A "tsunami" of political disinformation is pounding Facebook users with the US presidential election still a year away, online activist network Avaaz said in a report released on Wednesday.
An analysis by the NGO of the top 100 bogus news stories about US politics that went viral on Facebook in the 10 months ending October 31 showed that politically tinged false news got more than 158 million views.
That number of views was enough to reach every US voter at least once if evenly spread across the electorate, according to Avaaz, whose areas of activism include human rights and climate change.
"These findings can only be seen as the tip of the iceberg of disinformation ahead of the US 2020 elections," Avaaz said in the report.
Avaaz only looked at stories that were fact-checked and debunked by reputable fact-checking organizations.
The NGO called for further analysis of misinformation spreading on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp to expose "what lies below the surface ..

Facebook hit by 'tsunami' of bogus political news: NGO

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The European Union and China struck a deal on Tuesday to protect the geographic origins of 200 regional products like Roquefort cheese or Pu'er tea.
Henceforth, in trade between the global giants, consumers must trust that booze labelled as Scotch whisky comes from Scotland and Moutai liquor comes from Kweichow.
The accord makes good on promises made at the EU-China summit in April, and was finalised during a visit to China by French President Emmanuel Macron and European officials.
The food label deal comes as both sides have struggled for years to make way on a long delayed EU-China investment deal with Brussels extremely concerned about the lack of market access in China for foreign companies and the prevalence of state subsidies.
EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan described the deal as a "win for both parties" that would strengthen trade ties and a protect farmers and consumers.
"Consumers are willing to pay a higher price, trusting the origin and authenticity of these ...

EU-China deal to protect iconic regional products

Thailand will not allow Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy to transit through the kingdom in a bid to return to Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha said on Wednesday.
Rainsy, who has lived in France since 2015 to avoid jail for convictions he says are politically motivated, has promised a dramatic homecoming on November 9, Cambodia's Independence Day.
But Cambodia's strongman premier Hun Sen has said repeatedly that arrest warrants for his arch-rival have been sent to neighbouring countries and troops deployed at the Thai-Cambodian border to stop his return.
Prayut confirmed that authorities are on the lookout for Rainsy and any key opposition members.
"We will not allow anti-government (parties) to use Thailand as a base," the Thai leader said in an apparent reference to Rainsy's Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).
The CNRP was dissolved in the lead-up to last year's heavily criticised elections in Cambodia, which Hun Sen's party swept, turning the country into a ...

Thai PM says Cambodian opposition leader not allowed to transit

Two-time Olympic champion Nicola Adams, regarded as the pathfinder for women's boxing, is to retire because of fears about her sight, the Briton announced on Wednesday.
The 37-year-old, who became the first ever women's Olympic boxing champion at London 2012 when she took the flyweight crown, said she was abandoning her hopes of winning a third gold next year in Tokyo.
In an open letter to her local newspaper the Yorkshire Evening Post, Adams said she had decided to hang up her gloves because doctors had warned her sight would be permanently damaged if she continued to box.
Adams, who successfully defended her title in Rio, had embarked on a successful professional career and in 2018, within 18 months of doing so, had won a world title -- the vacant WBO flyweight belt.
"I've been advised that any further impact to my eye would most likely lead to irreparable damage and permanent vision loss," said Adams.
"I'm immensely honoured to have represented our country -- to win double Olympic .

Women's boxing icon Adams retires due to medical advice

France might be on Australian soil as they attempt to win a third Fed Cup tennis crown in Perth this weekend, but they feel right at home and brimming with confidence.
Team captain Julien Benneteau has kept faith with the five women who sealed their semi-final win over Romania, led by Kristina Mladenovic, ranked 40 in the world.
She is backed by Caroline Garcia (45), Alize Cornet (60), Fiona Ferro (63) and Pauline Parmentier (122) as they target a first title since 2003.
As well as an Australian team spearheaded by world number one Ashleigh Barty and veteran Sam Stosur, they will have to deal with a crowd at Perth Arena willing their home country towards a first title since 1974.
But returning to the Australian west coast city has brought back fond memories for Mladenovic and Cornet, who separately led France to Hopman Cup titles before the mixed team event was axed this year for the new ATP Cup.
Mladenovic hopes that bodes well.
"From the first time I stepped on the court yesterday, .

