Chinese state media deleted a tweet Thursday claiming Hong Kong's government was to announce a weekend curfew, after some of the worst violence in months of pro-democracy unrest.
The tweet from the fiercely nationalistic Global Times was live for little over half an hour before it vanished.
"#HKSAR government is expected to announce curfew for weekend," the paper said in a post in English on its verified Twitter account.
The tabloid had cited unnamed sources in the tweet, which was quickly deleted.
The editor of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, later tweeted that he had asked for it to be deleted because the sourcing was "not sufficient".
"I just checked how the information was obtained. My conclusion is that the information is not sufficient to support this exclusive news," Hu tweeted shortly after the original tweet was removed.
Hong Kong Police spokesman John Tse said he was not in a position to comment on rumours of a curfew, because the decision rested with the territory's chief ...

Chinese state media deletes Hong Kong curfew tweet

PTI Automatic

The billionaire founder of acrobatic troupe Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, was charged in French Polynesia on Wednesday for allegedly growing cannabis on his private atoll, his lawyer said.
The Canadian entrepreneur was released after being formally charged with possession and cultivation of narcotics.
Detained on Tuesday, Laliberte is suspected of growing cannabis plants in a container on the atoll of Nukutepipi, which forms part of the Tuamotu island group in French Polynesia.
Under French law, he risks 10 years in prison if convicted. In practice, however, growers of pakalolo, the Polynesian name for cannabis, are not sent to jail over small quantities unless they are repeat offenders.
"This case is a distressing banality," his lawyer Yves Piriou told AFP, adding the cannabis in question was for "medical and personal consumption and nothing else," while Laliberte said he found the charges "a little funny" as he left the courthouse in Papeete.
His company Lune Rouge emphasised in .

Cirque du Soleil founder charged over cannabis on private atoll

Venice braced itself for more rising waters on Thursday as Italy's government prepared to take emergency measures for the canal city struck by an exceptional tide this week.
Venetians awoke to sirens indicating that the high waters were expected to exceed 130 centimetres (50 inches), enough to bring the salty dirty water back again into the UNESCO city's historic centre.
On Tuesday, the highest tide in 50 years ripped through the historic Italian city, peaking at 1.87 metres (six feet).
As authorities on Thursday prepared to assess the extent of the damage to Venice's cultural treasures, such as St Mark's Basilica where water had invaded the crypt, locals remained defiant.
"It's my living, what can I do?" Stefano Gabbanoto, 54, replied when asked why he was opening his newspaper kiosk knowing he would have to close up soon.
He said he would continue to sell the colourful plastic high boots stacked in bins around the kiosk even once it was shut.
Under the arches of the Ducal Palace, a .

Venice braces for more high water as alarms sound

Four protesters were killed by tear gas canisters in Baghdad on Thursday, medics told AFP, the latest deaths from what rights groups have slammed as a "gruesome" misuse of the weapon.
The medical sources said the protesters were hit near Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the epicentre of the weeks-long movement for sweeping political reform.
The United Nations had already documented 16 deaths from the military-grade canisters, which are up to 10 times heavier than regular tear gas grenades and can pierce skulls or lungs.
Amnesty International found that  demonstrators suffered "gruesome wounds and death after the grenades embed inside their heads."
The latest casualties came as the embattled government faces new pressure from the United Nations to enact reforms, including constitutional amendments and changes to the electoral law.
More than 330 people have been killed, most of them protesters, since demonstrations erupted in Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south on October 1.

Tear gas grenades kill 4 protesters in Baghdad: medics

Three protesters were killed by tear gas canisters in Baghdad on Thursday, medical sources told AFP, the latest deaths from  what human rights groups have slammed as a "gruesome" misuse of the weapon.
The United Nations had already documented 16 deaths from such military-grade canisters, which are up to 10 times heavier than regular tear gas grenades and can pierce skulls or lungs.
More than 330 people have been killed since protests erupted in Iraq on October 1.

