Egypt's electoral commission extended today a presidential vote for a third day, amid reports of a low turnout in the first poll after the overthrow of the Islamist leader, state media said.
	Former chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted president Mohamed Morsi last year, is the clear frontrunner in the election, which was originally scheduled to be held on just yesterday and today.
	Sisi's backers had hoped for a large turnout for a decisive show of support.
	The decision to extend the voting into Wednesday was made to "give a chance to the largest possible number of voters to cast their ballots," said a member of the electoral commission quoted by state news agency MENA.

Egypt extends presidential election for third day

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Queen are to release new tracks featuring Freddie Mercury's vocals by the end of the year, the British rock group's guitarist Brian May said.
	The songs, dating back to the 1980s, will be released on a compilation album, May told BBC radio.
	Lead singer Mercury died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991. Four years later, Queen released "Made In Heaven", their final studio album with the iconic frontman, painstakingly constructing some fresh songs from lines of vocals he left behind.
	But May said more tapes in the vault had come to light.
	"We found a few more tracks with Freddie singing and all of us playing, and they're quite beautiful, so people will be hearing this work towards the end of the year," the 66-year-old said.
	"We're going to put out an album which probably is called 'Queen Forever', and it's a compilation, but it will have this new material on which nobody in the world has ever heard. And I think people will really enjoy it."
	In their current form, the songs do not have 

Queen to release new tracks with Mercury

The United Nation's children's agency today said that 200,000 children may die of starvation this year in war-ravaged Somalia if it does not raise enough funds to provide vital aid.
	"If funding is not received immediately, UNICEF will have to suspend essential life-saving health services within one month," spokesman Christophe Boulierac said.
	UNICEF, which has been providing 70 per cent of all health services in Somalia, has so far received just 10 per cent of the USD 150 million it needs for its activities in the country this year, he said.
	The lack of funding is dramatic, amid warnings that the troubled country, which was hit by an extreme famine less than three years ago, could be sliding back into a food crisis.
	Some 50,000 children under the age of five are already suffering from severe malnourishment and UNICEF warned that could balloon to 200,000 without aid from the UN agency.
	Somalia was the hardest hit by extreme drought in 2011 that affected over 13 million people ...

200,000 kids may starve in Somalia as aid runs dry: UNICEF

Yemen joined the World Trade Organisation today, vowing to use its membership and strategic location to overcome years of strife and transform itself into a hub for maritime commerce.
	Saadaldeen Ali Salim Talib, trade minister of the Arabian Peninsula nation, formally handed over Yemen's entry treaty in a ceremony with WTO chief Roberto Azevedo.
	"We have easy access to three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe. Our location is on the highway of trade. Our port in Aden is three hours away from the highway," Talib told reporters.
	"We want to be on the value chain with the rest of the economies of the world," he added, saying it would revive an age-old trading history that saw Yemeni seafarer communities take root in places as far apart as Wales and Indonesia.
	Yemen's WTO admission will take the Geneva-based organisation's membership to 160 when it comes into force officially on June 26.
	Existing members had given a green light at a WTO summit in Bali last December, but Yemen then ..

Yemen joins WTO, says it aims to be maritime hub

An Iranian judge has summoned Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer allegations that his company's apps have breached people's privacy, it was reported today.
	In a case that underscores the gulf between Iranian moderates, who seek fewer Internet restrictions, and conservatives who want more, the Silicon Valley leader has been dubbed the "Zionist manager" of Facebook, on account of his Jewish heritage.
	The court in Fars province ordered that Zuckerberg address unspecified "violation of privacy" claims made by Iranians over the reach of Facebook-owned apps, ISNA news agency reported.
	Access to social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, are routinely blocked by Iranian authorities, as are other websites considered un-Islamic or detrimental to the regime.
	"Based on the judge's verdict, the Zionist manager of Facebook... Should report to the prosecutor's office to defend himself and make compensation for damages," Rouhollah Momen-Nasab, a senior Iranian Internet ...

