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 ...

Trump attacks Democrats, Giuliani subpoenaed for Ukraine documents

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A San Francisco tour operator was charged with spying for China after FBI investigators watched him undertake multiple "dead drops" of money and SD memory cards with sensitive information, the Justice Department said Monday.
Edward Peng Xuehua, a naturalized US citizen, was arrested in Hayward, California on Friday and was ordered held without bond, the department said.
He was charged initially with acting as an illegal foreign agent for "delivering classified United States national security information to officials of the People's Republic of China's Ministry of State Security." Peng, 56, was exposed by what court filings said was a "double agent operation" targeting the MSS, China's national intelligence arm.
The FBI passed classified information to MSS agents using the US double agent, who was paid for the information.
The operation led them to Peng, who in 2015 was seen picking up a SD card with US secrets that the double agent had been told by her Chinese "handlers" to leave ...

San Francisco tour operator charged with spying for China

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday scoffed at sanctions imposed by the European Union and accused Brussels of doing US President Donald Trump's bidding.
"I don't care about the European Union sanctions, the sanctions of the European Union make us laugh," Maduro told a press conference, saying the EU was "sinking in the mud of Donald Trump's failed Venezuela policy."
The EU imposed sanctions on Friday on seven Venezuelan intelligence and security officials on charges they tortured to death Rafael Acosta, a naval officer accused of plotting a coup.
Europe's sanctions came a day after US President Donald Trump tightened American sanctions on Maduro's regime, suspending senior members of the Venezuelan government from entering the United States.
EU ambassadors approved the sanctions on Wednesday as the bloc seeks to keep up pressure on Maduro. The punitive measures impose European travel bans and asset freezes.
Venezuela is caught in an economic crisis and a political standoff .

Maduro scoffs at EU sanctions

House Democratic leaders on Monday slapped Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani with a subpoena to turn over Ukraine-related documents as part of an accelerating formal presidential impeachment probe.
"Pursuant to the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry, we are hereby transmitting a subpoena that compels you to produce the documents set forth in the accompanying schedule by October 15, 2019," wrote House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff and the chairs of two other panels conducting investigations.
The chairmen are seeking all communications by Giuliani and three other attorneys related to Trump's effort -- now at the heart of impeachment proceedings -- to pressure Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch "politically-motivated investigations" against 2020 White House hopeful Joe Biden and his son.

House subpoenas Trump lawyer Giuliani for docs in impeachment probe

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that Caracas would not tolerate the presence of Colombian rebels on its territory, after Bogota gave the UN alleged evidence of its support for leftist guerrillas.
"We don't accept any armed groups, of any badge, on Venezuelan territory. This is an order I've given to the armed forces," Maduro told a news conference in Caracas.
He said the order was "fully" carried out during recent military exercises involving thousands of Venezuelan forces that heightened tensions with its neighbor.
Bogota has long accused Maduro's socialist regime of giving leftist rebels a refuge, and last week, Colombian President Ivan Duque said he gave the United Nations photographic evidence that Venezuela was sheltering ELN rebels and FARC dissidents.
However, some of the photos in the 128 page dossier -- including one purportedly showing guerrillas indoctrinating children in Venezuela's Tachira state -- were found to have been taken in Colombia.
"Duque was a ..

Venezuela's Maduro denies sheltering Colombian rebels

A woman was killed and dozens detained in a Kurdish-run camp in northeast Syria holding families of Islamic State group jihadists, a Kurdish official said.
Security incidents have been on the rise in the crowded camp of Al-Hol, which houses families of IS fighters among its 70,000 residents, with foreign women and their children separated from Syrian and Iraqi inhabitants.
"One woman was killed and six others were wounded in the sector reserved for foreign women," an official of the Kurdish administration in semi-autonomous northeast Syria told AFP, declining to be named.
He said security forces detained 40 women from the foreigners' section at the camp.
According to the source, IS women who had set up "courts" to try their peers had stabbed to death a woman whom the camp's security personnel had been trying to rescue.
But local Kurdish news agency Anha gave a different account.
It said that an intervention by the security forces in the foreigners' section triggered an exchange of ...

