Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels "agreed in principle" on a ceasefire in one separatist province and were working to conclude a broader truce on today that would end nearly eight months of bloodshed.
	The latest push for peace in the former Soviet country was being spearheaded by European negotiators alarmed at the unravelling of a September 5 peace deal as tensions between the Russia and the West reach a post-Cold War high.
	The Ukrainian conflict has killed more than 4,300 people and seen NATO fortify defences to help protect former Soviet satellite nations from what it sees as the Kremlin's new expansionist threat.
	Foreign ministers from the Western military alliance were meeting in Brussels today to chart a course after what they have dubbed as a "year of aggression" by Russia against its smaller neighbour.
	Moscow denies helping the separatists in eastern Ukraine and sees the West as trying to undermine Russia's rightful influence in the former Soviet bloc.
	The Russian foreign ...

Ukraine, pro-Russian rebels agree new truce

PTI Automatic

China is investigating a senior official in its stock market regulator for corruption, with domestic media linking the probe to companies listing on the country's USD 400 billion technology board.
	The Communist Party's corruption watchdog said Li Liang, head of the investor protection bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), was under investigation for "violation of laws and discipline".
	The Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection gave no further details in its statement, issued late yesterday, but the phrase is normally code for graft.
	The investigation comes as China's securities regulator is pushing to make the IPO approval process more transparent, and during a government clampdown on corruption.
	From 2009 to 2012, Li had responsibility for examining companies' proposed initial public offerings (IPOs) for the Nasdaq-style ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, according to Caixin magazine.
	ChiNext now lists 400 companies with a market ...

China probes stock regulator official over IPOs: media

A peaceful rally over the presumed massacre of 43 Mexican students ended with violence in the capital yesterday, and the president's popularity sank to new lows on his second anniversary.
	Thousands marched along Mexico City's main boulevard, chanting for President Enrique Pena Nieto to resign and waving blackened flags of the country in anger over the case of the missing students.
	They echoed "you are not alone" to parents of the missing who joined the rally at the Angel of Independence Monument.
	"Pena Nieto must resign," Clemente Rodriguez, father of missing student Cristian, told the crowd after two leading newspapers showed the embattled president's approval rating dropping to around 40 per cent.
	As night fell, a small group of masked protesters armed with bats threw firebombs at banks and broke the windows of several shops along Reforma Boulevard, which is popular with tourists.
	Hundreds of riot police protecting the Senate used fire extinguishers to repel the ...

Protest over 43 missing Mexicans ends in violence

Moody's cut its credit rating on five Japanese commercial banks today after it downgraded the country's sovereign debt over concerns about the mammoth national debt.
	The firms hit by the move were Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, as well as regional lenders Shizuoka Bank and Chugoku Bank.
	Moody's said it cut their rating by one notch to A1 with a stable outlook from Aa3, a day after cutting Japan's rating.
	"The downgrade actions follow and are in response to Moody's downgrade of the Government of Japan's rating to A1 with a stable outlook from Aa3," it said in a statement.
	"The rating actions reflect Moody's view that in Japan the capacity of the government to support banks is best measured by its own debt rating of A1.
	"Despite these rating actions, Moody's considers that the willingness of the Japanese government to support major banks continues to be very high."
	The cut to Japan's rating yesterday put it below ...

Moody's cuts ratings on Japanese banks

Gunmen have massacred at least 36 quarry workers in a fresh attack in Kenya's northeast, police and the Red Cross said today, the latest in a series of strikes in the troubled region bordering war-torn Somalia.
	The attackers sprayed gunfire at tents where the workers were sleeping in the early hours of this morning near the town of Mandera, where Somalia's Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab and other militia have carried out a string of raids, Kenyan media said.
	The gunmen then separated non-Muslims from the other workers, beheaded several and executed the rest with a bullet to the head, police sources and media reports said, a pattern of attack similar to the killing of 28 people on a bus in the same region last month.
	The quarry killings follow a separate attack last night in the town of Wajir -- which like Mandera is close to the dangerous border with war-torn Somalia -- which left one person dead and 12 wounded when gunmen hurled grenades and fired into a bar.
	"Our team is on the ...

