China warned on Thursday that it was ready to take "firm countermeasures" against the United States after President Donald Trump signed a law supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
"The nature of this is extremely abominable, and harbours absolutely sinister intentions," the foreign ministry said in a statement, without specifying what measures Beijing might take.

China threatens 'countermeasures' after Trump signs Hong Kong bill

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Hong Kong's government on Thursday expressed "extreme regret" after US President Donald Trump signed legislation backing pro-democracy protests, accusing Washington of "interfering" in the city's domestic affairs.
"The two acts are obviously interfering in Hong Kong's internal affairs," a government official said in a statement, warning the move would "send the wrong message to the protesters".

Hong Kong expresses 'extreme regret' over US law backing protests

Cuba has authorised state security agencies to use electronic surveillance without prior approval from a court, prompting criticism from the United States which accuses Havana of spying on opponents and tourists.
Havana said the new laws would make the police more effective "in preventing and confronting money laundering and terrorist financing."
The measures were introduced in a change to the Communist-run country's penal code last week. Investigators must first request surveillance authorisation from the attorney general.
"This is the case everywhere in the world. The difference is that elsewhere you need authorisation from a judge whereas in Cuba it is between police and the prosecutor's office," constitutional analyst Julio Fernandez Estrada told AFP.
Fernandez said electronic surveillance would allow investigators to "listen to and record conversations," locate and track suspects, take picture and videos and tap into all types of communications technology.
The United States -- ...

Cuba allows police to snoop electronically

Clashes took place on Wednesday in northern Algeria between police and people protesting against an election meeting by a candidate standing in next month's presidential poll, journalists said.
"Outside the room where the meeting was to be held, stones were thrown and tear gas fired between protesters and police -- it was heated," a local journalist at the scene in Bouira told AFP.
Multiple news sites said several hundred protesters converged before the candidate -- Ali Benflis, a former prime minister -- arrived for his meeting, some 90 kilometres southeast of Algiers.
Several local news outlets reported many demonstrators arrested and several wounded.
Benflis, who was premier under president Abdelaziz Bouteflika between 2000 and 2003, was eventually able to hold his meeting, according to a video posted on his Facebook account.
The ailing Bouteflika stepped down in April after months of enormous protests against his two-decade rule. But large demonstrations continued against ...

Police, protesters clash over Algeria poll: media

President Donald Trump signed a law Wednesday supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, likely angering Beijing just as Washington was hoping to ease a US-China trade war.
Trump had seemed reluctant to sign the bill but with almost unanimous US congressional support for the measure, he had little political room to manoeuvre.
In a statement, Trump spoke of "respect" for Chinese President Xi Jinping and said he hoped the "leaders and representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences.

Trump signs law supporting Hong Kong protesters

Lebanon's army said on Wednesday it detained 16 people during a third night of violence across the country, as tensions rose following more than 40 days of unprecedented protests.
Clashes erupted on Tuesday evening in Tripoli, the northern port city where protests have maintained momentum since anti-government demonstrations began on October 17.
On the outskirts of Beirut, clashes shook the neighbourhoods of Ain al-Remmaneh and Chiyah.
"Army units arrested 16 people following incidents that shook several areas of Lebanon," a statement read, adding that 51 troops were wounded.
In Tripoli, dozens of people were wounded when "dissenters" attacked banks, breaking windows and destroying money machines, the official ANI news agency reported.
They had previously tried to attack offices of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a Christian party founded by President Michel Aoun, and the army fired in the air to disperse them, ANI said.
However, activists on social networks blamed thugs for ...

Lebanon army says 16 held after night of unrest

France on Wednesday called on China to end "mass arbitrary detentions" in Xinjiang, where around one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are being held in camps that Beijing calls vocational schools.
"We call on China to put an end to mass arbitrary detentions," a foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has called on China to close the camps and allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang as soon as possible to report on the situation.
The extent and nature of the camps was revealed to the world in a huge leak of documents in mid-November by a member of the Chinese political establishment.
China initially denied the network of internment camps existed, but changed its position recently to say they are vocational schools that combat Islamist extremism through education and training.
Le Drian said the government was paying "close attention to all the testimonies and documents reported by the press".

