Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday defended his position at the Constitutional Court, which is set to rule on the legality of his decision to dissolve parliament and call for early elections.
Zelensky was elected on a wave of popular support amid disillusionment with predecessor Petro Poroshenko. But the former comedian and political novice has struggled to work with lawmakers largely hostile to him.
He announced his intention to dissolve parliament in his inaugural speech on May 21 and signed a decree to this effect shortly afterwards.
As some political analysts called the move unconstitutional, several MPs appealed to the Constitutional Court to decide whether it was legal.
The tribunal has to make its decision by June 29, Zelensky's team said.
"Our legal position is indisputable and impeccable," Zelensky told the court.
"I think you will make a fair decision, which will not make us ashamed." Ukrainians have "no confidence" in parliament, he added.
Current lawmakers ..

Ukraine's Zelensky defends parliament dissolution in court

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Dozens of German "extinction rebellion" protesters Tuesday chained themselves to the fence of Angela Merkel's chancellery, demanding she declare a "climate emergency".
The activists sent the keys to unlock them to all 13 government ministries along with letters formulating their demands, including to effectively cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025.
"The current climate policy puts our future at risk," said one 17-year-old demonstrator who asked not to be named.
"We will have to bear the physical cost of today's inaction."
Another, who gave her name as Natalie, told AFP :"The goal today is to raise awareness about the climate catastrophe."
"We want the press and politicians to tell the truth about the climate crisis, and a state of climate emergency to be declared."
Together with some 50 supporters, the chained-up protesters chanted a slogan from the Fridays for Future rallies: "What do we want? Climate Justice! When do we want it? Now!"
Extinction Rebellion describes itself ..

Climate protesters chain themselves to Merkel's chancellery

Iran's conservative press Tuesday mocked the EU's position on a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Washington, accusing Germany's foreign minister of exhibiting both impotence and high-handedness during talks in Tehran.
Since US President Donald Trump quit the agreement in May last year, the European Union has repeatedly renewed its own commitment and pledged to reward Iran's compliance with the sanctions relief promised under the deal.
But its failure to find an effective mechanism to enable its firms to continue doing business following the reimposition of US sanctions has left Tehran increasingly frustrated.
And strong criticism by the EU last month of Iran's decision to retaliate by declaring itself no longer bound by some of its commitments has sparked further anger.
The ultra-conservative Javan newspaper ran a front-page cartoon depicting Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wearing a swastika armband, sporting a toothbrush moustache and performing a Nazi salute.
"The stinking leftovers of ..

Iran press slams German FM's defence of EU on nuclear deal

Botswana's High Court ruled Tuesday in favour of decriminalising homosexuality, handing down a landmark verdict greeted with joy by gay rights campaigners.
Under the country's 1965 penal code, homosexuality is punishable by a jail term of up to seven years.
But Judge Michael Elburu declared it was time to "set aside" the "provisions of a Victorian era" and ordered the laws be amended.
In a courtroom packed with activists, the judge declared that the current laws oppressed a minority of the population.
"There's nothing reasonable in discriminating," he said.
"We say the time has come that private, same sexuality must be decriminalised."
"It is a variety of human sexuality," he said.
Jubilation erupted in the courtroom as the decision was announced, and campaigners waved the rainbow flag of gay rights.
In Geneva, the UN agency UNAIDS added to the applause.
"This is a historic ruling for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Botswana," Gunilla Carlsson, UNAIDS' executive ...

Botswana scraps anti-gay laws in landmark decision

Scores of Hong Kong businesses have vowed to shut down for a day as anger builds over the government's push to allow extraditions to China, opponents on Tuesday announced plans for fresh protests and strikes.
The financial hub was rocked by a huge rally over the weekend -- the largest since the city's 1997 return to China -- as vast crowds called on the city's leaders to scrap the Beijing-backed plan.
Many are fearful the proposed law will tangle people up in the mainland's opaque courts and hammer Hong Kong's reputation as an international business hub.
Organisers of the march said more than a million hit the streets on Sunday.
But the record crowds have failed to sway chief executive Carrie Lam who has rejected calls to withdraw or delay the bill and warned opponents against committing "radical acts".
On Wednesday lawmakers will begin the next debate on the bill in the city's parliament, which is dominated by Beijing loyalists.
Officials say a final vote is not expected until at ...

Hong Kong businesses pledge closures as extradition anger builds

Hungarian police recovered more bodies on Tuesday as they lifted a sightseeing boat that sank in the river Danube in Budapest last month in an accident that has claimed at least 24 lives.
Police were seen removing another four bodies from the vessel while four people are still missing about two weeks after the tragedy, the worst such incident in Hungary in 75 years.
The lifting operation began at around 6 am (0400 GMT) and six hours later the Mermaid tourist boat was almost entirely out of the water.
Early on in the operation, police were seen by an AFP photographer at the site removing four bodies from the vessel.
Several dozen rescue workers could be seen taking part in the operation, including members of a team sent from South Korea.
The Mermaid was carrying mostly South Korean holidaymakers when it capsized and sank on the evening of May 29, just seconds after colliding with a bigger river cruise boat on a busy stretch of the river.
Those on board included a six-year-old girl ...