Gunmen slaughter 36 in fresh northeast Kenya attack

An American couple remained in Qatar after being barred from flying home despite being acquitted of parental neglect over their adopted daughter's death, their representative and US officials said.
	Matthew and Grace Huang were arrested in January 2013 after the death of eight-year-old Gloria, who had been adopted from an orphanage in Ghana.
	An appeals court in Doha on Sunday ruled they were not guilty and said they were free to leave.
	However, the Huangs were prevented from leaving Doha yesterday after spending "10 hours" at the airport accompanied by US Ambassador Dana Shell Smith, their representative Eric Volz told AFP.
	He said a "new arrest warrant" was issued even after they were cleared of all charges, adding that it was "not enforced despite the presence of police at the airport".
	"We are waiting for the United States and the Qatari officials to resolve this mess," Volz told AFP by telephone from a Doha hotel where he and the Huangs were staying.
	A State Department ...

US pair stuck in Qatar despite acquittal over daughter's death

Nigeria has halted US training of its soldiers to fight Boko Haram, Washington's mission has said, in the latest sign of strained ties between the two countries.
	"At the request of the Nigerian government, the United States will discontinue its training of a Nigerian Army battalion," the US Embassy in Abuja said in a statement yesterday.
	Two initial phases of training had already been completed between April and August this year which provided "previously untrained civilian personnel with basic soldiering skills," it added.
	A third session had been planned "with the intent of developing the battalion into a unit with advanced infantry skills".
	"We regret premature termination of this training, as it was to be the first in a larger planned project that would have trained additional units with the goal of helping the Nigerian Army build capacity to counter Boko Haram," it said.
	There was no immediate response from the Nigerian government.
	The US was one of several foreign powers ..

Nigeria cancels US military training to fight Boko Haram

A mentally ill British man will stand trial in the US next year on charges of trying to set up an Al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon 15 years ago, a judge said today.
	Haroon Aswat, 40, is accused of traveling to the United States in 1999 on a mission to set up a training camp in the remote hamlet of Bly, in the northwestern state of Oregon, to train militants who wanted to fight in Afghanistan.
	Prosecutors say he was sent on the mission by radical British preacher Abu Hamza, who was convicted in New York earlier this year on 11 kidnapping and terrorism charges.
	Aswat will stand trial in New York on June 1, 2015, US District Judge Katherine Forrest said at a short hearing.
	Aswat pleaded not guilty in October. He faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted.
	Hamza, the former imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London, was extradited from Britain in 2012 after an eight-year battle against extradition delayed by multiple appeals.
	Aswat's October 21 extradition came despite his ...

US to try mentally ill British terror suspect in 2015

The global smartphone market will see cooler growth in the next few years, amid "cutthroat" competition that will bring down prices for many consumers, a market tracker said today.
	A forecast by the research firm IDC indicates smartphone sales of 1.5 billion units in 2015, a rise of 12.2 per cent from the current year's estimate. That would mean growth falling by more than half from the 26 per cent pace of 2014.
	The sluggish growth is likely to continue through 2018, IDC said, with the average increase over the period just 9.8 percent.
	Significantly, smartphone prices are likely to drop from an average selling price of USD 297 in 2014 to USD 241 by 2018.
	Emerging markets like India will see much lower smartphone prices -- USD 135 in 2014 and USD 102 by 2018.
	Smartphone revenues "will be hard hit by the increasingly cutthroat nature of pricing," growing just 4.2 percent over the same forecast period, according to IDC.
	"The impact of upstart Chinese players in the global market ...

Smartphone expansion cooling, prices dropping: survey

Namibian Prime Minister Hage Geingob has won the country's presidential election, the Electoral Commission said today, with the ruling SWAPO party securing a landslide win in national polls billed as the continent's first e-vote.
	Geingob, 73, who ran on a platform of "peace, stability and prosperity", becomes president-elect with a massive haul of 87 percent of the vote.
	"I have the honour and privilege to declare Geingob... duly elected as the winner," electoral commission chairwoman Nontemba Tjipueja announced.
	In the race for the 96 seats in the legislature, SWAPO took 80 per cent of the vote in a turnout of 72 percent of registered voters.
	Forged in the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle, the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) has won every election since Namibia's independence in 1990.
	Already an overpowering force in Namibian politics, the party managed to improve on the 2009 elections, when it received 75 percent of the vote.
	Then, the official ...

