They borrowed thousands of dollars to fund their children's illegal trips to Europe, and now the Vietnamese parents of missing migrants feared dead in Britain have no idea how to pay off the crippling loans.
Their kids planned to send back money after getting hoped-for jobs in the UK, where 39 people were found dead in a truck last week.
Families in central Vietnam think their loved ones might have been in the refrigerated container, leaving behind mountains of debt borrowed from relatives or credit unions.
The money was handed over to smugglers for flights, fake passports and truck rides into Europe, a prime destination for migrants escaping remote villages and dreaming of better lives abroad.
Some of their children were already working in Europe, sending hundreds of dollars back every month to families in an impoverished part of Vietnam where most people are farmers, fishermen or factory workers.
"We still owe nearly USD 8,600," said Nguyen Dinh Gia, who believes his son Nguyen Dinh 

Families of Vietnamese missing in UK stuck with crippling migrant loans

PTI Automatic

General Motors reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings Tuesday on strong auto sales but trimmed its full-year forecast after a lengthy strike that ended last week.
The automaker saw net income in the third-quarter drop 7.1 percent to USD 2.4 billion, easily topping Wall Street estimates, as revenues dipped 0.9 per cent to USD 35.5 billion. Shares surged following the report.
But the company said the strike, which effectively shut down GM's US operations for 40 days and halted its production of new cars, is expected to cut about USD 3 billion from 2019 earnings.
The strike, which ended Friday after the United Auto Workers ratified a new contract, cut USD 1 billion from operating earnings in the third quarter alone and also will hit the fourth quarter.
Company officials said they were ramping production back up but would not be able to replace all of the lost car production in 2019.
Nearly 50,000 US auto workers walked out last month while GM and the United Auto Workers ...

GM earnings top expectations; forecast cut after strike

Torrential rains in central Nigerian Kogi State allowed more than a hundred inmates to escape from prison, a spokesman for the country's prison service said on Tuesday.
The "perimeter fence" of the prison was destroyed by rains and cells flooded, forcing inmates "to break out of custody for safety," Francis Enobore of the Nigerian Correctional Service said in a statement.
"A torrential downpour on Monday 28th October, 2019, caused a surging flood that overran the centre at about 0200hrs (GMT) pulling down a section of the perimeter fence," he said, "122 of them took the opportunity to escape, 105 remained on the spot," Enobore said, adding "25 of the escapees have been recaptured leaving 97 still at large."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country Africa has been particularly affected by heavy rains that have continued to fall, after the end of the rainy season.
The agrarian, central states of Niger, Benue, Kogi and Taraba have been affected by flooding in recent months.
The rains have 

More than 100 inmates escape Nigeria prison after torrential rain

Zinedine Zidane insists Gareth Bale was given permission by Real Madrid to travel to London on Monday, and claims the Welshman never talks about leaving the club.
Bale has not played since injuring his calf during a game for Wales on October 13 and his trip to England has prompted speculation he will seek an exit from Madrid in January.
But Zidane insists Bale had permission to be absent on Monday and Tuesday morning and that he is not aware the 30-year-old wants to be sold.
"It was a personal issue and he had permission yesterday to go," Zidane said in a press conference on Tuesday.
"It was a personal issue and he went, that's it, no story. He also went because he's not available to play.
"But I don't think he ever speaks about leaving. When he is available he plays, that's all there is to it." Bale came close to a move to Chinese club Jiangsu Suning last summer after Zidane said it would be "best for everyone" if he left Real Madrid.
But the deal fell through at the last minute due .

Zidane dismisses speculation over Bale's future at Real Madrid

Bulgaria must play their next home game behind closed doors and have been handed a fine of 75,000 euros after racist chanting by supporters marred their Euro 2020 qualifier against England earlier this month, UEFA said Tuesday.
The disciplinary arm of European football's governing body also ordered Bulgaria to play a second match behind closed doors, but that punishment is suspended for a "probationary period" of two years.
The punishment means Bulgaria will play their final Euro 2020 qualifier at home to the Czech Republic, on November 17, in an empty stadium.
UEFA also ordered Bulgaria to display a banner with the wording "No to racism" at their next two home games.
The Bulgarian FA was also fined an additional 10,000 euros for "causing a disturbance during a national anthem" prior to kick-off of the game in Sofia on October 14, which England won 6-0. The English FA was fined 5,000 euros for the same offence.
The match at the Vasil Levski Stadium was halted twice in the first half ..

