Landslides in Burundi have killed at least 18 people with 10 more missing after torrential rains, a local governor said today.
	"It is a disaster...Dozens of houses were destroyed, crops have been washed away," said Jacques Minani, governor of the Bujumbura district, some 35 kilometres south of the capital.
	He said rescue teams are "searching the area to try to find the missing" after the landslides overnight yesterday.
	Twelve people died sheltering inside a church in the village of Rutunga, while others were killed inside their homes or simply swept away by rivers of mud, Minani added.
	Mud and rocks loosened by heavy rains were swept down steep hillsides of the rural region of the small central African nation, destroying houses in its path, he said.

At least 18 killed in Burundi landslides

PTI Automatic

France's ruling Socialists took a drubbing in run-off local polls that saw major gains for former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the far-right ahead of 2017 presidential elections.
	Right-wing parties, spearheaded by Sarkozy's UMP, yesterday won a thumping victory, taking 66 councils out of a possible 101, according to results compiled by AFP.
	Voters punished the Socialist government of President Francois Hollande for failing to revive the slumping economy, with left-wing parties winning only 34 councils. There was still one council result to be declared.
	The results mean 25 councils switched from left to right-wing party control with only one going in the opposite direction.
	"Never... Has our political family won so many councils," Sarkozy told cheering supporters, adding that voters had "massively rejected the policies of Francois Hollande and his government."
	The far-right National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen, which took a quarter of the vote in the first round last week, was ...

French right deals blow to ruling Socialists in local polls

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Baghdad today for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other top officials.
	He is also due to meet President Fuad Masum, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi.
	The UN mission in Iraq announced Ban's arrival on Twitter but provided no details of the agenda of the talks.
	Iraqi forces are battling to retake the city of Tikrit, the government's largest military operation yet against the Islamic State jihadist group.
	The fact that Baghdad is receiving military assistance from both the United States and Iran however has created tensions, internally and internationally.
	Ban flew in from Egypt, where he attended an Arab League summit in Sharm el-Sheikh dominated by Saudi-led military action against Yemen's Huthi Shiite rebels.
	He is expected to travel on to Kuwait for a meeting of international donors tomorrow called to address a massive funding gap in the response to the conflict 

UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrives in Baghdad for talks

A Myanmar aid worker injured in an attack last month on a convoy in Shan state has died of his wounds, state media reported today, as clashes continue between the army and rebels.
	The unrest in the mountainous Kokang area has caused tens of thousands to flee across the frontier with China and rocked relations with Beijing as the Myanmar army launched airstrikes against the rebels.
	Dozens of fighters, both government troops and ethnic Chinese Kokang rebels, have died since the conflict erupted in early February, while an unknown number of civilians have also been killed.
	Moe Kyaw Than, of the Myanmar Red Cross Society, suffered gunshot wounds when his aid convoy came under fire while ferrying civilians from the main Kokang town of Laukkai in late February, in the first of several such attacks.
	He "passed away at Mandalay General Hospital while receiving medical treatment", according to a report in the Global New Light of Myanmar, which blamed rebels for the assault.
	A Myanmar Red .

Myanmar aid worker dies from convoy attack wounds

Thousands of US and South Korean troops, backed by helicopters and jet fighters, staged a massive, amphibious landing drill today - the centrepiece of an annual military exercise condemned by North Korea.
	A total of 7,600 soldiers, including 3,500 marines, along with 80 aircraft, 30 ships, and scores of armoured vehicles and tanks, took part in the drill to secure a bridgehead along the coast of Pohang, some 360 kilometres (223 miles) south of Seoul.
	Supervised by US and South Korean military commanders, the landing exercise was the highlight of the eight-week Foal Eagle drill which is scheduled to end on April 24.
	The annual drills always trigger a surge in military tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.
	The United States and South Korea insist the joint exercises are defensive in nature, but North Korea denounces them as provocative rehearsals for invasion.

