Russia's economy expanded 2.3 per cent last year, growing more quickly than the government and the IMF had predicted, according to state statistics published Monday.
Russia's growth rate accelerated from 1.6 per cent in 2017 and exceeded the economy ministry's prediction of 1.8 per cent as well as the International Monetary Fund's forecast of 1.7 per cent.
The country's economy only returned to growth in 2017 after two years of recession in 2015 and 2016.
Russia's Rosstat statistics agency said that GDP last year was 103.6 trillion rubles (USD 1.578 trillion), with growth in sectors such as hotels and restaurants boosted by hosting the World Cup.
The economy ministry had initially predicted 2.1 per cent growth before revising this down to 1.8 per cent, taking into account the impact of US sanctions on the ruble.
Strong growth in the construction sector of 5.3 per cent was one of the factors that pushed the year's figures higher than expected.  This was due to large construction ...

Russian economy outpaced expectations in 2018

PTI Automatic

Norway's intelligence service PST on Monday issued a warning about Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, whose ties to Beijing have sparked security concerns.
"One has to be attentive about Huawei as an actor and about the close connections between a commercial actor like Huawei and the Chinese regime," the head of Norway's domestic intelligence unit PST, Benedicte Bjornland, said as she presented a national risk assessment report for 2019.
"An actor like Huawei could be subject to influence from its home country as long as China has an intelligence law that requires private individuals, entities and companies to cooperate with China," she said.
In Norway, the main telecoms operators Telenor and Telia -- which chose Huawei to supply their 4G networks -- are gearing up for the roll-out of 5G.
Several countries like the United States have banned Huawei 5G telecoms equipment for security reasons. The Scandinavian country is considering ways of limiting its exposure.
"As far as we're concerned, .

Norway intelligence service issues Huawei warning

One of the European Union's most senior officials warned that a no deal Brexit looks ever more likely Monday, after an "inconclusive" meeting with British MPs.
Members of the House of Commons Brexit steering committee came to Brussels to meet Martin Selmayr, EU president Jean-Claude Juncker's powerful right-hand man.
The talks had been meant to explore ways to secure an orderly divorce after the British parliament rejected the deal negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May.
Instead, Selmayr was left more pessimistic than before.
"The meeting confirmed that the EU did well to start its no deal preparations in December 2017," Selmayr tweeted after the British delegation left the talks.
Some British officials have suggested May might be able to get a deal through parliament if the EU make "legally binding" changes to the withdrawal agreement.
In particular, London wants to see a promise that Northern Ireland can stay in the EU customs union indefinitely, known as the backstop, changed or .

EU fears for Brexit deal after meeting British MPs

Donald Trump's typical day starts late and is spent mostly watching TV, browsing newspapers and tweeting, according to a leak of the president's confidential schedule.
The weekend report on news site axios.com angered the White House, which did not deny the details of what appears to be a rather easy typical day at the office for the world's most powerful man.
Most days, Trump has no official work before 11:00 am, according to the daily guidance given to the media by the press office. That usually begins with the president receiving his intelligence briefing.
According to detailed private schedules published by Axios, things don't get much more hectic after that.
Sixty percent of the president's work life is categorized as "executive time," meaning unstructured time to make phone calls, read newspapers, tweet and watch television.
Trump's personal secretary, Madeleine Westerhout, was not amused by the embarrassing report.
"What a disgraceful breach of trust to leak schedules," she ...

Leak of Trump's daily schedule prompts White House fury

Pope Francis Monday called for "the full recognition" of rights for people of all faiths from the UAE, the first visit by the head of the Catholic church to the Arabian Peninsula.
The pope called for the "full recognition of the other and his or her freedom" in a meeting with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the top Sunni Muslim cleric.
Religious freedom "is not limited only to freedom of worship but sees in the other truly a brother or sister, a child of my own humanity whom God leaves free and whom, therefore, no human institution can coerce, not even in God's name", Pope Francis said.

