Google Chrome today was crowned the top Internet browser, officially ending the long reign of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE).
	NetMarketShare calculated the Chrome had 41.7 percent of desktop browser share in April, narrowly topping the 41.4 share for IE. Mozilla's Firefox browser was third with 9.7 percent, according to the market tracker.
	A second market tracker, StatCounter, had given the title to Chrome four years ago and gave Google's software for browsing the Internet an even bigger lead over IE in April.
	A graph posted online at netmarketshare.Com showed a Chrome use trend line rising while a line for IE sloped downward.
	When it came to using browser software to access the internet from mobile devices, Chrome commanded slightly more than 49 percent of the market, according to NetMarketShare.
	The results came as Google faces regulatory scrutiny, particularly in Europe, over its dominant position in Internet lifestyles and as Microsoft was pursuing a shift to business and ..

Chrome crowned top Internet browser by market tracker

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged Russia and the United States to put Syria's ceasefire back on track and stressed that new truce arrangements in place for two areas must be extended to Aleppo.
	Heavy air strikes hit rebel-held east Aleppo in the early hours of Monday, days after the United States and Russia announced plans to reinforce the February 27 truce in Latakia and Damascus regions.
	Ban is "profoundly concerned about the dangerous escalation of fighting in and around Aleppo and the intolerable suffering, counted in mounting deaths and destruction, it is causing among civilians," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
	The UN chief noted the re-launch of the cessation of hostilities in Damascus and Latakia and stressed "the need to expand these arrangements to other parts of Syria, with a special urgency for Aleppo."
	The appeal came on the eve of talks between Ban's envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on the ...

UN chief appeals for re-launch of Syria ceasefire

Researchers said they believe they have located the wreckage of the Endeavour, a ship sailed by the famous British explorer James Cook, which was sunk off the United States during the Revolutionary War.
	The ship was scuttled in 1778 leading up to the Battle of Rhode Island between American colonists and the British, and was as part of a blockade during the Revolutionary War.
	It now appears to have been located by the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) at one of nine sites containing 13 ships.
	The ship, which Cook sailed in the Pacific Ocean, passed through a number of hands before eventually being renamed the Lord Sandwich and used in the Revolutionary War blockade.
	RIMAP said it had pinpointed the wreckage at a site that included five other vessel, off the state of Rhode Island in Newport Harbor.
	The association is launching a campaign to finance the construction of a storage facility to accommodate the objects that are likely to be found during excavation.
	During .

British explorer James Cook's ship believed found in US

The UN said today it had enlisted Oscar winning Australian actress Cate Blanchett to help raise awareness about the plight of refugees, amid a massive global displacement crisis.
	The United Nations refugee agency said it had appointed Blanchett as its newest Goodwill Ambassador, a role long famously held by US film star Angelina Jolie.
	"I am deeply proud to take on this role," Blanchett said in a statement, stressing that "there has never been a more crucial time to stand with refugees and show solidarity."
	"We are living through an unprecedented crisis, and there must be shared responsibility worldwide," she added.
	Last year, a record 60 million people worldwide were displaced from their homes, and more than one third of them were living as refugees, according to the UNHCR.
	But solidarity has recently appeared to be in short supply in Europe for instance, which is facing surging xenophobia as it reels from its worst migration crisis since World War II.
	"It feels like we're at a 

UN signs up Cate Blanchett to boost support for refugees

Britain's opposition Labour party suspended three councillors today over comments about Israel posted on social media, as a row over anti-Semitism rocked the party.
	The controversy, which hit just before key regional elections on Thursday, had already forced leader Jeremy Corbyn to announce an independent review into racism and suspend members including a former mayor of London pending investigations.
	On Monday the party suspended three more members including Shah Hussain, a councillor in the northern town of Burnley, for a Tweet he wrote to Israeli footballer Yossi Benayoun in 2014.
	"You are a complete and utter plonker, you and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to ur race in ww2" Hussain wrote to the midfielder in a row over the conflict in Gaza.
	Hussain said he would fight the suspension.
	"I wanted him to reflect on what Hitler did to the Jewish people, and then I wanted him to reflect on that and to see what's happening in Palestine, can it be seen as the ...

