Honda will shut its UK plant with the loss of 3,500 jobs, the Japanese car maker announced Tuesday as the global auto industry faces "unprecedented changes" and the UK economy hits the skids on Brexit uncertainty.
The factory in Swindon, southwest England, which is Honda's only EU plant, will shut in 2021 "at the end of the current model's production lifecycle", the company said as carmakers worldwide increasingly invest in greener electric vehicles over diesel cars.
Business Secretary Greg Clark described Honda's decision as "devastating" and "a particularly bitter blow to the thousands of skilled and dedicated staff who work at the factory, their families and all of those employed in the supply chain".
Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to Honda's president to "express her disappointment at the decision," according to her Downing Street office.  Katsushi Inoue, Honda's chief officer for European regional operations, said the decision had "not been taken lightly".
The firm blamed ...

Japan's Honda to shut UK car plant, as Brexit looms

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The founder of Chinese telecom giant Huawei has hit back at US efforts to blacklist the company and denied there are any "backdoors" in its technology to spy for Beijing.
Saying defiantly the world cannot do without Huawei and its "more advanced" technology, Ren Zhengfei again dismissed the possibility there could be a way to use the technology without his knowledge.
"It is not possible. Because across our entire organization, we've stressed once and again that we will never do that," he said in an interview with CBS on Tuesday.
"If we did have that, with America's advanced technology, they would found that already. So that proves we do not have it." He pledged he would shutter the firm rather than spy for Beijing.
"Our company will never undertake any spying activities. If we have any such actions, then I'll shut the company down," he told the BBC in a separate interview.
But Ren, 74, also denounced as "politically motivated" the December arrest of his daughter, Huawei Chief ...

Huawei's founder denies presence of 'backdoors' for spying

Alastair Cook believes England can end decades of World Cup disappointment with a triumph on home soil this year.
England have never won the men's World Cup, but with 100 days to go until the start of the latest edition, a team captained by Eoin Morgan are top of the 50-over world rankings.
Former England skipper Cook, who retired from international cricket last year as the country's highest Test run-scorer and most-capped player, said there were several reasons why Morgan's men could go one better than the England teams that lost in the 1979, 1987 and 1992 finals.
"They're a very settled side, they've got 15 players pretty much nailed on for that squad," Cook told AFP at a World Cup event in London's Trafalgar Square on Tuesday.
"Everyone knows their role, they're very comfortable in their role, they've got a lot of strength in depth, they seem to have a lot of options covered and they're an exciting team to watch.
"They are a brilliant one-day side."
Cook never played in a World ...

Cook confident England can end World Cup drought

Germany and France agreed Tuesday on a strategy to create European industrial "champions" and to seek changes in EU competition rules that now prevent blockbuster mergers of homegrown groups.
The push for a common industrial initiative came after the EU's veto of an Alstom-Siemens rail merger that has revived debate over competition regulations that critics say are obsolete in the face of growing rivalry from Chinese giants.
"It's an important day because after months of work, we have agreed on the definition of an industrial strategy for Europe which will be proposed to our European partners," said French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire in Berlin after talks with his German counterpart Peter Altmaier.
Under the strategy, the two EU giants will push for greater investments in innovations, seek reforms in EU competition rules, and set up mechanisms to better protect homegrown technology.
As a first concrete project, both sides will cooperate in the production of electric batteries -- ..

Germany, France push to create industrial 'European champions'

The suicide bomber who carried out last week's attack that killed 27 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was a Pakistani national, the elite force said Tuesday.
"The suicide bomber was named Hafez Mohammad-Ali and was from Pakistan," said Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Guards' ground forces, quoted by the force's Sepah news agency.
The February 13 suicide bombing killed 27 Revolutionary Guards on a bus in the volatile southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan which borders Pakistan.
The general said the probe into the attack had made headway after the model of the explosives-packed car that exploded next to the bus had been identified.
"Two days ago the first clue, a woman, was identified and arrested, and through this woman, we reached others," Pakpour said.
Apart from the suicide bomber, one of the suspected accomplices was also Pakistani, he said.
Pakpour said the attack had originally been planned for February 11 to coincide with celebrations for the ...