Namibian PM wins presidential election landslide

An Egyptian militant group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organisation last month has claimed it was behind the killing of an American oil worker in August.
	"We claim the murder of American oilman William Henderson in the Western Desert" of Egypt, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis said on Twitter.
	The message was accompanied by pictures of Henderson's work identity cards and his passport, without providing any more details.
	Egyptian security sources contacted by AFP today said police had received information that jihadists had killed Henderson in August.
	Henderson, who worked for the US oil company Apache, was slain near his workplace in the Western Desert, the sources added.
	According to US media reports that cited Henderson's obituary and employer, the 58-year-old had been killed in a carjacking while working in the Karama oil field on August 6.
	Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to IS in November, is based in the Sinai Peninsula and has been designated a ...

IS-linked group claims killing of American in Egypt

A Nazi war criminal who topped most wanted lists over the Holocaust is "almost certain" to have died in Syria four years ago, a Nazi-hunting group said today.
	"I am almost certain that he's no longer alive," Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Jerusalem office, told AFP.
	Zuroff said that according to a German intelligence officer, Alois Brunner "died four years ago in... Damascus," where he had fled seeking refuge decades ago.
	The Wiesenthal Centre "could not confirm the information" for certain, he stressed, but given the 1912 birth year of Brunner, the unrepentant "right-hand man" of leading Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, he was in any case unlikely to be alive.
	Brunner topped the Simon Wiesenthal list of wanted Nazis for deporting tens of thousands of Jews to death camps during World War II, although he was removed this year due to his age and almost certain death, Zuroff said.
	After the war Brunner escaped detection by taking on a false identity and .

Top wanted Nazi almost certainly died in Syria: group

Gunmen hurled grenades and sprayed bullets at a bar in the northeastern Kenyan town of Wajir today, the latest in a series of attacks in the region, the Red Cross said.
	One person was "feared dead" and five others were rushed to hospital with wounds, said the Kenyan Red Cross, which reported "three blasts and gunshots" at a club in the town, where Somalia's Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab and other militia have carried out a string of raids.
	Gunmen appeared to have targeted a bar popular with workers from outside the majority Muslim town.
	The gunfire follows an attack last month in which Islamists executed 28 non-Muslims who were grabbed from a bus in the far northeast of the country, near the town of Mandera.
	The Shehab said the bus attack was carried out in revenge for police raids on mosques in Kenya's key port of Mombasa.
	Kenya has suffered a series of attacks since invading Somalia in 2011 to attack the Shebab. Kenyan forces have since joined an African Union force battling the ..

Casualties in northeast Kenya town attack: Red Cross

The United States is not ready to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria, the White House said today, after reports it was in talks with Turkey about setting up a refugee safe haven in the north of the country.
	White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Washington was "open to discussing a range of options with the Turks" but that a no-fly zone was not on the table "at this point.

US opposes Syria no-fly zone 'at this point': W House

The head of a British parliamentary committee refused entry to Hong Kong today said that MPs had "every right" to visit, as a government spokesman said China's reaction was "counter-productive".
	Richard Ottaway, chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke after China refused to grant visas to members of the committee to visit Hong Kong, where violence re-erupted overnight with clashes between pro-democracy protesters and police.
	The British parliament will now hold an emergency debate on the incident on Tuesday, further marring efforts to reset relations between Britain and China which were soured when Prime Minister David Cameron met the Dalai Lama at Downing Street in 2012.
	Ottaway, a senior member of Cameron's Conservative party, was told on Friday by China's deputy ambassador that eight lawmakers from his committee would not receive visas for a planned trip in a couple of weeks.
	He said the deputy ambassador told him: "You're not still a colonial ...

British MPs have 'every right' to visit Hong Kong

Britain's former prime minister Gordon Brown, who waited patiently for the top job only to be voted out after three years, today said he was stepping down from parliament after three decades.
	The 63-year-old, who was ousted in 2010, had briefly returned to the political spotlight this year to help snatch victory for the "No" camp in Scotland's historic independence referendum.
	But he confirmed today he would not be standing again in next May's general election as a lawmaker for the centre-left Labour party, bringing the curtain down on his stormy Westminster career.
	"I'm in no doubt it's the right thing to do," he said in an address in his constituency in Kirkcaldy in Scotland, speaking in the same church where his father was a minister.
	Brown said he would not be returning to the Westminster parliament in any capacity, but would work as the United Nations special envoy for global education from Fife in Scotland, a position he has held since 2012.
	Brown will be remembered as one .

