An online petition calling for the British monarchy to pay for 369 million pounds in repairs to Buckingham Palace has gathered momentum and by today, had garnered over 132,000 signatures.
	Last week, royal officials outlined a plan for Queen Elizabeth II's official home to undergo "essential works" to replace electrical wiring, water pipes and boilers in the biggest overhaul since the 1950s.
	To fund the 369 million pounds (431-million euro, USD 458 million) repairs, the government is asking parliament to approve an increase in the sovereign grant -- the annual allowance provided by the government to support the Queen in her official duties.
	Many members of the public are not so keen.
	"There is a national housing crisis, the NHS (National Health Service) is in crisis, austerity is forcing cuts in many frontline services," Mark Johnson, who launched the online petition, wrote.
	"Now the Royals expect us to dig deeper to refurbish Buckingham Palace. The Crown's wealth is inestimable. .

Calls for queen to pay for Buckingham Palace repairs

PTI Automatic

Volkswagen today said it wants to be the world leader in electric cars by 2025 as the German car giant unveiled a major shift to clean-energy vehicles in the wake of the dieselgate emissions cheating scandal.
	The US market, where the pollution crisis first erupted, will play a key role in the revamp, VW brand chief Herbert Diess said, announcing a "comeback story" for the region with plans for electric cars to be built in North America from 2021.
	"By 2025 we plan to sell one million electric cars per year, and by then we also want to be the global market leader in electromobility," Diess said at a presentation of the brand's future plans.
	"Going forward our electric cars will be the hallmark of Volkswagen," he told reporters at the VW group's Wolfsburg headquarters in northern Germany.
	The company's switch to electric will be made possible through new investments and economies of scale, Diess said, and is a crucial part of the troubled brand's efforts to reinvent itself.
	The VW ..

After dieselgate, Volkswagen goes electric

More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said today.
	"The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000," Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs, as saying.
	Iran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines" in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria.
	Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed.
	Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime.
	The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq.
	Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni ...

More than 1,000 combatants from Iran killed in Syria: official

More than half the world's population does not use the internet, with prohibitive broadband costs keeping billions offline, a United Nations report said today.
	The UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said that 3.9 billion people do not have home or mobile internet access and that the problem was most acute among the world's "female, elderly, less educated, lower income and rural (populations)".
	One problem is the cost of fixed-broadband access, which has fallen globally over the last decade but remained "clearly unaffordable" in many of the world's poorest countries, the ITU said.
	In 2008, the global average price for a basic fixed-broadband connection was USD 80 (75 euros) per month, a figure which fell to USD 25 a month last year, according to the ITU.
	But, in poorer countries, a fixed-broadband monthly package with just one gigabyte of data -- which is roughly the amount needed to download an average movie --  still costs more than half of an average annual ...

Over half of world's population does not use internet: UN

President-elect Donald Trump will not push for further investigation of Hillary Clinton related to her private email use and the Clinton Foundation, a close adviser said today, breaking with a key campaign theme.
	Trump triggered consternation - and widespread condemnation - when he made an unprecedented campaign threat to jail his Democratic rival should he win the White House.
	The Republican made Clinton's email scandal and allegations of pay-to-play at her family foundation a core theme of his campaign, railing against her "crimes" and leading fired-up supporters in chants of "Lock her Up!"
	But since his election he has deflected questioning on the subject, saying in an interview he would think about it, but had other priorities as incoming head of state.
	"I think when the president-elect... Tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content" to fellow Republicans, Trump aide Kellyanne Conway ...

Trump won't push Clinton investigation: aide

At least eight people died and an unknown number were missing as a new series of Mediterranean boat dramas left Italy on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals.
	Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard told AFP that 1,400 people had been saved in 12 separate operations between yesterday evening and today afternoon.
	The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014.
	A coastguard boat recovered seven bodies and oversaw the rescue of 182 people from a stricken rubber dinghy in waters off Libya.
	The other confirmed victim, a man, died on the Topaz Responder, a boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS with a Red Cross medical team onboard.
	MOAS said survivors' accounts suggested that "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of two children who survived.
	The ...

