Britain's National Crime Agency on Tuesday said it was dropping an investigation into Arron Banks, the biggest donor behind the Brexit referendum campaign.
The NCA said in a statement it had found "no evidence that any criminal offences have been committed" following allegations from the Electoral Commission.
It said it would therefore take no further action against the insurance industry tycoon, just over a week after the Metropolitan Police said it was also dropping its probe.
Some reports about the investigation had claimed that Banks may have used money from a third party, possibly a foreign government like Russia, to fund the campaign.
Reacting to the decision, Banks said: "No overseas money was used in the Brexit campaign, it was my money." He said on Twitter the investigation was "part of a political witch-hunt led by anti-Brexit MPs".
The Electoral Commission said the case highlighted an "apparent weakness" in the law against foreign money being used in British politics.
"We ..

UK major crimes agency drops probe into Brexit donor

PTI Automatic

A British-flagged oil tanker, which had been held off the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas for more than two months, has set sail, a specialist shipping website reported on Tuesday.
Government spokesman Ali Rabiei had announced on Monday that "the legal process has finished" and the Swedish-owned vessel was free to leave.
"This morning's satellite imagery captured by @planetlabs reveals that the #StenaImpero is NO LONGER ANCHORED at this location (27.07 deg N, 56.25 deg E)," TankerTrackers.com said on its Twitter account.
"She has been there since the second week of August." The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps surrounded the Stena Impero with attack boats before rappelling onto the deck of the tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on July 19.
The vessel was impounded at Bandar Abbas port for allegedly failing to respond to distress calls and turning off its transponder after hitting a fishing boat.
Stena Bulk, the company that owns the tanker, said on Sunday that it expected the vessel to be ..

Detained British-flagged tanker heads out of Iran waters

Google is not required to apply an EU "right to be forgotten" to its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU's top court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision.
The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation should apply beyond Europe's borders or not.
The US internet giant had argued that the removal of search results required under EU law should not extend to its google.com domain or its other non-EU sites.
The court ruled that, while a search engine operator such as Google must carry out "de-referencing" of links as demanded by a regulator or court in an EU state to all European versions of its sites, that "right to be forgotten" did not need to go further.
"There is no obligation under EU law" for search engine operators such as Google "to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine," the court said.
The case, seen as pitting individuals' rights to privacy online ...

Google wins EU fight against 'right to be forgotten' worldwide

Veteran conservationist David Attenborough has taken aim at Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for not giving a "damn" about coal emissions and his lack of action on climate change.
The British natural historian said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that Morrison's conservative government had backed away from Australia's previous commitments to take action on global warming.
"Australia, it seemed to me, were saying all the right things -- previous governments were," he told national broadcaster ABC.
"And you are keepers of an extraordinary section of the surface of this planet, including the Barrier Reef," he said "what you say, what you do, really, really matters."
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was ousted in 2018 in part due to his attempt to make climate emissions targets law.
Morrison, his successor, has stopped short of denying climate change, but continues to focus on boosting coal exports.
In the lead up to his surprise election victory this year Morrison took a .

Attenborough calls out Australia's climate stance

Donald Trump ordered almost USD 400m in aid to Ukraine to be frozen days before he allegedly asked its president to investigate the son of Joe Biden, US media said late Monday, quoting administration officials.
The reports in the Washington Post and New York Times add to a burgeoning crisis around Trump's July phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky and a possible attempt to coerce him into digging up information about Biden's son's business dealings in Ukraine.
Members of the Trump administration were instructed to tell lawmakers the freeze was due to an "interagency process", but to provide no additional information, the Post said, citing senior administration officials with knowledge of the matter.
Democrats have fumed as Trump's administration has blocked Congress from obtaining a whistleblower's secret complaint allegedly detailing the president's actions, and they have ramped up their demands for the document that sparked the latest crisis.
Trump has already acknowledged bringing up .

