An official from Aung San Suu Kyi's political party was killed in Rakhine state after planning a show of support for the leader's defence of Myanmar against genocide allegations at The Hague, a spokesman said Thursday.
The National League for Democracy's Ye Thein, party chairman in Buthidaung township, had been held for weeks by the Arakan Army, insurgents fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
The rebels said he was killed in military attacks on Christmas day but the claim could not be verified and NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt said the group bore responsibility.
Ye Thein was detained on December 11 ahead of demonstrations backing Suu Kyi's high-profile opening statements at the UN's top court the same day.
"We, all members of NLD, are very sorry for the loss," Myo Nyunt told AFP. "His gathering to support her was righteous and it was not a crime." The Arakan Army has carried out a series of daring kidnappings, bombings and raids against the army and local officials in ...

Aung San Suu Kyi party official killed in Myanmar's Rakhine

PTI Automatic

At least 35 people were killed when a bus plunged into a ravine in Indonesia, officials said in a new toll Thursday, making it one of the most deadly bus accidents in recent years.
A rescue team in Indonesia's island of Sumatra on Thursday continued the search for a third day to find more bodies after seven new victims were found in a river late on Wednesday.
According to a passenger manifest, the regional bus left Bengkulu province for Pagar Alam with 27 on board but some survivors told police there were around 50 people inside when the accident happened on Monday just before midnight.
Spokesman for a local rescue team in South Sumatra Taufan, who only goes by one name like many Indonesians, said Thursday that of the 35 people killed, 16 were male and 19 female.
"The rescue team is searching the river 6 kilometres towards the north using rafting," Taufan told AFP on Thursday.
The team has evacuated at least 13 survivors and the search is still ongoing to find more bodies over fears ..

Death toll in Indonesia bus plunge rises to 35 as more victims found

Marnus Labuschagne plundered a fifth consecutive half-century as Australia weathered some fine New Zealand bowling to reach 155 for three at tea on the opening day of the second Test on Thursday.
In the Black Caps' first Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground since 1987, skipper Kane Williamson won the toss and opted to bowl, and it looked to be a good decision with Joe Burns out first ball.
But Labuschagne marched to the crease and again proved rock-solid, compiling 63 before being out in bizarre fashion, with a rising Colin de Grandhomme ball ricocheting off his elbow and onto the stumps as he attempted to leave it.
A fidgety Steve Smith was not out 41 alongside Matthew Wade, who was unbeaten on seven.
The visitors need to win to square the three-match series after crashing in the opening day-night clash in Perth by 296 runs.
It was a bold decision by Williamson to bowl on a pitch that has traditionally been docile and favoured the batsmen.
And it appeared to pay dividends .

Labuschagne hits fifth straight 50 as Australia dig in

New Zealand took the crucial wicket of David Warner just before lunch as Australia reached 67 for two at the break on the opening day of the second Test on Thursday.
In the Black Caps' first Boxing Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground since 1987, skipper Kane Williamson won the toss and opted to bowl on a cloudy morning, and it looked to be a good decision with Joe Burns out first ball.
Warner and the in-form Marnus Labuschagne dug in to wrestle back control before a swinging Neil Wagner delivery saw the dangerous Warner caught at slip by Tim Southee for 41.
A lunch, Labuschagne, who has made three centuries this summer, was unbeaten on 23 with Steve Smith not out one.
The visitors need to win to square the three-match series after crashing in the opening day-night clash in Perth by 296 runs.
The MCG wicket has been docile for the past two Boxing Day Tests, but proved more lively Thursday and Trent Boult, back after missing two Tests with a rib injury, delivered a sizzling opening ...

Warner falls as New Zealand restrict Australia in 2nd Test

Australia Thursday added Queensland's Mitchell Swepson to their squad for the third and final Test against New Zealand in Sydney, raising the prospect of playing two specialist spinners.
The 26-year-old leg-spinner joined the side for preparation during the ongoing second Test in Melbourne and will remain with them leading into the Sydney Test from January 3, where conditions often assist slow bowlers.
"Having Mitch in Sydney gives us the option to play two specialist spinners if the conditions demand," national selector Trevor Hohns said.
"We will make those assessments when we get to Sydney." If selected, he will join Nathan Lyon in a two-pronged spin attack.
Swepson, who has taken 12 wickets from six Sheffield Shield games at 26.58, was a member of Australia's Test squad for tours of India and Bangladesh in 2017.
He took two wickets on his international debut in a Twenty20 match against England at Edgbaston in 2018.
Hohns added that veteran paceman Peter Siddle, called up to the ...