US, S Korea marines stage major landing drill

Global powers were due to gather with Iran today, seeking to slot into place the last pieces of a complex puzzle to curtail Tehran's nuclear programme as diplomats said tentative agreement on some parts had been reached.
	US Secretary of State John Kerry will lead the team of six world powers - who hope an end to more than a decade of nuclear tensions with Iran may be in sight - for their first full plenary session of the latest round of talks.
	While diplomats said some key points appeared to have been resolved to ensure Iran cannot make a covert dash for a nuclear bomb, they cautioned that the outlines of a political understanding were not yet fully agreed.
	"We are here because we believe a deal can be done," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters in Lausanne late yesterday as he became the last of the P5+1 group of foreign ministers to arrive in the Swiss town for the talks.
	"But it has to be a deal which puts the bomb beyond Iran's reach," he said, adding he ...

Iran nuclear talks race towards deadline

Arab coalition warplanes carried out a fifth straight night of air strikes against Shiite rebels near the Yemeni capital and elsewhere in the violence-wracked country, residents said today.
	Fighter jets roared in the skies above Sanaa from 9 pm (1800 GMT) until around dawn, an AFP correspondent reported.
	The Saudi-led coalition has vowed to keep up the raids until the rebels abandon their insurrection against President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh.
	Positions held by the Iranian-backed Huthi rebels and soldiers of the renegade Republican Guard overlooking the presidential palace were believed to have been targeted overnight.
	A Republican Guard camp in south Sanaa was also hit, witnesses said.
	The Huthis are backed by army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down in 2012 after a year of bloody protests.
	In the area around Marib, 140 kilometres east of Sanaa, radar facilities and surface-to-air missile batteries were targeted, local ...

Arab coalition bombs Yemen rebels for fifth night

Australia lauded its World Cup winning team today for a "fairytale" victory on home soil over New Zealand, with praise heaped on retiring one-day captain Michael Clarke after a dream farewell.
     Clarke hit 74 as Australia cruised home by seven wickets in a one-sided final in front of a record crowd of 93,013 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.
     The win, culminating a gruelling tournament, was front page news across the country with The Australian newspaper saying: "Pitch perfect Australia lives the dream to claim fifth World Cup."
     "Done it without raising a sweat or anybody's pulse," the broadsheet's cricket writer Peter Lalor said.
     "Michael Clarke's side made easy work of New Zealand at the MCG, much as they had with India in the semi-final and Pakistan in the quarter."
     The Sydney Daily Telegraph focused on the outgoing Clarke, who announced his retirement from the one-day international format on the eve of the final.
     "Pup's fairytale farewell as ...

Australia lauded for World Cup win

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Papua New Guinea today, US seismologists said, with "hazardous" tsunami waves possible in areas near the epicentre although no major damage was immediately reported.
	The quake hit at a depth of 33 kilometres, some 55 kilometres from the nearest city of Kokopo on New Britain island and 787 kilometres from the capital Port Moresby, the United States Geological Survey said.
	"Based on all available data... Hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said as a result of the quake, which was estimated earlier at 7.7 magnitude before being revised.
	The tsunami risk was expected to be limited to PNG, with waves of between one and three metres possible.
	Much smaller waves of less than 30 centimetres above the tide level could affect the coasts of other areas of the Pacific, including Australia, Japan, Philippines, New Caledonia, Marshall Islands, Fiji, Samoa, and Vanuatu, it added.
	The initial 

Tsunami warning after Papua New Guinea hit by 7.5 quake

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Papua New Guinea today, US seismologists said, with "hazardous" tsunami waves possible within 1,000 kilometres of the epicentre.
	The quake hit at a depth of 65 kilometres, some 54 kilometres from the nearest city of Kokopo on New Britain island and 789 kilometres from the capital Port Moresby, the United States Geological Survey said.
	"Based on preliminary earthquake parameters... Hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 1,000 kilometres of the earthquake epicentre," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.

Papua New Guinea hit by 7.7 offshore quake: USGS

Two Saudi police officers were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the capital Riyadh, a police spokesman has said.
	"A security patrol was carrying out its duties in Riyadh when it came under fire from an unknown vehicle" in an attack that "left two policemen wounded," the spokesman said in a statement published on the official SPA news agency yesterday.
	The two were hospitalised and "their health situation in stable," the statement said.
	Authorities are investigating the incident, it added.
	OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab coalition targeting Iran-backed Shiite rebels and their allies in neighbouring Yemen.
	The Sunni-dominated kingdom is also part of a US-led coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group, which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
	Saudi security forces occasionally come under attack from opponents in the country's Shiite-populated Eastern Province.
	But attacks on the police are rare in the capital.