France tells China to end mass detentions in Xinjiang

Colombian unions marked their second general strike in a week on Wednesday as tens of thousands poured onto the streets in protest against the government of right-wing President Ivan Duque.
Public transport was largely shut down and shops and offices closed in the centre of the capital as a series of protests that began with a 250,000-strong march last Thursday continued for a seventh consecutive day.
Some protesters banged pots and pans as they made their way through the streets. Large demonstrations were also held in Cali and Medellin.
"We are outraged by so much mistreatment and so much corruption," said David Martinez, a 50-year-old public employee who joined a march in Bogota dressed as a clown.
"I'm dressed as a clown because that's how the government sees us. People have risen up in Ecuador, Chile, in Bolivia, now it's our turn to say: No More!" Martinez told AFP.
The protests have been largely peaceful but sporadic violence has left four dead -- including a young man who died .

Thousands march in Colombia to keep pressure on Duque

Fifteen civilians, including eight children, were killed on Wednesday when their vehicle hit a land mine in northern Afghanistan, a government official said.
"At around 5:00 pm this evening a mine planted by the Taliban terrorists hit a civilian car... killing 15 civilians and wounding two more," said Nasrat Rahimi, an interior ministry spokesman.
Six women and a man were also among those killed in the blast, in Kunduz province, on the country's northern border with Tajikistan, Rahimi said.
There are regular clashes in the region between the Taliban insurgents and US-backed Afghan forces. Insurgents attacked the provincial capital, also called Kunduz, in early September, but failed to capture it.
The Taliban however briefly seized the city in September 2015.

Eight children among 15 civilians killed by mine in Afghanistan: govt

Protesters set fire Wednesday night to Iran's consulate in the southern Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf, two months into the country's most serious social crisis in decades, AFP journalists said.
Since October 1, protesters in Iraq -- a majority Shiite country, like its neighbour Iran -- have been calling for the fall of a central government they see as both irretrievably corrupt and beholden to Tehran.

Iraqi protesters set fire to Iran's Najaf consulate: AFP

Libya's National Oil Corporation said fighting triggered a suspension of production Wednesday at a key field in the country's southwest.
Forces loyal to eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar said they carried out air raids against "armed groups" that had attacked Al-Feel field.
Haftar's spokesman Ahmad al-Mesmari accused "militias" of the Government of National Accord (GNA) of being behind the attack.
Al-Feel produces some 70,000 barrels per day (bpd) in a joint venture between NOC and Italy's ENI.
The NOC said the air raids hit the entrance to the field and a housing compound used by staff.
"NOC staff at the field are protected in safe areas, but they cannot resume their normal duties," the firm's chairman Mustafa Sanalla said.
Production would remain suspended until military activity ceased and all armed personnel withdrew from the production area, he said.
The company posted on its Facebook page a video of the field showing a thick column of smoke, with the sound of combat clearly 

Fighting suspends output at Libya oil field

Human Rights Watch accused Iran on Wednesday of "deliberately covering up" deaths and arrests during a crackdown on demonstrations this month.
Protests broke out across sanctions-hit Iran on November 15, hours after a sharp fuel price hike was announced.
Reports of deaths and arrests emerged as security forces were deployed to rein in demonstrations which turned violent in some areas, with dozens of banks, petrol pumps and police stations torched.
Iranian officials have blamed the street violence on the intervention of "thugs" backed by royalists and Iran's arch-enemies -- the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The extent of the crackdown remains unclear, however, primarily due to an internet outage that was imposed during the unrest.
HRW charged that Iranian authorities were "deliberately covering up the scale of the mass crackdown against protesters" and called on them to "immediately announce the number of deaths, arrests and detentions".
The group's deputy Middle East ...

