Crisis-hit Iraq reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund today for a USD 5.4 billion loan that could give donors enough confidence to unlock further financing, a statement said.
	The three-year stand-by arrangement was reached by the Iraqi government and IMF in Jordan after a week of talks, the monetary institution said.
	"Under the arrangement, and subject to the approval of the IMF executive board, Iraq could have access to IMF credit amounting to... About USD 5.4 billion," the statement said.
	In a statement issued in Amman, the IMF's Iraq head of mission, Christian Josz, said the deal was justified by the cost of the war on the Islamic State group and the sharp fall in oil prices.
	"Iraq has been hit hard by the conflict with ISIS (another acronym for IS) and the precipitous fall in oil prices," he said.
	"To address the urgent balance of payments need, the Iraqi authorities and IMF staff have agreed on a three-year programme of economic and financial policies that will 

Iraq reaches deal with IMF for $5.4-billion loan

PTI Automatic

A French court today sentenced a Belgian woman to seven years in jail for killing her baby by putting him in the freezer.
	Nathalie De Mey, 32, was convicted by an all-female jury in the southwestern French city of Carcassonne for the February 2, 2011, murder.
	Murder of a minor is normally punishable by a life sentence, but De Mey's term was reduced because she was deemed to have had a temporary loss of judgement.
	Yesterday when De Mey was asked why she did not choose a "more violent" method to kill the infant, she replied: "I didn't want to hurt him."
	Her lawyer Pierre Calvet's argument of temporary loss of judgement was confirmed by a psychiatric assessment.
	De Mey, who has two living daughters, said she had gone on several alcoholic binges during her pregnancy.
	"When I realised I was pregnant, I tried to get help... but it was too late," she testified.
	She recounted how she gave birth to the child over a toilet.
	"When the baby came out, I caught him by the head so he ...

Belgian mother jailed seven years for freezing baby

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said today he had called for a long-delayed Middle East peace conference to be held in Paris on June 3.
	"I have suggested that the conference initially planned for May 30 be held on June 3," Ayrault said after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.
	"We reviewed again the position concerning France's initiative to hold a ministerial-level meeting in Paris to relaunch the Middle East peace process," Ayrault told reporters.
	This would also provide the opportunity "for Israel and the Palestinians to resume on the basis of a two-state solution," he said.
	"We are in a crisis situation and every day the situation on the ground gets worse," he added. Kerry confirmed he will attend the Paris talks.
	Supporters of the peace process have been dismayed in recent months by Israel's ongoing construction of settlements on Palestinian land and by Palestinian knife and gun attacks on ..

France calls Middle East peace conference for June 3

Polish prosecutors said today they had detained the leader of a small pro-Kremlin political party on suspicion of spying, the latest in a string of espionage cases on NATO's eastern flank.
	The Zmiana (Change) party claimed today's move against Mateusz Piskorski and other police actions against the organisation were politically motivated and accused Poland's rightwing government of intimidation.
	Prosecutors did not disclose the specific allegations against him but Polish media reported that Piskorski, who founded Zmiana in 2015, was suspected of spying for Russia, and also possibly China.
	He controversially visited Crimea to show his support for the Russian annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
	Interior ministry special agents also raided Zmiana headquarters in Warsaw and the homes of several members, the party's number two Konrad Rekas said on its website, adding that computer hard drives and documents had been confiscated.
	Rekas blasted the actions as "an attempt to .

Poland detains pro-Kremlin politician suspected of espionage

A Singapore court today stopped the execution of a convicted Malaysian murderer for the second time in a dramatic reprieve just hours before he was scheduled to be hanged.
	Kho Jabing, 31, was expected by his family and rights groups to be executed at dawn tomorrow but was granted a stay of execution following a last minute application by his lawyer today evening, exploiting a legal loophole.
	Kho was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing a Chinese construction worker in a robbery gone wrong two years earlier and spent the next six years on a legal roller-coaster trying to avoid the gallows.
	His family said Tuesday they had received a letter from prison authorities setting his execution for tomorrow.
	A five-member appeal court dismissed an 11-hour application today to set aside the death sentence but defence lawyer Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss filed a separate suit against the attorney-general asking to halt the execution.
	While permission was denied after a two-hour hearing that ...

