US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel today argued  for a transatlantic trade deal and stressed that there will be "no return to a world before globalisation".
	Their joint article comes as Obama's successor Donald Trump has pledged to rip up existing trade deals and assume a more protectionist course for the world's top economy.
	Obama, on his European farewell tour, was visiting Merkel from late Wednesday to Friday, when they will also meet the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Spain in Berlin.
	In business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, Obama and Merkel stated their case for a socially responsible market economy, worldwide free trade and ever closer ties between the United States and Europe's top economy.
	"There will be no return to a world before globalisation," they wrote in the German-language article to be printed in full in Friday's edition of the weekly.
	Germans and Americans should grasp the opportunity "to shape globalisation according to our ...

Obama, Merkel see 'no return' to pre-globalised world

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Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman today said Donald Trump's aides were urging right-wing Israeli politicians to curb their public jubilation at his election as US president, Israeli media reported.
	Trump is seen as likely leading to a far more favourable policy toward Israel, though many analysts have cautioned his thinking remains unclear and he has proven himself to be unpredictable.
	"Israel has received messages from Trump transition team to 'tone down' their post-election enthusiasm & act with more humility," the English-language Jerusalem Post's Herb Keinon wrote on Twitter after Lieberman gave an off-camera briefing to Israeli diplomatic correspondents.
	"I hope that we have enough sense to stop the jubilation and public enthusiasm," Haaretz daily quoted Lieberman, of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, as saying. "It is undoubtedly damaging."
	Local media said Lieberman proposed Israel should strike a deal with the US president-elect under which it would ...

Trump team urges Israel right to tone down jubilation: media

US Senate Democrats today elected Chuck Schumer as their leader, a position from which he will head opposition to Republican President-elect Donald Trump beginning in January.
	Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent self-declared socialist from Vermont who challenged Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries, made his debut in party leadership, as chair of outreach, a sign that the bruised Democrats have learned from Clinton's defeat in last week's presidential election.
	In all, the 48 Democrats elected a team of 10 senators tasked with defining party strategy until the mid-term elections of November 2018.
	Liberal firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren is also part of leadership, as vice chair of the Democratic conference.
	Senator Dick Durbin remains the number two Democrat, while Senator Patty Murray was promoted to the third slot.
	"We are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with Republicans -- working with soon-to-be President Trump on issues where we agree," ...

Senate Democratic leader Schumer ready to battle Trump

Tunisian police have arrested four suspected jihadists accused of plotting to carry out attacks in the capital and to assassinate prominent politicians and journalists, an interior ministry spokesman said today.
	The group, composed of three men and a girl, "was planning attacks against a commercial centre and a post of the National Guard (police) in Tunis", ministry spokesman Yasser Mesbah told AFP.
	The police arrested the four in the capital's southern suburb of Ben Arous, Mesbah said, adding they had been communicating on Facebook.
	Since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has been battling a jihadist movement that has killed dozens of soldiers and police officers as well as civilians including 59 foreign tourists.
	Security sources said on Monday they had found five arms caches in the south of the country near the border with war-ravaged Libya and seized large quantities of weapons.
	Tunisia has been under a state of emergency for ...

Tunisia arrests 4 accused of planning jihadist attacks

African leaders met in Morocco today on the sidelines of UN climate talks to agree a joint stance to fight global warming on the continent.
	"Africa is paying a heavy price over the climate issue and is without doubt the continent worst affected," Morocco's King Mohammed VI told the summit attended by 20 African leaders.
	"These disruptions... Greatly hamper Africa's development and gravely threaten the basic rights of tens of millions of Africans," he said.
	He said the continent needed to "speak in a single voice, demand climate justice".
	France's President Francois Hollande and UN chief Ban Ki-moon also attended the summit which took place alongside the COP22 climate change conference in Marrakesh.
	Ban said Africa was at the forefront of the fight against climate change, and that 36 of the 50 countries most affected by global warming were African.
	Senegal's President Macky Sall said African countries would wait until 2020 for promised aid from developed countries to fight global 

African leaders in Morocco to unify stance on global warming

A US security company says a Chinese-made smartphone popular in the United States forwarded detailed user data and user texts back to a Chinese server without the phone owner's knowledge.
	Virginia-based Kryptowire, which provides mobile security services to government agencies and private businesses, said late yesterday that it had discovered the problem in a number of Android-based phones using firmware from the Chinese company Shanghai ADUPS Technology.
	Those phones included the popular models from US manufacturer BLU Products, sold in stores around the country.
	It said the firmware -- software deeply embedded in the phone -- periodically transmitted data that identified the device, the numbers called and received, contact lists and full text messages back to the server for unclear purposes.
	It said the firmware could also execute remote commands and reprogram the smartphones from a remote location.
	"The firmware could target specific users and text messages matching remotely ..

