Pope Francis joined Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I in an historic joint prayer for the Christian unity at Christianity's holiest site in Jerusalem today.
	They met at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre inside the walled Old City after signing a landmark pledge to work together to further unity between the eastern and western branches of Christianity, estranged for a millennium.
	The meeting has been billed as the main reason for the pope's three-day trip to the Middle East, which ends tomorrow.
	It commemorates the historic rapprochement between both branches of the Christian church 50 years ago, when Pope Paul VI met and embraced Patriarch Athenagoras -- the first easing of tensions between the Churches since the Great Schism in the 11th century.
	Both leaders knelt side by side in prayer on the rough Stone of the Anointing, where the body of Jesus was laid before burial, removing their headgear as they did so.
	Both had to be helped to their feet by aides at the end of the prayer. ..

Pope, Orthodox patriarch in historic prayer for unity

PTI Automatic

Iran said today that Syrian opposition chief Ahmad Jarba was the "most inappropriate person" to lead the war-torn country and confirmed it would send observers to next month's presidential election.
	Jarba, president of the Syrian National Coalition, has sought to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad for the past three years. Earlier this month Jarba visited Washington and shared a podium with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
	Jarba is not running against Assad in a June 3 presidential vote but Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian hit out regardless.
	"In our opinion, when it comes to politics, Ahmad Jarba is a weak person ... He is the most inappropriate person for the future of Syria," the official IRNA news agency quoted Amir Abdollahian as saying.
	"He does not know who to meet in his foreign meetings," he said, referring to talks between Jarba and Maryam Rajavi, head of the People's Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), who lives in exile.
	The leftwing PMOI, 

Iran slams Syrian opposition chief, confirms poll monitors

Russian President Vladimir Putin had no immediate reaction to the presidential vote in Ukraine today, instead focusing on an ice hockey game featuring the Russian team in Belarus.
	As Western-friendly chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko claimed victory in the crucial election, Putin was in Minsk to watch Russia face off with Finland in the final of the world ice hockey championships.
	"The head of state wanted to personally support the Russian team playing in the final of the world hockey championships," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.
	Putin could be seen at the game sitting between Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko and the leader of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon.
	Putin had said Friday he was ready to work with new authorities in Kiev, after months of crisis that have brought Moscow's ties with the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.
	"We understand that the people of Ukraine want their country to emerge from this crisis. We will treat ..

Putin watches hockey as tycoon declares Ukraine vote win

Greece's anti-austerity leftist party Syriza held a slight lead in European Parliament elections, exit polls showed today.
	Syriza was ahead by about three points over the leading government party, conservative New Democracy, polls jointly carried out by six leading opinion companies showed.
	Syriza have between 26 and 30 per cent while New Democracy have between 23 and 27 per cent, the polls showed.
	Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn ranks third with up to 10 per cent of the vote, despite an ongoing criminal investigation and the fact that several of its leading members are in pre-trial detention.
	The other party in the government coalition, the Pasok socialists, are fourth with up to nine per cent.
	The polls also show that in the second round of local elections, held alongside the EU ballot today, Syriza's candidate is in a close race to win the governorship of the greater Athens area.
	Syriza's 39-year-old leader Alexis Tsipras, a candidate to head the European Commission for the ...

Greek anti-austerity leftists lead EU vote: exit polls

US President Barack Obama hailed "courageous" Ukrainians who went to the polls today in a presidential vote that Washington and the West hope will bring stability back to the country after months of turmoil.
	"Despite provocations and violence, millions of Ukrainians went to the polls throughout the country," the White House quoted Obama as saying.
	"Even in parts of eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatist groups sought to disenfranchise entire regions, some courageous Ukrainians still were able to cast their ballots," he added.
	"We commend the resolve of all those who participated, as well as the efforts of the Ukrainian government to conduct these elections in the face of those threats."
	Chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko, a 48-year-old self-made billionaire, has claimed victory in the election, which comes amid a pro-Russian insurgency that thwarted voting across much of the separatist east.
	If confirmed by election officials, his win will avoid the need for a June 15 ...

