Senior members of Italy's vanquished Democratic Party today were defying outgoing leader Matteo Renzi and eyeing a possible deal with the triumphant Five Star Movement after an election that ended in deadlock.
Anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio declared his party "the winners" after obtaining nearly 33 percent of the vote, but they need to form alliances in parliament if they are to govern.
Renzi ruled out the prospect as he announced his resignation on Monday, following disaster at the polls that saw his party's centre-left coalition slump to third place with 23 percent of the vote.
"During the campaign, we said we would not do a government with extremists. We have not changed our mind," Renzi said, adding that the Democratic Party (PD) would "not be a crutch for anti-system forces".
Political expert Giovanni Orsina said Renzi's departure meant "a convergence between the PD and the M5S is much more probable because Renzi was an obstacle to this."
But ...

Italian left mulls Five Star deal to end deadlock

PTI Automatic

Catalonia'sparliament will convene on March 12 to appoint a new regional president, with jailed separatist Jordi Sanchez the only candidate, the assembly said today.
In a statement, the separatist-controlled parliament said its speaker Roger Torrent had on Tuesday morning officially convened the session.
Sanchez, the former head of the Catalan National Assembly, a powerful pro-independence civil group, is considered to have little chance of taking up the post since he is remanded in custody pending accusations of sedition over last year's secession bid.
His name was put forward after former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who had initially been picked as candidate to lead the region again after December regional polls but is in exile in Belgium, pulled out last week.
Today, Sanchez's lawyers asked the Supreme Court, which is overseeing his case, to let him out of prison to go to parliament next week for the official appointment.
But even if a judge allows him out, he is not ...

Catalan lawmakers to convene March 12 to appoint leader

At least 16 people, mostly women and children, were killed in clashes between youths and cattle herders in central Nigeria, police said today.
Yesterday's violence in the village of Omutu, in the Okpokwu area of Benue state, is the latest flare-up linked to tensions over land and grazing rights in the restive region.
State police spokesman Moses Yamu said in a statement that a meeting had been called to calm anger after a herdsman was killed on Monday and another went missing.
"Unfortunately as the search and peace meeting were going on some herdsmen surreptitiously went on (a) rampage, resulting in the macheting to death of 15 persons, mainly women and children," he said.
Yamu said some houses were set on fire during the violence and four people were arrested.
"An extensive patrol of the community is ongoing, which will be reinforced with the (military) special forces," he added.
The chairman of the Okpokwu local government area, Francis Ejembi, described the violence as ...

16 killed in central Nigeria violence: police

Rwanda police said today it had arrested six "masterminds" planning to defy a government order shutting down over 700 sub-standard religious buildings.
The clergymen are accused of holding meetings at which they discussed resisting the order, issued last week, to close 714 churches and one mosque for allegedly failing to meet safety and hygiene standards.
"After the suspension of churches that did not meet required standards, some church leaders began illegal meetings intended to defy and obstruct the directive," said Rwanda police spokesman Theos Badege.
"Police began investigations to find the masterminds behind this illegal act."
Badege said the six Pentecostal preachers "conducted illegal meetings with bad intentions aimed at calling for the directives to be defied."
The shutdown, ordered by the Rwanda Governance Board which monitors public and private organisations, came into effect on Thursday and is set to continue until the churches meet standards on hygiene, safety and ...

Rwanda arrests six for 'planning to defy' church ban

Mervat Bukhari, a force of nature draped head-to-toe in Islamic niqab, braved insults and taunts to become the first Saudi woman to work at a gas station, something unimaginable not long ago.
The kingdom, where conservatives once bridled at even limited freedoms for women, is in the midst of reforms that mark the biggest cultural shake-up in its modern history.
Kickstarted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the reforms include the historic decision allowing women to drive from June, attend soccer games and take on jobs that once fell outside the narrow confines of traditional gender roles.
But the backlash faced by women like Bukhari illustrates how newfound empowerment is a potential social lightning rod in a country unaccustomed to such visibility for women.
When Bukhari, 43 and a mother of four, was promoted as supervisor of a gas station in eastern Khobar city last October, insults began pouring in on social media with the hashtag "Saudi women don't work at gas ...

