The head of France's internal intelligence agency has warned that the country is "clearly targeted" by the Islamic State group which could launch a "terrorist campaign" of bombings in places where big crowds gather.
	DGSI agency chief Patrick Calvar made the comments at a hearing before a parliamentary committee on national defence on May 10, an account of which was made public yesterday.
	"We know that Daesh (Arabic acronym for IS) is planning new attacks -- using fighters in the area, taking routes which facilitate access to our territory -- and that France is clearly targeted," Calvar said.
	He noted that IS has suffered military setbacks in Syria and Iraq and wants to take revenge for the strikes by members of the anti-IS coalition, of which France is a member.
	Calvar noted that while last November's attacks in Paris that killed 130 people were conducted by suicide bombers and jihadists armed with Kalashnikovs, a new form of attack was possible.
	"We risk being confronted with a .

France 'clearly targeted' by IS, risks bomb attacks:

PTI Automatic

- Protesters against the new Brazilian government's decision to ax the culture ministry occupied buildings linked to the ministry in 11 regional capitals, Brazilian media reported.
	Acting President Michel Temer, who took over last week after president Dilma Rousseff's suspension for an impeachment trial, has cut the number of ministries from 32 to 23 in a measure he says will help streamline a bloated government.
	However merging the culture portfolio into the education ministry has provoked a storm of protest led by the country's cultural elite.
	Activists occupied several buildings in the capital Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, as well as seven other state capitals, G1 news site reported.
	Temer named a new culture secretary, Marcelo Calero, yesterday. He had promised to name a woman to the post after coming under fire for forming an all-male cabinet, but five female candidates refused the post, Brazilian media reported.
	The issue grabbed headlines at the ..

Brazil activists occupy buildings in culture ministry protest

The US embassy in Caracas has said it has suspended processing new applications for short-stay visas because the Venezuelan government was barring the entry of consular staff.
	The move highlighted strained diplomatic relations between the United States and the leftwing government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
	Neither country has had ambassadors in the other for the past six years.
	According to a statement on the US embassy website, from yesterday no more interviews will be conducted for new applicants seeking tourist or business visas to visit the United States.
	Those renewing visas or applying for immigrant or investor visas can still do so, but some will face longer than usual wait times, it added.
	The reason given was that "Venezuela's foreign ministry has for several months refused to issue visa for United States embassy personnel, which has resulted in a shortage of personnel in all the embassy."
	It said US State Department technicians had also been prevented from 

US embassy in Venezuela stops visa work over staff shortage

Thirty-two fighters loyal to Libya's unity government were killed in clashes with Islamic State group jihadists and a car bombing near the IS stronghold of Sirte, the military has said.
	"The toll of today's martyrs reached 32, and 50 others were wounded," the operations room set up by the new Government of National Unity (GNA) said on its Facebook page and Twitter account late yesterday, updating an earlier toll of 18 dead.
	Of the earlier toll, seven died in a car bomb attack in Buairat el-Hassun, 60 kilometres (35 miles) west of Sirte and the others were killed in an IS foray in Abu Grein, further west, that the GNA recaptured on Tuesday.
	The GNA on Tuesday called for warplanes to bomb IS after world powers showed readiness to arm it.
	On Monday, the United States, Italy and Libya's allies and neighbours agreed in Vienna to arm the GNA to confront the threat from IS.
	Clashes on Tuesday claimed the lives of seven members of the GNA forces and wounded 15.
	IS overran Abu Grein on ..