Trump ordered aid freeze before Ukraine call: reports

A highway tunnel under a national park?
Environmentalist candidate Lukas Hammer dismisses it as a "solution of the past" as he hikes with few dozen supporters on the outskirts of Vienna in one of the Greens' final campaign events ahead of Sunday's national election.
Riding on climate change being the number one voter concern, the Greens hope to reverse shock losses from the last election when they failed to gain the four percent needed to sit in parliament.
This time, they are polling at 11-13 percent, and even have a slight chance of governing if the conservative People's Party (OeVP), which is expected to win most votes, tries to form a coalition with them.
Sebastian Kurz's OeVP ruled in an alliance with the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) from late 2017 until this May when a corruption scandal brought down the government and led to snap polls.
The Greens say their message hasn't changed.
But the situation has. Austria, like other European countries, suffered record summer heat this .

Climate concerns boost Greens at Austria polls

An EU court on Tuesday annulled an order by Brussels that Starbucks pay 30 million euros in taxes to the Netherlands, saying European regulators had failed to demonstrate illegal state aid.
In a separate decision, however, the same court said Fiat must pay the same amount to Luxembourg, upholding a similar EU order from 2015.
The split decision will be closely watched by Apple, which was ordered to repay Ireland 13 billion euros in 2016 in a blockbuster case that is also making its way through EU courts.

EU court annuls Starbucks tax deal decision, rejects Fiat appeal

Britain has repatriated ten per cent of nationals who were stranded abroad after the collapse of travel firm Thomas Cook, authorities said Tuesday, as anger erupted over excessive management pay.
The Civil Aviation Authority regulator, which is managing the UK's biggest repatriation since World War II after Thomas Cook's dramatic bankruptcy, said in a statement that it flew back 14,700 of the 150,000 stranded Britons on Monday.
The CAA added that it hoped to bring back another 16,500 people on Tuesday.
The dramatic collapse of Thomas Cook left 600,000 customers of all nationalities stranded in popular tourist destinations dotted around the globe, including Cancun, Kos, Las Vegas and Lanzarote.
"Following the very sad news ... that Thomas Cook had stopped trading and its aircraft were grounded, we launched at the government's request our operation to return more than 150,000 people to the UK," said CAA Chief Executive Richard Moriarty.
Moriarty added: "A repatriation of this scale and .

London repatriates 10 per cent of Thomas Cook's UK customers

Six people died in Turkey after a military vehicle carrying migrants for deportation overturned near the Syrian border, officials said Tuesday.
Another 27 people including two soldiers were injured in the crash in Reyhanli district, southern Turkey, the local governor's office said in a statement.
It said the "illegal" migrants were due to be deported but did not not give their nationalities.
In recent months, Turkish authorities have cracked down on unregistered migrants, arresting thousands.
Some Syrians have reported being returned to Syria against their wishes. The government says it has only deported people who have voluntarily chosen to return.
Turkey is home to more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees and up to 300,000 Iraqis, as well as an increasing number of Afghans.
It remains a transit country used by people fleeing war and poverty to try to reach Europe.

Migrant road crash kills six in Turkey

More than two dozen people have died in riots in Indonesia's restive Papua region, authorities said Tuesday, as thousands fled to shelters following violence that saw civilians burned alive in buildings set ablaze by protesters.
Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, has been paralysed by weeks of protests fuelled by anger over racism, as well as fresh calls for self-rule in the impoverished territory.
Some 26 people died in Wamena city where hundreds had demonstrated and burned down a government office and other buildings on Monday, authorities said, adding that some perished in deliberately set fires.
Most victims were non-Papuans, authorities said, threatening an escalation in violence against migrants from other parts of the Southeast Asian archipelago.
A soldier and three civilians also died in the provincial capital Jayapura, where security forces and stone-throwing protesters clashed Monday.
The soldier was stabbed to death, while three students died from rubber ...

More than two dozen killed in fresh Papua unrest

Oil giant Saudi Arabia is blocking the adoption of a major UN report on oceans and climate change by challenging an earlier UN assessment highlighting the need to slash carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels, multiple sources told AFP.
Already deep into overtime, a meeting of the 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Monaco remained deadlocked early Tuesday, with delegates tweeting pictures of the rising Sun.
A 30-page executive summary is scheduled for release on Wednesday morning.
"It has been 24 hours and there has been absolutely no compromise from the Saudis," said a participant.
"They are undermining the science underlying this report, and it is despicable." At issue is what might have been a routine reference to an October 2018 IPCC report on the feasibility of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
That assessment detailed the stark consequences for humanity of piercing that threshold, and the need for deep cuts in the use of fossil ...