Woman killed, dozens detained in Syria camp: Kurd source

Sudan's prime minister has met a senior Darfur rebel leader living in France, President Emmanuel Macron said Monday, hailing an "essential step" for peace in the troubled east African nation.
"We facilitated talks that Prime Minister (Abdalla) Hamdok had yesterday with Abdulwahid Nur, who is in our country," Macron said at a press conference with Hamdok after discussions in Paris.
"I think the step taken yesterday is an essential step," he added.
"The Sudanese deserve to finally live in peace and security." Nur, who is exiled in France, leads the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA/AW), which does not recognise Hamdok's government, which is tasked with leading the country's transition to civilian rule.
Hamdok said that his meeting with Nur, which he had expected to last 30 minutes, went on for nearly three hours and involved "very profound exchanges".
"We discussed the roots of the Sudanese crisis and possibilities for a solution and... we are going to lay the first stones for this edifice .

Sudan PM meets Darfur rebel chief in 'essential' step to peace: Macron

Suspected jihadists staged twin attacks Monday on two Malian military posts near the border with Burkina Faso, killing two civilians and burning 22 vehicles, local officials and the army said.
The camps at Mondoro and Boulkessy in central Mali "were attacked this morning... by terrorists", the Malian armed forces said in a tweet.
"Armed jihadists came at night to Mondoro. They went to the command post of the camp... and fired. The army withdrew. The jihadists' fire killed two civilians and wounded three," a local official said.
"The assailants made off with two vans filled with ammunition, two camels and 12 cows," the official added.
The other camp at Boulkessy -- run by the Malian army and G5 Sahel, a five-nation joint taskforce created in 2014 to try to tackle jihadist violence in the region -- was attacked by suspected members of the Ansarul Islam outfit, the G5 said in a statement.
They came on "several vehicles loaded with heavy arms and on motorbikes," it said, without giving ...

Two killed as jihadists attack Mali military posts

- S House Republican Chris Collins, President Donald Trump's first supporter in Congress, is resigning his seat, a leadership spokesman said Monday ahead of the lawmaker's expected guilty plea to federal securities fraud.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office is "in receipt of a letter of resignation," a senior Democratic aide told AFP. The resignation takes effect Tuesday.
Collins was indicted last year for using privileged information about an Australian biotech firm, on whose board he sat, to help his son avoid major financial losses before the company's stock plunged in value.
The 69-year-old lawmaker representing western New York narrowly won re-election in November 2018 despite the indictment hanging over him.
Collins, his son Cameron Collins and a third man were to be tried next February, and all were to plead not guilty.
But a document filed Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan showed that a change of plea would occur for all three men at a hearing Tuesday, The New York 

Republican Collins, early Trump backer, resigns from Congress

The Spanish government does not need a building permit to remove the remains of late dictator Francisco Franco from a grandiose mausoleum near Madrid, Spain's Supreme Court said in a ruling made public Monday rejecting an appeal against the exhumation by the late dictator's descendants.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist government has made moving Franco's remains from a basilica at the Valley of the Fallen near Madrid to a more discreet location a priority since it took office in June 2018, arguing the country could not "continue to glorify" the dictator who died in 1975.
It had initially planned to move his remains to a family tomb on June 10 but just days beforehand the Supreme Court suspended the exhumation pending the outcome of an appeal by Franco's heirs.
In addition, an administrative judge in February 2019 had suspended the building permit to begin work to remove the remains from the basilica.
But in a unanimous decision issued last Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided to 

No building permit needed for Franco exhumation, Spain's Supreme court rules

Russia on Monday said it was "bewildered" by fresh US sanctions and vowed to retaliate following what it called an "anti-Russian attack".
The foreign ministry said the new sanctions on several Russians  -- including a businessman tied to President Vladimir Putin and a disinformation operation accused of conspiring to manipulate the US 2018 midterm election -- "will not go unanswered."
"We urge American politicians to stop this useless sanctions game, the result of which is zero, and to return to the position of common sense," the ministry said in a statement.
The financial sanctions, which target Russian financier Evgeny Prigozhin, some of his assets and the so-called Internet Research Agency, are the first to be taken under an executive order signed last year President Donald Trump seeking to punish foreign actors accused of interfering in US elections.
The US Treasury announced the sanctions on Monday.
The foreign ministry said the sanctions were part of an "internal political ...

