At least two demonstrators were shot dead in Baghdad during clashes between protesters and security forces Wednesday, Iraqi medical and security sources said.
An AFP correspondent at the scene reported volleys of gunfire from behind concrete barricades where security forces were deployed.
The capital's historic Rasheed Street and its nearby colonnaded alleys where riot police have clashed with demonstrators has become a major flashpoint.
Young demonstrators donned helmets and medical masks to face off with security forces unleashing tear gas.
In southern Iraq, protesters sealed off streets with burning tyres as schools and public offices stayed shut a day after anti-government rallies descended into bloodshed.
For nearly two months, the capital and Shiite-majority south have been gripped by the largest protests since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The street violence has left more than 350 people dead and around 15,000 wounded since the start of October.

At least 2 protesters shot dead in Baghdad: medics, security

PTI Automatic

The UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo said it was launching a probe after gathering evidence that its troops may have killed a young demonstrator, as a fresh protest unfolded in the east of the country on Wednesday.
"The elements that we have indicate that it was Blue Helmets who were responsible for the death of this young man," a spokesman for the mission, MONUSCO, told AFP.
The death occurred on Tuesday in the eastern city of Beni where angry locals have been demonstrating against MONUSCO, accusing it of failing to protect them against a notorious militia.
In a statement, MONUSCO quoted mission chief Leila Zerrougui as saying the man "was reportedly killed in an exchange with Blue Helmets as he was about to throw a petrol bomb".
Separately, a student was injured and 10 other people arrested on Wednesday as Congolese police broke up a demonstration outside the university in Goma, one of two cities in the province of North Kivu where anger has boiled over.
Dozens of civilians in ...

UN launches probe after peacekeepers suspected in DR Congo protest death

Hong Kong police plan to send officers on Thursday morning into the ransacked remains of a university campus where authorities faced off for days with barricaded pro-democracy protesters, an official said Wednesday.
The announcement came as university leaders called for police to lift their siege given the sprawling facility appeared to be deserted.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) was the epicentre of the territory's increasingly violent protest movement when clashes broke out on November 17 between police and protesters armed with bows and arrows as well as Molotov cocktails.
The stand-off then settled into a tense stalemate during which hundreds fled the campus -- some attempting to get out through sewer lines or shimmying down ropes onto waiting motorbikes -- leaving a dwindling core of holdouts surrounded by police cordons.
But in recent days the last few people barricaded in the campus appear to have disappeared, with university staff saying they were only able to find a 

Hong Kong police plan to enter ransacked campus on Thursday

The legacy of Islamic Cairo's most famous son Naguib Mahfouz lives on in its winding lanes more than three decades after he became the only Arab to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
A mosaic of the bespectacled author overlooks a market teeming with children on bikes, waiters balancing trays of hot drinks and shoppers haggling with hawkers over the price of meat.
It could be a scene straight out of a typical Mahfouz novel focusing on the minutiae of life in the Egyptian capital, with its satirically political overtones and timeless characters.
After years in the making, a museum in the writer's honour opened in July this year.
A new translation of previously unpublished Mahfouz work is also in print, underscoring 13 years after his death the mark he made both on world literature and on Egyptians themselves.
In November, young writer Ahmed Mourad sparked controversy in Egypt when he suggested that the quality of Mahfouz's work needed to be adapted to make it more contemporary.
The ...

Nobel winner Mahfouz lives on in Cairo's alleyways

Beijing on Wednesday accused developed countries including the US of doing too little to curb global warming, ahead of a UN summit discussing controversial issues including climate compensation.
China is the world's second-largest economy and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, but has repeatedly argued that developed nations should lead on tackling international climate obligations.
"Developed countries' insufficient political will to provide support" is the "biggest problem" currently facing international climate efforts, said Zhao Yingmin, vice-minister of ecology and environment, at a press conference Wednesday.
An environment ministry report released at the briefing also criticised the US - currently in the process of pulling out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on global warming.
"These unilateral behaviours seriously harm the global community's willingness and trust in tackling climate change together," the report says.  The US generated more oil and gas than any other nation ...

