Saudi Arabia said talks today with visiting Iranian delegates on arrangements for hajj pilgrims from the Islamic republic have been "positive".
	Earlier this month, Tehran said "arrangements have not been put together" for Iranians to make this year's pilgrimage to Mecca at the end of the summer, accusing its regional rival of "sabotage".
	But Saudi hajj ministry undersecretary Hussein Sharif said the kingdom and its leadership "welcome pilgrims from all around the world".
	The two sides discussed "arrangements, as well as organisation and services" for pilgrims, he told reporters after a session of talks with the delegation from Tehran.
	He said an agreement had been reached following the arrival of the delegation Tuesday to "use electronic visas which could be printed out" by Iranian pilgrims, as Saudi diplomatic missions remain shut in Iran.
	A final agreement would be signed at the end of the ongoing talks, he said.
	Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January after demonstrators ...

Saudi says talks with Iran on hajj 'positive'

PTI Automatic

Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima this week "will honour all those who were lost in World War II" the US president today said, hours after arriving in Japan for a Group of Seven summit.
	Obama and his fellow world leaders from the club of rich democracies are gathering for a meeting where much energy will be spent discussing the lacklustre state of the global economy.
	But it will be Obama's trip to Hiroshima as the only sitting president to visit the site of the world's first nuclear attack that is likely to dominate the headlines this week.
	"Our visit to Hiroshima will honour all those who were lost in World War II and reaffirm our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons," Obama said at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
	It will also "highlight the extraordinary alliance that we have been able to forge over these many decades," he said.
	The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada were also making their way to ...

Obama says G7 Hiroshima trip to honour 'all' war dead

Indonesia's president today approved tough new punishments for child sex offenders, including a maximum penalty of death and chemical castration, after the brutal gang-rape and murder of a schoolgirl.
	Convicted paedophiles could also be forced to wear electronic monitoring devices following their release from jail under new rules introduced in an emergency decree.
	"This regulation is intended to overcome the crisis caused by sexual violence against children," President Joko Widodo said late today at the presidential palace in Jakarta.
	"Sexual crimes against children are extraordinary crimes, because they threaten the lives of children."
	The presidential decree brings the new punishments immediately into effect, although parliament could later overturn it.
	Widodo was spurred into action after the murder and gang-rape in April of a 14-year-old girl, who was set upon by a gang of drunken men and boys as she walked home from school on the western island of Sumatra.
	Her battered body 

Indonesia introduces death,chemical castration for paedophiles

Second seed Andy Murray survived his second successive five-set French Open battle to reach the third round today, avoiding what would have been his worst Grand Slam loss in eight years.
     Murray, three times a semi-finalist, wore down France's world number 164 Mathias Bourgue, who had never won a tour-level match before this week, 6-2, 2-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 and goes on to face 37-year-old Ivo Karlovic for a place in the last 16.
     After coming back from two sets to love down to beat Radek Stepanek, also 37, in the first round in a tie played over two days, the British star had looked down and out once again today.
     After pocketing the third set, 22-year-old Bourgue, reduced to tears by the end, had break points for a 1-0 lead in the fourth.
	But once they were squandered, the Frenchman's challenge quickly wilted as the physically stronger Murray raced away with 12 of the last 15 games.
	"He was excellent today. He dictated the points and made me run. He's going to have a ...

Murray survives fresh five-set Paris battle

The New York Times today said it was offering buyouts to staff as part of its effort to streamline its news operations and become more digitally focused.
	A memo to staff seen by AFP said the number of buyouts had not been determined but that the company "will entertain as many applicants as possible."
	The Times is not planning any layoff this year, according to a separate memo cited in the newspaper, but would be reorganized to focus more on its international and digital efforts.
	In the newsroom, the buyout offer will be made to all employees with at least three years experience, except for those in video, graphics and digital design, according to the memo.
	"We are looking for volunteers, for people who might see this offering as fitting in with their long-term plans and working to their financial advantage," the memo said.
	Employees in other units of the company would also be offered buyouts, according to the newspaper.
	The Times has maintained a newsroom of some 1,300 despite .