Bulgaria to play game behind closed doors, fined after England racism

The Ukrainian army and separatists said on Tuesday that they were starting to withdraw their troops from a key frontline area in the war-torn east.
"The process of troop withdrawal began by both sides... in the area of Zolote-4," Ukraine's army said on Facebook.
Vladislav Deinego, representative of the separatist self-proclaimed Lugansk republic, also said the troop pullback in the area had begun.
Monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe confirmed the move.
"Today the sides have just resumed the withdrawal of troops and arms in Zolote," Martin Sajdik, an OSCE special representative, told journalists.
The pullback of troops is a top precondition for the first face-to-face talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, to be mediated by the leaders of France and Germany.
Since coming to power in May, comedian-turned-president Zelensky has sought to revive a peace process to end a five-year-old separatist conflict in eastern .

Rival Ukraine forces withdrawing from key frontline area

At least six Syrian regime fighters were killed as heavy clashes broke out Tuesday between the army and Turkish forces for the first time since Ankara attacked northeastern Syria three weeks ago, a war monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said artillery and machine-gun fire was exchanged near Assadiya, south of the border town of Ras al-Ain.
"Heavy fighting erupted for the first time between the Syrian and Turkish armies," the Britain-based monitoring group said.
The Turkish military and its Syrian proxies attacked Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria on October 9 with the aim of creating a roughly 30-kilometre (20-mile) deep buffer zone.
"Turkish artillery fire killed five regime forces in battles on the edge of the village of Assadiya," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Observatory, told AFP.
He added that the pro-Ankara fighters being used by Turkey as the main ground force for the invasion executed a government soldier they had captured.
Kurdish forces earlier ...

Six Syria soldiers killed in first border clash with Turkey

Sri Lanka will accept a USD 480 million dollar grant from the US to improve infrastructure and traffic management, officials said Tuesday, after president Maithripala Sirisena withdrew his opposition.
"This is a great victory for the government and augurs well for the future," Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said in a statement after the cabinet formally approved accepting the Millennium Challenge Corporation Grant.
The US had withheld the funds last year after Sirisena sacked his former ally, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and called snap elections, prompting a constitutional standoff.
Sirisena's shock move -- which followed a host of personality and political clashes since they formed a coalition in 2015 -- was later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which restored Wickremesinghe's government.
But tensions between the two remained and Sirisena had resisted signing off on the funds, which the government had been banking on to improve traffic in the congested ...

Sri Lanka secures USD 480 mn US grant a year after coup

Olympic boxing officials will trial a new, more transparent judging system this week as the sport fights to "regain trust" after scandals that nearly saw it kicked out of the Games.
The new system, where judges' scoring is updated in real time on a screen, will be tested at the Ryogoku Kokugikan sumo stadium, where the Tokyo 2020 boxing competition will be held.
Amateur boxing body AIBA was stripped of the right to organise the Olympic competition, and replaced with a special taskforce, after a series of problems including a major judging scandal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Boxing is "on the verge of the crisis of elimination from the Olympics", Morinari Watanabe, a Japanese Olympic Committee official who heads the taskforce, said on Tuesday.
"We have to regain trust. That's the top priority," said the 60-year-old, who heads the International Gymnastics Federation.
Watanabe was tapped for the role after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended recognition of AIBA after an ...

Olympic boxing trials new judging system to 'regain trust'

A hackers group linked to Moscow has targeted sporting and anti-doping organisation across the world with "significant" cyberattacks as anti-doping authorities mull new allegations against Russia.
Microsoft said that it had tracked "significant cyberattacks originating from a group we call Strontium, also known as Fancy Bear/APT28, targeting anti-doping authorities and sporting organisations around the world."
The attacks began on September 16 and took aim at least 16 international sporting and anti-doping agencies on three continents, according to Microsoft's customer security vice president Tom Burt.
The latest cyberattacks involve spear-phishing and password spray, exploit internet-connected devices and use both open-source and custom malware, Microsoft said.
"Some of these attacks were successful, but the majority were not," Burt said in an official Microsoft blog.
WADA is reviewing allegations that Russia manipulated data from the Moscow laboratory at the centre of the ...

