UN Security Council diplomats have warned North Korea to expect a response after Pyongyang's repeated failed attempts to test-fire a powerful ballistic missile, the latest defiance of UN resolutions.
	At the request of the United States, the council held urgent closed-door consultations after North Korea's unsuccessful launch earlier in the day of two medium-range missiles, as fears grew that the secretive country was preparing to conduct a fifth nuclear test.
	North Korea has now made three bids in two weeks to test-fly a Musudan missile, which is capable of striking US bases on the Pacific island of Guam.
	"We are looking at a response," China's Ambassador Liu Jieyi, who holds the Security Council presidency this month, told reporters.
	Japanese Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa said Tokyo condemned the "grave and very clear violations" of UN resolutions that comprised a direct threat to Japan's national security.
	The 15-member council was unanimous in condemning the latest launches, ..

UN Security Council readies N Korea missile test reply

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China and Russia today rapped US plans to put a missile defence system on the Korean peninsula, less than 24 hours after Pyongyang twice tested projectiles thought to be capable of reaching American territory.
	A series of missile tests and nuclear blasts by North Korea have pushed Seoul into talks with Washington about deploying the US's sophisticated Theater High Altitude Area Defence System (THAAD), which fires projectiles to smash into enemy missiles.
	Beijing fears that the presence of more US hardware on its doorstep will further tip the balance of power in the Pacific towards Washington.
	"We both are gravely concerned about the US's likely deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a briefing with his visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
	"The move goes beyond the actual defence needs of relevant countries," Wang said, adding: "It will directly affect the strategic security of China and Russia respectively if it is ...

China, Russia rap US missile defence plan in S Korea

World number one Serena Williams heads to the WTA Madrid Open this week unusually still searching for her first tournament win of the season.
     The 21-time Grand Slam champion has limited her schedule to just three tournaments so far this season despite missing out in the final of both the Australian Open and Indian Wells before crashing out at the fourth round of the Miami Open last month.
     Williams has instead been boosting her profile off the court as she starred alongside Beyonce in the pop superstar's visual album this week.
     However, the two-time winner in Madrid faces stiff competition from a wide-open field on her return to action despite the absence of 2014 champion Maria Sharapova after she admitted to failing a drugs test at the Australian Open.
     Williams's conqueror at the Australian Open, Angelique Kerber, is in fine form after backing up her first Grand Slam by retaining her title on the indoor clay of Stuttgart last week.
     And the German is looking to 

Serena looks to kickstart season in Madrid

One of China's top airlines will split USD 10 billion of new orders between European manufacturer Airbus and US-based Boeing, it said, as competition heats up for aviation market share in the world's second-largest economy.
	China Eastern Airlines said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange that the lion's share of the orders, nearly USD 6 billion, will go to Airbus for 20 A350 aircraft.
	It will also spend close to USD 4 billion on 15 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
	The bitter aerospace rivals have been in a fierce battle for orders in China, which is forecast to have 1.7 billion air passengers by 2034, and is poised to become the largest civil aviation market in the world in the next two decades.
	China Eastern is one of China's top three airlines, operating 560 aircraft and carrying around 100 million passengers annually.
	The Shanghai-headquartered company plans to use the long-haul planes for travelling between China, North America and Europe, and to replace retired ...

China Eastern Airlines to buy 35 planes from Airbus and Boeing

Oil prices eased slightly in Asia today after hitting a series of new highs this week, bolstered by a weak dollar.
	The US Federal Reserve held interest rates unchanged after its policy meeting on Wednesday, signalling it was in no hurry to raise rates.
	Yesterday, the dollar fell about 3.0 per cent against the Japanese yen after the Bank of Japan disappointed markets by not offering additional stimulus measures for the struggling economy.
	At about 0315 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for June delivery was seven cents down at USD 45.96 while Brent North Sea for June delivery was eight cents lower at USD 48.06.
	Yesterday, Brent rose to USD 48.14 a barrel, its highest price since November, while WTI traded at USD 46.03 a barrel, its loftiest mark this year.
	The slight clawback during early Asian trading hours on Friday could be put to profit taking and normal market fluctuations, said Alex Wijaya, a senior sales trader with CMC Markets in Singapore.
	"It used to be that any 

