Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday pledged to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank within "weeks" if re-elected, as he sought to sway voters a day before the country's third election in a year.
Final polls pointed to another tight race between Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and the centrist Blue and White party led by ex-military chief Benny Gantz.
All parties have raised concern about voter apathy amid the grinding political stalemate, putting extra emphasis on turnout.
Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving premier, has been accused before previous elections of making last-minute plays to energise his right-wing base.
In an interview with Israeli public radio, he said annexation of the strategically crucial Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank was his top priority among "four major immediate missions".
"That will happen within weeks, two months at the most, I hope," he said in the interview aired 24 hours before polls were scheduled to open.
US President ..

Israel's Netanyahu vows 'immediate' annexation steps if re-elected

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A resounding victory in South Carolina has thrust Joe Biden back into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but that could all change in two days when voters go to the polls in 14 "Super Tuesday" states.
With 48 per cent of the vote in South Carolina, the former vice president more than doubled the 20 percent won by national frontrunner Bernie Sanders, reviving Biden's campaign and positioning him as the senator's leading rival.
"This is a big boost for us," Biden said Sunday on CNN, but "we have a long way to go."
Sanders continues to hold poll leads in many of the Super Tuesday states -- including the biggest prize, California -- and he had double-digit leads in two nationwide surveys released Friday.
"I think we've got a great chance to win in California, in Texas, in Massachusetts and a number of states," Sanders said Sunday on CBS.
But into an already turbulent Democratic race -- which has gradually winnowed down a record-large field -- Biden's victory Saturday ...

Big win for Biden puts him back in US race as 'Super Tuesday' nears

The number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in Germany jumped sharply to 129 on Sunday, official data showed, as the interior minister said he expected a vaccine by the end of the year.
The latest tally given by the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's centre for disease control and prevention, showed that the number of cases had almost doubled from 66 on Saturday morning.
Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia has emerged as a hotspot after an infected couple attended carnival celebrations there, infecting dozens of people.
The deadly virus has now reached nine of Germany's 16 states, with Frankfurt, Hamburg and Bremen among the cities reporting their first COVID-19 cases.
Speaking to the mass-daily Bild am Sonntag, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he did not see a swift end to the virus's spread but was optimistic a cure could be found.
"I estimate that a vaccine will be available by the end of year," he said, adding that he himself had stopped shaking 

Germany's coronavirus cases almost double to 129

The man appointed interim president of Guinea-Bissau by the side beaten in the December presidential election has stepped down because of death threats, less than two days after being nominated.
"Given the death threats against me and my bodyguards, I have decided to give up the role of interim president for which I was nominated, to avoid a bloodbath in Guinea-Bissau," said Cipriano Cassama.
"I fear for my physical integrity," he said in a press statement, less than 48 hours after he was appointed by the country's historic ruling party, the PAIGC.
"My life and that of my family is in danger. I have no security," he said, adding that soldiers had come for his bodyguards on Friday.
But he said he would stay on as leader of the National Assembly.
The PAIGC has dominated political life since the former Portuguese colony won independence in 1974, and on Friday 54 of its deputies, out of the 102 parliamentary seats, appointed Cassama interim president.
Two rival contenders for the ...

G Bissau interim president quits after death threats

A rare piano that could fetch more than a million dollars at auction in Israel next week has a history as elaborate as the wood carvings adorning its frame.
The Piano of Siena's 221-year journey began in Turin and has included stops in Paris, a second world war battlefield in North Africa, New York and Tel Aviv.
Moshe Porat, an Israeli piano tuner who has researched the instrument, told AFP the light brown upright decorated with carvings of wingless cherubs, animals, flora and other instruments was a "visual masterpiece".
"Soon the next chapter will begin with a new owner," Porat said, referring to the sale scheduled for Tuesday at Winner's auction house in Jerusalem.
Turin-based harpsichord maker Sebastian Marchisio started building the instrument in 1799, according to Winner's.
Marchisio died before completing it but his descendants finished the initial build in 1825, giving it as a wedding gift to Marchisio's granddaughter Rebecca, who lived in Siena.
The unusually ornate ...

'Immortal Piano' set for Israel auction

An unusually mild winter has left Germany without an ice wine harvest for the first time, the country's wine institute said Sunday, fuelling fears that the sweet dessert wine will become a rarity in future.
None of Germany's 13 wine-making regions saw the necessary temperatures of minus seven degrees Celsius (19.4 degrees fahrenheit) in 2019, one of the world's warmest years on record.
"The 2019 vintage will go down in history here as the first year in which the ice wine harvest failed nationwide," Ernst Buescher from the German Wine Institute (DWI) said in a statement.
Vintners had already struggled to produce the precious ice wine, which is high in sugar but low on alcohol content, in 2017 and 2018 when the weather was cold enough in just a few of Germany's winegrowing areas.
Harvests in 2012 and 2015 fared better, but winelovers would be lucky to lay their hands on one of 2014's few bottles, the DWI said.
Ice wine is made from grapes naturally frozen on the vine. The colder the ...

