A boat held by Somali pirates has been freed after a gun battle, fishermen and witnesses said today, claiming several of the pirates were killed.
	There was no precise information on the boat or the fate of its crew, whether international forces were involved in the rescue, or whether the crew had wrested back control on their own.
	However, security sources said the boat was believed to be an Iranian fishing vessel seized earlier this week with 15 crew, held off the central Somali coastline.
	"We heard heavy exchange of gunfire... Several of the pirates were killed and a boat they hijacked was freed," said Muktar Yakub, a fisherman in the Harardhere area, adding the boat had now disappeared from sight of the coast.
	Local elder Abdulahi Bare said "seven of the pirates were killed and two others were seriously wounded" but the toll could not be independently confirmed.
	Piracy peaked in 2011, when Somali pirates held more than 700 hostages, but rates of attacks have tumbled, partly ...

Somali pirates killed as hijacked boat freed: fishermen

PTI Automatic

Turkey to hand over body of dead Russian pilot to Moscow:

Tens of thousands marched across Australia today on a third day of worldwide rallies as pressure mounts on global leaders to strike a pact on slashing greenhouse gases at crunch talks in still-shaken Paris.
	Some 150 leaders including US President Barack Obama, China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi and Russia's Vladimir Putin will attend the start of the UN conference tomorrow, tasked with reaching the first truly universal climate pact.
	The goal is to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), perhaps less, over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by curbing fossil fuel emissions blamed for climate change.
	Rallies demanding curbs to carbon pollution have been snowballing since Friday with marches across Australia today kickstarting a final day of people-powered protest.
	Similar events were planned for Seoul, Rio de Janeiro, New York and Mexico City, among others cities, with scientists warning of superstorms, drought, and rising sea levels that .

Worldwide rallies demand action on climate change

Scoreboard on the third day of the day-night third Test between Australia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval today:
 New Zealand 1st innings 202
 Australia 1st innings 224
 New Zealand 2nd innings (overnight 116 for 5):
 T. Latham   c Nevill b Hazlewood    10
 M. Guptill  c M. Marsh b Hazlewood  17
 K. Williamson c Nevill b M. Marsh    9
 R. Taylor      lbw b Hazlewood      32
 B. McCullum    lbw b M. Marsh       20
 M. Santner     stpd Nevill b Lyon   45
 B.J. Watling  c Smith b Hazlewood    7
 M. Craig     c Nevill b Hazlewood   15
 D. Bracewell   not out              27
 T. Southee    c Lyon b M. Marsh     13
 T. Boult      b Hazlewood            5
 Extras (B-6, LB-2)                   8
 Total (all out; 62.5 overs)        208
 Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-32, 3-52, 4-84, 5-98, 6-116, 7-140, 8-175, 9-192.
 Bowling: Hazlewood 24.5-5-70-6, Siddle 14-6-35-0, M Marsh 14-2-59-3, Lyon 10-3-36-1.

Adelaide, Nov 29 (AFP) Scoreboard on the third day of the day-night third Test between Australia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval today:

A knife attack seriously wounded an Israeli border policeman today before fellow officers killed the assailant, police said.
	The stabbing struck at Damascus Gate, the main entry point for Palestinians to the walled Old City of Israeli- annexed east Jerusalem.
	It brought to 99 the number of Palestinians killed in a wave of unrest since October 1.
	Over half of them have been alleged perpetrators of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks aimed at Israeli civilians and security forces.
	The violence has also left 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean dead.
	Attempts to ease the tensions, including a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry last week, have proved unsuccessful.
	The violence erupted in Jerusalem amid tensions over the sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound but swiftly spread to the flashpoint southern West Bank city of Hebron where hundreds of Jewish settlers live under army guard among 200,000 Palestinians.
	   The army shut down the Dream radio station in the city ..