Oil prices ease off in Asia after hitting new highs

A Mexican army general has been sentenced to 52 years and six months in prison for ordering the torture of a suspect and the incineration of his body, authorities have said.
	The Federal Judicial Council said the general, whose name was not released, ordered that the suspect be tortured for several hours to get information about a soldier's death in July 2008 in the northern state of Chihuahua.
	The victim was taken to a military installation, where he was tied up and soaked in water in order to receive electric shocks, while other suspects were being interrogated.
	The torture began in the early hours of July 28, 2008, and ended at 9 AM (local time) when the victim died, "very probably" of a heart attack resulting from the electric shocks, the council said.
	The general then ordered that the body be driven to a ranch, where it was "incinerated in a clandestine manner," the council said.
	The court that sentenced the general ordered the defence ministry to offer a public apology, ...

Mexican general gets 52 years in prison for torture

Colombia's constitutional court has definitively legalised same-sex marriage in a ruling, the fourth South American country to allow it.
	"The judges affirmed by a majority that marriage between people of the same sex does not violate constitutional order," presiding Judge Maria Victoria Calle told the court yesterday.
	"The current definition of the institution of marriage in civil law applies to them in the same way as it does for couples of the same sex."
	Under previous rulings, gay couples could formalise their unions before notaries and judges but it had remained a legal gray area and appeals had been launched against it.
	The constitutional court had on April 7 dismissed a petition against equal marriage rights for heterosexual and homosexual couples.
	That paved the way for yesterday's ruling, which definitively establishes that such equality is guaranteed by the constitution, giving gay couples the legal right to marry.
	In July 2010, Argentina became the first Latin American 

Top Colombia court legalises same-sex marriage

A major earthquake hit the Pacific nation of Vanuatu early today, briefly prompting a tsunami warning that was cancelled after locals reported no significant damage.
	The United States Geological Survey said the 7.0-magnitude quake -- originally reported as 7.3, struck at a relatively shallow depth of 35 kilometres, some 209 kilometres from the capital Port Vila.
	The National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) initially warned the quake, which hit at 1933 GMT, could generate waves of up to three metres on parts of the Vanuatu coast.
	Within two hours it had cancelled the alert, saying "there is no longer a tsunami threat from this earthquake".
	Port Vila journalist Moses Stevens said he was not aware of any damage in the capital, while tourist resort manager Dave Cross said it was felt strongly on the island of Espiritu Santo.
	"We really felt the shake because it was so shallow, but all we lost was a vase and some flowers," he told AFP.
	"I'm told there was a small wave, but that was the 

Vanuatu tsunami threat over after big quake: scientists

The Mexican attorney general's office has launched a probe of its own chief investigator over his handling of a key crime scene in the much-criticized case of 43 students who disappeared in 2014.
	The inspector general opened an investigation on Wednesday into officials present at a river in southern Guerrero state on October 28, 2014, the attorney general's office said in a statement yesterday.
	Tomas Zeron, the head of the criminal investigations agency, was led that day by a suspect to the San Juan river, in which the burnt remains of students were allegedly tossed by a drug gang.
	Foreign experts who aided the investigation slammed Zeron's conduct, saying his failure to make a written report about the visit, including the discovery of a bone, went against the "minimum international standards of investigation."
	The experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also said medical reports show that the suspect had injuries that strongly indicate he was tortured.
	The ...

Mexico's chief investigator probed over missing case

Britain's foreign minister has arrived in Cuba in the first such visit since 1959, to hold talks on cooperation in "financial services, energy, culture and education", London announced.
	It follows last month's landmark visit by President Barack Obama to the Caribbean nation as part of a historic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States after 50 years of enmity stemming back to the Cold War.
	"As the first British Foreign Secretary to visit Cuba since before the Cuban Revolution in 1959, this is an opportunity to hear for myself what Cuba thinks about its present challenges and where it sees its future," Philip Hammond said in a statement yesterday.
	He is to hold a series of meetings with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez and other government leaders, according to Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
	Hammond is also to sign a "bilateral agreement restructuring Cuba's debt to the UK" and agree on future cooperation in a range of areas from financial services to ...

