Alaska Airlines parent company Alaska Air Group said today it was acquiring Virgin America in a friendly takeover worth around USD 4 billion.
	A definitive merger of the airlines had been unanimously approved by the boards of both companies, it said in a statement.
	Alaska Air will pay USD 57 in cash per share for Virgin America.
	"The combination expands Alaska Airlines' existing footprint in California, bolsters its platform for growth and strengthens the company as a competitor to the four largest US airlines," it said.
	The newly merged company will be headquartered in Seattle, it said.

Alaska Air Group says to acquire Virgin America in $4bn deal

PTI Automatic

Air strikes have killed several Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front members including its spokesman and regime forces have retaken a strategic town from the Islamic State group in the latest setbacks for jihadists in Syria.
	Abu Firas al-Suri, whose real name was Radwan Nammous, fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan where he met Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the founding father of global jihad, Abdullah Azzam, before returning to Syria in 2011.
	Suri was meeting with other leading Islamist fighters in an Al-Nusra stronghold in Kafar Jales in northwestern Syria when the raids struck yesterday.
	He "was an old time Al-Qaeda member ... He was brought in from Yemen as an ideological counterweight" for rival jihadist group IS, said Pieter Van Ostaeyen, a historian and monitor of jihadist groups.
	"His death indeed is a blow for Al-Nusra. However, that will not change a lot on the operational level," he added.
	According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Suri, his son and ..

Syria's Qaeda spokesman killed as army pushes anti-IS advance

President Francois Hollande promised today that a massive leak of documents exposing the offshore dealings of wealthy individuals would lead to legal proceedings in France.
	Hollande said: "all the information revealed will lead to investigations brought by the tax authorities and to legal proceedings" and he thanked "whistleblowers" for bringing the so-called Panama Papers to light.

Hollande promises French probes into Panama Papers cases

Vietnam's coast guard has seized a Chinese oil tanker which it claims intruded into Vietnamese waters, state media said today, the latest episode in a festering territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
	The Qiong Yangpu was carrying 100,000 litres of oil, the official Vietnam News Agency said, adding that it was captured Thursday and impounded in the northern port of Hai Phong.
	The three-man crew was handed over to police, the report said.
	"It was spotted and seized by Hai Phong coast guards... 12 nautical miles from the marine delineation line in the Tonkin Gulf to the northwest of Vietnam's Bach Long Vi island," the report said.
	Police, military, and coast guard officials in Hai Phong declined comment today.
	According to the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper, the tanker was selling oil to Chinese fishing boats in the area.
	"The captain, however, failed to present relevant documents to prove the origin of the oil, while his two crew members have no operating licence," Tuoi Tre ...

Vietnam seizes Chinese oil tanker: state media

US and Philippine troops began major exercises today as China's state media warned "outsiders" against interfering in tense South China Sea territorial disputes.
	The official Xinhua news agency gave the warning as Manila and Washington launched the 11-day Balikatan (Shoulder-to-Shoulder) exercises with a low-key opening ceremony in Manila.
	US Defence Secretary Ash Carter is to fly to the Philippines next week to observe live-firing of artillery and visit US Navy ships taking part.
	Some 5,000 US troops are taking part along with nearly 4,000 Philippine soldiers and 80 from Australia.
	"The... Exercises caps Manila's recent attempts to involve outsiders in (a) regional row," China's official news agency Xinhua said in a commentary.
	It cited Japan, which sent a submarine on a visit to the Philippines last weekend, and Australia.
	"However, a provocation so fear-mongering and untimely as such is likely to boomerang on the initiators," Xinhua added.
	"A big country with vital interests 

US-Philippine war games begin as China warns 'outsiders'

Joe Medicine Crow, the last surviving Plains Indian war chief - a title obtained for his World War II feats - has died, Montana state Governor Steve Bullock said. He was 102.
	President Barack Obama had honored Medicine Crow with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour, in 2009.
	Joe was a Crow War Chief, veteran, elder, historian, author, and educator," Bullock said in a statement announcing his death yesterday.
	"His legacy will forever serve as an inspiration for all Native Americans - and all Montanans."
	Medicine Crow studied anthropology in college, and for three decades worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He later became the official historian of Montana's Crow Tribe.
	Medicine Crow put aside his graduate studies when the United States entered World War II and he volunteered for military service.
	As an army scout in Europe he completed the four tasks needed to become a Crow War Chief: he led raids behind enemy lines, he entered an enemy ...

