Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has apologised to European conservative parties for calling them "useful idiots" over an anti-EU billboard campaign that could see his party ejected from the European Parliament's dominant centre-right EPP bloc.
"(Orban) has sent a letter of apology to the European People's Party (EPP)," a government spokesperson told AFP Thursday.
In a newspaper interview earlier this month, Orban called critics within the EPP "useful idiots" and accused them of helping the group's leftwing and liberal opponents ahead of European Parliament elections in May.
"I would hereby like to express my apologies, if you found my quote personally offensive," Orban said in his letter to the Belgian Christian Democratic & Flemish (CD&V) party which was published by the De Standaard newspaper.
The letters were sent Wednesday to leaders of 13 member parties of the EPP who have proposed expelling Orban's ruling Fidesz party from the bloc, Orban's press chief Bertalan ...

Hungary PM apologises for 'useful idiots' remark

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The right-wing Italian president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani apologised Thursday for remarks defending dictator Benito Mussolini's record, as MEPs called for his resignation.
"As a convinced anti-fascist, I apologise to all those who may have been offended by what I said. My remarks were in no way intended to justify or minimise an anti-democratic and totalitarian regime," Tajani, who is close to tycoon and former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, said in a statement in English.
"I am deeply saddened that, despite my personal and political history, some may feel that I would choose to be lenient with regards to fascism," he added.
Tajani was in hot water earlier after talking up dictator Benito Mussolini's contributions, in an Italian radio interview on Wednesday.
"You don't have to agree with his methods... but let's be honest, Mussolini built roads, bridges, buildings, sports installations, he remade many parts of our Italy," said Tajani.
"Generally speaking I don't ..

European Parliament chief apologises for Mussolini remarks

Saudi Arabia on Thursday reiterated its rejection of calls for an international, independent investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, insisting it was well equipped to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The head of a Saudi delegation speaking before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva insisted that his country was taking all the "measures required for us to resolve this heinous crime".
Bandar Al-Aiban, who heads Saudi Arabia's human rights commission, stressed though that any calls to "internationalise" the investigation "amount to an interference in our domestic affairs".
Aiban was in Geneva presenting his country's response to a review of its rights record before the council last November, during which it faced a barrage of criticism from countries over the Khashoggi murder.
His presentation came after 36 countries last week issued a joint statement demanding justice following the killing, in an unprecedented rebuke of the oil-rich kingdom at the rights ...

Saudi Arabia rejects call for international probe of Khashoggi murder

Slovak prosecutors said Thursday they had charged entrepreneur Marian Kocner with ordering the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, whose killing during a corruption probe triggered mass protests and toppled the country's prime minister.
Kuciak had been investigating Kocner's business activities at the time of his death, one of several stories he had been working on when he was gunned down with his fiancee Martina Kusnirova at home in February 2018.
"The reason for the murder was the journalistic work of the victim," a special prosecutor told reporters in Bratislava who was left unnamed for security reasons.
The the prosecutor said Kocner, who has a number of property development and investment businesses, was charged on March 8 with "ordering the murder".
Kuciak's last explosive report, published posthumously and unrelated to Kocner, alleged ties between Slovak politicians and the Italian mafia.
The murders and the journalist's investigation plunged the EU member of 5.4 ...

Slovak entrepreneur charged with ordering journalist murder

Security concerns about the role of Huawei in Western 5G telecom infrastructure are to be taken seriously, the head of NATO said Thursday, as Washington steps up pressure on Europe not to use the Chinese firm.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the 29-member alliance has begun internal consultations on Huawei, which the US says poses a "threat" to Europe.
The US and several other Western nations have shut Huawei out of tenders for the development of super-fast fifth-generation, or 5G, networks, because of the company's close ties to the Chinese government.
"Some NATO allies have expressed their concerns over Huawei and their role in providing 5G infrastructure. NATO takes these concerns very seriously," Stoltenberg told reporters.
"We are now consulting closely on this issue including on the security aspects on investments in 5G networks."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Berlin would consult Washington over using Huawei technology after reports of US ...