Tear gas grenades kill 3 protesters in Baghdad: medics

The UK government has written to EU chief Ursula von der Leyen to say it will not nominate a British member to her top team before its December 12 election.
"We have written to the EU to confirm that pre-election guidance states the UK should not normally make nominations for international appointments during this period," a UK official said Thursday.
A spokesman for von der Leyen's European Commission transition team told AFP she had received the letter from British authorities overnight.
Separately, EU sources told AFP von der Leyen has had legal advice that the lack of a British commissioner will not prevent her team from taking office.
President-elect von der Leyen's commission, made up of herself -- a German -- and senior officials from 26 other member states hopes to take office on December 1.
But the 28th EU member state, Britain, plans to leave the bloc on January 31 and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting an election campaign on a pro-Brexit ticket.
There had been ...

UK tells EU will not name commissioner before election

Israel's military said Thursday that an overnight strike in Gaza that Palestinians officials say left eight members of the same family dead killed an Islamic Jihad commander.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Rasmi Abu Malhous was killed in a raid in the Gaza Strip's Deir al Balah before a ceasefire took hold on Thursday morning.
The Palestinian health ministry earlier said eight members of the Abu Malhous family were killed in an Israeli strike on their family home.

Israel says overnight strike on Gaza house killed Islamic Jihad commander

Cambodian leader Hun Sen ordered the release Thursday of dozens of opponents and activists that authorities accused of helping his arch-rival plot a coup.
The arrests were linked to attempts by opposition figurehead Sam Rainsy to return home from France, where he has lived since 2015 to avoid jail for convictions he says are politically motivated.
Hun Sen had sent out arrest warrants for Rainsy to neighbouring countries ahead of his planned homecoming of November 9.
The Cambodian strongman also beefed up security at the Thai border crossing, and his government has said they will regard Rainsy's return as a "coup attempt".
"The (coup) plot had ill will, but people did not join it," said Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, on Thursday.
He said more than 70 opposition activists would be released on bail "for the sake of national unity", adding that they had been cheated by Rainsy.
The announcement comes days after Cambodia lifted house arrest restrictions on Rainsy's political ...

Cambodia PM orders release of opposition members jailed for 'coup' bid

The death toll from devastating bushfires in eastern Australia has risen to four after a man's body was discovered in a scorched area of bushland, police said Thursday.
Three others have perished in bushfires in New South Wales, the state worst affected by a series of catastrophic fires that broke out along the eastern seaboard late last week.
Residents found the body -- believed to be a 58-year-old man last seen on Friday -- near the New South Wales town of Kempsey, one of several areas hit by the fires in recent days.
More than 100 blazes were burning on Thursday but a respite from tough conditions has seen the danger from many fires downgraded and residents returning to sift through the remains of their homes.
Hundreds of houses have already been damaged or destroyed and more than one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land burnt in the blazes.
Challenging conditions were expected to flare again in Queensland and New South Wales at the weekend as the temperature rises and ...

Death toll in Australia bushfires rises to four

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo Thursday began using a second vaccine to fight the deadly Ebola virus in the east of the country, the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity said.
It said the new vaccine is aimed at about 50,000 people over a period of four months. More than 250,000 people in the region have already received doses of another anti-Ebola vaccine since August 2018.

Second Ebola vaccine introduced in DR Congo: MSF charity

Daimler said Thursday it planned to cut jobs to save more than 1.0 billion euros (USD 1.1 billion) by the end of 2022, as the German luxury carmaker grapples with an expensive switch to greener vehicles.
"By the end of 2022, Mercedes-Benz Cars plans to save more than 1 billion euros in personnel costs. To this end, jobs are to be reduced," the company said in a statement.

Daimler says to cut jobs to save 1 bn euros by end-2022

Hong Kong authorities ordered schools and universities closed Thursday as protesters challenging China's rule brought parts of the city to a near standstill by barricading roads and disrupting public transport links.
Six months of anti-government political action have morphed from peaceful mass rallies into a so-called "blossom everywhere" campaign of violent hit-and-run confrontations with police by groups of black-clad protesters.
Key arterial roads were cut by brick and bamboo barricades, a cross-harbour tunnel was closed, and metro stations and bus services suspended -- leaving many of the city's 7.5 million people struggling to get to work.
Authorities ordered schools and universities to close until next week, while hospitals deferred non-emergency operations.
The government urged employers to be flexible with workers trapped in the gridlock.
Of those who made it to work, some joined lunchtime rallies across the city -- including in the city's financial hub -- part of an ...