British foreign minister visits Cuba in first such trip since

North Korea has released a video appeal by the parents of one of 12 waitresses that Pyongyang insists were kidnapped by South Korean agents from the restaurant where they were working in China.
	In the footage, uploaded on Wednesday to the North's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri, the parents wept and demanded the South return their daughter, So Gyong-A.
	So and 11 other waitresses from the same restaurant arrived in South Korea earlier this month, along with their manager.
	North Korea claims the manager tricked them into defecting and that they were effectively abducted with the collusion of the South's spy agency.
	Seoul insists they all defected voluntarily.
	In the video, So's father So Dae-Song lashed out at South Korean President Park Geun-Hye "and her clique who lured and kidnapped" his daughter.
	"Gyong-A, resist strongly until you return to the bosom of our Marshal" he cried out, referring to leader Kim Jong-Un.
	Gyong-A's mother also wept and denounced Park as a ...

N Korea video appeal by family of 'kidnapped' daughter

Construction workers have found 600 kilos of ancient Roman coins while carrying out  routine work on water pipes in southern Spain, local officials have said.
	"It is a unique collection and there are very few similar cases," Ana Navarro, head of Seville's Archaeology Museum which is looking after the find, told a news conference yesterday.
	Dating back to the late third and early fourth centuries, the bronze coins were found Wednesday inside 19 Roman amphoras, a type of jar, in the town of Tomares near Seville.
	Navarro declined to give a precise estimate for the value of the haul, saying only that the coins were worth "certainly several million euros".
	The coins are stamped with the inscriptions of emperors Maximian and Constantine, and they appeared not to have been in circulation as they show little evidence of wear and tear.
	It is thought they were intended pay the army or civil servants.
	"The majority were newly minted and some of them probably were bathed in silver, not just 

600 kilos of Roman coins discovered in Spanish town

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the bombing of a hospital in Syria's northern city of Aleppo and said attacks that target civilians are "inexcusable" violations of humanitarian law.
	"There must be accountability for these crimes," Ban said in a statement yesterday.
	The city's last remaining pediatrician and three children were among the 20 people killed in the air strike overnight on the Al-Quds hospital, which was supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
	Ban called on the warring sides to "immediately renew their commitment" to a ceasefire that had been in force since late February.
	He encouraged the international powers backing Syria's peace process, in particular the United States and Russia, to "ensure credible investigations of incidents such as the attack on Al-Quds hospital."
	"Instead of bombing civilian areas, all Syrian parties must renew their focus on a political process," he added.
	UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien separately appealed to world powers to .

UN chief says Aleppo hospital attack 'inexcusable'

A former governor in Colombia who was held hostage for nearly three years by a leftist guerrilla group has said that the rebels had released him in exchange for his brother.
	Patrocinio Sanchez, the former governor of the western department of Choco, yesterday said that after he fell ill in captivity, the National Liberation Army (ELN) set him free, but only on condition that his brother Odin take his place.
	"The guerrillas told me they were going to free me and do an exchange, and that the exchange was with my brother," Sanchez said in an interview on Blu Radio.
	"I wasn't able to see my brother, but they tell me... He did take my place."
	The ELN is the second-largest guerrilla group in a messy conflict that has dragged on for more than 50 years. The largest is rival leftist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
	Sanchez was freed on April 3, four days after the Colombian government and the ELN announced they had agreed to begin peace talks.
	The release of the ..

Colombia rebels traded hostage ex-governor for brother

Two men and a woman were charged with terror offences today, British police said, following what was described as an "extensive investigation" helped by Belgium and France.
	The three -- 29-year-old Soumaya Boufassil Mohammed Ali Ahmed and Zakaria Boufassil, both aged 26 -- were all from the central English city of Birmingham, police said.
	Ahmed and Zakaria Boufassil were charged with "an arrangement as a result of which.... A quantity of sterling currency was made available to another and they knew or had reasonable cause to suspect that it would or may be used for the purposes of terrorism," police said in a statement.
	Ahmed and Soumaya Boufassil were charged with gathering funds with "the intention of committing acts of terrorism or assisting another to commit such acts".
	The three were among five people arrested earlier this month as part of what police said was an "extensive investigation" that involved French and Belgian authorities.
	Another man arrested at the same time, ...