Religious freedom not just 'freedom of worship': Pope in Gulf

Moscow on Monday denied any involvement in Indonesia's upcoming elections after President Joko Widodo claimed his opponents have used "Russian propaganda" to distort facts and spread fake news.
"As we know, the term 'Russian Propaganda' was coined in 2016 in the United States during the presidential election. This term has no basis in reality," the Russian embassy in Jakarta tweeted.
"We underline the principal position of Russia is not to intervene in domestic affairs and electoral processes of foreign countries, including Indonesia, our close friend and important partner."
Widodo, who is running for a second term, did not elaborate on what he meant by the term "Russian propaganda", and did not directly accuse Moscow of interfering in the election.
"There's a campaign team that has been preparing... 'Russian Propaganda', which constantly spews... slander, sins and hoaxes," he said during a campaign event in Surabaya, East Java, on Saturday.
Widodo also did not identify the opponents .

Russia rejects Indonesia election 'propaganda' accusations

Denmark has ordered the expulsion of two employees of Chinese telecom giant Huawei because their residence and work permits were not in order, Copenhagen police said Monday.
"On Thursday, the Copenhagen police carried out a routine check of the residence and work permits," at Huawei's offices, a Copenhagen police source told AFP.
"In two cases, the people didn't have the proper paperwork." The pair, who were not identified, were ordered to leave the country, the source said.
Huawei, founded by former army engineer Ren Zhengfei, has become a leading supplier of the backbone equipment for mobile networks, particularly in developing markets thanks to cheaper prices.
Spearheading cutting-edge 5G equipment has also seen it make inroads into developed markets.
However, a growing number of Western states are turning their backs on Huawei, on concerns its technology could be a Trojan horse for Beijing's intrusive security apparatus as Chinese law requires all firms to cooperate with the ...

Denmark expels 2 Huawei staff over work permit issues

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday 53 million Canadian dollars (USD 40 million) in aid for Venezuelans suffering through a political, economic and humanitarian crisis.
"Today, Canada is stepping up and announcing USD 53 million to address the most pressing needs of Venezuelans on the ground, including almost 3 million refugees," Trudeau told a gathering in Ottawa of the Lima Group of nations.
"The bulk of the funds will go to trusted partners, and neighbouring countries to help them support Venezuela and Venezuelans," he said.

Canada's Trudeau announces USD 53 million in aid to Venezuelans

Pope Francis on Monday rejected "hatred and violence" in the name of God, on the first visit by the head of the Catholic church to the Muslim-majority Arabian Peninsula.
The pontiff, who met with the world's top Sunni Muslim cleric in Abu Dhabi, said "every form of violence must be condemned without hesitation... No violence can be justified in the name of religion".
The pope arrived in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night for a three-day visit, during which he will lead a historical open-air mass for some 135,000 Catholics.

'Violence' in God's name cannot be justified, pope says in UAE

Denmark has ordered the expulsion of two employees of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei because their residence and work permits were not in order, Copenhagen police said Monday.
"On Thursday, the Copenhagen police carried out a normal check of the residence and work permits (at the Huawei offices)... In two cases, the people didn't have the proper paperwork," a Copenhagen police source told AFP, saying the pair were ordered to leave the country.

Denmark expels 2 Huawei staff over work permit issues: police

Internet giants have more than doubled the rate at which they fight hate speech online than when they joined the European Union's voluntary approach in 2016, EU officials said Monday.
Firms like YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook are now assessing 89 per cent of flagged content within 24 hours and removing 72 per cent of content deemed illegal, the officials said.
The figures compare to 40 per cent and 28 per cent respectively when the firms signed up to a code of conduct in 2016, according to officials with the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.
"The results show that the platforms have taken their obligations seriously," the EU's justice and consumer affairs commissioner Vera Jourova told a press conference.
The EU joined forces with US-based internet firms nearly three years ago amid growing alarm in Europe over the use of social media as an extremist recruiting tool, especially by the Islamic State group.  The founding participants were YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter 

Tech giants respond more quickly to hate speech: EU

Britain on Monday will seek to reassure foreign investors worried about Britain leaving the EU after Japanese automaker Nissan said it was scrapping a major planned investment less than two months before Brexit.
Prime Minister Theresa May was due to hold a conference call with around 55 chairmen and chief executives of European multinationals with operations in Britain.
"She'll be stressing on that call the importance of the UK leaving the EU with a deal," her spokesman said.
Nissan's decision not to build its new X-Trail vehicle at its factory in Sunderland in northeast England was "very disappointing," he said, adding however that the company had confirmed no jobs would be lost as a result.
Business Secretary Greg Clark was also due to make a statement to parliament on Nissan as Brexit supporters and opponents fiercely debated whether the decision was motivated by Britain's impending withdrawal from the EU.
Britain is on course to crash out of the bloc on March 29 after MPs last ...