Iran court summons Facebook's Zuckerberg over privacy

North Korea and Japan today began the second day of talks in Stockholm believed to be focused on Japanese nationals kidnapped decades ago by Pyongyang.
	Japan is expected to push for a reopening of the investigation into the fate of the abductees, kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s to train North Korean spies.
	The issue, a hugely emotional one in Japan, was already brought up in an earlier bilateral meeting held in China in March.
	Japan is said to have previously told the North Korean head negotiator, Song Il Ho, that it is willing to lift some economic sanctions if there is evidence that Pyongyang is making a serious effort to investigate the case, Kyodo News said citing unnamed sources.
	Five of the abductees were allowed to return to Japan but Pyongyang has insisted, without producing solid evidence, that the eight others are dead.
	Other issues that are thought to be on the agenda are the North Korean hermit state's missile and nuclear weapons programmes, but the delegations have .

Japan, N Korea talks continue amid secrecy

Ukraine expressed displeasure today with the terms of an EU-brokered compromise with Russia that could save Europe from seeing a part of its gas supplies cut as early as next week.
	"What we are hearing now is you pay and then we talk," Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak said a day after Europe's energy commissioner reported that there was a "good chance" a compromise could be reached within days.
	"This does not suit us," Shlapak said.
	The two neighbours launched their third gas war in less than a decade after the ouster of a Kremlin-backed president in February and Ukraine's decision to seek closer economic ties with EU states.
	Russia retaliated by hiking Ukraine's gas price by 81 per cent to USD 485.50 per 1,000 cubic metres - the highest of any of its European clients - and demanding a payment by next yesterday of USD 5.17 billion for debts and June deliveries.
	Ukraine refused to pay anything and branded the price increase a form of "economic aggression" launched by ..

Ukraine balks at EU plan to avert Russian gas cut

The 2008 financial crisis spurred obesity's spread in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's 34 member countries -- most of whose inhabitants are overweight, an OECD report said today.
	The grouping, which includes the world's richest nations, has seen obesity levels continue to rise over the past five years, albeit more slowly than before.
	"One in five children is overweight, on average, in OECD countries, but rates are as high as one in three in countries like Greece, Italy, Slovenia and the United States," said a press statement.
	The economic crisis was partly to blame, the OECD report said, with less spending on food overall, and a switch to cheaper, high-calorie junk alternatives.
	The report noted a 5.6-per cent drop in fruit and vegetable consumption for every one-per cent rise in unemployment in the United States in the period 2007-09.
	Obesity claims a heavy personal and financial toll in terms of diseases like diabetes, heart disease and ...

Financial crisis spurred obesity: OECD

The world's chemical weapons watchdog today said that a convoy of its inspectors overseeing the dismantling of Syria's weapons program had come under attack, but all were safe.
	"All team members are safe and well and heading back to their operating base," said Michael Luhan, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
	The Syrian foreign ministry reported earlier that six investigators had been kidnapped with their Syrian drivers while on a fact-finding mission in the central province of Hama.
	The team had been investigating allegations that Syrian government forces unleashed a chlorine attack on a rebel-held village in Hama province last month.
	If confirmed, the attack would be in breach of Syria's commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
	The Syrian government signed the convention last year as part of a Russian- and US-brokered deal under which it pledged to destroy all of its chemical arsenal.
	Syria was not required to declare its ..

Chemical weapons watchdog says team in Syria 'safe'

Chocolate maker Cadbury has recalled two products in mainly Muslim Malaysia after traces of pig DNA were found during a routine check for non-halal substances, Health Minister S Subramaniam said today.
	   "Cadbury has voluntarily removed two of its products from the shelves," the minister told AFP.
	   The tests were conducted by the ministry which over the weekend announced that two Cadbury products contained pork traces.
	   Chocolate products are popular in Malaysia and can be found in most shops nationwide.
	   Pork and its by-products, alcohol and animals not slaughtered according to Islamic procedures are not considered halal(permissible)  and are forbidden to Muslims.
	   Cadbury Malaysia, a part of the British multinational owned by Mondelez International, said it was withdrawing the Cadbury Dairy Milk hazelnut and Cadbury Dairy Milk roast almond products.
	   "Ensuring that all our products made here in Malaysia are halal is something we take very seriously," it said in a ...

