South Korean prosecutors today questioned two former key presidential aides over allegations they helped a shadowy confidant of President Park Geun-Hye meddle in state affairs and secretly visit her office.
	Park has been engulfed by a scandal that centres on Choi Soon-Sil, who is accused of using her personal ties with the president to coerce local firms to donate millions of dollars to non-profit foundations Choi then used for personal gain.
	Choi, 60, is also accused of interfering in state affairs to the extent of nominating officials and editing Park's speeches even though she has no official title or security clearance.
	Ahn Bong-Geun and Lee Jae-Man, who served as Park's key advisors until last month, are accused of helping Choi to visit the presidential office.
	They also allegedly reported state affairs or leaked confidential documents to her.
	TV news footage showed the pair separately entering the Seoul prosecutors' office this morning as they were mobbed by reporters.
	The 

Two former aides to S Korea's Park quizzed over scandal

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Imprisoned transgender soldier Chelsea Manning, who is serving 35 years behind bars for leaking classified US documents, has asked President Barack Obama to reduce her sentence before he leaves office, reports said.
	   Originally called Bradley, Manning was convicted in August 2013 of espionage and other offenses after admitting to handing classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
	   Manning, who has already spent half a dozen years in prison, said she is not asking for a pardon and understands that the conviction will stay on her record, according to a statement accompanying the petition, which was published by the New York Times on Sunday.
	   "The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members," she said.
	   Manning, whose suicide attempt last month was her second while in prison, spoke of the hardships 

Chelsea Manning asks Obama for reduced sentence: report

The wreckage of an ultralight aircraft that disappeared in Nepal last year with two people on board has been found, an aviation official said today.
	The aircraft went missing shortly after taking off from the popular mountain resort town of Pokhara on October 8 with a Russian pilot and a South African tourist on board.
	Search teams were dispatched to the area after debris was spotted from the air, Pokhara's airport chief Bhola Prasad Guragain told AFP.
	"The team recovered wreckage of the ultralight craft and bones from the site," Guragain said. "The marks on the wreckage confirm it is the missing craft but we have handed the remains to authorities for tests."
	Ultralight flights are popular among tourists in Pokhara for panoramic views of the majestic snow-capped Annapurna mountains.
	In 2013, a Chinese tourist and a Nepali pilot were killed when their ultralight crashed in the same area.
	Nepal, which is still reeling from a devastating earthquake last April, has suffered a number 

Nepal finds wreckage of missing ultralight

Tehran officials shut schools today as the first of the winter season's heavy pollution hit the Iranian capital.
	   A blanket of choking brown-white smog descended on the city on Sunday, blocking out the view of the mountains that line its northern edge and leading many of its 14 million residents to retreat indoors or don face masks in the street.
	   The level of the deadliest PM2.5 particles hit 156 on Monday -- more than three times the level considered safe by the World Health Organisation.
	   "Kindergartens and primary schools are closed on Monday in Tehran and most of the cities of the province," the Ministry of Education announced, according to official agency Irna.
	   Officials extended traffic restrictions that alternate cars with odd and even licence plates in two central parts of the city, and deployed ambulances to wait in the busiest and dirtiest areas.
	   Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf rode the metro to work on Sunday in a bid to encourage people to use ...

Heavy pollution shuts schools in Iran's capital

Skygazers were heading to high-rise buildings, ancient forts and beaches today to witness the closest "supermoon" to Earth in almost seven decades, hoping for dramatic photos and spectacular surf.
	The unusually big and bright Moon will appear at its most impressive just as night falls over Asia, but astronomy enthusiasts will be able to see Earth's satellite loom large anywhere in the world shortly after sunset, weather permitting.
	The phenomenon happens when the Moon is full at the same time as, or very near, perigee - its closest point to Earth on an elliptical, monthly orbit. It should appear at its most impressive at 1352 GMT (1922 IST).
	It will be the closest to Earth since 1948 at a distance of 356,509 kilometres, creating what NASA described as "an extra-supermoon".
	From India to Australia, skygazers and photographers were seeking the best viewing spots in the region where the phenomenon will be visible first, hoping that cloudy skies and the perennial pollution that ...

Skygazers gear up for extra bright 'supermoon'

China's retail sales growth slowed to 10.0 per cent on-year in October, government data showed today, missing expectations in a worrying sign for domestic demand in the world's second-largest economy.
	October's industrial output growth matched the previous month's figure at 6.1 per cent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, also slightly below forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
	China is a key driver of the world economy but its expansion has slowed significantly from the double-digit years of the past.
	Now Beijing is seeking to make a difficult transition away from dependence on exports and heavy industry toward consumption as the key driver of the economy, but the process is proving bumpy.
	"It could be the consumer participation in growth is declining," said independent Hong Kong-based analyst Andrew Collier. "It's harder for the government to control retail sales than (fixed-asset investment) or industrial production, which is heavily ...

