Fancy learning about ancient Greece amid the temples? For the first time, a top Greek university is offering an English-language degree to capitalise on interest from the United States and China.
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens on Wednesday unveiled a four-year undergraduate course for up to 100 students starting in September 2020.
"We want to empower the new generation to study Greek culture at its birthplace," said university rector Meletios-Athanassios Dimopoulos.
Students will be able to take part in archaeological excavations alongside learning about ancient Greek history, philosophy and literature.
Topics will include the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations, ancient Greek art and the world of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors.
Students will also have access to the university's famous library of some 500,000 books, manuscripts and scrolls, some dating to the 16th century.
"Our universities and academic staff are ideal for teaching ancient Greek .

Greek university offers first classics degree in English

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Thailand's king has fired six senior palace officials for their "evil actions", the palace announced Wednesday, days after the monarch stripped his consort of all her titles for "disloyalty".
In a week of palace intrigue which has gripped the Thai public, King Maha Vajiralongkorn has stripped his consort, 34-year-old former royal bodyguard Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, of her noble title and military ranks.
Her public fall from grace comes just three months after he bestowed on her the title, the first in nearly a century by a Thai monarch.
Nicknamed "Koi", Sineenat was condemned Monday in a royal command aired on national television for "acting against the appointment of the queen".
On Wednesday six high-ranking palace officials were fired, including "a nurse at the bedroom guard service" and a veterinarian, according to two separate announcements released by palace mouthpiece the Royal Gazette.
"They have severely breached disciplinary conduct for their evil actions by exploiting their .

Thai king sacks six palace officials for 'evil actions'

A four-year-old child was killed during the latest round of protests in Chile, raising the death toll from five days of social unrest to 18, a top Chilean security official said Wednesday.
The child and an adult man were killed Tuesday when a drunk driver rammed into a crowd of protesters, Interior Undersecretary Rodrigo Ubilla said. A third person died from injuries sustained in a beating by police, according to the victim's family.

Child killed in Chile protests as toll rises to 18: minister

Russian forces in Syria headed for the border with Turkey Wednesday to ensure Kurdish fighters pull back after a deal between Moscow and Ankara wrested control of the Kurds' entire heartland.
Kurdish forces, who previously controlled nearly a third of Syria, have lost almost everything after Turkey secured the right to remain fully deployed in an Arab-majority area that was the main target of a two-week-old offensive.
The agreement Tuesday in Sochi also requires Kurdish militia to pull back to a line 30 kilometres from the border along its entire length (440 kilometres), forcing them to relinquish control of some of their main towns.
The deal -- hailed as "historic" by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- quashes the Kurdish minority's dreams of a semi-autonomous region and makes way for the absorption of their de facto army into the regime's military.
On Wednesday, the Rossiya-24 television channel and TASS news agency quoted Russia's defence ministry as saying a convoy of ...

Russian forces head for Syrian-Turkish border in blow to Kurds

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Turkey would take "the necessary steps" if Russian and American promises to push Kurdish fighters in Syria away from the Turkish border were not kept, in comments published Wednesday.
After hours of talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi Tuesday, Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed a deal in which Moscow will "facilitate the removal" of the fighters and their weapons from within 30 kilometres (18 miles) of the border.
"If promises made in the US or Russian agreements are not kept, there will be no change regarding what necessary steps we must take," Erdogan said, indicating that Turkey would again unilaterally target Kurdish fighters it views as "terrorists".
"We will continue our operation with the same determination" if the US agreement is not adhered to, Erdogan told reporters on the return from Russia.
A Turkish assault that began on October 9 was made possible by a pullback of US troops deployed along the border as a ...