Cadbury recalls two products in Malaysia due to pork DNA

Russia has refused to permit the release of a film about the mass deportations of entire ethnic groups on Stalin's orders during World War II, calling it anti-Russian and a falsification of history.
	The historical drama shot in Chechnya details how the Soviets forcibly deported the whole Chechen nation and the related Ingush group - half a million people - from their homeland in the North Caucasus to Central Asia in the winter of 1944, accusing them of lacking loyalty to the state.
	A culture ministry official condemned the film as a "historical falsification" in a letter shown to AFP by the film's scriptwriter and producer, Ruslan Kokanayev.
	"We consider the film will promote ethnic hatred," wrote Vyacheslav Telnov, director of the ministry's cinema department, in the letter in response to a request for a release certificate.
	Titled "Ordered to Forget", the film was intended to mark the 70th anniversary of the deportations this year.
	The culture ministry, which licenses cinema ...

Russia bans film on Stalin deportations of Chechens

Twitter is seeing strong user growth in the Asia-Pacific region, helping the messaging platform compensate for a slowdown in the US and Europe, a research report said today.
	   The report by eMarketer forecasts that Twitter's global user base will increase 24.4 per cent in 2014, led by big gains in countries such as Indonesia and India, and to a lesser extent Argentina, Mexico and Brazil.
	   The research firm said its figures on current Twitter usage are lower than company estimates -- 183 million at the end of 2013 -- "because we rely heavily on consumer survey data to weed out business accounts, multiple accounts for individual users and other sources of potential double-counting."
	   Twitter in April estimated the monthly active users at 255 million, which led to a slump in its share price because it suggested sluggish growth.
	   The eMarketer report said Twitter's worldwide users will hit 227 million this year, and nearly 400 million by 2018.
	   In its analysis of worldwide ..

Twitter sees growth in emerging markets: researchers

Iran urged western powers today to resist any pressure from third parties not directly involved in negotiations over its nuclear activities, in a clear reference to Israeli-led influence.
	   Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, quoted by the official IRNA news agency after meetings with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, also called for "seriousness and realism," in the next round of nuclear talks in Vienna next month.
	   After a second day of discussions with Ashton in Istanbul, Zarif said the P5 + 1 powers (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany) should avoid "illusions which might be exerted on them by some pressure groups and people outside the negotiations."
	   Iran has consistently denied it is seeking nuclear weapons but wants an independent atomic energy programme. Israel and lawmakers in the US Congress have repeatedly warned against lowering the pressure on Iran.
	   Zarif also said reaching an agreement was "completely possible" and that ..

Iran urges West to resist outside pressure in nuclear talks

Chinese President Xi Jinping has chosen "repression over reform" as clampdowns precede the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the head of Amnesty International said today.
	China still forbids public discussion of the events on June 3-4, 1989, when the military brutally suppressed pro-democracy protesters in central Beijing.
	Chinese police earlier this month detained prominent rights lawyer, Tang Jingling, the latest of around 20 activists held on criminal charges before the anniversary.
	"When President Xi came to power, we heard that there was going to be greater openness," Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty told AFP in an interview.
	"I would have thought that the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown would have been a great opportunity for him to convert that sort of claim into some practical reality," Shetty said.
	"Unfortunately what we've seen is that he's chosen repression over reform," he said, adding that China should conduct .

China's Xi chooses repression over reform: Amnesty

The prosecution today called for jail terms of up to life for the five men convicted of the murder of prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
	   A jury at the Moscow city court last week convicted the five of organising and carrying out the shooting of Politkovskaya, a vehement critic of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya.
	   The apparent contract killing of the 48-year-old journalist for the liberal Novaya Gazeta newspaper shocked the world and cast a shadow over President Vladimir Putin's second term in office.
	   Politkovskaya's family and supporters have welcomed the verdicts but said they did not go far enough since the investigators have still failed to identify the mastermind.
	   The prosecution called for life in jail for Rustam Makhmudov, the Chechen man convicted of firing the fatal shots as Politkovskaya entered her apartment building.
	   It also asked for a maximum sentence for Makhmudov's uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, convicted of recruiting his three nephews to 

Prosecution backs life for Politkovskaya killers

Sussex are sickened at being tainted by the match-fixing scandal involving former players Lou Vincent and Naveed Arif, manager Mark Robinson admitted today.
     The England and Wales Cricket Board last Thursday charged Vincent and his former Sussex team-mate Arif of Pakistan with fixing the outcome of a 40-over county match between Sussex and Kent in August 2011.
     Former New Zealand cricketer Vincent is also accused of fixing a Twenty20 match between Sussex and Lancashire in the same month.
     Sussex's players and coaching staff met on Sunday to discuss the charges relating to those two matches.
     Captain Ed Joyce spoke of the anger felt in the changing room, but the strongest words were delivered by Robinson.
     "Obviously the last couple of weeks has been upsetting for everybody connected with the club and especially for the players and coaches involved in that period," Robinson said.
     "The stories we've read have caused a lot of distress. We're all deeply shocked.
  