Saudi women will drive but face bumpy road to empowerment

North and South Korea have agreed to hold a summit at their heavily armed border next month, with Pyongyang saying it would consider abandoning nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees, Seoul said today.
If confirmed by Pyongyang, the offer would mark the first time under the current leadership the North had declared itself willing to discuss conditions under which it might consider giving up its nuclear arsenal -- a move it has previously insisted was firmly off the negotiating table.
Following a meeting in Pyongyang with leader Kim Jong Un, Chung Eui-yong, the national security adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said the North had stated there was "no reason" to hold on to its nuclear weapons "if military threats towards the North are cleared and the security of its regime is guaranteed".
Chung said Kim and Moon would meet in late April at the fortified border village of Panmunjom for what would be only the third inter-Korean summit since the end of the ...

2 Koreas to hold summit, Pyongyang offers nuke deal: Seoul

China confirmed today that it had put a hold on a US bid to blacklist ships helping North Korea circumvent sanctions, saying it needs more time to investigate the measure.
The US last month presented the request to a United Nations sanctions committee to ban 33 ships from ports worldwide and blacklist 27 shipping firms for aiding Pyongyang.
The move is part of a crackdown on the smuggling of North Korean commodities in violation of UN sanctions resolutions, which were brought in over Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
But China -- North Korea's sole ally -- on Friday "placed a hold on the proposals" from the United States, said the Dutch chair of the sanctions committee in a letter seen by AFP on yesterday.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang confirmed the move Tuesday, telling a regular press briefing that Beijing had put a hold on the request "for technical reasons."
"This proposal at the UN Security Council involves a lot of ships and entities. China needs .

China requests 'time' for probe into N. Korea-tied ships

A health scare over a pioneering dengue vaccine is partly to blame for a decline in child immunisation and a deadly measles outbreak in the Philippines, a senior health official said today.
The government has reported four outbreaks of measles, one of the world's leading killers of children, since December, a period coinciding with the row over the dengue vaccine which some parents blamed for child deaths.
Manila suspended the Dengvaxia vaccine last December and threatened to sue Sanofi shortly after the French pharmaceutical firm disclosed that it could worsen symptoms for people not previously infected by the dengue virus.
Government programmes against other deadly but preventable diseases became collateral damage, with immunisation rates down below 60 percent in January, Health Undersecretary Enrique Domingo said.
This compares to at least 80-85 percent last year, he said.
"We have eradicated measles like 10 years ago but it's coming back due to the low rates of vaccination within .

Deadly measles outbreak as Philippines reels from vaccine row

China's ubiquitous WeChat social media platform has crossed the one billion accounts mark as its messaging, game and shopping services attract more and more users.
The symbolic threshold was announced by Pony Ma, the chief executive of its parent company Tencent, on the sidelines of China's parliamentary session yesterday.
The all-in-one app, known as Weixin in China, is a daily necessity for most Chinese, bringing together messaging, social media, mobile payment, games, news and other services.
Half of WeChat users spend more than 90 minutes a day on the app.
In its last company results in September, Tencent had reported that WeChat users had opened 980 million accounts, a 16 per cent increase from the previous year.
"WeChat's worldwide monthly active users have surpassed the critical one billion mark," said Ma, who is a delegate at the two-week session of the Communist Party-controlled National People's Congress.
"In the future we hope to use technological innovation to push forward 

China's WeChat app crosses one billion account mark

Saudi-owned broadcaster MBC has stopped airing Turkish soap operas, a spokesman said today, prompting fans to take to social media to express dismay.
MBC said the move, which comes amid tensions between Ankara and some Gulf Arab states, was aimed at promoting Arab content.
"We will try to replace Turkish soaps with premium quality Arabic dramas that embody the values and traditions of the region," MBC spokesman Mazen Hayek told AFP.
The satellite network pulled the plug on Turkish soaps dubbed in Arabic, long a hit across the Middle East, last Friday.
Saudi Arabia and ally the United Arab Emirates accuse Turkey of supporting Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that they say fan insecurity.
Turkey has also thrown its weight behind Qatar in the emirate's nine-month-old rift with Saudi Arabia and its allies over allegations that it too backed Islamist groups and was too close to Iran.
But Hayek insisted the network's decision to stop an average of six hours a day of Turkish ...

Saudi-owned broadcaster takes hit Turkish soaps off-air

North and South Korea will hold a summit at their heavily armed border next month, Seoul's envoy said today after meeting with Kim Jong Un on a trip to Pyongyang.
"The South and the North agreed to hold the third summit at... Panmunjom in late April," said Chung Eui-yong, the national security adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-In, referring to the truce village at the heavily-fortified border.
If realised, the summit will be the third meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas, which technically remain at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty.
The previous two summits were held in 2000 and 2007, respectively, under South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun who both advocated dialogue with Pyongyang.
They both met with Kim's father, Kim Jong Il.
The two Koreas also agreed to open communication hotline between Moon and Kim to "defuse military tension and to have close coordination," Chung said today.
The two leaders ...

