President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to help hard-hit American farmers caught in the middle of the escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing.
China on Monday hit back against the United States, announcing it will sharply increase duties on thousands of US agricultural and manufactured goods to retaliate against Trump's decision last week to more than double the punitive duties on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese merchandise.
"Our great Patriot Farmers will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of what is happening now," Trump said on Twitter.
"Hopefully China will do us the honor of continuing to buy our great farm product, the best, but if not your Country will be making up the difference based on a very high China buy." Since last year, the trade war has gutted US farm exports to China and weighed on both countries' manufacturing sectors.
The Trump administration last year offered $12 billion in compensation to American farmers and has vowed to do more, using the ..

Trump says tariffs battle will help US farmers

PTI Automatic

Xenophobic and anti-Semitic hate crime rose by nearly 20 per cent in Germany last year, according to the latest interior ministry data published Tuesday.
In its report, the ministry listed 7,701 xenophobic criminal acts, a jump of 19.7 percent compared to 2017.
Anti-Semitic offences totalled 1,799 after a similar increase.
Almost 90 percent of perpetrators had a right-wing extremist background, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told a press conference.
Despite a post-war culture of repentance for the Nazi era and Holocaust, Germany has not bucked a European tend of increasing hate speech and attacks against Jews.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed his concern at the Berlin launch of a European network called Combating Anti-Semitism Through Education.
All over Europe, hatred of Jews and violence against minorities are now rampant, Maas said.
Historical awareness is the best shield against intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism, he said, urging efforts to close "gaps in knowledge".
The 

Germany sees sharp rise in racist, anti-Semitic hate crime

The mayor in South Africa's third largest city, Durban, and a senior ANC member was arrested and charged with corruption on Tuesday, the latest in scandals plaguing the governing party.
Zandile Gumede, 58, who has led Durban for the past three years, faces charges of embezzling public funds and money laundering, according to a statement released by the city.
"The municipality will co-operate fully with the legal process," said Msawakhe Mayisela, spokeswoman of the southeastern city.
The arrest comes in the wake of investigations by the special police investigations unit known as the Hawks into fraud and corruption involving a 208-million-rand (USD 14.6-million) tender to treat solid waste.
"Service providers were allegedly paid huge amounts of monies even though they did not render any service," said the Hawks spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi in a statement.
After a brief hearing in court on Tuesday, Gumede was freed on 50,000-rand bail, according to the police. She and 11 other suspects ..

South Africa's ANC mayor in Durban arrested for graft

Israel has begun building nearly 20,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank during the past decade of Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership, settlement watchdog Peace Now said Tuesday.
The group's annual settlement report highlighted how the issue complicates the chances of resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
It said that construction of 19,346 settler homes had started between 2009 -- the year that Netanyahu became prime minister for a second time -- and the end of 2018.
"The Israeli government is digging the country a pit to fall in," said a Peace Now statement accompanying the report.
"Even if the government does not believe that peace can be achieved in the near future, there is no logic to expanding the settlements and making the solution impossible."
The report was published as Netanyahu was on track to begin a fifth term after April's general election and the White House prepared to unveil a peace proposal it has been working on for months.
Details have been kept under ...

20,000 settler homes started in decade of Netanyahu rule: NGO

Protest leaders resumed talks with Sudan's military rulers on Tuesday seeking to build on a political breakthrough overshadowed by deadly shootings at a long-running protest sit-in outside army headquarters.
The protest movement is demanding a civilian-led transition after 30 years of ironfisted rule by president Omar al-Bashir but the generals who toppled him have been pushing for a continuing leadership role.
An army major and five protesters were killed by unidentified gunmen at the Khartoum sit-in late on Monday just hours after the two sides announced they had reached agreement on the structure and powers of the bodies that will oversee the transition.
The Alliance for Freedom and Change -- the protest movement umbrella group that has been negotiating with the military council -- said the shootings were an attempt to "disturb the breakthrough" and blamed militias still loyal to Bashir's regime.
The military council said that it had "noticed some armed infiltrators among the ...