NATO takes Huawei security concerns seriously: Stoltenberg

Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell revealed on Thursday that chief executive Ben Van Beurden's annual earnings more than doubled for his work last year to over 20.1 million euros (USD 22.7 million).
The total -- including base salary, annual bonus and a massive hike in long-term incentives -- was calculated after the Anglo-Dutch group in January said group net profits surged 80 per cent to USD 23.4 billion in 2018 on higher oil prices and heavy cost-cutting.
Van Beurden's latest annual earnings are 143 times higher than the amount handed to the average Shell employee in the UK, the company revealed in its annual report.
The disclosure comes as top British companies increasingly come under fire from shareholders and members of the public for the hefty salaries paid to executives.
Shell said in its report that while it is "sensitive to the wider societal discussions regarding the level of executive pay" compared to the average employee salary, the company's pay ratio "is consistent with ...

Shell CEO's annual pay doubles to 20 mn euros

One Tajik was killed and 11 injured in clashes with Kyrgyz citizens over a road project at the disputed border between the Central Asian countries, Tajikistan said Thursday.
A group of Tajiks were on Wednesday protesting Kyrgyzstan's plans for the project when "the Kyrgyz opened fire" and started throwing stones, Tajikistan's border service said.
Thirty people from Tajikistan were taken hostage, the service said in a statement.  Kyrgyzstan's border service did not confirm the death of the Tajik citizen or the hostages claim.
It said "about 50 Kyrgyz citizens and 70 Tajik citizens" had thrown stones at each other Wednesday but did not say whether shots were fired.
Flare-ups are common at the border, where large areas are not demarcated and competition for scarce land and water pits ethnic groups against each other.
Tajikistan said Kyrgyzstan is building a road in the disputed region "in violation of the bilateral intergovernmental protocol".
Both Muslim-majority Tajikistan and ...

Tajik killed in clashes at border with Kyrgyzstan

The European Parliament on Thursday failed to back the launch of trade talks between the EU and the United States, dealing an unexpected blow to efforts to avert a trade war.
Pursuing a limited trade deal was the central part of a truce agreed in July when European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and US President Donald Trump pledged no new tariffs following those on steel and aluminium.
That announcement allowed the two sides to reduce tensions at a time when Trump threatened to impose steep duties on European automobiles -- a threat he has renewed in recent weeks.
MEPs meeting in the eastern French city of Strasbourg on Thursday failed to pass an approval of an EU mandate, after a rebellion by lawmakers changed the wording of the text.
In the final tally, 223 voted against the recommendation to start the talks and 198 in favour, with 37 abstentions.
The European Parliament only has an advisory role with regard to the EU's negotiating mandate, but it will have the final say .

European parliament deals setback to EU-US trade talks

The black box flight recorders from the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that crashed in Ethiopia were flown to France Thursday for analysis as the ban on the model went worldwide after President Donald Trump added the US to countries that have grounded the aircraft.
France's BEA air safety agency confirmed it has received the recorders from the plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa on Sunday, killing all 157 people aboard.
BEA investigators will try to remove information from the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, which were damaged in the disaster.
The information that black boxes contain about what the pilots and plane were doing help explain 90 per cent of all crashes, according to aviation experts.
On Wednesday, US authorities said new evidence showed similarities between the Ethiopia crash and that of a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October that claimed the lives of 189 people.
The Federal Aviation Administration said findings from the crash site near Addis ...

Boeing black boxes flown to France as jets grounded worldwide

World leaders gathered in Kenya on Thursday to lend political muscle to UN environment talks, calling for "urgent action" to slow the destruction of natural habitats and accelerate funding for green development.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta were among several heads of state in Nairobi for the fourth UN Environment Assembly -- a vast gathering of ministers, legal experts, charities and business leaders.
The assembly aims to push countries to commit to slashing pollution and widening renewable energy, recycling and conservation.
But it lacks the legal teeth to compel nations to act, and there is no prospect of it reaching a binding international action plan this week.
"Current global statistics are quite sobering and projections for future generations are dire and demand urgent action," Kenyatta told delegates.
"Climate change continues to be a major threat to sustainable development worldwide. And its impact places a disproportionately heavy ...

Leaders appeal for 'urgent action' on environment

Hanoi said Thursday it "regrets" the decision by Malaysian prosecutors not to release a Vietnamese woman accused of killing the half-brother of North Korea's leader and called for a fair trial.
Doan Thi Huong's request was rejected in a Malaysian court after her Indonesian co-accused Siti Aisyah was freed earlier this week.
The pair were on trial for the 2017 killing of Kim Jong Un's half-brother Kim Jong Nam with a toxic nerve agent in a busy Kuala Lumpur airport.
Both have insisted they were tricked into the brazen attack and thought it was part of a TV show.
Following months of public silence, Vietnam lobbied this week for Huong's release after Aisyah was unexpectedly freed on Monday.
"We regret the fact that the Malaysian court did not set free Doan Thi Huong immediately," Vietnam's foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told reporters Thursday.
"We want Doan Thi Huong to be tried fairly and objectively and for her to be freed," she added.
Vietnam's deputy foreign minister ..

