German automaker Volkswagen and US environmental regulators have reached an agreement on the diesel-powered 3.0 liter cars also involved in the company's emissions scandal, according to a news report today.
	Under the terms of the agreement, which still requires court approval, Volkswagen would fix 60,000 vehicles with affected 3.0 liter engines and repurchase 19,000 older models for which repairs would be too complex, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources close to the negotiations.
	The settlement would close another major chapter in the company's emissions cheating scandal. Volkswagen last month concluded a record-setting $15 billion settlement concerning 2.0 liter diesel cars.
	However, this latest agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency and California's Air Resources Board does not resolve legal actions brought by owners of 3.0 liter cars or by the Federal Trade Commission, according to the report.
	A spokeswoman for Volkswagen told AFP the talks were ...

VW reaches 3.0-liter diesel agreement with EPA: report

PTI Automatic

Iraqi forces have recaptured more than a third of eastern Mosul four weeks into the battle to retake the city from the Islamic State group, the interior ministry's spokesman said today.
	"More than a third of this (eastern) side has been liberated," Saad Maan said at a televised news conference.
	Iraqi forces launched the massive operation to retake Mosul, the last IS-held Iraqi city, on October 17, advancing towards it from the north, east and south.
	Forces on the eastern front were the first to reach Mosul, and Iraq's elite Counter-Terrorism Service has since recaptured several areas inside the city.
	On the southern front, interior ministry forces are approaching Mosul airport on the city's southern outskirts.
	IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory lost to the jihadists.
	In addition to Mosul, IS holds the town of Tal Afar to its west, and also still controls areas in the ...

A third of east Mosul recaptured from IS: spokesman

US House Republicans re-elect Paul Ryan to Speaker job:

Russian President Vladimir Putin today fired Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, who had been charged with taking a massive bribe, news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
	"Vladimir Putin has published a decree relieving Ulyukayev of his functions," Peskov said, adding that the president had "lost confidence" in the minister.
	Ulyukayev had earlier been placed under house arrest for two months over suspicions he pocketed a two-million-dollar payoff during a deal involving state-controlled oil giant Rosneft.
	Ulyukayev was the highest ranking official detained over suspected corruption since President Vladimir Putin took power in 2000 and his arrest sparked speculation over whether the probe is linked to an internal power struggle.
	Russia's Investigative Committee said Ulyukayev had "illegally demanded" payment to approve acquisition by Rosneft of a majority stake in Russian oil company Bashneft from the state, a USD 5.2-billion deal completed last ...

Putin fires economy minister over bribe charges: media

UN member states today condemned widespread human rights violations in North Korea and expressed concerns that funds needed to ease the dire humanitarian crisis are spent on Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.
	A resolution drafted by Japan and the European Union was adopted by a consensus vote in the General Assembly's committee on humanitarian affairs.
	Following the vote, diplomats from China, Pyongyang's ally, Russia, Syria, Iran and Cuba took the floor to state they were disassociating themselves from the outcome.
	The full General Assembly is expected to vote on the measure next month.
	North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests this year and test-fired a series of missiles, even as 18 million North Koreans out of a total population of 25 million are facing food shortages, Japan's ambassador said.
	"The authorities of the DPRK (North Korea), without regard to the plight of their own citizens, divert their limited resources to develop weapons of mass destruction," said ...

UN slams North Korea for diverting funds to missiles

Bank of England chief Mark Carney today warned that UK inflation would rebound in the coming months as the Brexit-fuelled slump in the pound sparks price hikes.
	Carney, addressing lawmakers on the influential Treasury Select Committee, cautioned that "inflation is going up (and) that's a consequence of a very large move" in the exchange rate.
	His comments came however as official data showed that British annual inflation had experienced an unexpected slowdown in October from a two-year high.
	The 12-month inflation rate declined to 0.9 percent compared with 1.0 percent in September, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement.
	That undershot market expectations for a slight increase to 1.1 percent, as inflationary pressures subsided on smaller-than-anticipated hikes in the cost of clothing and university tuition fees.
	"Inflation was lower than we expected for the month of October," Carney admitted in his grilling before MPs.
	For its part, the ONS maintained that .

