Gunfire crackled in Sudan's capital in Khartoum as tensions remained high after a two-day crackdown leaves 60 dead

Gunfire echoes in Khartoum as protest crackdown leaves 60 dead

PTI Automatic

US President Donald Trump blames massive amount of drug use to justify the ban on transgenders in the Amercian Armed forces

Trump blames drug use for transgender army ban

China: A tense Ramadan in Xinjiang due to the recent destruction of dozens of Wrecked mosques highlights theincreased police watch.

Wrecked mosques, police watch: A tense Ramadan in Xinjiang

Myanmar Buddhists handed out white roses to Muslims heading to pray Wednesday to mark the end of Ramadan -- the culmination of a rare show of solidarity in a country where Islam is often vilified.
Volunteers lined up outside Dargah mosque in eastern Yangon, giving flowers to scores of devotees heading inside to mark the Eid festival, weeks after a mob of hardliners had tried to shut down Ramadan prayers.
Muslim motorbike courier Tin Myint, 42, said the gesture had raised spirits in the Muslim community.
"Some Buddhists really helped protect us," he told AFP.
The white rose campaign started three weeks ago after a mob of some 200 ultra-nationalists descended on three sites hosting Ramadan prayers in Yangon, forcing them to stop.
Police responded in the following days by offering protection to the shocked worshippers and an arrest warrant was issued for one protest leader.
Respected moderate monk Seindita also came to plead for their patience, handing out white roses in solidarity and ..

Myanmar white roses offer Eid solidarity to Muslims

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Russia Wednesday for talks he said would boost strategic cooperation, as Beijing and Moscow continue to spar with the US.
The leader was received with full honours at Moscow's Vnukovo airport in the early afternoon ahead of a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
Xi said the visit would "serve as an incentive for the development of Chinese-Russian relations, comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction in a new era," according to Russian news agencies.
"I am certain this visit will yield fruitful results," he said.
The trip comes five years after Moscow's annexation of Crimea led to a serious rift with its Western partners and subsequent turn toward its neighbour to the east.
After watching a performance at the Bolshoi Theatre on Wednesday evening, Xi is set to travel to Russia's former imperial capital Saint Petersburg.
There he will attend an economic forum hosted by Putin on Thursday and Friday.  China and Russia "have ...

China's Xi in Russia to usher 'new era' of cooperation

Syria's Kurds said two American women and six children from families of suspected Islamic State group members were repatriated to the United States on Wednesday from a crowded camp in northeast Syria.
The transfer was carried out "at the request of the US government and based... on the free and voluntary desire of the American citizens to return to their country without any pressure or coercion," spokesman Kamal Akef said in a statement.
Akef told AFP the eight were from "IS families" staying in the Al-Hol camp, which is home to nearly 74,000 people from more than 40 countries.
The camp's residents include suspected IS members, their families as well as regular civilians who were forced out of their homes by successive US-backed assaults against the last bastions of the IS "caliphate".
Some of the evacuees from IS areas have been repentant, but others have made clear their allegiance to IS remains intact, turning Al-Hol into a tinderbox.
On Monday, Kurdish authorities handed over five 

Syria Kurds say 2 women, children from IS families repatriated to US

Dozens of people are missing after heavy rains caused landslides in eastern Uganda's Bududa district, the Red Cross said on Wednesday.
"Preliminary information coming through indicates that around 150 houses could be destroyed, five people are suspected to be dead and around 50 missing," Uganda's Red Cross said in a statement.
The agency's communications officer, Irene Nakasiita told AFP: "the area (Bududa) experienced heavy rains that led to the landslides".
Bududa district in the foothills of Mount Elgon, which lies on the border between Uganda and Kenya, is a high risk area for landslides.
In 2018 at least 41 people were killed after a river in the region burst its banks, and in 2010 at least 100 people were killed in a landslide.
A statement from the office of Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said that "there are reports of displacement and destruction of property as well as missing persons." "In total, over 100,000 people living precariously on the slopes of Mount Elgon are ...