Sudan talks resume after shootings cloud breakthrough

British unemployment has fallen to a 45-year low, official data showed Tuesday, with the economy holding up despite prolonged Brexit uncertainty.
The unemployment rate eased to 3.8 per cent in the three months to March -- the lowest level since the final quarter of 1974, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement.
That compared with a 44-year low of 3.9 per cent in the quarter to February.
"The UK labour market has been remarkably resilient in the face of Brexit-related uncertainty," Hargreaves Lansdown senior economist Ben Brettell said in reaction to the latest data.
"These are really strong numbers given the headwinds the economy is currently facing." The ONS added that the UK employment rate was estimated at 76.1 percent, which was the joint-highest figure on record.
However the strong jobs figures were not necessarily translating into higher productivity, analysts noted.
"There are valid concerns that UK firms are hoarding labour instead of much-needed capital ..

UK unemployment rate hits 45-year low

Myanmar's military commanders should be financially "isolated" and brought to trial to face charges of war crimes and genocide against the Rohingya minority, UN investigators said Tuesday.
The United Nations fact-finding mission on the situation in Myanmar called on the international community to cut off all financial and other support to the country's military.
Marzuki Darusman, who heads the fact-finding mission which just concluded a 10-day visit to surrounding countries, said drastic measures were needed since Myanmar so far had done little to resolve the egregious rights situation in the country.
"There has been no movement toward a resolution of the crisis," Darusman said in a statement. "The situation is at a total standstill."
Some 740,000 Rohingya refugees fled a military crackdown in August 2017 to cross into Bangladesh where 300,000 members of the persecuted Muslim minority were already in camps.
Many Rohingya refugees who fled said there had been mass rapes and slaughters .

UN experts urge 'financial isolation' of Myanmar military

The head of Snapchat warned European regulators on Tuesday that their efforts to protect user data were entrenching the positions of internet giants such as Google and Facebook.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel's comments in London came three months after the UK parliament published a scathing report accusing Facebook of acting like "digital gangsters" who brazenly violate privacy rules.
The European Union took the lead last year by implementing a strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy making platforms' access to customer data more transparent and easier for users to control.
Spiegel called the European approach well-meaning but potentially self-defeating.
"I think that some of the regulation like GDPR, for example, may end up entrenching very large players," he told a business conference organised by The Wall Street Journal.
"If you're a small publisher today and you want to run ads on your website, it's very very hard to do that because you are not at scale, you don't have a ..

Snapchat chief says EU regulators helping Google, Facebook

OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia said it had stopped pumping crude oil along a major pipeline Tuesday following a drone attack, hours after Yemen's Huthi rebels said they had targeted vital Saudi installations.
Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said two pumping stations on the pipeline from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea had been targeted early Tuesday.
The vital pipeline has a capacity of at least five million barrels per day.
"Saudi Aramco took precautionary measures and temporarily stopped operation of the pipeline, as it is evaluating the situation and working on restoring the operations of the affected pump station and the pipeline," Falih said in a statement cited by state news agency SPA.
The 1,200-kilometre pipeline carries crude from Saudi Arabia's main eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the west.
It was created several decades ago as an alternative for Saudi crude exports if the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to ..

Saudi halts pumping at main pipeline after drone attack

Spain has recalled a frigate accompanying a US aircraft carrier to the Middle East because of rising tensions between Washington and Tehran, the defence ministry said Tuesday.
"For the moment the frigate Mendez Nunez has left the combat group of the USS Abraham Lincoln," a ministry spokesman told AFP, confirming a report in the Spanish daily El Pais.
"It's a temporary withdrawal, decided by Defence Minister Margarita Robles, as long as the American aircraft carrier is in this zone," the spokesman added.
He said the Spanish frigate had joined the aircraft carrier's strike group for a military exercise.
"No possible confrontation or warlike action is envisaged (by Spain) and it is for this reason that the participation is suspended for the moment," he added.
On May 5, the United States announced it was deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in response to a "credible threat" from Iran.
Last Friday, the Pentagon announced the ...

Spain pulls its frigate from US military build-up in Gulf

Scores of junta loyalists were endorsed as members of Thailand's 250-strong senate on Tuesday, packing the upper house with allies likely to vote for coup leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha's return as civilian premier after a highly disputed poll.
The full list, which included the junta leader's brother and scores of military officers, was appointed by junta number two Prawit Wongsuwan, endorsed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn and published in palace mouthpiece The Royal Gazette.
Army Chief Apirat Kongsompong and National Police Chief Jakthip Chaijinda are now senators, as expected, thanks to a controversial military-scripted constitution adopted in 2017.
But Prawit also selected some 100 serving and retiring military and police officers -- making up 40 percent of the senate. He also picked more than 50 members of the rubber-stamp National Legislative Assembly (NLA), and 15 ministers to be elevated to the senate.
Well-known family names of the junta's top-ranking officials and allies are on the ...