NY Times offers buyouts to streamline newsroom

The last remaining United Nations sanctions on Liberia were lifted today in a decision the United States said was a tangible sign of how far the West African country had come.
	The UN Security Council voted unanimously to lift an arms embargo on rebel groups that was imposed 13 years ago to support a peace deal that ended a devastating war.
	It was the last punitive measure in force from a sweeping series of sanctions that had included travel bans, assets freezes and a ban on lumber and diamond exports.
	US Deputy Ambassador David Pressman said the decision showed "how far Liberia has come" in its transition to peace and marked the first time since 1992 that the country was not under UN sanctions.
	Liberia's charge d'affaires George Patten told the council that sanctions had helped stabilize the country and that the government was now ready to take steps to beef up security.
	"Targeted sanctions in the context of Liberia have been very constructive," said Patten.
	With the ...

UN ends sanctions on Liberia

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today personally chaired the first meeting of the new Turkish cabinet, in a symbolic move showing his desire to exercise full control over the government and consolidate his own powers.
	The meeting at the president's huge palace in Ankara came a day after incoming Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, an Erdogan loyalist, disclosed his new cabinet line-up with most key ministers keeping their jobs.
	The Turkish constitution allows heads of state to chair the cabinet but this right was exercised extremely rarely by Erdogan's predecessors before he was elected president in August 2014.
	A presidential statement announced the start of the first meeting of Turkey's 65th government, with images showing the ministers sitting at a vast table chaired by Erdogan and overlooked by a portrait of the modern Republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
	A technocrat and former transport minister, Yildirim is seen as a more pliant figure for Erdogan compared to outgoing ...

Erdogan chairs symbolic first meeting of Turkey cabinet

A Milan court today sentenced a Pakistani and a Tunisian to six years in prison for threatening terror attacks in Italy via social media.
	Tunisian Lassad Briki, 35, and Pakistan national Muhammad Baqas, 27, will be deported after serving their sentences, the judge said after agreeing to the maximum sanction requested by prosecutors.
	The two men were arrested in July 2015 in Brescia in northern Italy on suspicion of setting up a Twitter account from which they posted messages threatening to attack iconic Italian monuments like Milan's Duomo and the Colosseum in Rome.
	The threats were accompanied by photos of the monuments and written in Italian, French and Arabic.
	"We are on your streets, we are everywhere," one post read. "We are identifying the targets and await the X hour."
	The sentences were handed down despite the prosecutor in charge of the investigation saying at the time of the arrests that "there was no sign of even the beginning of a move (beyond words) to action."
	The .

Pakistani, Tunisian jailed in Italy for terror threats

Nepal's journalist organisation today condemned the arrest of a reporter whom it said was taking photographs of a protest outside government offices in Kathmandu.
	Police arrested Shesh Narayan Jha on Monday together with a protester who splashed red paint on the walls of the Singha Durbar government complex.
	"It is a serious violation of press freedom and freedom of expression to arrest a journalist as he takes pictures and charge him with public offence," Ujir Magar, general secretary of the Federation of Nepali Journalists, said in a statement.
	"The federation condemns this incident and demands Jha's immediate release."
	The protester, 21-year-old Ishan who goes by one name, was demanding an investigation into the use of excessive force by security officials during demonstrations in recent months against Nepal's new constitution that saw more than 50 people killed.
	He is also calling for an independent committee to initiate talks between the government and anti-charter ...

Nepal press group condemns journalist's arrest

The global renewable energy sector employed more than 8.1 million people last year, a 5 per cent increase that bucked an overall downwards market trend, a green energy organisation said today.
	In its annual review of the sector, the Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy agency IRENA attributed the rise to falling technology costs and more accommodating energy policies.
	"The continued job growth in the renewable energy sector is significant because it stands in contrast to trends across the energy sector," said IRENA Director-General Adnan Amin in a statement.
	"We expect this trend to continue as the business case for renewables strengthens and as countries move to achieve their climate targets agreed in Paris" in December, he said.
	The increase in green employment contrasted with the traditional energy sector, as oil producers have been hit by a sharp drop in revenues since crude prices tumbled from their mid-2014 records.
	China, Brazil, the United States, India, Japan and Germany ...

Renewable energy employed 8.1 million in 2015: IRENA

Food giants McDonald's and Tesco have signed a "historic" agreement to not expand cod fishing into untouched parts of the Arctic, where the ice melt has sparked fears of a rush on unexploited areas, Greenpeace said today.
	"This is a historic agreement that brings together the main players in the cod fishing" in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea, said Frida Bengtsson, a marine environment specialist at Greenpeace.
	"In the absence of significant legal protection of the icy waters of the northern Barents Sea, this is an unprecedented step from the seafood industry," she said.
	The agreement, which has been signed by global seafood suppliers as well as  British retail chains Tesco, Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer, freezes bottom trawling in areas around the Svalbard archipelago.
	It requires seabed mapping to determine the fragility of an area before it is opened up for fishing.
	The agreement was brokered by environmental group Greenpeace and marks the first time the seafood ...

