Fiat Chrysler will recall nearly 863,000 SUVs and sedans that failed to meet federal emissions standards, US regulators announced Wednesday.
The voluntary recall involves models of the Dodge Journey, Chrysler 200, Dodge Avenger and Dodge Caliber sedans as well as the Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot SUVs produced for model years 2011 and 2016, according to a statement from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
The scale of the recall means it will be carried out in phases this year, beginning with the oldest vehicles, and owners may continue to drive their vehicles in the meantime, the agency said in a statement.
FCA will replace the catalytic converters on the affected vehicles. The recall comes two months after the auto giant agreed to pay US and local authorities for USD 515 million to resolve charges it had installed "defeat devices" on different cars to cheat on emissions tests -- something the company claimed at the time was unintentional.

Fiat Chrysler to recall 863,000 autos over emissions

PTI Automatic

President Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort, already facing 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud, was sentenced to an additional 43 months in prison Wednesday on conspiracy charges.
"The defendant is not public enemy number one," US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in delivering the sentence in a hushed courtroom.
"But he is not a victim either," Jackson said, adding that the veteran Republican lobbyist had shown little remorse and had lied repeatedly.
Manafort's case is the highest-profile yet stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort jailed for 43 more months

German car giant Volkswagen said Wednesday it would slash thousands of posts to cope with its transition to electric and autonomous driving the day after reporting rising profits, saying heavy costs for investments meant savings were needed elsewhere.
Chief executive Herbert Diess had on Tuesday trumpeted rising sales and profits across the sprawling 12-brand group in 2018, the third year after its "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal broke.
But it was up to the VW brand's chief operating officer Ralf Brandstaetter to announce the flagship division would drop between 5,000 and 7,000 positions by 2023 as it chases cost savings.
All of the cuts will come from non-replacement of workers already set to retire over that period, Brandstaetter said.
"Given that more and more routine tasks are being automated, we'll need fewer jobs in administration," he said.
At the same time, VW plans to create 2,000 new posts in software development and electronics.
Overall the plan would help "finance .

VW slashes thousands more jobs to fund electric transition

Residents of a tiny Spanish village have been left mystified by an anonymous donor who leaves envelopes of cash in postboxes or under people's doors.
Since Wednesday last week, around 15 people in Villarramiel, northern Spain, have received envelopes containing up to 100 euros in notes, Mayor Nuria Simon told AFP.
Locals are trying to work out why a group of apparently unconnected people in a village of just over 800 residents have been singled out for the gifts. Some Spanish news reports have labelled him the "Robin Hood of Villarramiel".
"We're all bewildered and expectant as we don't know where this money comes from or who the benefactor is," said Simon.
"We don't know what the intention is."
While some got their banknotes in a brown envelope, others also received messages including the recipients' names, addresses and phrases, such as "The princess of the household" -- complete with a heart, Simon said.
"A widow living with her son, couples with small children, elderly couples, ...

Generous 'Robin Hood' figure mystifies Spanish village

At least 10 young children were trapped when a four-storey building collapsed in a densely-populated area of Lagos Wednesday, and rescuers were trying to reach them through the damaged roof.
The children were attending a nursery and primary school on the top floor of the residential building when the structure collapsed.
Police said they believed scores of people were trapped under the rubble.
The incident took place near Itafaji market on Lagos Island at around 10:00 am (0900 GMT).
In chaotic scenes, thousands of people thronged the area as police and rescue workers sought to rescue the victims.
A young man helping rescue efforts who gave his name only as Derin said "at least 10 children" were trapped inside but "thought to be alive."
Police said the overall number of people inside was likely much higher.
"We are still trying to find out how many are trapped inside" but probably scores of people, said police officer Seun Ariwyo.
He said "at least 20 have been brought out" but did not 

School children trapped as building collapses in Lagos

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday blasted Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu as a "tyrant" who "massacred" Palestinian children as the two leaders exchanged insults in their latest spat.
Erdogan was responding to earlier comments from Netanyahu who slammed the Turkish leader as a "dictator" and "a joke", after a day of tit-for-tat exchanges between government officials in both countries.
Turkey and Israel have tense relations and Erdogan, who regards himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, is a vocal critic of Israeli policies. The two leaders have exchanged barbs in the past over Gaza.
"Hey Netanyahu, behave yourself. You are a tyrant, you are a tyrant who massacred seven-year-old Palestinian children," Erdogan told a rally of supporters in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Erdogan also referred to clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem, denouncing Israeli security forces for entering a "holy place".
"Do not provoke. Look, we have not ...