Dozens missing after Uganda landslides: Red Cross

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended a mosque in the capital Damascus on Wednesday for prayers marking the end of Ramadan, pictures posted by state media showed.
Assad joined dignitaries including the country's top Muslim cleric Ahmad Badredine Hassoun for the prayers in the Hafez al-Assad Mosque named after his father and predecessor as president.
In previous years, Assad has marked the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday with rare visits outside the capital.
Last year, he visited the city of Tartus, in the heartland of his Alawaite sect on the Mediterranean coast, where key ally Russia maintains a naval base.
In 2017, he visited the central city of Hama.
Support from Russia, and from Iran and its allies, has enabled Assad's forces to claw back most of the territory they lost in the early years of the devastating civil war which erupted in 2011.

Assad joins Eid prayers in Damascus

Dozens of steel cannons are fired by the villagers of a sleepy Malaysian hamlet for several hours into the night, carrying on a decades-old tradition celebrating the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid.
The festival marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, with devotees in Malaysia celebrating with solemn prayer, music and feasting.
For decades, the Malay-Muslim villagers of Kampung Talang, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Ipoh in the northern state of Perak, have greeted the holiday by firing of homemade cannons.
In one of six sites facing a paddy field just outside the royal town of Kuala Kangsar, some 13 steel pipes repurposed as home-made howitzers aim skywards as young men stand by with flaming torches.
A bubbling mixture of calcium carbide and water had been stuffed into the pipes.  Then leader Amar Ehzan Mohamad Shahiry barked an order through a loud hailer, and the torches touched a small opening, igniting the mixture which blasted into the air.  ...

Malaysian village cannons greet Eid with a bang

South Korea approved $8 million in humanitarian aid for the impoverished North on Wednesday, authorities said, with negotiations over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal deadlocked and inter-Korean relations at a standstill.
It will be the first such aid Seoul has provided Pyongyang since 2015 and follows the North's lowest recorded harvest for a decade, according to the United Nations.
The donation -- to be made through the UN -- comes as President Moon Jae-in seeks to salvage diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington following the breakdown of the Hanoi summit, when Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump failed to reach a deal on the North's nuclear programme and sanctions relief.
Pyongyang has since largely cut off contact with both Seoul and Washington, with the South's unification minister saying this week he had last spoken to a North Korean official at the beginning of May.
Seoul's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, said the government had approved a plan to provide the 

South Korea approves USD 8 million in aid for hungry North

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday said it was lowering China's economic growth forecast for 2019 and 2020, citing "uncertainty" over the trade war between Beijing and Washington.
The world's second-largest economy is expected to rise by 6.2 percent this year and 6.0 percent in the next, the IMF said, down from previous forecasts of 6.3 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively.
"Everybody loses in a proactive trade war. If trade is threatened, if trade is damaged, growth will suffer," Kenneth Kang, deputy director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific department, said at a press conference in Beijing to present the findings of a visit to China.
Talks to resolve the trade war between the world's two biggest economies have stalled, leaving in place bruising tariffs on $360 billion worth of two-way commerce.
"Uncertainty around trade tensions remains high and risks are tilted to the downside," the IMF said in a statement.
The downgrade comes as China's government launches a series of ...

IMF slightly lowers China's 2019 GDP growth forecast to 6.2%

Gianni Infantino was re-elected Wednesday by acclamation for a second term as FIFA president at the Congress of world football's governing body in Paris.
The 49 year-old, who took charge of FIFA in February 2016 after the departure of the disgraced Sepp Blatter, stood unopposed for a new four-year term which will run until 2023.
Earlier, Infantino had insisted that FIFA had been transformed into an organisation "synonymous with credibility" as he addressed representatives of the 211 member federations, before the Women's World Cup begins in the French capital on Friday.
"Today nobody talks about crises, nobody talks about rebuilding FIFA from scratch, nobody talks about scandals, nobody talks about corruption, we talk about football," insisted the Swiss-Italian lawyer, formerly secretary general of UEFA.
"The very least we can say is that we have turned the situation around.
"In three years and four months, this organisation went from being toxic, almost criminal, to being what it ...