McDonald's in historic agreement to contain Arctic cod fishing

The disputed rocks and reefs of the South China Sea are more than an ocean away from the landlocked African nation of Niger.
	But that has not stopped the strife-ridden, largely desert country of 17 million people adding its voice to a growing diplomatic chorus that Beijing says supports its rejection of an international tribunal hearing on the waters.
	Others apparently singing from the same hymn sheet include Togo, Afghanistan and Burundi.
	They are among the latest foot soldiers in "a public relations war" by China aimed at questioning international maritime rules, said Ashley Townshend, a research fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
	The tribunal case, brought to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague by the Philippines, is highly technical and hinges on such issues as how international law defines "islands".
	Niger joined the ranks of "over 40 countries that have officially endorsed China's position" that the issues should be settled ..

Beijing lines up diplomatic battle groups over South China Sea

Religious belief is no excuse for refusing to shake a teacher's hand, Swiss regional authorities ruled today, reversing one school's controversial decision to grant exemptions for Muslim students wary of touching the opposite sex.
	Parents or guardians of students who refuse to shake a teacher's hand in the northern Swiss canton of Basel-Country could now face fines of up to 5,000 Swiss francs (USD 5,000, 4,500 euros), regional education authorities ruled.
	"A teacher has the right to demand a handshake," they said in a statement.
	The decision comes after a national uproar over disclosures that a school allowed two brothers, aged 14 and 15, not to shake their teachers' hands after they complained that doing so was counter to their religious beliefs if the teacher was a woman.
	They argued that Islam does not permit physical contact with a person of the opposite sex, with the exception of certain immediate family members.
	To avoid effectively permitting discrimination against female .

No handshake exemption for Muslim pupils, Swiss canton rules

At least five migrants have drowned off the Libyan coast after the heavily overcrowded boat they were sailing on overturned, the Italian navy said today, revising downwards an earlier death toll.
	The navy said at least 550 people had been pulled to safety but added that the rescue operation was still underway and that the death toll could rise.
	The navy's Bettica patrol boat spotted "a boat in precarious conditions off the coast of Libya with numerous migrants aboard," it said in a statement.
	"Shortly afterwards the boat overturned due to overcrowding. The Bettica, which had arrived nearby, threw life-rafts and jackets" to the migrants in the water, while another navy ship in the area sent a helicopter and rescue boats.
	The latest arrivals bring the number of people rescued and transferred to Italy since the start of the year to nearly 40,000 following the rescue of more than 6,000 since Monday, according to figures collated by the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) and the ...

Five migrants dead in shipwreck off Libya: navy

Russian President Vladimir Putin today said the relatives of two Russian journalists killed in eastern Ukraine had asked him to pardon Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, convicted of complicity in their deaths.
	Putin was shown meeting Yekaterina Kornelyuk and Marianna Voloshina, the widow and sister of two journalists killed in a mortar attack in June 2014, and thanking them for their request, in the first mention on state television of today's prisoner swap.
	Savchenko was convicted over the killing of journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, two months after the start of the pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
	She has maintained her innocence, saying that killing unarmed people goes against her principles.
	Savchenko, who returned to Ukraine today as two Russian prisoners were flown back to Moscow from Ukraine, had reportedly been refusing to ask Putin for clemency. It was not clear whether such a request was made in the ...

Putin says relatives of killed journalists asked for Savchenko

Eurozone ministers today reached a vital deal to unlock urgent cash for Greece but analysts warned promises to tackle the country's debt mountain are sketchy, spelling trouble further down the road.
	The agreement unlocks 10.3 billion euros (USD 12 billion) in bailout cash that Greece needs to repay big loans to the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July, having already fallen behind in paying for everyday government payments and wages.
	The US-based IMF has made easing Greece's huge debt burden a condition for its continued participation in the bailout programme, despite opposition from Germany to giving Athens more favours.
	The 19 ministers from the countries that use the euro met two days after Greek lawmakers passed yet another round of spending cuts and tax hikes demanded by its creditors.
	Eurogroup chief and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem called the deal, hammered out at late-night talks in Brussels, a "major breakthrough".
	The ..