Two Koreas to hold summit at border in April: Seoul

Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli is seeking to lure more sweet-toothed consumers in Japan, China, South Africa, Brazil and Russia, where the group said today it enjoys "enormous potential".
Lindt, a leader in the affordable luxury chocolate segment, said in its annual report that subsidiaries in those five countries had produced "an above average result" in 2017, with organic growth of 12.4 percent.
"This positive trend is being fuelled by consumers' growing demand for quality, greater purchasing power and also a growing desire for chocolate with a high cocoa content," Lindt said.
People gave into their temptation for Lindt chocolate elsewhere as well, with global net profits rising 7.8 percent from 2016.
Meanwhile, sales hit an all-time record for the 175-year-old company of more than 4 billion Swiss francs (3.45 billion euros, $4.3 billion).
Lindt feted an improved market situation for key raw materials -- cocoa beans, cocoa butter and sugar -- with "much better harvests ...

Lindt eyes chocolate lovers in emerging markets

The Japanese navy said today it had for the first time appointed a woman as commander of a unit that includes the country's biggest warship.
Ryoko Azuma, 44, will command  four warships making up a division with a total of 1,000 crew members.
"This is the first time a woman was appointed for the job," a spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defence Force told AFP.
"But she wasn't chosen because she was a woman."
The ships include the helicopter carrier Izumo, the navy's biggest ship.
"I want to do my best to carry out the heavy duty I have been given," Azuma told reporters after a ceremony at Yokohama near Tokyo to mark her arrival in the post.
About 400 crew members attended the ceremony.
"I don't think about being a woman but I want to try to become a role model for younger female officers," she said.
About 14,000 women are currently serving in the Self-Defence Forces as the military is known, accounting for only six per cent of the entire personnel.
On most levels, Japan lags behind ...

Japan navy appoints first female chief of warship unit

Turkey today announced  it would establish camps in neighbouring Syria, including near the border in Idlib, to settle 170,000 people fleeing from the civil war.
With aid agencies such as the Turkish Red Crescent and the AFAD emergency authority, Turkey, home to over three million refugees from the seven-year Syria conflict, has increasingly helped the displaced in camps on the Syrian side of the border.
"Red Crescent and Afad have started the work to set up 170,000-people capacity camp in the Idlib and Euphrates Shield region," Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy told reporters in Ankara.
He was referring to Turkey's first offensive in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield in August 2016 to March 2017, which targeted the ouster of the Islamic State extremist group and the Syrian Kurdish militia in an area east of Afrin.
In that operation, pro-Ankara Syrian rebels, backed by the Turkish army, liberated several areas from Jarabulus to Al-Bab from IS jihadists.
In January, the Turkish .

Turkey says building camps in Syria for war displaced

Lassa fever has claimed 110 lives in Nigeria since the beginning of the year, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said today, in one of the worst outbreaks since 2016.
The World Heath Organisation last week said the epidemic had reached record highs with 317 laboratory confirmed cases and 72 people dead.
"Since the onset of the 2018 outbreak, there have been 110 deaths: 78 in positive-confirmed cases, 8 in probable cases and 24 in negative cases," the NCDC said in its latest report.
A total of 1,121 suspected cases were reported, "353 are confirmed positive, 8 are probable, 723 are negative (not a case) and 37 are awaiting laboratory results."
The NCDC said cases have been reported in 18 of Nigeria's 36 states while 16 health workers had been affected in six states.
Health Minister Isaac Adewole told local media on Tuesday that the government would soon take delivery of vaccines to tame the virus.
"We are doing everything possible to fight and address the outbreak of lassa fever on 

Lassa fever deaths rise to 110 in Nigeria: official

Wreckage from the USS Lexington, a US aircraft carrier which sank during World War II, has been discovered in the Coral Sea, a search team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced Monday.
The wreckage was found Sunday by the team's research vessel, the R/V Petrel, some 3,000 meters (two miles) below the surface more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) off the eastern coast of Australia.
The search team released pictures and video of the Lexington, one of the first ever US aircraft carriers, and some of the planes which went down with the ship.
Remarkably preserved aircraft could be seen on the seabed bearing the five-pointed star insignia of the US Army Air Forces on their wings and fuselage.
On one aircraft, an emblem of the cartoon character Felix the Cat can be seen along with four miniature Japanese flags presumably depicting "kills."
The search team also released pictures and video of parts of the ship, including a name-plate, and anti-aircraft guns covered in decades of ...

