Four Egyptian policeman were wounded in an ambush Tuesday in the southwest of the country, a security source said, in an attack claimed by the jihadist Islamic State group.
The attack took place in El-Wadi El-Gedid governorate (New Valley in English), a mostly arid region in the Western Desert bordering Libya, when gunmen ambushed a police checkpoint, the source said.
The police "responded to the armed attack" leading to an "exchange of fire" with the assailants who managed to flee, the source said, adding that four policemen were wounded.
IS's propaganda agency Amaq released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack.
It quoted a "security source" as saying IS "fighters" attacked the so-called Baghdad checkpoint on a road linking El-Wadi El-Gedid's capital Kharga to the city of Luxor further south, without giving further details.
Egypt has been the target of several jihadist attacks in recent years including from IS who are active in the restive Northern Sinai region.
The ...

Four Egyptian police wounded in attack claimed by IS

PTI Automatic

Qatar Airways and European Union officials announced Tuesday that they had concluded talks on a "landmark" deal which could allow more European airlines to operate services to and from Doha.
The Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement, said to be the first of its kind agreed by Brussels and a Gulf state, will enable carriers from all EU countries to have far greater access to Qatar and vice versa.
"Our hope is that the success of these negotiations will encourage other trading blocs and significant aviation markets to join in achieving a liberalised global aviation regime for future generations," said Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar al-Baker.
Following the end of talks, the deal is expected to be formally signed later this year.
State-owned Qatar Airways, like other Gulf carriers, has faced accusations it is unfairly subsidised, giving it an advantage over airlines in Europe and North America.
The deal, agreed in Doha, covers various areas including competition, environment and ...

Qatar and EU agree 'landmark' airline deal

The Taliban demanded a new constitution for Afghanistan and promised an "inclusive Islamic system" to govern the war-torn country at a rare gathering with senior Afghan politicians in Russia Tuesday that excluded the Kabul government.
The insurgents' manifesto, outlined in Moscow before some of Afghanistan's most influential leaders, comes a week after the Taliban held unprecedented six-day talks with US negotiators in Doha about ending the 17-year war.
The Doha and Moscow discussions, though entirely separate, both excluded the government in Kabul, where President Ashraf Ghani is seen as increasingly sidelined from key negotiations for peace in his country.
The Moscow meeting -- the Taliban's most significant with Afghan politicians in recent memory -- saw the insurgents praying together with sworn enemies including former president Hamid Karzai as they discussed their vision for the future.
"The Kabul government constitution is invalid. It has been imported from the West and is an ..

Taliban demand new constitution for Afghanistan at rare talks

The government of the Central African Republic and 14 armed groups on Tuesday inked a new peace accord seeking to end years-long fighting that has left thousands of people dead.
The accord was initialled by President Faustin Archange Touadera for the CAR government and representatives of militias which control most of the chronically-troubled country.
It will be formally signed in the CAR capital of Bangui "in the coming days," Touadera's office said, without announcing a date.
"The Khartoum Agreement opens the door for peace to return to our homeland," Touadera declared at the ceremony. "It is now time to open a new page for Central Africa. Let's go together to Bangui to build our country together."
The agreement, brokered by the African Union after 18 months of exploratory work and sponsored by the UN, is the eighth attempt in almost six years to forge peace in a country that is a byword for turmoil and poverty.
Thousands of people have been killed and a quarter of the population of 

C Africa government inks peace deal with militias

The French government announced Tuesday that US industrial conglomerate General Electric will pay 50 million euros (USD 57 million) after falling short of its goal of creating 1,000 new jobs in the country.
GE had pledged to create the jobs by the end of last year as part of its 2015 purchase of the power and electrical grid businesses of France's Alstom.
But shortly after closing the deal GE unveiled a series of job cuts across Europe as slumping oil and gas prices crimped demand for its heavy-duty turbines and other equipment.
The company had already warned last year that it wouldn't meet the target, though the new CEO Larry Culp confirmed in October that GE would "fulfil its commitments."
It had promised to pay 50,000 euros for every job not created over the three-year period.
The French finance ministry said after a meeting with GE officials Tuesday that the firm had created just 25 new jobs overall, meaning it would pay 50 million euros into an industrial development fund.
"GE ...