Moscow vows to retaliate over new 'anti-Russian' US sanctions

Canada is in talks with the United States to seek ways for both to reduce their dependance on China for rare earth elements, key minerals for high-tech products, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.
He said that in his last meeting with US President Donald Trump, "I highlighted that Canada has many of the rare earth minerals that are so necessary for modern technology."
Trudeau emphasized that Canada "is a solid ally" and can offer "a reliable supply" of rare earth minerals, many of which currently "come from China."
It is in Canada's interest, Trudeau said, "to ensure that we have reliable supplies of these important minerals for technologies and it is a conversation that our government is leading on."
The remarks followed a report in the Globe and Mail newspaper that Canada and the United States are drafting plans to reduce their mutual dependance on China for rare earth minerals such as lithium, uranium, cesium and cobalt.
China controls more than 90 percent of the world's ...

Canada, US seek to reduce dependency on China for rare earth minerals

Moroccan journalist Hajar Raissouni was sentenced in a Rabat court Monday to one year in jail for having had an "illegal abortion" and sexual relations outside marriage.
Her gynaecologist was given two years and her Sudanese fiance one year in prison, while an anaesthetist was handed a one-year suspended sentence and a medical assistant eight months, also suspended.
Lawyers for 28-year-old Raissouni had called for her acquittal during the trial, denying she had had an abortion.
"This trial had no foundation -- the accusations were baseless," said defence lawyer Abdelmoula El Marouri after the verdict.
A journalist for Akhbar Al-Yaoum -- an Arabic-language newspaper which has a history of run-ins with the authorities -- Raissouni was sentenced under Article 490 of the legal code of the Muslim kingdom.
That article punishes sexual relations out of wedlock, while the law also forbids all abortions unless the mother's life is in danger.
Meriem Moulay Rachid, lawyer for the convicted ...

Morocco journalist gets 1-year jail for 'illegal abortion'

Former US Army chief General Mark Milley became the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Monday, taking on the sensitive role as President Donald Trump's top military advisor.
"You can rest assured that I will always provide you informed, candid and impartial military advice," he said after being sworn in in Trump's presence.
In concluding remarks, Trump responded: "You're my friend, you're my advisor and you deserve this position. I never had a doubt."
A former ice hockey player, the 61-year-old Milley served in Iraq and Afghanistan and held major commands before becoming chief of staff of the army in 2015.
He is a graduate of Princeton University, earned a masters in international studies from Columbia University and attended MIT's National Security Studies Program.
He succeeds Marine General Joe Dunford, who was named chairman of the Joint Chiefs by former president Barack Obama in 2015 but kept by Trump for a second two-year term.
Milley benefits from a change in the law ..

General Mark Milley sworn in as Trump's top military advisor

A picture of a small parrot "locked up" in a Dutch police cell is giving new meaning to jailbird -- and on Monday attracted a flurry of chirpy comments on social media.
When police arrested the bird's owner on suspicion of shoplifting in the central Dutch city of Utrecht on Thursday, they found the little bird nestled on the suspect's shoulder.
Local law enforcement did not have a bird cage on hand while processing the man, so the feathered felon was promptly put in a Dutch police cell with a sandwich and water.
Police posted the picture of the lonely bird on Instagram. It was then reworked by a local news station which placed a black bar over its eyes "to protect its identity." "We recently arrested a suspect in shoplifting case," police said in the post.
"During the arrest we found a secret witness with feathers and a beak on the suspect's shoulder," police said.
"We then realised to our shock that we did not have a bird cell or cage," the police said tongue-in-cheek, adding that ...

Picture of Dutch 'jailbird' sparks social media storm

Qatar confidently promised there would be "no empty seats" when it first bid for the World Athletics Championships -- three days into the 2019 championships that promise rings as hollow as the Doha stadium.
One of the greatest athletes of all time, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, won a record fourth 100 metres title in front of a sparse crowd on Sunday with officials and friends and family of the athletes making up a large proportion of the spectators.
Although Doha hosts a Diamond League meeting, athletics has no real roots in Qatar and the decision to take the World Championships to the Gulf raised eyebrows.
Fans even left before local medal hope Abderrahman Samba had run his heat on Friday in the men's 400 metres hurdles.
It is not the image the International Association of Athletics Federations and its newly re-elected president Sebastian Coe -- who normally has a sure political touch -- would have wished for in the first championships since the sport's huge drawcard Usain Bolt retired ..