Last surviving Plains Indian war chief dies in US

Eight people, three of them children, died when a timber house in a Siberian village was engulfed by fire, investigators said.
	The incident happened in Moltshanovo, about 200 kilometres from Tomsk, southwestern Siberia.
	"Seven bodies have been found: three women, two men and two children. Another child died in hospital," Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.

Eight dead, three of them children, in Siberia fire

Seven people including five children drowned in Cambodia when a car packed with passengers slipped off a ferry and plunged into a river, police said today.
	The incident took place last night in southern Kandal province when a driver boarded a local ferry at what investigators said was an unsafe speed.
	"The driver had drunk two cans of beer... He drove the car too fast onto a ferry and it fell into the water," a police report said.
	The group had been returning from worshiping at a relative's grave for the annual Qingming festival -- also known as Tomb Sweeping Day -- the report added.
	The driver managed to escape out the window but the rest of his passengers, including children aged between four and 13-years-old, died.
	The driver has since been arrested. Three other people who were part of the group had exited the vehicle before it boarded the ferry, police said.
	Impoverished Cambodia has a poor health and safety record with road and industrial accidents commonplace.
	Ferries are 

Seven dead after car plunges off Cambodian river ferry

A massive leak of 11.5 million tax documents has exposed the secret offshore dealings of aides to Russian president Vladimir Putin, world leaders and celebrities including Barcelona forward Lionel Messi.
	An investigation into the documents by more than 100 media groups, described as one of the largest such probes in history, revealed the hidden offshore dealings in the assets of around 140 political figures.
	The vast stash of records was obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with media worldwide by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
	The documents, from around 214,000 offshore entities covering almost 40 years, came from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm with offices in more than 35 countries.
	The investigations allege close associates of Putin, who is not himself named in the documents, "secretly shuffled as much as USD 2 billion through banks and shadow companies".
	Twelve current or former heads of 

Panama Papers: huge tax leak outs Putin aides, world leaders

North Korea's top military body has accused US-led "hostile forces" of laying siege to the country like Leningrad in World War II and Cuba during the Cold War missile crisis.
	In a statement carried today by the North's official KCNA news agency, a spokesman for the National Defence Commission (NDC) also said the latest UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme were "anachronistic and suicidal" and could trigger a nuclear strike on the US mainland.
	The UN Security Council adopted its toughest economic sanctions to date on North Korea after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a space rocket launch a month later that was widely viewed as a disguised ballistic missile test.
	The NDC spokesman said the sanctions were the work of "the US and other hostile forces" who were intent on attacking North Korea "in a flock to swallow it up."
	"The Leningrad blockade which struck terror into the hearts of people ... And the Caribbean crisis in the .

N Korea says under Leningrad-style siege from US

Imagine living near a trash dump so putrid that you would rather move to war-torn Syria.
	That's what Fayyad Ayyash, his wife Riham and their four young daughters plan to do next week, leaving behind their home in Lebanon for neighbouring Syria.
	Their modest two-storey house in the town of Naameh, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of the Lebanese capital, directly overlooks the infamous and odorous landfill by the same name.
	"We're going next week. In Syria, there's a possibility I might die. Here, we'll definitely die," Fayyad tells AFP.
	From his grassy backyard, dozens of large trucks carrying tonnes of waste can be seen -- and smelled -- lining up to add their load to the "trash mountain."
	The July 2015 closure of the notorious landfill lies at the heart of Lebanon's trash crisis, which has seen rivers of trash spread across the Mediterranean country, triggering protests nationwide.
	Then last month, the government made a controversial decision to reopen it -- and this was ..