GE to pay France 50 mn euros after failing to meet hiring pledge

Vandals have smashed and defaced the London tomb of Karl Marx in what the cemetery said appeared to be a deliberate attack against the philosopher's ideology.
A marble plaque with the names of Marx and his family -- the monument's oldest and most fragile part -- was repeatedly hit with a blunt metal instrument, Ian Dungavell, who runs the cemetery trust, told AFP on Tuesday.
The damage was discovered on Monday, he said.
"The name of Karl Marx seems to have been particularly singled out, so it wasn't just a random smashing up of a monument -- it seems a very targeted attack on Karl Marx," said Dungavell, chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, the charity which runs the graveyard.
German revolutionary philosopher Marx moved to London in 1849 and lived in the British capital for the rest of his life. He died on March 14, 1883, aged 64.
The granite slab monument in north London, 12 feet tall and topped with a bronze bust of Marx, was funded in 1956 by the Communist ...

Tomb of Karl Marx vandalised in London

Ex-Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has avoided jail for tax fraud as part of a deal with Spanish prosecutors revealed Tuesday but will pay a fine of close to two million euros.
The 56-year-old is accused of committing tax fraud in 2011 and 2012 when he coached Spanish giants Real Madrid.
According to the agreement seen by AFP, Mourinho accepted a one-year jail sentence immediately commuted to a fine of 182,500 euros.
The Portuguese coach will also have to pay an additional penalty of 1.98 million euros.
Mourinho already paid 1.14 million euros in 2015 as an administrative penalty and the deal stipulates that prosecutors won't oppose that this amount be deduced from the overall fine.
The agreement still has to be validated by a judge.
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Mourinho, sacked by Manchester United in December following a string of disappointing performances, is the latest high-profile football figure to be judged over his tax affairs in Spain.
Spanish prosecutors accuse 

Mourinho avoids jail but is hit by fine for tax fraud in Spain

The government of the Central African Republic and 14 armed groups inked a new peace accord on Tuesday to end years of fighting that has left thousands of people dead.
The accord, the eighth since 2012, was initialled by President Faustin Archange Touadera for the CAR government, an AFP correspondent reported.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who hosted the talks in Khartoum, sponsored by the African Union and the United Nations, that culminated in the deal, was also present at the ceremony.
The text of the Khartoum Agreement has not been released and there was no word on what compromises had been reached on past stumbling blocks such as rebel demands for an amnesty.
After initialling the agreement, the representatives of the 14 armed groups shook hands with Touadera and Bashir.
The initialling is to be followed by a formal signing in the CAR capital Bangui at a date yet to be set.
The latest round of talks which opened in Khartoum on January 24, had been repeatedly suspended ...

C.Africa govt inks peace deal with 14 armed groups

The three-way alliance of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors is planning a deal to work with Google's Waymo to jointly develop self-driving taxis, Japan's Nikkei said Tuesday.
The three automakers are finalising tie-up negotiations with Waymo, a Google-affiliated developer of self-driving car technology, the business daily said on its website.
The two sides are expected to announce details of the deal "as early as this spring," it added.
One project that the joint operation is considering would involve developing unmanned taxis using Nissan and other vehicles under a new system that handles reservation and payments, the newspaper said.
In September last year, the alliance decided to use a Google operating system for their cars' information systems, and the tech giant has already forged similar deals with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Jaguar Land Rover.
The report comes as the alliance reels from the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, the auto tycoon who forged and led the partnership before ..

Renault-Nissan to work with Google's Waymo on driverless cars: report

EU president Jean-Claude Juncker will meet Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday, the EU said, as Brussels and London seek ways to save the Brexit deal.
Plans for Britain to leave the bloc on March 29 under a withdrawal agreement signed last year were thrown into doubt when British lawmakers rejected the accord.
Brussels is now waiting for May to formally request renewed talks, while warning that the agreement itself can not at this stage be reopened for discussion.
"Our position remains clear, and has been expressed several times," Juncker's spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters at his daily briefing Tuesday.
"A series of votes has taken place in the British parliament, upon the basis of which the prime minister will come to explain what comes next," he said.
"We will receive her with pleasure," Schinas said.
"While the commission's position is clear, we are waiting to see what the prime minister has to say." May will visit Juncker at the commission's Berlaymont ...