Erdogan and Netanyahu trade 'tyrant', 'dictator' insults

Ten Saudi women appeared in court Wednesday for the first time since being detained last year in a sweeping crackdown on activists, ratcheting up scrutiny of the kingdom's human rights record.
The trial of the women, who have been held for nearly a year without charge, comes as Saudi Arabia seeks to placate international criticism over last year's brutal murder of insider-turned-critic Jamal Khashoggi.
Prominent activists Loujain al-Hathloul, Hatoon al-Fassi, Aziza al-Yousef and Eman al-Nafjan were among those who attended Riyadh's criminal court, where they heard charges raised against them, court president Ibrahim al-Sayari said.
Family members of the women -- some of whom allegedly faced torture and sexual harassment during interrogation -- were permitted to attend the opening court session, but reporters and western diplomats were barred from entering.
The charges against the women were not immediately disclosed to the public.
"It now seems that the authorities will charge the ...

Saudi women activists on trial after a year in detention

A burgeoning K-pop sex scandal claimed a second scalp as a singer who rose to fame after coming second in one of South Korea's top talent shows admitted secretly filming himself having sex and sharing the footage.
Jung Joon-young, 30, announced his immediate retirement from showbusiness amid allegations he shot and shared sexual imagery without his partners' consent.
"I admit to all my crimes," he said.
"I filmed women without their consent and shared it in a chatroom, and while I was doing so I didn't feel a great sense of guilt," he added in a statement released late Tuesday.
Jung was one of three male artists in a group chat room where some members shared secretly filmed footage of a sexual nature of at least 10 women, according to local broadcaster SBS.
K-pop singer Seungri, a hugely successful member of boy band BIGBANG who announced his retirement from show business on Monday amid a sex-for-investment criminal investigation, was also a member of the chatroom, the broadcaster ...

Second S. Korean star quits as K-pop sex scandal spreads

Canada grounded the world's third largest fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliners, or 41 planes operated by three Canadian carriers, and banned the aircraft from its airspace Wednesday.
"As a result of new data that we received this morning, and had the chance to analyze, and on the advice of my experts and as a precautionary measure, I issued a safety notice," Transport Minister March Garneau told a press conference.
"This safety notice restricts commercial passenger flights from any operator of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 or MAX 9 variant aircraft, whether domestic or foreign, from arriving, departing or overflying Canadian air space. This safety notice is effective immediately and will remain in place until further notice.

Canada transport minister grounds Boeing 737 MAX

The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors with the world body's envoy for Yemen on Wednesday in an attempt to salvage a stalled truce deal seen as crucial to diplomatic efforts to end the war.
Yemen's government and its Saudi and Emirati allies agreed in talks with Huthi rebels nearly a month ago to begin a redeployment of forces from the flashpoint city of Hodeida, but nothing has happened on the ground.
UN envoy Martin Griffiths had told the council on February 19 that the initial stage of the pullback would happen in the following days, marking the first concrete step toward de-escalation.
The redeployment was initially agreed in December under a ceasefire deal reached in Sweden seen as a breakthrough toward ending the devastating war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
UN diplomats said the Huthis were refusing to pull away from the ports of Saleef and Ras Issa as agreed due to fears that forces linked to the Saudi-led coalition will move in to take ...

