Leaders of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) gather Tuesday in Vienna as they reel from heavy losses in Sunday's elections and corruption scandals hanging over the party intensify.
The man at the centre of those scandals, its former leader Heinz-Christian Strache, has invited journalists to a "personal statement" on Tuesday morning as speculation mounts that he will be suspended or even expelled from the party.
Voters delivered a stinging rebuke to the FPOe, which plunged 10 points to 16 percent in the aftermath of May's so-called "Ibiza-gate" affair.
That scandal brought down Strache and saw the FPOe's government with the centre-right People's Party (OeVP) collapse.
Since the result on Sunday evening, one grim-faced FPOe politician after another has toured the TV studios to make clear that the party needs a spell in opposition to put its house in order -- a process that may well mean the knives are out for Strache.
On Monday evening the leader of the party in Upper Austria ...

Knives out among Austria's far-right after poll rout

PTI Automatic

Donald Trump asked Australia to "assist" in discrediting a Russia investigation that has clouded his presidency, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison admitting Tuesday that he agreed to help.
An Australian government spokesperson confirmed Trump asked Morrison to investigate issues raised in Robert Mueller's probe -- which concluded that Russia tried to swing the 2016 election in the Republican's favour.
The official said Australia "has always been ready to assist and cooperate with efforts that help shed further light on the matters under investigation".
"The PM confirmed this readiness once again in conversation with the President."
The revelation will fuel allegations Trump is using the power of the Oval Office and risking long-standing relationships with allies for his own political ends.
He is already facing impeachment for asking Ukraine's leader to investigate his potential election rival, former vice president Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.
Mueller's probe concluded in March and 

Trump asked Australia for help discrediting Russia probe

Papua New Guinea's volatile Ulawun volcano erupted early Tuesday, sending a column of red lava shooting up into the sky and forcing the evacuation of recently returned residents.
Mount Ulawun, situated on the remote Bismarck Archipelago chain, displaced between 7,000 and 13,000 people from their homes when it last erupted in June.
Seismic activity started at midday on Monday before the volcano erupted at about 4:30am Tuesday, according to Rabaul Volcano Observatory assistant director Ima Itikarai.
"It was noiseless and in the dark just before dawn; the eruption was visible (with) a distinct shard (of) red incandescent glow shooting up less than 100 metres from the base," he told AFP.
As light dawned, billowing clouds of grey ash could be seen rising several hundred metres into the sky, he said, while local Chris Lagisa said residents could hear the noise of gushing gas and flowing lava.
Ulamona Volcano Observatory staffer Herman Volele said ash falls could affect Kimbe, the nearby ...

Residents flee after Papua New Guinea volcano erupts

Asian markets mostly rose Tuesday after Wall Street finished a volatile quarter on a positive note, while China began a week-long break to celebrate the 70th birthday of the People's Republic.
Following Wall Street's lead, Tokyo climbed 0.7 per cent, helped by a drop in the yen and as investors shrugged off a Japanese survey that showed business confidence continued falling.
Buyer sentiment got a boost from comments from the Trump administration denying the likelihood of potential new US restrictions on Chinese investment, analysts said.
"US stocks rebounded and the dollar topped 108 yen" in a positive development for Japanese exporters, Seiichi Suzuki, senior market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute, told AFP.
Taipei and Singapore both jumped 1.0 per cent and gains were also seen in Wellington and Seoul. Manila and Bangkok were both down by around half a percent while Jakarta was flat.
Investors are looking ahead to the resumption of talks between Beijing and Washington this .

Tokyo leads Asian market gains in holiday trade

Six people were feared trapped after a bridge collapsed onto a row of fishing vessels in northeastern Taiwan, the National Fire Agency said Tuesday, as it launched a rescue operation.
"As of 1:00 pm (0500 GMT), 10 people and two coastguard personnel were injured and there could be six more people who are still trapped in fishing boats. The rescue operation is ongoing," the agency said in a statement.

Rescuers fear six people may be trapped in Taiwan bridge collapse

Australia's central bank on Tuesday lowered the cost of borrowing, slashing interest rates for the third time this year amid fears about the flagging domestic economy.
The Reserve Bank of Australia announced it had cut rates by another 25 basis points to 0.75 per cent, a decision that brings the country's interest rates to a historic new low.
The move is part of efforts to extend a record 28-year run without a recession, in the face of increasing economic headwinds that include stagnant employment levels, low wage growth and high household debt.
Resource-rich Australia dodged the worst of the financial crisis but the economy recently recorded its weakest annual growth in a decade, expanding just 1.4 per cent in the year to June.
RBA governor Philip Lowe said the decision to lower the cash rate was designed to "support employment and income growth and to provide greater confidence that inflation will be consistent with the medium-term target".
"The economy still has spare capacity and .