Infantino waved in for second term as FIFA president

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the first time for an insurgent clash in northern Mozambique, according to SITE Intelligence which monitors jihadist activities worldwide.
An Islamist insurgency has been growing in the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, with more than 200 people killed and many villages torched.
Islamic State issued a statement late Tuesday claiming involvement in an apparent gunfight with the Mozambique military in Cabo Delgado province, although an insurgency expert expressed caution over the claim.
"The soldiers of the Caliphate were able to repulse an attack by the Crusader Mozambican army in Metubi village, in the Mocimboa area," said the statement, according to a SITE translation.
"They clashed with them with a variety of weapons, killing and wounding a number of them.
"The mujahideen captured weapons, ammunition, and rockets as spoils." The Mozambican government and military decline to confirm any rebel activity.
Insurgents ...

Islamic State make first claim of Mozambique presence

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was wowed by Prince Charles's passion for fighting climate change and that he also wanted a world that is "good for future generations".
Trump has rolled back environmental regulations and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord since his surprise election in 2016.
But the mercurial White House chief said he was impressed with Prince Charles's commitment to green causes when he had tea with the heir to the
British throne at Buckingham Palace on his arrival for a three-day state visit Monday.
Trump told ITV in an interview aired Wednesday that Queen Elizabeth II's son dominated the conversation with climate talk.
"We were going to have a 15-minute chat. And it turned out to be an hour and a half. And he did most of the talking. He is really into climate change, and I think that's great, I mean I want that, I like that," Trump said.
"He wants to have a world that is good for future generations and I want that to." But he also .

Prince's climate change passion wows Trump

Papua New Guinea's new Prime Minister toned down fiery rhetoric against foreign resource companies during a first address to the nation Wednesday, saying he was not trying to chase investors away.
"Our government is investor friendly our government is business friendly," James Marape said in a recorded message to the largely rural country.
The former finance minister had earlier threatened foreign logging companies and vowed to "tweak" resource laws that underpin a recently inked $13 billion gas deal with Total and ExxonMobil.
But on Wednesday he insisted "I'm not speaking about chasing our investors, I'm speaking about doing better for our country".
Addressing business leaders directly he said: "I will be ensuring that the environment in which you are doing your business is safe, secure and sound, so you can grow." "We are the business of reconstructing the country for the better." Hours after being elected last month, Marape had told parliamentarians the country's resource laws were 

Papua New Guinea PM denies 'chasing" investors away

Asian markets largely rose Wednesday, tracking rallies on Wall Street after the US Federal Reserve chief indicated greater openness to lowering interest rates and acknowledged the impact of trade tensions on growth.
Speaking in Chicago on Tuesday, Fed chair Jerome Powell admitted that ongoing trade conflicts had dimmed the growth outlook -- remarks widely seen as opening the door to a potential interest rate cut.
"We are closely monitoring the implications of these developments for the US economic outlook and, as always, we will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion," Powell said.
The comments signal a shift in the policy of the Fed, which has kept interest rates unchanged in 2019 after a series of hikes in 2018 and previous years.
"Powell changed the Fed messaging just enough to avoid signalling a shift from patient to panicked... it was music to US investors' ears who have been starved of positive news of late", said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
The 

Asia markets climb as Fed signals possible rate cut

A Bangladeshi student who enrolled in an Australian university with the aim of killing someone in the name of the Islamic State group was jailed for 42 years Wednesday for stabbing her local host as he slept.
Momena Shoma, 26, admitted to engaging in a terrorist act when she stabbed Roger Singaravelu in the neck with a kitchen knife just eight days after arriving in Australia.
Shoma, who wore a black niqab showing only her eyes at the sentencing hearing in Victoria state's supreme court, shouted "Allahu akbar" as she attacked Singaravelu, who survived and was also present at the hearing, the court heard.
"Your deeds and words, and the intentions accompanying them, are chilling," said judge Lesley Taylor in handing down the sentence of 42 years, with a non-parole period of 31 years and six months. She faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Taylor said her actions "sent ripples of horror throughout the Australian community".
"But they do not make you a martyr. They do not make you .

