A worker at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant died today after falling into a water tank, the country's nuclear operator said, the second fatal accident to blight efforts to stabilise the tsunami-battered facility.
	Separately today, another worker died because of an incident at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, which is located several kilometres (miles) south of the damaged plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said.
	The victim at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, reportedly in his 50s, was inspecting an empty water tank with two other workers when he fell from the top of the 10-metre (33-feet) container, according to TEPCO.
	The worker was trying to remove the lid of the giant tank by himself when he fell into the unit.
	"He was wearing a harness, but the hook was found tucked inside the harness. This means the harness was not being used," said a TEPCO spokesman.
	"We are investigating whether safety measures were appropriately observed," he ...

Two workers die at separate Fukushima nuclear plants: operator

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Pope Francis left the door open  to a meeting with the Dalai Lama, denying that he refused to receive the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in December over fears of upsetting China.
	"The usual protocol of the secretary of state is not to receive heads of state and high ranking personalities when they are in Rome for an international meeting," he told journalists as he flew back from Manila.
	The Dalai Lama was in Rome last month for a summit of Nobel Peace Prize recipients.
	"When there were FAO meetings (the Food and Agriculture Organization summit in November), I did not meet anyone," the pope said.
	"Some newspapers said that I did not meet with him out of fear of China. This is not true. He asked for an audience some time ago. A date has been fixed. But not for the moment. We are in contact," he added.
	Asked about efforts to forge closer ties between the Vatican and China, he said: "The Chinese are polite, and we are also polite. We are doing things step by step."
	The Chinese ...

Pope Francis leaves door open to Dalai Lama meeting

A police officer and an inmate were killed and 29 prisoners wounded in the latest riot to hit Brazil's overcrowded prison system, authorities said.
	The violence erupted in a Recife jail when an orderly protest broke down, and was brought under control only after police arrived.
	One officer died of a bullet wound in hospital, while details surrounding the inmate's death were not released.
	The death and injury toll was confirmed by the secretary of public safety for Pernambuco state, whose capital is Recife.
	Gunfire and explosions were heard coming from inside the prison, and G1 Globo newsportal showed a helicopter with an armed official flying overhead.
	Brazilian jails have faced a string of riots in recent months. The system's 563,000 inmates make Brazil's prison population the fourth-largest after the United States, China and Russia, according Amnesty International.
	Human rights NGO Conectas meanwhile has reported that Brazil prisons must boost capacity by more than 200,000 ...

Two killed, 29 wounded in Brazil prison riot

An innings of 94 from Mahela Jayawardene and 76 from Kumar Sangakkara helped Sri Lanka to reach 276 against New Zealand in the fourth one-day international at Nelson today.
     The tourists were all out with three balls remaining in their innings after their last six wickets fell for only 31 runs.
     Sangakkara, who ignited the Sri Lankan run rate after a slow start, became the third most prolific ODI batsman moving his career total to 13,490 runs.
     In his 83-ball knock the classy left-hander overtook fellow Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya (13,430) to sit 214 behind Australian Ricky Ponting on a list headed by Indian great Sachin Tendulkar who amassed 18,426 runs. Jayawardene is fifth on the all-time list with 12,472.
     With the series locked 1-1 after the third match in Auckland was washed out on Saturday, Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews elected to bat first when he won the toss on an easy-paced wicket.
     New Zealand's new ball bowlers Tim Southee and Adam Milne stifled ...

Jayawardene, Sangakkara set up Sri Lanka

US lawmakers visiting Havana said today that momentous talks later this week between US and Cuban officials will open a new era of relations and offer opportunities for both nations.
	The six-member delegation of congressional Democrats, led by Senator Patrick Leahy, met with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez as well as officials in agriculture, technology and the arts.
	The four senators and two US representatives also visited dissidents and Roman Catholic leaders.
	Their two-day visit came ahead of talks on Wednesday and Thursday between Cuban authorities and the highest-ranking US official to visit the communist island since the 1980s.
	Roberta Jacobson, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, will head the American team during two days of negotiations on immigration and the reopening of embassies.
	"This is historic. We were frozen in the same foreign policy with Cuba for over 50 years," Democratic Senator Dick Durbin told a news conference in ...