Australia's central bank cuts rates to new record low

Peru's president dissolved parliament and called for fresh elections Monday, prompting a vote by lawmakers to suspend him, deepening a long-running institutional crisis.
The announcement by President Martin Vizcarra came after he warned Congress he would dissolve the body if it continued to block a raft of anti-corruption reforms and changes to the way judges are appointed to the country's Supreme Court.
Shortly after his televised statement, Congress voted to suspend Vizcarra for one year on the grounds of "moral incapacity" and nominated Vice President Mercedes Araoz as acting head of state.
The chamber will meet Friday to consider a motion to dismiss Vizcarra, House Speaker Pedro Olaechea said.
"We are facing a coup d'etat," opposition legislator Jorge del Castillo said of Vizcarra's move. "I hope the armed forces and the police will stay out of this charade."
This crisis is the culmination of a political dispute running for several years in Peru.
Vizcarra has repeatedly clashed ...

Peru president dissolves parliament, calls fresh elections

South African great AB de Villiers will make his debut in Australia's Twenty20 Big Bash League during the 2019-20 season after signing with Brisbane Heat, the team announced on Tuesday.
The 35-year-old prolific batsman will join the Heat for the second half of the eight-team competition that runs from December to February.
Coach Darren Lehmann said he was "over the moon" to have the opportunity to work with de Villiers for the first time.
"World class players don't just come along every day and to have a player of AB's stature and skill in the BBL is a fantastic outcome for everyone, not just the Heat," he said.
"He's a 360-degree player, great skills, outstanding temperament and an insightful leader."
De Villiers played 114 Tests, 228 one-dayers and 78 Twenty20s in a 14-year career for the Proteas before retiring from international cricket in 2018.
He starred for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in this year's Indian Premier League, scoring 442 runs at an average of 44.20 with a rapid 

AB de Villiers to make Big Bash debut with Brisbane Heat

Antoine Griezmann said he knew it would be tough settling in at Barcelona but it may have proven harder than he thought.
Barca play at home to Inter Milan on Wednesday looking for lift-off in the Champions League after a goalless draw against Borussia Dortmund made for an underwhelming start to their latest bid for success in Europe.
Griezmann also has something to prove after two steady but unspectacular months, elevated by moments rather than the consistency  Ernesto Valverde would have hoped for when the Frenchman's 120-million euro release clause was activated last summer.
"Against Bilbao he was not as involved as we would like," Valverde said at the start of the season.
"But it is also up to the team to allow our strikers to participate more."
When Griezmann scored twice in the next game, against Real Betis, before tossing glitter above his head at Camp Nou, it felt like he had made his big introduction and not just because of the theatrics.
But five La Liga games have since ...

Griezmann attempting to find his feet on rocky ground at Barca

Athletics coach Alberto Salazar, who has guided star Olympic athletes such as Mo Farah and Galen Rupp, has been slapped with a four-year ban after being found guilty of doping violations.
The decision to ban the 61-year-old from the sport comes after a four-year investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency and prolonged battle behind closed doors.
USADA also said Jeffrey Brown, a Texas endocrinologist who treated many of Salazar's athletes, has also been given a four-year suspension.
In announcing the bans, USADA praised the athletes for speaking out.
"The athletes in these cases found the courage to speak out and ultimately exposed the truth," said USADA chief executive Travis Tygart.
"While acting in connection with the Nike Oregon Project, Mr. Salazar and Dr. Brown demonstrated that winning was more important than the health and wellbeing of the athletes they were sworn to protect."
USADA said in the statement that two, three-member arbitration panels had determined ...

Track coach Salazar hit with four-year doping ban

Antonio Conte has returned to Italian football in style with Inter Milan flying high under his back-to-basics guidance, ahead of a Champions League trip to Barcelona that will test the Serie A leaders' continental credentials.
Conte's side stretched their perfect league start to six wins from six for the first time in 53 years at the weekend with a 3-1 win at Sampdoria that came despite having to play most of the second half a man down.
They are two points ahead of fierce rivals Juventus as they await a top-of-the-table clash at the San Siro on Sunday.
Meanwhile Inter head for Catalonia on Wednesday off the back of a shaky start in Group F, a 1-1 draw against Slavia Prague salvaged late after a below-par performance that contrasted sharply with their domestic form.
Conte -- reportedly the highest-paid coach in Italy with a salary of 10 million euros (USD 10.8m) a year -- believes his side are flourishing because he simplifies the game.
"I am a coach who always gives a precise idea of .

