The European Central Bank is set to decide today the fate of the 500-euro banknote, which many people associate with money laundering, the black market and terrorist financing.
	But its possible abolition is raising hackles in countries such as Germany.
	The violet-coloured bill, the largest denomination banknote in the single currency area and physically also the bigger than the five other euro bills, is on the agenda of a meeting of the ECB's governing council, a bank spokesman told AFP.
	Notwithstanding any surprises, the council is likely to vote to stop issuing them, as the bill is believed to be favoured by criminals for moving large sums of money around without the authorities knowing.
	"Such notes are the preferred payment mechanism of those pursuing illicit activities, given the anonymity and lack of transaction record they offer, and the relative ease with which they can be transported and moved," according to a recent Harvard University study.
	Because of its size and ...

Days are numbered for 500-euro banknote

PTI Automatic

Seven big banks, including Bank of America, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, have agreed to pay a total of USD 324 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of market manipulation of interest rates.
	The settlement yesterday followed a federal judge's ruling in March, admitting the class action lawsuit brought by investors and pension funds against the banks.
	In all, about 15 banks were named in the suit for alleged manipulation of the ISDAfix rate, the benchmark for interest rate derivatives.
	US District Judge Jesse Furman, in rejecting a motion to dismiss the suit, said the claims were similar to those made against some of the same banks involving manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.
	"It appears that sort of rate manipulation can be economically sensible and feasible given that many banks (including some defendants) have admitted that in approximately the same period of time, they conspired to fix similar ...

Seven banks to pay USD 324 million to settle suit

Brazilian prosecutors have filed a USD 43.4 billion lawsuit against BHP Billiton and Vale over the Samarco mine dam burst that killed 19 and wreaked environmental havoc.
	The authorities "estimate the preliminary value for repairs to be 155 billion reals," the public prosecutor's office in the state of Minas Gerais said in a statement.
	The announcement sent BHP's share price plummeting 9.36 per cent to close at 18.79 Australian Dollar in Sydney, with a fall in iron ore prices adding to the selling pressure.
	Brazilian-owned Vale and Anglo-Australian BHP, which co- own the Samarco iron ore facility, had already agreed to a separate settlement of USD 6.2 billion with the Brazilian government in March.
	Those funds were ordered to go toward compensating for social and environmental damages and to be paid over 15 years.
	But the deal was criticised by prosecutors, who said that the amount of money was not calculated realistically.
	The accident on November 5 last year near Mariana in ...

Brazil sues BHP, Vale for USD 43 bn over mine tragedy

Russia has foiled a string of plots ordered by "international terrorist organisations" active in Syria and Turkey, the FSB intelligence agency said today, adding that several suspects had been arrested.
	"A group of immigrants from Central Asian countries who were planning to carry out a series of terrorist acts in the Moscow region" have been arrested, the FSB said, cited by state news agency RIA Novosti.
	The FSB added that the attacks, which would have struck in early May, had been ordered by "the leaders of international terrorist organisations active in Syria and Turkey".
	Several high-profile cultural and political events occurred on May 1 in or near Moscow to mark Labour Day, a national holiday in Russia. In addition, this year the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated Easter on May 1.
	On May 9 hundreds of thousands of people usually flock to the heart of the Russian capital for a military display and other celebrations to mark the anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in ...

Russia foils multiple attacks ordered by 'terrorists'

Relations between China and the Catholic Church are "in a positive phase" even if a lasting thaw is not yet in sight, the Vatican's secretary of state Pietro Parolin said today.
	China is home to tens of millions of Christians, but the Vatican has not had diplomatic relations with Beijing since 1951, two years after the founding of the communist People's Republic.
	Attempts to restore ties have floundered over Beijing's insistence that the Vatican must give up its recognition of Taiwan and promise not to interfere in religious issues in China.
	But in February, Pope Francis lavished praise on China in a move widely seen as part of Vatican moves to improve relations, pointedly avoiding any mention of Chinese restrictions on freedom of worship.
	"Right now we are in a positive phase, there are signs that the two parties have the will to pursue a dialogue and to work together to find solutions to the problem of the presence of the Catholic Church in this huge country," Parolin, the ...