Thai king endorses junta-appointed senators

The Dutch Grand Prix will return next season at Zandvoort after a 35-year absence, Formula One organisers announced on Tuesday.
A deal to stage the race at the historic seaside resort circuit near Amsterdam has been signed for at least three years.
"I am pleased to see that Zandvoort will be part of the proposed calendar... and thankful for the hard work of Formula 1 to bring the sport back to the Netherlands", Jean Todt, president of the sport's ruling body the FIA, said.
Red Bull's Dutch driver Max Verstappen, born 12 years after Niki Lauda took the last chequered flag in a McLaren in 1985, hailed the prospect of lining up in his home race.
"It's just an iconic, historic track," Verstappen said in a team statement.
Formula One chief executive Chase Carey said the return of racing to the Netherlands was in line with their twin policy of "respecting the sport's historic roots in Europe" whilst also looking for new venues.
"Next season therefore, we will have a brand new street race ...

Dutch F1 Grand Prix returns at Zandvoort next season

Former Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi batted away accusations of misogyny this week as critics lashed out at the cricket star's admission that he refuses to let his daughters play outdoor sports.
The remarks were just the latest controversy stemming from Afridi's tell-all autobiography -- "Game Changer" -- released in Pakistan and India last week.
"It's for social and religious reasons that I've made this decision regarding my daughters not competing in public sporting activities and their mother agrees with me," wrote Afridi.
"The feminists can say what they want; as a conservative Pakistani father, I've made my decision," he added.
In the book, the cricketer also unleashed withering criticism against old teammates -- including erstwhile World Cup captain and current Prime Minister Imran Khan -- and admitted to being slightly older than previously reported, drawing accusations he was not the youngest player to set the record for scoring 100 runs in an international.
However, his 

Afridi lambasted over sexist remarks in autobiography

The Asian Football Confederation announced Tuesday that for the first time an all-female referee team will take charge of a men's continental club cup clash.
Japanese referee Yoshimi Yamashita and assistants Makoto Bozono and Naomi Teshirogi will officiate the AFC Cup match between Myanmar's Yangon United and Cambodia's Naga World at the Thuwunna Stadium on Wednesday.
"This will be the first time three female referees preside in the Asian Football Confederation's club competitions, marking a new milestone in Asian refereeing," the AFC said in a statement.
The AFC Cup is the second-string Asian club competition, a rung below the AFC Champions League.
Women officals have only previously been employed as assistant referees in AFC Cup matches, with Australians Sarah Ho and Alysson Flynn becoming the first in 2014.
"This is one of my dreams," said the experienced Yamashita, who officiated in the 2016 and 2018 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup and 2018 Women's Asian Cup.
"We've worked very hard ..

History made as women to referee men's AFC Cup

Struggling German conglomerate Thyssenkrupp plunged into the red in its second quarter, posting a net loss of 86 million euros (USD 96 million) on Tuesday following news that it will slash 6,000 jobs.
The plunge into loss-making at the start of the year contrasted with a 250-million-euro profit in early 2018, reflecting the troubled waters the Essen-based group has found itself in since last summer.
On Friday, Thyssenkrupp announced 6,000 job cuts worldwide - including 4,000 in Germany - as part of a structural shakeup following the collapse of a proposed merger with Indian steel giants Tata.
The German group's operating, or underlying profit (EBIT) fell 66 percent -- or 283 million euros - year-on-year down to 145 million euros.
"In the steel sector, the historic low ebb of the river Rhine, lower demand from the automotive industry and the new collective agreement (with worker representatives) had a negative impact on earnings," Thyssenkrupp said in a statement.
However, there was ...

Floundering Thyssenkrupp plunges into red in Q2

Two pumping stations on a major Saudi oil pipeline were attacked by drones on Tuesday, halting the flow of crude along it, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said.
He said the attacks on the pipeline from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea took place early Tuesday.
Yemen's Huthi rebels said Tuesday that they had targeted several vital Saudi targets with drones.