8 dead as Italy nears new record for migrant rescues

At least 3,000 people have fled into China due to fighting in northern Myanmar, Beijing said today, as the death toll from clashes between the military and ethnic insurgents rose to 10.
	The violence is a fresh blow to de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi's hopes of forging a nationwide peace agreement after decades of bloody insurgencies in Myanmar's borderlands.
	Locals near the Chinese border in Myanmar's northern state of Shan said they were fleeing heavy fighting between the army and four armed ethnic groups, including the powerful Kachin Independence Army.
	Suu Kyi's office today said 10 people had been killed near the border town of Muse, a hotbed of smuggling, over three days.
	That included three police, two pro-government militia members and five civilians including two women. A soldier reported dead on Sunday was not accounted for.
	A total of 33 people have been injured in the fighting, the office said in a statement.
	"People dare not go outside," town resident Aye Aye told ..

Thousands flee Myanmar clashes to China: Beijing

FIFA president Gianni Infantino says he is in favour of introducing video refereeing for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, after previously expressing fears it would break up games too much.
     The head of world football's governing body told Tuesday's Le Parisien newspaper that he was sceptical at first about using video technology to assist referees in crucial decisions.
	"But I have come to the conclusion after tests that this is not the case," he said of his initial concerns that video use would slow down matches.
	The International Football Association Board (IFAB), an independent body, approved video technology testing in March to be carried out over a two-year period.
	"We will multiply (the tests) over the two-year period and decide in March 2018," said Infantino. "I hope we will have video refereeing in time for the 2018 World Cup."
    	Several countries including France, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands have been selected to conduct the ...

FIFA chief wants video refs for next World Cup

Two Qatari women were held up on a Paris motorway and robbed of valuables worth more than five million euros (USD 5.3 million) in the latest heist targeting wealthy visitors to the French capital.
	The women, in their sixties, had just left Le Bourget airport northeast of the capital yesterday when their chauffeur-driven Bentley was held up by two masked men who sprayed them with tear gas, a police source said today.
	The robbers stole "everything in the vehicle: jewels, clothes, luggage", the source said.
	Last month, American reality TV star Kim Kardashian was tied up and robbed at gunpoint of USD 10 million in jewels in a luxury apartment in the heart of Paris.
	Police said the robbers held a gun to Kardashian's head, bound and gagged her and shut her into a bathroom in the biggest jewellery robbery of an individual in France in more than 20 years.
	In another incident, Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat was punched in the face and sprayed with tear gas by three masked men in an ...

Qatari women robbed of millions in new Paris heist

An opposition leader in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan today announced a bid to impeach President Almazbek Atambayev as the politically volatile Central Asian state prepares for a controversial referendum on constitutional changes.
	Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of the opposition Ata-Meken parliamentary party, told journalists he was gathering signatures to show public support and would seek to put a bill on Atambayev's impeachment to the vote by MPs early next year.
	"We will gather the necessary facts and documents presented in the form of a legal document and begin the impeachment process before March," said Tekebayev, a political veteran whose party has 11 seats in the 120-member parliament.
	Tekebayev has accused former oppositionist Atambayev of "usurping power" in the country and controlling the work of the parliament and the judiciary.
	The Ata-Meken leader also opposes a December 11 referendum which Atambayev's critics believe will benefit the president and his ruling Social Democratic 

Kyrgyz opposition leader calls for president's impeachment

A powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit northeast Japan today, sparking panic and triggering a tsunami including a one-metre wave that crashed ashore at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.
	National broadcaster NHK urged residents to "flee immediately" to higher ground, reminding viewers to heed the lessons of the "Great East Japan Earthquake".
	A massive undersea quake with a magnitude of 9.0 that struck in March 2011 unleashed a tsunami that left more than 18,500 people dead or missing. It sent three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.
	An official from plant operator TEPCO told a news conference that a one-metre wave had hit the coast at the facility, but a company spokesman told AFP there were no reports of damage.
	About a dozen other waves were recorded elsewhere on the northeast coast, according to the Meterological Agency, but they were smaller than initial warnings of waves as high as 3.0 ...