S Arabia blocking approval of UN oceans report: participants

Diplomats opened an emergency meeting of the UN agency that sets international postal rates on Tuesday, with the US threatening to quit the global body as early as next month.
President Donald Trump's administration announced last October that it planned to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, charging that the current system sets postal rates that unfairly penalise the United States while benefiting carriers in countries like China.
Washington, which made its announcement as trade tensions soared with China, said it would leave the UPU in a year unless the agency underwent dramatic reform.
But the State Department had stressed that "if negotiations are successful, the Administration is prepared to rescind the notice of withdrawal and remain in the UPU".
This week's three-day meeting marks only the third extraordinary congress to be held in the UPU's 145-year-history.
The parties are "working to ensure that the US stays as a member," spokesman David Dodge told reporters in Geneva 

Global postal union meets under threat of US pull-out

Japanese authorities on Tuesday referred the case of a US military pilot to prosecutors over the 2016 crash of an Osprey aircraft that fuelled sentiment against a US base on Okinawa island.
The crash did not kill anyone and only caused injuries to two of the five crew members aboard the US Marine MV-22 Osprey.
The Pentagon described the December 2016 crash as a "mishap", which saw the plane end up in shallow water off Okinawa.
But Japanese coast guard officials on Tuesday referred the case to prosecutors on suspicion that the pilot had been flying too fast, causing the crash, a coast guard spokesman said.
Under the terms of the Japan-US Status of Forces Accord that governs the presence of US troops in the country, Japan can indict US military personnel accused of crimes in the country.
But Japanese courts do not have automatic jurisdiction to hear the cases.
The coast guard spokesman said the pilot has not been identified by US forces, and that the American military has so far not ...

Japan refers US military pilot to prosecutors over Osprey crash

Large numbers of bats are being found severely emaciated or starved to death in Australia amid a prolonged drought that is crippling their food supply, according to wildlife carers and environment officials.
There has been a "rapid increase" in the number of stricken native flying foxes found in areas of Queensland and New South Wales over the past two weeks, rescue group Bats Queensland told AFP.
Volunteer wildlife carer Ashley Fraser said Tuesday that parts of the picturesque Gold Coast, a popular tourist destination, were currently "littered" with hundreds of dead bats.
Though there have been cases of mass bat starvation in the region before, Fraser said her organisation had never dealt with an event on this scale.
"We can expect to see it get worse as well," she told AFP.
"The changing climate is going to worsen the drought and make it a pretty poor environment for bats to try to survive in."
Some flying fox species are listed as vulnerable to extinction. They are also a key ...

Bats starving to death in Australia drought

Eight babies were killed when a fire ripped through the maternity unit at a hospital in eastern Algeria before dawn on Tuesday, emergency services said.
"We managed to rescue 11 babies, 107 women and 28 staff" after the 3:50 am (0250 GMT) fire in the hospital in Oued Souf, 500 kilometres (300 miles) southeast of Algiers, spokesman Captain Nassim Bernaoui told AFP.
"Unfortunately we regret the deaths of eight babies, some from burns and others from smoke inhalation." Dozens of fire engines were deployed to bring the blaze under control.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear, Bernaoui said.
Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui ordered an inquiry and sent Health Minister Mohamed Miraoui to the scene of the fire.

Eight babies killed in Algeria hospital fire: emergency services

Simona Halep said that winning her first Wimbledon title this year meant "everything", but she was determined to have a better Asian swing than in past years after an emphatic start to her Wuhan campaign on Tuesday.
Halep suffered opening-round exits in three of her previous five appearances at the Chinese event -- including the last two seasons -- but was dominant in a 6-3, 6-2 triumph over Wimbledon semi-finalist Barbora Strycova to reach the last 16.
A solid contender for clinching one of the six remaining spots in the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, sixth-ranked Halep also has a shot at finishing the year as world number one for a third consecutive time with a strong finish to the season in Asia.
"Very, very tough goals honestly After winning Wimbledon, I was a little bit let's say more relaxed in results, making big results. But I'm still motivated. I'm working hard," said the fourth seed, who next faces Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina for a place in the quarter-finals.
"For this period I ...

