Migrants in Libya face "cruelty" and abuse, driving many people to risk their lives in dangerous Mediterranean crossings aimed at reaching sanctuary in Europe, Amnesty International said today.
	For years Libya has been a stepping stone for Africans seeking a better life in Europe. Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict at home are also making their way to Libya to try to reach the West.
	"The ghastly conditions for migrants, coupled with spiralling lawlessness and armed conflicts raging within the country, make clear just how dangerous life in Libya is today," said Amnesty's Philip Luther.
	The situation has worsened since the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with powerful militias battling for Libya's oil wealth and two governments vying for power.
	Feeding on the chaos, people smugglers have stepped up their lucrative trade. The flow of migrants also rises when sea conditions improve in warmer months.
	"With no legal avenues to escape and seek ..

Libya 'cruelty' drives dangerous crossings: Amnesty

PTI Automatic

Conservative opposition challenger Andrzej Duda pulled off a surprise first-round lead in Poland's presidential ballot, edging ahead of incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski with promises of generous social spending.
	Duda scored 34.8 per cent against Komorowski's 32.2 per cent, with rock star and political novice Pawel Kukiz trailing at 20.3 per cent, according to an exit poll by Poland's TVP public television broadcaster.
	"This result is a serious warning for the entire governing camp. We have to listen to the voters' voice," a sombre Komorowski yesterday told campaign staff in Warsaw in a reference to the fact that his political allies in the ruling centrist Civic Platform (PO) face parliamentary polls in the fall.
	He also vowed to present disillusioned voters with "urgent policy changes".
	Duda, speaking to wild applause at his Warsaw campaign headquarters, said: "In order to live with dignity in a secure Poland, many areas must be fixed and the repairs must begin with a change in the .

Polish president's re-election bid falters at first hurdle

Saudi artillery pounded positions inside Yemen today after renewed rocket fire wounded four women, the Saudi-led coalition said while also countering suggestions that its aerial bombing has been "indiscriminate".
	In an interview with AFP, coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri said Saudi-led forces will continue retaliating against targets over the border until the proposed 11:00 pm (2000 GMT) Tuesday ceasefire, "if they continue to fire their rockets towards our cities, our population".
	Saudi Arabia announced the ceasefire date on Friday after more than six weeks of bombing Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, but said the rebels will also have to abide by it.
	At the same time, the coalition conducted a record number of sorties, more than 130 from Friday to Saturday -- after declaring the rebels had crossed a "red line" with deadly mortar and rocket bombardments of Saudi Arabia last week.
	Four Katyusha rockets today hit a house in the Saudi border region of Najran, ...

More rockets hit Saudi as coalition defends air raids

Rebels including an Al-Qaeda affiliate stormed a complex in northwestern Syria today where some 250 regime forces and civilians have been trapped for two weeks, a monitoring group said.
	The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had entered the hospital complex in the town of Jisr al-Shughur, the rest of which they captured a fortnight ago.
	"The fighters this morning stormed the hospital complex on the southwestern edge of Jisr al-Shughur. They entered one of the buildings and are engaged in heavy fighting with soldiers inside the complex," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP today.
	He said at least 39 opposition fighters and "dozens" of regime forces had been killed in fighting inside the hospital and also outside Jisr al-Shughur during the army advance.
	Abdel Rahman said today's assault began with a car bombing carried out by a member of Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front.
	It is the first time the rebels have managed to penetrate the complex.
	Among 

Syria rebels storm besieged regime loyalists: monitor

South Africa today said that more rhinos were poached in the first four months of 2015 than in the same period last year as the scourge continues to hit record levels.
	"By the end of April 2015 the number of rhino we lost to poachers was 393 for the whole country," Environment Minister Edna Molewa told a press conference in Pretoria, adding that 290 of them were poached in the Kruger National Park.
	The figure is a more than 18 percent increase over the first four months of 2014, when 331 rhinos were poached including 212 in Kruger, she said.
	The vast park bordering Mozambique is home to the majority of South Africa's 20,700 rhinos, which are killed for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine.
	Despite the appointment of an ex-army general to oversee anti-poaching operations, a new record is set each year in the number of rhinos killed as cash-strapped South Africans and Mozambicans join the lucrative trade.
	A total of 1,215 rhinos were killed in 2014, compared with 1,004 ..