Moscow-linked hackers hit anti-doping agencies: Microsoft

Fifteen Buddhist pilgrims including a monk were killed after their flatbed truck plunged off a 300-metre (1,000 feet) cliff in eastern Myanmar, police said Tuesday, blaming faulty brakes.
The accident happened Monday evening in Shan state as the truck carrying 25 people was returning from a Buddhist festival.
Police officer Myint Soe told AFP the cause of the crash was brake failure as the vehicle rounded a turn.
"Fifteen people were found dead while 10 were severely injured," he said, adding that the steep and challenging terrain made for a risky overnight search for victims.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar sees thousands of people travel widely on journeys to religious festivals and pagodas during summer.
But poorly maintained vehicles are often go-to options for cheap travel and the country lags behind others in the region on road construction and safety enforcement.

Fifteen Myanmar pilgrims killed as truck plunges off cliff

Argentina's Rafael Grossi was elected on Tuesday to head the UN's nuclear watchdog, which is tasked in particular with monitoring the implementation of the increasingly shaky Iran nuclear deal.
Grossi beat Romanian diplomat Cornel Feruta to become director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) following the death of the former head Yukiya Amano of Japan in July.
The election of Grossi, Argentinia's ambassador to the IAEA, comes at a critical time for the Vienna-based agency as Iran is decreasing its commitments under the 2015 landmark deal.
US President Donald Trump last year withdrew from the agreement and proceeded to re-introduce sanctions, leaving Iran to press the remaining signatories to hold up economic benefits in return for its nuclear programme cutbacks.
Grossi received 24 votes to Feruta's 10 from the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors in the third official round of voting, reaching the two-thirds majority needed to become the new director general, ...

Argentina's Grossi elected head of UN's nuclear watchdog

Washington's sanctions against Tehran have drastically constrained its ability to pay for humanitarian imports and are threatening the health rights of Iranians, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year and reimposed punishing sanctions as part of a stated campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic republic.
Officially, the punitive measures make exceptions for food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, but most companies are unwilling to do any trade with Iran for fear of repercussions in the world's largest economy.
Trump "administration officials claim they stand with the Iranian people, but the overbroad and burdensome US sanctions regime is harming Iranian's right to health, including access to live-saving medicines", said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW.
"The comprehensive web of US sanctions has led banks and companies to pull back from humanitarian trade with Iran, ...

US sanctions threaten Iranians' right to health: HRW

Giant skeletons springing forth from asphalt roads are taking over streets in the Mexican capital as the city gets ready to celebrate the festive and deeply spiritual Day of the Dead.
The sculptures - built out of cardboard and rocks salvaged from a construction site in Mexico City's southern Tlahuac neighborhood - were built by a group of artists ahead of the festival's climax later this week.
Day of the Dead celebrations began on Saturday with a parade of women dressed as "Catrina", a famous skeletal representation of death created by cartoonist Jose Guadalupe Posada in 1912.
The Day of the Dead festival, celebrated in Mexico on the first two days of November, is believed to be when the gateway separating the living and the deceased opens, allowing people to pay their respects to those who have died.
Mexicans visit cemeteries to pay respects to their late relatives, bringing them food and drinks in a centuries-old tradition mixing pre-Hispanic and Catholic beliefs.
The festival was .

Giant skeletons come alive in Mexico for Day of the Dead

Egyptian security forces killed 13 suspected militants in a raid in the restive North Sinai, the interior ministry said Tuesday.
Police raided a hideout in a deserted farm house in El-Arish, provincial capital of North Sinai, triggering a shootout, the ministry said in a statement.
Weapons including explosive devices, rifles and guns were found, it said, without giving the date of the operation.
Egypt has for years been fighting an insurgency in North Sinai that escalated after the military's 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi following mass protests.
The military has launched a nationwide offensive since February 2018 against Islamist militants focusing on North Sinai where a local affiliate of the Islamic State group is based.
Some 750 suspected jihadists and around 60 soldiers have since been killed, according to official figures.