Obama hails 'courageous' Ukrainian voters: White House

Thousands of people from Turkey's minority Alevi community today held protests over the deaths of two people during a police crackdown on demonstrators earlier in the week.
	Protesters flocked to rallies in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir to call for an end to discrimination after two men were caught up in clashes between police and protesters in a predominantly Alevi district on Thursday and killed.
	Turkey has launched an investigation into the deaths of the two men, who were not among the demonstrators.
	The Alevi community follows a moderate form of Islam and makes up around a quarter of Turkey's 76 million citizens.
	"Alevis know the culprits of the attacks against our fellow Alevis," said Dogan Demir, the head of the Alevi Cultural Associations, in Istanbul.
	"We warn the government: Get your hands off Alevis."
	Several hundred protesters, including lawmakers, musicians and actors, shouted "murderer state will be held accountable," as they marched through the streets of ...

Turkey's Alevis protest after deadly police crackdown

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was offered a meeting with President Barack Obama at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul but declined, a US official said today.
	The official said that Washington was not surprised that the meeting did not work out at short notice, after Obama arrived at the base on a surprise visit after night fell today.
	"As we said, we weren't planning for a bilateral meeting with President Karzai or a trip to the palace, as this trip is focused on thanking our troops," the official said.
	"We did offer him the opportunity to come to Bagram, but we're not surprised that it didn't work on short notice.
	"The President will likely be speaking by phone with President Karzai in the days to come, and also looks forward to working with Afghanistan's next President after the election is complete."
	Obama and Karzai have a testy relationship and Washington has been deeply frustrated by the outgoing Afghan leader's refusal to sign a bilateral security agreement that would allow it .

Karzai refused to meet Obama at Bagram Air Base: US official

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives claimed victory in European Parliament elections today, despite strong gains for the centre-left Social Democrats and the rise of a new anti-euro party, exit polls showed.
	Germany, the most populous country in the EU, sends 96 members to the 751-seat European Parliament which has demanded a stronger say in who takes over from outgoing European Commission president Jose Manuel Barosso.
	Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party the CSU -- a team that last September celebrated a landslide win at the national level -- between them scored about 36 per cent, public broadcasters ARD and ZDF estimated.
	The result -- though less triumphant than last year's German election result of 41.5 per cent -- was seen as another endorsement for Merkel, the only leader of a major EU member country to have weathered the political fallout from the eurozone crisis.
	The result pointed at the German electorate's "extreme satisfaction .

Merkel conservatives win elections in Germany: exit polls

Belgian police today released chilling video footage of the gunman who killed four people in an attack on the Brussels Jewish Museum.
	The man, whose face is not clear under a dark baseball cap, can be seen entering the building, taking a Kalashnikov automatic rifle from a bag and opening fire through a door on his victims -- an Israeli couple, a French woman and a young Belgian man.
	Police described the man as of medium height and athletic build. He carried out the attack deliberately and unhurriedly, leaving the scene on foot.
	The Israelis and the French woman, who worked as a volunteer, died on the spot. The young Belgian died of his wounds today.
	The shooting -- which shocked a country home to a 40,000 strong Jewish community, half of it in Brussels -- overshadowed today's general election.
	Police said earlier they had been unable to identify the gunman so far and released the video footage as they called for witnesses to come forward.
	Officials say they have not established .

Belgium police release video of attack on Jewish museum

The proposed cabinet of Libyan premier Ahmed Miitig today won a vote of confidence in the General National Congress, or interim parliament, a lawmaker said.
	"The vote of confidence was obtained by 83 votes out of 94 lawmakers present," MP Mohammed Laamari told AFP.
	Miitig's cabinet is due to replace that of Abdullah al-Thani, who resigned last month amid mounting lawlessness, and as a rogue general gains support for an assault against Islamist militias in the east of the country.
	The GNC elected Islamist-backed businessman Miitig, 42, prime minister in a chaotic vote in early May. The session came just days after gunmen stormed the GNC to interrupt an earlier ballot.
	He is Libya's fifth and youngest prime minister since longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi was toppled and killed in a 2011 uprising.
	Since Kadhafi's fall, successive governments in the oil-rich North African nation have struggled to impose order as heavily armed former rebel brigades have carved out their own fiefdoms ..

Libya cabinet wins confidence vote in parliament: MP

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev today praised Poland's Communist-era strongman Wojciech Jaruzelski as an "outstanding" man who stuck by his principles despite difficult times.
	Gorbachev said he always considered Jaruzelski a friend after the two worked together in the turbulent 1980s that saw the beginnings of reforms in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.
	"He was an outstanding man. He never had an easy fate, but he did a lot for Poland," Gorbachev told the ITAR-TASS news agency after Jaruzelski's death on Sunday aged 90.
	"He was a soldier, he fought with us against fascism and he maintained his choice of Socialism to the end," Gorbachev said.
	"He was a very decent man who always stayed true to his principles.