South Africa rhino poaching at new record levels

Yemen ceasefire efforts gathered pace today after more than six weeks of Saudi-led air strikes, with rebels saying they would respond "positively" and their allies accepting a US-backed truce plan.
	The renegade troops, who helped the Shiite Huthi rebels seize much of the country, said they had agreed to the five-day humanitarian truce that Riyadh has offered from Tuesday.
	The rebels did not refer explicitly to the Saudi offer, but expressed "readiness to deal positively with any efforts, calls or measures that would help end the suffering".
	Amid the truce moves, a ship chartered by the UN's World Food Programme docked in the western port of Hodeida, bringing precious fuel to boost aid deliveries.
	It aimed at "opening up a new humanitarian lifeline for civilians impacted by the conflict" in Yemen, where drastic fuel shortages have hurt aid operations, the WFP said.
	The MV Amsterdam brought 300,000 litres of fuel and supplies for humanitarian organisations, while a second vessel ...

Yemen truce efforts gather pace as rebel heartland hit

NATO head Jens Stoltenberg today urged restraint by all parties involved in deadly clashes in Macedonia as violence erupted for a second day leaving at least 22 people dead.
	"I urge everyone to exercise restraint and avoid any further escalation, in the interest of the country and the whole region," Stoltenberg said in a statement, as concern mounted in Europe over apparent ethnic unrest in the former flash point region.
	"It is important that all political and community leaders work together to restore calm and conduct a transparent investigation to establish what happened," he added.
	Ethnic Albanians make up around one quarter of Macedonia's 2.1 million population.
	Mindful of a deadly 2001 insurgency and multiple wars earlier during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, EU and NATO officials are particularly keen to prevent ethnically-driven violence from erupting in the heart of the continent again.
	NATO played an active role in the region following the 1998-99 war between ...

Nato head Stoltenberg urges 'restraint' in Macedonia crisis

EU defence ministers today discussed the sharing of intelligence to stop human traffickers behind the flow of migrants from North Africa, but said a UN mandate was necessary to do more.
	Ministers from France, Germany, Poland and Spain met a day before EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini briefs a special UN Security Council meeting on the bloc's plans to stem the influx of migrants, thousands of whom have died in their efforts to reach Europe.
	"First we must exchange intelligence to locate the smugglers and their means of transport," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said after the meeting in the western French city of Lorient.
	"Then, we need coercive action and this cannot take place without a UN mandate which is being discussed."
	The European Union is looking to the Security Council for endorsement of a plan which could involve destroying boats operated by traffickers.
	More than 5,000 refugees have died over the past 18 months as boats operated by smugglers have .

EU ministers urge intelligence sharing on migrant crisis

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today rallied thousands of supporters in Germany, weeks before his Islamic-rooted party will contest June parliamentary elections.
	"The ballot box is your weapon," Erdogan told the crowd of over 14,000, who waved Turkish flags and shouted "We love you Erdogan, we are proud of you!" national news agency DPA reported.
	Outside the congress centre near the western city of Karlsruhe, some of his supporters scuffled with critics, police said, while Kurdish and other opponents waved placards that read "Erdogan, you are anti-democratic".
	Germany counts three million people of Turkish origin, the largest Turkish overseas expatriate community, making it one of the biggest constituencies after the Turkish cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
	They are mostly former "guest workers" who were invited decades ago to boost the labour force of post-war Germany, or their children and grandchildren.
	Erdogan, 61, urged the Turkish expatriates to integrate in ..

Turkey's Erdogan rallies supporters in Germany

The Saudi-led air war on Yemen was launched to foil a plot by a "sectarian group" to undermine security in the region, King Salman said today.
	The Saudi monarch was defending the military operation Riyadh has led against Yemen rebels since March 26, in an address read to clerics on his behalf by an adviser in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
	The operation has prevented Yemen from "becoming a theatre for terrorism, discord, and internal fighting, similar to some countries," said Salman, in remarks published by the official SPA news agency.
	Saudi Arabia wanted to "support Yemen and confront the attempt to transform it into a base for launching a plot to undermine regional security and stability", he said.
	The kingdom and members of the coalition began the campaign to "save Yemen and its brotherly people from a group entrenched with the spirit of sectarianism", Salman said, referring to the Shiite Huthi rebels.
	He said the rebels had "threatened neighbouring countries, especially ...