China-Church relations 'in positive phase': Vatican

A coalition of countries battling Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq pledged today to pour more resources into the fight, after coming under strong pressure from Washington for greater contributions.
	The promise came after a meeting in Stuttgart of defence ministers from countries involved in the anti-IS coalition, during which US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter drove home the message that to deal IS a body blow, "all must do more".
	Carter's call to step up the fight came just a week after US President Barack Obama reiterated a long-standing demand for members of NATO to increase their defence spending to meet the alliance's target of two percent of output.
	In a joint statement, the coalition stressed their "strong support to further accelerate and reinforce the success of our partners on the ground and for the deployment of additional enabling capabilities in the near term, in order to hasten the collapse of ISIL's control" over the city of Mosul in Iraq and Syria's ...

US wins pledge of more resources from anti-IS coalition

John Kasich, Trump's last Republican rival, exits US

The Canadian city of Fort McMurray remained under threat from catastrophic wildfires today, authorities warned, after more than 80,000 residents were forced to flee the raging inferno sweeping through Alberta's oil sands region.
	No casualties have been reported from the monster blaze, which lashed at residences and motor home parks, causing traffic chaos as people scrambled to safety.
	But authorities warned that the next 24 hours would be critical.
	"This fire is absolutely devastating," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "It's a loss on a scale that is hard for many of us to imagine."
	Alberta emergency services announced shortly before midnight Tuesday that all of Fort McMurray, a city of about 100,000, was under a mandatory evacuation order. They said earlier that the northern edge of the inferno was "growing rapidly."
	Footage from the area overnight showed trees ablaze near highways crowded with bumper-to-bumper traffic, while black smoke billowed as the flames ate away at ...

'Catastrophic wildfires' force thousands to flee in Canada

The number of Americans visiting Cuba surged 93 per cent year-on-year in the first four months of 2016, the Cuban government said today.
	The communist island is basking in its newfound glow as a trendy tourist destination since Washington and Havana announced a historic rapprochement in December 2014.
	Cuba has welcomed a stream of celebrities and VIPs since then, including US President Barack Obama, the pope, the Rolling Stones and German designer Karl Lagerfeld, who presented a Cuban-inspired runway show Tuesday for French fashion house Chanel.
	The United States still maintains a trade and financial embargo on Cuba that forbids US citizens from traveling to the island for tourism, but Obama has loosened restrictions to the point that the first US cruise ship in 50 years was able to dock in Havana Monday.
	The Carnival cruise liner circumvented the tourism ban by offering passengers "cultural exchanges," including meetings with artists, musicians and business owners, as well as ...

US visitors to Cuba surge 93 per cent

Israel launched air raids today on the Gaza Strip after a day of tensions along the border of the Palestinian territory whose Islamist rulers warned against an escalation.
	Air strikes hit around Gaza's derelict international airport near the southern city of Rafah and in nearby farming areas, said the territory's Hamas-run interior ministry.
	Security sources in Gaza said the jets fired two missiles at the airport but said no one was hurt in the strikes.
	Israel's army said its warplanes had hit five sites operated by Hamas.
	"The (Israel armed forces) will continue to operate in order to protect the civilians of Israel from all Hamas terrorist threats above & beneath ground," spokesman Peter Lerner said on Twitter.
	The raids followed a bout of violence on the Gaza-Israel border Wednesday, with exchanges of fire that put a 2014 ceasefire agreement to the test.
	Israeli tanks shelled the Palestinian enclave at least twice, saying it was in response to mortar fire across the ...

Israeli raids on Gaza after day of border tensions

Syria's army said today it will abide by a two-day ceasefire in second city Aleppo agreed between the United States and Russia.
	"A truce will be in place in Aleppo for 48 hours from 1:00 am on Thursday (2200 GMT on Wednesday)," a statement from Damascus's army command said, according to the official SANA news agency and state television.
	Washington and Moscow agreed earlier Wednesday to work with Syria's warring parties to extend a shaky truce to Aleppo, which has seen more than 280 civilians killed in fighting since April 22.
	"To ensure this continues in a sustainable way, we are coordinating closely with Russia to finalise enhanced monitoring efforts of this renewed cessation," US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
	Last week, Washington and Moscow agreed to monitor a truce between Bashar al-Assad's loyalist forces and opposition in rebels in Latakia and Eastern Ghouta.
	But the divided city of Aleppo, a major commercial centre in the north of the country, was excluded ..