Car bomb, clashes with IS kill 32 Libya unity govt forces:

The foreign minister for Brazil's new government following the suspension of president Dilma Rousseff has said Brasilia will now pursue economic interests over leftist ideological goals.
	Jose Serra, nominated by acting president Michel Temer in the wake of Rousseff's suspension for an impeachment trial, yesterday signalled that Brazil would no longer be part of the loose leftist alliance that exists across several Latin American countries.
	"Diplomacy will return to transparently and firmly reflecting the legitimate values of Brazilian society and the interests of its economy, serving Brazil as a whole and no longer the ... Ideological preferences of a political party and its foreign allies," he said.
	Serra last week confronted the governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which had denounced Temer's takeover as a coup against Rousseff.
	Serra said yesterday that Brazil would play "a pioneering role" in climate change policies, underlining the country's role as 

New Brazilian FM promises shift away from left

Ninety-two children and three teachers were poisoned in northern Peru when a plane fumigating nearby fields sprayed a weed-killer too close to their school, local media said .
	The herbicide, believed to be glyphosate, left schoolchildren who inhaled it vomiting and fainting, while others complained of stomach pains and headaches, a health official in the municipality of Nepena told journalists.
	Glyphosate -- the active ingredient in US biotech giant Monsanto's Roundup weed-killer -- has often caused controversy and confusion.
	Critics have called for it to be banned, and the World Health Organisation's International (AgFP) agency for Research on Cancer said last year that it "probably" causes cancer.
	But this week the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation said it was "unlikely" that glyphosate is carcinogenic.
	Parents complained to local prosecutors after their children got sick when the chemical was sprayed on sugar cane fields belonging to the Gloria group, one of the ...

92 children poisoned by weed-killer in Peru: reports

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a formal apology today for an incident in which a shipload of Indians were refused entry into Canada more than 100 years ago.
	More than 300 Indians were barred from Canada in 1914 after an immigration dispute, only for some to be killed in protests on their return to India.
	"Today I rise in this House to offer an apology on behalf of the government of Canada for our role in the Komagata Maru incident," Trudeau said in parliament, referring to the name of the ship.
	"More than a century ago a great injustice took place," he said.
	After crossing the Pacific ocean aboard the Japanese liner Komagata Maru, the crew and nearly 300 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh passengers sailed into Vancouver harbour.
	The ship sat anchored offshore for two months before being escorted out to sea under the guns of a Canadian navy cruiser in July of that year.
	Upon their return to India, passengers were arrested and British colonial officials planned to send them back home to .

Canada apologises for century-old snub of Indian migrants

A regime air strike killed at least 13 members of the same family, including eight children, in central Syria today, a monitor said.
	The raid hit a residential neighbourhood in Rastan, one of the last rebel strongholds in the central province of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
	The toll is likely to increase as several people are missing and others are gravely injured, the Britain-based monitor said.
	Rebel groups seized Rastan in 2012 and the town has been under full siege by regime forces, who control most of the Homs province, since the beginning of this year.
	The Observatory relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria to gather its information on the five-year-old conflict, which has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.
	It says it determines whether strikes were carried out by Syrian, Russian or US-led coalition aircraft based on the location of the raids, flight patterns and the types of planes and munitions involved.

Syria regime strike kills at least 13 civilians: monitor

Canada apologizes for century-old snub of Indian migrants

Eighteen fighters loyal to Libya's unity government were killed in clashes with Islamic State group jihadists and a car bombing today near the IS stronghold of Sirte, the military said.
	An official in an operations room set up by the new Government of National Unity (GNA), asking not to be named, told AFP that "the toll is 18 martyrs and more than 20 wounded in the battles with IS militants and a car bombing".
	Seven died in a car bomb attack in Buairat el-Hassun, 60 kilometres (35 miles) west of Sirte, the operations room said on its Facebook page. The others were killed in an IS foray in Abu Grein, further west, that the GNA recaptured on Tuesday.
	The GNA on Tuesday called for warplanes to bomb IS after world powers showed readiness to arm it.
	On Monday, the United States, Italy and Libya's allies and neighbours agreed in Vienna to arm the GNA to confront the threat from IS.
	Clashes on Tuesday claimed the lives of seven members of the GNA forces and wounded 15.
	IS overran Abu ..