Yemen air war launched to foil regional plot: Saudi king

Russian President Vladimir Putin today defended the infamous pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that agreed to divide up eastern Europe during a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
	On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to carve up eastern Europe between them in a secret clause of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on non-aggression.
	"When the USSR realised that it was left facing Hitler's Germany alone, it took steps so as to not permit a direct collision and this Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed," Putin said at a news conference in response to a question from a journalist.
	He was asked to respond to comments by Russia's outspoken culture minister Vladimir Medinsky praising the pact as a triumph of Joseph Stalin's diplomacy.
	"In this sense I share the opinion of our culture minister that this pact had significance for ensuring the security of the USSR," Putin said.
	He stressed that the Soviet Union had been pushed to sign the pact after the earlier .

Putin defends notorious Nazi-Soviet pact

South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, today elected its first black leader, a major step in its bid to present itself as an alternative to the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
	The DA, which has been widely seen as a party of middle-class whites, won 22 percent of the ballot in last year's general election and is looking to broaden its appeal among black voters, two decades after the end of the apartheid regime.
	Mmusi Maimane, aged just 34, joined the DA in 2009 and was fast-tracked through the ranks by Helen Zille, who stood down as party leader after eight years in office.
	Zille did not publicly endorse Maimane, but he was the clear favourite to win the secret ballot.
	"I don't agree with those who say that they don't see colour -- because if you don't see that I am black then you don't see me at all," Maimane told cheering delegates in his victory speech.
	"Many young black South Africans continue to be denied access to opportunities, just as their 

S.African opposition elects first black leader

Spanish authorities today found the two cockpit recorders of an Airbus A400M military plane that crashed near Seville airport, killing four of the six people on board, the government said.
	The recording devices could prove crucial in determining the cause of yesterday's crash, which led Britain, Germany and Turkey to ground their A400M planes as a precaution until more is known about why the aircraft went down during a test flight.
	"Both recording devices were found at the crash scene this morning and they have been turned over to the examining magistrate who is responsible for the judicial enquiry," the public works ministry said in a statement.
	The plane crashed in a field and burst into flames just north of Seville's airport after hitting a power line in an apparent attempt at an emergency landing.
	Four people who were on board died while another two, a mechanic and an engineer, were sent to hospital where they are listed as being in serious but stable condition.
	The crash is .

Spain finds cockpit recorders of crashed Airbus A400M

Britain, Germany and Turkey said today they were temporarily grounding their Airbus A400M military transport planes after one crashed near Seville airport in southern Spain during a test flight.
	France, which has six of the planes, said it would only carry out "top priority flights" with A400M until more facts emerge on what caused the accident.
	The wave of groundings prompted Spain's Defence Minister Pedro Morenes, speaking at an EU meeting in western France, to urge countries not to make "hasty conclusions" before the investigation into the crash was complete.
	"One must not fall into easy criticism of a company which has shown itself to be extremely dynamic and competitive," Morenes said.
	At least four people were killed yesterday when an A400M crashed in the first fatal incident involving the new troop and vehicle transporter manufactured by European aerospace group Airbus.
	A spokesman for the German armed forces told AFP they had decided to "suspend until further notice the ..

Britain, Germany and Turkey ground A400 military planes

A Taliban suicide bomber struck a government bus in Kabul today, killing three and wounding at least 16 others, officials said, the second such attack in less than a week in the Afghan capital.
	The bus was transporting employees of the attorney general's office to their homes when a man on foot detonated explosives strapped to his body, they said.
	"We can confirm three dead including a woman among them, and at least 16 others were wounded, three of them were women," Gul Agha Rohani, deputy police chief of Kabul, told AFP.
	"The shuttle bus was carrying the attorney general office staff to their homes when it came under attack," Rohani said, with all casualties civilians.
	Kabul's criminal investigative director Farid Afzali confirmed the account, putting the number of wounded at 18.
	The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes after the launch of their spring offensive last month, saying a number of staff of the attorney general were killed and wounded in the ...

'Suicide attack on Kabul bus kills 3, wounds at least 16'

Iranian airlines have obtained 15 used planes since February as part of efforts to renovate the country's ageing fleet which remains subject to US sanctions, the transport minister said today.
	An embargo dating from 1995 prevents Western manufacturers from selling equipment and spare parts to Iranian companies.
	The restrictions, which have been blamed for crippling the industry, were partially lifted by an interim agreement on Iran's nuclear programme that came into force in January 2014.
	This allowed for the sales of spare parts, though direct sales of planes remained banned.
	But, without providing details of how the planes had been obtained, Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi said nine planes, mostly built after 2003, had entered the country yesterday.
	Eight other planes had been obtained since February 20, he was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency, though two of them are "too old to fly" and will be used for spare parts.
	"With the entry of these 15 planes in the fleet, ..