Germany's ice wine harvest fails because of mild winter

Iraq's divided Parliament postponed a vote of confidence in prime minister-designate Mohammad Allawi's government for a third time Sunday for a lack of quorum, prolonging a political vacuum.
Parliament speaker Mohammed Halbusi did not schedule a new date for the session but noted a constitutional deadline for the vote would expire on Monday.
On Sunday, only 108 lawmakers out of a total of 329 attended the extraordinary session, which had already been delayed twice last week for lack of a quorum.
Iraq's parliament is the most divided in its recent history and Allawi is struggling to secure support from Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities for his proposed cabinet.
Over the past week, he has adjusted the line-up to bolster support, while also holding talks with Sunni and Kurdish representatives.
Nominated on February 1 to replace Adel Abdel Mahdi who stepped down in December,  Allawi must get parliament to approve his cabinet in a confidence vote, otherwise President Barham Salih has said .

Iraq postpones confidence vote for 3rd time as clock ticks

An Israeli envoy on Sunday assailed leading US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders as a "fool" as the conference of the pro-Israel lobby laid bare divisions over right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sanders is staying away from the annual conference of AIPAC, saying it offers a platform for "leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights," and has denounced Netanyahu as a "reactionary racist."
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party, wasted no time in denouncing Sanders as thousands of AIPAC activists opened their meeting at a Washington conference center.
"We don't want Sanders at AIPAC. We don't want him in Israel," Danon said.
"Anyone who calls our prime minister a 'racist' is either a liar, an ignorant fool, or both," Danon said.
Sanders, who would be the first Jewish US president, lived on a kibbutz in Israel in the 1960s and calls himself a supporter of the country but has voiced alarm at its rightward ..

Israel envoy assails Bernie as lobby splits Democrats

Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday defended the US administration's handling of the coronavirus epidemic after the first confirmed death on American soil and rising criticism of the state of US preparedness.
Pence and Health Secretary Alex Azar made the rounds of Sunday talk shows with the message that risks from the disease remain low for most Americans, while promising to make up for testing shortfalls.
"We could have more sad news, but the American people should know the risk to the average American remains low," Pence said on CNN's "State of the Union."
The assurances came a day after officials confirmed that a man in his 50s, with no known contact with persons infected abroad, had died in the northwestern state of Washington after becoming infected with the virus.
Azar told "Fox News Sunday" the man was in a hospital to which a nursing home, hit by a coronavirus outbreak, had sent patients.
"So right now there's a large investigation going on in the nursing home, the hospital, ..

Trump aides defend US coronavirus response

Turkey shot down two Syrian warplanes on Sunday in an escalating offensive against the Damascus regime as Ankara pressured Europe over the conflict by opening its border for migrants to cross into the continent.
Following weeks of violence in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, Turkey confirmed a full military operation against Russian-backed Syrian forces after dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed last week in an air strike blamed on Damascus.
Tensions have intensified between Russia and Turkey -- who back opposing forces in the Syria's civil war -- but Ankara has insisted it does not want to clash directly with Moscow.
"One anti-aircraft system that shot down one of our armed drones and two other anti-aircraft systems have been destroyed, and two SU-24 regime planes that were attacking our aircraft have been downed," Turkey's defence ministry said in a statement.
Syrian state media said Turkish forces "targeted" two of its planes over Idlib. A rebel group and the Syrian ...

Turkey shoots down two Syria warplanes in escalating offensive

Hungary said Sunday it is halting entry to its border "transit zone" camps for asylum-seekers over coronavirus fears after Turkey began letting migrants head toward Europe.
"We are suspending indefinitely new admissions of people into the transit zones," said Gyorgy Bakondi, an adviser to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"We are seeing a certain link between the coronavirus and illegal immigrants," he told a press conference.
Bakondi said that most migrants headed for Europe are Afghans, Palestinians, or Iranians, rather than Syrians, and many may have crossed Iran, a coronavirus hotspot.
Hungary has yet to record a confirmed case of coronavirus within the country.
Entry into the transit zones -- container camps built into a fence along the Serbian border -- will be halted "in the interests of protecting the 321 people waiting for decisions on their asylum applications who are already inside," Bakondi said.
Only a trickle of asylum-seekers each week had been previously let ...