Major Saudi pipeline attacked by drones: minister

One of China's biggest mobile gaming companies said it would sell gay dating app Grindr following pressure from US authorities concerned over the potential misuse of the app's data by the Chinese government.
Beijing-based Kunlun Tech Co Ltd said in a filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in southern China that it would sell Grindr by June 2020.
The app, which bills itself as "the world's largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people," was founded in 2009 and says it has millions of users worldwide.
US officials feared that people with American security clearances who use the app could be blackmailed if China's government demanded user data from Kunlun Tech, The Wall Street Journal reported in March, citing unnamed sources.
China and the United States are locked in a tense trade war which includes a side skirmish in technology.
China has previously announced a strategy of achieving global dominance in high-tech fields like artificial intelligence and use of Big ...

China tech firm to sell gay app Grindr after US pressure

Crisis-hit Japanese car company Nissan on Tuesday unveiled net profits at a near-decade low as it battles to recover after the shock arrest of its talismanic former boss Carlos Ghosn.
Net profits for the fiscal year to March 2019 came in at 319 billion yen (USD 2.9 billion), the lowest since 2009/10 when the company was struggling in the wake of the global financial crisis.
It was a decline of 57 per cent compared to the previous fiscal year and the profit outlook for the current fiscal year was forecast to be even worse -- at 170 billion yen.
"The performance is a challenging one and we want to change this," Chief Executive Officer Hiroto Saikawa told reporters.
Tuesday's figures represented a "rock bottom" for the company, he said, adding: "Please give us time to recover."
The firm has been crippled by the reputational damage caused by the legal woes of former chairman Ghosn, who faces four formal charges of financial misconduct that he denies.
"There are many negative legacies ...

Nissan profits hit 'rock bottom' as Ghosn weighs

All episodes of a popular British talk show have been pulled from the internet and filming has been suspended after the reported suicide of a former guest Tuesday.
Broadcaster ITV pulled its most popular daytime show "The Jeremy Kyle Show" off air indefinitely following the death of 63-year-old Steve Dymond, a week after he appeared on an episode.
Dymond failed a lie-detector test taken on the show to convince his fiancee he had not cheated on her, leading to the couple splitting up, The Sun newspaper reported.
The show has been the focus of criticism over its confrontational style, which often pits romantic rivals against each other and has previously descended into violence.
Conservative MP Charles Walker told the Daily Mail that ITV "would be best advised just to stop" the show permanently.
"It's a very, very unattractive TV show and I'm surprised it's gone on so long," he added.
Manchester judge Alan Berg described the show in 2007 as a "morbid and depressing display of ...

UK talk show suspended after guest's reported suicide

Two Nigerian men believed to be members of an internet love scam syndicate were charged in Singapore on Tuesday with recruiting local women to collect money for them, police said.
Such scams, where victims part with cash after a fraudster feigns romantic interest in them, are a growing concern in the city-state with police reporting 660 cases last year.
The Nigerians - identified in local news reports as Oladayo Opeyemi Awolola, 34, and Gbolahan Ayobami Awolola, 37 - were arrested by Malaysian authorities in Kuala Lumpur last month and sent to Singapore on Monday.
The men allegedly recruited two Singaporean women "as money mules to receive criminal proceeds linked to internet love scams in Singapore" between 2017 and 2018, according to a police statement.
The women received USD 63,000 during that period and turned the money over to syndicate members in Malaysia, police said.
The Nigerians could be jailed for up to five years each and fined if convicted.
It is the first time that ...

Singapore charges Nigerian men over internet love scam

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday meets US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the highest-level talks between the rival powers in nearly a year as they see if they can make headway on a raft of disagreements from Venezuela to Iran to arms control.
Pompeo will visit Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi less than two weeks after US President Donald Trump voiced optimism about improving relations with Moscow during a more than one-hour telephone conversation with the Russian leader.
The new diplomatic push followed the long-awaited report in the United States by investigator Robert Mueller which found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election but that the Trump campaign did not collude with Moscow, partially lifting a cloud that had hung over the mogul-turned-president for two years.
Putin is expected to receive Pompeo Tuesday evening after the US secretary of state holds talks with Moscow's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov.
"My meetings in Russia will highlight a number of ...

AFP

AFP

Page 607 - Afp