Two policemen injured in drive-by shooting in Riyadh

Syrian troops regrouped today after a coalition including Al-Qaeda's local affiliate seized the city of Idlib, the second provincial capital to fall from government control.
	The capture is a blow to the government and raises the prospect that Idlib will become the effective capital of territory held by Al-Qaeda's Syrian wing, Al-Nusra Front, analysts said.
	Today, the city in northwestern Syria was largely quiet, after sporadic government aerial bombardment overnight, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
	A security source in Damascus and Syrian media said government forces were regrouping outside the city.
	"Forces are repositioning on the outskirts of Idlib in order to face the terrorist battalions... And be in the best position to repel their attack," a security source in Damascus told AFP.
	Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, said troops had carried out a "successful operation regrouping south of the city".
	"Army reinforcements ...

Syria forces regroup after Islamists seize Idlib city

An indefinite lockdown was ordered on three areas in northeast Nigeria today after troops battled scores of Boko Haram fighters outside the Bauchi state capital, Bauchi city, the authorities said.
	Soldiers supported by two fighter jets intercepted the militants who were in 20 pick-up trucks at Dungulbe village, seven kilometres (four miles) from the city, and engaged them in fierce fighting.
	"The fighter jets are pounding the enemy position while ground troops are engaging them," said a military officer in the city, who asked not to be identified, in an account supported by residents.
	"The operation is still ongoing but the terrorists have suffered serious losses and are in disarray," the officer added.
	The fighting took place as Nigeria held a second day of voting in its general election after technology failures hampered polling on yesterday.
	A spokesman for the Bauchi state governor said an indefinite, round-the-clock curfew had been imposed on three areas because of the ...

Curfew in Bauchi, NE Nigeria, after Boko Haram fighting

A nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was "doable", Tehran's lead negotiator said in crunch talks in Switzerland today, with "two or three" issues still to be resolved.
	Abbas Araqchi however ruled out sending Iran's nuclear stocks abroad, a key demand of world powers, while insisting that all UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions must be lifted.
	"Getting to an accord is doable. Solutions have been found for numerous questions. We are still working on two or three issues... The talks are in their final phase and are very difficult," Abbas told reporters in Lausanne.
	"We are optimistic, the chances of getting a deal are there. But this requires the other side taking the necessary decisions and demonstrating their political will," he said.
	But he added: "The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our programme and we do not intend sending them abroad.... There is no question of sending the stocks abroad."
	Sending abroad Iran's stockpiles of low-enriched ...

Iranian negotiator says nuclear deal 'doable'

World powers seeking to pin down a nuclear deal with Iran will hold their first full session of these negotiations tomorrow, a senior Iranian official said.
	Tehran's lead negotiator Abbas Araqchi said the full plenary session would now be held tomorrow morning, after being pushed back today.
	"Tomorrow morning there will be a plenary meeting," Araqchi told reporters.
	"Getting to an accord is doable. Solutions have been found for numerous questions. We are still working on two or three issues... The talks are in their final phase and are very difficult," he added.
	US Secretary of State John Kerry and the German and French foreign ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius were due to sit down with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini as well as their Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.
	They will be joined by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his British counterpart Philip Hammond, who was the last to arrive late ...

Global powers, Iran to hold full session tomorrow: Tehran

French voters looked to have given the ruling Socialists a drubbing in run-off local polls today, while boosting the prospects for former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the far-right ahead of 2017 presidential polls.
	Right-wing parties, spearheaded by Sarkozy's UMP, took between 64 and 70 councils out of a possible 98, according to projections, as voters punished the socialist government of President Francois Hollande for failing to revive the slumping economy.
	Left-wing parties took a beating, taking only between 27 and 37 councils, the projections by the Ipsos and CSA polling firms indicated.
	"Never... Has our political family won so many councils," Sarkozy told cheering supporters, adding that voters had "massively rejected the policies of Francois Hollande and his government."
	The far-right National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen, which took a quarter of the vote in the first round last week, won a sizeable number of seats, according to the projections, but it was not certain if ..