Syria to respect 48-hour Aleppo truce starting Thursday

US President Barack Obama will travel to Ottawa next month for a "Three Amigos" North American summit with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, the White House said today.
	The White House said Obama will also address a joint session of parliament while in the Canadian capital for the June 29 summit.
	"The summit is further recognition of the value of a more integrated North America to advance the security and prosperity of the continent," a White House statement said.
	"It also highlights the importance of continuing to strengthen the bilateral and trilateral ties between United States, Canada, and Mexico."
	The last "Three Amigos" summit was hosted by Pena Nieto in 2014 in Toluca, Mexico.

Obama in Canada in late June for N America summit

Israeli warplanes launched several raids today in the Gaza Strip after a day of tensions along the border with Israel, said the interior ministry in the Palestinian territory.
	Air strikes hit around Gaza's derelict international airport near the southern city of Rafah and in nearby farming areas, without causing casualties, said the ministry, which is run by the Islamist Hamas movement.
	Israel's army said it had hit five sites operated by Hamas.
	"The (Israel armed forces) will continue to operate in order to protect the civilians of Israel from all Hamas terrorist threats above & beneath ground," spokesman Peter Lerner said on Twitter.
	The border between Israel and Gaza - the scene of a devastating 2014 conflict - saw a bout of violence on Wednesday, with Israeli tanks firing into the enclave in what Israel said was a response to mortar fire.
	There were no reported injuries and no claims of responsibility for the mortar fire.
	Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant ...

Israeli jets carry out raids on Gaza: Palestinian ministry

Scientists reported today they had grown human embryos in the lab for nearly two weeks, an unprecedented feat that promises advances in assisted reproduction, stem-cell therapies and the basic understanding of how human beings form.
	Besides opening a window onto the first steps in the creation of an individual, the findings in parallel studies may help explain early miscarriages and why in vitro fertilisation has such a high failure rate.
	The research also showed for the first time that newly-forming human embryos can mature beyond a few days outside a mother's womb, something that was previously thought to be impossible.
	But the widely hailed results also set science on a collision course with national laws and ethical guidelines, experts cautioned.
	Up to now, a so-called "14-day rule" -- which says that human embryos cannot be cultured in the lab for more than two weeks -- has never been seriously challenged simply because no one had succeeded in keeping them alive that ...

Major breakthrough in lab-grown human embryos

Britain will admit a limited number of child refugees who have travelled alone from Syria to Europe, Prime Minister David Cameron announced today, in a U-turn on the politically-charged issue of migration.
	The government's change of heart is a victory for Alf Dubs, an 83-year-old member of Britain's House of Lords who argued that the country should be more compassionate, citing his own story of fleeing the Nazis as a child in 1939.
	Around 95,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in Europe last year, a fourfold increase on 2014, according to figures published by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism last month.
	Cameron said lone Syrian children who had registered in Greece, Italy or France before March 20 -- when the European Union signed a deal with Turkey to curb new arrivals -- would be considered.
	"We are going to do more for children who were already registered in Europe before the EU-Turkey deal," Cameron said in the House of Commons.
	"But we must stick to the ...

In U-turn, Britain to let in more Syrian child refugees

The UN's envoy for Syria today made a plea for a halt in fighting in the second city of Aleppo, warning that failure to do so could lead to a "catastrophic" outcome.
	"The alternative is truly quite catastrophic, because we could see 400,000 people moving towards the Turkish border," Staffan de Mistura said after talks in Berlin with France and Germany's foreign ministers.
	The Berlin talks, which also included Syria's main opposition leader Riad Hijab, is part of a week of whirlwind diplomacy as negotiators battle to salvage a collapsing truce.
	De Mistura stressed that a return to peace talks hinged on a ceasefire.
	"The test is Aleppo now," he said.
	German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault also issued similar warnings.
	"If the ceasefire does not happen in the next few hours in Aleppo, everything would collapse," said Ayrault.
	"All the hopes that we had put on a peace process would disappear, even though that's a necessity ...