To flee Lebanon's trash crisis, family heads to Syria

World number one Novak Djokovic surpassed Roger Federer as the highest-earning player in ATP Tour history after capturing a third consecutive Miami Open crown with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Japan's Kei Nishikori.
     Djokovic's win -- his sixth career victory in Miami to equal Andre Agassi's record -- saw him pocket $1.028 million (902,000 euros), taking him past Federer as the all-time ATP earnings leader with $98,199,548 to the Swiss great's $97,855,881.
     "It was my best performance of the tournament," the 28-year-old Serbian said yesterday. "It came at the right time against a great player."
     Djokovic's win also took him to a record 28th career ATP Masters title, one better than the old mark he shared with Spain's Rafael Nadal.
     "The fact I managed to win the most Masters ever is a remarkable achievement I'm very proud of," Djokovic said.
     Sunday's victory was also Djokovic's 714th career win, moving him to 11th on the all-time list, one more than his coach, German ..

Djokovic moves past legends with historic Miami win

'Panama Papers' revelation a 'crime,' says law firm at

Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), freed an ex-governor held captive since 2013, in a new boost to peace efforts.
	"Pleased by the release of (Choco department) ex governor Patrocinio Sanchez Montes de Oca. Much support to him and family. #welcometofreedom," the Choco governor's office said on Twitter yesterday.
	The government launched peace negotiations on Wednesday with the ELN, setting its sights on a total end to a bloody half-century conflict.
	Bogota hopes the talks with the ELN will bring it on board alongside Colombia's biggest rebel force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in a bid to end what is seen as the last major armed confrontation in the West.
	The ELN is a leftist group like the FARC, but they have fought as rivals for territory in a many-sided conflict that started as a peasant uprising in 1964.
	While the FARC has observed a ceasefire since last year as its own peace talks have advanced, the ELN has ...

Colombia rebels free ex-governor held since 2013: officials

A German was among two people killed when a busload of German and Austrian tourists was involved in a road accident in Cuba, state television has reported.
	Another 27 people were injured, six seriously, when a truck's container crashed into a bridge and then spun down onto the tourist bus, the report said.
	The tourists were on their way to the central city of Trinidad at the time.
	The dead in the crash late Saturday in Sancti Spiritus province were Cuban driver Alkier Barrera, 37 and a 64-year-old German tourist whose identity was not immediately given.
	Trinidad, which has much of its Spanish-colonial era architecture intact, is among the most popular tourist attractions in central Cuba.
	The accident comes with Cuba's tourism high season in full swing.

Cuba road crash kills German tourist, 27 injured

A Turkish court has detained, on firearms charges, a Turkish militia fighter accused by Moscow of killing a Russian pilot who ejected over Syria after being shot down by one of Ankara's war planes.
	Alparslan Celik and six others were remanded in custody yesterday by the court in the Aegean city of Izmir, the Dogan news agency reported. A date for the trial has yet to be set.
	Celik was arrested while eating at a restaurant with friends in Izmir last week. Police seized a Kalashnikov, radios, six pistols and bullets after acting on a tip-off.
	Celik has been accused by Russia of killing Russian pilot Oleg Peshkov in cold blood as he parachuted to the ground after his plane was shot down by Turkish air forces on the Syrian border on November 24.
	The shooting down of the Russian Su-24 and Peshkov's killing caused an unprecedented crisis in relations between Ankara and Moscow.
	His detention in Turkey, on charges of possessing illegal firearms, is not directly linked to the incident ...

