A suspected CS tear gas spray was found at London City Airport after passengers and staff were evacuated following a "chemical incident" that left 27 travellers feeling unwell and halted flights.
	London's innermost airport re-opened three hours after the incident was first reported yesterday, after 500 people were evacuated and several passengers treated for breathing difficulties.
	A search of the airport "led to the discovery of what is believed to be a CS gas or spray", Scotland Yard police headquarters said in a statement.
	"Whilst the cause of the incident has not yet been confirmed, officers are investigating if it was the result of an accidental discharge of this canister.
	"Officers are investigating whether it may have been discarded by a passenger prior to check-in.
	"There have been no arrests and enquiries continue."
	The London Ambulance Service said two casualties were taken to hospital and 25 treated at the scene for breathing difficulties.
	David Morris, 28, said he ..

London airport evacuated after 'CS gas' incident

PTI Automatic

Fifty-three were killed and over 300 injured when a packed Cameroon passenger train derailed today while travelling between the capital Yaounde and the economic hub Douala, state broadcaster Crtv said.
	The train, crammed with people due to road traffic disruption between the two cities, left the tracks just before reaching the central city of Eseka, Transport minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o said earlier.
	Crtv gave the tolls of 53 dead and more than 300 injured, adding that some of the injured where in a very serious condition.
	"Cause of the accident is not yet clear," the broadcaster added.
	The minister said the derailment had "caused significant human and material damage but I can't at this time give you any figures".
	A ministerial delegation was being sent to the accident site.
	   According to Crtv the train left for Yaounde shortly after 11:00 am (1430 IST) packed with passengers.
	The route was particularly busy after a bridge on the road linking Yaounde and Douala collapsed 

53 killed in Cameroon train derailment: state radio

The "Jungle" migrant camp on France's northern coast will be cleared of its residents on Monday before being demolished, authorities said today.
	The local administration "made a legal order Friday that is to take effect on Monday", it said in a statement announcing the long-awaited operation.
	Migrants at the camp in the ferry port of Calais will begin boarding 145 buses at 8:00 AM Monday to take them to nearly 300 temporary accommodation centres dotted round France.
	The demolition of the sprawling makeshift camp closes a difficult chapter in Europe's migrant crisis.
	The camp has strained relations between France and Britain, the country most of its residents are trying to reach.
	On Sunday, officials and charity workers will pass through the settlement of shacks and tents to inform residents that they will have to leave.
	The order from the local authorities informing residents that the camp is about to close was displayed from today in several languages.
	"The aim is to give ...

'Jungle' migrant camp in France to be cleared Monday

Jihadists staged brazen attacks on the Iraqi city of Kirkuk today, killing at least 22 people, in what appeared to be an attempt to divert attention from the huge offensive against their Mosul bastion.
	Residents awoke to the sound of shooting and praise for the "Islamic State" blaring through mosque loudspeakers.
	Some attackers carried grenades and wore explosives vests or belts in the assault claimed by the Islamic State group.
	An AFP reporter attended the interrogation of one suspected jihadist who said after being captured by Kurdish forces that the attack was designed to ease the pressure on the Mosul front to the northeast.
	"Today's attack was one of caliph Baghdadi's plans to demonstrate that the Islamic State is remaining and expanding and reduce the pressure on the Mosul front," he said.
	The young man in a grey tracksuit had his hands cuffed and gave his name as Hani Aydan Mustafa, but his role in IS was unclear.
	Two years ago in Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a ...

IS raids Iraq's Kirkuk to draw attention from Mosul offensive

A roadside bombing killed two Egyptian policemen today in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, where Islamic State group jihadists are waging a fierce insurgency, the interior ministry said.
	The bomb targeted a truck distributing water to police checkpoints on a highway leading to El-Arish, the capital of north Sinai, the ministry said in a statement.
	The explosion also wounded a police conscript, it added.
	Jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
	They pledged allegiance to IS more than a year later, and their attacks have persisted despite a sweeping military campaign in the peninsula which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.
	The jihadists have also targeted foreigners, claiming the bombing in 2015 of a Russian airliner carrying tourists home from a Sinai resort. All 224 people on board were killed.