Chinese company collected phone users' texts: Security firm

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem has dismissed as "intellectually impossible" the notion that Britain could retain unfettered access to the European single market while also cutting down on EU immigration.
	Dijsselbloem also warned today that negotiations for Britain's departure from the EU would take "a lot longer than two years" -- the estimated timetable written into the EU treaties.
	Dijsselbloem spoke after an interview by Boris Johnson with Czech daily Hospodarske Noviny in which the British foreign minister reportedly said Britain would "probably" have to leave the European customs union but still have "free trade" with EU states.
	"He's saying things that are intellectually impossible, politically unavailable," Dijsselbloem, who is the Dutch finance minister and head of the eurozone finance ministers group, told the BBC.
	Speaking to CNBC on the sidelines of a conference hosted by UBS bank in London, the minister said: "I don't think he is being realistic and fair to the ...

Eurozone chief rules out 'impossible' UK Brexit plans

A week after climate-change denier Donald Trump's election to the White House, US Secretary of State John Kerry today said he was "confident" Washington's climate commitments cannot be reversed "regardless of what policy may be chosen".
	The United States is on its way to meeting its targets under a global climate rescue pact, and "I do not believe that that can or will be reversed," he said to applause at a UN climate meeting in Marrakesh.
	Market forces, not politics, will dictate the world's energy future, Kerry added.
	"That's why I'm confident for the future regardless of what policy might be chosen, because of the marketplace."
	Trump has called climate change a "hoax" perpetrated by China and has promised to "cancel" the hard-fought Paris Agreement concluded last year to limit dangerous global warming.
	The Marrakesh meeting has started drafting a roadmap for putting the agreement's goals into action, but many fear Trump will make true on his promise to withdraw from the ...

Kerry 'confident' US climate trend cannot 'be reversed'

Fresh testimony from survivors of a deadly shipwreck in the Mediterranean today raised the likely death toll for the past 48 hours to 240 people, confirming fears of rescuers who had warned dozens probably died.
	The new tally is based on information gathered by the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) from 15 survivors, who said some 135 people had drowned or lost when a dinghy sank on Monday.
	Some 95 others were feared dead after another dinghy sank yesterday.
	Nine bodies have been recovered in total after both incidents, while a 10th person was seen to have drowned but could not be pulled from the sea by rescue teams.
	Monday's survivors arrived early Wednesday in the port of Catania in Sicily, where they spoke of their ordeal.
	"The survivors told us that there were about 150 people on board, so there would be about 135 missing," UNHCR spokesman Iosta Ibba told AFP.
	The migrants are overwhelmingly from sub-Saharan Africa.
	The latest deaths will lift the total number of migrants who ...

Migrant survivor testimony raises death toll to 240

Saudi Arabia's commerce minister said today that the kingdom is seeking reciprocal treatment on visas, after critics said the introduction of higher fees risked deterring investment.
	Saudi Arabia last month introduced higher work visa fees for citizens of some countries, one of many moves adopted by the kingdom to cover a 51 percent slump in oil revenue last year following a sharp drop in global crude prices.
	Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the MISK Global Forum, Commerce and Investment Minister Majed al-Qasabi said Saudi Arabia was seeking "bilateral agreements with other countries" and that higher fees would not apply "as long as we're treated equally."
	He did not respond directly to a question about the impact on investment, but added: "The government is globally inviting investors to come here."
	The higher tariffs, which took effect last month, do not apply to citizens of the European Union or the United States.
	But for other countries, a six-month business or work-visit .

Saudi seeking reciprocity on visa fees: minister

Globalisation has brought many economic benefits to the world but needs a "course correction" to address growing inequality, US President Barack Obama said today on his European farewell tour.
	Obama spoke during a visit originally planned as a valedictory lap, but which has become focused on reassuring jittery allies after the shock election victory by Donald Trump, a staunch critic of free trade agreements.
	"The global path of globalisation demands a course correction," Obama said in an eagerly-awaited speech in Athens, before continuing his journey to Berlin.
	"When we see people, global elites, wealthy corporations seemingly living by a different set of rules, avoiding taxes, manipulating loopholes... This feeds a profound sense of injustice," he added.
	During the trip, the outgoing president has repeatedly referred to the anger that lately brought success to populist movements in Europe and the United States, such as the Brexit referendum and Trump's shock victory last ...

