with a list of 20 witnesses.
	"Among its terms of reference, the board is to determine the immediate and remote causes as well as the circumstances that led to the incident," it said in a statement.
	The board will submit its report no later than February 2, it added.
	Military commanders have already called the bombing a mistake, ...

Nigeria plans inquiry into botched air strike

More than 80 Islamic State jihadists were killed in US strikes on training camps in Libya, including several who were involved in plotting attacks in Europe, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said today.
	"They certainly are people who were actively plotting operations in Europe and may also have been connected to some attacks that have already occurred in Europe," Carter said on his last day in office.

More than 80 IS fighters killed in US strikes in Libya:

Tehran's mayor said more than 20 firefighters had been killed when the city's oldest high-rise collapsed following a fire today.
	"So far, more than 20 of our colleagues in the fire brigade have lost their lives rescuing others," mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told Iranian state television.
	Fire brigade spokesman Jalal Maleki said he could not confirm the 20 deaths, and they were still being treated officially as missing since no bodies had yet been pulled from the rubble.
	Rescue workers, soldiers and sniffer dogs were desperately hunting for survivors in the debris of the 15-storey Plasco building, which contained a shopping centre and hundreds of clothing suppliers.
	Some 78 people -- mostly firefighters -- were injured as they rushed to evacuate the building, the head of Tehran's emergency services told state television, and six were still in hospital by late evening.
	Dramatic images showed flames pouring out of the top floors of the building, which collapsed shortly before ...

Tehran mayor says 20 firefighters dead in high-rise collapse

Bruce Springsteen performed a secret concert for President Barack Obama and his staff as they leave the White House, urging optimism in uncertain times, the rock legend's fanzine reported.
	Backstreets, a long-running magazine and website that methodically documents Springsteen's shows, said The Boss played a 15-song acoustic set in the White House's East Room on January 10.
	The fanzine, quoting an anonymous "longtime Backstreets reader" in attendance, said Obama and First Lady Michelle both attended but otherwise the crowd consisted of 200-250 mostly low-profile administration staffers.
	The mood at the concert and a related reception "was not exactly somber, but it wasn't festive, either. It was elegiac, I'd say," the witness wrote.
	"There was a clear sense of something ending, both with the conclusion of an adventure for the staff and the silent presence of the coming political transition," the person wrote, referring to Donald Trump taking power Friday.
	Performing his 2007 song 

Springsteen gives 'elegiac' secret show for Obama: report

Cyprus and Greece today insisted that any peace deal for the divided island must provide for the withdrawal of Turkish troops and new security arrangements.
	If Turkey and the island's minority Turkish Cypriots want a solution, "there can neither be occupation troops nor guarantees", Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said after talks in Nicosia with his Cyprus counterpart Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader.
	Anastasiades, whose country has been a European Union member since 2004, said: "Our common goal is to finally achieve a solution that is fully compatible with the European acquis (EU legislation)...
	"Without the need to have any third country as a guarantor or troops of any country staying to protect supposedly one or the other community."
	Their comments came as technocrats in Switzerland were discussing a post-settlement Cyprus security formula.
	UN-backed negotiations in the Swiss resort town of Mont Pelerin include Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot ...

Greece, Cyprus say peace deal must end Turkish troop presence

"Fake news" probably did not change the outcome of the US presidential election, according to a study of news consumption by voters.
	The study bolsters arguments by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, who has sought to deflect criticism that the huge social network may have been used to fuel the spread of misinformation that impacted the 2016 race.
	However, the researchers did reach some potentially troubling conclusions -- that 15 percent of people surveyed reported seeing fake news stories, and eight percent reported seeing and believing them.
	The report was published this week as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, known for its role in determining recessions in the US economy.
	Researchers Hunt Allcott of New York University and Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford concluded that despite the widespread consumption of fake stories, this was not likely a determining factor in Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton.
	They said pro-Trump fake stories were shared ..

'Fake news' didn't change US election outcome: study

Luxury Swiss watchmakers, gathering this week at the industry's premier annual show in Geneva, hope 2017 will finally mark the end of two crisis-hit years of falling sales.
	Many top-flight brands, used to running their ateliers at full throttle, have resorted to laying off workers in the face of crumbling demand.
	"2016 has been difficult," Jean-Daniel Pasche, president of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, told AFP during the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), which runs through January 20.
	He said he expected this year's exports of luxury watches to be "about the same level" as those of last year.
	Exports for all of 2016 will be published next week, but from January to November, they were down 10.4 per cent from the same period last year, after a 3.3 per cent decline in 2015.
	"We're near the end, I think, of what has been a structural crisis," said Manuel Emch, chief executive of the luxury brand Romain Jerome.
	"We're seeing a recovery in China, and the 

Swiss watchmakers call time on 2 years of crisis

More than 20 firefighters dead in Iran building collapse:

More than 40 per cent of Syrian child refugees are missing out on education in Turkey raising the risk of a "lost generation", UN children's fund UNICEF said today.
	Nearly 400,000 children of school-going age are not in education at present, the agency said, despite an increase of over 50 per cent in enrolment since June.
	Currently close to half a million Syrian children in Turkey are attending school.
	The agency's deputy executive director Justin Forsyth praised Turkey for this "huge achievement" but said more needed to be done, in a statement on the agency's website.
	"Unless more resources are provided, there is still a very real risk of a 'lost generation' of Syrian children, deprived of the skills they will one day need to rebuild their country," Forsyth added.
	He was speaking after a visit to southern Turkey where hundreds of thousands of Syrians live in cities and inside camps.
	Ankara says there are 2.7 million Syrian refugees in the country, of whom 1.2 million are ...

Nearly 400,000 Syrian child refugees in Turkey not in school:

Several children were among the missing today after a devastating avalanche buried an Italian mountain hotel with more than 25 people believed to be trapped inside.
	The prospects of anyone being rescued alive from the ill-fated Hotel Rigopiano looked bleak with rescue efforts hampered by heavy snow that had blocked access roads to the remote site.
	The three-storey building was hit by a two-metre (six-feet) high wall of snow late yesterday afternoon.
	The first rescue workers only reached the remote site in the early hours today and it was midday by the time a snow plough and the first mechanical excavation equipment got there.
	As some 35 firemen and sniffer dogs combed the rubble, officials said one body had been recovered and the location of another one identified by early afternoon.
	"We are trying to recover bodies," said fire service spokesman Luca Cari. Asked if there was any hope of survivors, he told AFP: "You never know."
	He added: "The building was basically run over by ..

Many feared dead as Italy avalanche buries hotel

Rescue workers in Tehran were desperately hunting for firefighters trapped under the rubble after a fire today led to the collapse of Iran's oldest high-rise, the 15-storey Plasco building.
	Officials had yet to confirm if anyone had been killed, but Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told state television that between 20 and 25 firefighters were thought to be inside when the building fell.
	Three people were pulled alive from the rubble and taken to hospital, the head of Tehran's emergency services said, according to the ISNA news agency.
	At least 70 firefighters were injured and 23 hospitalised as they rushed to evacuate the building, which had been on fire for around four hours before it crumbled, the head of emergency services told state television.
	Some 200 firefighters had been tackling the blaze at the Plasco building, which dated from the 1960s and included a shopping centre and clothing workshops.
	Dramatic images showed flames pouring out of the top floors just before ..

Many Iran firefighters feared trapped in building collapse

German prosecutors today sought six years for a teenage girl accused of stabbing a police officer, an assault allegedly ordered by the Islamic State organisation but which it did not claim.
	Safia S, 16, is charged with "attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and support for a foreign terrorist organisation", a crime which carries up to 10 years in jail.
	"The federal prosecutor has asked for a youth penalty of six years' imprisonment for 16-year-old Safia S," said the court in the northern city of Celle, where hearings are being held under closed doors as the accused is a minor.
	Prosecutors said the German-Moroccan national, who is believed to have been radicalised as a young girl, had sought to catch the attention of police officers by following them at the main train station in the northern city of Hanover.
	As the officers called her over for an identity check, Safia S. Allegedly stabbed one of them in the neck with a vegetable knife before being overpowered by another ...

Prosecutors seek 6 yrs for teen girl in police stabbing case

Two explosions hit the Gaza Strip, police said today, including one targeting the home of an official from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, without causing casualties.
	The first blast struck at around midnight in eastern Gaza City outside the home of Nayef Khuweter, a Fatah official in the territory, police and eyewitnesses said.
	Fatah condemned the attack, saying it would "disrupt" attempts at reconciliation with the Islamist movement Hamas which runs the Gaza Strip.
	In a separate incident, a car exploded in Nuseirat refugee camp of central Gaza.
	The Hamas-led police said they had opened investigations into the blasts, for which there were no immediate claims of responsibility.
	Hamas has ruled Gaza since a near civil war in 2007 led to the expulsion of Fatah, which runs the West Bank.
	Tension between the two rival parties has increased in recent weeks against the backdrop of an electricity crisis in Gaza and anti-Hamas protests.
	Several reconciliation bids ...