BoE boss warns of rising inflation on Brexit-hit pound

German automaker Volkswagen and US environmental regulators have reached an agreement on diesel-powered 3.0 liter cars in the company's emissions scandal, a media report said today.
	Under the terms of the agreement, which still requires court approval, Volkswagen would fix 60,000 vehicles with affected 3.0 liter engines and repurchase 19,000 older models for which repairs would be too complex, Bloomberg reported citing anonymous sources close to the negotiations.
	The agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency and California's Air Resources Board does not resolve legal actions brought by owners of 3.0 liter cars or by the Federal Trade Commission, according to Bloomberg.
	A spokeswoman for Volkswagen told AFP the talks were confidential and that the company could not comment ahead of a court hearing scheduled for the end of the month. The Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment.
	A settlement would close another major chapter in the company's emissions cheating 

VW reaches 3.0l diesel agreement with EPA: report

The discovery of 65 previously unknown drawings by Vincent Van Gogh -- which had been hailed as one of the biggest art world finds in years -- set off a bitter row about their authenticity today, with Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum dismissing them as fakes.
	In a damning statement, its experts claimed the contents of the "so-called lost sketchbook" were imitations and "could not be attributed to Vincent Van Gogh".
	But the experts behind the discovery told AFP that the Van Gogh museum was wrong, "and it was not the first time Van Gogh museum has got it wrong".
	The "lost" sketches come from the Dutch artist's time in the southern French city of Arles, when he produced some of his greatest paintings, including "Bedroom in Arles", "The Night Cafe" and "Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers".
	Seven of Van Gogh's works are among the 30 most expensive paintings ever sold.
	The museum's dramatic intervention came as the respected French publishing house Le Seuil was unveiling copies of the .

Experts squabble over whether 'lost' Van Gogh notebook is real

100 missing in Mediterranean after migrant boat capsize:

Around 100 people were missing in the Mediterranean after a migrant dinghy capsized off Libya today, said Jugend Rettet, a German NGO operating a rescue boat in the area.
	The NGO said in a tweet that 23 survivors had been transferred to an oil tanker and that "the crews are searching for survivors in the water and recovering dead bodies.

NGO says 100 missing in Med after migrant boat capsize

Uganda's police said today they had nabbed a con man suspected of swindling a Polish weapons manufacturer into signing a bogus 120-million dollar arms deal.
	BMP Poland inked the multi-million dollar deal with the man, named as Sam Ssimbwa, who had presented himself to the company as an agent for Uganda's defence ministry, a police spokesman said.
	Ssimbwa was taken into custody Thursday, spokesman Emillian Kayima said, adding that he and unnamed co-conspirators had already pocketed 520,000 euros "as part payment for consultancy fees regarding the transaction."
	Ssimbwa and his associates, who have not been detained, designed an elaborate fraud including the creation of a fake public call for tender.
	Ssimbwa was then contracted by BMP as a lawyer to secure the contract to supply Kampala with equipment including 375 tanks, 46 reconnaissance Ferret and Eland armoured cars and various artillery.
	Spokesman Kayima said investigators had asked BMP Poland "to provide police with evidence ..

Uganda nabs suspect in USD 120 mn fake arms deal

Russia today put Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev under house arrest for two months over suspicions he pocketed a two-million-dollar payoff during a deal involving state-controlled oil giant Rosneft.
	Ulyukayev was the highest ranking official detained over suspected corruption since President Vladimir Putin took power in 2000 and his arrest sparked speculation over whether the probe is linked to an internal power struggle.
	Judge Artur Karpov told Moscow's Basmanny district court that the 60-year-old minister would be confined to his residence in the southwest of the Russian capital until January 15 during the ongoing investigation.
	Russia's Investigative Committee said Ulyukayev had "illegally demanded" payment to approve acquisition by Rosneft of a majority stake in Russian oil company Bashneft from the state, a USD 5.2-billion deal completed last month.
	Investigators accused Ulyukayev of "threatening (and) using his ministerial powers to create obstacles to the company's ...