Bombing in Egypt's Sinai kills two policemen

The UN said today security concerns had forced it to delay planned evacuations from Syria's Aleppo, as Russia extended a truce that was largely holding for a second day.
	Moscow said it was extending the unilateral "humanitarian pause" in the Syrian government's Russian-backed assault on opposition-held east Aleppo until 1600 GMT tomorrow.
	But there was no sign that civilians or rebels were heeding calls to leave, with Damascus and Moscow accusing opposition fighters of preventing evacuations.
	In Geneva, the UN rights council called for a special investigation into the violence in Aleppo in a resolution fiercely critical of Syria's government.
	East Aleppo, which the rebels captured in 2012, has been under siege by the army since mid-July and has faced devastating bombardment by the government and its ally Russia since the September 22 launch of an offensive to retake the whole city.
	Nearly 500 people have been killed, more than a quarter of them children, since the assault began. .

Truce extended in Aleppo but UN delays evacuations

53 killed in Cameroon train derailment: state radio. (AFP)

The United Nations today designated Wonder Woman to head a women's rights campaign, drawing angry protests from feminist groups and some UN employees who denounced the appointment of a comic-book character as "ridiculous."
	The UN tabbed the fictional superheroine to lead a year-long campaign for the "empowerment of women and girls."
	But a website created by protesters slammed Wonder Woman as "the epitome of a 'pin-up' girl" -- "a large-breasted white woman of impossible proportions, scantily clad in a shimmering thigh-baring body suit with an American flag motif."
	Adding to the Hollywood feel, the announcement was made in the presence of the actress Lynda Carter, now 65, who played the part on television, and of Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment, the company that owns the rights to the character.
	UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was originally scheduled to attend, was not present. Neither was Antonio Guterres of Portugal, who was recently named as the next UN chief .

UN picks Wonder Woman as women envoy; critics want Real Woman

Five people were killed and one person was missing as torrential rains sparked flooding in Haiti, as the country still reels from devastating Hurricane Matthew, the Civil Protection Agency said today.
	The victims were in Haiti's northwestern Nord-Ouest department, which is particularly vulnerable to storms because of deforestation. The tropical storm made several rivers overflow.
	"In the commune of Baie-de-Henne, two houses close to a ravine were swept away by floodwaters Thursday night," said Jose Rethone, a civil protection official in the Nord-Ouest department.
	"We recovered five bodies, and a person who was in one of the houses and swept away is still missing," he said.
	The communes that are flooded are those that had been most ravaged by Hurricane Matthew a little more than two weeks ago, the agency said.
	Torrential rains continue to pound the southern peninsula of the Caribbean, where the hurricane hit hardest, and weather forecasters see no letup before tomorrow.
	On the ..

5 dead as storm pounds hurricane-stricken Haiti

Brad Pitt has missed the deadline to respond to Angelina Jolie's divorce petition, seeking to avoid sparking an acrimonious legal battle that could harm the children, media reported today.
	The 52-year-old actor will not file an official reply, despite being two days over Wednesday's cut-off date, until the estranged couple's lawyers have reached an agreement over custody, celebrity gossip websites Us Weekly and TMZ reported.
	The "Fight Club" actor is looking for joint legal and physical custody, according to TMZ, but is hoping to avoid a court battle for the couple's six children.
	Jolie, 41, filed court documents on September 19 citing irreconcilable differences and seeking sole permanent custody.
	Earlier this week Pitt met his oldest child, 15 year-old Maddox, for the first time since an alleged incident involving the pair on a plane carrying the actor and his children back from vacation in France on September 14.
	The FBI has said it is gathering information before deciding ...

Brad Pitt hasn't answered divorce petition: reports

Hundreds of passengers and staff were evacuated from London City airport today following a "chemical incident" that left 26 travellers feeling unwell and shut down flights in and out of the hub.
	"We are treating 26 patients at the scene for difficulty breathing," the London Ambulance Service said, adding of those two had been taken to hospital.
	A "hazardous area response team" had also been sent to the airport in east London, which caters mainly for business travellers and short-haul flights.
	The Fire Brigade said three fire engines had been sent to the scene following "reports of a chemical incident" but did not say what the cause might be.
	"Around 500 members of the public and staff have been evacuated and there are reports of a number of passengers feeling unwell," the Fire Brigade said in a statement.
	London City Airport's official Twitter account said it had been evacuated "due to fire alarm".
	Several incoming flights from destinations such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris 