Wimbledon champion Halep targets strong finish in Asia

US President Donald Trump stirred up fresh outrage on social media Monday with a tweet mocking an impassioned speech made by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg at the UN climate summit in New York.
Her voice shaking with emotion in an address that was the defining moment of the summit, Thunberg accused world leaders of betraying her generation by failing to act on rising emissions, repeating the words "how dare you" four times.
"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones," she said. "People are suffering. People are dying."
"She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" climate-skeptic Trump tweeted a few hours later, alongside a clip of the speech.
The trolling of the teen activist -- who suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism -- racked up more than 16,000 responses in three hours, many of them attacking the US president.
"DonaldTrump picking on an ...

Trump slammed for trolling Greta Thunberg climate speech

Britain's Supreme Court will rule on Tuesday whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson acted unlawfully in suspending parliament, in a seismic case that could have profound implications for Brexit and the country's constitutional foundations.
If the verdict goes against Johnson, it could see parliament rapidly reassemble and would inevitably trigger questions about his position, having unlawfully advised Queen Elizabeth II to suspend parliament.
It would be the latest hammer blow to his plans for taking Britain out of the European Union on October 31, and pile huge pressure on his minority government.
It would also raise questions about whether he could hold out as premier long enough to face a general election, which recent polls suggest he could win with a large majority.
His setbacks in parliament and the courts have so far only increased his polling numbers, burnishing his reputation among those who voted to leave the EU, but his popularity could dwindle if he is blamed for dragging ...

UK braced for key court ruling on parliament suspension

Sri Lanka's depleted national cricket squad left for Pakistan on Tuesday expressing confidence in security promises by the hosts despite reports that the team could be targeted by militants.
The Sri Lanka team were attacked in Lahore in 2009. Since then most international teams have refused to tour the South Asian country, leaving Pakistan to play nearly all their "home" games in the United Arab Emirates.
Ten senior players citing security concerns have opted out of the tour comprising three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 matches beginning on Friday.
But the captain of the Twenty20 squad, Dasun Shanaka, said Tuesday he had no misgivings about returning to Pakistan after they played a Twenty20 international in Lahore in October 2017, their first since the 2009 attack.
"I have been there before," Shanaka told reporters just before the team left Colombo where they were blessed by saffron-robed Buddhist monks.
"I am satisfied with the security arranged for us and I am happy to .

Sri Lanka squad leave for Pakistan despite security concerns

Indonesian forest fires are putting nearly 10 million children at risk from air pollution, the United Nations warned Tuesday, as scientists said the blazes were releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases.
The fires have been spewing toxic haze over Southeast Asia in recent weeks, closing schools and airports, with people rushing to buy face masks and seek medical treatment for respiratory ailments.
Jakarta has deployed tens of thousands of personnel and water-bombing aircraft to tackle the slash-and-burn blazes set to clear agricultural land. The fires are an annual problem but this year are the worst since 2015 due to dry weather.
Almost 10 million people under 18 -- about a quarter below five -- live in the areas worst affected by fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island and the country's part of Borneo island, the UN children's agency UNICEF said.
Small children are especially vulnerable due to undeveloped immune systems while babies born to mothers exposed to pollution during pregnancy 

Indonesian forest fires putting 10 million children at risk: UN

After global street protests demanding action on climate change, Greta Thunberg and 15 other young activists on Monday filed a complaint at the UN against five countries for not doing enough to ward off global warming.
The complaint accused Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey of failing to uphold their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed 30 years ago.
The complaint, filed by the 16-year-old Swedish activist and 15 other petitioners from 12 different countries and aged between eight and 17, accused the five countries of violating children's rights by failing to take adequate and timely action against climate change.
It was filed after Thunberg delivered a searing attack on world leaders for their slow response to climate change at a special session kicking off the UN General Assembly in New York.
Every member of the United Nations except the United States has ratified the convention to protect the health and rights of children.
Monday's ...

AFP

AFP

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