Conte's back-to-basics style paying off at Inter ahead of Barca trip

Mariya Lasitskene completed a superb hat-trick of high jump titles at the World Championships in Doha.
The 26-year-old, who is one of only 30 Russian athletes allowed to compete in Doha under the authorised neutral athlete banner, took gold ahead of Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh on Monday.
Lasitskene, the 2015 and 2017 champion, claimed victory after clearing a height of 2.04m to win on countback ahead of Mahuchikh.
Vashti Cunningham of the United States took bronze.
"Today I really struggled for every jump," Lasitskene said.
"It was like in a fairytale to get a third world title. My whole country expected me to be on the podium. I had to cope with this pressure."
The win marked another career milestone for Lasitskene, who has dominated international high-jumping in recent years.
Lasitskene was barred from the 2016 Olympics after Russia was banned from the games over the country's doping scandal.
But Lasitskene has since been allowed to compete as a neutral athlete, a status handed to 

Lasitskene seals high jump hat-trick

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer jealously lauded the killer touch of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after the Arsenal striker secured a 1-1 draw for the Gunners at Old Trafford.
A return of just nine points from their opening seven games is United's worst league start for 30 years and leaves them already 12 points behind leaders Liverpool in 10th.
Solskjaer's side have not scored more than one goal since the opening weekend of the season, while Aubameyang took his tally for the season to eight in eight games, seven of which have come in the Premier League.
"It's another game that we are 1-0 up," said Solskjaer. "1-0 at Southampton, 1-0 up at Wolves, we need to learn to win these games.
"We go 1-0 up and then we don't get the second goal that we want to get. That's the learning now for this time. Be more cynical, clinical."
Aubameyang's equaliser just before the hour mark was only awarded after a VAR review with the Gabon international initially wrongly flagged ...

Solskjaer demands more clinical Man Utd after Arsenal snatch draw

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's second-half strike, awarded by VAR, denied Manchester United a much-needed win to kickstart their season as Arsenal emerged from Old Trafford with a 1-1 draw.
Scott McTominay's stunning strike to give United the lead was a rare moment of quality in a poor first-half on Monday.
However, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men could not hold out for all three points as Aubameyang's goal just before the hour mark was allowed to stand despite the Gabon international being initially flagged offside.
United have now won just two of their last 12 Premier League games dating back to last season and sit 12 points adrift of leaders Liverpool just seven games into the campaign.
A point is enough to edge Arsenal back into the top four on goal difference and maintain their three-point advantage over United, who move up to 10th.
For many years the clashes between these sides were the Premier League's marquee fixtures. United and Arsenal were the champions of England for nine ...

Aubameyang denies Man Utd morale-boosting win over Arsenal

Karsten Warholm enjoyed the moment of defending his world 400 metres hurdles title but said "crazy times" lie ahead when he will be hunted down by "great opponents".
The charismatic 23-year-old Norwegian -- who in 2017 became his country's first world champion since Inge Kristiansen in 1987 --  won impressively.
He put clear space between himself and  the other two athletes in the final -- Rai Benjamin of the United States and Qatar's Abderrahman Samba -- who had broken the magical 47 second mark.
Warholm, who had come out pumped for the race bellowing when his name was announced and pumping his fists, said the conmfortable nature of his win did not make him complacent about the future challenges he faced at the Olympics next year.
"With these great opponents, every one of them sub-47 I am going to have to work work very hard," he said.
"These guys are going to hunt me.
"Crazy times ahead and I am not going to sleep!"
Warholm, who smashed the European record when he went under 47sec ..

Crowd-pleasing Warholm prepares for 'crazy times' ahead

A more than 600-square-mile iceberg broke off Antarctica in recent days, but the event is part of a normal cycle and is not related to climate change, scientists say.
The iceberg, dubbed D28, broke away from the Amery ice shelf between September 24 and 25, according to observations from European and American satellites.
It measures 1,582 square kilometers (610 square miles), according to the European Copernicus program.
It is about 210 meters (yards) thick and contains 315 billion tonnes of ice, American glaciologist Helen Amanda Fricker said.
The figures are huge, but iceberg production is part of the normal cycle of ice shelves, which are an extension of the ice cap, she said.
"Ice shelves have to lose mass because they gain mass. They want to stay the same size," said Fricker, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.
The gain in mass comes from snow falling on the continent and glaciers that move slowly toward the shore.
The east of ...