Australia add leg-spinner Swepson to Sydney Test squad

Israel's embattled premier Benjamin Netanyahu faces off against longtime rival Gideon Saar in a Likud party leadership contest Thursday that could threaten his grip on power.
A defeat for Netanyahu, 70, would be a shock, but even a relatively close result could weaken his influence over the conservative party he has dominated for 20 years.
Whatever the result, "Netanyahu can only lose", said Stephan Miller, a pollster who has worked on multiple Israeli campaigns.
No matter how much support Saar receives, "it will be the first time in 10 years that a group of voters on the right explicitly express their desire to get rid of Netanyahu," he said.
"If that is more than a third of the party, Netanyahu will be significantly damaged." In power as premier for a decade, Netanyahu is facing a third general election within 12 months as well as an indictment on a series of corruption allegations.
Saar and Netanyahu have spent recent days criss-crossing the country, making their case to around ...

Israel's Netanyahu faces party leadership challenge

A jihadist attack that left 42 dead in the north of Burkina Faso, the worst assault in the country for five years, plunged the nation into mourning over Christmas and sparked messages of solidarity from the United Nations and Pope Francis.
Thirty-five civilians, including 31 women, and seven soldiers were killed Tuesday in simultaneous attacks which lasted for several hours in the northern town of Arbinda and a military base, the army said, adding that 80 assailants were killed.
Around a dozen soldiers were also killed in an attack overnight on Wednesday in Hallele in the same volatile northern province of Soum, security sources said.
Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen frequent jihadist attacks which have left hundreds of people dead since the start of 2015 when Islamist extremist violence began to spread across the Sahel region.
"A large group of terrorists simultaneously attacked the military base and the civilian population in Arbinda," the army chief of staff said in 

UN, Pope voice solidarity with Burkina Faso after jihadist attack

Dozens of families found themselves homeless on Christmas after a forest fire in the Chilean tourist port city of Valparaiso burned through two hillside neighbourhoods.
The fire broke out Tuesday, blazing across Rocuant and San Roque hills and continued to burn on Wednesday, though with less intensity. About 200 homes were "affected" by the fire in a matter of hours.
There were no deaths from the fire that had burned 150 hectares (370 acres), though 12 volunteer fire fighters were injured.
Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel said while "there has been a lot of progress in controlling the fire," it was "not controlled."
Authorities had not yet evaluated the extent of the damage to the affected homes, some of which were destroyed while others sustained varying degrees of damage, the National Emergency Office in Santiago said.
The blaze started in grassy and wooded areas and rapidly advanced to populated neighbourhoods in Valparaiso, about 120 kilometers northwest of Santiago.
"We were ...

Families homeless over Christmas after forest fire in Chilean port

Sirens warning of rocket fire from Gaza cut short a rally by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening as he campaigned for his party's primaries the following day, public television reported.
It was the second time in recent months that rocket fire cut short one of his meetings.
"A projectile was fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory and was intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system," the Israeli army said in a statement.
The statement said sirens had sounded near the Palestinian enclave and in the southern city of Ashkelon where the prime minister was holding a rally.
Israel's public broadcaster KAN 11 showed images of a security guard informing Netanyahu of a "red alert". The prime minister waved goodbye before being hustled from the room with his wife Sarah.
On September 10, the head of the Likud party was evacuated from an election rally in the southern city of Ashdod after sirens warned of an attack from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, 

Israel's Netanyahu again quits rally as rocket alert sounds

A wolf is believed to have snatched a domesticated kangaroo in Belgium and wounded another in an overnight attack, a wolf expert told AFP on Wednesday.
The missing marsupial is "probably dead", eaten "as a Christmas meal" by the unidentified wild canine, the expert, Jan Loos, said, confirming information he had given to local media.
The other kangaroo was bitten on the ear but survived and was in otherwise "good health," he said.
He said the kangaroos were kept by private owners in their garden in Balen, in northeast Belgium. Loos declined to identify them, saying he had promised not to do so.
Officers in the local police station in Balen, contacted by AFP, said they were aware of the media reports but had no further information on the alleged attack.  Loos, the director of a Belgian wolf and wildlife centre called Landschap, said he was called to the property by the owners.
"I found wolf prints, so it's quite sure it's a wolf, but we're not 100 percent sure which wolf," he said.
He ..