Hungary bars doors to asylum-seekers over coronavirus fears

Two high school classes and their teachers have been quarantined in Switzerland after a student tested positive for the deadly new coronavirus, regional authorities said Sunday.
The move at the Bienne technical high school marks the first measures against COVID-19 that affect a school in Switzerland, where over 20 people have tested positive since a first case emerged less than a week ago.
Authorities in the canton of Bern, where the school is located, said Saturday that a 21-year-old woman had been found to have the virus, after she returned from a trip to Milano in Italy, which has been hard-hit by the outbreak.
As a result, two classes had been placed in quarantine for the next 15 days, authorities said Sunday.
According to the ATS news agency, 45 students and nine teachers were affected.
A luxury resort hotel in Bad Ragaz in St Gallen has also ordered five employees into quarantine after they came into close contact with a person who tested positive in Zurich, the Blick daily ...

Two Swiss high school classes quarantined over coronavirus

Raul Jimenez boosted Wolves' bid to qualify for the Champions League as his late winner capped the visitors' dramatic fightback in their 3-2 victory at Tottenham on Sunday.
Nuno Espirito Santo's side trailed twice in north London, but hit back from 2-1 down thanks to second half goals from Diogo Jota and Jimenez.
Wolves moved two points above Tottenham into sixth place in the Premier League.  As it stands, finishing fifth could lead to a Champions League place, owing to second placed Manchester City's European ban, against which they are appealing.
Sitting level on points with fifth placed Manchester United and just three behind fourth placed Chelsea, Wolves are firmly in the hunt for an unexpected berth in Europe's elite club competition They fell behind to Steven Bergwijn's first half opener, but Matt Doherty equalised and even Serge Aurier restoring Tottenham's lead couldn't knock Wolves out of their stride.
It was a bitter blow for injury-hit Tottenham, who suffered three ...

Jimenez rocks Spurs as Wolves boost Euro bid

Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti was sent off after approaching the referee as yet more VAR controversy contributed to a fiery finish in a 1-1 draw with Manchester United on Sunday.
Goalkeeping errors by both United's David De Gea and Everton's Jordan Pickford were central to the outcome at Goodison Park.
But Everton thought they had won the game in stoppage time when a shot from Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who had opened the scoring, deflected off United's Harry Maguire and into the net.
The goal, however, was ruled out by the video assistant referee with the offside Gylfi Sigurdsson, lying in the path of De Gea, deemed to have obstructed the view of the keeper.
Veteran Italian manager Ancelotti was as unhappy as the home crowd on Merseyside, with the Toffees boss sent off after approaching referee Chris Kavanagh on the field.
The draw saw fifth-placed United miss the chance to cut the gap to Chelsea in fourth to a single point in the Premier League table as Everton stayed in 11th ...

Everton boss Ancelotti sees red in Man Utd draw

The Czech Republic has recorded its first three cases of the new coronavirus: two men and a woman recently arrived from northern Italy, Health Minister Adam Vojtech said Sunday.
A fourth person, a woman, is still undergoing tests.
"We have the first three cases of the COVID-19 disease caused by the new coronavirus," Vojtech told reporters.
The virus was found in a man born in 1952 who had attended a conference in the northern Italian city of Udine.
He has been hospitalised at Prague's Bulovka hospital, as has an American tourist born in 1999, who arrived in Prague from Milan, where she has been studying at the university.
The woman came with an Ecuadorean friend of the same age who had similar symptoms but has tested negative in initials checks, said Vojtech. She would undergo a new test, probably on Monday, he added.
The third case is a man born in 1976, who returned from a skiing trip in the Veneto region of northern Italy.
This man is hospitalised in the northern Czech city of Usti 

Czech health minister confirms first 3 coronavirus cases

Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele broke Mo Farah's course record as he won the London half-marathon on Sunday in a time of one hour and 22 seconds.
Bekele took 1min 18sec off the record set in 2019 by British distance great Farah, who missed this year's edition with an achilles injury.
Britain's Christopher Thompson finished second, with Jake Smith third.
Sunday's event served as a warm-up event for the full London Marathon on April 26.
That race is set to see Bekele go up against Eliud Kipchoge, the reigning Olympic champion from Kenya, as the two fastest marathon runners of all time meet in the British capital.
"The new course record is a great bonus. I wasn't focused on time today, I just wanted to win," Bekele, three times an Olympic gold medallist on the track, told the BBC.
"I'm on schedule in my preparation for the London Marathon in April.
"There's no question about the crowds in London being great. They were cheering all around the course and it felt like a great place to be."
Farah 