UN Security Council in talks on saving Yemen truce deal

Sudan's new prime minister on Wednesday unveiled a 20-member cabinet tasked with solving an economic crisis that has triggered nationwide protests against the decades-old rule of President Omar al-Bashir.
Bashir appointed Mohamed Tahir Eila as premier last month after dissolving the previous federal government in the face of protests that have rocked his administration since December.
Eila's cabinet is the third such government formed in less than two years, with the earlier two administrations sacked by Bashir for failing to revive the crisis-wracked economy.
Bashir on February 22 dissolved the former cabinet along with all provincial governments as he imposed a nationwide state of emergency to quell demonstrations after an initial crackdown failed to suppress the protest movement.
Eila said his new government, which retains several ministers from the previous cabinet, aimed to tackle the country's economic crisis -- the key factor behind the protests.
"We recognise the main issues, .

Protest-hit Sudan unveils new cabinet to 'solve' economic crisis

A number of countries have banned Boeing's 737 MAX 8 medium-haul workhorse jet from their airspace in response to the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board.
Several airlines have grounded the MAX 8s in their fleets, but many others are continuing to fly the plane pending an investigation into the crash and possible guidance from Boeing itself.
Airlines still operating the model have been restricted by the airspace bans. Air Canada, for example, was obliged to cancel some flights to London because of Britain's ban on the aircraft.
The Nairobi-bound plane was the same type as the Indonesian Lion Air jet that crashed in October, killing 189 passengers and crew -- and some officials have detected similarities between the two accidents.
More than 370 of the 737 MAX 8s are in service around the world, with nearly 5,000 on order.

Nations, airlines grounding Boeing's 737 MAX

Bangladesh said Wednesday it would start relocating tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from overcrowded camps to a remote island vulnerable to extreme weather, despite the plan attracting considerable controversy.
Shelters and flood walls have been constructed on Bhashan Char, a muddy silt islet that only rose from the Bay of Bengal in 2006, in the hope of shifting 100,000 Rohingya refugees there.
Bangladesh has been talking about the island for years and the plan to relocate some of the nearly one million Rohingya refugees living along its border with Myanmar has stalled many times.
The proposal to uproot the refugees remains unpopular among the Rohingya community and critics have raised concerns about the island's ability to withstand violent storms during the monsoon.
But Mozammel Huq, the head of Bangladesh's cabinet committee on law and order and a senior government minister, said the relocation would proceed as planned.
"We plan to start the process next month, as ...

Bangladesh to move Rohingya to island next month: minister

The wife and two children of a suspected Indonesian militant are believed to have died in a suicide bombing at their home following an hours-long standoff with authorities, police said Wednesday.
The suspect, who is in police custody, was identified as a member of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an Islamic State-linked jihadist network blamed for a series of deadly suicide bombings in Indonesia's second-biggest city last year.
In May, two families carried out attacks at churches in Surabaya, killing a dozen people and children of the attackers, including two young girls whose parents brought them to the bombings.
The explosion early Wednesday morning came after police had arrested the militant who was suspected of planning terror attacks.
Officers then surrounded the man's home in Sibolga on Sumatra island when the confrontation began.
During a nearly 12-hour standoff, the woman lobbed an explosive device at security personnel, wounding a police officer, said national police spokesman ..

Indonesian terror suspect's wife, children die in blast: Police

An apparent case of "friendly fire" between Afghan and US troops led to an airstrike which killed five Afghan soldiers, officials said Wednesday, with the defence ministry citing a "lack of proper coordination".
The incident occurred Wednesday when a US and Afghan patrol came under fire near an Afghan army post on the outskirts of Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province, a NATO spokesman in Kabul told AFP.
They called in airstrikes which hit the army post, killing five and seriously wounding a further 10 Afghan soldiers, said Karim Karimi, deputy head of the Uruzgan provincial council.
"As the American patrol approached the base, the ANA (Afghan National Army) soldiers probably thought it was the Taliban approaching them," he told AFP.
Large parts of Uruzgan province remain under the Taliban control.
In recent years the militants have also made repeated incursions into the provincial capital.
Seventeen soldiers had been at the post in total, with only two managing to flee unhurt, ..