Car bomb, clashes with IS kill 18 Libya unity govt forces

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta today to reconsider his decision to close two refugee camps, including the world's largest, and send Somali refugees home.
	In a telephone conversation, Ban urged Kenyatta to continue to abide by a November 2013 agreement with the Somali government and the UN High Commissioner on Refugees "as a basis for the voluntary return of Somali refugees in safety and dignity."
	Kenya hosts around 600,000 refugees, some of whom have lived in the country for a quarter century.
	It says it wants to close the Dadaab and Kakuma camps because they have become breeding grounds for the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shebab militant group and centers of crime and contraband.
	Dadaab, located on the Kenya-Somalia border, is home to around 350,000 people. Kakuma in northwestern Kenya hosts around 180,000 people, almost a third of them Somalis.
	Ban also said he supported a proposal by the UNHCR for a "high-level bilateral review on the refugee ...

Ban asks Kenya to reconsider decision to bar Somali refugees

One person was killed and 85 injured today as two strong aftershocks shook Ecuador a month after a devastating earthquake left some 700 dead, President Rafael Correa said.
	"We regret to report the death of one adult," Correa told a press conference after Ecuadorans were awakened by a 6.8-magnitude quake, followed by another measuring 6.7.

One killed in new Ecuador quakes, 85 injured: president

A senior UN official on today welcomed the freeing of a Nigerian schoolgirl abducted more than two years ago by Boko Haram, but said the jihadist group still holds thousands more people.
	One of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok in northeast Nigeria in April 2014, Amina Ali is the first to be recovered safe and sound.
	She was found Tuesday and reunited with her family.
	The girl's return was a "wonderful piece of news," UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien told reporters during a telephone conversation from the nearby city Maiduguri.
	"There is a sense of solidarity and a real sense of hope that this is a step toward the future," he said.
	"Let us not forget the other thousands of boys and girls and women who have been abducted," he added. "It is vital to continue every effort to find those."
	The United Nations is working closely with Nigerian federal and state authorities on those cases, O'Brien said.
	Boko Haram has been accused of kidnapping at least 2,000 people ...

UN welcomes freeing of Nigeria schoolgirl

A letter penned by Christopher Columbus in 1493 was returned to its rightful resting place in Italy today, ending a years-long investigation into its theft and forgery.
	The Italian explorer wrote the letter to his royal patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, a year after embarking on his historic journey across the Atlantic.
	The precious document played a key role in expanding Europe's knowledge of the "New World." Columbus likely drafted the letter while voyaging back to Europe, dating it March 4, 1493, the day he landed in Lisbon.
	After Columbus's return to Andalusia, the letter was reproduced and distributed throughout Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Copies of the letter are now rare, with 11 editions published in 1493, and six more between 1494 and 1497.
	The printer Stephan Plannck published two of the first editions in Rome, and one of the letters it printed became the property of the Riccardiana Library in Florence, from where it was stolen on an ...

Stolen Christopher Columbus letter returned to Italy

Two strong earthquakes sent tens of thousands of Ecuadorans scrambling for safety today, one month after a much larger quake toppled buildings and killed some 700 people.
	A powerful 6.7 magnitude quake struck Ecuador's northeastern coast just before noon, the country's Geophysical Institute said.
	That followed a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that struck in approximately the same region at 2:57 am local time (0757 GMT).
	Six people were injured in the morning quake, only one seriously, officials said. Physical damage was minor.
	There were no initial reports of victims or damages in the second quake.
	The epicenter of the midday quake, which struck at 11:47 am (1647 GMT), was located in the northwestern coastal province of Esmeraldas near the border with Colombia, the Institute said.
	The Institute downgraded the quake's strength from 7.2 in its initial preliminary report.
	The US Geological Survey, which monitors earthquakes worldwide, reported that the second quake measured 6.8 on the ..