Greece wins cash in 'breakthrough' deal, but rocky road ahead

Azerbaijan's top court today ordered the release of prominent investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who was jailed on corruption charges last year that triggered an international uproar, her lawyer said.
	"Azerbaijan's Supreme Court threw out Ismayilova's initial seven-and-a-half-year sentence and handed her a three-and-a- half-year suspended sentence," the lawyer, Fariz Namazly, told AFP.
	"We expect her to leave the prison later in the evening," he said.
	Ismayilova, an award-winning journalist and anti-graft crusader was imprisoned in September 2015 for seven and a half years for economic crimes.
	She and her supporters have denounced the charges as politically motivated.
	Considered Azerbaijan's most prominent opposition journalist, Ismayilova served as bureau chief for the local service of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty network between 2008 and 2010.
	The 39-year-old reporter probed the vast riches allegedly amassed by President Ilham Aliyev and his family, .

Azerbaijan frees top anti-corruption journalist Ismayilova

Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, named today as the Afghan Taliban's new leader, was a senior judge during the insurgent group's five-year rule over Afghanistan and a close confidant of its founder Mullah Omar.
	Believed to be in his fifties, he hails from Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar like both his former boss -- Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was killed in a US drone strike on Saturday -- and Omar, who died in 2013.
	Akhundzada went on to become the group's "chief justice" after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban government in 2001.
	He was one of Mansour's deputies alongside Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the feared Haqqani network based out of eastern Afghanistan.
	Several senior Taliban sources have said Mansour bequeathed Akhunzada the leadership in his will, though some observers have argued in the past that hereditary succession is against the Taliban's ideology.
	Akhundzada is not known for his prowess on the battlefield, having preferred a life of religious and ...

New Taliban chief Akhundzada a scholar, not a soldier

Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko returned home to a hero's welcome today after nearly two years in a Russian prison, drawing a line under a damaging diplomatic spat between Moscow and Kiev.
	The 35-year-old army helicopter pilot flew home as part of an apparent prisoner swap with Moscow, with two alleged Russian soldiers leaving Ukraine earlier in the day.
	"I'm ready to once again give my life for Ukraine on the battlefield," a defiant Savchenko declared as she touched down on home soil, wearing a white T-shirt bearing the Ukrainian trident, a national symbol.
	A presidential motorcade was on standby at Kiev's main Boryspil airport to whisk Savchenko to Poroshenko's office where she was to be decorated by the president, two sources told AFP.
	In Ukraine, she has become a symbol of resistance against what Kiev sees as Moscow's aggression in the east and has been elected to parliament in her absence.
	While in prison, she launched several hunger strikes to protest her detention, ...

Freed pilot Savchenko arrives in Ukraine to hero's welcome

Microsoft announced today it would let go up to 1,850 employees and a Finnish union called it the end of the company's smartphone manufacturing business, bought from Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia.
	"Microsoft Corp. On Wednesday announced plans to streamline the company's smartphone hardware business, which will impact up to 1,850 jobs," it said in a statement, adding 1,350 of those jobs would be eliminated in Finland where its smartphones have been designed. The other 500 jobs will be cut "globally".
	Microsoft's chief shop steward in Finland, Kalle Kiili, told AFP the decision means Microsoft will no longer design or manufacture phones.
	Microsoft "will not be manufacturing (phone) devices, at least for the time being. It will do software, however," Kiili said.
	Microsoft said the move would result in "an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately USD 950 million" (852.6 million euros) for the company.
	The decision means Microsoft scraps what was left in Finland of 

Microsoft to end smartphone manufacturing: union

Pope Francis today asked God to "convert the hearts of those who sow death and destruction" following a series of deadly attacks by the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria.
	During his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square, the pontiff prayed for "eternal rest to the victims" and "consolation to their relatives" after suicide attacks in the regime's coastal heartland that killed more than 150 people on Monday.
	Francis said almost all the victims of the seven explosions targeting bus stations, hospitals and other civilian sites in the seaside cities of Jableh and Tartus were "unarmed civilians". Eight of them were children.
	More than 300 people were wounded in the attacks on strongholds of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
	IS claimed the blasts in a statement, saying they were in retaliation for Syrian regime and Russian air strikes against jihadists.

AFP

AFP

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