400K refugees may head for Turkey if no Aleppo truce: UN envoy

Israel today rejected the concerns of a UN panel over alleged violations in its prisons, including a purported surge in solitary confinements, insisting such tactics were used only in "extremely restricted" cases.
	The United Nations Committee against Torture, reviewing Israel for the first time since 2009, today asked a government delegation about reports of multiple serious abuses in prisons, particularly against detained Palestinians.
	Committee chair Jens Modvig cited figures indicating that solitary confinements in Israel had nearly doubled from 2012 to 2014, jumping from 390 to 755 over the period.
	The deputy director of the human rights department at Israel's foreign ministry, Michal Sarig-Kaduri, told the UN panel that solitary confinements were "extremely restricted and used for short and limited periods of time, for a maximum of 14 days only."
	She explained that while some detainees were placed in solitary confinement as a punitive measure, others were held in "separation" 

Israel rejects UN panel's concerns of prisoner abuse

Attackers armed with machetes and axes hacked at least 16 civilians to death in a night-time assault on their village in the volatile east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN and local officials said today.
	Local administrator Bernard Amisi Kalonda said the brutal attack took place late yesterday in the Beni region of North Kivu province, an area which has witnessed numerous massacres in the past.
	"Between 8 pm and 10 pm (1900 GMT and 2100 GMT), the enemy managed to get past army positions and kill peaceful residents in their homes, slashing their throats," he told AFP.
	"The 16 bodies are in front of me, killed by machete or axe."
	He was not able to say if the attackers were Ugandan rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), who have long been active in the region.
	The area has suffered chronic unrest for two decades fuelled by ethnic differences and claims to land, along with bids for control over valuable natural resources and rivalry between regional powers.
	"Around .

16 villagers hacked to death in eastern DR Congo

Trade between the world's two biggest economies is mutually beneficial, Beijing said today after presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accused China of "rape".
	In the run-up to Tuesday's Indiana primary, where the businessman swept to victory and his last serious challenger Ted Cruz bowed out of the race, Trump had told a campaign rally: "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what we're doing."
	"We're going to turn it around, and we have the cards, don't forget it," he said. "We have a lot of power with China."
	Asked about Trump's comments and whether Beijing was nervous about the prospect of him becoming US president, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that the election was a US internal affair and China had no comment on it.
	But he went on: "I want to point out that US-China trade relations are essentially mutually beneficial and win-win in keeping with the shared interests of both sides."
	Hong added: "We hope ...

China urges reasonable trade views after Trump 'rape' comment

The Bangladesh capital was on high alert today ahead of a Supreme Court verdict on the nation's top Islamist leader that could clear the way for his execution for war crimes within days.
	Jamaat-e-Islami party leader Motiur Rahman Nizami, 73, will likely face the gallows in less than a week if the court dismisses his final appeal tomorrow over crimes committed during the country's independence war.
	Police said they had stepped up security in Dhaka ahead of the verdict because of fears of Islamist violence, although they added there were no specific threats from any group.
	"We've enhanced security in the capital. Officers have been kept on alert," Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP.
	Nizami was originally convicted of murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of top intellectuals as a militia leader during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.
	The Supreme Court upheld the verdict in January this year, but Nizami's lawyers filed a ...

Bangladesh capital on alert ahead of war crimes verdict

A Chinese caregiver found guilty of killing her elderly patient in order to receive her salary early -- and who claimed to have killed seven more -- was sentenced to death today, state media said.
	The deaths highlight weaknesses in the elderly care system in the world's most populous country, whose vast population is ageing rapidly.
	He Tiandai, 46, admitted murdering her client, a 70-year-old woman. Prosecutors did not press charges over her other confessions due to a lack of evidence, the official news agency Xinhua said.
	The victim's daughter-in-law had promised He a full month's wage in the event of her patient's death regardless of how many days she had worked, according to reports.
	After only four days of looking after the patient, she fed the women broth spiked with sleeping pills and toxic chemicals, injected the potion into her belly and buttocks and finally garrotted her with a nylon rope.
	He said she would not appeal her sentence, Xinhua reported.
	There are deep ...

AFP

AFP

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