Bekele breaks Farah's London half-marathon record

Jihadists have killed 10 people in a raid on a village in northeast Nigeria's restive Borno State, burning homes and looting food supplies, civilian militia sources said Sunday.
Suspected Boko Haram insurgents in trucks fitted with machine guns stormed into Rumirgo village in the Askira Uba district at 1740 GMT on Saturday, shooting indiscriminately and sending residents fleeing into the surrounding countryside.
"They killed 10 people in the indiscriminate shooting which made residents run into the bush" civilian militia member Adamu Galadima said.
The militants burnt a dozen homes, carted away food supplies and two "trailers loaded with foodstuffs," another militiaman, Peter Malgwui said.
Askira Uba lies close to the Sambisa Forest where Boko Haram enclaves dwell and has suffered repeated attacks. Yet in recent months an Islamic State group-aligned faction of Boko Haram has been waging attacks.
Last month three Nigerian soldiers were killed in clashes with fighters from the Islamic ..

Jihadists kill 10 in northeast Nigerian village

Liton Das struck his second one-day international century to set up a crushing 169-run win for Bangladesh in the first ODI against Zimbabwe in Sylhet on Sunday.
Liton hit 126 off 105 balls with 13 fours and two sixes as Bangladesh posted 321-6, their highest score against Zimbabwe, before they bowled out the visitors for 152 runs in 39.1 overs for their biggest ever ODI win.
The feat surpasses Bangladesh's 163-run victory over Sri Lanka in 2018 and is also their 14th consecutive win against familiar foes Zimbabwe, giving them a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Mohammad Saifuddin starred for Bangladesh, playing his first match since the World Cup last year, and managed 3-22, while skipper Mashrafe Mortaza and spinner Mehidy Hasan chipped in with 2-35 and 2-33 respectively.
Chasing a mammoth target, Zimbabwe's innings never got going after Saifuddin took two wickets in his opening spell before Mashrafe took his first wicket in six matches to reduce the side to 23-3.
Teenage debutant .

Liton, Saifuddin star in record Bangladesh win

South African police on Sunday forcibly removed hundreds of migrants who had been squatting for four months on a busy Cape Town square popular with tourists.
The eviction ended months of tension between the city and the migrants who had camped on the pavements of Greenmarket Square since last year following a spate of xenophobic attacks.
Cape Town had sought an injunction after around 700 foreign nationals, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi occupied the sidewalks.
A court last month granted the city the right to enforce its bylaws which prohibit sleeping, washing, defecating or cooking on the streets.
On Sunday, police vehicles surrounded the area and hundreds of officers donning masks and gloves peacefully removed the migrants. Trucks followed and tore down makeshift structures where they had camped.
Emotions ran high as migrants grabbed their belongs and walked away.  Some sang in defiance and shouted "where's the rainbow nation?", "we are not animals in a ...

South African police evict migrant squatters from Cape Town's busy square

Teams taking part in the abandoned UAE Tour began leaving Abu Dhabi on Sunday after being quarantined amid a coronavirus scare.
One of the top cyclists in the race, Britain's Chris Froome, was headed home along with members of his Team Ineos, after being in lockdown at their Abu Dhabi hotel since Thursday when two Italian staff members with one of the teams tested positive.
"All our riders and staff now leaving UAE after being given the all clear. Thank you to all those who have helped us and looked after the Team over recent days," the team said on Twitter.
Movistar Team, including 2018 world champion Alejandro Valverde, also tweeted that its members were cleared and on their way to Madrid.
"The pleasure of going home after several days spent at the hotel," Valverde tweeted.
Dutch team Jumbo-Visma said they were "on the plane back home", and Israel's Start-Up Nation said it too left with "clean health bill and all" after the three-day drama.
However, journalists who were confined to .

UAE Tour teams begin to depart after coronavirus scare

Bangladesh beat Zimbabwe by 169 runs in the first one-day international to take a 1-0 lead in a three-match series at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
Opener Liton Das struck 126 off 105 balls to guide Bangladesh to 321-1 before Mohammad Saifuddin claimed 3-22 to help the home side bowl out Zimbabwe for 152 runs in 39.1 overs.
Skipper Mashrafe Mortaza and spinner Mehidy Hasan claimed two wickets each as Bangladesh recorded their biggest ever ODI win by runs.
Debutant Wesley Madhevere made 35 runs for Zimbabwe.
The second match of the series will be played at the same venue on Tuesday.

AFP

AFP

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