HRW charges Iran 'covering up' unrest deaths

Slovakia banned single-use plastics as of 2021 on Wednesday, joining the European Union fight to reduce marine pollution.
The new law will make it illegal to sell plastic plates, cups, cutlery, drink stirrers, straws and cotton buds, among similar items.
72 lawmakers voted in favour of the waste management bill, 30 against and 32 abstained.
"Our goal is to motivate people to separate waste, and (for) manufacturers to produce recyclable products," Environment Minister Laszlo Solymos told reporters after the vote.
Waste management experts believe the law will trigger a boom in the use of biodegradable packaging.
"We expect the new law to result in a greater use of more sustainable alternatives from renewable sources -- wood, paper or bioplastics in the everyday life," Katarina Kretter, a spokeswoman for private recycling company ENVI-PAK, told AFP.
Earlier this year, the European Union and the European Parliament voted to ban from 2021 single-use plastics such as straws, cutlery and ...

Slovakia bans single-use plastics from 2021

A Chinese newspaper on Wednesday published a video aiming to discredit the self-styled Chinese spy who recently defected to Australia with an apparent mountain of sensitive intelligence.
The 2:34 minute video posted on the website of the semi-official Global Times tabloid, said to be taken in 2016, shows scenes from a trial for fraud in which the accused responds to the name Wang Liqiang.
Leading Australian news media on November 22 reported that a man named Wang "William" Liqiang had defected and given Australia's counter-espionage agency the identities of China's senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, and provided details of how Beijing funds and conducts operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
China, however, accused the 26-year-old man of being an unemployed fraudster and fugitive.
Shanghai police said an investigation was launched in April after Wang was allegedly involved in automobile import fraud in February totalling 4.6 million yuan ($653,000).
He had ...

Video shows Chinese 'spy' who defected to Australia in court

French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Wednesday it would be "incomprehensible" for the United States to slap sanctions on France in retaliation for a digital tax on big internet companies.
Le Maire told AFP that the OECD group of wealthy democracies was finalising a way to tax global revenues of digital giants, many of which are based in the United States, at which point France would rescind its own tax.
"It would be incomprehensible for the United States to engage in a logic of sanctions and trade wars while we are close to an excellent agreement at the OECD on digital taxation," the minister said.
He spoke shortly after the United States Trade Representative said in Washington that it would issue a report on Monday and "announce any proposed action" following an investigation of France's Digital Services Tax.
"I spoke yesterday with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who assured me there was no suggestion of immediate sanctions," Le Maire said.
However the French minister ...

US sanctions on French digital tax 'incomprehensible': minister

Astronomers have discovered a black hole in the Milky Way so huge that it challenges existing models of how stars evolve, researchers said Thursday.
LB-1 is 15,000 light years from Earth and has a mass 70 times greater than the Sun, according to the journal Nature.
The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100 million stellar black holes but LB-1 is twice as massive as anything scientists thought possible, said Liu Jifeng, a National Astronomical Observatory of China professor who led the research.
"Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution," he added.
Scientists generally believe that there are two types of black holes.
The more common stellar black holes -- up to 20 times more massive than the Sun -- form when the centre of a very big star collapses in on itself.
Supermassive black holes are at least a million times bigger than the Sun and their origins are uncertain.
But researchers believed that typical ..