Vietnam 'regrets' murder suspect not freed in Malaysia

Thirty-one militants, many of them believed to have been Al-Qaeda fighters, have been killed in airstrikes in south-eastern Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.
The strikes were carried out in Ghazni province late Wednesday, where the defence ministry said they targeted a "base" belonging to the militants.
"Qari Aref, one of the facilitators (for Al-Qaeda) was transferring these 31 terrorists, including nine suicide bombers, in several cars when targeted by airstrikes and eliminated," the ministry said.
It described the fighters as all belonging to the Middle Eastern jihadist group, although a spokesman for the Ghazni governor said fighters from the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network were also present.
The defence ministry did not specify who carried out the airstrikes. Only Afghan and US forces in Afghanistan conduct airstrikes.
The Ghazni governor's spokesman, Mohammed Aref Noori, said the strikes had been carried out by US forces, but there was no immediate confirmation of his ...

Afghan airstrikes kill 31 militants: officials

Diplomats Thursday walked out of a UN convention on drugs addressed by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, saying his government was illegitimate and did not represent the country.
Dozens of officials from Latin America, as well as the US, Canada and some European countries, including France, left the room in protest as Arreaza took the podium for the meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna.
"The members of the Venezuela delegation here today represent the illegitimate government of (Venezuela's President) Nicolas Maduro, and thus cannot be considered as speaking on behalf of the Venezuelan people," a spokesperson of the US Mission to International Organizations said in a statement after the walk-out.
Multiple diplomats, including from Latin America and Europe, had staged a walk-out late last month during an Arreaza address to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, when he called for direct talks between Maduro and US President Donald Trump about 

Diplomats walk out of UN conference in Venezuela protest

Indonesian police said Thursday they had uncovered a huge stash of explosives linked to a terror suspect whose wife blew up herself and a child following a dramatic standoff at their home.
The discovery of some 300 kilogrammes of assembled explosives and bomb-making materials raised fears that a major attack was being planned, a month before national elections and less than a year after Indonesia was rocked by a wave of deadly suicide bombings.
The suicide blast early Wednesday morning came after police had arrested the husband, Abu Hamzah, who was identified as a member of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).
The Islamic State-linked jihadist network has been blamed for attacks last May in Indonesia's second-biggest city, Surabaya, the deadliest in years to rock the world's biggest Muslim majority nation.
Officers surrounded the arrested militant's home in Sibolga on Sumatra island when the confrontation began.
During a nearly 12-hour standoff, the wife lobbed an explosive device at ...

Indonesia says uncovers huge explosives stash after suicide blast

Five people were killed and six others wounded in a gas pipeline explosion Thursday near the city of Ahvaz in southwest Iran, state news agency IRNA reported.
"The gas pipes blew up about 200 metres (yards) from the road... destroying four vehicles that were passing by," Ahvaz governor Jamal Alemi Neisi said, quoted by IRNA.
"This was not a terrorist act or sabotage and was caused by gas leaking" from the pipes, he said.
IRNA said the explosion struck near a traffic police station on the Ahvaz-Mahshahr freeway.
Ahvaz is the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province on the border with Iraq.

5 dead in Iran gas pipe blast

Thailand's junta chief batted away criticism of a controversial cybersecurity law on Thursday, saying it would not be used to "tap phone calls".
The country's rubber-stamp parliament passed the bill on February 28, triggering pushback from rights groups and companies worried about privacy breaches.
Thais go to the polls on March 24 in an election that could see a junta-aligned government come to power, and with it more controls on freedom of expression.
The new bill allows authorities to seize any computers or devices without a court warrant if there are "critical threats" to cybersecurity, which a committee determines in cases of "reasonable suspicion".
The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry association representing companies like Google and Facebook, warned the law was too broadly worded and could give the government sweeping powers to snoop on user data.
But junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who seized power in 2014 and is standing for civilian premier in the election, tried to ...

