Donald Trump's pledge to entrust his business empire to his sons does little to allay concerns about conflicts of interest between the incoming Republican president and the company he has run as an autocrat.
	"Even though I am not mandated by law to do so, I will be leaving my busineses (sic) before January 20th so that I can focus full time on the Presidency," the president-elect announced on Twitter late Monday.
	"Two of my children, Don and Eric, plus executives, will manage them. No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office," he added.
	The brief statement came after Trump postponed until sometime next month a news conference originally scheduled for tomorrow at which he intended to unveil arrangements for his business after he takes office.
	The 70-year-old, who is the wealthiest man to become US president, has been beset by accusations of conflict of interest ever since his shock electoral defeat of Democratic former secretary of state Hillary Clinton last month.
	Those 

How to solve a problem like Trump's business empire

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A consortium led by Australian investment bank Macquarie today made a surprise USD 5.5 billion bid for Tatts Group, throwing into question a planned merger between the gambling giant and rival Tabcorp.
	Tatts said it was assessing the unsolicited offer from the consortium -- which includes First State Superannuation Scheme, North Haven Infrastructure Partners and  Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co -- although its directors were still supportive of the Tabcorp merger.
	Tabcorp and Tatts announced in October they were combining forces to create a  powerhouse taking bets on horse racing and sports events across the country.
	"Tatts has not yet formed a view on how the indicative proposal (from Macquarie) compares to the proposed Tabcorp merger," it said in a statement.
	"The Tatts board and its advisers will assess the indicative proposal including its terms, underlying financial assumptions and conditions, and will provide a further update on the outcome of that review as soon as ...

Macquarie-led group bids for Australian gambling giant

South Sudan has over the past week ordered two senior employees of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) to leave the country, without explanation, the aid organisation said today.
	The expulsions follow the deportation of an American journalist from the war-torn country and come as alarm rises over spreading violence, with UN human rights experts warning "ethnic cleansing" was underway.
	The NRC's country director was asked to leave last Friday after being held by security services for more than a day, and its area manager for the northern Warrap state was told to leave on Tuesday.
	"NRC has not received any formal explanation of the charges against these two individuals," the organisation said in a statement.
	"The order for a second senior staff member to leave is unacceptable," said Jan Egeland, NRC's Secretary General.
	"Without assurances from the authorities that we will be able to operate without interference, NRC may have to reassess our ability to deliver assistance at scale ..

South Sudan expels second aid worker in a week

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that Moscow expects rebel resistance in Syria's Aleppo to end in the next two to three days.
	"I expect that the rebels will stop their resistance in the next two to three days," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying. "I hope that the situation in eastern Aleppo will be resolved in two to three days.

Moscow sees Aleppo rebel resistance ending in '2-3 days'

Thieves posing as police officers walked off with more than USD 5 million of gold after telling a group of men simply to hand it over, Japanese media reported today.
	The fake cops stopped the group and demanded briefcases that contained the yellow metal, telling them: "We know it's smuggled," the Asahi Shimbun reported.
	Apparently taken in by the disguise, the victims gave the pretend police what they asked for and watched as they drove off.
	The heist, in Fukuoka, happened as the men were on their way to sell the more-than 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds) of gold, said reports, which valued the haul at 600 million yen (USD 5.2 million).
	The men who were robbed later told the real police they had bought the metal the day before.
	An official police spokesman in Fukuoka refused to confirm the reports, which said the theft took place in July, and most likely involved organised crime gangs.

Fake police cop USD 5m of gold in Japan

Argentine sports marketing company Torneos y Competencias S.A. Agreed to pay $112.8 million to settle charges in the United States stemming from a massive FIFA corruption scandal, authorities said.
     Torneos "admitted to its role in the 15-year scheme, including its role in paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks to a high-ranking FIFA official to secure his support" for broadcast rights to the 2018, 2022, 2026 and 2030 editions of the World Cup, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.
     Under the arrangement, the Argentine company averts prosecution if it avoids charges in the next four years, pays fines and returns tainted funds.
     "Today's announcement marks another important step in our continuing effort to root out corruption in international soccer and sends a clear message that corporate entities that rely on the US financial system to enrich themselves through bribery will be held to account," said US ...

FIFA scandal: Argentine firm agrees to $112.8 mn settlement

A Vietnam court has convicted four men of people-smuggling after they tried to sail to Australia with a boatload of migrants but were turned back under Canberra's hardline immigration policy.
	Australia does not accept so-called boat people from any nation and the country has come under fire for holding migrants in isolated outposts in Papua New Guinea and the island of Nauru.
	The four Vietnamese sentenced in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province on Tuesday were deported from Australia in June after their boat carrying 21 people was spotted in Australian waters.
	Two were given three and three and a half years in prison, while another pair were handed 18-month suspended sentences, a court clerk told AFP today.
	The Vietnamese migrants, who were reportedly seeking higher paying jobs abroad, were also deported but did not face charges.
	The ringleader of the group, 27-year-old Nguyen Giao Thong, had previously fled to Australia in 2013 before he was arrested and returned to Vietnam, ...

