Spain on Friday named Arancha Gonzalez Laya, an international trade expert, as foreign minister replacing Josep Borrell who last year became the EU's foreign policy chief.
Gonzalez was Pascal Lamy's chief of staff at the World Trade Organization between 2005 and 2013, before becoming Executive Director of the International Trade Centre, her current job, where she has focused on raising the competitiveness of companies in developing economies.
In Spanish foreign affairs "economic diplomacy will be the priority", Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's office said announcing the appointment.
Gonzalez, who also speaks English, French, German, Italian and Basque, starts her job Monday along with the other cabinet members in the coalition government of Socialists and the leftist Podemos party.
Sanchez takes over as head of a minority coalition government after winning investiture by a razor-thin margin of just two votes.
But with only 155 of the parliament's 350 seats, the new government will ...

Spain names trade expert as foreign minister

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Tens of thousands of Australians rallied across the country Friday calling on the conservative government to tackle global warming and cut back on fossil fuels, as deadly climate-fuelled bushfires burned out of control.
At least 26 people have died, more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed in the unprecedented blazes.
"The lives that have been lost have been caused by our inaction," protestor Monty Oldroyd told AFP.
"It's been absolutely devastating. I've had multiple friends and family who live in rural areas who had their homes threatened and even destroyed, and livelihoods have been lost."
There has been increasing anger over the cause of the fires, with some Australians accusing Scott Morrison's government of failing to act on climate change and supporting coal mining that has contributed to global warming.
Demonstrators held up signs including "change the politics not the climate" and "trust the science", and called for Morrison to step down.
The severe fire conditions have been 

Australia protesters call for climate action amid deadly bushfires

Lufthansa on Friday said it was cancelling all flights to and from Tehran until January 20, following suggestions that Iran may have mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane earlier this week.
The German group, which also owns Austrian Airlines, said the flight ban was "due to the unclear security situation for the airspace around Tehran airport".
All 176 people on board died when the Ukrainian International Airlines plane went down near Tehran on Wednesday, shortly after Iran launched missiles at US forces in Iraq over the killing of a top Iranian general.
American, British and Canadian officials say intelligence sources indicate Iran shot down the plane, perhaps unintentionally, but this has been denied by Tehran.
Several airlines had already announced they would avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace as tensions in the region soared.
A Lufthansa flight between Frankfurt and Tehran on Thursday turned back an hour after takeoff because of security concerns.
Austrian Airlines ...

Lufthansa scraps Tehran flights until Jan 20

Germany said Friday it still wanted "to save" the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, rejecting US President Donald Trump's plea for Europeans to quit the hard-won pact.
"Our goal is still to save the agreement because we remain convinced that it's the right instrument to prevent Iran from possible nuclear armament," foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said in Berlin.
His comments echoed those by Britain and France, who have also stressed their continued commitment to the deal.
Trump on Wednesday pulled back from the brink of war with Iran, but said "the time had come" for fellow signatories to "break away from the remnants" of the nuclear accord.
"We want to use all the possibilities offered by the (deal) to move towards a diplomatic solution," Breul told reporters.
He urged Tehran "to return its commitments" under the 2015 agreement struck with the US, Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China.
The deal has been unravelling ever since Trump withdrew the United States from the pact ..

Germany rejects Trump call to ditch Iran nuclear pact

Thousands of Iraqis rallied across the country on Friday, reviving a months-long protest movement against the government and adding criticisms of both the US and Iran to their chants.
The anti-regime demonstrations had been overshadowed recently by spiralling tensions between Tehran and Washington, which led each country to carry out strikes against the other's assets in Iraq over the last week.
Fearing their movement would be eclipsed by war, Iraqi activists posted calls on social media in recent days for a mass protest on Friday, which marked the inverse date, 10/1, of the first rallies on October 1, or 1/10.
Iraqis turned out across the country, with hundreds streaming into the capital's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the anti-regime movement, AFP journalists said.
"Screw Iran! Screw America!" they cried out in the iconic square, still lined with tents and stalls set up three months ago.
Thousands more took to the streets in the country's Shiite-majority south, including the main .