Iran Guards: Pakistani behind suicide attack on troops

Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday launched his second bid for the White House, taking direct aim at Donald Trump in an announcement that calls the US president a "pathological liar." Sanders, 77, joins an already crowded field of candidates seeking to win the Democratic nomination and take on President Donald Trump in 2020.
He made the announcement in a radio interview with a station from his home state of Vermont.
"I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first," Sanders said on Vermont Public Radio.
The self-described Democratic socialist gave an outline Tuesday of how he will campaign.
"What I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of -- a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings -- that's what I'm going to carry all over this country," he said.
In a video announcing his candidacy, Sanders called Trump pathological liar and a racist.
"We are living in a ...

Bernie Sanders launches second run for US president

The suicide bomber that carried out last week's attack that killed 27 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was a Pakistan national, the force's Sepah news agency reported on Tuesday.
"The suicide bomber was named Hafez Mohammad-Ali and was from Pakistan," Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Guards' ground forces, was quoted as saying on the sidelines of a commemoration service in Tehran.

Iran Guards say Pakistani carried out suicide attack on troops

Double Olympic 800 metres champion Caster Semenya said Tuesday that proposed rules that would oblige her to lower her testosterone levels "do not empower anyone".
The South African appeared Monday at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne at the start of a landmark hearing to challenge the rules proposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
The controversial measures would force so-called "hyperandrogenic" athletes or those with "differences of sexual development" (DSD) to seek treatment to lower their testosterone levels below a prescribed amount if they wish to continue competing as women.
A statement issued by Semenya's legal team said she believes "she and other women affected by the regulations should be permitted to compete in the female category without discrimination" and that they should be "celebrated for their natural talents as are all other athletes with genetic variations".
The statement continued: "The IAAF's regulations do not ...

Semenya says gender rules 'do not empower anyone'

A Turkish appeals court on Tuesday upheld jail sentences against opposition journalists in a long-running case targeting the Cumhuriyet newspaper -- one of the few remaining dailies to oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Last year 14 former Cumhuriyet staff including journalists and executives were given multiple sentences for "aiding and abetting terror groups without being a member" but they remained free pending trial.
An appeals court in Istanbul said it unanimously approved the sentences, and the Cumhuriyet reported that six former staff including cartoonist Musa Kart would have to go back to prison.
Veteran journalist Kadri Gursel and lawyer Bulent Utku would remain free given time already served in jail, according to the daily.
But the remaining journalists who were given sentences of more than five years, including investigative reporter Ahmet Sik -- who is now an MP with the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party -- will have to apply to the Supreme Court of Appeals, ...

Turkey court upholds convictions of opposition journalists

A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the heart of ancient Islamic Cairo, killing three policemen who were chasing him through its narrow alleyways, medical and security sources said on Tuesday.
Monday evening's bombing, in the Darb al-Ahmar neighbourhood near the historic Al-Azhar mosque, also wounded two other policemen, the interior ministry said in a statement.
"As security forces surrounded the man and were about to stop him and bring him under control, an explosive device in his possession detonated," the ministry said.
Video posted on social media on Tuesday morning showed police catching up with a male cyclist before being enveloped by an explosion.  The ministry said the bomber was being chased as part of a manhunt for those responsible for a foiled bomb attack near a mosque in Cairo's twin city of Giza on Friday.
Police sappers successfully defused that device.
Monday evening's blast damaged several shops in the alleyway which lies in an area frequented by ...

Suicide bomber kills three police in historic heart of Cairo

A Singaporean man described as a "monster" by prosecutors was sentenced to 25-and-a-half years in jail Tuesday for forcing his wife into prostitution and sexually abusing their six-year-old daughter and a niece.
The sentence was more than the 22 years sought by state prosecutors because of the gravity of the offences, including punching his wife to coerce her into prostitution so they could provide for their infant son.
A High Court judge also sentenced the unemployed man, who cannot be named due to a court-issued gag order, to 24 strokes of the cane and a fine of USD 8,845).
"The 27-year-old accused is a monster," Deputy Public Prosecutor Eunice Lau said in court.
"The sordid sexual depravity of his transgressions is unprecedented and involves him sexually exploiting the three most vulnerable women in his life - whom he had every responsibility to protect," Lau said, naming the wife, their daughter and his wife's 13-year-old niece.
The man forced his wife to advertise her sexual ...