Schools closed as protests out chokehold on Hong Kong

WeWork posted third-quarter losses of USD 1.25 billion despite the beleaguered office space start-up nearly doubling its revenue, US media reports said Wednesday.
The firm has suffered a dramatic reversal in fortunes since its USD 47 billion valuation at the start of the year.
In the last two months WeWork canceled its IPO and pushed out co-founder Adam Neumann, albeit with a reported severance package of more than USD 1.5 billion.
The record-high loss was more than double the red ink logged over the same period a year earlier while revenue soared to USD 934 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited a report to debt holders by parent company We Co.
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group will pump a total of USD 9.5 billion into WeWork and increase its stake in the firm from 29 per cent to around 80 per cent in an agreement announced last month.
SoftBank Group last week announced an operating loss of USD 6.4 billion for the third quarter, the worst in its history, as it .

WeWork hit with big loss despite revenue jump: reports

US military exercises with South Korea could be scaled back to aid diplomacy with the nuclear-armed North, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on his way to Seoul, as Pyongyang warned it was running out of patience.
The North has long protested joint military drills, which it condemns as preparations for invasion, and has set Washington an end-of-year deadline to come up with a new offer in deadlocked negotiations on its weapons programmes.
The US and South Korea last year cancelled several joint drills in the wake of the Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and the North's leader Kim Jong Un, but are due to carry out a combined air exercise later this month.
"We will adjust our exercise posture either more or less depending on what diplomacy may require," Esper told reporters on board his plane to Seoul, where he starts an Asian tour Thursday.
The possible downsizing of the joint drills should not be seen as a "concession" to Pyongyang, he said, "but as a means to keep the ..

US, South Korea could scale back joint drills: Esper

Taiwan has suspended sales of three Huawei smartphone models that listed it as "Taiwan, China" for timezones and contacts -- a designation the self-ruled, democratic island bristles at.
Starting Thursday, sales of Huawei's P30, P30 pro and Nova 5T models will be banned until the Chinese tech giant tweaks their operating system, Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) said.
How Taiwan is described is a hugely sensitive political issue.
Beijing considers Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, even though the two sides have been governed separately for the last seven decades.
"The labelling in these phones does not reflect the facts and has even hurt the dignity of our country," the NCC said in a statement, adding that the commission had "taken strict measures to maintain national dignity".
It also threatened to permanently ban the sales of the three phones if Huawei refuses to change the wording.
Local distributor Xunwei Technologies ...

Taiwan halts sales of three Huawei phones in wording row

A 19-year-old student in Russia's Far East opened fire in his college Thursday morning, killing one classmate and injuring three other people before shooting himself, investigators said.
The male student in a construction college in the town of Blagoveshchensk "murdered his classmate and wounded three using a rifle registered to him," the Investigative Committee of far-eastern Amur region said.
"During (police) attempts to apprehend him, he shot himself dead," investigators said.
The victim was also 19 while the injured students ranged from 17 to 20 years old.
The small college in the town centre was surrounded with police cars and some of the streets were closed off Thursday, local website Amur.Info said, adding that the shooter likely used a shotgun in the middle of a lecture attended by 20 people.
Russia has relatively few school shootings due to normally tight security in education facilities and the difficulty of buying firearms legally but it is possible to register hunting ...