Strong quake hits Japan, triggers Fukushima tsunami

At least eight people died and "many" more are missing, feared dead, after the latest migrant boat dramas in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard and NGOs said today.
	The coastguard said one of its boats had recovered seven bodies and another person had died on a rescue boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS and the Red Cross.
	The Red Cross said survivors' accounts suggested "many" people were unaccounted for, including the mother of a young girl who was among the traumatised survivors on MOAS's boat, the Topaz Responder.
	"There may be many missing, many dead," Red Cross Team Coordinator Abdelfetah Mohamed said in a telephone call to colleagues that the humanitarian organisation posted on YouTube along with still images of the aftermath of the rescues.
	"The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them," MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP.
	The coastguard said a total of around 1,200 people had been rescued during ...

Eight dead, 'many' missing in new Med migrant drama

The US State Department has issued a travel alert warning in the run-up to the end-of-the-year holiday season, warning Americans of a "heightened risk of terrorist attacks throughout Europe."
	US citizens "should exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets," it said late Monday, in an alert that expires on February 20.
	Extremist groups "continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events," it added.
	"US citizens should also be alert to the possibility that extremist sympathizers or self-radicalized extremists may conduct attacks during this period with little or no warning."
	It gave no further details.
	The Islamic State group has claimed a string of terror attacks in France and Belgium since January 2015 that have left more than 250 dead and hundreds injured.

US govt issues travel alert for Europe ahead of holidays

Britain's Electoral Commission opened an investigation today into whether the UK Independence Party (UKIP) used EU money for its Brexit campaign in breach of party funding rules.
	The probe follows a European Parliament audit on Monday which said UKIP will have to renounce hundreds of thousands of euros (dollars) of EU funding after misspending part of the grants on campaigning in Britain.
	"The commission has now opened its own investigation into UKIP to look at whether there has been any breach of UK election law," the Electoral Commission said in a statement.
	"This includes whether any impermissible donations have been accepted by the party," it said.
	The European Parliament audit yesterday found that a number of invoices from the European political party Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE) to which UKIP belongs "were not in line with the rules governing grants to parties and foundations."
	"The ADDE will now not receive the remaining 20 percent of the grant (248,345 ..

Britain opens probe on UKIP party funding

The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator warned his British counterpart today that there is an "intense" window of just 15 months to complete talks for the country's exit from the EU.
	Guy Verhofstadt said he had also told Brexit minister David Davis that European lawmakers would not accept Britain trying to keep access to the single market while limiting freedom of movement for EU citizens.
	Former Belgian prime minister and leading European federalist Verhofstadt had tweeted that it would be a "hell of a meeting" after Davis jokingly compared him to Satan earlier this year.
	"We agreed on some things, on the need for this process to start as early as possible and need to be finished in any case before the next European elections" in May 2019, Verhofstadt said after the talks in Strasbourg, France.
	"So the window for the negotiations is more or less 14, 15 months," he added. "It's going to be a period that is very intense."
	He said if Britain triggers the two-year divorce ...

Brexit talks have 15-month window: EU negotiator

Power-hungry Vietnam scrapped plans for two multi-billion dollar nuclear power plants today, citing environmental and financial reasons after the cost of the projects skyrocketed.
	The two plants in central Ninh Thuan province had a combined capacity of 4,000 megawatts and were to be developed with assistance from Russia's Rosatom and the Japanese consortium JINED.
	The cost of the nuclear power plants, slated to be the first in Southeast Asia, doubled since they were first tabled in 2009 to an estimated USD 18 billion, officials said earlier.
	The government said costs mushroomed as they sought more advanced technology following Japan's deadly Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
	"The project was suspended not due to technological reasons, but the country's current economic situation," the government said on its website.
	Vietnam is currently grappling with a mounting budget deficit and has said it is likely to fall short of its ambitious growth target of 6.7 percent this year.
	The .