Wolf 'snatches kangaroo' in Belgium

Two wanted "terrorists" were killed Wednesday during a shoot-out with security forces in eastern Saudi Arabia, Al Ekhbariya state television reported without identifying them.
It said the shooting took place during a security operation in the coastal city of Dammam, a region where the Sunni-majority kingdom's Shiite minority predominate.
No other details were provided on the identity of the deceased or the security operation.
Oil-rich eastern Saudi Arabia has been a flashpoint for troubles since 2011, when the region was rocked by a protest movement in the wake of the Arab Spring.
One prominent resident, Shiite cleric and government critic Nimr al-Nimr, was executed in 2016 on terrorism charges.
That sparked widespread outrage and a diplomatic crisis with Riyadh's regional arch-rival, Shiite-majority Iran.
Saudi Shiites make up an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the kingdom's population of 32 million, though there are no official statistics on the community, long marginalised and ...

Saudi forces kill two 'terrorists' in shoot-out: state TV

Burkina Faso was in mourning Wednesday after jihadists killed 35 civilians, almost all of them women, in double attacks in the north in one of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of violence in the West African country.
Seven soldiers and 80 jihadists also died in Tuesday's simultaneous attacks on the town of Arbinda and its military base in Soum province, which lasted "several hours" and was of a "rare intensity", the army said.
Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen regular jihadist attacks which have left hundreds dead since the start of 2015 when militant violence began to spread across the Sahel region.
"A large group of terrorists simultaneously attacked the military base and the civilian population in Arbinda," the army chief of staff said in a statement.
"This barbaric attack resulted in the deaths of 35 civilian victims, most of them women," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore added on Twitter, praising the "bravery and commitment" of the defence and ...

Burkina Faso in mourning after double jihadist attacks

Christmas was celebrated all around the world on Wednesday, with Pope Francis appealing for peace in many of the world's hotspots while festivities were muted for Filipinos battered by a typhoon, as well as in strike-bound France.
"May Christ bring his light to the many children suffering from war and conflicts in the Middle East and in various countries of the world," Francis said in his traditional Christmas message at the Vatican, singling out the crises in Venezuela and Lebanon, as well as armed conflicts ravaging many African countries.
For her part, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II used her Christmas Day message to pay tribute to young environmental campaigners who were inspired to global action by Swedish teen Greta Thunberg.
She also described 2019 as "quite bumpy" after a year of crises in the royal family. The queen attended the annual Christmas Day service in Sandringham without her ailing husband Prince Philip, 98, who was released from hospital after a four-night stay for an .

Pope's Christmas message appeals for peace in global flashpoints

Boko Haram jihadists have killed seven people on Christmas Eve in a raid on a Christian village near the town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria's Borno state, local militia and residents told AFP Wednesday.
Dozens of fighters driving trucks and motorcycles stormed into Kwarangulum late Tuesday, shooting fleeing residents and burning homes after looting food supplies.
Boko Haram and its IS-affiliated Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction have recently stepped up attacks on military and civilian targets.  "They killed seven people and abducted a teenage girl in the attack," local vigilante David Bitrus said.
"They took away food stuff and burnt many houses before leaving," he said, adding that a church was also burnt.
The jihadists were believed to have attacked from Boko Haram's nearby Sambisa forest enclave, said Chibok community leader Ayuba Alamson who confirmed the toll.  In April, Boko Haram raided Kwarangulum, 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Chibok, stealing food and ...