Britain's Labour suspends councillors over Israel remarks

Four Chinese policemen will patrol the streets of Rome and Milan alongside their Italian counterparts for the next two weeks to help protect wealthy visitors from China during a peak tourism period, officials from both countries said today.
	Four units, each boasting one Chinese copper and an Italian flatfoot, will be posted to tourist hot spots such as the ancient Colosseum in Rome or Milan's Gothic cathedral to help deter pickpockets and counsel those who have come a cropper.
	Three million Chinese visit Italy each year.
	The patrolmen will be on site from Tuesday until May 13, Italian and Chinese authorities announced at a press conference in Rome.
	They hope to "increase the sense of security of Chinese tourists," said Italian police chief Alessandro Pansa.
	The next two weeks is expected to be the peak period in Italy for shopping-happy Chinese visitors, known for spending their cash on Italian goods.
	"If the experiment is successful, we will expand it to other cities in Italy," 

Chinese coppers to patrol Italy's top tourist sights

The perpetrator of a deadly car bombing that hit the Turkish city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border at the weekend is linked to the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, Turkey's interior minister said today.
	The bomber "is a member of a terrorist organisation linked to Daesh," Interior Minister Efkan Ala said in televised remarks, using an alternative name for the jihadist group.
	One policeman was killed when the car bomb went off outside the police headquarters in Gaziantep on Sunday morning. Another police officer later died of his wounds.
	Ala said nearly 50 suspects had been detained in connection with the attack.
	The announcement will intensify concerns about the risk of jihadist attacks in Turkey, which has already seen tourism fall sharply since the start of the year.
	Turkey remains on high security alert after a series of attacks on its soil blamed on Kurdish militants and IS jihadists, who still control territory in Syria right up to the Turkish border.
	Government ...

Turkey says Gaziantep attacker linked to IS

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon today announced the reopening of one of the main crossing points into the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which has been closed for at least eight years.
	However he did not give a date for the reopening of the Erez crossing in the north of the territory, saying only that this "will not happen tomorrow or the day after".
	"It is in our interests that a significant amount of truckloads of food continues to go to Gaza," a spokesman for Yaalon said in a statement.
	"It is our interest that Gazans live in dignity. Both from a humanitarian point of view and because this is a way to protect the peace, in addition to existing security deterrents."
	Yaalon also spoke of the necessity to ease congestion at the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south, currently the only conduit for goods between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
	He said that "at least half of what currently goes via Kerem Shalom" will be redirected to Erez.
	Israel imposed a tight air, sea and land blockade ..

Israel says Erez crossing into Gaza to reopen

A Brazilian judge issued an order today blocking the popular WhatsApp smartphone messaging application nationwide, the second such shut-down in six months.
	Judge Marcel Montalvao in the small northeastern town of Lagarto issued the order because Facebook, the owner of the service, failed to hand over information requested in a criminal investigation, reported news site G1.
	The judge "has ordered the suspension of WhatsApp from 2:00 pm (1700 GMT) Monday," a court spokeswoman told AFP.
	WhatsApp was previously shut down in Brazil in December over a similar dispute, before a higher court threw out the two-day suspension after about 12 hours.
	On that occasion, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg called it "a sad day for Brazil," noting the country's history of support for an open Internet.
	WhatsApp is widely used in Brazil, where cell phone fees for texting and calls are among the highest in the world.
	The free app is installed in nine in 10 smartphones in the country.

Brazil judge blocks WhatsApp for 72 hours

A boat capsized in rough waters during a violent weekend storm, killing 21 people, officials in Haiti said today.
	The tragedy occurred overnight Saturday into Sunday according to Eric Prevost, head of Haiti's maritime and navigations service.
	The small sailboat departed the city of Bombardopolis and went down shortly before it was to have arrived at its destination in the city of Gonaives.
	Officials said rescuers were able to save several passengers, but do not know how many people in total were onboard the vessel.
	Authorities blamed rough weather for another death -- a young man swept away by rising waters in central Haiti -- bringing to 22 the total number of people killed during the weekend's inclement weather.