Vietnam scraps huge nuclear power plant projects

Want to impress the kids this Christmas? A Tokyo retailer has just the thing - if you have got about USD 2.0 million to spare.
	Jeweller Ginza Tanaka is going all out this season with a two-metre Christmas tree made with pure gold wire that's as fine as angel hair pasta.
	The shop in Tokyo's glitzy Ginza district says the 19 kilogramme tree is made up of more than 1,200 metres of gold wire.
	"The wire is made of the finest gold which has a 99.999 percent purity level," Ginza Tanaka store manager Takahiro Ito told AFP today.
	Ito said the tree was made by the jeweller's in-house artisans.
	The price tag? A cool 200 million yen (USD 1.8 million).
	While it may be a stretch finding a buyer, Ito said he hoped the opulent display would show off Japan's world-famous craftmanship.
	"We want them to see our great technique and craftsmanship, and the glittering beauty of gold," he said.

Putting on the glitz: Tokyo gets USD 2 mn Christmas tree

Renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed 19 people today, military officials said a day after a fragile 48-hour ceasefire expired without halting the violence.
	Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies on the outskirts of Taez city in the southwest, the officials said.
	The attack that began late yesterday targeted the Al- Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city that is surrounded by insurgents.
	Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in defensive operations and repelling the attack, officials said. Eleven rebels and five government soldiers were killed, they added.
	Meanwhile, three soldiers were killed and four wounded late yesterday by rebel sniper fire in the area of the northwestern coastal town of Midi, a military official said.
	The Huthis have been trying to advance on Midi's harbour, which is controlled by pro-Hadi ...

19 killed in renewed Yemen clashes

Two Qatari women were held up with their driver on a Paris motorway and robbed of valuables worth "at least five million euros (USD 5.3 million)", police sources said today.
	The women, who are in their sixties, had just left Le Bourget airport northeast of the capital on Monday when their Bentley was held up by two masked men, who sprayed them with tear gas and stole "everything in the vehicle: jewels, clothes, luggage", one source said.
	The portion of motorway leading north from Paris to the Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports is often the scene of hold-ups targeting wealthy foreigners in luxury cars, some of whom carry large amounts of cash.
	The robbers often take advantage of traffic jams to pounce.
	Last month, a taxi transporting the CEO of a French furniture chain among other passengers was held up after leaving Le Bourget.
	The three robbers made off with an estimated 100,000 euros in valuables.
	A Korean art collector was the target of a similar heist last year, with .

Two Qatari women robbed on Paris motorway in 5-mn-euro heist

Uber launched its on-demand car ride services in the perennially jammed Bangladeshi capital Dhaka today, saying it would help reduce congestion in one of the world's largest metropolises.
	Dhaka is the 33rd city in South Asia where the smartphone taxi app is now available.
	The city's first Uber ride was made by Bangladeshi cricket star Shakib Al Hasan, according to the California-based company, adding its technology would help reduce traffic and improve air quality.
	"Uber has a simple goal: to use technology to make our cities more accessible while reducing congestion and pollution," said Amit Jain, president of Uber India and South Asia.
	Bangladesh's government backed Uber's launch in the capital - which has a population of over 30 million in the city and adjoining industrial towns but lacks a metro system, leaving residents totally reliant on the heavily congested roads.
	"Smart cities are integral parts of the digital Bangladesh and I'm very excited to have Uber in Dhaka as a ...

Uber launches in congested Bangladesh capital

The Kremlin said today that President Vladimir Putin enjoys good relations with Francois Fillon, the surprise winner of the first round of France's rightwing presidential primary.
	"They established relations when Putin was still head of government, they had quite extensive exchanges," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
	"They do indeed maintain quite good relations."
	Peskov added that Moscow was following the French presidential primaries with "great attention."
	"France is our partner, a country with which Russia maintains good relations and with which the scope of cooperation could be much larger than it is now," Peskov added.
	Former prime minister Fillon, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, pulled off a stunning upset on Sunday, knocking his former boss Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race and beating the favourite, fellow ex-premier Alain Juppe.
	Russian media this week portrayed Fillon as a "friend of Moscow" capable of mending relations that soured over Russia's 2014 ...

AFP

AFP

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