Saudi Arabia demanded today that a UN report blaming the military coalition it is leading in Yemen for the deaths of hundreds of children be corrected and warned it could undermine peace talks.
	The annual UN report on children and armed conflict added the Saudi-led coalition to a blacklist of children's rights violators after determining that it was responsible for 60 percent of the 785 children killed in Yemen last year.
	Saudi Ambassador Abdullah al-Mouallimi told reporters that he was "deeply disappointed" and "disturbed" by the report and said the figure of 60 percent was "wildly exaggerated."
	"We are asking that the report be corrected immediately so that it does not reflect the accusations against the coalition and Saudi Arabia in particular," he told reporters after meeting with UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson.
	The coalition launched an air campaign in support of Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour in March 2015 to push back Huthi rebels after they seized the ...

Saudi seeks correction to UN report on children killed in

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British playwright Peter Shaffer, who won an Oscar for his film adaptation of "Amadeus", one of his most celebrated stage dramas, died today aged 90, his agent said.
	"It is with great sorrow that we must announce the death of our friend and client, Sir Peter Shaffer CBE whilst on a visit to Ireland with friends and family," Rupert Lord said on his agency's website.
	Shaffer died at 5:30 am (0430 GMT) at a hospital outside Cork in southern Ireland following a short illness, Lord said.
	"Peter was one of the true greats of British theatre as well as a wonderful friend, wickedly funny man and sparkling raconteur whose lifelong passion for his own art was matched by his love for music, painting and architecture," said Lord.
	Shaffer won the Oscar in 1985 for the adaptation of "Amadeus", his drama about composer Antonio Salieri's jealous fixation with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was one of eight Oscars which the film won that year.
	He also received an Academy Award nomination in 1978 for 

'Amadeus' playwright Peter Shaffer dies aged 90

Venezuela's opposition held new protests today, seeking to convert widespread anger over food shortages and economic havoc into pressure for a referendum on removing embattled President Nicolas Maduro.
	Several hundred opposition supporters rallied on a square in eastern Caracas, brandishing messages aimed at the allegedly pro-Maduro National Electoral Board (CNE) such as "Recall referendum now" and "My signature counts."
	The opposition warns Venezuela risks veering into mass unrest if electoral authorities do not let them call a referendum this year on sacking Maduro, whom they blame for the once high-flying oil giant's descent into economic and political chaos.
	But as at other recent demonstrations, the opposition coalition, the National Unity Roundtable (MUD), struggled to rally large numbers of protesters.
	Political analysts see a number of reasons for that, including the heavy presence of security forces, MUD's own internal divisions, the shortages that force average ...

Venezuela opposition in new protests for recall vote

Chess grandmaster and four-times Soviet chess champion who fled to the West, Viktor Korchnoi, has died aged 85, the Russian chess federation said today.
	Korchnoi died in Switzerland where he had lived for many years after defecting to West in 1976 from the Soviet Union. He had suffered from heart problems and had a stroke in 2012.
	He won four Soviet Union championships in 1960, 1962, 1966 and 1970. In 1974, he lost against Anatoly Karpov, then emerging as a great player.
	Despite his many victories at a lower level, he never achieved his dream of becoming world chess champion.
	The ambitious grandmaster "always stood out with his huge will for victory and constant striving for battle," said the Russian chess federation in a statement.
	Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the international chess federation (FIDE) told TASS news agency: "This is a great loss for the whole chess world. Korchnoi led a vivid life and did a lot to popularise chess."
	Korchnoi refused to return to the USSR in 

Russian dissident chess legend Korchnoi dies at 85

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said today the dismal US jobs report for May was "concerning" and "disappointing", but stressed she was still positive on the outlook for US economic growth.
	"One should never attach too much significance to any single monthly report," Yellen said, adding that the overall labor market situation has been "quite positive".
	In her first comments since Friday's monthly jobs market data shocked markets, Yellen stressed that she thought the US economy would continue to grow moderately, that the labor market had nearly eliminated all slack, and that inflation would turn higher.
	While all are key factors in the Fed deciding whether to tighten monetary policy, she backed off from making specific forecasts for interest rate increases, only saying they should come "gradually".
	And she cautioned over a number of uncertainties facing US growth, including the strength of consumer spending and business investment, Chinese growth, and the coming British ...