22 dead in Haiti after weekend storms: official

Anti-Muslim acts in France tripled in 2015, with peaks in activity coming after two sets of deadly terror attacks, a government advisory commission said today.
	A total of 429 anti-Muslim threats or hate crimes were reported last year, up from 133 in 2014, according to a report from France's National Human Rights Commission (CNCDH).
	Two "peaks" in abuse came after jihadists attacked satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and a subsequent assault in November that killed 130 people in Paris, said CNCDH president Christine Lazerges.
	Overall, complaints of hate threats or crimes saw a "consequential increase" of just over 22 percent to 2,034 in 2015, the commission noted in its annual report on the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.
	However, anti-Semitic hate acts fell in 2015 to 808, a five percent drop over the previous year.
	"Several gauges indicate an ebb in the anti-Semitism that marked France in 2015," said the commission, referring to the terror ...

Anti-Muslim acts triple in France in 2015: report

Norwegian authorities said today there was no indication that a helicopter that crashed last week killing all 13 aboard had sent a distress signal.
	"We are not aware of any distress signal sent by the helicopter," an official from the Norwegian accident investigation board, Koare Halvorsen, told AFP.
	"We don't hear anything like that" on the voice recorder box, one of the chopper's two black boxes, he said.
	The EC225 Super Puma built by Airbus Helicopters crashed Friday on a small island in the archipelago off the western city of Bergen, en route from a North Sea oil platform.
	Thirteen people were killed, including 11 Norwegians, one Briton and one Italian.
	It was the deadliest helicopter crash in Norway since 1978 when a Sikorsky S61 crashed at sea, killing 18 people.
	The cause of Friday's accident was not yet known, but a technical problem appeared to be the most likely reason.
	Eyewitness accounts and footage captured on cell phones indicate that the rotor detached just ...

No distress signal from crashed Norwegian helicopter

Iraqi forces advancing from two opposite directions in Anbar have joined up, reducing the isolation of the city of Haditha, military sources said on today.
	A statement from Iraq's joint operations command coordinating the fight against the Islamic State group said forces retook several villages from the jihadists along the Euphrates River.
	The Iraqi army's 7th division had been moving down the river from Al-Baghdadi and eventually joined up with forces from the counter-terrorism service moving up from the town of Heet.
	"The road is therefore open between Heet and Haditha, via Al-Baghdadi, after an 18-month siege by the terrorists of Daesh," the statement said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
	"The siege of Haditha and Al-Baghdadi was broken after liberating the strategic highway between Baghdadi and Heet," Major General Ali Ibrahim Daboun, the army commander responsible for the area, told AFP.
	However, a commander of Haditha's tribal fighters said the area of Al-Dulab, which lies .

Iraqi forces retake road to isolated Anbar city

The perpetrator of a deadly car bombing that hit the Turkish city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border at the weekend is linked to the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, Turkey's interior minister said today.
	The perpetrator "is a member of a terrorist organisation linked to Daesh," Interior Minister Efkan Ala said in televised remarks, using an alternative name for the jihadist group. The bomb attack on Sunday killed two policemen and wounded 22 people.

'Perpetrator of attack in Turkey's Gaziantep linked to IS'

Ruling party and opposition Turkish lawmakers today exchanged punches and hurled water bottles at each other as a new mass brawl erupted in parliament over changes to the constitution, television broadcasts showed.
	Parliament's constitutional committee was meeting to discuss a government-backed proposal to strip MPs of their immunity, after last week's session also broke up in violence.
	Television footage showed lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) fighting in the crammed committee room after a heated verbal confrontation.
	Several MPs were seen jumping onto tables and then dive-bombing the crowd of opposing lawmakers on the other side.
	Others vaulted onto tables to get a better crack at kicking their opponents from above while some MPs sought to calm the tensions.
	Water bottles and other objects were hurled across the room in some of the worst fighting ever seen in the Turkish parliament, in a new sign of 

New mass brawl erupts in Turkey parliament: TV

An international team of scientists said today they had discovered a trio of Earth-like planets that are the best bet so far for finding life outside our solar system.
	The three orbit an ultracool dwarf star a mere 39 light years away, and are likely comparable in size and temperature to Earth and Venus, they reported in a study, published in Nature.