Erdogan vows 'necessary steps' if US, Russian promises not kept

Almost 200 female footballers in Spain from various first division clubs have voted to go on strike over pay and working conditions.
The vote late Tuesday won the support of 93 per cent of 188 players from 16 clubs after more than a year of failed negotiations with the Association of Women's Football Clubs (ACFF).
Clubs are proposing part-time salaries worth 8,000 euros a year while the players are demanding a minumum of 12,000, amounting to 75 per cent of minimum full-time contracts.
"We are footballers 24 hours a day, 100 per cent of the time," said Ainhoa Tirapu, goalkeeper for Athletic Bilbao and the Spanish national team.
"We hope to reach an agreement at some point but we had to take drastic action because the time for women's football is now." A date for the start of the strike has not been set but it could affect the Women's Champions League, with Atletico Madrid playing against Manchester City next week.
"We want an agreement now, that is worthy and with equality," said David 

Female players to go on strike in Spain over pay and conditions

A Chinese billionaire banished from Australia on suspicion of political interference claimed Wednesday that "dark forces" from within the "deep state" were behind a multi-million dollar tax claim against him.
Prolific political donor Huang Xiangmo is embroiled in a series of scandals relating to undeclared earnings and millions of dollars he gave to politicians from Australia's two major parties.
The property developer was barred from the country earlier this year and a court has since frozen his assets as the Australian Tax Office (ATO) pursues him for an Aus dollar 140 million (USD 95 million) tax bill.
"The ATO is believed to be a professional government agency with some integrity but it really pains and saddens me that it has now surrendered itself to the pressure of some unknown dark forces," Huang said in a statement.
The billionaire labelled the tax authority "a tool for political persecution against me", but provided no evidence to support his claims.
Solicitors Unsworth ...

Chinese billionaire claims Australia 'deep state' plot

A pet cafe in China where dogs are dyed black and white to look like panda cubs has triggered a heated online debate over the treatment of animals.
The Cute Pet Games cafe opened last month in Chengdu, capital of southwest Sichuan province which is home to China's famous giant pandas, and features six panda-like Chow Chow dogs, according to a video posted by Hongxing News on Tuesday.
Customers were shown petting the fluffy "panda dogs." The cafe owner, only identified by his last name Huang, told Hongxing News that he had started offering pet dyeing services after the panda dogs became an instant hit with clients.
"Every time we dye it costs 1,500 yuan ($211)," Huang said. "The dye itself is very expensive."
He said it takes trained staff about a day to transform a fluffy Chow Chow dog into a "panda."
The hashtag "Dye a dog into a panda for 1500 yuan" has gone viral with more than 170 million views on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform, and led to a torrent of angry comments from pet 

Bamboozled: 'Panda dog' cafe sparks China animal rights debate

Indonesian President Joko Widodo Wednesday named his election arch-rival -- a former general accused of abuses -- as defence minister, a move which dismayed human rights activists.
Widodo unveiled his new cabinet at an informal presentation with more than three dozen new ministers in eye-catching batik shirts sat in front of the imposing neoclassical columns of the Merdeka Palace.
Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, beat Prabowo Subianto in April elections to secure another term as president of the world's third-biggest democracy.
His victory followed a bitter campaign plagued by mudslinging, fake news online and claims from Subianto that the government staged a "massive, systematic and fraudulent" election, which sparked deadly post-poll riots. At least nine people died in the unrest.
But the pair have since appeared together in public, and this week Subianto, 68, hinted that he and another member of his Gerindra opposition party were tapped for top government posts.
Announcing ...

Indonesian president taps election arch-rival for defence minister

Tens of thousands of pieces of plastic littering the planet come from just a handful of multinational corporations, an environmental pressure group said Wednesday.
Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo were named by Break Free from Plastics, a global coalition of individuals and environmental organisations, who warned the companies largely avoid cleanup responsibility.
The coalition's volunteers collected nearly half a million pieces of plastic waste during a coordinated "World Clean Up Day" in 51 countries a month ago, of which 43 percent were marked with a clear consumer brand.
For the second year in a row, it said, Coca-Cola came out on top, with 11,732 pieces of plastic collected from 37 countries across four continents -- more than the next three top global polluters combined.
"Many of them have made commitments that they claim will make their products more sustainable, but largely protect the outdated throwaway business model that got us into this mess in the first place," said the ...