More bodies found as Hungary lifts sunken tourist boat from river

The Notre-Dame cathedral will host its first mass this weekend since a fire ravaged the Paris landmark almost two months ago, the city's diocese said Tuesday.
The mass -- led by Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit -- will be celebrated on a very small scale late Saturday, the diocese said.
It will take place in a "side chapel with a restricted number of people, for obvious security reasons," it said.
Just 20 people are expected to take part, including priests and canons from the cathedral.
The event will be broadcast live by a French television channel so that Christians from all over France can participate, the diocese added.
The date has been chosen as it is the anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral's altar, which is celebrated every year on June 16.
President Emmanuel Macron has set an ambitious target of five years for restoring the Notre-Dame, which was gutted by a fire on April 15 that felled its steeple.
The diocese is awaiting a response from the French authorities ..

Notre-Dame of Paris to celebrate first mass since fire

The EU's powerful anti-trust authority on Tuesday blocked the merger of German industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp with Indian steel giant Tata, an expected veto that kills the deal.
"We prohibited the merger to avoid serious harm to European industrial customers and consumers," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
The aim of the merger had been to create the second largest European steel company behind multinational giant ArcelorMittal and to join forces in the face of the surge of Chinese steel.
The companies last month abandoned the merger on expectations that the EU would refuse the deal, with Thyssenkrupp announcing it would slash 6,000 jobs as a result, mainly in Germany.
The commission, the EU's executive arm, criticised the merger, which "would have reduced competition and increased prices for different types of steel," a statement said.
Proposed solutions "did not offer adequate remedies to address these concerns," it said.
Having shelved the ..

EU blocks Thyssenkrupp-Tata steel merger plan

Moldova's President Igor Dodon on Tuesday annulled a decree to dissolve parliament, enforcing a standoff between two governments which insist on their claim to lead the eastern European country.
The poor ex-Soviet state, nestled between Romania and Ukraine, has been in political chaos since February when a general election failed to give a clear majority to any party.
At the weekend, parliament approved a new government built on an unprecedented coalition of pro-Russian and pro-European forces, which came together to freeze out the party of an influential oligarch.
But the Constitutional Court had already ordered fresh elections and it effectively blocked the new coalition by suspending Dodon and appointing a former prime minister as interim leader.
Ex-premier Pavel Filip, from the Democratic Party led by oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, used his short time as acting president to dissolve parliament and call snap elections for September.
But back in office Dodon cancelled the order.
"We ...

Moldova president refuses to dissolve parliament in standoff

DR Congo's health minister has declared an epidemic of measles, with the country already struggling to contain the outbreak of deadly Ebola disease since last August.
Medical teams have confirmed 677 cases of measles among 87,000 suspected cases in 23 provinces, Oly Ilunga Kalenga said in a statement Monday.
The tally represents a seven-fold increase on the same period in 2018, he added.
He urged parents to vaccinate their children.
In April, 2.24 million children aged between six and 59 months were vaccinated over four days, and another immunisation campaign covering 1.4 million children will be launched "in the coming days," he said.
"To stop the chain of measles transmission and prevent future epidemics, at least 95 per cent of the population have to be vaccinated," the minister said.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the east of the country, has claimed more than 1,300 lives since August 1.

DR Congo minister declares measles epidemic

Six people died when fire swept through a psychiatric hospital for war veterans in the Ukrainian city of Odessa, authorities said Tuesday.
The fire erupted late Monday evening in the one-storey building, Ukraine's emergency services said in a statement.
"Six people died and four have been hospitalised," the statement said. Nine other people escaped unharmed.
The facility provided mental health care for veterans of the Soviet Union's 1980s war in Afghanistan and World War II.
Police and emergency services did not immediately comment on whether the fire was started deliberately, but said it did not appear to have originated inside the building.
Paramedics continued to search the hospital after the fire had been extinguished, looking for any patients who could have been left behind, an AFP journalist said.
Bodies lay covered on the ground outside the brick building.
Fifty-seven firefighters on 12 fire engines fought to extinguish the blaze, emergency services reported.
Ukrainian ...

Six dead in fire at Ukraine psychiatric hospital

Disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell is facing fresh legal woes after being named in a civil suit alleging he failed to protect victims of a priest he knew was abusing children.
The civil case was filed in the Victoria state Supreme Court on Friday by a man who said he suffered abuse at the hands of Christian Brother Edward "Ted" Dowan when he was a student at a Melbourne college in the early 1980s, local media reported.
Pell, who was the episcopal vicar for education in the regional hub of Ballarat at the time, is accused of allowing Dowan to be moved from school to school despite allegedly having knowledge of his crimes.
"Pell has to answer not only for his own crimes but for crimes of other priests and brothers which he enabled by allowing them to be shuffled from school to school and parish to parish," The Australian newspaper quoted the victim's lawyer Michael Magazanik as saying.
The civil case names Pell, the Catholic Education Commission, Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird and ...