Blow for ruling Socialists as French right leads local

New York police recovered today a body from the Manhattan site where four buildings were destroyed or damaged earlier this week in a massive gas explosion.
	Two people had been reported missing from a sushi restaurant ravaged by the Thursday blast, which blew the front off a commercial and residential property on Second Avenue in East Village and led to a multi-building fire.
	NYPD Sergeant Lee Jones told AFP that a body had "been recovered" around 1:00 pm (1700 GMT), but did not identify who it was or exactly where it was found.
	Police had previously said witness statements put both missing people in the sushi restaurant at the time of the explosion. Local media identified them as a young man on a date and a busboy.
	In total 22 people were injured in the blast and subsequent fire, including six uniformed personnel.
	New York's fire commissioner said it would take a week to clear the debris created by the incident, which leveled three properties and badly damaged a fourth.

Body found at site of collapsed New York buildings

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said late today he believed a nuclear deal with Iran could be reached, but insisted it must put an atomic bomb "beyond reach."
	"We are here because we believe a deal can be done," Hammond told reporters waiting in the rain outside a Lausanne hotel as he became the last of the foreign ministers to arrive for talks with world powers.
	"It's in everyone's interests that a deal does get done. But it has to be a deal which puts the bomb beyond Iran's reach," he said.
	"There can't be any compromise about that," Hammond insisted.
	He went straight into a meeting with ministers from the other P5+1 powers -- China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
	They are also planning to have a full meeting to include Iran as they chase the outlines of a deal to pare back the Iranian nuclear programme and thwart any covert dash for a bomb.
	"If we're going to get this done here over the next few hours Iran has got to take a deep breath and make some ..

Iran deal 'can be done', must put bomb out of reach: UK

Thousands of supporters of Nigeria's main opposition party today demonstrated in the oil-rich state of Rivers, calling for the cancellation of elections locally because of alleged irregularities.
	The demonstrators from the All Progressives Congress (APC) converged on the local offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state capital, Port Harcourt.
	"We are here to register our protest that there was no election in Rivers state yesterday," Rivers state governorship candidate Dakuku Peterside told the crowd.
	Peterside alleged that APC supporters across the southern state were "disenfranchised by INEC, working in connivance with (the) PDP (Peoples Democratic Party)".
	Results sheets, which in Nigerian elections are given at every polling station to both party representatives and the local electoral commission after the count, were not provided, he alleged.
	"INEC in collaboration with (the) Peoples Democratic Party hijacked the materials and were filling ...

Thousands call for vote re-run in Nigeria's Rivers state

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in remarks published today he hoped key talks with international creditors would yield a "happy ending" in the standoff over the country's crippling debt crisis.
	Athens is set to present a list of economic reform proposals to international creditors this week in a bid to unblock a new 7.2 billion euro (USD 7.8 billion) tranche of EU-IMF loans and avoid a debt default.
	"I am confident there will be a happy ending soon to this first phase of the negotiations, and to normalising the situation," said Tsipras, whose anti-austerity Syriza party took power two months ago.
	Tsipras' remarks came after Germany's Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann said Friday he opposed giving Greece any more emergency loans, accusing it of frittering away trust.
	European paymaster Germany has been leading the push for austerity in Europe, with Greece complaining that the punishing budget cuts demanded were damaging its economy and threatening to force it out of the ...

Greece seeks 'happy ending' as creditors mull loan deal

The Obama administration has displayed "reprehensible animosity" towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, House Speaker John Boehner says.
	Netanyahu's recent election victory dramatically exacerbated a diplomatic crisis with Washington, bringing his thorny relationship with US President Barack Obama into sharp focus.
	In a bid to ramp up votes, Netanyahu had veered sharply to the right, vowing there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, promising to increase settlement construction and warning that Arab Israeli voters were going "in droves" to the polls, drawing a rebuke from the White House.
	Republican Boehner, who invited Netanyahu to Washington in the lead-up to the Israeli election without consulting the White House, told CNN's "State of the Union" today: "I think the animosity exhibited by our administration toward the prime minister of Israel is reprehensible.
	"And I think that the pressure that they've put on him over the last four or five years has, frankly, 

AFP

AFP

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