Big firm products top worst plastic litter list: Report

European leaders were deciding whether to postpone Brexit and for how long Wednesday, while Prime Minister Boris Johnson's eyes turned towards a snap general election.
In tense parliamentary votes on Tuesday, Johnson won preliminary backing for the divorce deal he agreed with the EU, which would have seen Britain leave the bloc on October 31.
But, in a fresh twist to the divorce saga, MPs also rejected his bid to curtail parliamentary scrutiny of the bill and rush it through in a matter of days.
European Council President Donald Tusk has recommended that EU's 27 other member states grant a flexible extension until January 31, 2020 -- to be cut short if Britain ratifies the deal before then.
But the decision on how long a prolongation will last will fall to member state leaders, many of whom would prefer a shorter delay to keep the pressure on Westminster to approve the deal quickly.
Ireland's prime minister, Leo Varadkar, told Tusk in a call that he supports the January 31 date, but ..

EU debates Brexit delay as Johnson eyes election

A general strike began on Wednesday in Bolivia to protest election results signaling long-time President Evo Morales will likely secure another term.
With more than 95 percent of the vote counted, Morales had 46.4 per cent compared to 37 percent for his main rival, centrist Carlos Mesa, just shy of the 10 point lead necessary to avoid a runoff.
Opposition supporters reacted with fury on Monday to delayed results that showed Morales, Latin America's longest-serving president, edging towards the 10 percentage-point margin.
That flew in the face of preliminary results released earlier that showed Mesa coming in a close second in Sunday's polls and forcing a run-off.
Monitors from the Organization of American States said the delayed results showed a "drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results" that "clearly indicated a second round." Mesa, a 66-year-old former president, said he would reject the result.
The slow official vote count continued overnight from .

Bolivian opposition stages general strike over poll results

Germany will not block a request from Britain to extend the deadline for its exit from the European Union beyond October 31, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said Wednesday.
Asked about European Council President Donald Tusk's recommendation that EU's 27 other member states grant a flexible extension until January 31, 2020, spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters the request would "not fail due to Germany".

Germany won't oppose Brexit extension: Merkel spokesman

Scientists claimed Wednesday to have achieved a near-mythical state of computing in which a new generation of machine vastly outperforms the world's fastest super-computer, known as "quantum supremacy".
A team of experts working on Google's Sycamore machine said their quantum system had executed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken a classic computer 10,000 years to complete.
A rival team at IBM has already expressed scepticism about their claim.
But if verified and harnessed, the Google device could make even the world's most powerful supercomputers -- capable of performing a giddying 20,000 trillion calculations per second -- look like an early 2000s flip-phone.
Regular computers, even the fastest, function in binary fashion: they carry out tasks using tiny fragments of data known as bits that are only ever either 1 or 0.
Fragments of data on a quantum computer, however, can be both 1 and 0 at the same time, harnessing some of the most mind-boggling powers of quantum ..

Quantum leap in computing as scientists claim 'supremacy'

Police in southern France on Wednesday detained a man who had broken into a museum overnight and threatened to turn it into a "hell", provoking a four-hour standoff, authorities said.
A search was still on for a possible accomplice at the archeology museum in the Mediterranean town of Saint-Raphael, the government's top regional official said.
Officer's from the elite RAID crisis intervention unit as well as a bomb disposal squad had surrounded the site, where several messages in Arabic had been scrawled on the walls, including: "The museum is going to become a hell".
The man had refused to communicate with authorities.
Police have not specified if he was armed or if other people were in the building.
Officials locked down a large part of the historic centre of the resort town of some 35,000 people, tucked between Cannes and Saint-Tropez.
"There are barricades everywhere, the street is completely blocked off," Sebastian Belkacem, who owns the Duplex restaurant opposite the museum, ...