Singapore stops execution of Malaysian man hrs before hanging

Scoreboard after rain forced an early
close to the first day of the first Test between England and Sri Lanka at Headingley on Thursday
	 England 1st Innings
	 A Cook c Chandimal b Shanaka          16
	 A Hales not out                       71
	 N Compton c Thirimanne b Shanaka       0
	 J Root c Mendis b Shanaka              0
	 J Vince c Mendis b Eranga              9
	 B Stokes c Mathews b Pradeep          12
	 J Bairstow not out                    54
	 Extras (lb-7, w-1, nb-1)               9
	 Total (For 5 wkts, 53 overs)         171
      Fall of wickets: 1-49, 2-49, 3-51, 4-70,5-83
      Bowling: Eranga 10-3-34-1 (1nb); Pradeep 12-6-26-1; Mathews 6-1-24-0; Chameera 10-0-33-0; Shanaka 9-3-30-3 (1w); Herath 6-1-17-0.

Leeds, May 19 (AFP) Scoreboard after rain forced an early

Roger Federer withdrew from the French Open on Thursday after failing to recover from a back injury, bringing to an end the 17-time major winner's run of 65 consecutive Grand Slams.
	"I regret to announce that I have made the decision not to play in this year's French Open," the 2009 Roland Garros champion wrote on his Facebook page.
	"I have been making steady progress with my overall fitness, but I am still not 100% and feel I might be taking an unnecessary risk by playing in this event before I am really ready."
	The 34-year-old world number three, who has been plagued by knee and back injuries this year, last missed a Grand Slam event in 1999 when he skipped the US Open.
	Federer, with his 35th birthday looming in August, has played only four tournaments this year.
     A knee injury sidelined him after the Australian Open until Monte Carlo before a back problem ruled him out of Madrid.
     The Swiss then lasted just two matches at the Rome Masters where he was dumped out by ...

Injured Federer withdraws from French Open

Belgian prosecutors today demanded that four alleged jihadists accused of links to the terror cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks receive between 10 and 18 years in jail.
	The men were arrested after a deadly raid in the Belgian town of Verviers in January 2015 which exposed an alleged plan to kill police officers.
	The Verviers plot "was the rough draft of Paris," prosecutor Bernard Michel told the court in Brussels, adding that the accused were under the orders of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the deadly November attacks in the French capital.
	Abaaoud was killed in a French police raid days after the November 13 Paris gun and bombing attacks. He also had close links to the cell behind the March 22 Brussels airport and metro attacks.
	The main suspect at the trial of the Verviers cell is Marouane El Bali, who is accused of attempted murder for firing at police during the gunfight in Verviers, 120 kilometres east of Brussels.
	He denies the charges.
	Killed in the raid 

Belgian prosecutors close arguments against Verviers jihadists

Alex Hales and Jonathan Bairstow frustrated Sri Lanka after debutant all-rounder Dasun Shanaka sparked a top-order collapse on the first day of the first Test at Headingley on Thursday.
     England, who had slumped to 83 for five, were 171 for five at tea, with rain threatening to stop a prompt resumption of a fascinating day's play.
     Opening batsman Hales, under pressure for his place after a modest return in England's series win in South Africa, was a Test-best 71 not out with Bairstow, on his Yorkshire home ground, unbeaten on 54.
     The pair's so far unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 88 helped England recover after Shanaka's treble strike went a long way to justifying Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews's decision to field first.
     Mathews won the toss in overcast conditions reminiscent of those at Headingley two years ago when his side won the second Test to seal their first series win in England.
     England captain Alastair Cook, who started his innings needing just 36 ...

Hales and Bairstow keep Sri Lanka at bay

Monster tsunamis caused by meteor impacts swept across the northern plains of Mars more than three billion years ago, radically resculpting the edges of the Red Planet's ancient seas, according to a study published today.
	The findings, based on geological mapping, could provide new clues in the search for life.
	They also bolster the theory that massive floods 3.4 billion years ago transformed Mars' northern lowlands into a sprawling ocean, the study said.
	Some scientists had challenged that notion, pointing out that the alleged shoreline of this long-gone sea is today ragged and uneven -- not a landscape one would expect to find ringing an ocean.
	"Our discoveries reconcile the ocean hypothesis with the puzzling absence of shorelines distributed along a constant elevation," lead author Alexis Rodriguez, a researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, told AFP.
	These mega-tsunamis probably numbered in the dozens over hundreds of millions of years , but the ...