Massive iceberg breaks off Antarctica - but it's normal

Superstar singer Jessye Norman, an American soprano who showcased her majestic yet intimate voice at opera houses and orchestras around the world, has died, her family said. She was 74 years old.
One of the contemporary era's most revered opera singers, the Grammy-winner died "surrounded by loved ones" at a New York hospital due to septic shock and multi-organ failure, the result of complications from a spinal cord injury sustained in 2015, according to a statement obtained by AFP via a spokeswoman.
"We are so proud of Jessye's musical achievements and the inspiration that she provided to audiences around the world that will continue to be a source of joy," said her family.
Born September 15, 1945 in Augusta, Georgia, Norman grew up surrounded by music as one of five children in a family of amateur artists.
She made a foray into gospel at age four, and as a young girl began listening to radio broadcasts of performances at the Metropolitan Opera, where she would go on to star.
"I don't 

Global opera legend Jessye Norman dies at 74: family

President Donald Trump asked Australia's prime minister to help US Attorney General Bill Barr gather information for an inquiry intended to discredit the Mueller investigation, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The newspaper, citing two unidentified US officials, said the request was made during a recent telephone call between Trump and the Australian leader, Scott Morrison.
The Times said the White House restricted access to the transcript of the call in a manner similar to what was done with Trump's recent call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
That call -- during which Trump asked Zelensky to open an investigation into his potential 2020 Democratic presidential opponent Joe Biden -- has led to the opening of an impeachment inquiry in the Democratic-led House of Representatives.
The US Justice Department is conducting an inquiry into the origins of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election -- a ...

Trump asked Australian PM to help discredit Mueller: NYTimes

Legendary Mexican singer Jose Jose's legions of fans had not even finished processing the news of his death when a mystery exploded amid the mourning: where is the body of "The Prince of Song"?
Jose Romulo Sosa Ortiz, a superstar singer of Latin love songs better known by his stage name, Jose Jose, died Saturday at age 71 outside Miami, according to the Mexican government.
Emotional fans were still belting out his classic hits through tears in Claveria, his native Mexico City neighborhood, when the loss took a telenovela-like turn: Jose Jose's two oldest children, Jose Joel and Marysol, accused their younger half-sister and her mother of hiding his body.
When Jose Joel and Marysol, whose mother was the second of Jose Jose's three wives, arrived Sunday at the funeral home where they thought his wake would be held, they were told their father's body was not there.
They said their father's third wife, Sara Salazar, and her daughter Sarita refused to tell them where it is or what the ...

Late Mexican superstar Jose Jose's body goes missing

India's foreign minister on Monday defended his country's right to buy a missile defense system from Russia despite the threat of sanctions from the United States.
On a visit to Washington, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said India was discussing the US concerns but declined to forecast the ultimate decision on the fate of the S-400 purchase from Russia.
"We have always maintained that what we buy -- the sourcing of military equipment -- is very much a sovereign right," he told reporters ahead of a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
"We would not like any state to tell us what to buy or not to buy from Russia any more than we would like any state to tell us to buy or not buy from America," he said.
"That freedom of choice is ours and we think it's in everybody's interest to recognize that," he said.
India, a Cold War ally of the Soviet Union, last year agreed to buy five S-400 systems for $5.2 billion, and Russia has said that delivery is on track.
Under a 2017 law, the ...

India defends right to buy Russian arms on US trip

President Donald Trump attacked the Democratic lawmaker spearheading the impeachment inquiry on Monday as congressional committees subpoenaed his personal lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, for documents related to his dealings with Ukraine.
As Trump lashed out at Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, suggesting he should be arrested for "treason," a new poll showed a growing number of Americans support removing the president from office for abuse of power.
Trump also attacked the whistleblower whose complaint about his phone call with the leader of Ukraine led to the opening of the impeachment probe in the Democratic-led House of Representatives last week.
"We are trying to find out about a whistleblower, when you have a whistleblower that reports things that were incorrect," the president told reporters in the Oval Office.
The whistleblower, reportedly a CIA officer, raised concerns in a report to his or her superiors about the July 25 phone call during which Trump asked ...

AFP

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