UK seeks to reassure foreign investors over Brexit

Rights groups urged the United Nations Monday to send investigators to China's northwestern Xinjiang province to probe the mass detainment of ethnic Uighur and other Muslim minorities.
"The abuse in Xinjiang today is so severe that it cries out for international action," Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth told reporters in Geneva.
HRW and more than a dozen other human rights and civil society organisations including Amnesty International and the World Uighur Congress, published an appeal for the UN's human rights body to send an international fact-finding mission to the region.
Up to a million Uighurs and members of other mostly Muslim minority groups are being held in extrajudicial detention in camps in Xinjiang, according to a group of experts cited by the UN.
Dolkun Isa of the World Uighur Congress told reporters via video link from Oslo that his group believes the numbers detained in Xinjiang had reached "maybe three million".
Beijing says the "vocational education centres" ...

Rights groups urge UN to probe China crackdown in Xinjiang

Two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers, the world's "Third Pole", could melt by 2100 if global emissions are not reduced, scientists warned in a major new study issued Monday.
And even if the "most ambitious" Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is achieved, one-third of the glaciers would go, according to the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment.
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region are a critical water source for some 250 million people in the mountains as well as to 1.65 billion others in the river valleys below, the report said.
The glaciers feed 10 of the world's most important river systems, including the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, Mekong and Irrawaddy, and directly or indirectly supply billions of people with food, energy, clean air and income.
Impacts on people from their melting will range from worsened air pollution to more extreme weather, while lower pre-monsoon river flows will throw urban water systems and food and energy production ...

Stark warning on melting Himalayan glaciers

A Russian couple accused of violently swinging their four-month-old baby during a street performance to fund their world tour have been detained, Malaysian police said Monday.
The buskers, a 28-year-old man and his 27-year-old wife, were picked up after trying to woo spectators in the heart of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
"We detained them on Monday for questioning over the alleged abuse of their four-month-old baby girl," Mazlan Lazim, the Kuala Lumpur police chief, told AFP.
A 90-second video clip of the incident, which went viral on Facebook on Sunday, showed a man in blue shorts and a white T-shirt swinging the infant between his legs and lifting her above his head to the beat of some music in the background.
A woman believed to be his wife was seen sitting on the floor with a placard that read: "We are travelling around the world..." A crowd of curious onlookers gathered to watch the performance but a man is overheard in the video saying: "It's stupid. You cannot do this." The ...

Malaysian police detain busking couple for 'abusing' baby

Pope Francis, the first leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics to visit the Arabian Peninsula, will attend an interfaith meeting in the UAE on Monday as part of his outreach to Muslims.
The pontiff arrived in a modest black Kia at Abu Dhabi's presidential palace, where he was welcomed with a lavish military parade.
Officers fired 21 shots in the air, while jets flew overhead leaving white and yellow trails -- the colours of the Vatican City flag.
The pope's highly publicised 48-hour visit to the United Arab Emirates will also include an open-air mass on Tuesday for 135,000 of the Muslim country's million Catholic residents, set to be the largest public gathering in the country's history.
The pope was expected to raise the issue of Yemen, devastated by a war in which the UAE is a key player, in talks with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
Yemen is the scene of what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, triggered by the intervention of Saudi Arabia, the UAE 

Pope Francis makes history with Muslim dialogue in UAE

British investigators said Monday they had spotted a body in the wreckage of a plane that disappeared in the Channel two weeks ago carrying Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala and his pilot.
Sala, 28, was flying from France to join his new club, Premier League side Cardiff City, when the light aircraft disappeared on January 21 north of the island of Guernsey.
A wreck was found on the seabed on Sunday and closer inspection by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) confirmed both that it was the missing plane, and that a body was inside.
"Tragically, in video footage from the ROV, one occupant is visible amidst the wreckage," the British government's Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) said in a statement.
"The AAIB is now considering the next steps, in consultation with the families of the pilot and passenger, and the police." The AAIB also released a grainy image showing a part of the fuselage with the aircraft registration. The depth indicated on the image was 67.7 metres (222 ...

