Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou today defended his policy of rapprochement with China ahead of a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the chairman of the island's ruling party, saying it had brought peace despite fears of Beijing's increasing influence.
	Xi is expected to meet Eric Chu, who succeeded Ma as chairman of the China-friendly Kuomintang party, in Beijing on Monday.
	A group of 20-odd demonstrators from the radical anti-China opposition Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) rallied in central Taipei against the meeting, alleging Chu could betray Taiwan's interests.
	"Chu would be ditched by Taiwan people and the Kuomintang pay a dear price if he reached an agreement with Xi sacrificing the interest of Taiwan people," TSU chief Huang Kun-hui warned in a statement.
	Ma, the initiator of rapprochement with China since 2008, however said Chu should meet with Xi and keep on track the "One China" policy which has paved way for the improved ties.
	"I met with chairman Chu ...

Taiwan president defends China policy ahead of Xi meeting

PTI Automatic

The head of oil giant Saudi Aramco was named today as Saudi Arabia's health minister as part of a major government reshuffle, a royal decree announced.
	Khalid al-Falih will be tasked with leading the kingdom's battle against the deadly MERS virus and supervising hospitals in the country's south where wounded troops have been treated since March in skirmishes along the border with Yemen.
	Aramco, the world's largest oil company in terms of crude production and exports, did not immediately announce who would replace Falih.
	According to the company's website, Falih was the oil giant's president and CEO since 2009. He has spent his entire career of three decades at Saudi Aramco where he was in charge of 60,000 employees.
	He is the fourth health minister to be named in the past year and succeeds Ahmed al-Khatib, who King Salman appointed in a January cabinet shuffle.
	Khatib was later sacked and a caretaker has since carried out his duties.
	Saudi news website Sabq.Org reported that ...

Chief of Saudi oil giant named health minister: decree

Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, said it plans to add 115 stores in China, Bloomberg News reported today, after earlier missteps in the massive market.
	It currently has more than 400 stores and the opening would represent an increase of over 25 percent, Bloomberg quoted a statement as saying. The new outlets will include both
"supercentres" and members-only Sam's Club stores.
	The US retailer will also spend 370 million yuan (USD 61 million) to renovate around 50 existing stores in China, the report said.
	"China is a key strategic market for Wal-Mart," it quoted Wal-Mart chief executive officer Doug McMillon as saying at a briefing in Beijing. "Over the next three years, we will increase investment across our diverse business operations in China."
	Wal-Mart owns a stake in a popular Chinese online grocer Yihaodian, but its own stores have faced strong competition.
	Last year, Wal-Mart tightened inspections on its suppliers
in China, after it was forced to recall a "Five Spice 

US retailer Wal-Mart to add 115 China stores: report

Possible remains of Soviet troops who died fighting in China in the closing days of World War II have been found, state media reported, as Moscow and Beijing gear up to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the conflict's end.
	The remains were discovered during a survey this month by a joint team from the two countries, the official Xinhua news agency said, as their relationship grows increasingly intertwined.
	The preliminary search, in which six experts from Russia participated, was for the remains of 413 Soviet soldiers who died fighting Japanese forces on Huoshan mountain and in three nearby villages in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, Xinhua said.
	The report did not specify exactly how many remains were discovered, but cited a Russian expert as saying they included several pieces of bone and will need further work to identify them.
	According to previous reports it was their first such joint search.
	Beijing and Moscow, allies and then adversaries during the
Cold War, ..

Sino-Russian team finds suspected Soviet WWII remains: Xinhua

Police have fired smoke bombs and pepper pellets at protesters who defied a curfew across Baltimore, but said the curfew was for the most part effective.
	A total of 10 people were arrested, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told a midnight news conference yesterday.
	"The curfew is in fact working," he said. "Citizens are safe. The city is stable."
	His account of a relatively calm city was a stark contrast from rioting Monday evening and night that racked Baltimore - the latest US community roiled by unrest and stoked by anger over police treatment of blacks. More than 250 people were arrested.
	Nervous authorities imposed the emergency night-time curfew at 10:00 pm (local time) in a bid to stave off another night of violence after rioters looted stores, torched buildings and cars, and attacked police on Monday.
	But several hundred protesters initially refused to clear the tense streets yestersday according to TV estimates, and a fire was started near a library.
	Batts said that of 