Scientists spot black hole so huge it 'shouldn't even exist' in our galaxy

Nineteen people were killed Wednesday in eastern DR Congo by a suspected group blamed for massacres that have sparked deadly protests against the United Nations' peacekeeping mission, the UN said.
Local administrator Donat Kibwana said 14 bodies had arrived at the morgue in Oicha, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the city of Beni, adding that they were killed by machete.
A spokesman for the UN mission MONUSCO confirmed this figure, but later said the toll had "been revised upwards. Nineteen dead."
"The army is already at the site and is pursuing" the attackers, Kibwana said by phone from Oicha, while the MONUSCO spokesman said a "rapid intervention force" of peacekeepers was dispatched to the area in the morning.
The not-for-profit Congo Research Group (CRG) said the new massacre brought to 99 the number of civilians killed by armed groups in the Beni area since November 5, following the launch of an offensive by the country's army.
The "vast majority" of killings have been carried out ..

Nineteen killed by suspected militia in troubled east DR Congo

Emergency workers in Albania on Wednesday pulled dust-covered corpses from the ruins of buildings gutted by a violent earthquake, in a tireless search for survivors as the death toll crept towards 30.
Tirana declared a state of emergency in the areas hardest-hit by Tuesday's 6.4 magnitude earthquake: the coastal city of Durres and the town of Thumane, where victims were trapped by toppled apartments and hotels.
Devastated relatives wept as search teams in Thumane unearthed the bodies of a married couple, Pellumb and Celike Greku, from one of the buildings torn down by the strongest earthquake to strike Albania in decades.
"Terrible, terrible," an elderly woman dressed in black shouted, pulling at her hair as the bodies in pyjamas were wrapped in blankets and carried away.  Their son Saimir, who was visiting from abroad, was rescued alive from the rubble Tuesday night but later died in hospital, according to relatives and neighbours.
"They went to heaven together, they were very honest 

Albania races against time to find earthquake survivors

Former US president Jimmy Carter was released from hospital on Wednesday after undergoing successful surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by multiple falls, the Carter Center said.
The 95-year-old underwent surgery at Emory University Hospital two weeks ago to ease the pressure on his brain caused by a subdural hematoma -- a buildup of blood resulting from a burst vessel.
The Carter Center said the Nobel laureate planned to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Carter spent three days in hospital last month after suffering a pelvic fracture.
That injury came weeks after he hit his head in a fall at home. He recovered quickly to volunteer the next day -- with a black eye and a bandage covering 14 stitches -- at a site for the Habitat for Humanity homebuilding charity.
In office from 1977 to 1981, Carter placed a commitment to human rights and social justice at the core of his presidency.
He enjoyed a strong first two years, which included ...

Former US president Jimmy Carter released from hospital

Benin has ordered the European Union's ambassador to leave the country over alleged political interference, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.
"He has interfered too much in domestic affairs," a senior Beninese diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"He constantly calls on civil society to protest against the government."
The source added that the envoy, German diplomat Oliver Nette, had until December 1 to quit the West African nation.
A spokeswoman for the EU in Brussels confirmed the order to leave and said the bloc had been informed of the decision by the Benin authorities on November 20.
"For the EU, nothing can justify such a measure in the generally good relations that have existed up until now between the EU and Benin," the spokeswoman said.
"We have demanded as a matter of urgency from our partners in Benin some clarification on the specific reasons for their decision, but we have not received them yet." Former French colony Benin has typically been seen as among West ...

Benin tells EU ambassador to leave

Nigeria's army on Wednesday released nearly 1,000 detainees, some of whom had been held for years, after clearing them of having links to the Boko Haram jihadist group.
A total of 983 people incarcerated in a military facility in the northeast city of Maiduguri were handed over to civilian officials for "rehabilitation and integration".
Commander Olusegun Adeniyi said at a ceremony that those released had been "screened, investigated and cleared".
The freed inmates, including five women, were handed over to the Borno state governor Babagana Umara Zulum at Giwa military barracks in the city.
Zulum said those released were not Boko Haram jihadists but suspects who "after due diligence and investigation" were "cleared of the offenses they were accused of committing".
Rights groups have accused the military of indiscriminate mass arrests of innocent citizens during the decade-long fight against the jihadist insurgency in northeast Nigeria.
Activists have criticised conditions inside the ..

AFP

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