Teenager kills one, injures three in Russian college

Congress can request nearly a decade of Donald Trump's tax filings, an appeals court said Wednesday, striking a new blow to the US president as he attempts to keep his financial records out of Democrats' hands.
The decision marked the second time an appeals court has denied Trump's attempt to avoid a House subpoena that calls for him to turn over eight years of accounting documents.
Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow immediately announced that the president's legal team would appeal the case to the Supreme Court, according to US media.
A majority of judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected a request by Trump to rehear a previous decision made by a smaller, three-judge panel last month.
In the October ruling, the judges rejected Trump's argument 2-1 that the House Oversight Committee lacked the authority to issue a subpoena of the president's longtime accounting firm, Mazars.
Democrats are seeking Trump's tax returns from 2011 to 2018 as part of wide-ranging ...

US Congress can still seek Trump tax records, court decides

A legal clerk who ended a bloody Thai courtroom shooting by grabbing a firearm and killing the gunman has been arrested and charged with murder, police said Thursday.
Three people -- two lawyers and the gunman -- were shot dead at the Chanthaburi courthouse in eastern Thailand on Tuesday during a hearing over a drawn-out land dispute.
Police say Thanakorn Theeravarodom, a young paralegal working with the lawyers, grabbed the gun from a guard and shot the assailant, a retired police major general who was one of the litigants in the case.
The clerk was charged with "intentional killing", Khomsorn Mabumrung, commander of Chanthaburi provincial city police, told AFP.
"He said it's self-defence."
Authorities said this week that the two sides in the case had been in court for more than 10 years arguing over a large plot of land.
Thailand has high rates of gun ownership and petty personal disputes and romantic and business rivalries are often resolved with firearms.
But a series of ...

Thai clerk charged with murder after shooting gunman in court

Australia on Thursday made an unusually blunt call for Hong Kong police to respond "proportionately" to escalating protests, and urged the city's authorities to consider an independent investigation into police conduct.
Urging "restraint" from both protestors and police after violence that has crippled the international financial hub, foreign minister Marise Payne echoed calls from the European Union and the United States for "genuine steps to de-escalate tensions".
"It is essential that the police respond proportionately to protests," Payne said, urging authorities to heed calls for an investigation into the police response to the protests.
As pro-democracy protesters have stepped up a campaign of roadblocks and vandalism across Hong Kong, police have responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and, on occasion, live ammunition.
But viral videos have also shown one police officer deliberately riding his motorcycle into crowds, the indiscriminate firing of teargas -- sometimes at ...

Australia urges restraint from Hong Kong police

China's economy showed further signs of strain on Thursday with data showing a sharp slowdown in consumer spending and factory production, while investment growth hit a record low as the trade war with the US takes its toll.
The readings are the latest to give a headache to leaders in Beijing, who are battling the tariffs row with the US as well as a weak global outlook, while trying to control a debt mountain at home.
Officials said retail sales, a key gauge of spending by the country's vast army of consumers, grew 7.2 per cent on-year last month, down 0.6 percentage points from September and short of expectations.
The figures from the National Bureau of Statistics also showed growth in industrial production came in at 4.7 per cent, from 5.8 per cent a month earlier.
And fixed-asset investment expanded 5.2 per cent in the first 10 months, the lowest recorded since comparable data began being reported in 1998. Forecasts had been for 5.4 per cent.
Liu Aihua at the NBS warned China was .

China's economy shows further signs of weakness

Bolivia's interim president Jeanine Anez moved Wednesday to fill the power vacuum left by the resignation of Evo Morales, who said he was ready to return from exile in Mexico to "pacify" the country, as riot police clashed with his supporters and one was killed.
Anez, a 52-year-old deputy senate speaker before proclaiming herself acting president on Tuesday -- a move endorsed by the Constitutional Court -- named 11 cabinet ministers and appointed a new military high command.
In a press conference at the presidential palace, she reiterated a pledge to "hold elections in the shortest possible time."
Anez named former diplomat Karen Longari as foreign minister, and a right-wing senator, Arturo Murillo, as minister for the interior.
Her economy minister Jose Luis Parada worked for the local government in the wealthy eastern province of Santa Cruz, an opposition bastion.
Rejecting Morales' claims that her presidency amounted to a coup, she said: "There is no coup in Bolivia. There is a ...

AFP

AFP

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