Russian economy minister under house arrest over bribe charges

Donald Trump loomed large over climate talks today where UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged nations to redouble their planet-rescue efforts and voiced hope the US would not pull out of its commitments.
	Elected to the White House a week ago, Trump had previously called global warming a "hoax" perpetrated by China, and threatened to "cancel" the hard-fought Paris Agreement concluded a year ago.
	But Ban said he had spoken to the businessman turned president-elect, and was "optimistic" Trump "will hear and understand the seriousness and urgency of addressing climate change".
	"As the president of the US I am sure he will understand this, he will listen, he will vary his campaign remarks," the outgoing UN secretary general told journalists.
	"I am sure he will make a good, wise decision."
	Gathered in Marrakesh since yesterday, representatives from the UN climate body's 197 parties have started thrashing out a roadmap for putting the agreement into action.
	But climate change denier Trump's ...

Ban hopeful as leaders tackle climate change after Trump win

A group of swimmers braved the sting of extremely salty waters to cross the Dead Sea from Jordan to Israel today, a seven-hour challenge that organisers described as a first.
	The swim organised by the EcoPeace charity was aimed at raising awareness for the iconic water body which has been receding by roughly a metre each year.
	The 26 extreme swimmers from across the world, equipped with special masks due to the water's high salinity, took seven hours to make the crossing, organisers said.
	The distance is only 17 kilometres (10.6 miles) and the mineral-rich lake was calm, but the high amount of salt in the water makes it nearly impossible to swim normally.
	It has 10 times more salinity than the Mediterranean Sea, meaning bodies float to the top, and keeping under the water is difficult.
	"It was tougher than we expected," said Samuel Moran, a 40-year-old Spaniard.
	"The worst was the sun and the feeling of the salt on your skin that is very irritating. You feel like you are burning 

Swimmers worth their salt cross shrinking Dead Sea

US Secretary of State John Kerry said today that rebels are ready to observe a ceasefire in Yemen starting this week but the government swiftly dismissed the plan.
	The Iran-backed Huthi rebels had agreed to a "cessation of hostilities beginning on November 17, provided the other party implements the same commitment," said Kerry.
	He was speaking in Abu Dhabi a day after meeting Huthi negotiators in Oman for talks aimed at finding a durable political settlement for the war in Yemen which has killed thousands.
	Kerry said the United Arab Emirates and regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia "have both agreed to try to move forwards with this. They believe it makes sense".
	Saudi Arabia leads an Arab coalition that has been battling the rebels in Yemen in a bid to restore the legitimacy of the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
	But Hadi's government said it was not aware of any new peace initiative.
	"The government of Yemen is not aware of the statements made by Mr. Kerry and ...

Kerry peace bid for Yemen dismissed by government

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has emerged as a "serious" contender to become the next US secretary of state, a top aide to President-elect Donald Trump said today, amid reports of intense infighting over key posts in the new administration.
	Trump -- the 70-year-old Republican billionaire who takes office in just nine weeks -- was to meet with Vice President-elect Mike Pence later today in New York to discuss the next round of cabinet appointments.
	Giuliani, a member of Trump's inner circle, had been considered a leading candidate for attorney general, but at a public forum in Washington yesterday, he said he would not be heading the Justice Department.
	"His name has been mentioned in a serious way in connection with secretary of state, a job that he's qualified for and a job that he would do exceedingly well," Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, said today on Fox News.
	The 72-year-old Giuliani was mayor of New York on 9/11, and his decisive leadership after the World 

Giuliani up for secretary of state as Trump, Pence meet

US President Barack Obama today issued a warning against "crude" nationalism following Donald Trump's shock election win as he visited Europe on a mission to reassure jittery allies.
	Obama, making his last foreign trip as president, said the NATO alliance was "absolutely vital" to US interests and stressed a strong, unified Europe was good for America, after Trump, on the campaign trail, appeared to play down the importance of transatlantic ties.
	After a year of populist shocks, from Britain's vote to leave the EU to Trump's surprise victory last week and the rise of anti-migrant movements in Europe, Obama cautioned against succumbing to divisive instincts.
	"We are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an 'us' and a 'them'," Obama said in Athens.
	"We know what happens when Europeans start dividing themselves up... The 20th century was a bloodbath," he said, adding that the United States was also ...