Seven killed in Nigeria jihadist attack on Christmas eve

Twenty-one people were hospitalised in northern France, two in a serious condition, after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning during Christmas mass, emergency services said Wednesday.
Emergency personnel were sent to the church in the Oise department after several people complained of headaches during the religious ceremony on Christmas eve.
The church was evacuated to a nearby community hall where 72 people were treated. Of those, 19 were brought to nearby hospitals and two, with more severe symptoms, to specialist centres where one was placed in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
Local emergency official Nicolas Mougin said carbon monoxide levels up to 350 parts per million (ppm) were measured inside the church.
The cause of the poisoning has not been determined but investigators were looking into a gas heater.
The local mayor has ordered the church closed.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odourless, invisible gas produced when burning fuels such as coal, wood, charcoal, oil, kerosene, propane .

21 suffer carbon monoxide poisoning at French Xmas mass

Iraqi anti-government protesters again hit the streets Wednesday, angered by an activist's death and an attempt on the life of a popular TV satirist.
The latest rallies in Baghdad and cities including Basra and Karbala came after a night of unrest that saw protesters torch the headquarters of two pro-Iran militias in the country's south.
The demonstrators have rallied for almost three months to demand the ouster of the entire political class that has run the oil-rich yet poverty-ridden country in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion which overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein.
The mostly youthful activists accuse Iraq's leaders of enriching themselves, mismanaging the economy and being beholden to powerful neighbour Iran, an influential actor in Iraqi politics.
Passions were inflamed when popular TV satirist Aws Fadhil was targeted Tuesday by unknown assailants, with three bullets hitting his car.
Fadhil posted footage of the bullet holes on social media and declared: "They are ...

Iraqi protesters rally after night of arson attacks

A Japanese lawmaker was arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes worth tens of thousands of dollars from a company that wanted to build a casino, Tokyo prosecutors said Wednesday.
Tsukasa Akimoto, a former member of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party, received three million yen in cash in 2017 (USD 27,400 at the current rate), prosecutors said in a statement without identifying the company.
The arrest could put pressure on the Abe administration, which legalised casinos in 2018 despite bitter opposition.
Akimoto, who denied the allegations in a tweet, was the senior vice minister in charge of overseeing the government's casino policy.
Prosecutors alleged he received the money "knowing the company provided it for the purpose of asking for favourable arrangements" for casino projects.
Prosecutors also arrested three employees of Chinese betting company 500.com, which allegedly bribed Akimoto, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Akimoto resigned from Abe's Liberal Democratic ...

Japan lawmaker arrested over alleged casino bribes

All-rounder Ben Stokes practised with the England team on Wednesday ahead of the first Test against South Africa, starting at SuperSport Park on Thursday.
A statement from the England and Wales Cricket Board said that Stokes' father, Ged, remained in intensive care in a Johannesburg hospital but had responded positively to treatment and was in a stable condition.
Ged Stokes, who had travelled to South Africa to watch the cricket, was admitted to hospital on Monday with what was described as a serious illness. Ben Stokes missed practice on Tuesday to be at his father's bedside.
The statement said the Stokes family thanked people for their support of the family and in particular the medical practitioners who had treated Ged Stokes.
Although fast bowlers Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer appeared to have recovered from illness, which caused them to miss England's two warm-up matches, three players - Jack Leach, Ollie Pope and Chris Woakes - missed the team's final practice because of ...

Stokes rejoins England team as ill father does better

Frank Lampard insists he doesn't want to emulate Jose Mourinho's unique style as the Chelsea manager plots to out-wit his old boss in Sunday's crucial clash at Tottenham.
Lampard's first Premier League meeting with Mourinho is the headline act in a fascinating derby that will determine which of the London rivals spends Christmas Day in the top four.
Spurs manager Mourinho played a key role in Lampard's emergence as one of Chelsea's all-time greats during their time together at Stamford Bridge.
Yet while Mourinho's managerial credentials are well established after winning a host of trophies during his glittering 19-year career, Lampard is still carving out a name for himself in the coaching world.
The former England midfielder is in just his second season as a manager after leaving Championship side Derby to take charge at Chelsea in July.
Lampard acknowledges Mourinho was a big influence on him as a player but, now he is in the dug-out, he will follow his own path rather than copy the 

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