Egypt says 13 militants killed in North Sinai

Carmaking heavyweights General Motors, Toyota and Fiat Chrysler have backed President Donald Trump's efforts to ban California from maintaining its own stricter standards on car emissions, the auto giants have confirmed.
The announcement is the latest salvo in a months-long battle over car pollution between the White House and the US state, whose Democratic leaders have made fighting climate change a priority.
California -- which has some of the most polluted cities in the country -- has used tough emissions standards to improve air quality and become a model for green tech.
But Washington stripped the state of its decades-old right to set its own car pollution regulations in September, arguing that higher standards depressed the new car market and kept older and more unsafe vehicles on the road.
California responded by suing the Trump administration to block the move, alongside nearly two dozen other US states.
The three automakers announced Monday that they would support Washington .

GM, Toyota, Chrysler back Trump on auto emissions

People with psychiatric disorders may want to pass on the joint -- at least until further research is done, a new Australian study suggests.
The paper, published Monday in The Lancet Psychiatry, looked at 83 previous studies conducted over almost four decades on medical cannabinoids, including products from the cannabis plant, such as leaves, buds and oils.
The authors found little evidence that the products were safe and effective in treating six common disorders: depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis.
Cannabis and cannabinoids are increasingly being made available for medicinal use in North America, Britain and Australia without undergoing standard testing, lead author Louisa Degenhardt told AFP.
"One of the most striking things about the spread of legislation in multiple countries permitting cannabis/cannabinoids for medicinal purposes is that this is in many instances happening outside of the .

Poor evidence cannabis improves mental health: study

Grieving relatives tossed flowers into the sea Tuesday where an Indonesian Lion Air jet crashed a year ago, killing all 189 on board, after a final accident report pointed to plane design flaws as a key factor in the disaster.
Indian national Bhavye Suneja, the pilot of the plane, was also killed in the crash.
The crash on October 29 last year was followed months later by a second accident -- involving the same model Boeing 737-Max aircraft -- when an Ethiopian Airlines plane went down with 157 people aboard, leading to the global grounding of the US planemaker's entire MAX fleet.
Tuesday's ceremony was closed to media, but video footage supplied by relatives showed victims' family members praying and casting flowers into the Java Sea where the plane dived moments after takeoff from Jakarta.
Some were stoic, but others broke down as they remembered loved ones, with women in Lion Air flight attendant uniforms seen embracing grief-stricken relatives.
"I hope that a year since the ...

Mass prayer at sea on first anniversary of Indonesia jet crash

A damaging 30-month-old dispute between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours "is no longer acceptable" and must be resolved, Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah said Tuesday.
Addressing the opening session of parliament's new term, Sheikh Sabah said the Saudi-led boycott has greatly weakened the unity of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in which Qatar and its foes are members.
GCC members Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in addition to Egypt, imposed a sea, land and air boycott of Qatar in June 2017 accusing it of ties to radical groups. Doha has repeatedly denied the allegations.
"It is no longer acceptable or bearable for the dispute that erupted between our GCC brethren to continue," Sheikh Sabah, 90, told parliament in his first public appearance since travelling abroad for medical treatment in early September.
Sheikh Sabah, who has been acting as a mediator to resolve the dispute, said the "row has weakened our capabilities and threatened our ...

Gulf dispute unacceptable, must be resolved: Kuwaiti emir

Britain's main opposition Labour party said Tuesday it would support Prime Minister Boris Johnson's call for a December election, although the date remains to be fixed.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the EU's decision to delay Brexit had met his demand to remove the threat of a disorderly divorce, and "we will now launch the most ambitious and radical campaign for real change our country has ever seen".

UK's opposition Labour party agrees to December election

A powerful earthquake struck the southern Philippines Tuesday, killing six people, cracking buildings and injuring dozens in a region still reeling from a previous deadly tremor.
Terrified locals ran into the streets after the 6.6-magnitude quake, which hit the island of Mindanao as schools and offices opened for the day.
The shaking lasted up to a minute in some areas, damaging homes, multi-storey buildings and classrooms in a region where hundreds are still displaced by a quake that killed at least five earlier this month.
The Philippines suffers regular tremors as part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
A teenage boy was crushed by a falling wall as he tried to escape his school in Magsaysay, the town spokesman told AFP. Though other students were injured in a "stampede" to escape the building, they survived.
Rock and landslides unleashed by the violent shaking killed four .

AFP

AFP

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