'Monster' husband gets 25 years in Singapore for sex abuse

Around 80 graves have been daubed with swastikas at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France, local officials said, hours ahead of nationwide marches on Tuesday against a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
The damage was discovered on Tuesday morning at a cemetery in the village of Quatzenheim, close to the border with Germany in the Alsace region, a statement from the regional security office said.
Photos show the Nazi symbols in blue spray-painted on the damaged graves, one of which bears the words "Elsassisches Schwarzen Wolfe" ("Black Alsacian Wolves), a separatist group with links to neo-Nazis in the 1970s.
The top security official for the region, Jean-Luc Marx, condemned "in the strongest possible terms this awful anti-Semitic act and sends his complete support to the Jewish community which has been targeted again," the statement added.
President Emmanuel Macron will travel to the cemetery to inspect the damage Tuesday, before visiting the Paris Holocaust memorial, Interior Minister ...

80 graves vandalised at Jewish cemetery in France

Bangladesh authorities have blocked almost 20,000 websites as part of an anti-pornography "war", a minister said Tuesday.
Internet providers in the conservative Muslim-majority nation took down pornography and gambling websites in the past week under orders from the telecommunications regulator.
"I want to create a safe and secure internet for all Bangladeshis, including children. And this is my war against pornography. And this will be a continuous war," Mustafa Jabbar, the posts and telecommunications minister, told AFP.
Popular social media apps such as TikTok and Bigo -- which authorities believe are misused -- have also been blocked in the South Asian nation, Jabbar said.
Most of the blocked sites are foreign, but a few local websites and social media platforms have also faced action under the crackdown, he added.
The crackdown was launched after Bangladesh's High Court in November asked the government to block pornography websites and publication of obscene materials in ...

Bangladesh shuts 20,000 websites in anti-porn 'war'

The president of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker will host British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday for talks on the Brexit crisis.
Juncker's spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters that the pair would meet at the European Union's headquarters at 6:30pm (1730 GMT).
The news Tuesday came a day after Britain's minister for Brexit talks Stephen Barclay and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox met EU negotiator Michel Barnier.
Barclay's office said they had "held a productive meeting... on resolving the outstanding issue of the backstop," holding up a divorce deal.
The backstop is a clause in the withdrawal arrangement that keeps
Britain in the EU customs union until a way is found to ensure there is no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
May hopes that if Cox is able to tell British MPs that the backstop would not be permanent under an updated deal it might pass a sceptical House of Commons.
But the EU spokesman reiterated that the other 27 EU member ..

Britain's May in Brussels for Brexit talks Wednesday

Senator Bernie Sanders announced Tuesday he is running for president, launching a second bid for the White House after a surprisingly strong run for the Democratic nomination in 2016.
Sanders, 77, made the announcement in a radio interview in his home state of Vermont.
"I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first," Sanders said on Vermont Public Radio.
The self-described Democratic socialist joins an already crowded field of candidates seeking to take on President Donald Trump and the Republicans in 2020.
Sanders gave an outline Tuesday of how he will campaign.
"And what I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of -- a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings -- that's what I'm going to carry all over this country," he said.
He called Trump a national embarrassment and a pathological liar.
"I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, ...

Bernie Sanders announces he is running for US president

A visit by a North Korean delegation to a Vietnamese city on a popular train route from China has sparked fevered speculation that Kim Jong Un could travel by rail -- or road -- for his summit with US President Donald Trump.
The US and North Korea have dispatched several teams to Vietnam ahead of the summit in Hanoi on February 27-28, though officials have remained tight-lipped on their movements and meetings.
On Tuesday, a Vietnamese source with knowledge of planning for high-level diplomatic meetings told AFP that several North Korean officials had visited the China border area on Monday.
"A team from North Korea was in Lang Son (city) on Monday. They travelled there from Hanoi by car," the source said, requesting anonymity.  Japan's Asahi TV reported that a North Korean team visited a rail station in a city near the China border and also surveyed road conditions in the area.
There is no airport in Lang Son city, prompting a swirl of speculation that Kim may make the long, overland .