Police say curfew in riot-hit Baltimore working

The Formula One season will start later in 2016 with the opening race in Australia pushed back to April, organisers said on Wednesday.
	The Melbourne Grand Prix will maintain its traditional opening slot on the calendar but will be run on April 3 to "condense the season", which will end in November.
	It normally gets under way in mid-March.
	The revised date will see the Australian event follow Easter and take place after daylight savings, which means it will also start earlier in the day, although a final time has yet to be announced.
	"It's fantastic that Melbourne will again play host to the opening round of the Formula One World Championship," said Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott in a statement.
	"The new date will see an earlier start time, and fans can expect the same great on-track action and off-track entertainment across the four days."
	Only once before has the Australian Grand Prix been held in April, in 2006, when it was moved to avoid a .

Formula One season won't start until April in 2016

UN aid chief Valerie Amos is traveling to Nepal on Thursday for a first-hand look at relief efforts following a powerful earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people

UN aid chief to assess relief effort in Nepal

A migrant worker from Myanmar was killed after he slipped into a meat grinder at a pet food factory in Thailand, police said today.
	The man, who police identified as 37-year-old Zaw May Zir, died on Monday evening at a factory in southeastern Chonburi province, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Bangkok.
	"It was an accident," Lieutenant Thaninthorn Suaypan, a case officer with Chonburi police told AFP by telephone.
	"I went to examine the man with the doctor and the lower half of his body was crushed," Thaninthorn added.
	Police said they believed the man, who had worked at the factory for five years, was unable to extricate himself from the grinder because it was filled with glue used to create artificial bones for dogs to chew on.
	"When he fell into the mixer he could not move because of the glue," Thaninthorn said.
	Police said the man's wife had been informed of her husband's death.
	The factory, which police said used the name Pet Smart, did not pick up the phone when ...

Worker crushed in Thai pet food factory meat grinder

Indonesia's attorney general today defended the execution of seven foreign drug convicts, saying that the country was facing a "war" against drugs.
	"We are fighting a war against horrible drug crimes that threaten our nation's survival," Muhammad Prasetyo told reporters in Cilacap, the gateway to the high-security prison island of Nusakambangan where the executions took place.
	The seven convicts -- two from Australia, one from Brazil and four from Africa -- were put to death by firing squad early Wednesday, along with one Indonesian, despite strident international appeals and pleas from family members.
	A Filipina originally set to be executed was given an 11th hour reprieve.
	"I would like to say that an execution is not a pleasant thing. It is not a fun job," Prasetyo went on.
	"But we must do it in order to save the nation from the danger of drugs. We are not making enemies of counties from where those executed came. What we are fighting against is drug-related crimes."
	He also .

Indonesia defends executions as part of 'war' on drugs

Pakistan's leg-spinner Yasir Shah took two of the four wickets to fall in the morning session as Bangladesh moved to 325 for 8 at lunch on the second day of the first Test in Khulna on Wednesday.
	The hosts, who resumed their first innings at the overnight total of 236 for 4, were confronted by steady spin bowling by the Pakistanis on a good pitch at the Sheikh Abu Naser stadium.
	Yasir went into the break with three for 84, while off-spinner Mohammad Hafeez and left-armer Zulfiqar Babar chipped in with two wickets each.
	Bangladesh lost the early wicket of star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who was smartly caught at leg-slip by Asad Shafiq off Babar for 25.
	Mushfiqur Rahim (32) and Soumya Sarkar (33) put on 62 for the sixth wicket before Pakistan hit back with three wickets in the space of seven runs.
	Sarkar was dismissed by another good catch by Asad in the covers off Hafeez before Yasir had Rahim caught in the covers and bowled Taijul Islam round his legs.
	At lunch, Shuvagata Hom 

Yasir leads Pakistan fightback in Bangladesh Test

Saudi Arabia's King Salman today named his powerful interior minister as heir in a major shakeup that also saw the world's longest-serving foreign minister replaced.
	A royal decree removed Crown Prince Moqren bin Abdul Aziz bin Saud as next in line to the throne and replaced him with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who headed a crackdown on Al-Qaeda in the oil-rich kingdom a decade ago.
	"We have decided to respond to his highness and what he had expressed about his desire to be relieved from the position of crown prince," said a statement from the royal court, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
	It added that Moqren, 69, was also relieved of his position as deputy prime minister in the world's largest oil exporter, but insisted "he will always remain in high regard".
	The decree named "Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince" as well as deputy prime minister and said he will continue in his position of interior minister and head of the political and security council, a ...