China says developed countries lack 'political will' on climate goals

Britain's main opposition Labour party on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of plotting a "toxic" deal with Donald Trump to allow US pharmaceutical companies access to the state health service.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn held up what he said were 451 pages of previously secret documents that proved Johnson was seeking to put the National Health Service (NHS) on the table in a post-Brexit trade deal.
Britain goes to the polls on December 12, with Johnson hoping to secure a majority to be able to push through his divorce deal to take the country out of the European Union.
The funding and running of the NHS is a recurring election topic. Corbyn had previously obtained a redacted version of the document, which Johnson said was "an absolute invention".
But the Labour leader said the unredacted version catalogued six meetings between US and UK officials since 2017, detailing "what they (the Conservatives) don't want you to know".
"The US is demanding that our NHS is on the ...

Labour accuses UK PM of plot to 'sell' NHS to Trump

Ten million voters in Madagascar were called out to vote Wednesday in local elections where the biggest prize is the capital Antananarivo, held by the opposition.
Voting in the Indian Ocean island nation is the latest test for President Andry Rajoelina, who won presidential elections last December and whose coalition won parliamentary elections in June.
The elections are for 1,695 mayors in 119 administrative districts. More than 6,200 candidates have taken to the field.
"Every citizen of voting age should carry out his duty, because this is going to have an impact on the future of our towns over the next five years," Rajoelina said after voting in the capital's district of Ambatobe.
Five candidates are vying for Antananarivo.
Rajoelina's IRD party is putting forward Nanina Andriatsitohaina, a billionaire media tycoon and former foreign minister who is close to the head of state.
The TIM party of opposition leader and ex-president Marc Ravalomanana is backing Tahiry Ny Rina ...

Madagascar capital at stake in local polls

Nineteen Chinese officials face punishment for covering up a murder after the victim's body was found buried under a school playground some 16 years after the crime, state media said Wednesday.
Deng Shiping was overseeing the construction of a playground at the middle school where he worked in Huaihua city, central Hunan province, when he disappeared in 2003.
The cold case was finally solved after his body was unearthed from the playground in June.
The raft of civil servants accused of concealing the crime includes police officers, local Communist Party committee members, government officials and school staff.
Two suspects have been prosecuted for the murder.
One of the men, Du Shaoping, had been contracted to build the school's playground, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Deng was overseeing the "quality of construction" of the building project and relations were tense with Du, Xinhua said.
The victim's daughter told Beijing News that Du had given her father gifts and ...

19 Chinese officials punished over 2003 murder cover-up

A student was injured and 10 other people were arrested on Wednesday in renewed protests in eastern DR Congo at perceived UN failures to combat a notorious armed group, an AFP journalist saw.
Police used teargas to break up a demonstration outside the university in Goma, one of two cities in the province of North Kivu where public anger has boiled over.
Dozens of civilians in and around the town of Beni have been killed by a notorious but shadowy group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), since DR Congo's army launched an offensive against it on October 30.
The mounting toll has caused people to take to the streets, accusing the authorities and the UN's peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO, of inaction.
On Monday, a crowd stormed one of the two UN camps near Beni and set fire to one of its offices.
Six people have been killed in the protests since Monday.
"Our demonstration is patriotic. MONUSCO is standing on the sidelines as the massacres unfold, when its chief mission is to 

One injured, 10 arrests in anti-UN demo in DR Congo

The only human ever to beat Google's computer algorithm at the ancient Chinese strategy game Go decided to retire because he is convinced machines "cannot be defeated", a report said Wednesday.
South Korean Lee Se-Dol's five-match showdown with Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in 2016 raised both the game's profile and fears of computer intelligence's seemingly limitless learning capability.
The 18-time world Go champion lost all but one encounter in the series, but remains the only person to have won a game against AlphaGo.
The machines have since developed much further -- an updated self-teaching version of the algorithm beat its predecessor 100 games to none.
"Even if I become the number one, there is an entity that cannot be defeated," Lee, 36, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
"With the debut of AI in Go games, I've realised that I'm not at the top even if I become the number one," added Lee, who retired from professional Go competition last week.
Go ...