French police detain man threatening to make museum 'hell'

China's state television kept the NBA's season-opening games off the air on Wednesday in the latest fallout from a row over a team executive's support for pro-democracy protests Hong Kong.
The blackout added to an unusual start to the NBA season, as activists distributed T-shirts in support of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters outside the arenas in Los Angeles and Toronto.
The NBA has a massive fan base in China and CCTV has traditionally shown the season openers.
But the games featuring the Toronto Raptors against the New Orleans Pelicans and the Los Angeles Clippers against city rivals the Lakers were not shown on the Chinese network on Wednesday morning (Tuesday night in North America).
Chinese internet giant Tencent, however, showed the two games on its streaming service.
CCTV and Tencent had cancelled their broadcasts of two NBA pre-season games held in China earlier this month after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong." ..

Chinese state TV keeps NBA opener off the air amid row

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday opened a major summit aimed at reviving Russia's influence in Africa, telling leaders from the continent he would seek to double trade in the coming years.
All 54 African states were represented at the first Russia-Africa Summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, with Putin set to meet leaders for bilateral talks throughout the day.
Trade between Russia and Africa has more than doubled in the past five years to more than USD 20 billion, Putin said, adding that some consider this "a good figure".
"I cannot agree," he said. "In Africa there are very many potential partners with good prospects and huge growth potential. Of course, this is not enough."
He said Russia would be looking "double this trade, at least" within the next four to five years.
Russia had written off more than $20 billion of African debt, Putin said.
Moscow was a crucial player in Africa in the Soviet era, backing independence movements and training a generation of African ...

As Kremlin eyes Africa, Putin praises ties at major summit

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and presidential adviser Jared Kushner will lead an American delegation to Saudi Arabia's annual financial conference, US media reported Tuesday, after widespread boycotts of last year's event in protest at the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi reporter Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was strangled and dismembered at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.
Dozens of top global officials and business leaders boycotted last year's Future Investment Initiative (FII), a lavish event dubbed "Davos in the desert", as international outrage over Khashoggi's killing peaked.
But the United States, a key ally of the petro-state, will send a top-level delegation to this year's edition led by Mnuchin, the New York Times reported, citing the Treasury Department.
Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and Brian H Hook, the State Department's special envoy overseeing Iran policy, will also attend, the paper ..

US to send top delegation to Saudi event: Media

Tunisia's new President Kais Saied took the oath of office on Wednesday after his surprise election victory over champions of the political establishment.
Saied, a conservative academic with no previous political experience who won the overwhelming support of younger voters in an October 13 runoff, was sworn in before members of the constituent assembly and other top state bodies.

New Tunisia president sworn in after upstart poll win

One man has died and two people are missing following torrential rains that caused flash floods in northeastern Spain, local officials said Wednesday.
The body of a man was found late on Tuesday in a beach in the town of Caldes d'Estrac some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Barcelona, regional police said on Twitter.
Firefighters said they were looking for two people -- reportedly a mother and her son -- whose prefab home was swept away by flood waters in Vilaverd, a village some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the port of Tarragona.
Authorities said heavy overnight rainfall in the northeastern region of Catalonia caused power cuts that affected nearly 25,000 people and forced the closure of over 40 roads due to flooding and landslides.
Last month record rainfall in southeastern Spain claimed seven lives.
Last year 13 people died on Spain's holiday island of Mallorca as intense rain caused rivers to overflow with raging waters that tore through streets and swept away cars.

One dead, two missing in flash floods in Spain

The rearranged Clasico between Barcelona and Real Madrid will be played on December 18 despite opposition from La Liga, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) confirmed on Tuesday.
Spain's most prestigious fixture, which was due to take place at Camp Nou on Saturday, was postponed last week because of violent pro-independence protests in Catalonia.
La Liga had proposed December 4 or 7 and may decide to appeal.
"The decision of the Competition Committee has taken place after analysing in recent days the proposals of both clubs, who were invited to agree a date and decided on December 18," an RFEF statement read.
"It has also analysed a report from the RFEF Competitions Area as well as numerous reports submitted by La Liga, which are not binding.
"At today's meeting, the Committee also analysed the latest reports from both clubs, who maintain their initial proposal to play the match on 18 December."
It means Barcelona, who insisted the original match should have gone ahead this weekend, 

AFP

AFP

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