Thousands of Iraqis rally against government, Iran and US

Britain cannot hope to get frictionless trade with the EU post-Brexit without ensuring freedom of movement of Europeans, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday.
"If there is no freedom of movement of people of course there can be no free movement of goods and services and capital," she told a news conference in Croatia, which has just taken up the rotating EU presidency.
The statement was another warning shot to Britain that it may have to rein in the scope of the deal it wants to strike with Brussels over future relations after it leaves the European bloc, which is scheduled to happen at the end of this month.
The two sides have until the end of the year to secure an agreement, during which a transition period will be in place.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been adamant he will not seek an extension of that period.
Von der Leyen, in a trip to London on Monday to see Johnson, stressed the limited timeframe meant any deal would necessarily be ...

Freedom of movement key to post-Brexit trade deal: EU chief

US officials have given Kiev "important data" about the crash of a Ukrainian airliner in Iran, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Friday.
All 176 people on board died when Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 went down near Tehran on Wednesday, shortly after Iran launched missiles at US forces in Iraq in response to the killing of a top Iranian general in a US drone strike in Baghdad.
American, British and Canadian officials say intelligence sources indicate that Iran shot down the plane, perhaps unintentionally, but this has been denied by Tehran.
"President Volodymyr Zelensky and I met with US representatives," Prystaiko said on Twitter. "We have received important data which will be processed by our experts."
Zelensky was due to speak to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the crash at 3 pm (1300 GMT), the minister added.
"The version of a missile is not ruled out, but it has not yet been confirmed," Zelensky said on his Facebook page.
He asked for Ukraine .

US gives Ukraine 'important data' on Iran plane crash

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi made a rare trip to a region bordering China days before President Xi Jinping is expected to push for controversial port and dam projects during a visit to the country.
Wearing traditional ethnic attire Suu Kyi danced with a street procession on Friday in northern Kachin state's capital Myitkyina, a day after supporters cheered her arrival at the airport.
She urged a crowd of thousands to "focus on the present" and called for peace in the remote region, where insurgents have clashed with the army over autonomy and resources.
She did not mention the China-backed Myitsone dam, a USD 3.6 billion project halted in 2011 in the face of widespread opposition.
A proposal to reinstate the dam drew thousands of protesters onto the streets last year.
Myanmar is a vital piece of China's Belt and Road Initiative, Xi's USD 1 trillion vision for maritime, rail and road projects across Asia, Africa and Europe.
During his two-day visit to the country starting January ...

Myanmar's Suu Kyi visits China border state as Xi visit looms

Hundreds of people have been killed or raped in attacks on the Hema ethnic group in eastern DR Congo's Ituri province, in what "may amount to crimes against humanity" or even genocide, the UN said on Friday.
"At least 701 people have been killed and 168 injured during inter-ethnic tensions between the Hema and Lendu communities, in the territories of Djugu and Mahagi, from December 2017 to September 2019," the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJRHO) said.
"In addition, at least 142 people have been subjected to acts of sexual violence.
"Most of the victims are members of the Hema community."
Since February last year, nearly 57,000 people have taken refuge in Uganda and more than 556,000 have fled to neighbouring regions, according to UN figures.
The investigation said armed Lendu groups became more organised from September 2018 and escalated their attacks.
"Among their objectives is to take control of the land of the Hema communities and their associated resources," UNJRHO said in a ...

Violence in DR Congo's Ituri may be crimes against humanity: UN

Former Central African Republic (CAR) rebel leader and president Michel Djotodia returned to Bangui on Friday, exactly six years after quitting as head of state, and pledged to support peace in the troubled country.
Djotodia, 71, who resigned 10 months after seizing the presidency at the head of a Muslim rebellion in March 2013, landed on board a Royal Air Maroc flight from Casablanca via Douala in Cameroon. He had been living in exile in Benin.
He was welcomed at a hotel in the capital by about 30 of his supporters and given a security escort by police and army personnel, an AFP reporter saw.
He was expected to meet later with President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
"2020 will be a year of peace. I am no longer a man of war, I am a man of peace," Djotodia told journalists.
"I urge all the rebels to be patient," Djotodia said separately in a brief interview with AFP.
"There is a peace agreement which has been signed. It is time for all of us, fighters and all Central Africans, to stand ..