Saudi king names new heir to throne in govt shakeup

Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe has won a third term with 58.75 per cent of the vote in Saturday's polls, the electoral commission said, with his main rival Jean-Pierre Fabre taking 34.95 per cent.
	"The national electoral commission states that Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe has been elected based on provisional results which are subject to confirmation by the Constitutional Court," the commission's head Taffa Tabiou said late yesterday.
	"It's a deserved win. It is the victory of the Togolese people who want, with the president Faure Gnassingbe, to continue advancing toward progress and in peace," was the reaction of the presidency.
	Gnassingbe's family has ruled the small west African country for almost half a century.
	The president, who first came to power in 2005 on the death of his iron-fisted father Gnassingbe Eyadema, saw his bid for a third term sharply boosted by overwhelming support from the north of the country, a family stronghold.
	Out of 3,509,258 registered voters, ...

Togo president re-elected with 58.75 pc of vote: official

France today condemned the executions in Indonesia of seven foreign drug convicts and said it remained concerned about the fate of a Frenchman also on death row in the Asian country.
	The government "reiterates its opposition to the death sentence, in all cases and all circumstances," said French foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal.
	The French authorities "are fully mobilised to help Serge Atlaoui, whose situation remains very worrying," Nadal said in a statement, expressing his government's "solidarity" with the countries whose nationals were put to death.
	Atlaoui, 51, was originally among the group set to be executed but was unexpectedly granted a temporary reprieve Saturday after Indonesia agreed to allow an outstanding legal appeal to run its course.
	In defiance of a storm of international criticism, the Indonesian authorities went ahead early today with the execution by firing squad of two Australians, a Brazilian, four Africans and one Indonesian, reports said.
	A ...

France condemns Indonesia executions

A top official from Australia's foreign ministry called the death penalty an "abuse of state power" today after the reported execution of two Australian drug convicts in Indonesia.
	Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were the ringleaders of the "Bali Nine" heroin trafficking gang and were sentenced to death in 2006, with their executions carried out on the high-security prison island of Nusakambangan after midnight last night, local reports said.
	Chan and Sukumaran were the first Australians to be executed since December 2005, when 25-year-old Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged in Singapore for smuggling heroin.
	Australia's parliamentary secretary to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Steven Ciobo, said on Twitter that "there are few greater displays of abuse of State power and regressive thinking than the death penalty. #RIP", apparently in reference to the reported executions.
	Meanwhile one of the Indonesian lawyers representing the two Australians lamented his "failure" to hold back the ...

Australian condemnation after Indonesia execution reports

More than 300 Senegalese and Malian migrants have died in recent sinkings in the Mediterranean, their governments said today, as pressure mounted on European nations to take action.
	Sorry Kaba, a foreign ministry official in Dakar, told AFP "more than 200 Senegalese perished" in the worst migrant shipwreck recorded on the sea, earlier this month.
	Some 1,750 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe this year, 30 times more than during the same period in 2014.
	At least 700 were killed on April 19 after their rickety trawler sank between Libya and southern Italy, sparking global outrage and demands for a solution.
	"This is a question of national interest," said Kaba, who told AFP the estimate for Senegalese victims was based on witness and survivor accounts as well as figures from a Senegalese association in Libya.
	"These networks do their planning in Senegal. The young people who get on board, it's their families back in Senegal who pay for their ...

Over 300 Senegalese, Malian migrants drowned in Med

Nigeria's military today claimed the rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from a notorious Boko Haram stronghold, but said there was no confirmation the hostages were those kidnapped from Chibok a year ago.
	"Troops have this afternoon captured & destroyed 3 camps of terrorists inside the Sambisa forest & rescued 200 girls & 93 women," defence spokesman Chris Olukolade said in a text message, referring to the area in northeast Borno state where the Islamist have bases.
	"It is not yet confirmed if the girls are the Chibok girls. The freed persons are now being screened & profiled," he added.

