The German government has called on people to wear the Jewish kippa ahead of an anti-Israel protest as a demonstration of solidarity and as Jews face a spike in anti-Semitism, withdrawing an earlier warning against wearing the traditional skullcap.
At the weekend, Felix Klein, the country's commissioner on anti-Semitism sparked uproar when he said in an interview with the Funke regional press group that he could not "advise Jews to wear the kippa everywhere all the time in Germany."
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin voiced shock at Klein's warning and said it was a "capitulation to anti-Semitism" and evidence that Jews are unsafe in Germany.
Late Monday, Klein reversed course after Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman intervened.
"The state must see to it that the free exercise of religion is possible for all... and that anyone can go anywhere in our country in full security wearing a kippa," Steffen Seibert told a press conference.
In his latest statement to Funke, Klein said: "I call .

German govt urges wearing of Jewish kippa

PTI Automatic

At least 42 inmates were killed in clashes in four prisons in northern Brazil on Monday, authorities said, a day after violence in one of the jails left 15 people dead.
At least 27 of the victims were in the Antonio Trindade Penal Institute near Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, where all four prisons are located.
The federal government said it was sending reinforcements to boost security in the state's prisons.
Brazil has the world's third largest prison population, with 7,26,712 inmates as of June 2016, according to official statistics.
The population is double the capacity of the nation's prisons, which in the same year was estimated to be 3,68,049 inmates.
Along with severe overcrowding, Brazil's prisons are plagued by gang violence, while riots and breakout attempts are not uncommon.

Clashes in four Brazil prisons leave 42 dead: Official

Iran hit out at the United States on Monday for "causing tensions" after President Donald Trump said his government was not seeking regime change and that he would welcome talks with Tehran.
The Trump administration was "hurting the Iranian people and causing tension in the region," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.
"Actions -- not words -- will show whether or not that's @realDonaldTrump's intent," Zarif added, referencing the US president's Twitter handle.
Zarif also denied Iran was seeking nuclear weapons, after Trump said during a visit to Japan that "we're not looking for regime change (in Iran)... we're looking for no nuclear weapons".
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "long ago said we're not seeking nuclear weapons -- by issuing a fatwa (edict) banning them," the foreign minister tweeted.
Khamenei is said to have issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2003 and has reiterated it several times since.
Iran is locked in a ...

Iran slams US after Trump nuclear weapons comment

US national security adviser John Bolton will this week travel to the United Arab Emirates for talks, the US embassy in Abu Dhabi said Monday.
The US embassy in the UAE on Monday sent an invitation to AFP to attend a roundtable with Bolton which would take place "this week", but no date was given.
Bolton's planned meeting comes as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the US have increasingly sought to isolate Iran, and it coincides with key meetings planned in Saudi Arabia.
Regional tensions have spiked since Donald Trump's administration reimposed sanctions against Iran after unilaterally pulling out of a multilateral 2015 nuclear accord signed with the Islamic republic.
Regional summits are planned on Thursday and Friday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh seeks to further isolate its regional rival Tehran.
The Trump administration has ordered non-essential diplomatic staff out of Iraq, citing threats from Iranian-backed Iraqi armed groups, and sent an aircraft carrier and heavy B-52 bombers to .

Trump's security adviser to visit UAE 'this week'

A Gambian military court on Monday sentenced seven soldiers to nine years in jail for plotting to overthrow President Adama Barrow, and handed a three-year prison term to another.
The sentences relate to events in 2017 after the ouster of strongman Yahya Jammeh, who ruled the tiny West African country with an iron fist for 22 years.
The court in Yundum, about 25 kilometres from the capital Banjul, acquitted four other soldiers arrested along with the eight who got jail terms.
Tribunal head Colonel Salifu Bojang said two of the 12 soldiers accused had accepted plotting "how to arrest cabinet ministers, the Chief of Defence Staff and battalion commanders of the Gambia Armed Forces."
He said the soldiers had also created a WhatsApp group where they planned an attack on the West African Military Force (ECOMIG) stationed in Gambia to help keep order.
Gambia has set up a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, modelled on South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation ...