Vietnam jails people smugglers deported from Australia

One crew member of a crab fishing boat has died and eight others remain missing after the vessel capsized off Japan's western coast, coast guard officials said today.
	The 76-tonne fishing boat Daifukumaru capsized in the Sea of Japan just off Shimane prefecture at about 5:20 am, leaving all nine crew on board missing, a Japan Coast Guard spokesman earlier told AFP.
	Coast guard rescuers on a helicopter spotted a man floating with his face down five hours after the accident and took him to hospital where he was confirmed dead, another spokesman said.
	Patrol boats and aircraft are continuing to search for eight other men still missing, he added.
	The nine crew members include eight Japanese and one Indonesian. The nationality of the man discovered has yet to be confirmed, according to coastguard officials.
	"They were fishing for crabs when water flowed into the boat," an official with the local fishermen's union that operated the vessel said on public broadcaster NHK.
	"So the boat ..

One dead, eight missing after Japan crab boat capsizes

Sochi was stripped as the host of next year's bobsleigh and skeleton world championships amid accusations of state-sponsored doping against Russia, bringing a furious response from Moscow at what it dubbed a baseless "political decision".
     The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) had come under pressure to move the event from the 2014 Winter Olympics host city after last week's damning report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren which implicated more than 1,000 Russian athletes in at least 30 sports in a state-sponsored doping programme.
     "The IBSF executive committee felt that during this difficult time it is prudent not to organise such an event in Russia," a statement by the sports governing body read, adding a new location would be decided in the coming days.
     Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov reacted immediately, saying Russia "enormously regretted" the decision.
     "We're convinced that this was a political decision. It's based on statements ...

Bobsleigh/Skeleton: Sochi stripped of world championships

Ashley Williams's 86th-minute header ended Arsenal's 14-game unbeaten run and kept Arsene Wenger's side from the Premier League summit as Everton claimed a much-needed 2-1 win.
     Arsenal would have provisionally supplanted leaders Chelsea on goals scored with victory and took a 20th-minute lead when Alexis Sanchez's free-kick deflected in off Williams.
     But Seamus Coleman equalised with a 44th-minute header before Williams's first Everton goal ended his team's five-game winless run and sent Ronald Koeman's men up to seventh in the table.
     "We showed two faces," Everton manager Koeman, who had defender Phil Jagielka sent off in stoppage time, told BT Sport.
     "The first face, I hate that face because it is all about being nervous. You cannot lose the game like that.
     "This was a good match though because we showed how we have to play -- with commitment and aggression. You see the reaction of the crowd when you go for it and that's what we did."
     Arsenal manager ...

Williams stuns Arsenal, Leicester brought low

Pace spearhead Mitchell Starc says Australia plan to inflict a psychological blow on vulnerable Pakistan in tomorrow's day-night first Test in Brisbane to set up their three-match series.
     The left-armer said Australia, who lost Test series against Sri Lanka and South Africa recently, sense an opportunity to strike with Pakistan struggling for form away from home.
     The visitors have never won in 11 series in Australia, dropping their last three series here 3-0 and losing their previous nine Tests Down Under since 1999.
     Their recent form in New Zealand on the way to Brisbane does not engender confidence that things will be any different.
     They were defeated there by hefty margins in both Tests, including an ignominious collapse of nine wickets in the final session of the second Test in Hamilton.
     Starc is confident Steve Smith's new-look team, who halted a run of five Test defeats in the third Test against South Africa last month, can press their home advantage at .

Pakistan face big task to win in Australia

Rio de Janeiro, nicknamed the Marvelous City, officially entered the UN's list of world heritage sites in recognition of its soaring granite cliffs, urban rainforest and beaches.
	The UN cultural body, UNESCO, highlighted the "extraordinary fusion" of man-made and natural beauty in certifying Rio on the world heritage list during a ceremony held at the Christ the Redeemer statue yesterday.
	That blend has "created an urban landscape perceived to be of great beauty by many writers and travelers and one that has shaped the culture of the city," the UN said.
	Rio got a big tourism boost during the 2014 football World Cup and this August's Olympic Games. However, persistent high crime, last year's Zika epidemic, and political instability have hurt the city's image.
	The UNESCO status was announced in 2012, but only became official after the Brazilian authorities were given four years to report on their plans for protecting the likes of Flamengo Park, Sugarloaf Mountain, the Corcovado, ...

Rio gets UNESCO world heritage status

Civilians and rebel fighters were to start evacuating from Syria's Aleppo "within hours" under a deal that would end years of opposition resistance in the city.
	Rebel officials, Russia and Turkey confirmed the agreement yesterday which, if implemented, would mark a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad over opposition forces who rose up against him in 2011.
	Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said the Syrian military had stopped its operations in Aleppo under the agreement, adding: "The fighting around eastern Aleppo is over."
	Green government buses gathered at the edges of the divided Salaheddin district late yesterday, with some entering briefly but returning empty and parking on the outskirts again, an AFP correspondent said.
	The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the evacuations were now expected to begin around 0830 IST.
	The agreement came amid mounting global outrage over reports of atrocities, including dozens of summary executions, as forces loyal to ...