US senators in Cuba eye 'new era' in relations

The Danish wing of Germany's anti-Islamic PEGIDA movement has staged its first rallies, drawing several hundred people in the capital and in other cities although marchers were outnumbered by counter- demonstrators.
	Some 200 PEGIDA supporters turned out in Copenhagen, many carrying torches and signs saying "No to violence and racism".
	Some also held up covers of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, whose Paris offices were attacked on January 7 by Islamist gunmen.
	"Of course there is room for everyone, but when there is talk about women's rights being suppressed or people are killed for Allah... That's what I'm demonstrating against," said a demonstrator who gave her name as Elena.
	Launched in Germany, PEGIDA - "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident" - started out with just a few hundred supporters but its weekly marches have steadily grown since then, attracting a record 25,000 in the eastern city of Dresden last week.
	Branches have since popped up in ...

Denmark holds first PEGIDA rallies

At least four people, including two policemen, were killed in Kinshasa, the government said, after security forces clashed with thousands protesting moves to allow President Joseph Kabila to extend his hold on power.
	Police fired live bullets to break up the rallies in some parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital, witnesses said yesterday.
	Officers also used tear gas to disperse groups of rock-hurling youths as tyres burned at several main intersections and a police helicopter buzzed overhead.
	"Two policemen were killed by bullets," government spokesman Lambert Mende said, adding that "two looters" had also died.
	Around 10 demonstrators were admitted to hospital with gunshot wounds, according to hospital sources.
	The protesters had been called into the streets by opposition leaders outraged by proposed electoral legislation that would delay presidential and parliamentary polls beyond late 2016, when Kabila is meant to step down.
	Shots rang out from several places, ...

Four dead as anti-Kabila demo quashed in DR Congo

Widening the Panama Canal will cost more than budgeted due to billions of dollars in overruns by the consortium carrying out the work, the canal's administrator acknowledged.
	Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), which is overseeing upgrades to the canal's locks, has incurred overruns totalling as USD 2.39 billion yesterday.
	So far, one of the items has been approved by a mediating panel, worth USD 227 million.
	So "ultimately yes it will cost us more than we had originally planned," Canal administrator Jorge Quijano told journalists, during installation of a first Pacific lock-gate.
	Widening project manager Ilya Espino said "we know we are going over budget, what we don't know yet is how far."	The expansion, already a year behind schedule, had been forecast to cost USD 5.25 billion.
	The project has already been plagued by delays, strikes and bitter disputes over cost overruns with the consortium, which is led by Spanish construction firm Sacyr.
	Initially scheduled for completion in .

Panama Canal widening will go over budget: administrator

Zambian political parties have wrapped up their campaigns ahead of a special presidential election called following the death of president Michael Sata last year.
	The ruling Patriotic Front (PF) held its final rally in Lusaka's Woodlands suburb yesterday, presenting a united front at a rally after a bitter succession battle left it scarred.
	After weeks of haggling and mudslinging, the party settled on defence Minister Edgar Lungu as its candidate last month.
	Two opposing camps - one led by Lungu and another by acting president Guy Scott - had initially nominated rival presidential candidates.
	Lungu downplayed the infighting that had rocked the PF saying it was a sign of democracy in the party which only came to power in 2011 after a decade in opposition.
	Interim president Scott, who was a close ally and friend of Sata, evoked the legacy of the late president, telling supporters that "Michael Sata is still the spirit behind this party".
	Africa's first white leader in 20 years, ...

Zambia readies for presidential vote

Canadian special forces exchanged gunfire with Islamic State fighters in Iraq in recent days, in the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and IS, a senior officer said today.
	"My troops had completed a planning session with senior Iraqi leaders several kilometers behind the front lines," Canadian special forces commander Brigadier General Michael Rouleau said.
	"When they moved forward to confirm the planning at the front lines in order to visualize what they had discussed over a map, they came under immediate and effective mortar and machine gunfire."
	The general said the Canadians used sniper fire to "neutralize both threats" and there were no Canadian injuries.
	He said the clash had taken place in the previous seven days and was "the first time we've taken fire and returned fire" in Iraq.
	The United States has previously reported having launched an unsuccessful hostage-rescue operation against the IS group in Syria, but Western forces have not officially engaged 