Obama warns against 'crude' nationalism

Several thousand Belgian military personnel today marched in the streets of Brussels over a rise in the pension age, at times clashing with police.
	Authorities said 8,500 off-duty soldiers protested in the historic centre of the city, with riot police firing water cannon after receiving projectiles of smoke bombs and firecrackers from the protestors.
	For the past year, Belgian military personnel have worked around the clock guarding government and EU buildings with Brussels under high alert after the deadly terror attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels last March.
	The government last month announced an increase in the pension age for soldiers to at least 63 years old from the current 56.
	The protest landed on the King's Feast, an official holiday for soldiers who are banned from striking in Belgium.

Belgian soldiers clash with police in pension protest

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's questioning at the Ecuadoran embassy in London over a longstanding rape allegation ended today, Swedish prosecutors said.
	The results of the questioning by an Ecuadoran prosecutor, which began yesterday, will not be provided immediately on the grounds of confidentiality, the Swedish prosecutor's office said in a statement.
	"After this report, the prosecutors will take a view on the continuation of the investigation," it added.
	Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren, Ecuador's ambassador to Britain, Carlos Ortiz, and an Ecuadoran lawyer representing Assange were all present as the former hacker was grilled with questions provided by Swedish officials.
	However, Assange's Swedish lawyer Per Samuelsson was not allowed to attend, a ruling that he will "contest", he told AFP today.
	The 45-year-old Assange sought refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London's upmarket Knightsbridge neighbourhood in June 2012, fleeing allegations of rape and sexual assault in Sweden 

Assange questioning in London ends after two days

The Van Gogh Museum today said that a notebook of drawings billed as the Dutch artist's lost work were imitations, shooting down claims by a French publisher to have made a major art discovery.
	The Amsterdam-based museum said its experts had long been aware of the notebook, and on the basis of being sent 56 photos of 65 of its drawings "they were of the opinion that these could not be attributed to Vincent Van Gogh".
	The announcement came as French publishers Le Seuil told a Paris press conference that it was publishing 65 previously unknown Van Gogh's drawings in a book on Thursday entitled "Vincent Van Gogh, the fog of Arles: the rediscovered sketchbook".
	But the Van Gogh museum said its experts had also examined the original drawings in 2013 and "did not change their minds".
	"Their opinion, based on years of research on Van Gogh's drawings ... Is that these album drawings are imitations of Van Gogh's drawings," the museum said in a statement.
	"The experts examined its style, ..

'Lost' notebook of drawings not by Van Gogh: Dutch museum

The UN urged rich nations today to ramp up financial aid to help poor countries shore up their defences against climate change.
	Finance is a hot-button topic at the annual round of UN climate talks underway in Marrakesh, Morocco -- the first since the world's nations adopted a hard-fought agreement last year to rein in global warming from fossil fuels.
	Rich nations pledged back in 2009 to mobilise USD 100 billion (93 billion euros) per year from 2020 for climate aid to the developing world.
	But poor nations are insisting on a clear roadmap for reaching the goal, and on a bigger focus on money for climate adaptation, which entails building resilience against global warming's impacts.
	So far, though, adaptation has received less than a fifth of climate finance made available.
	"The cost for developing countries of adaptation alone could range from USD 140 billion to USD 300 billion by 2030, and from USD 280 billion to USD 550 billion by 2050 -- up to five times higher than ...

AFP

AFP

Page 1324 - Afp