Obama urges 'course correction' on globalisation

More than 360 mostly American companies and investors, including a dozen Fortune 500 firms, today called on Donald Trump to uphold the 196-nation Paris climate pact.
	An open letter released at high-level UN climate talks in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh called on the US president-elect to back "continued US participation in the Paris Agreement, in order to provide the long-term direction needed to keep global temperature rise below 2C," or two degrees Celsius.
	Trump has called global warming a "hoax", and said he would "cancel" the agreement.
	Implementing the Paris deal, which entered into force earlier this month, would help businesses "turn the billions of dollars in existing low-carbon investments into the trillions of dollars the world needs to bring clean energy and prosperity to all," the letter read.
	DuPont, Gap Inc, Hewlett Packard, Hilton and Nike were among the multi-billion dollar companies supporting the appeal.
	Starbucks, General Mills, Kellogg Company, and Levi ...

Big companies tell Trump: 'Don't quit climate pact'

Russia said today it is formally withdrawing its signature from the founding statute of the International Criminal Court, saying the tribunal has failed to live up to the hopes of the international community.
	Russia in 2000 signed the Rome Statute setting up the ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court, but never ratified the treaty.
	"The court did not live up to the hopes associated with it and did not become truly independent," Russia's foreign ministry said, describing its work as "one-sided and inefficient".
	Moscow said it is unhappy with the ICC's treatment of the case on Russia's short war with neighbouring Georgia in 2008, saying the court ignored aggression by Tbilisi against civilians in South Ossetia - a pro-Moscow separatist region of Georgia.
	"In these conditions one cannot speak of trust in the International Criminal Court," the ministry said, adding that the decision to "not be a participant in the ICC statute" was taken by President Vladimir Putin and ...

Russia withdraws signature from ICC founding statute

Nuwan Kulasekara struck with the ball and in the field as Sri Lanka limited the West Indies to 227 all out in their triangular series one-day international at Harare Sports Club, here today.
	Kulasekara recorded figures of 2 for 37 in his 10 overs but also effected two run-outs, ensuring that the West Indies were unable to gather any serious momentum in their innings and were bowled out in 49.2 overs.
	Returning to the Sri Lankan side for the first time in 10 months, Kulasekara had taken two key wickets as the tourists beat hosts Zimbabwe by eight wickets in Monday's series opener, and on Wednesday he played another key role.
	The 34-year-old seamer started by running out opener Kraigg Brathwaite with a direct hit, then had top scorer Jonathan Carter caught at deep square-leg for 54.
	Kulasekara went on to run out West India captain Jason Holder with another direct hit towards the end of the innings, before trapping Sulieman Benn lbw.
	Shorn of their biggest stars, including batsman ..

Kulasekara stars as Sri Lanka bowl WIndies out for 227

Singapore will launch a new electronic payment system using blockchain, the technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the city-state's central bank chief said today.
	The Singapore stock exchange and eight banks will take part in the pilot project, which includes payment between banks, said Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) chief executive Ravi Menon at the Singapore Fintech Festival.
	Blockchain technology debuted in 2009 as a public ledger for the digital currency bitcoin, but its potential for securely tracking transactions has meant it is being eyed for other uses.
	The pilot project aims to integrate the service into the mainstream as the Southeast Asian country seeks to become a regional hub for new financial technologies.
	During the pilot phase, banks will be able to purchase a virtual currency regulated by the MAS, which can then be used for an inter-bank payment. The digital currency can then be redeemed for cash.
	This removes a need to send instructions through the 

Singapore tests digital currency system to ease bank payments

French ex-economy minister Emmanuel Macron, a 38-year-old political novice, announced his bid for the presidency today, as an alternative to the "same men and same ideas" that have guided France for decades.
	Macron finally ended speculation about his intentions by announcing his candidacy for his "En Marche" ("On the Move") centrist party from a training centre in a gritty suburb northeast of Paris.
	Never elected and "neither of the left or the right" in his own words, the pro-business and technology-savvy former investment banker is hoping to shake up a race between older, more familiar figures.
	"I'm ready, that's why I am candidate for the French presidency," he said, promising a "democratic revolution" that would restore France's optimism and self-confidence.
	The centre-right Republicans party is tipped to win the two-stage election in April and May, but some analysts are questioning their assumptions after Donald Trump's stunning upset in the United States.
	The far-right ...