Wreckage found of WWII aircraft carrier USS Lexington

President Xi Jinping's bid to rule for life has stunned many people in China. It left retired state-owned newspaper editor Li Datong cursing in a foreign language in a crowded mall.
Belying Communist Party claims that "the masses" unanimously support the removal of presidential term limits, many Chinese like Li have disregarded censors to complain about the move as the rubber-stamp parliament prepares to approve it on Sunday.
Li was shopping for bread with his son last week when the announcement popped up on his phone. Shoppers stared at him as he cursed in English.
"It was so sudden. I didn't believe he would do it, but he did," said the 66-year-old former China Youth Daily editor.
Li garnered international attention after penning an open letter urging the National People's congress (NPC) to reject the constitutional amendment, warning that it would "sow the seeds of chaos".
"If you don't speak up, they will think we all agree," Li told AFP.
He is not alone. His missive ricocheted ...

Chinese grumble about 'emperor' as congress fetes Xi

A prominent Malaysian rights activist today announced her candidacy in upcoming polls in what analysts see as a boost for the opposition's attempt to unseat Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Speculation has been rife that Najib will call elections within weeks as his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition inches closer to the end of its five-year term.
Najib is seeking a fresh mandate after being hounded by an international corruption scandal related to Malaysian state fund 1MDB in which he has denied any wrongdoing.
Maria Chin Abdullah, 62, head of the election reform group Bersih (Clean) that led major street rallies against Najib in recent years, said she would stand as an independent but under the banner of the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan.
The coalition is led by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, 92, who has come out of retirement to mount the challenge to Najib.
Chin was arrested ahead of a protest march in 2016 but was freed after ten days in police detention.
She is the ...

Top Malaysian activist to run as opposition bet in upcoming polls

Australian legend Shane Warne said players should stop "whinging" about sledging after an ugly row between David Warner and South Africa's Quinton de Kock clouded the first Test in Durban.
CCTV footage showed Warner apparently turning on De Kock as the players walked up a narrow staircase leading to the dressing rooms during the tea break on Sunday.
Vice-captain Warner had to be restrained by his team-mates as he appeared to lose his temper, reportedly over a jibe about his wife Candice, although the South Africans blamed him for sparking the argument.
The incident is in the hands of match referee Jeff Crowe.
"The incident was discussed between the two team managers and the match referee last night and it is now in the hands of the on-field umpires and the match referee," Cricket Australia said today.
"Both teams were reminded by the match referee of the spirit in which the game should be played."
The controversy has divided opinion, with Warne calling on the players to avoid ...

Stop whinging, Warne says as Warner row heats up

The head of scandal-hit Japanese steelmaker Kobe Steel announced his resignation today after the firm submitted false strength and quality data for products shipped to hundreds of clients worldwide.
Hiroya Kawasaki's resignation was a new blow to the reputation of Japan Inc after similar quality-control scandals hit industrial titans ranging from carmaker Nissan to Mitsubishi Materials.
Following a deep and prolonged bow in apology, Kawasaki told reporters: "As I think it's best to go ahead quickly with reforms under new members, I ... will step down from president on April 1 this year."
"We have caused trouble to many people. As soon as we can, we would like as many people as possible to think that Kobe Steel has changed," added Kawasaki, who had been in the job since 2013.
"I'm really sorry."
The firm has not yet named a successor.
In a long-awaited report into the scandal, the firm found that staff -- including executives -- changed inspection data, or made up data, before shipping 

CEO of Japan's Kobe Steel says to quit after fake data scandal

South Korean prosecutors today summoned former president Lee Myung-bak for questioning as a criminal suspect in a bribery scandal, a report said.
"We need to investigate former president Lee to find the truth (in the scandal) in a transparent and effective manner," Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed Seoul prosecutor as saying.
Allegations of corruption involving the 76-year-old's relatives and aides during his 2008-2013 presidential term have mounted in recent weeks.
Seoul prosecutors have been investigating multiple cases of bribery amounting to millions of dollars, with the net closing in around the former leader.
His successor Park Geun-Hye was ousted last year over a massive corruption scandal that emerged in 2016.
The verdict in her trial on charges of bribery and abuse of power is due next month, with prosecutors demanding 30 years in jail.

AFP

AFP

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