Britain's ex-PM Brown retires from politics

The Thai and Malaysian premiers agreed today that stalled talks on ending southern Thailand's deadly Muslim insurrection could only resume once all rebel attacks cease and its various insurgent groups come to the table as one.
	The conditions spelled out by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, agreed in a meeting with hardline new Thai leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha, appeared to cast doubt on any speedy resumption of the peace talks on the bitter and stubborn conflict.
	Prayut arrived in Malaysia today for a one-day visit, his first to Thailand's Muslim-majority southern neighbour since the former military chief seized power in a May coup, with officials saying the stalled peace talks were "high on the agenda".
	Speaking to Malaysian media afterwards, Najib said if insurgents halted attacks, Prayut agreed the Thai army's presence could be reduced.
	"All parties need to respect the law and the Thailand Prime Minister has agreed that the army could reduce its presence," Najib said.
	But a ...

Thailand, Malaysia set conditions for fresh peace talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin today said Russia could not currently continue with the construction of the South Stream pipeline to deliver gas to Europe after Bulgaria blocked construction under the sea.
	"Taking account of the fact that until now we have not received permission from Bulgaria, we believe that in the current conditions Russia cannot continue with the realisation of this project," Putin said at a news conference alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
	Putin also announced that Russia had agreed to increase gas exports to Turkey by 3 billion cubic metres and that gas prices for Turkey would be cut by six percent.
	The Kremlin had been pushing the South Stream project as a way to ensure Russia's gas reaches Europe, avoiding pipelines that run through conflict-torn Ukraine.
	"Don't you understand that it is ridiculous for us to put hundreds of millions of dollars into a project to go through all the Black Sea and then come to the surface before the .

Putin says Russia cannot currently build South Stream pipeline

New European Council chief Donald Tusk and US President Barack Obama urged Russia today to pull back from eastern Ukraine, in a telephone call on Tusk's first day in office, the EU said.
	"We shared our concerns over the crisis in Ukraine and agreed on how important it is for Russia to withdraw from eastern Ukraine, to stop supplying troops and equipment, to allow effective control of the border," former Polish premier Tusk said in a statement released by Brussels.
	"The European Union and the United States continue working together closely, including on sanctions as well as on financial support to Ukraine. We agreed to stay united and to keep a steady course."
	Washington and Brussels have both imposed economic sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, during which more than 4,000 people have died in fighting between pro-Kremlin rebels and forces loyal to the government in Kiev.
	Tusk said the fact that the call with Obama came on the day that he took over as head of the ...

EU's Tusk, Obama urge Russia to withdraw from east Ukraine

Joshua Wong, the teenage face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, and two other student demonstrators went on hunger strike today, raising the stakes after one of the worst nights of violence to hit the demonstrations.
	Wong, 18, and two young female members of his Scholarism student group announced the "indefinite" hunger strike hours after Hong Kong's leader warned that the two-month-old protests are "in vain".
	Student-led demonstrators are demanding free leadership elections for the semi-autonomous Chinese city, with the main protest camp continuing to block a long stretch of a multi-lane highway in central Hong Kong.
	China's communist authorities insist that candidates for the 2017 vote must be vetted by a loyalist committee, which the protesters say will ensure the election of a pro-Beijing stooge.
	With frustrations mounting, violent clashes broke out Sunday night in a fresh escalation of tensions, with officers firing pepper spray at angry students trying to surround the ..

Hong Kong protesters on hunger strike after violent clashes

Boko Haram today launched two separate attacks on state capitals in northeast Nigeria, when two female suicide bombers hit a busy market and fighters launched a major assault on police.
	The blasts in Maiduguri and dawn raid in Damaturu came just days after a deadly mosque attack in the northern city of Kano left at least 120 people dead and hundreds more injured.
	Almost daily attacks have heightened tensions in Nigeria's far northeast and sparked fears of unrest beyond the country's borders.
	Both Maiduguri, which is the capital of Borno state, and Damaturu, the main city in neighbouring Yobe, have been hit repeatedly by Boko Haram.
	The site of the latest blasts in Maiduguri -- the popular Monday Market -- was hit just last Tuesday when two women detonated explosives hidden in their hijabs among the crowds of shoppers.
	In that attack, more than 45 people were killed.
	Two suspected female suicide bombers were arrested in the city on Wednesday and Thursday, while on Friday, a ...

AFP

AFP

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