Eight Gambian soldiers jailed over coup plot

The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike in Syria in retaliation for anti-aircraft fire from the war-torn country targeting one of its fighter jets on Monday.
"Earlier today, Syrian anti-aircraft systems fired at an IDF fighter jet during a routine flight in northern Israel," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
It said the projectile missed and the plane completed its journey before "the IDF targeted the launcher that had fired" at the jet.
Earlier, the official SANA news agency reported that an Israeli missile struck the Syrian province of Quneitra, causing casualties.
"An Israeli missile targeted Tel al-Shaar in Quneitra," the Syrian news agency said, adding a "military vehicle was targeted and there are wounded".

Israeli military confirms it conducted Syria air strike

The former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has been nominated as the country's parliamentary speaker and is set to be sworn in Tuesday, a party official said.
Nasheed was unanimously chosen to head the People's Majlis, or the parliament, by his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) which won a near three quarter majority in the 87-member assembly in April.
"He is unanimously chosen as the Speaker," a party official told AFP. "He will be sworn in at the inaugural session of the new parliament elected at the historic April vote."
Nasheed -- who until six months ago was still in exile -- has vowed to use his party's thumping mandate to usher in a new era of stability and democracy in the Maldives.
The MDP's closest rivals, the Jamhooree Party and Progressive Party of the Maldives, both won five seats. Two minor parties and independents secured 12 seats among them.
The Maldives, a holiday destination popular with honeymooners, is only just emerging from years of strongman rule, political ...

Maldives ex-leader Nasheed tipped as new Speaker

More than 830,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province will be vaccinated against cholera, which has claimed over 240 lives this year, the World Health Organization said Monday.
The campaign will be implemented by DR Congo's health ministry with support from the WHO and partners, and funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
"A total of 835,183 people in Binza, Goma, Kayina, Karisimbi, Kibirizi, Kirotshe and Rutshuru areas will be vaccinated by 1 June," a statement said.
"Over 10,000 cases of cholera have been reported in the country since January 2019, leading to more than 240 deaths. In addition, over 80,000 suspected cases of measles have led to over 1,400 deaths so far this year," it said.
"The DRC is confronted with an unprecedented combination of deadly epidemics," said Seth Berkley, chief executive of Gavi.
"While the Ebola outbreak continues to cause untold misery in the East, measles and cholera epidemics are claiming the lives of thousands of people ..

Over 830,000 cholera vaccinations planned in DR Congo: WHO

French police arrested four people Monday over a package bomb explosion in the heart of the southeastern city of Lyon last week which injured 13 people, authorities said.
A police raid was under way in a building in the Oullins suburb just south of the city, a few hours after the arrest of the suspected bomber, a 24-year-old Algerian IT student.
The man's parents were later arrested and taken in for questioning, as was a second student of Algerian nationality who is a family relation, according to the Paris prosecutor's office, which has jurisdiction over terrorism cases in France.
The suspect was previously unknown to police, Lyon's Mayor Gerard Collomb said.  Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told a press briefing in Lyon that he had no further details on the suspect.
"Nothing has been established at this point," he said. "I ask you to let the investigation take its course." The youth was arrested as he got off a bus, calmly putting his hands in the air when he spotted officers .

French police arrest four over Lyon package bomb blast

At least 17 civilians were killed on Monday as Syria's regime intensified its bombardment of Idlib province, the last jihadist stronghold in the country's northwest, a monitor said.
Idlib and parts of the neighbouring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia are under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group led by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
"Seventeen civilians, including five children, were killed on Monday in air strikes and missile attacks on Idlib province," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Nine of them, including three children, died in the town of Ariha, he told AFP, adding that at least 47 people were wounded across the province.
The deaths come a day after regime air strikes killed 12 civilians in the same province, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
An AFP correspondent in Ariha said White Helmet first responders were seen searching for survivors in the rubble of a building hit in Monday's ...

Regime bombardment kills 17 civilians in Syria's Idlib: Monitor

A Japanese man with 246 packets of cocaine in his stomach and intestines died mid-flight on his way from Bogota to Tokyo, authorities said Monday in northern Mexico, where the plane made an emergency landing.
The 42-year-old man, identified only as Udo "N," began having a seizure after the commercial flight from the Colombian capital made a stopover in Mexico City, said the prosecutor's office for the state of Sonora.
"Flight attendants noticed a person suffering convulsions, and requested permission to make an emergency landing in Hermosillo, Sonora," it said in a statement.
"When the plane landed at 2:25 am on Friday, paramedics boarded it and declared Udo 'N' deceased." An autopsy found the man had swallowed 246 packets of cocaine, each measuring one by 2.5 centimeters (about one by one-third inch).
The cause of death was swelling of the brain caused by a drug overdose, prosecutors said.
The Aeromexico plane, which was carrying 198 other passengers, resumed its flight to Japan ...