Thai junta chief says cybersecurity bill not used to 'tap' phones

EU leader Donald Tusk said Thursday that European capitals could approve a long delay to Brexit, in a last-ditch push to persuade Prime Minister Theresa May to change her negotiating red lines.
During consultations ahead of next week's EU summit, Tusk said he "will appeal to the EU27 to be open to a long extension if the UK finds it necessary to rethink its Brexit strategy and build consensus around it."
As president of the European Council, Tusk will be the host of the March 21 summit in Brussels that may be asked to decide whether to push back Britain's March 29 departure from the Union.
His tweeted intervention came as British MPs prepared the latest in a series of votes on Brexit, this time on whether to ask the EU for such an extension of the "Article 50" process.
May's government has said it plans to ask for a delay until June 30 if its parliament eventually votes to approve a draft withdrawal agreement already agreed with Europe, but twice massively rejected by ...

EU's Tusk backs 'long' delay if Britain 'rethinks' Brexit

Dubai port and logistics giant DP World said Thursday its net profit for 2018 rose over five percent on increased trade and higher returns from new acquisitions.
The global provider, which runs port operations in over 40 countries, said in a statement that it posted a net profit of $1.27 billion in 2018, compared to $1.21 billion the previous year.
"This robust performance has been delivered in an uncertain trade environment, once again highlighting the resilience of our portfolio," said DP World chairman and CEO Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
He said DP World had made new acquisitions worth $2.5 billion last year, strengthening its presence around the world.
They included Berbera port in Somaliland, Continental Warehousing Corp. in India, Cosmos Agencia Maritima in Peru, and the Unifeeder Group in Denmark, as well as the pan-European logistics business P&O Ferries.
The state-owned company said its revenue for the year rose 20 per cent to $5.65 billion, with important contributions ...

Giant UAE port operator posts rise in 2018 profit

Another body has been recovered from the rubble of a building housing a school that collapsed in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, rescue workers said Thursday, taking the death toll to nine.
"We worked through the night and one body was recovered," the southwest coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Ibrahim Farinloye, told AFP.
The dilapidated building in the densely populated Lagos Island area of the city came down without warning on Wednesday morning.
Locals, firefighters and other emergency services workers picked through the rubble to find those trapped, in chaotic scenes.
Thirty-seven people were rescued alive, Farinloye said on Wednesday night.
Lagos State governor Akinwunmi Ambode said the building had been earmarked for demolition and a nursery and primary school was being run illegally on one of its floors.
School bags, toys and clothes were among the piles of rubble as a bulldozer tried to clear a path through wreckage.
Shopworker Adeniyi Afolabi, who 

Death toll rises to nine in collapsed Lagos school building

- Lufthansa, Europe's largest airline group, said Thursday that capacity bumping up against limits at overcrowded airports would hem in growth this year as it reported that its bottom line fell in 2018.
Net profits at the Frankfurt-based group amounted to 2.2 billion euros ($2.5 billion), down 8.0 percent year-on-year.
Disruption to air traffic, higher fuel costs and the pricey acquisition of large parts of defunct competitor Air Berlin all weighed on the result, Lufthansa said, outweighing a 6.0-percent boost in revenues to 35.8 billion euros.
Looking ahead to 2019, Lufthansa's executives said they had cut back their targets for capacity growth, or increasing the number of seats available, as infrastructure bottlenecks at airports and air traffic control make adding new flights a challenge.
In summer, capacity will be 1.9 percent higher than last year -- half the increase previously announced.
Over 2019, Lufthansa expects revenues to grow by between four and six per cent.
But it sees 

Lufthansa warns airport capacity to squeeze growth

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel Thursday vowed to shrug off a "disaster" 2018 and topple arch-rival Lewis Hamilton, with his refreshed team passionate about returning Ferrari to the top.
The German won the opening race of the season in Melbourne last year and backed it up with victory at the next in Bahrain. But Hamilton roared back to sweep 11 of the remaining 19 Grand Prix and the 31-year-old is desperate to turn the tables.
"There is a lot of passion inside this team willing to get out and to express ourselves through winning I think is the best we can do," he said.
"So that's the target. So far the atmosphere is good, the spirit is right within the team and we will try to carry that into the season."
Vettel is a winner and having to settle for second in the drivers and constructors championship last year was tough to take.
He said it was normal for Ferrari fans to consider finishing runner-up a "disaster".
"You know the winner takes it all. Lewis has been in that ...

AFP

AFP

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