France out to spoil Australian Fed Cup party

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said Iran had made "grave" decisions after Tehran took another step back from a troubled 2015 nuclear agreement with major powers.
"I will have discussions in the coming days, including with the Iranians, and we must collectively draw the consequences," Macron said at a news conference during a trip to Beijing.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that Iran would resume uranium enrichment at an underground plant south of Tehran.

Macron says Iran's nuclear decisions are 'grave'

A record-breaking 44,000 people have been infected with mosquito-borne dengue in Pakistan this year, a senior health official said Wednesday, as increased outbreaks linked to rising temperatures and erratic rainfall ravage other parts of Asia.
Dr Rana Safdar, a senior official at the National Institute of Health (NIH), told AFP the figure is a huge leap from the previous record of 27,000 infections in 2011.  Safdar said 66 people had been killed by the disease so far in 2019, compared to 370 in 2011.
He blamed climate change for the surge, but would not elaborate. The government was "employing all available resources at its disposal to contain the problem", he said.
Physician Dr Mahseema Siddique, who treats dengue patients, blamed the government for the rise in cases, saying local authorities in Punjab and Islamabad in particular had failed to take precautions such as covering up water reservoirs or spraying anti-dengue chemicals.
"They woke up only after hundreds of people got ...

Dengue cases soar to record high in Pakistan

An ex-Goldman Sachs banker will stand trial in Malaysia in April over the 1MDB scandal after he returns from the US where he has also been charged, an official said Wednesday.
Billions of dollars were stolen from Malaysian state fund 1MDB in a fraud allegedly involving former prime minister Najib Razak and his cronies, and spent on everything from high-end real estate to a luxury super-yacht.
Goldman's role is under scrutiny as the Wall Street bank helped arrange $6.5 billion in bonds for 1MDB, and Malaysian authorities say huge sums were stolen in the process.
Ng Chong Hwa, a Malaysian former managing director at the bank, has been charged in the US and Malaysia over the scandal.
He was extradited in May from Malaysia to the US -- which is investigating the controversy as money was laundered through the American financial system -- and pleaded not guilty to bribery and other charges.
Malaysia had agreed to a "temporary surrender" of the ex-banker, also known as Roger Ng, for 10 ...

Ex-Goldman banker in 1MDB case to face Malaysia trial next year

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has stepped aside temporarily as an internal probe into alleged mismanagement at the organisation proceeds, it said on Wednesday.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner general of the agency known as UNRWA, will be replaced on an interim basis by the agency's acting deputy chief Christian Saunders, it said.
The agency said findings in the probe so far "revealed management issues which relate specifically to the commissioner general." "The commissioner-general has stepped aside until the completion of the process," it said.
An internal ethics report has alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority at the highest levels of the agency, which has also faced a financial crisis after US funding cuts.
UN investigators have been probing the allegations in the confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
The report describes "credible and corroborated" allegations of serious ethical abuses, including involving Krahenbuhl, a Swiss ...

Head of UN Palestinian agency steps aside amid probe

Hundreds of schoolchildren led anti-government demonstrations across Lebanon on Wednesday, refusing to return to class before the demands of a nearly three-week-old protest movement are met.
In the capital Beirut, dozens gathered in front of the education ministry, brandishing Lebanese flags and chanting slogans demanding the removal of a political class seen as incompetent and corrupt.
"What will I do with a school leaver's certificate if I don't have a country," one pupil told Lebanese television.
In the largest pupil-led protest, crowds streamed into a central square in the southern city of Sidon, demanding better public education and more job opportunities for school leavers, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.
In a school in the resort town of Jounieh, just north of the capital, pupils mobilised against school governors accusing them of banning particpation in the protests.
Other pupil-led protests took place in the southern cities of Tyre and Nabatieh, the eastern 

Hundreds skip school in Lebanon to press for change

China confirmed Wednesday that it would resume Canadian meat imports, but called for Ottawa to release a detained Huawei executive to get frosty relations between the two countries on the "right track".
Beijing blocked beef and pork shipments from Canada in June, alleging contamination in pork shipments and bogus documents -- claims disputed by Canada.
The move was seen as an escalation in response to Canada's arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on a US extradition request related to alleged Iran sanctions violations.
But Beijing said Wednesday that Ottawa had introduced an action plan which "basically meets the requirements for ensuring safety", and said China would start accepting health certificates for meat imported from Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Tuesday that China would resume the imports, thanking the new Canadian ambassador to Beijing and the meat industry "for their work on re-opening this important market for our meat producers ..