Syria rebels to leave Aleppo under evacuation deal

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a Cairo church that killed 25 people, in a statement circulated on social media today.
	Suicide bomber Abu Abdallah al-Masri carried out Sunday's attack, the group said in the statement, one day after authorities named the bomber as Mahmoud Shafik Mohamed Mostafa.

IS claims deadly Cairo church bombing

The Syrian military has stopped its operations in Aleppo in order to allow opposition fighters and their families to leave the city, Russia's UN envoy said today.
	"The bottom line is -- if everything is okay -- that means that the fighting around eastern Aleppo is over," said Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.

Russia's UN envoy says fighting around east Aleppo is over

A coalition drone strike in Syria killed three Islamic State leaders involved in plotting foreign attacks, including two men who helped facilitate last year's attacks in Paris, the Pentagon said today.
	"The three were working together to plot and facilitate attacks against Western targets at the time of the strike," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.
	They were killed in a December 4 air strike in Raqa, an IS stronghold in Syria.
	Cook said two of those killed - Salah-Eddine Gourmat and Sammy Djedou - were involved in facilitating the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people died.
	Gourmat was a French national, and Djedou was Belgian.
	Both of them were "close associates" of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, an IS spokesman and an external operations leader who was killed in a coalition air strike in August.
	The third person killed was Walid Hamman, a Frenchman who Cook said was a suicide-attack planner who was convicted in absentia in Belgium for a terror ..

Syria strike kills IS figures, some with Paris attack ties

The Arctic shattered heat records in the past year, as unusually warm air triggered massive melting of ice and snow and a late fall freeze, US government scientists said today.
	The grim assessment came in the Arctic Report Card 2016, a peer-reviewed report by 61 scientists around the globe that is issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
	The report spans from October 2015 to September 2016, a period when the Arctic's "average annual air temperature over land areas was the highest in the observational record," it said.
	"Rarely have we seen the Arctic show a clearer, stronger or more pronounced signal of persistent warming and its cascading effects on the environment than this year," said Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA's Arctic Research Program.
	The Arctic region is continuing to warm up more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, which is also expected to mark its hottest year in modern times.
	Climate scientists say the reasons for the rising heat ...

Hottest Arctic on record triggers massive ice melt

The US today called for international observers to be sent to Aleppo to oversee the evacuation of civilians following reports that Syrian forces had executed people during house-to-house searches.
	US Ambassador Samantha Power told an emergency Security Council meeting that the observers would "oversee the safe evacuation of the people who wish to leave but who, justifiably fear that if they try, they will be shot in the street or carted off to one of Assad's gulags.

US wants int'l observers in Aleppo to oversee evacuation

The head of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries today hailed US President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be the next secretary of State.
	"It's an understatement to say that Rex is more than qualified to occupy this very important office, particularly at these challenging times," OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo said.
	Barkindo was speaking at a forum on the global outlook for oil at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where Tillerson is a member of the board of trustees.
	Trump earlier today unveiled Tillerson as his pick for the top American diplomat, drawing sharp criticism because of the oil executive's close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as his lack of experience in public service.
	But Barkindo said Tillerson "will be a great asset to the incoming administration," and called the appointment "well-deserved."
	In a bid to end a global supply glut, which had sent prices tumbling over 

OPEC chief hails Tillerson pick for secretary of state

The planet's poorest countries are falling further behind the rest of the world and cannot catch up without more aid and favourable trade deals, a UN report said today.
	In the 45 years since the United Nations created its list of Least Developed Countries (LDC), only four have graduated from the impoverished group: Botswana, Cape Verde, Maldives and Samoa.
	Efforts to boost economic development in the remaining 48 LDCs have been "glacial", the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in its annual report on the world's poorest nations.
	Nearly half of the global poor -- currently defined as people living on less than USD 1.90 per day -- live in the 48 most impoverished countries, a rate that has more than doubled since 1990, UNCTAD said.
	UNCTAD warned that these four dozen nations were caught in "vicious circle" in which their sustained poverty was increasingly hampering their ability to lift themselves up on their own.
	"Countries can only break out of such vicious ...

Poorest countries falling further behind: UN

Allegations that Afghanistan's first vice president and his guards sexually assaulted a political rival while holding him captive in his private compound prompted calls today from the country's Western allies for a government investigation.
	Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former warlord who has a catalogue of war crimes attached to his name, is accused of ordering his guards to seize Ahmad Ishchi last month in northern Jowzjan province during a game of buzkashi, or polo with a carcass.
	Dostum allegedly kept Ishchi hostage in his private enclave for five days, where he was said to be tortured and sodomised.
	"He told me 'I will throw you under the horses and do buzkashi on you'," Ishchi, a former Jowzjan governor, told local Tolo television today.
	Dostum's office dismissed the comments as a conspiracy to defame him. But the United States joined a slew of Western governments to call for a thorough probe.
	"The unlawful detention and reported mistreatment of Mr Ishchi by the First Vice ...

AFP

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