Afghan soldiers killed in 'friendly fire' gunfight, US airstrike

China on Wednesday offered to help Venezuela bring its collapsing power grid back online as President Nicolas Maduro sought to stave off rising public anger that is bolstering his US-backed rival Juan Guaido.
A vast blackout that struck Venezuela nearly a week ago -- the worst in its history -- has deepened the South American country's already grave economic crisis, especially by disrupting the supply of drinking water.
Although electricity has since been restored to most of the capital Caracas, water was having to be trucked in, and western swaths of the country remain without power.
"No water, no power, no medicine, no cash, no transport. This has been dreadful," one Caracas resident, Victoria Milano, 40, told AFP.
Guaido, an opposition leader whose claim to be Venezuela's interim president is backed by the US and 50 other countries, told supporters on Tuesday he expected to have military chiefs on his side and take over the presidential palace "very soon."
"This desperation and ...

China offers to help Venezuela restore power after vast blackout

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged British MPs to reject Wednesday a potentially chaotic no-deal exit from the EU, saying that an "orderly" Brexit was in both sides' interest.
"Achieving an orderly exit together, and I particularly want to repeat this today, remains in our mutual interest," Merkel said, expressing "regret" that Britain's parliament on Tuesday had rejected for a second time the withdrawal deal agreed between Brussels and Prime Minister Theresa May.
"That remains our objective."
Merkel said it was up to the British parliament to provide clarity about how it wants to proceed with the divorce agreement.
She praised the "unity" of the 27 remaining member states during the Brexit negotiations.
"And because we 27 are working for each other and with each other, it is also important to reach a sensible result," she told reporters after talks with her counterpart from Laos, Thongloun Sisoulith.
"But we can't make it happen on our own. Rather, we are dependent on finding ...

'Orderly' Brexit in everyone's interest: Merkel

At least two of the 10 people who broke into Madrid's North Korean embassy in February, roughing up employees and robbing computers, are linked to the CIA, the El Pais daily said Wednesday.
The mysterious incident took place on February 22 just five days before the start of a nuclear summit between North Korea and the United States attended, among others, by Pyongyang's former ambassador to Spain Kim Hyok Chol.
According to investigators quoted by El Pais, they were specifically looking for information linked to Kim.
"At least two of the 10 assailants... have been identified and have ties with US secret services," the paper said, citing sources from the police and Spain's intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI).
It specifically identified the CIA.
Contacted by AFP, the CNI refused to comment.
According to El Pais, Spain asked for clarification from the CIA but the US spy agency denied any involvement.
Spanish authorities however said the response was "not very ...

Madrid's N Korea embassy assailants linked to CIA: report

Navigating pigs and goats as they practise on a dusty paddock, a group of young East Timorese are hoping to copy the fairy-tale rise of Afghanistan by making it as Asia's latest emerging cricket nation.
In the impoverished, once war-ravaged country, which only gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, the manicured pitches of Lord's are a world away for aspiring cricketer Juvelino Mique "Micky" Rama Pinto, 16.
His 14-year-old batting partner, Joana Gonsalves Borges, has seen cricket on TV and is excited by "watching big sixes and wickets being taken". Like Micky, she wants to play for East Timor.
The vision to turn soccer-obsessed East Timor on to cricket originated with Mark Young, who played at league level in Lancashire and Gloucestershire before emigrating to New Zealand in 1997.
Young and a Pakistani colleague, Muhammad Tayyeb Javed, argue that East Timor can use cricket as part of its revival just like Afghanistan, whose players learned the game in refugee camps but have risen 

'Our inspiration is Afghanistan' - East Timorese hope to copy cricket rise

South Korea's parliament passed emergency measures on Wednesday to tackle the "social disaster" of air pollution, after the country saw record levels of pollution earlier this month.
The measures include the mandatory introduction of air purifiers in schools and day care centres, and access to an emergency fund to help tackle the issue.
The country's poor air quality has become a serious political problem for Seoul amid growing public discontent that the government is not doing enough, with many South Koreans blaming Asian neighbour China for the poor air quality.
The eight new bills designate air pollution as a "social disaster", meaning the government can use state funds and conduct extraordinary countermeasures to tackle it.
They also encourage the purchase of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cars, which emit less air pollutants than diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles and were previously only available for taxis, rental cars and disabled drivers.
China is the world's biggest ...

AFP

AFP

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