Iran obtains 15 planes in bid to refurbish ageing fleet

Nepal's government today said it has denied entry to three British military helicopters sent to help the earthquake relief effort because of fears they could damage buildings when landing.
	A foreign ministry spokesman said the Chinook helicopters, which arrived in New Delhi last week en route to the quake-hit country, were too big to land.
	"We have told the British authorities that they cannot fly their Chinook helicopters here because our technical team says they are likely to damage the houses and other buildings in the Kathmandu valley," spokesman Tara Pokharel told AFP.
	"We are worried about broken windows and roofs being blown off by these big helicopters."
	The April 25 earthquake killed more than 8,000 people and left thousands more homeless and in desperate need of food, clean water and shelter.
	Getting relief to the worst-hit villages is a huge challenge because many are in remote mountainous terrain that is only accessible by helicopter or on foot.
	India, China and the .

Quake-hit Nepal denies entry to British helicopters

The global terrorist threat has entered a "new phase," where media-savvy Islamist extremists are successfully drawing lone wolf attackers to their cause, the US secretary of Homeland Security warned today.
	In an interview with ABC News, Jeh Johnson said the Islamic State group's influence was spreading far beyond the battlegrounds of the Middle East.
	"We're very definitely in a new environment, because of ISIL's (IS's) effective use of social media, the Internet, which has the ability to reach into the homeland and possibly inspire others," Johnson said.
	"We're very definitely in a new phase in the global terrorist threat, where the so-called lone wolf could strike at any moment."
	FBI Director James Comey last week said authorities were concerned about the IS group encouraging attacks on "the uniformed military and law enforcement" via online propaganda.
	There are "hundreds, maybe thousands" of people in the United States who had received recruitment messages from the jihadists, .

US security chief warns of 'new phase' in terror threat

Israel's outgoing cabinet today approved legal changes that will allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to boost the number of ministers in his new government.
	In its last meeting before Netanyahu's new government is to be sworn in by Wednesday, the cabinet voted to push back the implementation of a law limiting the number of ministers to 18.
	The amendment, which must now be put to a vote in parliament, aims to allow Netanyahu to have a broader cabinet of 20 ministers in order to give portfolios to senior members of his ruling rightwing Likud party, officials said.
	"The government has decided to delay implementation of a law limiting the number of ministers to 18 and the number of deputy ministers to four, until the next parliament," an official in Netanyahu's office told AFP.
	The Knesset is expected to vote on the amendment on Monday in a bid to have it passed before Wednesday, the last day Netanyahu can legally swear in his new government.
	It needs an absolute majority to ...

Netanyahu seeks to hike number of ministers in new govt

An employee at one of Bangladesh's largest footwear factories suffered a miscarriage in a workplace toilet after she was allegedly refused medical leave, police said today.
	Factory worker Hamida Akter, 20, had a miscarriage on Saturday after falling ill during a shift at the Apex Factory, which employs 6,300 people and supplies shoes to Western retailers, police said.
	"She was rushed to a local hospital where the doctor declared the baby dead. The baby was about four months old," senior police officer Mahbub Hossain Kazal told AFP.
	Since the incident was first reported in the mass-circulation Bengali daily Prothom Alo, Bangladesh's High Court had asked a government official to investigate, deputy attorney general Tapash Kumar Biswas said.
	"The high court... (asked) the government administrator of the area to investigate the incident and submit a report. It also summoned three factory officials to appear at the court on May 24," he told AFP.
	He said the factory representatives ...

Bangladeshi employee has miscarriage in factory toilet: police

Cuban President Raul Castro met with Pope Francis at the Vatican today, thanking the pontiff for his role in brokering an historic rapprochement between Havana and Washington, a papal spokesman said.
	"Raul Castro thanked the Pope for his mediation between Cuba and the United States," said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi of the exchange that also focused on Francis' upcoming visit to Cuba.
	The first South American pope played a key role in secret negotiations between the United States and Cuba, which led to the surprise announcement in December that the two countries would seek to restore diplomatic ties after more than 50 years of tensions.
	During the meeting Castro offered the pontiff a painting by Cuban artist Kcho inspired by the plight of illegal immigrants stranded at sea -- a subject close to the pope's heart.
	Francis in turn presented Castro a medal of Saint Martin de Tours, a French saint celebrated for having given his coat to a beggar, and urged others to "clothe and 

AFP

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