Canada special forces clash with IS in Iraq: military

Shiite militia fought deadly battles with the army in Yemen's capital today before a ceasefire took hold, in the biggest challenge yet to President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi's rule.
	At least nine people were killed as the militia, known as Huthis, seized an army base near the presidential palace in Sanaa and took control of state media as well as fired on a convoy carrying the prime minister.
	The ceasefire came into effect after several hours, with the government saying its defence and interior ministers had reached the agreement in a meeting with a Huthi representative.
	Fighters from both sides were among the dead, and 67 people were wounded, including civilians, said Deputy Health Minister Nasser Baoum.
	The Arab League, Britain and the United States expressed concerns about the clashes, which were the most intense in Sanaa since the Huthis overran it on September 21.
	Since then strategically important Yemen has been wracked by unrest that has raised fears that Hadi's government will 

Deadly battles in capital as Yemen crisis deepens

Syria has begun destroying its remaining chemical weapons production sites, despite being hampered by bad weather and logistical problems, the world's chemical watchdog said today.
	"Destruction operations commenced in December," Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) spokesman Peter Sawczak told AFP in The Hague, without elaborating.
	Syria had said previously demolition of the 12 hangars and tunnels would begin in November, but work stalled when the contractor pulled out.
	Two other Syrian companies were given the project but the firm tasked with destroying five tunnels had to wait for deliveries of explosives and equipment, Syria told the United Nations in November, after running months behind schedule.
	The OPCW, which is overseeing the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons programme, in July gave Damascus 60 days to finish demolishing the sites.
	"The destruction has began. They are starting on the tunnels," confirmed a Hague-based source on Monday, asking .

Syria starts razing chemical weapons sites: watchdog

US Senator John McCain today urged the deployment of international ground forces to combat jihadists in Syria and Iraq, as he toured the Middle East with a Senate delegation.
	"For months we've been bombing (Syrian border town) Kobane and we still haven't driven ISIS out," the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman told reporters in Jerusalem, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.
	"Since the air campaign started... ISIS has increased their size and areas of control.
	"The reality is, we need more boots on the ground... We need intelligence, we need special forces, and we can't treat Iraq and Syria as different battlegrounds because it's the same enemy," McCain said.
	"We are going to have to have an aircraft exclusionary zone which provides a buffer in order for us to not only train and equip (rebels), but to take care of refugees," he added.
	IS began its offensive on Kobane in mid-September and came close to overrunning the town. But Kurdish fighters, backed by a steady ..

McCain urges 'boots on the ground' to combat IS

Turkish police today used pepper spray and water cannon to disperse a protest in Ankara calling for justice over the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead in broad daylight outside his offices eight years ago.
	Thousands of people had marched though central Istanbul earlier today in a peaceful demonstration to remember Turkey's most notorious killing of recent years that sent shockwaves around the country.
	However police moved in to disperse a smaller rally in central Ankara in the evening as the protestors sought to march on the justice ministry.
	Twenty people were arrested as police used pepper spray and water cannon to disperse the protest, the CNN-Turk television channel and Radikal news site reported.
	Holding signs in Turkish, Armenian and English reading "Justice for Hrant", protesters in Istanbul had earlier rallied around the offices of the Agos newspaper, a bilingual Turkish and Armenian weekly, which he edited.
	The Istanbul memorial rally is 

Clashes in Ankara as Turkey remembers Dink murder

A 67-year-old French woman was kidnapped today in the capital of the Central African Republic where she was carrying out humanitarian work, the French presidency said.
	"France condemns this act... And calls for those responsible to free our compatriot as soon as possible," the presidency said in a statement, adding the French embassy in Bangui was in constant contact with the archbishopric which was holding talks with the kidnappers.

French aid worker kidnapped in CAR: presidency

The EU said today it will launch anti-terror projects with Muslim nations and boost intelligence sharing following the Paris attacks, as anger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons fed fresh protests and violence.
	Foreign ministers meeting in the shadow of the Islamist attacks and a wave of arrests across Europe agreed on the need to work with Arab nations and Turkey in particular to counter the growing threat.
	On the other side of a widening divide, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in Russia's Chechnya while dozens of churches were torched in Niger during protests over the publication of the Prophet Mohammed caricatures.
	After talks in Brussels with the Arab League chief and European ministers, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that "probably for the first time there was real deep awareness of the need to work together."
	"We are looking at specific projects to launch in the coming weeks with some specific countries to increase the level of cooperation on ...