Empty seats present major headache to Qatar and Coe

Incoming European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is being forced to revise her executive line-up after candidates from Hungary and Romania failed to pass MEPs' muster Monday because of conflicts of interest.
A spokesman said it was now up to Budapest and Bucharest to put forward new candidates who are "verified -- both in terms of integrity and professional qualifications".
Hungary immediately responded by offering up an experienced diplomat, Oliver Varhelyi, to be its commissioner, giving up on rejected former justice minister Laszlo Trocsanyi who had been named to take on the EU enlargement portfolio.
A senior EU official said that, at first glance, Varhelyi "looks fine".
A question mark remained over Bucharest's choice to replace Rovana Plumb, a former labour minister who was meant to be EU transport commissioner.
Both Trocsanyi and Plumb were deemed unfit by the European Parliament's legal affairs committee, wielding new power it has to pre-vet some of the 26 commissioner ..

New EU chief forced to rejig incoming team after two rejected

Greece said Monday it wanted to start sending back thousands of migrants to Turkey, a day after a deadly fire sparked riots at an overcrowded camp on the island of Lesbos.
The decision, taken at an emergency cabinet meeting, came as officials in Greece and abroad called for action to ease the pressure on the crowded migrant camps spread across the Aegean islands.
Athens wants to return 10,000 migrants to Turkey by the end of 2020, the government statement said.
That would increase the rate from the "1,805 returned in the 4.5 years under the previous (left-wing) Syriza government", it added.
The conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has already announced more naval patrols in the Aegean, closed centres for migrants refused asylum, and plans to overhaul the asylum system, the statement added.
Greek officials also confirmed the death of a woman in Sunday's blaze at Moria, Europe's largest migrant camp, which has facilities for 3,000 people but houses around ...

Greece wants to return 10,000 migrants to Turkey after deadly camp fire

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 Prince of Song's body?
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 say their father's third wife, Sara Salazar, and her daughter, Sarita, have refused to tell them where it is or what they plan 

Mourning turns to mystery as Mexican singer Jose Jose's body 'disappears'

The UN and the mayor of Lesbos on Monday called for the immediate transfer of migrants from an overcrowded Greek refugee camp on the island after a deadly fire sparked riots.
Greek officials on Monday confirmed the death of a woman in Sunday's blaze at Moria, Europe's largest migrant camp, which houses around 13,000 people but has facilities for just 3,000.
However, Greek media reported that a burnt blanket possibly containing the charred remains of a baby had been found next to the woman, matching earlier police sources saying a mother and her child had died.
Another 17 injured migrants, two of them children, were transferred to a hospital on the island at Mytilene, the health ministry said Monday.
"Many refugees are so sad, they are stressed, they fear an accident can happen again," Farid, a young Afghan who did not give his last name, told AFP.
The incident came as migrant arrivals have been steadily climbing in recent months, creating dangerous conditions in the Greek island camps 

UN, Lesbos mayor urge migrant camp transfers after deadly fire

One crew member has been found dead and 10 others are still missing after a supply vessel operated by a French oil services group sank in hurricane conditions in the Atlantic, the ship's operator said on Monday.
The Luxembourg-flagged Bourbon Rhode, crewed mainly by Ukrainians, ran into difficulty in the Atlantic late last week as it ran into hurricane Lorenzo, and was later confirmed to have sunk.
A major search operation was then launched for the 14 people who were on board the tug supply vessel.
Three crew members who had made their way onto a lifeboat were rescued on Saturday.
The Bourbon Rhode's operator, French marine logistics group Bourbon, which provides services to oil rigs, said one body had now been found but the search was continuing for the other crew members.
"The body of the missing seafarer was located by one of the aircraft involved in the search and has been recovered by one of the five vessels that came to assist," Bourbon said.
"Rescue operations are continuing to 

AFP

AFP

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