Jerusalem policeman wounded, attacker killed: police

Australia will chase 187 runs to win the historic day-night third Test after dismissing New Zealand for 208 on the third day at Adelaide Oval today.
     Paceman Josh Hazlewood led the Australian attack in the absence of injured Mitchell Starc, taking six for 70 off 24.5 overs.
     Victory would give Australia a 2-0 win in the three-match series with the Kiwis bidding to remain unbeaten in their last eight Test series since 2013 if they can bowl out the Australians with the pink ball.
     Whichever way it goes, the Adelaide Oval is poised for its first three-day Test match in 64 years since the West Indies beat Australia by six wickets.
     The Kiwis, who resumed at 116 for five, lost their last five wickets for 92 runs with debutant Mitchell Santner top-scoring with an impressive 45 off 88 balls.
     B J Watling fell on the ninth ball of the day on his overnight score of seven.
     Hazlewood got an edge which flew to second slip and skipper Steve Smith, who dropped him on two ...

New Zealand all out for 208, Australia chase 187 win

Barcelona maintained their four-point lead at the top of La Liga thanks to another clinical display from Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez to down Real Sociedad 4-0.
     Atletico Madrid kept the pressure on the European champions thanks to Antoine Griezmann's solitary goal in a 1-0 win over Espanyol yesterday.
     Real Madrid are now nine points adrift ahead of their trip to Eibar on Sunday.
     Messi was making his first league start in two months as he continues his comeback from knee ligament damage.
     But the Argentine was initially outshone by his strike partners as they each swept home from two Dani Alves crosses to put Barca in command at the break.
     Neymar then added his second shortly after the half-time before teeing up Messi for his first league goal since September in stoppage time.
     "They are constantly looking for one another and when they all score everyone is happy," Dani Alves told Canal Plus about Barca's front three.
     "Without victories it ...

Messi, Neymar, Suarez strike to keep Barca rolling

Five people have been killed in a double suicide attack by two women in the restive far north of Cameroon, the governor of the region said.
	"Two women blew themselves up at around 6:00 PM" (2230 IST) in the town of Dabanga, the governor of the far northern region, Midjiyawa Bakary, said yesterday.
	"The initial death toll is seven dead, including the two suicide bombers."
	Two soldiers who had been stationed to fight the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram were also seriously wounded, he added.
	The first bomber let off her explosives inside a house while a second blew herself up near a welding shop, said Midjiyawa.
	This is the first time suicide bombers have attacked Dabanga, a small town on the road to the Kousseri border post, that is separated by only a stream from Nigeria.
	The region has been regularly targeted by Boko Haram, a radical Sunni jihadist group which wants to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.
	One week ago, four female suicide bombers blew ...

5 killed by female suicide bombers in north Cameroon: governor

The United Nations Security Council has condemned a rocket attack that killed two UN peacekeepers and a contractor in northeast Mali, warning it could be a war crime.
	In a unanimous declaration, the council's 15 member countries asked the Malian government to "swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice and stressed that those responsible for the attack should be held accountable."
	"The members of the Security Council underlined that attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law," a statement added yesterday.
	An "outraged" UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and wished the wounded a speedy recovery.
	Another 20 people were injured, four of them seriously. Ban said they were peacekeepers and civilian personnel.
	The Council, like Ban, stressed its "full support" for the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, and the French troops that support it.
	Ansar Dine extremists claimed the pre-dawn ..

UN Security Council warns Mali attack could be war crime

Two Turkish journalists charged with "spying" over their reports about Ankara's alleged arms supplies to Syrian rebels have urged the EU not to compromise on human rights and press freedom as it looks to Turkey to help stem Europe's migrant crisis.
	European Union and Turkish leaders including Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will meet in Brussels today in a bid to complete a deal aimed at stemming the flow of refugees from Syria into the bloc.
	Turkey hosts more than two million Syrian refugees and is the main gateway for people trying to get to the EU, via the short sea crossing to the Greek islands.
	Writing from the Silivri prison near Istanbul, the opposition Cumhuriyet daily's editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul yesterday said they hoped the meeting would produce a lasting solution to the crisis "that has concerned and touched all our hearts."
	But they added: "We would also hope that your desire to end the crisis will not stand in the way of your ...

Arrested journalists urge EU not to compromise on rights in

Thousands of Israelis have protested in Tel Aviv against a gas deal they say will create a monopoly for a consortium that includes US company Noble Energy.
	The demonstrators denounced the deal yesterday, which they said amounted to a "gift" for the consortium.
	Similar gatherings were also held in other parts of Israel, including Beersheba in the south.
	Opponents argue that the deal, which has been approved by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and parliament, would hand Noble and Delek an effective monopoly over the state's natural gas reserves.
	The agreement still needs clearance from the parliament's economics committee, although its role is only advisory.
	After that, opponents are planning to challenge the legality of the deal in the supreme court, according to reports.
	Israel has been trying to extract offshore gas since the discovery of the Tamar and Leviathan fields in 2009 and 2010.
	While extraction has begun in Tamar, the far larger Leviathan has been ..