Match-fixing scandal 'sickens' Sussex: Robinson

A wave of attacks in Iraq, including a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killed 27 people today, the latest in a protracted surge in bloodshed.
	In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a Shiite mosque in central Baghdad's Shorja neighbourhood as worshippers were performing ablutions ahead of mid-day prayers.
	At least 19 people were killed and 34 wounded in the blast at the Abu al-Timan Husseiniyah, near the headquarters of the Baghdad mayoralty, security and medical officials said.
	Security forces barred journalists from taking photographs or videos of the aftermath of the scene, a common occurrence in the wake of deadly violence in the capital.
	No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Sunni militants including those linked to the powerful Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group often target Iraq's Shiite majority, whom they regard as apostates.
	Elsewhere in the capital, roadside bombs in the ...

Iraq attacks, including Shiite mosque bombing, kill 27

Israeli police said they arrested two men from a hardline West Bank settlement today on suspicion of carrying out hate crimes and a third for condoning violence against soldiers.
	   "Two people from Yitzhar were arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into suspicions of criminal activity of a nationalistic nature," spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, adding that a court order barred him from giving further details.
	   Israeli public radio said the young men were suspected of taking part in "price tag" attacks -- hate crimes by Jewish extremists that mostly target Palestinian and Arab property, but have also included attacks on other non-Jews as well as leftwing Israelis and the security forces.
	   Rosenfeld said a third Yitzhar resident was arrested for inciting violence against Israeli troops after allegedly posting a statement online which defended harming soldiers involved in anti-settlement operations.

Israel police arrest settler hate crime suspects

The leader of France's embattled centre-right opposition quit today following claims that invoices for former president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2012 election campaign were fraudulently billed as party expenses.
	Jean-Francois Cope agreed to step down at the request of fellow heavyweights in the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) following the latest twist in an scandal engulfing him and a PR firm owned by two close friends.
	The 50-year-old leader's position became untenable after Sarkozy's former deputy campaign director gave an explosive television interview yesterday evening.
	Jerome Lavrilleux tearfully claimed that bills for Sarkozy's failed 2012 re-election campaign were passed off as invoices for party meetings in order to skirt round France's strict limits on campaign financing.
	Lavrilleux claimed that neither Sarkozy nor Cope were aware of what was being done. "I didn't have the courage to say 'stop, we have gone too far'," he said.
	As party leader Cope was responsible for ...

French opposition boss quits over Sarkozy funding scandal

A Christian Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy has given birth in jail, a Western diplomat said today.
	"She gave birth to a girl today," said the diplomat, who is familiar with the case of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, 27.
	"The mother and the baby seem to be doing OK," said the diplomat who asked for anonymity.
	But he said: "It's a cruel treatment to be in such a situation."
	The case of Ishag has sparked global outrage since a Khartoum-area court sentenced her to death on May 15.
	Born to a Muslim father, she was convicted under the Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death.
	"To give birth in jail... Is certainly not the best place, for physical and psychological reasons," the diplomat said.
	Ishag's husband, who is Christian, did not respond to telephone calls today.
	Human rights activists have said Ishag is being held at a women's prison in Khartoum's twin city Omdurman with her first child, a 20-month-old ..

Sudanese ordered to hang for apostasy 'gives birth in jail'

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is to unveil a unity government by Thursday, ending seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and Gaza, an official said.
	"We have finished consultations on the national consensus government," Azzam al-Ahmed, an envoy from Abbas's Fatah movement, told AFP today after talks in Gaza with its Hamas rulers.
	"The announcement will come from the president in the next two days."
	The Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is dominated by Fatah, signed a surprise reconciliation deal with Hamas on April 23, giving the two sides five weeks to draw up an "independent government" of technocrats headed by Abbas.
	Agreement on a unity government would pave the way for long-delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.
	Hamas won a landslide victory in the last parliamentary elections in 2006.
	But the European Union and the United States have refused to have any dealings with the Islamist movement until it renounces violence and recognises ...

AFP

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