Former C Africa leader returns after six-year exile

Naomi Osaka battled for two hours while Petra Kvitova cruised to victory on Friday as both players booked spots in the season-opening Brisbane International semi-finals.
Osaka's form slipped after the first set but the world number four eventually saw off sixth seed Kiki Bertens 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 at Pat Rafter Arena.
Bertens was on the attack in the second but lost control in the decider when she began to struggle with her first serve.
It was a more straightforward affair for fifth seed Kvitova, who downed American qualifier Jennifer Brady 6-4, 6-2.
Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion who won her first WTA title in Brisbane in 2011, was in superb touch against Brady, who beat Maria Sharapova and Ashleigh Barty in the first two rounds but was never in the hunt.
"I didn't serve well at all the first game, but since then I served much, much better and that's helped me a lot through this match today for sure," Kvitova said.
"My body's still not falling apart yet, so that's good as well." ..

Osaka battles, Kvitova cruises to Brisbane semis

A build-up of ice may have caused a passenger plane crash in Kazakhstan last month in which 12 died but dozens survive, a state commission said on Friday.
The plane, operated by budget carrier Bek Air, was torn apart and its nose crushed on impact with a two-storey building minutes after taking off from Almaty on December 27.
Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar said on Friday that the plane's wings had not been de-iced, causing a build-up that the commission had identified as the most likely cause of the crash.
"Work on treating this aircraft with anti-icing fluid was carried out only partly," said Sklyar, who is in charge of the state commission.
"The aircraft commander decided to treat only the stabiliser with anti-icing fluid -- the wings of the aircraft were not processed."
The plane was carrying almost 100 passengers when it crashed -- most survived without being seriously hurt. Some 21 people were still being treated for their injuries on Friday.
Witnesses spoke of the terrified .

Ice build-up may have caused Kazakh air crash

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is hopeful Harry Maguire will be fit to face Norwich City on Saturday, allaying fears that the world's most expensive defender was set for a spell on the sidelines.
Maguire was badly missed as United crumbled to Manchester City in a 3-1 League Cup semi-final, first leg defeat on Tuesday, but his hip injury is not as bad as first feared.
The man signed for ?80 million ($105 million) from Leicester in August has not had the transformative impact on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's defence that United hoped for, but the importance of his presence was laid bare as City cut open a centre-back pairing of Victor Lindelof and Phil Jones with ease in midweek.
"Harry has a chance for tomorrow," Solskjaer said at his pre-match press conference on Friday. "It is only a minor thing. He will go through training and see how he reacts."
Maguire has played every minute of United's league campaign so far and has even worn the armband on multiple occasions with club .

Maguire return a timely boost for Man Utd

British athletics great Mo Farah says he would have been the first athlete to leave disgraced coach Alberto Salazar's camp had he known he was involved in doping.
The 36-year-old Somalia-born distance runner -- who will bid for a third successive 10,000 metres Olympic title in Tokyo this year rather than continuing to conquer the marathon -- told the BBC he wished he had been aware sooner about Salazar's illegal activity at the Nike Oregon Project.
Farah was criticised for staying on with the 61-year-old Cuban-born naturalised American till 2017, two years after a BBC documentary first aired claims about doping within the camp.
When Salazar was banned for four years by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in October for doping violations, Farah was reluctant to talk about his former coach, who is now appealing the ruling at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
"Had I had known the news, what Salazar did, it's taken four years, had I known that sooner I would have been the first one out," .

Farah 'would have quit Salazar sooner had he known about doping violations'

Iraq's caretaker premier Adel Abdel Mahdi has asked the United States to send a delegation to Baghdad to begin preparing for a troop pullout, his office said on Friday.
In a phone call late Thursday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Abdel Mahdi "requested that delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement parliament's decision for the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq."
Some 5,200 US soldiers are stationed at bases across Iraq to support local troops preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State group.
They make up the bulk of a broader US-led coalition, invited by the Iraqi government in 2014 to help combat the jihadists.
Their deployment was based on an executive-to-executive agreement never ratified by Iraq's parliament.
But on Sunday, Iraq's parliament voted in favour of rescinding that invitation and ousting all foreign troops.
The following day, US commanders sent a letter to their counterparts in Baghdad saying they were preparing for "movement 

Iraq asks US for team to prepare troop pullout

- France said on Friday that the imprisonment of two prominent French academics by Iran was unacceptable and that their release would represent a "significant gesture", as tensions mount between Tehran and the West.
The plea for the release of Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal -- imprisoned since June last year -- comes as Iran is embroiled in an international crisis over its missile attacks on US troops in Iraq and a passenger plane crash near Tehran.
"These arrests and the fact that they are in prison today is totally unacceptable," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio.
"It would be a significant gesture if Iran freed them as soon as possible."
France has repeatedly called for de-escalation in the latest intensification of the Iran-US standoff, sparked by the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in an American drone strike which prompted Iran to attack bases in Iraq housing US troops.
A Ukrainian passenger plane came down shortly after takeoff on ...