Turkish court jails fighter wanted by Russia for killing pilot

Residents of a Rio suburb rioted and set fire to buses after a five-year-old boy was shot dead during a police operation, Globo news has reported.
	The boy, Matheus Santos Moraes, was struck by a bullet on Saturday. Police say he was hit in crossfire during a confrontation with drug traffickers, Globo reported yesterday.
	The public safety chief for the Mage area on the northeastern outskirts of Rio de Janeiro called the ensuing violence unprecedented "chaos."
	"Mage went through a situation never seen before in the municipality," the official, Nelson Vinagre, told Globo on Sunday. "We had 12 buses set on fire and several businesses looted."
	Vinagre called on residents to stay at home until the boy's funeral late Sunday was over.
	The boy's mother, Patricia Moraes, denied that there had been an exchange of gunfire at the time her son was killed.
	"I saw the police shooting. When I went to get him, he had already fallen," she said.
	Police said they were investigating the tragedy.

Brazilians riot after boy, 5, shot in Rio

A friendly international competition to encourage exercise using pedometers and online tools was successful in helping people lose weight and improve their fitness over the course of three months, researchers said today.
	The results of the study -- based on self-reported data from 68,000 people who participated in the virtual event known as Stepathlon -- were presented at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in Chicago.
	Stepathlon is run by a start-up company in Mumbai, India. The fee to participate is USD 62.50 per person. Often, corporations sponsor employees to join as part of a workplace wellness programme.
	Grouped into teams of five, people from 64 countries were given inexpensive pedometers "and encouraged to increase their daily step count through an interactive, multiplatform application that engages them with frequent emails, quizzes and social media communication," said the study.
	The teams competed in a virtual international race that featured prizes for .

Global competition shows technology aids weight loss

The spokesman for Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, his son and 20 other jihadists were killed in air strikes today in the northeast of the country, a monitor said.
	"Abu Firas al-Suri, his son and at least 20 jihadists of Al-Nusra and Jund al-Aqsa and jihadists from Uzbekistan were killed in strikes on positions in Idlib province," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
	It was not immediately clear if the raids were carried out by Syrian regime warplanes or their Russian allies.
	Abdel Rahman said Suri was meeting with other leading jihadists in Kafar Jales when the raids struck and that two other Al-Nusra and Jund al-Aqsa targets were also attacked.
	A temporary ceasefire between government forces and rebels has largely held since February 27, but it does not cover Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group.
	On Wednesday, a drone strike near IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa killed a jihadist commander, according to the Observatory, in the 

Syria's Qaeda spokesman, 20 jihadists dead in strikes: monitor

Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi has relieved prime minister and vice president Khaled Bahah of his duties in government, a presidency source said today.
	Hadi appointed Ahmed bin Dagher, former secretary general of the General People's Congress party to which the president once belonged, as prime minister, the source told AFP.
	He appointed veteran General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar as vice president, according to the same source, who said Bahah would now serve as a presidential advisor.
	There was no immediate explanation behind Bahah's dismissal, which comes just a week ahead of a UN-brokered ceasefire planned between Yemen's warring parties, which is expected to pave the way for peace talks in Kuwait on April 18.
	But government sources have in the past spoke of differences between the president and Bahah, who had served as Yemen's envoy to the United Nations before Hadi appointed him as foreign minister and then prime minister.
	In December, Hadi reshuffled his cabinet, naming ..

Yemen president dismisses PM Bahah: presidency source

Turkey has made preparations to take in up to 500 migrants from Greece tomorrow under a plan agreed with the EU to reduce the flow of illegal migration, the Turkish interior minister said.
	Local authorities say the first wave of migrants sent back from Greece will arrive in the resort town of Dikili, just opposite the Greek island of Lesbos which has become a major hub for migration to the European Union.
	"We have prepared for 500 people to come on Monday. We are making our plans and putting in place our capacities," Interior Minister Efkan Ala was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency today.
	"We have been in touch with the Greek authorities and said we could take 500 people and they have given us 400 names. Tomorrow it's possible that this figure could change," he added.
	Under the scheme -- which has been condemned by rights groups -- Turkey will send one Syrian refugee to Europe in exchange for every Syrian it takes back from Greece.
	The plan aims to halt the flow of ...

AFP

AFP

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