Britain's May to meet EU leaders Thursday on Brexit

Thousands of school children, office workers and shoppers were evacuated from over 100 buildings in and around Moscow on Tuesday, reports said, in the latest wave of fake bomb threats to hit Russia.
Last week, 55 buildings were evacuated in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg and several other cities like Krasnoyarsk in Siberia and Volgograd in the south were forced to act after receiving similar threats.
Tuesday's alerts prompted the evacuation of some 20,000 people as authorities conducted sweeps, only to find nothing, news agencies reported, citing the emergency services.
The false alarms targeted more than 90 buildings in Moscow and over 40 in the region of the capital, the TASS state news agency reported, citing an emergency services source.
Many of the warnings were sent by email and had very similar wording, Russian media reports said.
Outside the Russian State University of the Humanities in central Moscow, hundreds of students had gathered, with the university saying it had 

Fake bomb threats prompt mass evacuations in Moscow area

British crash investigators told AFP on Tuesday they were planning "an underwater operation" in the next couple of days on the wreckage of a plane carrying Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala in the Channel.
"There is still an ongoing operation gathering evidence," said a spokesman for the Air Accident Investigations Branch.
Asked whether an attempt would be made to recover the aircraft and the unidentified body that a remotely operated vehicle found on board, he said only: "An underwater operation will be conducted over the next couple of days".
The shipwreck hunter who found the remains of the plane on Sunday urged the authorities to urgently recover the body.
"Time is of the essence when you're talking about a body, so really it's imperative that they proceed with the recovery of the plane and the body," David Mearns said.
Mearns was hired by Sala's family to find the light aircraft after it disappeared near the British island of Guernsey on January 21, with the 28-year-old ...

Crash investigators planning 'operation' on Sala's plane

Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday said the country must develop new types of missile systems in the next two years after Washington and Moscow ripped up a key arms control treaty.
The United States has repeatedly accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement and on Friday President Donald Trump said Washington was starting the process of withdrawing from the treaty in six months.
In a tit-for-tat move on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was also leaving the treaty and beginning work on new types of weapons that would breach the crucial Cold War-era agreement.
Many analysts say abandoning the 1987 treaty could effectively signal the start of a new arms race.
At a meeting with officials on Tuesday, Shoigu said Russia should develop two new missile systems in the next two years.
"During 2019-2020 we have to develop a land-based version of the seaborne Kalibr system equipped with a long-range cruise missile which ..

Russia must develop new types of missiles in next 2 years: defence minister

Iran on Tuesday ruled out linkage between a new EU mechanism to trade with Tehran bypassing US sanctions and an anti-money laundering bill.
"Linking implementation of this mechanism... with the requirements of institutions such as the FATF is unacceptable," the foreign ministry said, referring to the international Financial Action Task Force.
Iran is on an FATF blacklist drawn up to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorist groups, but the Paris-based organisation has suspended counter-measures since 2017 while Tehran works on reforms.
EU leaders on Monday welcomed the bloc's new mechanism to trade with Iran but warned Tehran over its ballistic missile programme and regional policies while calling for it to implement reforms to comply with FATF demands.
Britain, France and Germany created the system last week to allow firms to trade with Iran without falling foul of US sanctions.
The foreign ministry, in its statement, welcomed the EU's "positive stances" but also ...

Iran rejects EU trade, anti-money laundering link

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker firmly defended the EU's competition policy on Tuesday, one day ahead of an expected veto of a Siemens-Alstom merger that has riled Paris and Berlin.
"We will always allow competition that is fair for business and ultimately fair for the consumer," Juncker told an industrialists conference in Brussels.
But he added: "We will never play politics or play favourites when it comes to ensuring a level playing field." "This is a message for those who are saying that the commission is composed of blind, stupid, stubborn technocrats," he continued.
Juncker appeared to be hitting back at Joe Kaeser, the Siemens chief executive who last week complained that "backwards-looking technocrats" were going to thwart a tie up that he felt was key for Europe.
Several sources have told AFP that the EU's anti-trust supremo, Margrethe Vestager, will on Wednesday veto the blockbuster merger.
The tie-up, staunchly backed by Paris and Berlin, would aim to combine ..

Juncker defends EU ahead of expected rail merger veto

BP almost trebled its annual net profit to $9.4 billion (8.2 billion euros) last year as oil prices soared in 2018, the British energy giant announced Tuesday.
Profit after tax rocketed from $3.4 billion in 2017, "primarily affected by higher oil prices and favourable foreign exchange" rates, BP said in a statement.
Fourth-quarter net profit stood at $766 million, up from $27 million in the final three months of 2017.
However it was well down on 2018 third-quarter net profit of $3.35 billion, which was fuelled by surging oil prices before they cooled approaching the new year.
BP chief executive Bob Dudley said the group was benefitting also from "capital discipline".
"And we're doing this while growing the business -- bringing more high-quality projects online, expanding marketing in the downstream and doing transformative deals such as BHP," he added in the statement.
In 2018, the world's biggest miner BHP sold its US shale oil and gas operations to BP for $10.5 billion.
Oil prices ..