China retail sales growth slows in October: govt

A rare suicide attack in an oasis town south of Baghdad killed eight people and wounded at least six today, Iraqi officials said.
	The attack in Ain al-Tamer involved six suicide bombers, some of whom may have been killed by security forces before they could blow themselves up.
	Masum al-Tamimi, a member of the Karbala provincial council, said that six suicide bombers armed with light weapons as well as explosives tried to infiltrate Ain al-Tamer early today.
	But they clashed with security forces before withdrawing to the Al-Jihad area and detonating explosives there, Tamimi said, putting the death toll at eight, a figure confirmed by a doctor.
	The interior ministry issued a statement on the attack, saying that five of the bombers were killed by security forces while the sixth detonated explosives inside a house.
	There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State jihadist group frequently carries out suicide bombings in Iraq.
	Attacks in southern ..

Rare suicide attack south of Baghdad kills 8: officials

Scoreboard at close of play on the
third day of the second Test between Australia and South Africa at Bellerive Oval in Hobart today.
     Australia first innings 85 (S Smith 48 not out; V Philander 5-21)
     South Africa first innings (overnight 171-5)
     S Cook         c Nevill b Starc      23
     D Elgar        lbw b Starc           17
     H Amla         c Nevill b Hazlewood  47
     JP Duminy       c Smith b Starc       1
     F Du Plessis   lbw b Hazlewood        7
     T Bavuma       c Lyon b Mennie       74
     Q de Kock      b Hazlewood          104
     V Philander    c Nevill b Hazlewood  32
     K Maharaj      b Hazlewood            1
     K Abbott       lbw b Hazlewood        3
     K Rabada       not out                5
     Extras (b3, lb8, nb1)                12
     Total (all out; 100.5 overs)        326
     Fall of wickets: 1-43, 2-44, 3-46, 4-76, 5-132, 6-276, 7-292, 8-293, 9-297, 10-326
     Bowling: Starc 24-1-79-3, Hazlewood 30.5-10-89-6, Mennie ...

Hobart, Nov 14 (AFP) Scoreboard at close of play on the

Luck deserted Australia in their desperate bid to salvage the second Test with South Africa snaring the vital wicket of David Warner in unfortunate circumstances in Hobart today.
     Warner, who was seeking redemption after his reckless dismissal in the opening over of the first innings, lost his wicket while at the forefront of Australia's fightback.
     At stumps on the third day the home side were hanging in at 121 for two, still 120 runs behind the Proteas, who have been in control of the Test since routing Australia for 85 on Saturday.
     Usman Khawaja was unbeaten on 56, his ninth Test half-century, with skipper Steve Smith not out 18.
     Warner flung his head back in despair when a ball from Kyle Abbott hit his hip and ricocheted off an elbow onto his stumps when he was on 45.
     It gave the Proteas a huge fillip after Warner and Khawaja had recovered the innings with a 79-run stand after the loss of Joe Burns in the first over.
     Burns lasted just four balls before .

Luck deserts Warner as Proteas maintain grip

Crisis-hit Australia made another shaky start losing Joe Burns in the opening over as they set out to save the second Test against South Africa in Hobart on Monday.
     Burns lasted just four balls before he was caught behind, tickling at one down the leg-side from Kyle Abbott.
     Lightning had struck twice for Australia with fellow opener David Warner out to a reckless shot in the opening over in the first innings of the Hobart Test.
     But Warner was a different proposition on the easier batting conditions the second time around and scored freely with Usman Khawaja in support.
     At tea, the home side were 54 for one, still trailing by 187, with Warner on 29 and Khawaja on 24.
     Australia, routed for 85 in Saturday's first innings, face a struggle to prevent South Africa, already 1-0 up, claiming their third successive series in Australia with only next week's day-night third Test in Adelaide still to play.
     South Africa earlier extended their first innings lead to 241 

Warner leads way as Aussies lose Burns early

China, Japan and England Monday signed on for an innovative team athletics event in Melbourne in which sprint superstar Usain Bolt will make his first Australian appearance.
     Nine-time Olympic champion Bolt launched the inaugural Nitro Athletics and will captain the 'Bolt All-Stars' in the February competition, which will feature six teams.
     "Both the Chinese and Japanese fans love their athletics and both have a lot of emerging young athletes who love to entertain and will be well suited to Nitro Athletics," said event ambassador John Steffensen.
     "Having one team in Asia is good, but having two really strong Asian-based teams in China and Japan participating is fantastic."
     The meet, involving 24 athletes, split equally between men and women, will include non-traditional events such as middle-distance and hurdles relays in an attempt to broaden athletics' appeal.
     It will take place at Melbourne's Lakeside Stadium on February 4, 9 and 11.
     England Athletics ..