EU to launch anti-terror drive with Muslim countries

Deadly clashes between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels threatened civilians in central Donetsk today, with shelling hitting a hospital and warnings of insurgents launching attacks from residential areas.
	Ukraine also made fresh accusations of Moscow backing the separatists, alleging that hundreds of Russian troops crossed the border into rebel-held territory to join the fight.
	After a pause in the fighting early today as Orthodox Christians celebrated Epiphany, clashes reignited in the afternoon, with regular explosions heard coming from the direction of the Donetsk airport northwest of the city.
	The airport has been the flashpoint of an upsurge in violence in recent days that has left a September truce in tatters, with heavy combat shaking the area at the weekend after Ukraine launched a major counter-offensive to push out the rebels.
	The hospital hit today is however located in the centre of Donetsk, and rebel officials who control the area reported six wounded, ...

Civilians under threat as Ukraine clashes flare

Pro-Russian rebels blew up part of a ceiling at the battered Donetsk airport in war-torn eastern Ukraine today, causing a section of it to collapse and wounding many soldiers, an adviser to the president said.
	Further details of the incident were unclear, but the airport has been hit by heavy combat in recent days, with both Kiev and rebels having claimed control of the site at various times.
	"A part of the ceiling of the first floor in the terminal collapsed because it was blown up by separatists," Yuri Biryukov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who has been located near the front lines, wrote on his Facebook page.
	"Debris fell in particular on soldiers. There are many injured."
	Ukraine's military had earlier in the day reported three soldiers killed over the last 24 hours and another 66 wounded. It was not clear if the toll included those injured from the collapsed ceiling.
	The airport has been the flashpoint of an upsurge in violence in recent days that has ..

Rebels blow up part of Donetsk airport, many wounded: Ukraine

The number of anti-Muslim incidents in France has soared since the Islamist attacks in Paris two weeks ago, an organisation that tracks Islamophobia said today.
	The National Observatory Against Islamophobia said 116 anti-Muslim incidents had been reported to authorities since the January 7-9 shooting spree by three French jihadists that killed 17.
	The two-week tally was more than double the number of incidents recorded for the full month of January 2014, the observatory said, reporting 28 attacks on places of worship and 88 threats.
	The observatory's president, Abdallah Zekri condemned the "acts of hatred towards French people of the Muslim faith, the immense majority of whom respect the values of the Republic and secularism."
	"This situation is unacceptable and we're asking the authorities to go beyond the reassuring speeches and act to put an end to this scourge," he said.
	Islam is France's second-biggest religion with an estimated 3,5-5 million followers.
	Several mosques have 

Anti-Muslim incidents soar in France in wake of Paris attacks

The EU wants to launch counter-terrorism projects with Arab nations and with Turkey in coming weeks to boost cooperation following the Paris attacks, foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said today.
	"We are looking at specific projects to launch in the coming weeks with some specific countries to increase the level of cooperation on counter-terrorism, and I would name Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and the Gulf countries," she told a news conference.
	The European Union would also send "security attaches" to the bloc's delegations in the Muslim world to develop anti-terror policies, Mogherini said after meetings with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and EU foreign ministers.
	Mogherini said the 28-nation bloc agreed on the need to share intelligence "not only with the EU but also with other countries around us."
	This would include not just nations around the Mediterranean and in the Arab world, but also as far afield as Asia, she said.

EU to launch anti-terror projects with Arab nations, Turkey

World oil prices fell today, dented by high global crude inventories and in subdued deals due to a public holiday in the United States, dealers said.
	The market was also weighed down by reports of record daily crude output in key producer Iraq.
	In late afternoon London deals, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in March sank USD 1.02 to trade at USD 49.15 per barrel.
	US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for February shed USD 1.06 to USD 47.63.
	Trading was expected to remain quiet as a result of the Martin Luther King Jr holiday in the United States today.
	"Crude oil prices continue to remain under pressure, starting the week on the negative side amid persistent concerns regarding high levels of crude oil inventories along with a slowdown of global oil demand growth," said Sucden analyst Myrto Sokou.
	Crude futures had rebounded on Friday after the International Energy Agency declared there were signs "the tide will turn" in the battered market following recent multi-year ...

AFP

AFP

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