China to resume Canada meat imports, but ties still frosty

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron declared on Wednesday that the Paris climate pact was "irreversible", showing a united front after Washington formally withdrew from the accord this week.
Major powers expressed regret and concern after President Donald Trump went ahead with the pullout from the Paris accord despite mounting evidence of the reality and impact of climate change.
Washington presented its withdrawal letter to the United Nations on Monday, the first possible date under the accord negotiated by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, making the world's largest economy the sole outlier from the agreement.
In a joint written statement, Xi and Macron reaffirmed "their firm support for the Paris accord which they consider as an irreversible process and a compass for strong action on climate".
Without directly naming the US, Macron said he "deplores the choices made by others" as he sat next to Xi following the talks at the imposing Great Hall of the ...

Xi, Macron unite on climate after US withdraws from Paris pact

US President Donald Trump and his Republican allies suffered stinging defeats Tuesday as Democrats were projected to win closely-watched elections in two states, results that signal troubling headwinds for his 2020 re-election campaign.
The Republican Governor Matt Bevin in deep-red Kentucky was ousted by his Democratic challenger Andy Beshear, who led by less than half a percentage point with 100 percent of the vote counted, the official overseeing the election declared.
Doubling the hurt, Trump's party also lost control of both chambers of the legislature in increasingly blue Virginia, US media including The New York Times projected.
"We have called it for Attorney General Beshear to be the Kentucky governor-elect," Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said on CNN.
The US president tweeted that Bevin "picked up at least 15 points in last days, but perhaps not enough (Fake News will blame Trump!)." Beshear, whose father was the last Democratic governor in the state, claimed ...

Rebuke for Trump in races seen as barometers for 2020 election

Riyadh is in talks with Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels in a bid to end the country's civil war, a Saudi official said Wednesday in the first official confirmation of dialogue between the two sides.
The comment comes after Saudi Arabia brokered a power sharing agreement between Yemen's internationally recognised government and southern separatists, which observers say could pave the way for a wider peace deal.
"We have had an open channel with the Huthis since 2016. We are continuing these communications to support peace in Yemen," a senior Saudi official told reporters.
"We don't close our doors with the Huthis." The official, who declined to be named, gave no further details on the talks but the development came after rebel missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities spiked over the summer, followed by a lull in recent weeks.
There was no immediate comment from the Huthi rebels, who seized Yemen's capital Sanaa and much of the country's north in 2014, sparking a Saudi-led military ...

Riyadh in talks with Yemen rebels, Saudi official says

He's furry, playful, and has puppy eyes. It's little wonder Wandi was mistaken for a dog when he was found in an Australian backyard -- but DNA testing has confirmed he's a rare 100 per cent dingo.
The pup was discovered whimpering and alone in a country town in Victoria in August with talon marks on his back, leading to speculation it could have been dropped by a large bird of prey.
Rescuers at first thought Wandi was either a dog or a fox, but months later DNA samples have revealed that he is in fact a purebred dingo.
Most of the creatures seen in the wild are usually, to some degree, dingo-dog hybrids.
Australian Dingo Foundation director Lyn Watson said that when Wandi "fell out of the sky" it was an "answer to a prayer" -- he can now join 40 other dingoes in a breeding programme at the charity's sanctuary.
"When we sent his DNA off we were hoping that he would be of high content, but we were pleasantly surprised to find he was as much dingo as you could get," she told AFP.
Watson 

Lost pup turns out to be a rare purebred dingo

At least fifteen people were gunned down in an ambush by suspected Muslim militants in Thailand's violence-wracked south, an army spokesman said on Wednesday, one of the bloodiest days in the 15-year insurgency.
Thailand's three southernmost provinces have been in the grip of a conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, as Malay-Muslim militants fight for more autonomy from the Thai state.
Despite the high death toll, the highly localised unrest garners few international headlines.
The region is heavily controlled by the police and the military, with residents and rights groups accusing them of heavy-handed tactics.
Villagers trained and armed by security forces are also enlisted to monitor remote villages, though they are rarely targeted by the rebels.
This changed late Tuesday when militants struck two checkpoints in Yala province manned by civilian defence volunteers, opening fire on them as a group of villagers stopped to talk, southern army spokesman Pramote Prom-in told ...