Fed Chair Yellen says poor US jobs report 'concerning'

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vowed to "actively support" Syrian troops from the air around Aleppo today, after a weekend of fierce fighting left dozens dead in the divided city.
	Speaking in Moscow, Lavrov said Russia has waited long enough for Syria's moderate opposition to leave areas controlled by jihadist groups, and that air raids by Russia should "not be a surprise".
	"What is happening in Aleppo and around it now, we warned the Americans about this in advance, and they know that we will be actively supporting the Syrian army from the air to prevent terrorists from seizing territory," he told a press conference.
	Washington "is asking us and Syrian leadership to delay air strikes" until opposition forces are separated from jihadists of the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front, he said.
	"We believe there has been more than enough time" for that, he said.
	"Everyone who has not left the terrorists now only have themselves to blame."
	"We will be ...

Russia to 'actively' back Syria army around Aleppo

Russian-backed Syrian regime forces today inched closer to a key stop on a vital Islamic State group supply line, as a twin offensive bore down on the jihadists' northern stronghold.
	The advance comes as 17 civilians -- nearly half of them children -- were killed in air raids on a popular market in eastern Syria on the first day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
	Government fighters entered the scramble for Tabqa at the weekend, when troops backed by Russian air strikes surged north towards the town on the banks of the Euphrates.
	IS fighters in the town of Tabqa are now caught between the regime forces advancing from the southwest and US-supported Kurdish and Arab fighters pushing in from the north.
	The coincidence of the near-simultaneous attacks has raised speculation about possible coordination between the United States and Russia in the anti-IS fight.
	The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), last week launched an assault on ...

Russia-backed Syria regime bears down on IS transit town

Investigators today sifted through the wreckage of a high-speed train crash in Belgium that killed three people and injured nine others with indications bad weather could have been the cause.
	The collision occurred late yesterday when the fast-moving passenger train slammed into the back of a slow freight train which was travelling on the same track for unknown reasons. The crash happened at Hermalle-sous-Huy, near the eastern town of Liege.
	Authorities said lightning and flood damage caused by the heavy storms that have affected western Europe over the past week were being explored as a possible cause of the crash.
	King Philippe of Belgium and Prime Minister Charles Michel both visited the scene to inspect the recovery work and offer their condolences, according to AFP reporters at the site.
	"All my condolences for the families of the victims... and a fast recovery to the injured," Michel said on Twitter.
	Although investigators were hard at work, finding the cause "would be ...

Belgium probes deadly train crash that killed 3

Ukraine said today it had arrested a suspected far-right French extremist with a huge arsenal of weapons who was allegedly planning to attack the Euro 2016 football championships in France.
	The arrest added to jitters over the staging of European football's showcase event in France after last year's jihadist attacks in Paris.
	Preparations for the long-anticipated event have also been marred by rolling strikes that have paralysed transport and torrential rain that caused flooding along the River Seine and forced tourist attractions including the Louvre Museum to close.
	Ukraine's security service chief Vasyl Grytsak said the 25-year-old man intended to blow up "a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synagogue, tax collection organisations, transportation checkpoints and numerous other locations".
	Grytsak said he "expressed negative views about his government's approach to the immigration of foreigners into France, the spread of Islam and globalisation," suggesting the Frenchman was more of a ...

Frenchman held in Ukraine 'planned Euro 2016 attacks'

Thirty-one migrants who survived when their boat sank off Crete last week arrived in Egypt today along with the bodies of nine people who died, police said.
	Two helicopters, three ships and a coastguard vessel scrambled after the makeshift boat sank off the Greek island on Friday with hundreds of people on board.
	The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the vessel was "believed to have left Africa with at least 700 migrants on board".
	The Greek coastguard said on Friday night it had rescued 340 people and recovered nine bodies.
	The survivors arriving in Egypt today were 26 Egyptians, two Sudanese, two Eritreans and an Ethiopian, a police official said.
	Friday's shipwreck suggests that people-traffickers are trying to open alternative sea routes to Europe that avoid a NATO naval force in the eastern waters between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios.
	Hundreds of thousands of refugees have reached Europe via that route since the start .