Mega-tsunamis sculpted Mars surface: study

The EU wants to force US web streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon to devote 20 per cent of their content in Europe to European movies and TV programmes, according to a draft proposal.
	The quota is part of overhaul of EU broadcasting rules to fight off the might of Hollywood that is expected be made public next week by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.
	In addition, the EU hopes to tax the US web streamers in order to help fund European movies and TV shows in an effort to promote the European entertainment industry.
	Fighting the dominance of Hollywood is a major priority for France, which has for years subsidised its own national film industry through a special tax on privately-owned broadcasters that rely heavily on US-made content.
	The "promotion of European works will be enhanced by ... putting on-demand players under the obligation to promote European content," said the proposal seen by AFP.
	In a speech at the Cannes film festival on Saturday Andrus Ansip, 

Netflix faces EU quota on content

Pope Francis will meet the spiritual leader of the world's Sunni Muslims in an unprecedented encounter at the Vatican on Monday, the pontiff's spokesman said today.
	Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar, the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, will have an audience with the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics at St Peter's, Father Federico Lombardi told AFP.
	"This audience is being prepared and has been scheduled for Monday," he said. "It will be a first."
	The visit marks the restoration of cordial relations between the two faiths. Ties were soured under Pope Benedict XVI after Francis's now-retired predecessor made a September 2006 speech in which he was perceived to have described Islam as a violent religion.
	Dialogue resumed in 2009 but was suspended again by Al-Azhar in 2011 when Benedict called for the protection of Christian minorities after a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria, an intervention that was perceived as meddling in Egypt's 

Pope Francis to receive top Sunni imam at Vatican

The IMF said today that Greece would need a lengthy period free from debt payments to achieve sustainable finances if the European Union does not agree to cutting the debt up front.
	"It is possible to restore debt sustainability without upfront haircuts, although this would involve providing very concessional loan terms including long grace and maturity periods and very low interest rates," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters.

IMF: Greece needs 'long' grace period on debt payments from EU

Marco Pannella, the former leader of Italy's Radical Party and a key player in the country's adoption of social reforms including the right to abortion and divorce, died today, his party said.
	Pannella, whose real first name was Giacinto, was 86 and had been suffering from lung and liver cancer.
	He was involved in campaigns on virtually every social issue of the post-war period, the most significant being the battles for divorce, which was legalised in 1970, and abortion, legalised in 1978.
	The struggles pitted Pannella and like-minded people against the might of the Catholic church.
	Pannella also campaigned against hunting and nuclear power, and for gay rights and the decriminalisation of soft drugs.
	"A great Italian leader has left us," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said. "I want to pay tribute on behalf of my government and my party to the life lived by a fighter for freedom who was a lion of a man.

Italy's Pannella, champion of abortion, divorce reforms, dies

Google said today it feared for free speech if France succeeded in forcing it to apply the right to have information about a person removed from its search engines not just in France, but worldwide.
	Lodging an appeal against a 100,000-euro (USD 112,000) fine imposed by a French regulator, Google argued that French authorities should not have the right to decide beyond the country's jurisdiction.
	France's National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) imposed the fine after Google after the US Internet giant only partially honoured requests by individuals to have information about them removed from its search engines.
	Google accorded the right for its European extensions -- google.Fr and google.De for example -- but not for google.Com. CNIL said the firm should apply the delisting to all extensions, regardless of where the search is being performed.
	"CNIL, as a French authority does not have under French law to impose measures outside of the nation's borders," Google's legal 

Google invokes free speech in French fine appeal

Tunisia's military has killed a jihadist described as "one of the most dangerous terrorist leaders" in the country during a security operation, the defence ministry said today.
	Seifeddine Jameli, as known as Abou al-Qaaqaa, belonged to the Tunisian branch of the Islamic State (IS) group, Jund al-Khilafa (the soldiers of the caliphate), the ministry said in a statement.
	He was killed overnight by special forces in the central region of Mount Mghilla, it said, adding that weapons were seized during the operation.
	Since its 2011 revolution, Tunisia has been hit by an upsurge in jihadist violence in which dozens of police, soldiers and civilians have been killed.
	Two attacks last year claimed by IS on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis and on a hotel near the Mediterranean resort of Sousse killed a total of 60 people, all but one of them foreign tourists.
	The beheading of a teenage shepherd by jihadists as his sheep grazed on Mount Mghilla last November also horrified the country.