Maverick Macron enters French presidential race

A government-backed Israeli bill to limit the volume of calls to prayer at mosques has been blocked by an unlikely source -- the country's ultra-Orthodox Jews.
	Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had backed the controversial bill, which government watchdogs had called a threat to religious freedom.
	It had been due to get its first reading in parliament this week until Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, a member of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, stepped in.
	Litzman appealed the bill Tuesday night, saying it could affect similarly loud Jewish prayers, Israeli media reported.
	The bill, proposed by members of the far-right Jewish Home party, was adopted by a ministerial committee on Sunday and was due to go through three readings in parliament before becoming law.
	The bill will now be put on hold until a ministerial committee holds a second vote.
	The bill was drafted in response to noise from mosques, but would in theory apply to all religious institutions -- including ...

Israeli bid to turn down mosque prayer calls blocked

Twenty-one people have died in Cameroon after consuming a locally produced alcoholic drink that can often be toxic, state radio said.
	A further 22 people are hospitalised in the eastern town of Abong-Bang after drinking odontol, CRTV said yesterday.
	Authorities in the affected areas of eastern Cameroon banned the production and sale of the drink after the deaths.
	Odontol is produced from palm wine, sugar and tree bark and sold outside of traditional shops at a low price. The alcohol content varies, and it can often be powerful.
	CRTV said 18 people have died in the commune of Mindourou and three in Abong-Bang after consuming "a cursed drink called odontol".
	It said some of the victims were women.
	"When I see you (my) eyes start turning," Angeline, one of those hospitalised in Anong-Bang and who had consumed just "two glasses" of odontol, told CRTVC.

21 die in Cameroon from locally made liquor

With fewer than 4,000 left in the wild, tigers are on a precipice - yet more than 100 of the big cats are still killed and illegally trafficked each year, according to fresh analysis published today.
	The latest estimate comes as experts and dignitaries, including Britain's Prince William, gather in Vietnam's capital for an international wildlife conference which kicks off tomorrow.
	The two-day meet joins governments, NGOs and activists to combat illegal wildlife trade and is being hosted in a country that has become a nexus for smuggling and consumption.
	Traffic, which campaigns to protect endangered animals and help governments catch those who trade in their parts, published a new analysis looking at 16-years of tiger seizure data from across the globe.
	They estimate an average of 110 tigers became victims of the trade each year since 2000.
	The study also illustrates the growing role breeding centres play in fuelling the trade, especially in Southeast Asia.
	Researchers singled .

Over 100 tigers killed and trafficked each year: report

Australia's chairman of selectors Rod Marsh today quit with immediate effect after a run of five heavy Test defeats left the team in crisis, saying it was time for "some fresh thinking".
     The former wicketkeeping great, 69, stepped down amid recriminations about the poorly performing team which crashed to a first-ever home series defeat to South Africa on Tuesday.
     "This is my own decision and no one within Cricket Australia has pressured me or even suggested that I should do this," Marsh said in a statement.
     Cricket Australia said it would hold an extraordinary meeting later Wednesday to decide on an interim replacement, with an announcement "in due course".
     Marsh, one of several leading cricket officials under intense pressure, had previously insisted he would see out his contract which runs to the middle of next year.
     But on Wednesday he said it was time for a new perspective after a run of defeats which has prompted severe criticism in Australian media.
     

Aussie chief selector quits over Test crisis

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko asked Donald Trump for support against "Russian aggression" during a congratulatory telephone conversation with the US president-elect.
	Trump's shock election victory has been met with trepidation in Kiev because of the outspoken reality TV star's praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his apparent indifference to the Western coalition against Moscow.
	The billionaire businessman suggested earlier this year the US could accept Russia's annexation of Crimea if it led to improved relations between the two nations, which are bitterly at odds over Syria.
	Poroshenko congratulated Trump on his victory and said he wished "to work together with his administration to further strengthen the strategic partnership between Ukraine and the United States", according to a statement by the Ukrainian presidency.
	He also "underlined the necessity of strong support from Washington in the fight against Russian aggression and the implementation of crucial ...

AFP

AFP

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