Greece shipwreck survivors arrive in Egypt

Ex-banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski held the lead over his controversial rival Keiko Fujimori in the tight race to be Peru's new president as the final results trickled today.
	A near-complete count showed Kuczynski, 77, had 50.3 percent of the vote to 49.7 percent for Fujimori, the daughter of a jailed former president, but the result remained too close to call.
	Both have vowed to heal divisions dating to the violent period of rule by Fujimori's father Alberto in the 1990s. He is in prison for corruption and for massacring alleged terrorists.
	With nearly 93 percent of ballots counted, just over 100,000 voters separated the two candidates, the national elections office said.
	Kuczynski, best known by his initials PPK, urged his supporters to wait for the definitive results, but was confident of victory.
	"We are hoping to have a government of consensus. No more fighting and confrontation," he said late Sunday, waving from a balcony.
	Fujimori, 41, also urged her supporters to sit ...

Ex-banker holds edge in tight race to lead Peru

The Roman Catholic church today swore in a new guardian of its sites in the Holy Land for the first time in over a decade.
	Italian Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, 52, replaces Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa in the post known as Custos of the Holy Land.
	The Custos is responsible for caring and maintaining Christian presence in much of the Middle East, as well as coordinating and organising the thousands of Catholic pilgrims to Jerusalem every year.
	He was sworn in today afternoon in a ceremony in Jerusalem's Old City - which includes the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.
	Patton walked with over 100 robed priests, monks and nuns, as well as a few hundred Christian well-wishers, from the Jaffa Gate entrance of the Old City to Saint Saviour Church.
	Angelo Isan, who works with the Vatican's embassy in Tel Aviv, said it was a "very important day for each one of us."
	Alexandra, an elderly Christian Palestinian who joined in the procession, ..

New Catholic custodian of Holy Land sites sworn in

A Palestinian wounded during clashes with Israeli soldiers escorting Jewish pilgrims at a holy site in the occupied West Bank died from his injuries today, the Palestinian health ministry said.
	Jamal Dweikat, 20, was shot in the head on Friday near Joseph's Tomb on the outskirts of Nablus. The tomb is the site of regular clashes.
	Many Jews believe the tomb holds the remains of the biblical patriarch Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob. Palestinians believe an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Yussef (Joseph) Dweikat, was buried there two centuries ago.
	It is located in the northern West Bank in an area under Palestinian security control.
	Once per month, the Israeli army authorises visits to the tomb by Jewish pilgrims, carried out at night. Hundreds visited overnight Thursday to Friday, provoking another round of clashes.
	Violence since October has killed 207 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese.
	Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun ..

Palestinian shot in clashes with Israeli forces dies

More than a billion Muslims observed the start of Ramadan today but in the besieged cities of Syria and Iraq residents struggled to mark the holy month.
	Islamic authorities announced the start of the fasting month with the sighting of the crescent moon in countries such as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
	Marking the divine revelation received by Prophet Mohammed, the month sees Muslim faithful abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex from dawn to dusk.
	They break the fast with a meal known as iftar and before dawn have a second opportunity to eat and drink during suhur. The month is followed by the Eid al-Fitr festival.
	But for many in Syria who have been accustomed to hardship after five years of war, this year's Ramadan was expected to be especially difficult, particularly in besieged cities and towns.
	In Madaya, where some 40,000 people have been living under government siege for months, resident Mumina, 32, and her husband planned to break the fast using UN food ...

Muslims mark start of Ramadan, many under cloud of war

North Korea may have reactivated a plant for reprocessing plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog said today, citing satellite imagery and echoing recent comments from a US think-tank.
	"The indications that we have obtained... (are of) activities related to the five-megawatt reactor, expansion of enrichment facilities and activities related to (plutonium) reprocessing," International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano said.
	"However, as we do not have inspectors on the ground we are only observing through satellite imagery. We cannot say for sure. But we have indications of certain activities through the satellite imagery," Amano told a regular news conference in Vienna.
	He said that the indications spotted at the main Yongbyon complex included the "movement of vehicles, steam, discharge of warm waters or transport of material".
	The type of plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb typically needs to be extracted from spent nuclear reactor fuel.
	North Korea ..