26 people treated after London airport 'chemical incident'

A Cameroon passenger train derailed today, while travelling between the capital Yaounde and the economic hub of Douala in the south, causing "substantial human and material damage", Transport Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o said.
	The derailment happened near the central town of Eseka, Mebe Ngo'o added, in comments made to the state broadcaster Crtv.
	"The derailment has caused significant human and material damage but I can't at this time give you any figures," he said.
	A ministerial delegation was being sent to the accident site.
	A source close to the local Eseka authorities said there were indeed victims, without giving any details.
	According to Crtv the train left for Yaounde shortly after 11:00 am (1430 IST) packed with passengers.
	"Intervention and security teams have been mobilised," the rail company Camrail said.
	The route, between the capital and the economic hub, is one of the busiest in the country, with trains to Chad and the Central African Republic also using the ...

Substantial human,material damage in Cameroon train derailment

Major internet services including Twitter, Spotify and Amazon suffered service interruptions and outages today as a US internet provider came under sustained cyber attack.
	The internet service company Dyn, which routes and manages internet traffic, said that it had suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its domain name service shortly after 1100 GMT.
	Service was initially restored within about two hours but close to three hours later the company said again said it was responding to an attack.
	"Our engineers are continuing to work on mitigating this issue," the company said on its website close to 1700 GMT.
	The cyber attack meant that millions of internet users could not access the websites of major online companies such as Netflix and Reddit as well as the crafts marketplace Etsy and the software developer site Github, according to media reports.
	The website Gizmodo said it had received reports of difficulty at sites for media outlets including CNN, The ...

Ongoing cyber attack hits Twitter, Amazon, other top websites

Invigorated by both her commanding poll numbers and eyebrow-raising declarations by Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton returned to campaigning today seeking to keep her boot on her rival's neck in the final weeks of their roller-coaster presidential race.
	The toxic election cycle that culminates on November 8 -- pitting the Democratic former secretary of state against the provocative billionaire Republican nominee -- has boiled down to a handful of swing states.
	Clinton, who is vying to be America's first female president, heads to Ohio aiming to block Trump's efforts to claim the key battleground, while the Manhattan real estate mogul hosts rallies in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
	Trump, 70, sent the campaign into uncharted waters by suggesting he may not recognize the result and could launch a legal challenge if Clinton wins -- a surprising rejection of political norms.
	"I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election -- if I win," he told ...

Energised Clinton hits campaign trail in battleground blitz

A tiny European craft dispatched to Mars for a trial touchdown Wednesday "crashed" into pieces on the Red Planet's surface instead, a European Space Agency mission manager said today.
	A NASA photograph of the intended landing site confirmed the Schiaparelli craft, missing for two days, had "crashed on the surface of Mars", Thierry Blancquaert said by telephone from mission control in Darmstadt, Germany.
	The craft "reached the Martian surface a lot faster than intended," he told AFP.
	Flight operations manager Michel Denis added that an image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed a "white spot, consistent with the size of a parachute. About two kilometres away, there is a black spot... Most likely Schiaparelli's point of impact".
	The black spot was "larger than it would have been if Schiaparelli was in one piece", said Denis. "It is smashed."
	The lander was on a test-run for a future rover that will seek out evidence of life, past or present, on the Red Planet.
	It .

Missing European craft 'crashed' into Mars: ESA

Mexican federal forces arrested today the fugitive former police chief of the city where 43 students disappeared in 2014 after they were rounded up by local officers.
	Felipe Flores was detained at 7 AM in Iguala in an operation involving federal police, the military and the attorney general's office, the National Security Commission said on its Twitter account, without providing more details.
	Flores was Iguala's police chief when officers attacked dozens of students in the town on September 26, 2014, after the young men stole buses for a protest in Mexico City -- a common practice among the trainee teachers in Guerrero state.
	His arrest may offer new clues about the fate of the students in a case that has bedeviled President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration for more than two years.
	Prosecutors have said that the police officers took 43 students and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, which killed them, incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump and tossed the .