Bangladeshi jailed 42 years for ISIS-inspired attack on Australian host

Jailed Australian Cardinal George Pell asked appeals court judges Wednesday to quash his landmark conviction for child sex abuse, branding the charges against him "bizarre" and "impossible".
Pell, 77, is battling guilty verdicts handed down against him in December on five counts of sexually assaulting two choirboys in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral in 1996 and 1997.
"The verdicts represent a disturbing failure of our jury system," Pell's submission read. "The verdicts should be quashed." The Vatican's former number three -- who managed the church's vast finances and helped elect two popes -- was sentenced in March to six years in prison, becoming the most senior Catholic ever jailed for child sex abuse.
Wearing his clerical collar and a black suit, and guarded by police, Pell took notes of the proceedings as his lawyer, Bret Walker, detailed a "catalogue" of elements he said should have prevented his client's conviction.
Walker described the five or six minutes of abuse the ...

Cardinal Pell appeals 'impossible' child sex conviction

President Donald Trump rowed back Wednesday on his comments that Britain's much-loved national health service should be opened up to US private companies in a post-Brexit trade deal.
The mercurial US leader also softened his tone on UK Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn and actress-turned-British princess Meghan Markle.
Trump sparked outrage across Britain's political divide by telling a joint press conference with Prime Minister Theresa May that "everything is on the table" in talks on a post-Brexit US-UK free trade deal -- including the NHS health service.
"So NHS or anything else. A lot more than that," Trump said on the second of his three-day state visit Tuesday.
Britons treasure their free health care system and fear its partial privatisation. Some suggest that US pharmaceutical companies would hike the price of medications and other basic services.
Trump was asked specifically about the NHS at the press event and appeared to ask May what the acronym stood for before ...

Trump walks back comments on UK health care and more

The finance minister of France, which holds a 15 per cent stake in Renault, said Wednesday the auto giant plans to bring a case against former chief executive Carlos Ghosn after identifying 11 million euros of questionable expenses.
The prospect of new legal action backed by France marks a new headache for the former Renault CEO, who was also Nissan chairman in the alliance with the Japanese carmaker, after his arrest in Tokyo in November.
"The (French) state will hand over all the elements to the judicial authorities and there will be a complaint," Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told BFM TV in an interview.
"The state will play its role fully as a Renault shareholder. When the state has a shareholding like it does in Renault, its role is to assure that (corporate) governance works well," he added.
He said the conclusions of an internal audit carried out by Renault had uncovered "reprehensible" facts and it was now up to the judicial authorities to take the next decision.
The ...

French finance minister says Renault to bring case against Ghosn over expenses

Chris Woakes was adamant England's surprise World Cup defeat by Pakistan was "no car crash" but accepted they would have to raise their fielding standards after a sloppy display contributed to a 14-run loss at Trent Bridge.
England, the world's top-ranked one-day side, came into the World Cup on the back of a 4-0 series thrashing of Pakistan.
But it was a different story in Nottingham on Monday as Pakistan complied a challenging total of 348 for eight. Even though Joe Root and Jos Buttler made hundreds, England could only reach 334 for nine in reply.
Warwickshire paceman Woakes, fast bowler Jofra Archer and leg-spinner Adil Rashid were all expensive they were not helped by a poor fielding effort that saw numerous runs given away in mis-fields and over throws Jason Roy's extraordinary drop that reprieved Mohammad Hafeez on 14 pretty much summed up England's fielding. The batsman went on to top-score with 84.
Woakes, who showed England the way with four catches, was at a loss to explain 

AFP

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