Go grandmaster says computers 'cannot be defeated'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday urged EU countries to speak as one in their dealings with China, warning it would be "disastrous" to go it alone at a time of tensions with the Asian giant over technology and human rights.
"One of the biggest dangers I see... is that everyone in Europe has their own China policy, and that we end up sending completely different signals," Merkel said in a speech to German lawmakers.
"That would not be disastrous for China, but it would be disastrous for us in Europe," she added.
The European Union should adopt a common strategy on developing the next-generation 5G mobile networks, Merkel said, amid concerns that Chinese tech giant Huawei could be a used as a tool by Beijing for spying.
Germany has so far defied pressure from the United States to exclude Huawei from taking part in the bidding process for its 5G network, insisting that it would set stringent security conditions.
But critics have accused Berlin of trying to appease China, its ..

Merkel urges Europe to stick together in China dealings

Albania was in national mourning Wednesday as emergency workers continued to pull bodies from the ruins of buildings gutted by a violent earthquake, with nearly 30 found dead and hundreds injured.
Tirana declared a state of emergency in the areas hardest-hit by Tuesday's 6.4 magnitude earthquake: the coastal city of Durres and the town of Thumane, where victims were trapped by toppled buildings.
With the help of dogs and more than 200 experts flown in from across Europe, rescuers worked through the night to locate survivors.
Early Wednesday in Thumane, emergency workers backed by Greek teams retrieved the body of a young man, an AFP reporter at the scene reported.
They were also attempting to free a young woman who they believe is still alive after the 24-hour-ordeal.
By Wednesday morning, the death toll was up to 28 while 45 people had been rescued, the defence ministry said in a statement.
Some 650 people have also been treated for injuries, mostly minor, according to the health ...

Albania mourns as earthquake search for survivors continues

Former Germany and United States boss Jurgen Klinsmann has taken over as head coach of Bundesliga side Hertha Berlin until the end of the season, the club announced Wednesday.
Former Hertha boss Ante Covic, who only took charge in July after six years coaching the reserves, has been dismissed after Sunday's 4-0 thrashing at mid-table Augsburg, the club's fourth straight league defeat.
The 55-year-old Klinsmann, a former European and world champion with Germany, was appointed to Hertha's supervisory board at the start of November and takes over with the club just above the relegation zone.
Klinsmann, a former Tottenham, Bayern Munich and Inter Milan striker, won the 1990 World Cup and 1996 European championships with Germany, making 108 appearances and scoring 47 goals for die Mannschaft.
He was head coach of Germany from 2004 until the 2006 World Cup, when the hosts reached the semi-finals under his stewardship.
He briefly coached Bayern from 2008 until 2009, but was then made head ...

Ex-Germany coach Klinsmann takes charge at Hertha Berlin

The Kremlin on Wednesday said Russia regrets a proposed four-year blanket ban for the country's athletes over doping but will remain open to cooperation.
"This is definitely concerning information. We regret this," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
In the Kremlin's first reaction to anti-doping watchdog WADA's compliance review committee's recommendations issued Monday, he stressed that Moscow was open to cooperation with international authorities "You know the Russian sporting authorities have been, are and will remain as open as possible to cooperation and collaboration with the international sporting community and also with WADA," he said.
If WADA chiefs adopt the review committee's recommendations, Russia faces exclusion from key sporting events including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The doping scandal has tainted Russia's sporting reputation for the last five years, after revelations of large-scale state-sponsored doping aimed at improving Russia's .

Kremlin says Russia remains 'open to cooperation' on doping

Singapore showed off two critically-endangered eagles Wednesday that were loaned from the Philippines as part of a breeding programme to reverse the dwindling numbers of the feathered giants.
Destruction of tropical rainforest and relentless hunting have decimated the population of the Philippine Eagle -- one of the world's biggest and most powerful birds whose wingspan can reach 2 metres (7 feet) -- with only around 800 believed left in the wild, conservationists say.
The birds, Geothermica and Sambisig, are the first breeding pair ever to be sent outside the Philippines and arrived in Singapore in June on a 10-year loan from Manila.
The creatures are being cared for at the city-state's main aviary and were shown to the media Wednesday, as part of events marking 50 years of diplomatic relations between the countries.
"Any future offspring of the eagles will be returned to the Philippines to contribute to the sustainability of the species' population," said Wildlife Reserves ...