Pell faces new legal battle over failure to report abuse

Mexico will take "unprecedented steps" to stem the flow of Central American migrants transiting the country to the United States, including by deploying National Guard troops, the countries said in a joint statement Friday.
The announcement came as the US and Mexico hammered out a deal on migration to avoid punishing tariffs on all Mexican imports that US President Donald Trump had threatened to put into effect on Monday.
"Mexico will take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration, to include the deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border," the statement said.
Mexico would also target human smuggling and trafficking groups, the statement said.
Meanwhile, measures on the US side will include sending migrants who had applied for asylum back to Mexico to wait while their claims were being processed.

Mexico promises 'unprecedented steps' to curb migration in US deal: joint statement

US President Donald Trump said late on Friday that Washington had reached an agreement with Mexico on migration, and that the punishing tariffs he had been threatening were "indefinitely suspended."
"I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended," he said on Twitter.
"Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border.
This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States.

Trump says US, Mexico reach agreement on migration and tariffs 'indefinitely suspended'

Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi put out word Friday that he is tightening his grip on the wheel at the ride-share firm in the wake of a bumpy stock market debut.
The company's chief operating officer and head of marketing will leave in a leadership shake-up that will result in Uber's shared rides and food delivery platforms reporting directly to Khosrowshahi, according to a copy of an internal email provided to AFP.
Khosrowshahi credited the maturing of operations at the San Francisco-based company and the completion of its initial public offering last month with enabling him to make the management moves.
"I now have the ability to be even more involved in the day-to-day operations of our biggest businesses, the core platform of Rides and Eats, and have decided they should report directly to me," Khosrowshahi said in his message to employees.
"This will allow me to be more hands on and help our leaders problem-solve in real time, while also ensuring that we make our platform vision a ...

Uber chief tightens grip with top execs' departures

A group of American prosecutors pledged on Friday not to enforce strict abortion laws in response to attempts to tighten access to the procedure in parts of the United States.
The 42 elected prosecutors -- some of whom come from states that have restricted access, others from where the procedure remains easily available -- wrote that the new laws would "violate constitutional rights that have been the law of the land for nearly 50 years."
The lawyers added that "many of the laws are so vaguely written" anyone involved in the abortion process could be prosecuted.
The attorneys who signed the pledge come from 24 states and the US capital Washington, with 12 being statewide attorneys general and the rest being local elected prosecutors who can make their own charging decisions.
Access to abortion in the United States is governed by the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs Wade decision, which allows for conditions to be placed on the procedure only after the first trimester of pregnancy.
In ...

US prosecutors say they won't enforce strict abortion laws

Armed with better data than ever before, scientists have in recent months sounded the alarm over the rising pace of global warming and the parlous state of Nature.
But there is another area of concern, one that covers two thirds of the planet and plays a crucial role in absorbing dangerous greenhouse gases and regulating everything from food chains to weather patterns.
Oceans are crucial to life on Earth, yet they frequently only feature in the environment debate when plastic pollution or fish-stock declines are discussed.
But experts believe that might be changing.
"We have an important opportunity over the next 18 months to do something for oceans," said Dan Laffoley, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which released a landmark report in October 2018 warning of the effects of global temperature rises, will this September publish its latest assessment on the state of oceans.
"The IPCC report will .

Crucial to life, oceans get chance in climate spotlight

A senior official from Libya's UN-recognized government voiced confidence Friday over US support and called for greater diplomatic efforts by Washington as strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces try to seize Tripoli.
President Donald Trump in April sowed confusion when he spoke by telephone with Haftar -- who is backed by US allies such as the United Arab Emirates -- and praised his role in "fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources."
"Before I came here, there were a lot of rumours about the US not supporting our government," Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeq said after talks in Washington with lawmakers and the State Department.
"I'm coming back home with a different message -- that the US is standing by us as the legitimate government of Libya," he told reporters.
The State Department, however, was careful in its comments on the visit, which came as Haftar's two-month campaign is stalled on the outskirts of Tripoli after more than 600 people were killed.
A State Department 

Libya's UN-backed government sees US support

Huang Chao came to Mexico looking for business, not friends, but the Chinese sales manager says he found unexpected common ground with his prospective clients on one thing: Donald Trump "is crazy."
Chao, 31, was in Mexico City this week representing his textile company at a trade fair called Expo China HomeLife, whose goal is to connect Chinese suppliers with merchants in different countries around the world.
Mexico was set to be just another stop for the enormous expo -- until the US president threatened last week to impose five-percent tariffs on all Mexican imports.
The tariffs are due to start Monday and rise in monthly increments to 25 percent by October, unless Mexico slows the US-bound flow of undocumented migrants to Trump's satisfaction.
That effectively made Mexico the second major front after China in Trump's spiraling trade wars.
It also gave vendors and customers in Mexico City a new topic to discuss in stilted English as they brokered deals for mass quantities of home ...

AFP

AFP

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