Gorbachev praises 'outstanding' Jaruzelski

Stocks of organic carbon buried deep underground could pose a global warming threat if disturbed by erosion, farming, deforestation, mining or road-building, a study warned today.
	Scientists from the United States and Germany discovered one such reserve in Nebraska, up to 6.5 metres under the surface, composed mainly of vast quantities of burnt plant material.
	"We found almost comparable amounts of carbon stored in this deep soil layer than we would in the top one metre of soil under a grassland vegetation," study co-author Erika Marin-Spiotta of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told AFP.
	The find suggested "that we are potentially grossly underestimating how much carbon is stored below ground in our global inventories."
	Such ancient fossil soils are found all over the world under river, volcano and other sediments, said Marin-Spiotta.
	Most will remain buried, but some will be exposed over time.
	Carbon in soil can be released as Earth-warming carbon dioxide into the ...

Deep-buried carbon may pose climate risk: study

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah today said that Syria's regime and the "resistance axis" including his Lebanese Shiite militant group would triumph in the Syrian conflict.
	"Syria will triumph and the resistance axis will triumph," Nasrallah said in a televised address to mark the 14th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon.
	Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters into Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces against rebels, saying they are defending an "axis of resistance" against Israel and the West.
	Nasrallah's speech came two weeks ahead of a presidential vote in Syria that is widely expected to return Assad to power.
	"Syria is advancing towards a presidential election that no amount of foreign intimidation or mockery by those who call themselves the 'Friends of Syria' can block or stop," he said.
	The exiled opposition and its Western backers, who have held several international meetings under a 'Friends of Syria' umbrella, have ridiculed the June 3 

Hezbollah: Regime, 'resistance axis' will triumph in Syria

South African President Jacob Zuma today tapped former junior minister Nhlanhla Nene to become the country's first black African finance minister.
	Zuma made the announcement after being sworn in for a second term, and promising radical social and economic transformation in the next five years.
	In the 20 years since South Africa struggled free from the fetters of racist apartheid rule, the economy remains predominantly in white hands, despite a raft of empowerment programmes.
	Nene had served as an understudy to internationally respected finance chief Pravin Gordhan.
	His appointment came amid pressure within the ruling ANC to but more economic power in black hands as a statement of intent.
	But the appointment of a relatively inexperienced finance minister after the post was occupied by Gordhan and similarly well regarded Trevor Manuel, will test investors' faith in the South African economy.
	The rand has been under pressure for months and ratings agency have warned that deficits, .

South Africa names first black finance minister

Iraq's Kurdistan region today slammed legal action filed by the central government against Turkey, saying it was illegitimate and likely to fail, in the latest sign of worsening ties with Baghdad.
	The Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources statement came just days after Baghdad's Oil Ministry filed a request for arbitration against Ankara at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce after crude from Kurdistan was exported to international markets via a Turkish port.
	Relations between Iraq and its Kurdish region, and between Baghdad and Ankara, were already fragile and are likely to chill further over the row, with the latest shipments flying in the face of the Iraqi government's insistence that it has the sole right to sell its prized natural resources.
	"The MOO (Ministry of Oil) is, with its behaviour, isolating itself... (and) potentially damaging Iraq's petroleum industry and Iraq's petroleum reserves," the statement said.
	"The MOO is also... Now prepared to damage ...

Iraqi Kurds slam Baghdad legal action over oil shipment

Voter turnout in European Parliament elections, which plunged to record lows in 2009, appeared to have improved today despite increased eurosceptic sentiment.
     In France, where Marine Le Pen's anti-EU National Front could emerge as the single largest group, official figures put the turnout at just over 35 per cent by mid-afternoon.
     That compared with some 33 per cent at the same point in 2009, when the final French participation rate was a poor 40.6 per cent, below the European Union average of 43 per cent.
     In Germany, which elects 96 MEPs, the most in the bloc, voter turnout by early afternoon was 25.6 per cent, up from 20.2 per cent and compared with its final turnout level of 43.3 per cent.
     Portugal was slightly higher while newcomer Croatia was doing much better, but the Czech Republic which voted Friday and Saturday, appeared to have fallen well short of its 2009 turnout of some 28 per cent, with the CTK news agency putting it on about 20 per cent.
     Despite 