Speculation swirls over Kim's travel plans for Hanoi summit

Blacksmith Wang De flings a ladle of molten steel against a cold brick wall, sparking a spectacle of white-hot light in the night sky and keeping alive the flame of a centuries-old Lunar New Year tradition.
Fireworks were invented in China and have been a mainstay of Lunar New Year celebrations, but the remote village of Nuanquan in northern Hebei province has perfected an alternative kind of light show for the past 500 years.
For the performance, known as the Da Shuhua (Beating the Flower Tree), scraps of metal are melted at scorching temperatures and poured into a bucket, where performers like Wang create mesmerising spectacles of light by tossing ladles of the liquid against the wall.
The molten metal -- heated to temperatures of up to 1,600 Celsius (2,900 Fahrenheit) -- creates spectacular effects that fill Wang De with pride.
"When you see it, it'll affect you profoundly," the 55-year-old blacksmith, wearing a sheepskin jacket and protective glasses, told AFP.
The three-day show .

Blacksmiths keep alive the flame of China's molten steel 'fireworks'

The EU approved unprecedented pollution limits on new trucks Tuesday, though critics complained they did not go far enough because of pressure from Germany.
The European Parliament and the European Council, which represents the 28 member states, struck the provisional agreement after months of tough negotiation.  The limits are intended as a key building block of the EU's efforts to achieve its Paris climate deal commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
The deal imposes targets on CO2 emissions for heavy-duty vehicles at minus 15 per cent by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030 compared to 2019.
The deal must still be formally approved by the European Council and European lawmakers ahead of European parliamentary elections in May.
The EU's powerful auto lobby said these targets are "highly demanding" and depended on governments installing the necessary equipment.
EU member states must "urgently step up their efforts to roll-out the 

EU reaches provisional deal to limit truck emissions

Turkish police on Tuesday launched raids to detain over 300 people, including military personnel, suspected of ties to a group blamed for a 2016 coup bid, state media reported.
Prosecutors in Turkey's three biggest provinces -- Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir -- issued arrest warrants for 324 people as part of different probes into followers of US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, the private DHA and the Anadolu state news agency said.
Turkey accuses Gulen of ordering the abortive bid to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15, 2016 but he strongly denies the claim.
The Istanbul public prosecutor sought the arrest of 53 active duty soldiers in 15 provinces, including in the metropolis, Anadolu reported.
In the Aegean province of Izmir, the public prosecutor issued 182 arrest warrants with police conducting raids across 42 provinces, including Izmir, DHA reported.
The capital's public prosecutor said it issued 89 arrest warrants in two separate probes including one looking at .

Turkey seeks to detain over 300 for alleged Gulen ties

Mongolian authorities have temporarily closed all KFC restaurants in the country after more than 200 customers suffered food poisoning symptoms and dozens were hospitalised.
The first cases emerged earlier this month, with 16 people showing symptoms of food poisoning, including diarrhoea, vomiting and high fever after eating at the fried chicken franchise.
Ulaanbaatar's Metropolitan Professional Inspection Department said 247 similar cases have been reported and 42 people have been hospitalised.
The department decided to shut down the country's 11 KFC restaurants -- all based in the capital - while it investigates what happened.
A preliminary investigation found that 35 employees at a restaurant were not thoroughly vetted to handle food, with most of them having blank medical examination reports, which is illegal. The restaurant also lacked internal hygiene management.
A strong bacteria known as Klebsiella spp was detected in water at the restaurant. Traces of E-coli were also found ..

Mongolia shuts KFC after dozens hospitalised

South Africa will be seeking to bounce back in the second Test against Sri Lanka, starting at St George's Park on Thursday, after Kusal Perera'a heroics handed them a chastening defeat in the first Test.
Perera became a national hero in Sri Lanka after scoring an unbeaten 153 in Durban to guide his country to a sensational first Test victory in South Africa.
Although it was Perera who stole the headlines in the team's dramatic one-wicket win, the rest of the players rose to rookie captain Dimuth Karunaratne's challenge to "compete in every session".
With Sri Lanka having a largely unheralded bowling attack, it seems South Africa seriously under-estimated their opponents.
In consequence, South Africa are likely to have a change of strategy after going into the Durban match with a four-pronged pace attack as well as spinner Keshav Maharaj. It left them with only six recognised batsmen.
Left-arm swing bowler Vishwa Fernando and debutant left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya took eight and .

AFP

AFP

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