'Indications' N Korea has reactivated plutonium plant: IAEA

Eight civilians including five members of one family were killed in 24 hours of shelling by Iran-backed rebels on residential parts of Yemen's third city Taez, local officials said today.
	Three children were among those killed in clashes that have continued despite a ceasefire and peace talks in Kuwait between Huthi rebel and loyalist delegates, the sources said.
	Another 13 civilians were wounded, the sources added, accusing the rebels of firing mortar and artillery rounds into the residential areas.
	Rebel shelling of the besieged government garrison in Taez killed 11 civilians yesterday, drawing condemnation from UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
	He has urged both sides to respect the ceasefire that took effect on April 11.
	However, the government sources in Taez said nine loyalist fighters were killed and 26 wounded in 24 hours of clashes in the city's eastern districts.
	Military sources told AFP that 12 rebels were also killed.
	Witnesses said fighting continued today across 

Rebel shelling kills 8 civilians in Yemen city

US President Barack Obama will visit Poland and Spain in July, in what will likely be his final trip to Europe, a continent that has often presented more problems than opportunities during his presidency.
	The White House said that Obama will travel to Warsaw on July 7-9 for "his fifth and final summit with NATO leaders," before going on his first trip to Spain.
	During his nearly eight years in office, Obama has at times had difficult relationships with America's oldest allies.
	For most of his first term, Europe was frustratingly slow to contain sovereign debt crises that were fed by and prolonged the Great Recession.
	Relations with Europe were further tested by Obama's "pivot to Asia" -- which was widely perceived as capping a decades-long strategic shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
	Obama has publicly said that it was a mistake to depend on European allies to manage Libya's emergence from decades of Moamer Kadhafi's dictatorial rule.
	Five years after Kadhafi was killed, ...

Obama to make last trip to Europe

'Indications' North Korea has reactivated plutonium

Mexico's ruling party headed today toward historic defeats in several gubernatorial elections seen as a test for its hopes of retaining the presidency in 2018.
	Before Sunday's vote, President Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) held nine of the 12 states at play. There are 32 federal regions in Mexico.
	But preliminary results showed that it was leading in just five states and losing two key bastions, Tamaulipas and Veracruz, both of which it has controlled for more than 80 years.
	The biggest winner was the conservative National Action Party (PAN), which was ahead in seven states, including three in partnership with the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
	"This is truly historic for the PAN," party leader Ricardo Anaya told Radio Formula, noting that the PAN had never won so many states in one election.
	"If we do things right, if we follow through, if we show results in those states, the PAN will reclaim the presidency in 2018," Anaya said.
	The PAN 

Mexico ruling party faces major defeats in elections

South Africa today sought to allay fears after Washington warned Americans of a possibly imminent terror attack by Islamic extremists in the country's major cities.
	"We remain a strong and stable democratic country and there is no immediate danger," State Security Minister David Mahlobo said in a statement.
	The United States on Saturday said it had received information that terrorist groups were planning to carry out attacks in South Africa during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
	The warning said attacks may target sites frequented by US citizens, including high-end shopping areas and malls in the economic hub of Johannesburg and Cape Town, which is popular with tourists.
	It came against the background of the Islamic State group's "public call for its adherents to carry out terrorist attacks globally during the upcoming month of Ramadan," the US embassy in South Africa said.
	One of South Africa's largest shopping centres, Sandton City in Johannesburg, said it was taking the ...

S Africa says 'no danger' despite US attacks warning

Russia is to start compulsory anti-doping classes in schools as part of a campaign to stamp out cheating in sport, authorities announced Monday.
     With the country furiously lobbying to overcome a ban on its athletes in time for the Rio Olympics, the lessons will be part of new measures, drawn up with the Council of Europe, "to reform social attitudes to doping", the sports ministry said in a statement.
     Russia has been hit by a series of doping scandals, still under investigation, that led the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to suspend Russia from international competition.
     "Lessons on anti-doping will be rolled out as part of the curriculum in schools across the country," in line with physical education classes, to reach millions of children, the sports ministry said.
     The ministry said that before the lessons start, there will be anti-doping classes for "all higher education institutions for professionals in the fields of sport and ...

AFP

AFP

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