France calls for 'gesture' from Iran over detained academics

Prince Harry's wife Meghan has returned to Canada following the couple's bombshell announcement that they were quitting their frontline royal duties, their spokeswoman said on Friday.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent an extended Christmas break in Canada with their baby son Archie, before returning to break the news that has rocked the royal family.
"I can confirm reports that the duchess is in Canada," the couple's spokeswoman told AFP, without providing further details.
The Daily Mail newspaper reported that the royals left eight-month-old Archie with his nanny in Canada when they flew to Britain earlier this week.
It said Meghan, a former US television actress, headed back to rejoin him on Thursday and "she may stay there for the foreseeable future".
An unnamed source was quoted as saying by the domestic Press Association news agency the duchess had travelled to the UK "to attend some meetings" before returning to Canada Senior royals were caught off guard by Wednesday's ...

Prince Harry's wife Meghan returns to Canada amid royal storm

Austrian Airlines said it was cancelling its flight to Tehran on Friday, two days after a passenger plane crashed in Iran killing all 176 people on board.
The airline said its action was "due to the latest reports and the changed assessment of the security situation for the airspace around Tehran airport".
Thursday's flight to Tehran was ordered to return to Vienna after a stopover in Sofia, the statement added.
The airline's move came after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said intelligence sources indicated Iran had shot down the Ukrainian airliner, possibly accidentally.
Iran fired ballistic missiles at bases housing US troops in Iraq early on Wednesday in retaliation for the US assassination of Iran's most powerful general, Qasem Soleiman.
Several airlines had already said they would avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
Lufthansa -- the parent company of Austrian -- said its flight between Frankfurt and Tehran on Thursday had returned an hour after takeoff because of security ..

Austrian Airlines cancels Tehran flights over security

Israel has announced the release of two prisoners -- one of whom was convicted of spying for Syria -- as part of a swap deal brokered by Russia.
Sidqi al-Maqt, from the Druze community in the annexed Golan Heights, was jailed in 2015 to 11 years for spying, treason, contact with a foreign agent and transfer of information to the Syrian government.
He had already spent several years behind bars in Israel for spying.
"Security prisoner Sidqi Al-Maqt will be released tomorrow (Friday) January 10, before the scheduled end of his imprisonment," Israel's prison authority said late Thursday.
Authorities also announced the early release of another Golan resident, Amal Abu Saleh, who was jailed for the murder of a Syrian who crossed the Israeli border. He had been due to remain behind bars until 2023.
The early releases are a "gesture of goodwill" after the repatriation to Israel last year of the remains of Zachary Baumel, an Israeli soldier missing since the 1982 war in Lebanon, the prisons ..

Israel releases man convicted of spying for Syria

Prince Harry's wife Meghan has returned to Canada following the couple's bombshell announcement they were quitting their frontline royal duties, their spokeswoman said on Friday.
"I can confirm reports that the duchess is in Canada," she told AFP, after the Daily Mail reported that Meghan had flown back on Thursday to rejoin the couple's baby son, Archie.

Prince Harry's wife Meghan back in Canada amid royal storm

Australia's navy tasked with rescuing bushfire-trapped residents on the southeast coast received a new mission Friday -- delivering beer to a country pub on the verge of running dry.
More than a thousand people have been evacuated from the town of Mallacoota, with the military sending landing craft to collect families trapped there since New Year's Eve.
But after several shuttle runs and with the immediate emergency ebbing the navy will deliver much-needed supplies, including a precious cargo of tinnies to thirsty survivors, a department of defense spokesperson confirmed to AFP.
"The beer is not occupying unnecessary space on HMAS Choules and essential supplies were not offloaded to accommodate the beer," the spokesperson added.
Carlton and United Breweries said Friday it had dropped the alcohol at the Cerberus naval base to be delivered to the Mallacoota Hotel, after it was on the verge of running out.
The delivery includes 20 kegs and four pallets of beer and cider for a town that ..

AFP

AFP

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