Thousands of Israelis protest against gas deal

Luc Bondy, an influential Swiss director who produced dozens of theatre and operatic works in Europe over four decades, died today aged 67, Paris' prestigious Theatre de l'Odeon, where he was director, announced.
	Born in Zurich and brought up in Switzerland and France, he had been dogged by ill health for much of his life.
	He started his career in Germany, taking charge of the Berlin Schaubuehne theatre and overseeing the Vienna Festival before returning to Paris three years ago.
	Bondy directed a wide range of some 60 plays and 16 operas across Europe.
	He turned his hand expertly from anything to Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere and Marivaux.
	He also won renown for operatic productions, notably of works by Monteverdi, Benjamin Britten, Verdi and Mozart.
	President Francois Hollande said Bondy had "incarnated cultural Europe through his personal history and exceptional work."
	Bondy suffered poor health since having to fight off cancer from the age of 25. The illness would return to .

Influential theatre and opera director Luc Bondy dead at 67

German carrier Lufthansa, reeling under a series of recent strikes, said today it had reached a wage rise accord with services sector union Verdi covering 30,000 ground staff.
	The accord gives a one-off payment of 2,250 euros (USD 2,350) and a 2.2 percent wage rise to ground staff and employees of IT subsidiary Lufthansa Systems, Lufthansa Service catering, Lufthansa Technik maintenance and Lufthansa Cargo freight service, the airline and Verdi said.
	The collective bargaining accord runs to the end of 2017.
	Ground staff at several key airports in Germany had answered a Verdi half-day strike call in late March, causing hours of delays.
	Lufthansa then said in September it intended to reach an agreement ending the dispute by the end of November.
	But the carrier is still facing a battle with pilot and cabin staff unions as well as with Verdi over disputes over pay and retirement benefits which have led to several strikes in recent months.
	Seven days of industrial action earlier this 

Lufthansa wage accord for 30,000 ground staff

The jihadist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) said it was responsible for today's attack on a United Nations base in Mali that killed two UN peacekeepers and a civilian contractor.
	The attack was "in response to the violation of our lands by the enemies of Islam," one of the group's senior figures, Hamadou Ag Khallini, told AFP by phone.

Jihadist group Ansar Dine claims attack on UN base in Mali

A leading Kurdish lawyer and rights activist was killed in a shootout in Turkey's troubled southeast today, fuelling accusations that the state was behind his murder and sparking protests in several cities.
	Tahir Elci, head of the bar association in Diyarbakir -- the biggest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast -- and a campaigner for Kurdish rights, was shot in the head while he and other activists were giving a press statement calling for an end to violence.
	The attack took place near an ancient mosque in the city's Sur district, witnesses told AFP, with the police immediately returning fire.
	The incident sparked instant protests in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Diyarbakir. Police fired tear gas and water cannons at an irate crowd in central Istanbul who shouted "You can't kill us all", and "The state has to give an account."
	Police also clashed with demonstrators at Diyarbakir, an AFP photographer said.
	Elci, who had been detained in October for alleged "terrorist propaganda" on 

Protests as top Kurdish lawyer gunned down in Turkey

Attackers armed with guns and machetes killed at least six people -- three of them children -- today in Honduras in the third massacre in a week, police said.
	The assailants burst into a home in the village of Nueva Frontera in the northwest of the country, police spokesman Leonel Sauceda said, with two others left wounded in the brutal attack.
	Honduras, plagued by feuding street gangs and drug trafficking that helps feed the US market, is rated one of the world's most violent countries.
	In the first massacre this week, suspected gang members in the northern city of Choloma killed eight bus drivers Tuesday for refusing to pay extortion money that gangs charge businesses and refer to as a "war tax."
	In the second mass killing, suspected gangsters killed seven people in a poor area of the capital Tegucigalpa. Police said the motive was to terrorize people in a district where the gang sells drugs.