Mexico arrests ex-police chief in 43 students case

The Syrian city of Raqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital, stands next in line in the battle against jihadists after this week's assault on Mosul in Iraq.
	French President Francois Hollande has warned that IS jihadists under attack by Iraqi and Kurdish forces in Mosul are already fleeing across the border to Raqa.
	"We can't afford mistakes in the pursuit of the terrorists who are already leaving Mosul for Raqa," he said, pointing to the Syrian city as the next target.
	Today, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the international coalition lined up against IS must now set its sights on Raqa.
	"We need to do both things, Mosul in Iraq and Raqa in Syria," Blinken told radio station RTL in Paris, speaking in French.
	"After Mosul, we'll look at Raqa, absolutely. Raqa is the most urgent, that's the town where Daesh (IS) plans its attacks overseas. Raqa is the real capital," he added.
	The 7,500-strong US-led coalition is carrying out air strikes against IS in Iraq .

Syria's Raqa next in line of anti-IS campaign

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said today he was confident that Turkey would take part in the operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group.
	"I think there is agreement there in principle," he said after a visit to Turkey, following tensions between Ankara and Baghdad that have alarmed Washington.
	"Iraq understands that Turkey as a member of the counter-ISIL (IS) coalition will play a role in counter-ISIL operations in Iraq and secondly that Turkey since it neighbours the region of Mosul has an interest (in) the ultimate outcome in Mosul," Carter said.
	"I am confident that we can work things out and there are things that would be productive for Turkey to do and we just need to work through these practicalities."
	A senior US defence official indicated that Turkey could provide medical or humanitarian support, or train Iraqi forces.
	Earlier today Carter met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top officials during his short visit to Turkey, a 

Pentagon chief sees role for Turkey in Mosul battle

Canada blasted the European Union as incapable of signing international agreements today as talks to persuade the Belgian region of Wallonia to sign up to a huge trade deal broke down.
	The barb from an emotional Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian trade minister, fed into warnings by EU leaders that the 28-nation bloc may now never be able to land any other deals including one with the United States.
	"It seems obvious to me, to Canada, that the European Union is incapable now of having an international agreement, even with a country with such European values as Canada, and even with a country as kind and patient as Canada," Freeland said on Belgian television.
	Stopping several times to compose herself after walking out of the negotiations in Namur, the capital of French-speaking Wallonia, Freeland added: "Canada is disappointed, me personally I'm very disappointed."
	"I worked very, very hard, but I think it's impossible. We have decided to return home and I am very, very sad. It's ...

Canada blasts 'incapable' EU as trade talks fail

British Prime Minister Theresa May dismissed warnings today that the EU's troubled free trade deal with Canada raised serious questions about whether London could strike a similar agreement after Brexit.
	The EU-Canadian deal, which has been seven years in the making, was due to be finalised at the European Union summit but risks collapsing following opposition from a Belgian regional government.
	May has not yet outlined her strategy for implementing the June vote to leave the EU, but has left open the possibility that Britain might leave the bloc's single market and replace it with a new trade arrangement.
	After her first EU summit concluded today, she said she supported the Canadian deal but added: "We're not looking to replicate a model that somebody else has."
	May said today that negotiations "will take time, there will be difficult moments, it will need some give and take", but told reporters she was "optimistic" that a deal could be struck.
	The Conservative leader is ...

May dismisses Brexit warnings from EU-Canada deal

The UN rights council today called for a special investigation into violence in Aleppo in a resolution fiercely critical of Syria's government.
	The text spearheaded by Britain repeatedly condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's offensive to retake east Aleppo from rebel forces, while also admonishing "terrorist acts" by the Islamic State group and other extremists in the Syrian conflict.
	Russia, an ally in Syria's east Aleppo campaign, condemned the resolution which was approved in a majority vote.
	Moscow's envoy to the council, Aleksei Goltiaev, also described criticism of Syria and Russia as "pathetic".
	The resolution called for the UN's existing Commission of Inquiry for Syria (COI) to "conduct a comprehensive, independent special inquiry into the events in Aleppo", and to identify individuals responsible for the most serious violations.
	Assad's government has repeatedly denied COI investigators access to the country, although they have published multiple reports ...

AFP

AFP

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