Scientists discover three 'potentially habitable' planets

Scientists discover three 'potentially habitable' planets.

A French appeal court today upheld a four-year prison sentence for the founder of PIP, the company that manufactured defective breast implants that caused a health scare across Europe and South America.
	The court in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence confirmed the fraud conviction against Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) founder Jean-Claude Mas, 76.
	The court also upheld the 2013 trial's sentence that Mas must pay 75,000 euros (USD 86,000) and be banned for life from working in medical services or running a company.
	Mas also faces two other pending legal cases, one for involuntary manslaughter and another linked to the financial implications of the scandal.
	The scandal first emerged in 2010 after doctors noticed abnormally high rupture rates in women with PIP implants.
	It gathered steam worldwide in 2011, with some 300,000 women in 65 countries believed to have received the faulty implants.
	In France alone, 18,000 women had PIP implants removed because of a risk of rupture or ...

France upholds jail term for breast implant company founder

One of Saudi Arabia's most powerful firms, the Saudi Binladin Group, has laid off 77,000 foreign workers, a Saudi daily reported today, citing an anonymous company official.
	Saudi Binladin Group confirmed to AFP that some staff have been let go, but gave no numbers.
	The report in the Al-Watan newspaper is the latest alleging tens of thousands of layoffs, unpaid salaries and unrest by employees of the firm which built some of the Gulf country's landmarks.
	Sources in March told AFP that delayed receipts from the government, whose oil revenues collapsed over the past two years, have left employees of the kingdom's construction giants struggling to survive while they await their salaries.
	However, Saudi Binladin Group was also sanctioned by the government after a deadly crane accident in Mecca last September.
	"The size of our workforce is always appropriate to the nature and size of projects and the timeframe they are to be carried out by the group," Yaseen Alattas, a Saudi Binladin .

Saudi Binladin Group lays off 77,000 workers: report

The head of a Korean subsidiary of a British consumer goods company was slapped and shouted down today as he apologised for his firm's role in selling a humidifier disinfectant blamed for more than 100 deaths in South Korea.
	Shouting "too late" and "cannot forgive" in English, a handful of the victims' relatives rushed the podium where Ata Safdar, the head of Oxy Reckitt Benckiser Korea, was speaking at a hotel in Seoul.
	The executive was slapped and pushed several times as the event descended into chaos.
	"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry. I deeply apologise. We want to make amends," Safdar told the angry relatives, bowing repeatedly in a gesture of contrition.
	Safdar was finally able to resume his statement, in which he offered a "heartfelt and sincere apology" to all the victims and said his company was committed to a multi-million dollar compensation plan.
	The case came to light after four pregnant women died of lung problems for unknown reasons in 2011.
	A subsequent government ...

British firm's Korean unit apologises over poison deaths

Fresh air strikes pummelled the Syrian city of Aleppo today as US Secretary of State John Kerry made a desperate bid to salvage a two-month ceasefire in the war-torn country.
	The top US diplomat gave some of his most downbeat comments yet after meeting the UN peace envoy on Syria, saying the conflict was "in many ways out of control and deeply disturbing to everybody in the world, I hope."
	"The attack on this hospital is unconscionable," he said, accusing President Bashar al-Assad's regime of deliberately targeting three clinics and a major hospital last week. "And it has to stop."
	Kerry met UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura and the Saudi foreign minister in Geneva, but the absence of Russia cast a pall over the proceedings.
	Washington and Moscow are the joint sponsors of the Syrian peace process, and de Mistura has made it clear that he sees little hope of progress without their agreement.
	Kerry said he would call Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later Monday to press for .

AFP

AFP

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