BP annual profit soars to $9.4 bn on surging oil prices

Japan's Nissan said Tuesday that its board has nominated the new boss of Renault to replace Carlos Ghosn, who is in detention facing charges of financial misconduct.
The decision to turn over Ghosn's board seat to Jean-Dominique Senard must still be ratified by shareholders, and the company said it had set an April 8 date for an extraordinary shareholders' meeting.
Nissan said the shareholder meeting would be limited to discussion of Senard's nomination and the official removal of Ghosn and his right-hand man Greg Kelly from the board.
Ghosn and Kelly were sacked from the board after their arrest on November 19 but a special shareholders' meeting is required to remove them officially.
Senard's nomination does not mean he will replace Ghosn as chairman at Nissan. The automaker is still searching for a replacement and is not expected to announce a decision before June.
The firm has not announced plans to replace Kelly on the board.
Ghosn's arrest and subsequent indictment on three ...

Nissan taps new Renault boss to replace Ghosn on board

At least 10 people died and 30 were injured in an overnight blaze at an apartment block in Paris that police are treating as possible arson, officials said Tuesday.
The fire on the upper floors of the building in the rue Erlanger in the upmarket 16th district of southwest Paris is the most deadly in the capital since 2005.
Videos from the scene showed flames leaping out of top floor windows and firemen climbing flimsy ladders to rescue terrified residents, some dressed only in pyjamas, from the top of the eight-storey block.
Described by one rescue worker as a "scene of incredible violence", the blaze left around 30 people -- including six firefighters -- injured and at least 10 people have died, the fire service said.
"One person who lives in the building has been arrested. She's a 40-year-old woman who has prior psychological problems," Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said from the scene on Tuesday where smoke could still be seen rising from the area.
An investigation has been opened ...

Ten dead in possible arson attack at Paris apartment block

Qatar is running out of time to stamp out widespread serious labour abuse for tens of thousands of migrant workers before hosting the 2022 World Cup, Amnesty International warned Tuesday.
The human rights group said in a yet another critical labour report that despite well-publicised "nascent reforms", Qatar risks breaking its promise to the world to deliver meaningful change before football's biggest tournament is hosted for the first time in the Middle East.
"Time is running out if the Qatari authorities want to deliver a legacy we can all cheer, namely a labour system that ends the abuse and misery inflicted upon so many migrant workers every day," said Amnesty's Stephen Cockburn.
Although the "Reality Check" report focuses on conditions for all of the two million migrant workers in Qatar, not just the 30,000 on direct World Cup projects, Amnesty said FIFA had an "ongoing responsibility" to prevent abuse.
The report stated that despite reforms, conditions "for many migrant workers .

Time running out on Qatar labour reform, warns Amnesty

A Dutch former far-right MP and right-hand man of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has set tongues wagging in the Netherlands after revealing he has converted and become a Muslim, news reports said Tuesday.
For seven years Joram van Klaveren fought a relentless campaign in the Lower House against Islam in the Netherlands as a lawmaker for Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV).
At the time, the "hardliner pleaded for banning the burkha and minarets, saying 'we don't want any Islam, or at least as little as possible in the Netherlands'," the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad (AD) said.
But the 40-year-old Van Klaveren said he had changed his mind halfway through writing an anti-Islam book, which he told the respected NRC daily "became a refutation of objections non-Muslims have" against the religion.  "If everything I wrote up to that point is true, and I believe that, then I am a de facto Muslim," he told the NRC.
Van Klaveren converted to Islam on October 26 last year, the NRC added in the ...

Dutch former anti-Islam MP says he's become a Muslim

Women who lived under the harsh rule of the Taliban urged senior Afghan politicians to ensure their hard-won freedoms are not bargained away when they talk peace with the insurgents on Tuesday.
The Afghan Women's Network said their rights should not be used as a "political tool" in dealings with the Taliban, who barred women from schools and jobs and drastically curtailed their personal liberties when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
Their appeal comes as the Taliban meets with a high-ranking Afghan delegation in Moscow, and a week after the insurgents held unprecedented talks with United States negotiators.
The Taliban said the Moscow meeting -- their most significant with Afghan politicians in recent memory -- would discuss the withdrawal of foreign troops, peace terms and its vision for governance.
The two-day gathering is separate from the US-Taliban negotiations in Doha in January, that ended with both sides touting "progress" and a draft framework which could pave the ..

AFP

AFP

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