Japanese man dies mid-flight with stomach full of cocaine

Israelis faced the growing possibility Monday of a new national poll despite a general election last month, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition talks remain deadlocked ahead of a looming deadline.
Netanyahu, who risks a major setback if he fails to reach an agreement before Wednesday night's deadline, spoke in Israel's parliament and said it was still possible a deal could be brokered to avoid "unnecessary" elections.
But he spoke shortly after parliament took the first step towards holding new polls, by preliminarily approving a law to dissolve itself. Three more rounds of voting are needed for final approval.
Earlier in the day as Netanyahu failed to convince a right-wing party leader to compromise and allow a deal to be reached, his close ally US President Donald Trump offered his support.
"Hoping things will work out with Israel's coalition formation and Bibi and I can continue to make the alliance between America and Israel stronger than ever. A lot more to do!" ...

Israelis face possible election rerun with coalition talks deadlocked

Ameesha Chauhan, a survivor of the Everest "traffic jam" who is in hospital recovering from frostbite, said climbers without basic skills should be barred to prevent a recurrence of this year's deadly season on the world's highest peak.
Ten people have died in little more than two weeks after poor weather cut the climbing window, leaving mountaineers waiting in long queues to the summit, risking exhaustion and running out of oxygen.
Nepal issued a record 381 Everest permits this season, and several hundred of the summiteers are not properly trained, take poor decisions and "put their own life in risk and also the Sherpa guides", Chauhan said.
The 29-year-old Indian had to wait 20 minutes to come down from the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) peak, but others were held up for hours.
"I saw some climbers without basic skills fully relying on their Sherpa guides. The government should fix the qualification criteria," she told AFP in Kathmandu's general hospital, all the toes on her left foot ...

Everest 'traffic jam' survivor calls for tougher rules

The death toll from a powerful earthquake that rocked parts of Peru and neighbouring Ecuador rose to two on Monday, with more than 30 people injured, authorities said.
Sunday's 8.0-earthquake hit a sparsely populated region of Peru's Amazon basin region but was felt over a wide area.
Reports were still coming in Monday from remote areas affected by the quake, which also rattled the capital Lima and other cities where frightened residents rushed into the streets.
"We have two dead because of the earthquake. The second victim is a 15-year-old who was hit on the head" by falling rubble at his home, Civil Defense Coordinator Ricardo Seijas told Chanel N television.
The teenager died of his injuries after begin taken to hospital in Peru's northern region of La Libertad.
The other victim, a 48-year-old man, was reported Sunday to have been killed by falling debris while he slept at his house in Cajamarca in northern Peru. The quake struck at 2:41 am (0741 GMT).
Seijas said 15 people had ...

2 died, over 30 injured in Peru quake

Nigel Farage's anti-EU Brexit party topped European Parliament polls in Britain, putting intense pressure on the ruling Conservatives who suffered a historic rout and raising the chances of a no-deal outcome.
The populist party, founded just three months ago, capitalised on public anger over delays to Britain's exit from the European Union, winning nearly 32 percent with almost all votes counted on Monday.
Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative party meanwhile slumped to nine percent, its worst electoral result since 1832.
In a sign of the divisions still gripping Britain three years after the referendum vote for Brexit, the pro-European Liberal Democrats and Greens also made significant gains.
The elections, which took place on Thursday, were never meant to happen, as Britain was due to be out of the bloc on March 29.
But parliament has been unable to agree on how to leave, slowly sapping May's authority and forcing her to finally announce last week she would quit to let somebody .

Britain's Brexit Party triumph raises chances of no-deal

French President Emmanuel Macron tasted defeat in European elections, but not disaster, and is set to continue pushing both his pro-EU agenda and a realignment of parties in the European Parliament.
Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) party finished second behind the far-right National Rally (RN) of his arch-rival Marine Le Pen, but the two parties ended up with less than 1.0 percentage point separating them -- on 22.41 percent and 23.31 percent respectively.
The vote was seen as a test for Macron domestically after months of anti-government "yellow vest" protests, while his credibility in Europe as a champion of deeper integration was also judged to be on the line.
"A disappointment, but not a defeat for the Elysee," headlined Le Parisien newspaper on Monday, while an editorial in the Les Echos business daily said Macron's party was "resisting well" two years after his election.
Macron on Monday held a meeting of key figures from the LREM -- including Prime Minister Edouard Philippe 