15 killed in suspected rebel attacks in Thailand's south

A cyclist who was fired after flipping the bird -- making a rude single-fingered gesture - to US President Donald Trump's motorcade has been elected to local office in Virginia.
Juli Briskman, whose one-handed salute was captured in an AFP photograph that went viral, beat the Republican incumbent to a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in state elections that saw Trump's Republican party suffer a series of stinging defeats.
The single mother of two teens lost her job as a marketing analyst for a United States government and military subcontractor after the snapshot of her gesture spread across media and the internet in 2017, bringing her insults and threats.
But getting fired also opened "a lot of doors", the 52-year-old told AFP during her campaign, including accepting an invitation to run for local office on the Democratic ticket.
That decision paid off on Tuesday night, as Briskman celebrated her victory in a tweet that linked to a copy of the image.
"Looking forward ..

Cyclist who flipped off US president wins local election

A fierce critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly anti-drug war accepted a top post on Wednesday to help steer the campaign, pledging to halt killings of the innocent.
While critics said the appointment is an effort to tarnish an adversary, the move will put Leni Robredo in the cockpit of the internationally condemned crackdown.
Duterte offered the post to Robredo, who is vice president but was elected separately, after her repeated criticism of a campaign that has killed thousands.
"I want to fix the campaign against illegal drugs, stop the killing of innocents and bring to account abusive officials," Robredo told a press conference.
She will be the co-chair of a committee responsible for overseeing the crackdown, which was until now led by the national anti-drugs agency.  Duterte critics were sceptical of the appointment, with Senator Lila de Lima calling it a "silly trap".
The president wants to "create the narrative of putting all the blame of his failures on ...

Duterte foe accepts Philippine drug war post

Japanese giant SoftBank Group suffered an operating loss of $6.4 billion in the second quarter, it said Wednesday, as investments in start-ups such as WeWork and Uber took a massive hit.
In the three-month period ending September 30, operating losses hit a whopping 704.4 billion yen ($6.4 billion).
The firm said first-half operating losses from its Vision Fund and Delta Fund came to 572.6 billion yen, largely "due to a decrease in the fair values of investments including Uber and WeWork and its three affiliates".
Net profit in the six months to September sank 49.8 percent to 421.6 billion yen on an operating loss of 15.6 billion yen.
The company did not publish its outlook for the year to March 2020, but uncertain roads lie ahead as shares in its key investments like Uber and Slack continue to slide.
SoftBank's flamboyant founder Masayoshi Son has faced renewed scrutiny of his investment acumen in the wake of WeWork's dramatic fall from grace.
Last month, SoftBank confirmed that it ...

SoftBank Group profit plunges owing to WeWork turmoil

A Malaysian man who killed a pregnant cat by putting it into a laundrette dryer has been sentenced to 34 months in jail, official media reported, in a case that sparked outrage.
K Ganesh was handed the prison term Tuesday after being found guilty of breaking animal protection laws at the self-service laundry outside Kuala Lumpur in September last year, official news agency Bernama reported.
He will remain free on bail for now as he plans to appeal.
The 42-year-old was the second man to be sentenced over the killing after a taxi driver was jailed for two years for the crime in January.
Malaysians reacted with fury when CCTV footage went viral showing the cat being stuffed into the dryer late at night.
Two men then inserted tokens into the machine to set it running and left. A female customer later found the animal's carcass and the matter was reported to the police.
Sentencing Ganesh, Judge Rasyihah Ghazali said: "I hope this sentence will serve as a lesson to the accused and the ...

Malaysia hands jail term to laundrette cat killer

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron declared on Wednesday that the Paris climate pact is "irreversible", after the United States formally withdrew from the accord this week.
Major powers expressed regret and concern after President Donald Trump went ahead with the pullout despite mounting evidence of the reality and impact of climate change.
Washington presented its withdrawal letter to the United Nations on Monday, the first possible date under the accord negotiated by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, making the world's largest economy the sole outlier from the agreement.
In a joint statement released after Xi and Macron held talks in Beijing, the two leaders reaffirmed "their firm support for the Paris accord which they consider as an irreversible process and a compass for strong action on climate".
Without directly naming the US, Macron said he "deplores the choices made by others" as he sat next to Xi following the talks.

AFP

AFP

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