The eagles have landed: Singapore shows off rare Philippine raptors

Four migrants died and more than a dozen were missing after a packed dinghy ran into trouble while trying to reach Spain, coastguard officials said Wednesday.
A Spanish coastguard boat managed to save 58 migrants, including three children, late on Tuesday from the dinghy drifting in the Alboran Sea about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Spain's North African enclave of Melilla.
The rescued migrants were taken to Melilla along with the bodies of three men who died during the attempt to reach Spain, a Spanish coastguard spokeswoman said.
A migrant who had been rescued died shortly after arriving at the port of Melilla, she added.
The vessel, believed to have been carrying 78 migrants, had departed from the beach of Charrana in Morocco near Melilla.
A coastguard boat and two planes would on Wednesday search for the 16 migrants who are believed to be missing, the coastguard spokeswoman said.
Images broadcast on Spanish TV showed migrants being transported on a stretcher into ambulances ..

Four migrants die trying to reach Spain, several missing

The Chinese billionaire behind teen phenomenon TikTok is a 36-year-old tech guru whose eye for youth trends and pioneering use of AI has blasted the app to global success -- while working hand-in-glove with censors to control content within China.
Zhang Yiming's Beijing-based startup Bytedance owns TikTok, whose kaleidoscopic feeds of 15 to 60-second clips feature everything from hair-dye tutorials to dance routines and jokes about daily life.
Since launching in 2017, TikTok has been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times, according to US-based research agency Sensor Tower. It has huge followings in India, the US, Indonesia and elsewhere.
But its rise has raised security fears and last month two senior US senators called for a government review of the app, saying it could leave users vulnerable to spying by Beijing.
Bytedance, which Zhang founded in 2012, prides itself on using artificial intelligence to personalise newsfeeds according to users' interests.  The company has had "huge ..

Bytedance: The Chinese company behind global TikTok craze

Iraqi anti-government protesters blocked roads in the country's south with burning tyres on Wednesday, as schools and public offices stayed shut a day after deadly clashes with security forces.
The country has been rocked by the biggest wave of protests since the 2003 US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, leaving more than 350 people dead and around 15,000 wounded since early October.
Violence had erupted in the southern holy city of Karbala on Tuesday, with one protester killed as riot police fired live rounds both into the air and directly into crowds of teenagers pelting them with rocks.
Fearing more bloodshed, Karbala's religious authorities ordered their network of private schools in the city, as well as in nearby Babylon and the second holy city of Najaf, kept shut for two days starting Wednesday.
Thick columns of black smoke could still be seen rising from Karbala, which is visited every year by millions of Shiite pilgrims from around the world, as demonstrators torched tyres 

Iraq's deadly unrest closes roads, schools across south

Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the country had foiled a "very dangerous" plot after violence erupted during demonstrations earlier this month against a petrol price hike.
"The people foiled a deep, vast and very dangerous conspiracy on which a lot of money was spent for destruction, viciousness and the killing of people," Khamenei said, according to state television.

Supreme leader says Iranians foiled 'very dangerous' plot

An explosion at a chemical plant in Texas early Wednesday sent a large fireball into the sky, media reports said, triggering a mandatory evacuation.
"Please be aware that there is a mandatory evacuation for everyone within a 1/2 mile of the TPC plant in Port Neches," local fire officials said in a post on the Nederland Volunteer Fire Department's Facebook page.

Explosion at Texas chemical plant: media reports

Australia's prime minister has told former "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson that Canberra will not intervene to bring her friend, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, back home to prevent his extradition to the United States.
The 48-year-old Australian is currently in jail in London for jumping bail and avoiding extradition to Sweden by fleeing to the Ecuadoran embassy, where he lived for seven years.
He now again faces extradition, this time to the United States on charges of violating the Espionage Act.
Anderson had written to Australian PM Scott Morrison warning that Assange was under intense psychological pressure at the high-security jail where he is being held.
In the letter of response obtained by The Australian newspaper, Morrison responded by saying that "Australia has no standing and is unable to intervene in Assange's legal proceedings."
"The proper place for Assange to raise concerns about the lawfulness of his actions, or his treatment under the law, is through those legal ...

AFP

AFP

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