Three charged with 'terror' offences in Britain

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific nation of Vanuatu today, the United States Geological Survey said, with a tsunami warning issued.
	The quake, which occurred at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles) was originally measured at 7.3-magnitude by the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC).
	"Hazardous tsunami waves from this earthquake are possible within 300 km of the epicentre along the coast of Vanuatu," the NTWC said.

7.0-magnitude quake hits Vanuatu, tsunami warning issued: USGS

The FBI arrested three people today, including the brother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, on charges of marriage fraud and lying to investigators, authorities said.
	Syed Raheel Farook, 31, was arrested in the early morning at his home in the California town of Corona, along with his wife Tatiana Farook, also 31.
	Mariya Chernykh, Tatiana's 26-year-old sister who lives in the nearby town of Ontario, was also arrested.
	The five-count indictment against the three centers on Chernykh's alleged sham marriage to Enrique Marquez, who is awaiting trial on charges of aiding the December 2 attack carried out by Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik.
	The duo were later killed in a shootout with police.
	"This is the latest step in the comprehensive investigation into the horrific attacks in San Bernardino last year that took the lives of 14 innocent Americans and deeply affected so many more," US attorney Eileen Decker said in a statement.
	"As I have said previously, we owe the ...

3 linked to California terror attack arrested

The United States said it was "deeply concerned" after China passed a controversial new law today giving police wide-ranging powers over overseas charities.
	The law, which comes into force in January, "will further narrow space for civil society in China and constrain contact between individuals and organizations in the United States and China," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said.
	The new measure, which prompted an immediate outcry from charities and foreign governments, also bans overseas NGOs from recruiting members or raising funds in China.
	"Recognizing that a vibrant civil society is a cornerstone of stability and prosperity, the (Obama) administration has expressed strong support at every level for the role of civil society in China," Price said in a statement.
	"We urge China to respect the rights and freedoms of human rights defenders, journalists, business groups, development professionals, and all others who make up civil society, including by protecting ..

US 'deeply concerned' over new China controls on foreign NGOs

7.3-magnitude earthquake hits Vanuatu, tsunami warning

Climate change is exposing millions of workers to excessive heat, risking their health and income and threatening to erase more than USD 2.0 trillion in annual productivity by 2030, a UN report warned today.
	More than one billion workers in countries hard-hit by global warming are already grappling with increasing severe heat, according to the report: "Climate Change and Labour: Impacts of Heat in the Workplace."
	"Already in the current situation, several percent of working hours can be lost in highly exposed regions," said the report, a collaboration between several UN agencies and international unions.
	The global productivity loss is expected to top USD 2.0 trillion annually by 2030, as sweltering temperatures force outdoor workers and manual labourers to slow down, take longer breaks or even move to find work in a cooler climate.
	"When workers are put under these hot-house conditions, their capacity to work is dramatically impacted," Philip Jennings, head of UNI Global Union, ..

'Workers feeling heat as climate change slashes productivity'

Moscow will join the global battle against tax evasion and other illicit activities by signing up to an international scheme to stamp out fiscal cheating, Russia's finance minister said today.
	It follows in the wake of the "Panama papers" scandal which shined a light on the vast offshore holdings of individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
	Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Russia will sign the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development agreement on automatic sharing of tax data at a meeting in Beijing in May.
	Moscow hopes to be a full member of the OECD's information exchange system by 2018, according to Russian media.
	A close Putin confidante was implicated in a series of global reports that revealed how a Panamanian law firm set up offshore entities to help the world's wealthy stash their assets.
	Reports based on the leaks linked Putin's close friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, to shell firms that shuffled at least USD 2 billion and made money ...

AFP

AFP

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