Athletics: China, Japan to join Bolt for Aussie event

Former All Blacks great Richie McCaw played a central role in ferrying rescue workers to the most devastated areas following a deadly earthquake which struck New Zealand today.
	The double World Cup winner, now a commercial helicopter pilot, flew rescue and reconnaissance missions to Kaikoura after being woken in his Christchurch home by the powerful 7.8 quake.
	Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake five years ago, is 182 kilometres south of Kaikoura which bore the brunt of the latest destruction.
	"Like everyone else, I got woken up at midnight ... Yeah a bit scary," he told the New Zealand Herald after taking search crews from Christchurch to Kaikoura and ferrying rescuers to remote properties to check on residents.
	He said he saw "big cracks in the road, cracks in the side of the hills, and obviously slips".
	"At one point, the railway was way out over the sea. It had been pushed out by slips. It would not have been a nice place to be at midnight last night."
	The ...

All Blacks legend McCaw joins quake rescue effort

Swaddled in colourful hijabs the women exchange puzzled looks and suppress embarrassed giggles. "You're sure it's halal?" asks one, peering at a collection of birth control pills, condoms and IUDs.
	Such everyday forms of contraception are little known and rarely seen in Kenya's arid and neglected northeast, an overwhelmingly poor, conservative and Muslim part of the country where most people are pastoralist ethnic Somalis.
	A study of early marriage by the charity Save the Children found that just two percent of the population of Wajir county uses contraception -- compared with a national Kenyan average of 58 per cent -- due to modern contraceptive methods being seen as a breach of Islamic principles.
	But Deka Ibrahim, a female Islamic teacher, explains that contraception is halal, permissible, as she talks to a group of 40 newly-weds and mothers sitting on the concrete floor of a dark room that is the village's tiny maternity centre.
	One woman feeds her child while others ...

Seeking halal contraception in Kenya's Muslim northeast

Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have been nearly flat for three years in a row -- a "great help" but not enough to stave off dangerous global warming, a report said today.
	Emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide stayed level in 2015 at 36.3 billion tonnes (GtCO2) and were projected to rise "only slightly", by 0.2 per cent in 2016, according to the annual Global Carbon Budget report compiled by teams of scientists from around the world.
	"This third year of almost no growth in emissions is unprecedented at a time of strong economic growth," said research leader Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia.
	Driven largely by reduced coal use in China, this was a "clear and unprecedented break" with the preceding decade's fast emissions growth, at a rate of some 2.3 per cent per year from 2004 to 2013, before dipping to 0.7 per cent in 2014.
	"This is a great help for tackling climate change but it is not enough," said Le Quere.
	For the world's nations to make true .

CO2 emissions level off, still too high to save climate:Report

Mexico is scrambling to ready its diplomats in the United States to handle millions of undocumented migrants' potential needs following Donald Trump's election, its foreign ministry said.
	The ministry's North American team huddled with Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu Saturday to "analyze the results of the US election and discuss concrete actions concerning the future of the bilateral relationship" between the two countries, according to a statement.
	The meeting follows the Republican billionaire's victory last Tuesday in a campaign which saw him call illegal Mexican migrants "rapists" and pledge to build a wall along the southern US border.
	Not only has Trump vowed to make Mexico pay for the wall, but he has also threatened to renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, the United States and Canada.
	Ruiz Massieu urged diplomats to get ready for a possible surge in consular assistance.
	This includes help "avoiding provocations, as well as ...

Mexico moves to help migrants after Trump win

The exhumation of Poland's former head of state was due to begin today, reviving a probe into a 2010 presidential plane crash that has stoked friction with Russia and caused divisions at home.
	Prosecutors want to check the remains were correctly identified and test for traces of explosives or combustion, as the governing rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party believes a fire may have erupted onboard before the crash.
	The PiS suspects the crash involved foul play, but Polish and Russian investigators have never found any evidence to support the claim.
	Local media say 83 of the victims' remains are to be exhumed in an investigation likely to last at least two months.
	The process is expected to start late today with Kaczynski and his wife Maria.
	PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski's twin brother, then president Lech Kaczynski, was among 96 people -- most of them senior Polish state officials -- who died in the crash in Smolensk, western Russia, on April 10 2010.
	The delegation was heading 