Three children among six dead in new Honduras massacre

Tunisia has identified three suspects wanted over Tuesday's suicide bombing that killed 12 presidential guards and is offering a financial reward for information leading to their arrest.
	The interior ministry issued a statement yesterday evening identifying the men as Hassan Ben Khalifa Bouchiba, Houcine Ben Khalifa Bouchiba and Walid Ben Mohamed Ali Yousfi.
	An initial probe has proven that these "terrorist elements... (are) linked to the explosion on a bus of the presidential guard," the statement said.
	The ministry also promised "an important financial reward" for "anyone providing information leading to the arrest" of the three suspects.
	Tuesday's suicide bombing in the centre of Tunis was claimed by the Islamic State group, and authorities have identified the bomber as 26-year-old Tunisian travelling salesman Houssam Abdelli.
	Authorities said he had been detained in August on suspicion of being an extremist. A search of his house turned up religious books that were deemed to .

Tunisia names three suspects wanted over bus bombing

Britain will host the next Commonwealth summit, in 2018, Downing Street announced today, meaning the current gathering in Malta may not be the last attended in person by Queen Elizabeth II.
	The next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), staged every two years and bringing together leaders from the 53-country organisation, was due to be held in Vanuatu in 2017.
	However, the tiny Pacific island nation was battered by Cyclone Pam in March, which badly damaged much of its infrastructure.
	"The UK will host the next Commonwealth summit in spring 2018," a Downing Street spokeswoman said, on the second day of the three-day 2015 summit in Malta.
	Several newspapers thought the current CHOGM on the Mediterranean island might be the last to be attended by Queen Elizabeth, 89, the symbolic head of the Commonwealth, who returned to Britain on Saturday.
	It is understood that she has discontinued long-haul travel for the summits, as she was represented by her eldest son Prince ...

Britain to host next Commonwealth summit in 2018

French police and airport authorities said today graffiti, much of it in Arabic, had been found sprayed on four aircraft belonging to British carrier Easyjet and a plane from Spanish airline Vueling at two airports.
	Three of the jets had been defaced at Lyon airport in eastern France with two others sprayed at the Paris hub of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, police said.
	A police source added authorities believed the graffiti had been painted on prior to the jets' arrival in France, but that the issue posed questions about airport security.
	The graffiti was found to have been scrawled on a fuel tank hatch of one Easyjet plane at Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday, a day after the aircraft arrived from Budapest, an airport source said, adding it was scrubbed off before the next passengers embarked.
	Easyjet serves 17 French destinations and the airline said there had been a "small number" of such cases -- though not all in Arabic -- over the past fortnight since the deadly Paris attacks 

Arabic graffiti found on Easyjet, Vueling planes in France

Some 5,000 people protested in London today against potential British participation in Syria airstrikes, as political momentum mounted to broaden the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
	Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday laid out the case for British jets, already bombing IS targets in Iraq, to join France, the United States and others in targeting IS strongholds in neighbouring Syria.
	Yet Britain remains deeply scarred by its former interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets of London in 2003.
	In an echo of that protest, thousands gathered in central London carrying placards reading "Don't bomb Syria", "Drop Cameron, not bombs", and "Don't add fuel to the fire".
	"David Cameron's incoherent proposals for action in Syria will do nothing to weaken Isis but will instead inflame the civil war, deepen the misery of the Syrian people and increase the terrorist risk," said the Stop the War Coalition protest 

Protests in UK, Spain as momentum builds to join Syria strikes

US President Barack Obama denounced the country's epidemic of gun violence today and renewed a call for tougher controls on military-style weapons after yet another deadly shooting, saying "enough is enough."
	The latest bloodshed came yesterday when a man entered a family planning clinic in the state of Colorado and allegedly opened fire, killing three people, including a police officer, and wounding nine others.
	The motive of the suspect now under arrest was not yet known and police were to interrogate him Saturday.
	The Planned Parenthood clinic located in Colorado Springs performs abortion, and the city's mayor suggested that deeply divisive issue in America may have been behind the assault.
	"You can certainly infer what it may have been in terms of where it took place and the manner in which it took place," John Suthers told CNN.
	The tragedy came a day after Americans celebrated their cherished Thanksgiving holiday, a time to relax with family, and which ushers in the holiday .

AFP

AFP

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