Strong aftershocks of deadly earthquakes shake Ecuador

Cyber attackers are targeting the campaigns of Democratic and Republican presidential contenders, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said today.
	"We already have some indications of that," he said during a cyber-security discussion at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
	"I anticipate that as the campaign intensifies, we are probably going to have more of it."
	The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are doing "what they can" to educate both campaigns against potential cyber threats ahead of the general election in November, when Republican Donald Trump will likely face off against Democrat Hillary Clinton, Clapper said.
	"There is a long-standing practice of briefing each of the candidates once they are officially designated, and that shifts in to a higher gear in terms of details after the president-elect is known," he added.
	Asked for details about specific incidents, Clapper's office referred questions to the ...

Cyber attackers target US presidential campaigns: official

A woman in the Emirates has been sentenced to a fine and deportation for violating her husband's privacy by checking his mobile to see if he was being unfaithful, newspapers said.
	She was convicted for accessing his phone without permission when she suspected he was having an affair with another woman, the Gulf News said.
	It reported that after her husband filed a complaint against her, a court in Ajman emirate ruled in his favour on May 12, citing laws on cybercriminality.
	"The woman gained access to her husband's mobile phone and transferred photos to her phone via WhatsApp," the Gulf News wrote.
	"Later, she accused her husband of having an affair with another woman."
	Both the man and his wife, who are in their thirties, are of Arab nationality, the woman's lawyer said.
	The woman admitted the charge and was sentenced to pay a fine of 150,000 dirhams (USD 40,900) and deportation from the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper said.

UAE fines, deports suspicious wife: report

The White House today announced the extension of overtime pay benefits to 4.2 million American workers labelled managers but compelled to work long hours for relatively low wages.
	The move addresses a decades-long trend of businesses requiring 50- and 60-hour weeks of a growing body of workers classified as managers and supervisors but paid barely more than those on low hourly wages.
	The rule, which comes into force on December 1, is expected to raise the workforce cost for many businesses already facing pressure to increase their minimum hourly pay as well.
	The action increases the pay threshold below which employees must be paid overtime wages after working 40 hours a week.
	Held at USD 455 a week for more than a decade, the threshold will double to USD 913 a week, the equivalent of nearly USD 47,500 a year.
	The level will be adjusted every three years to reflect economic conditions.
	"If you work more than 40 hours a week, you should get paid for it or get extra time off to ...

Obama expands overtime pay coverage to 4.2 mn workers

A Lebanon military judge today sentenced 106 men to death over clashes between the army and jihadists two years ago in the east of the country, a judicial source said.
	Judge Najat Abou Chakra convicted 73 Syrians, 32 Lebanese and one Palestinian of belonging to "terrorist organisations", attacking the town of Arsal near the Syrian border, and kidnapping and attempting to kill Lebanese soldiers and policemen, the source said.
	Seventy-seven of those convicted are in custody but the other 29 remain at large.
	They include Abu Malek al-Talli, the leader in the cross-border area of Qalamun of Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Nusra Front.
	In August 2014, the Lebanese army clashed with the Islamic State jihadist group and Al-Nusra in Arsal.
	IS and Al-Nusra kidnapped 30 soldiers and policemen as they withdrew.
	After lengthy negotiations, 16 of the captured men were released in early December in exchange for Islamist prisoners jailed in Lebanon.
	Since the start of the five-year conflict in 

Lebanon court sentences 106 to death over clashes with army

Ecuador shaken by 7.2 magnitude quake: geophysical

Israel has successfully tested a maritime missile interception system dubbed the Iron Dome of the Sea, the military announced today.
	The system, which the military said can shoot down short-range rockets similar to those fired from Gaza, successfully destroyed "several" missiles, Ariel Shir, head of operational systems in the navy, said.
	He said the test, which took place two weeks ago, "proved the Israeli navy's ability to protect Israel's strategic assets at sea against short-range strategic rockets".
	During the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip, Israel deployed its Iron Dome system on land to shoot down rockets fired across the border.
	A similar system has been in development for several years and was revealed to the public on Wednesday.
	A video provided by the army showed a rocket launcher installed on a ship firing at targets in the sky and later intercepting a missile.
	Israel has a number of assets at sea, including a 

AFP

AFP

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