Families divided as Poland starts to exhume 2010 crash victims

A French reporter was expelled from Turkey after being detained near the Syrian border in the country's southeast, his employers said.
	Olivier Bertrand "has arrived in Paris (CDG airport) and is in good shape", said Isabelle Roberts, head of online news media Les Jours.
	Bertrand was detained on Friday in Gaziantep province, where he was working on a series of planned stories on post-coup Turkey.
	Turkish news agency Anadolu said earlier that Bertrand was being held in the northwest and would likely be expelled in the evening.
	It said he had been detained for failing to seek proper accreditation.
	But it also described him as writing articles "favourable" to those allegedly behind the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July.
	French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Sunday said his detention was "deeply shocking, unacceptable".
	Other French media and internet users also threw their weight behind calls for Bertrand's release.
	"In a democratic country, Olivier 

French reporter expelled from Turkey

A priest whose disappearance sparked protests in an eastern Mexican town was found alive but with injuries consistent with torture, the Catholic church said.
	Father Jose Luis Sanchez Ruiz had last been seen on Thursday, and the next day the doors to his church in Catemaco, a town in the eastern state of Veracruz, had signs of forced entry.
	His disappearance sparked fears that he had suffered the same fate as two other priests who were found dead in Veracruz in September shortly after their disappearance.
	But the archdiocese of San Andres Tuxtla said in a statement that Sanchez Ruiz, 54, was found on Sunday morning "with notable signs of torture."
	After his disappearance, townspeople blocked roads in protest on Friday night. On Saturday, protesters burned part of Catemaco's municipal office and a police car.
	Sanchez Ruiz had received threats after complaining about crime in Catemaco.
	Mexico is one of the most violent places for priests in the world.
	In September, two priests ...

Missing Mexican priest found alive, tortured

A toddler died today after being injured in a Molotov cocktail attack on an Indonesian church, police said, the latest assault on a religious minority in the Muslim-majority country.
	Two-year-old Intan Olivia Marbun was among four small children hurt when an attacker wearing a t-shirt with the word "jihad" on it threw explosives at the church on Borneo island Sunday from a motorbike.
	The youngsters, aged between two and four, had been playing in the car park of the church in the city of Samarinda at the time of the attack.
	Local police spokesman Fajar Setiawan told AFP that Marbun suffered severe burn injuries, adding: "Unfortunately the doctors could not save the victim... She died early this morning."
	The other children suffered less serious injuries and were still being treated in hospital, said the spokesman.
	"We hope they can come home soon," said Setiawan.
	Police have arrested the suspected attacker, a 32-year-old man who was previously jailed over his involvement in a ...

Indonesian toddler dies after church attack

Scoreboard on the third day of the
second Test between Australia and South Africa at Bellerive Oval in Hobart on Monday.
     Australia first innings 85
     South Africa first innings (overnight 171-5)
     S. Cook         c Nevill b Starc      23
     D. Elgar        lbw b Starc           17
     H. Amla         c Nevill b Hazlewood  47
     JP Duminy       c Smith b Starc        1
     F. Du Plessis   lbw b Hazlewood        7
     T. Bavuma       c Lyon b Mennie       74
     Q. De Kock      b Hazlewood          104
     V. Philander    c Nevill b Hazlewood  32
     K. Maharaj      b Hazlewood            1
     K. Abbott       lbw b Hazlewood        3
     K. Rabada       not out                5
     Extras (b3, lb8, nb1)                 12
     Total (all out; 100.5 overs)         326
     Fall of wickets: 1-43 (Elgar), 2-44 (Cook), 3-46 (Duminy), 4-76 (Du Plessis), 5-132 (Amla), 6-276 (De Kock), 7-292 (Bavuma), 8-293 (Maharaj), 9-297 (Abbott), 10-326 (Philander)
     Bowling: ...

Hobart, Nov 14 (AFP) Scoreboard on the third day of the

Quinton de Kock plundered a century Monday as South Africa frustrated Australia to tighten their grip on the second Test as the sun emerged on the third day in Hobart.
     After Sunday's second day was washed out, the Australians were hunting for early wickets to put a brake on the Proteas after they were routed for a record low total of 85 on Saturday.
     But de Kock and Temba Bavuma batted South Africa into a position of strength with a century stand for the sixth wicket and a 203-run lead to put even more pressure on Steve Smith's embattled team.
     Wicketkeeper de Kock was bowled by Josh Hazlewood just before lunch for 104 -- his second Test hundred -- off 143 balls with 17 boundaries.
     His stand of 144 with Temba Bavuma was the highest by a visiting team in Hobart for the sixth wicket.
     At lunch, the Proteas were 288 for six with Bavuma unbeaten on 74 and Vernon Philander on three.
     De Kock became only the fourth South African to register 50 or more in five ...

AFP

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