EU voter turnout better than expected so far

Afghanistan today expressed anger at the United States for allegedly monitoring almost all the country's telephone conversations after revelations by the Wikileaks website.
	Wikileaks editor Julian Assange said on Friday that Afghanistan was one of at least two countries where the US National Security Agency "has been recording and storing nearly all the domestic (and international) phone calls".
	The Afghan government responded to the claims by ordering the interior and telecommunication ministries to stop illegal monitoring of calls, and said it would lodge a complaint with the US.
	"These activities are an obvious violation of agreements based on technical use of these (telephone) stations," said a government statement.
	"Most importantly, it is a violation of the national sovereignty of Afghanistan, and a violation of the human rights guaranteed to all Afghans."
	Relations between Afghanistan and the US have been severely strained in recent years over issues of Afghan sovereignty, 

Afghan anger at US monitoring 'nearly all' phone calls

Sri Lanka came up with the perfect response to their defeat in the first one-day international against England as they swept aside Alastair Cook's team in the second meeting at the Riverside on Sunday.
     The England captain was injured and could only watch in dismay from the dressing room as optimism generated by their impressive win at The Oval disintegrated in a 157-run defeat.
     There was talk of an exciting new era for English cricket after the 81-run win three days earlier, but this was a sobering reminder of recent setbacks as they were destroyed by the Sri Lankans.
     The match was effectively settled inside the first seven overs of the England reply to Sri Lanka's 256-8, a total that owed much to the concentration of Tillakaratne Dilshan in the early stages.
     With conditions improving, it was a total that should have been well within England's reach, but they simply could not cope with the opening spells of Nuwan Kulasekara and Lasith Malinga.
     Michael ...

Sri Lanka defeat sorry England by 157 runs

Tunisian authorities have arrested suspected Islamist militants from Libya and Tunisia who were allegedly plotting attacks against tourist and industrial sites, Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said today.
	The suspects had infiltrated Tunisia from Libya "and their targets were tourism and industrial zones," the minister told local radio stations.
	"They were arrested, and mines, explosive belts and explosives were seized," Ben Jeddou said.
	An interior ministry spokesman said 16 suspects were arrested in the southern town of Ben Guerdane near the porous border with Libya, with three of them detained early today.
	Since late 2012, security forces have been battling dozens of militants hiding out in the remote Mount Chaambi region, near the Algerian border, where eight soldiers were killed in an ambush last July.
	Authorities say the militants are linked to Al-Qaeda.
	But jihadists have not claimed the attacks that have rocked Tunisia since the 2011 uprising, including two foiled ...

Tunisia foils attacks on tourist, industrial sites

Three people were killed, including a male and female suicide bomber, and 15 wounded in an attack on a restaurant popular with Westerners in central Djibouti, local media said today.
	Quoting an interior ministry statement, Djibouti's ADI news agency said the attackers were from Somalia, where Djiboutian troops are part of an African Union force fighting Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels.
	"According to the initial indications from the investigation, the three dead include two suicide bombers of Somali origin, a man and a veiled woman. Out of the wounded, four are in a serious condition," the agency quoted the interior ministry as saying.
	The attack targeted La Chaumiere, a restaurant reported to have been packed with westerners late yesterday.
	The French foreign ministry confirmed that several of its nationals were slightly wounded in the attack, and the Netherlands' De Telegraaf reported that six Dutch soldiers who had been taking part in an anti-piracy mission were also slightly ...

Three killed in Djibouti suicide attack on restaurant: report

General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist leader who tried but failed to crush the freedom-fighting Solidarity union, died today aged 90, a hospital spokesman said.
	Jaruzelski, who died in a Warsaw hospital with his daughter by his side, marked Polish history by trying to strangle the Soviet bloc's first free trade union with a brutal military crackdown on December 13, 1981.
	But by 1989, he became the first communist leader to clear the way for democracy by agreeing to semi-free elections with Solidarity, led by the charismatic former shipyard electrician and Nobel Peace laureate Lech Walesa.
	"He would have been a great man if he had lived in different era," Walesa once told AFP, calling Jaruzelski "a very intelligent man" who was "part of a generation from an unhappy time".
	"I don't know if he believed sincerely in communism or whether he just let himself get drawn in. I won't judge him. Let God and history do that."
	Jaruzelski -- whose strongman image was accentuated 

AFP

AFP

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