Nigeria claims rescue of nearly 300 women and girls from Boko

The case of a 15-year-old Muslim girl who was banned from class twice for wearing a long black skirt seen as too openly religious for secular France has sparked an outcry.
	The girl was stopped from going to class earlier this month by the head teacher who reportedly felt the long skirt -- popular among some Muslim women who cover their whole body -- "conspicuously" showed religious affiliation, which is banned in schools by France's strict secularity laws.
	"The girl was not excluded, she was asked to come back with a neutral outfit and it seems her father did not want the student to come back to school," local education official Patrice Dutot told AFP on Tuesday.
	He added that the student always removed her veil before entering school premises in the northeastern town of Charleville-Mezieres, as is specifically stipulated by law.
	According to the 2004 law that governs secularity in schools, veils, the Jewish kippa or large Christian crosses are all banned in educational ...

French Muslim girl banned from class for wearing long skirt

Coalition warplanes destroyed the runway at Sanaa's rebel-held airport today after an Iranian plane "defied" a blockade on Yemeni airspace, the spokesman for the Saudi-led alliance said.
	Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri said the pilot of the Iranian plane dismissed the coalition's warnings not to fly in to Sanaa airport after entering through an unauthorised route.
	"This forced air forces to destroy the runway at Sanaa airport to prevent him from landing" and forced him to turn back to Iran, he told Al-Arabiya, a Saudi-funded television network.
	Planes flying to the Yemeni capital must pass through Saudi Arabia's Bisha Domestic Airport in the south which is assigned with the duty to "search any plane going to Sanaa", said Assiri.
	This showed that there was "something not right" about the Iranian plane, he said, adding that "these are irresponsible actions" carried out in "defiance of blockade measures".
	A Sanaa airport official told AFP that coalition warplanes had bombed Sanaa .

Coalition wrecks Yemen runway after Iran defies blockade

Indonesia executed seven foreign drug convicts including two Australians by firing squad but a Filipina was spared at the 11th hour, local reports said.
	Defying a firestorm of international criticism and heartrending pleas by relatives, authorities put the seven plus a local man to death after midnight Tuesday (1700 GMT), the reports said.
	However the Filipina, Mary Jane Veloso, was spared after someone suspected of recruiting her and tricking her into carrying drugs to Indonesia turned herself in to authorities in the Philippines, MetroTV and the Jakarta Post reported.
	Eight convicts -- two Australians, one from Brazil and four from Africa, as well as the Indonesian -- were put to death on the high-security prison island of Nusakambangan, the reports said.
	In Indonesian executions, convicts are led to clearings just after midnight, tied to posts and then giving the option of kneeling, standing or sitting before being executed by 12-man firing squads.
	President Joko Widodo has ...

Indonesia executes seven foreign drug convicts, defying global

Three Bahrainis have each been jailed for 15 years and stripped of their citizenship for "terrorist acts", a senior judicial official in the Gulf kingdom said on today.
	"In a terrorism-related case, the criminal court sentenced three people to 15 years each in prison, and to have their nationality revoked," Ahmed al-Hammadi, the prosecutor in charge of "terrorist" cases, said in a statement.
	He said the three were prosecuted for "possession of explosives" and making home-made devices that were planted to attack security forces, before being discovered and defused.
	Opposition sources in the Shiite-majority but Sunni-ruled kingdom said the three were all Shiites involved in protests.
	Since 2001, Bahrain has been rocked by sporadic Shiite-led demonstrations demanding a constitutional monarchy.
	Washington ally Bahrain, across the Gulf from Shiite Iran, is the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.

Bahrainis jailed, stripped of nationality, for 'terrorism'

A forest fire broke out today near the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, scene of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in 1986, but posed no danger to the site, officials said.
	"The fire is at a distance of 15 to 20 kilometres from Chernobyl," Maya Rudenko, a spokeswoman for the plant, told AFP by telephone, adding there was "no problem" there.
	"The situation is under control," the head of the emergency services, Zoryan Shkiryak, said on Facebook.
	Interior Minister Arsen Avakov warned however that "the high flames and sudden gusts of wind mean there is a serious risk that the fire could spread."
	The area around Chernobyl was evacuated after the 1986 blast and the last reactor there shut down in 2000 but some personnel still operate in the exclusion zone, where work is underway to lay a new seal over the reactor site.
	Avakov said the fire had spread over some 400 hectares near the site, which lies around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
	Around 200 ...

AFP

AFP

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