Tunisia says one of its 'most dangerous' jihadists killed

Powerful DR Congo opposition figure Moise Katumbi has been charged with hiring foreign mercenaries, a government spokesman said today, in a controversial case that has been denounced as politically motivated.
	Spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP that an arrest warrant had been issued for Katumbi, who is President Joseph Kabila's leading rival. Katumbi had announced plans to stand against the long-serving leader in elections due this year.
	"The prosecutors have handed their ruling. He is no longer free and he can no longer do what he wants," Mende said.
	"He can either be put under house arrest or be jailed," he added.
	The move came amid mounting tensions in the mineral-rich but chronically restive central African over the elections for which the dates have not been announced yet.
	Yesterday, DR Congo's Constitutional Court ruled that Kabila, in power since 2001, can stay in office beyond 2016 without being re-elected, sparking fierce protests.
	Katumbi, the wealthy owner of the ...

DR Congo president's rival charged with hiring mercenaries

The first of 219 abducted Chibok schoolgirls to be found after more than two years in Boko Haram captivity today met Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, with hopes raised more of the girls can be freed.
	Amina Ali, who was discovered by civilian vigilantes and troops on Tuesday, flew from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, in northeast Nigeria, to the capital, Abuja, with her mother, Binta.
	Both covered their faces with headscarves as they walked into the president's office at his official Aso Rock residence, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
	They were accompanied by Borno state governor Kashim Shettima and federal government officials, including the national security advisor, defence minister and chief of defence staff.
	Boko Haram fighters seized 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote Borno town of Chibok on April 14, 2014. Fifty-seven escaped in the hours that followed.
	The abduction provoked global outrage and brought worldwide attention .

Fresh hopes for Chibok girls as rescued student meets Buhari

Scoreboard at tea on the
first day of the first Test between England and Sri Lanka at Headingley today:
	   England 1st Innings
	   A. Cook c Chandimal b Shanaka          16
	   A. Hales not out                       71
	   N. Compton c Thirimanne b Shanaka       0
	   J. Root c Mendis b Shanaka              0
	   J. Vince c Mendis b Eranga              9
	   B. Stokes c Mathews b Pradeep          12
	   J. Bairstow not out                    54
	   Extras (LB-7, W-1, NB-1)                9
	   Total (For 5 wkts in 53 overs)        171
	   Fall of wickets: 1-49, 2-49, 3-51, 4-70, 5-83.
	   Bowling: Eranga 10-3-34-1; Pradeep 12-6-26-1; Mathews 6-1-24-0; Chameera 10-0-33-0; Shanaka 9-3-30-3; Herath 6-1-17-0.

Leeds (UK), May 19 (AFP) Scoreboard at tea on the

Britain's corruption probe into engines maker Rolls-Royce has been expanded to also look at the company's activities in Nigeria, the Financial Times reported today.
	The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is looking at the company's former energy activities in Nigeria, as part of a broader corruption investigation that also includes Brazil, China and Indonesia, the business newspaper said without citing its source.
	The SFO is examining whether Rolls and its agents were involved in any bribery of government officials until 2013 when tenders were launched for the building of energy infrastructure, the FT added.
	"We are aware of the story but can neither confirm nor deny our interest in these specific allegations. Our investigation continues," an SFO spokesman said in an emailed statement.
	Rolls-Royce meanwhile stressed it was cooperating with authorities around the world over the matter.
	"Concerns about bribery and corruption involving intermediaries in a number of overseas markets remain ..

Rolls-Royce corruption probe spreads to Nigeria: report

The European Union today beefed up sanctions against North Korea over nuclear and ballistic missile tests carried out in defiance of United Nations resolutions.
	The 28-nation bloc said it was adding 18 persons and one entity to its asset freeze and travel ban blacklist, complementing measures adopted by the UN against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the north's official name.
	"The persons subjected to restrictive measures ... Are mostly high-ranked military officials involved in key bodies responsible for supporting or promoting the DPRK's nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes," the EU said in a statement.
	"The additional listed entity is involved in the development and operational implementation of ballistic-missile related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes," it said.
	The European Council, which groups EU member states, said the decision means sanctions are now in place against 66 ...

AFP

AFP

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