Body found underwater in wreckage of footballer Sala's plane

Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie visited a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh on Monday ahead of a new UN appeal for nearly one billion dollars to look after the refugee influx.
After arriving in the South Asian nation, Jolie, a special envoy of the UN Refugee agency UNHCR, went straight to a camp in Teknaf near the Myanmar border to talk to some of the 720,000 Muslims who fled a military clampdown in the neighbouring state in August 2017.
The 43-year-old made no immediate public comment, but Cox's Bazar district deputy police chief Ikbal Hossain told AFP that Jolie will be visiting more camps on Tuesday.
Jolie is in Bangladesh to assess the humanitarian needs of the one million Rohingya in camps around the town of Cox's Bazar.  She has previously met with displaced Rohingya while in Myanmar in July 2015 and in India in 2006.
Bangladesh has been reeling since more than 730,000 Rohingya arrived from Myanmar after August 2017. More than 620,000 of the Muslims live in the Kutupalong ..

Angelina Jolie visits Rohingya camp in Bangladesh

Hundreds of aspiring politicians including a masked costumed hero registered on Monday for Thailand's first election since the 2014 coup, promising a colourful cast of candidates stumping for political parties both old and new.
Since the coup, the military has rewritten the constitution, clamped down on dissent and appointed allies across the bureaucracy.
But recent days have seen echoes of Thailand's formerly rambunctious politics, with outdoor political announcements, campaign posters and loudspeakers on vans touting political slogans as the country gears up for the much-anticipated election after more than four years of junta rule.
Monday's registration was marked by a festive atmosphere, with supporters of dozens of groups waving neon banners and party flags as they entered a stadium in central Bangkok.
While familiar faces abound, such as leaders from political powerhouse Pheu Thai and the army-aligned Phalang Pracharat, there were also quirky entrants, including a member of an ..

Politicos register for Thailand's first election since 2014 coup

From the first snowfall in November to the very end of the thaw in April, Moscow enlists a small army of shovelers, scrapers, road gritters and plough drivers to keep the city moving.
Trucks carry mounds of snow through the night towards melting plants in the capital's outskirts, while smaller vehicles hum down the pavements scattering salt mix.
"Russia without snow is not Russia," says Alexei Babunashvili, the head of one such melting station, on a January morning after a normal week's worth of snow has fallen overnight.
"It's like a man without a woman... no life at all," he adds, as behind him a truck carrying around 30 cubic metres of dirty snow dumps its load into a pit of heated water.
But Babunashvili, like many residents of the city, has questions over the salt mix that Moscow has in recent years been using in increasing volumes to keep the roads and pavements clear of ice.
On the streets and social media, complaints from Muscovites about the substance locally known as ...

Muscovites declare cold war on corrosive snow salt

The wreckage of a plane carrying Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala and his pilot has been found two weeks after it disappeared in the English Channel, one of the investigators said on Monday.
Sala, 28, was flying from France to join his new club, Premier League side Cardiff City, when the light aircraft disappeared on January 21 north of the island of Guernsey.
Shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who was hired by the striker's family after the official rescue effort was called off, said the plane was found on Sunday morning.
"It is broken but most of it is there," he told BBC radio.
Sala's father Horacio spoke of his shock from his home in Progreso, Argentina, telling Cronica TV: "I can't believe it. It's a bad dream." A spokesperson for Britain's official Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) told AFP: "I can confirm it has been found." A further statement is expected later on Monday.
Mearns said his private company, Blue Water Recoveries, had found the wreckage before calling in the 

AFP

AFP

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