Beaten but not vanquished, Macron seeks to shakeup EU parliament

Far-left party Podemos, which just four years ago took over major city halls across Spain, suffered a humiliating defeat in Sunday's local, regional and European elections, a victim of internal diputes.
The party lost almost all of the mayorships it won in 2015 along with other far-left groups, and captured just 10 percent of the vote in the European elections, compared with 14.3 percent during an April 28 general election.
At the same time the triple polls strengthened acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists, which placed first in the European elections and won the most votes in 10 of the 12 regions that voted on Sunday.
The results undermined Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias's wish to form a coalition government with the Socialists, which won last month's general election while failing to reach a majority in parliament.
"He is too weakened to demand Pedro Sanchez give him ministries," Carmen Lumbierres, a political science professor at Spain's Open University UNED, told ...

Spain's divided Podemos slumps in local, EU polls

Israel's parliament on Monday took a first step toward holding new elections due to deadlocked coalition negotiations following April polls, giving preliminary approval to a law to dissolve itself.
Three more votes are required for final approval of the law, which would result in new elections being held. The vote was 65-43 with six abstentions, according to parliament's website.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to reach a deal to form a governing coalition ahead of a Wednesday night deadline to do so.
He was due to speak in parliament at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT).
Ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has prevented a deal by refusing to budge from a key demand.
Holding elections so close to one another would be unprecedented in Israel, and there have been concerns over the cost and prolonged political paralysis that would result.
It would also be a major setback for Netanyahu, who received support on Monday from his close ally US President Donald Trump.
"Hoping ...

Israel parliament takes first step to hold new elections due to deadlock

A US military veteran has launched construction on the first section of private border wall between the United States and Mexico, using money crowdsourced by supporters of President Donald Trump.
"This is Americans' way of saying, 'Congress, you're worthless, and we're fighting it. We're going to build (the wall) ourselves," said New Mexico resident Jeff Allen, the co-owner of the land where the private wall is being built.
Determined to help Trump fulfil his promise to build a "big, beautiful wall" on the border, Allen began erecting a towering fence of steel slats last weekend on his land in the city of Sunland Park, across from Ciudad Juarez, in Mexico.
He said the project was being funded by We Build the Wall, a company launched by war veteran and triple amputee Brian Kolfage to help get Trump's border barrier built, using millions of dollars in private donations he raised online.
The company's advisory board is chaired by Steve Bannon, the far-right strategist and former Trump ...

Trump backers launch construction on private border wall

They're the faces of the climate alert that propelled Green parties to strong gains in EU elections: Greta, Luisa and Leah lead a generation of youths that have put the planet atop the political agenda.
Without these youngsters, some of whom are still not old enough to vote, Europe's Green parties might have still posted strong scores, as the climate has become one of voters' main concerns.
But their ubiquitous activism -- in the streets, on social networks, and in the media -- has had an undeniable effect mobilising voters.
"The Green parties' results are due to all the young people striking, climate activism is getting more important, especially among young women. They are the ones who set the agenda for the European elections," said Katri Ylinen, a spokeswoman for the Federation of Young European Greens.
At just 16, Sweden's Greta Thunberg has become a figurehead for a movement that has gone global, inspiring hundreds of thousands of other youths in dozens of countries to strike ...

From Greta to Luisa, youths spearhead climate movement

Romania's ruling party strongman Liviu Dragnea was jailed on Monday, Romanian media reported, hours after his appeal against a corruption conviction failed.
Dragnea, 56, was seen being driven in a police car into the Rahova prison on the outskirts of Bucharest, in images carried live on Romanian television late on Monday afternoon.
Just hours earlier a court had confirmed his original three-and-a-half-year jail sentence.
The verdict will almost certainly remove from public life a man who was widely seen as the puppet master behind the Social Democrats (PSD) and the government they lead.
Dragnea was also a key figure in his party's push for controversial judicial reforms which have led to clashes with Brussels and have overshadowed Romania's first-ever EU presidency.
But he was unsuccessful in his bid to overturn a conviction he received last year for using his influence to procure fake public jobs for two women who were actually working for the Social Democrats (PSD) at the ...

AFP

AFP

Page 582 - Afp