Abbas ally's home hit in Gaza bombing

Turkey's TV regulator has criticised a French singer who satirised the bloody New Year attack on an Istanbul nightclub, state media reported today.
	Just 75 minutes into 2017, a lone gunman attacked the elite Reina nightclub killing 39 people. The Islamic State group later took responsibility.
	In a letter to his French counterpart, Ilhan Yerlikaya, the head of Turkey's audiovisual authority RTUK, condemned as "disturbing" a song by Frederic Fromet, a satirical French singer, the official Anadolu news agency reported.
	On January 6, on France Inter radio, Fromet sang a song to the tune of the Macarena which included these lyrics: "An attack in Nice is real agony, an attack in Berlin, ah yeah, it's concerning, an attack in Istanbul is cooler, Reina!"
	Writing to Olivier Schrameck, head of the Superior Council of Audiovisual (Content) which regulates French broadcasters, Yerlikaya said the  French public would be just as outraged if a similar song was written about the November 13, 2015 

Turkey slams French song mocking Istanbul New Year attack

The ultimate winners of banks deserting Brexit-bound London will not be rival financial hubs in Europe but New York and Asia, the British capital's mayor warned today.
	Sadiq Khan spoke to AFP at the World Economic Forum shortly after Prime Minister Theresa May told the meeting in Davos that Britain would remain open for business, even as some banks start shifting jobs from London to Europe.
	While May insists that Britain will abandon the EU's common market, Khan said she should press still in Brexit negotiations for "privileged access" to the trading area and for London to have the ability to hire the right talent from abroad.
	After meeting Norway's prime minister, Khan said he was telling European partners in Davos that "so-called hard Brexit may not benefit London or the UK because firms will leave London, but there's no guarantee they're going to go to Paris, Madrid, Frankfurt or Berlin".
	"The reality is they'll probably go to Hong Kong, Singapore or New York. So a so-called ...

London mayor warns Asia, NY will win out from Brexit

From gorillas to gibbons, about 60 per cent of primates, the closest biological relatives to human beings, are threatened by extinction due largely to human activities, a study has found.
	"This truly is the eleventh hour for many of these creatures," said University of Illinois anthropology professor Paul Garber, who co-wrote the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
	Researchers reported that about 60 percent of primate species are threatened with extinction, while around 75 percent of species have declining populations.
	Only a few thousand individuals remain in several species of lemurs, monkeys and apes, the report said.
	Among these are the ring-tailed lemur, Udzunga red colobus monkey, Yunnan snub-nosed monkey and Grauer's gorilla.
	Fewer than 30 Hainan gibbons, which live in China, remain alive, the report said.
	Hunting, the illegal pet trade and loss of habitat to humans who continue to cut trees, build roads, mine and cultivate the land in primate ...

Extinction threatens some 60 percent of primates: study

The Philippines expressed hope today of securing a permanent ceasefire deal with communist rebels waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies, as peace talks resumed in Italy.
	The communists have been waging a "national democratic revolution" since 1968 to overthrow a capitalist system that has created one of Asia's biggest rich-poor divides and claimed 30,000 lives, according to the military.
	A new round of negotiations began in Rome on Thursday, with the government's chief negotiator Silvestre Bello saying longstanding contentious issues could be "hurdled".
	"I am one with President (Rodrigo) Duterte's optimism that in this round of talks, we are able to finalise and approve the joint ceasefire agreement," Bello said at the opening of the talks.
	"There are reasons to hope we can hurdle the task."
	Duterte, 71, said it was his "dream" to secure a lasting peace deal within his six-year term.
	After assuming office in June last year, the self-styled socialist launched the peace ...

Hope as Philippines communist peace talks open: Govt

The UN Security Council will vote today on a draft resolution endorsing the West African bloc ECOWAS in its efforts to ensure a transfer of power in The Gambia, diplomats said.
	The Economic Community Of West African States has repeatedly called on leader Yahya Jammeh to respect the result of the December 1 election and step down after 22 years in power.

UN to vote on backing ECOWAS action in The Gambia: diplomats

Saudi Arabia's government should end the kingdom's ban on women driving and reform the male guardianship system, a United Nations independent expert said today.
	Philip Alston spoke at the end of a 12-day visit during which he met cabinet ministers, people living in poverty, activists, Islamic experts and others.
	"My concern is that the government is in fact deferring to a relatively small portion of conservative voices," Alston told a news conference.
	This is obstructing the economic and social progress which the oil-rich kingdom aims to achieve under a wide-ranging reform programme released last year, said Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
	"So I feel very strongly that the kingdom should move to enable women to drive cars," said Alston, an independent expert who reports to the UN's Human Rights Council.
	He said features of the guardianship system which hinder women's ability to work and travel "need to be reformed."
	Under that system a male .

End ban on women driving, UN expert tells Saudi

Green groups said today that one of the world's biggest pulp mills which started production on Indonesia's Sumatra island last month was causing enormous environmental damage.
	The groups said the USD 3 billion mill belonging to industry giant Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) was sourcing raw materials mostly from trees grown on drained peatlands, where haze-belching fires occur every year.
	The mill produces a raw material which can later be made into paper.
	Woro Supartinah, whose NGO was among the groups protesting the mill, called on the Indonesian government to "promote a broader set of interests" than just helping major companies reap profits.
	"Restoring peatlands will generate economic growth and environmental security over the long term," she said.
	The groups who protested the mill included Wetlands International, Eyes on the Forest and Rainforest Action Network. APP did not respond to requests for comment.
	Vast areas of peatland, which store carbon, have been drained in recent ...

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