China says the US and other countries have not presented any conclusive evidence that Chinese telecoms gear maker Huawei threatens their national security.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday that critics of Huawei Technologies were fabricating threats and misusing state power to "suppress the legitimate development rights and interests of Chinese enterprises" and are "using political means to intervene in the economy."
Hua's comments at a daily briefing were some of the sharpest yet in a feud over Washington's drive to convince other nations to shut Huawei out of their markets due to national security concerns.
The company insists that it is independent and poses no threat to the security of others.

China: No evidence Huawei a national security threat

PTI Automatic

Sri Lankan prison authorities are recruiting two hangmen after the president pledged to end a 43-year moratorium on capital punishment and execute condemned drug traffickers amid alarm over drug-related crime in this Indian Ocean island nation.
Interviews of the candidates will be conducted next month and two will be hired, prison department spokesman Thushara Upuldeniya said Wednesday.
The advertisement that appeared in the state-run Daily News on Monday said applicants should have "an excellent moral character" and should pass a test conducted to check the "mind and mental strength." The candidates must be Sri Lankan men between 18 and 45.
Their monthly salary would be Sri Lankan rupees 36,410 (USD 203).
The move to hire hangmen comes after President Maithripala Sirisena said executions will resume in the next two months for condemned drug traffickers, vowing to be tough on drug offenders and modelling his country's drug fight after the Philippines.
Sirisena visited the Philippines .

Sri Lanka recruiting 2 hangmen before resuming death penalty

Instagram has removed an account that published comic strips depicting the struggles of gay Muslims in Indonesia following a frenzy of moral outrage online in the world's biggest Muslim nation.
The Ministry of Communications said Wednesday the account under the username Alpatuni was pornographic, which violated the law on information and electronic transactions.
It was closed after the communications minister wrote a warning letter to Instagram, the ministry said.
The comics depicted gay characters facing discrimination and abuse, which has become increasingly common in Indonesia since late 2015 when conservative politicians and religious leaders began a campaign of portraying lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as a threat to the nation.
An account of the same name on Facebook, which owns Instagram, was also no longer accessible.
The ministry said it appreciated that members of the community reported the account, which "accelerated" its removal.
Indonesian netizens in turn .

Instagram removes gay Muslim comics after Indonesia warning

Afghans are mourning the country's first post-communist president, Sibghatullah Mujadidi, at a palace ceremony attended by his former comrades-in-arms, including his one-time spokesman and protege, former President Hamid Karzai.
The ceremony Wednesday at Afghanistan's presidential palace was a solemn affair, with Mujadidi's coffin draped in a giant green shawl emblazoned with versus from the Quran, Islam's holy book, and later the Afghan flag. Mujadidi died early Tuesday.
President Ashraf Ghani extolled Mujadidi's contributions to evicting Soviet forces from Afghanistan in the 1980s, saying "his death has saddened the entire nation."
Mujadidi was the first president following the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the 1992 collapse of Kabul's pro-communist government.
A second service is to be held later Wednesday in Kabul's sports stadium for the general public.

Afghans mourn former president at palace ceremony

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that freshman Rep Ilhan Omar's apology for suggesting that members of Congress support Israel because they are being paid to do so was "lame" and that she should resign.
In a pair of tweets over the weekend, the Minnesota Democrat, who is one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. "It's all about the Benjamins baby," she wrote, using slang for $100 bills.
Asked on Twitter who she thought was paying members of Congress to support Israel, Omar responded, "AIPAC!" Trump told reporters at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that "anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress."
The president said it was "terrible" what Omar said. "I think she should either resign from Congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. What she said is so deep-seated in her heart."
He said her apology was "lame and she didn't mean a word of it." Omar said she 

Trump: Congresswoman Omar's apology for Israel remark 'lame'

Forty countries led by Japan and the European Union  but not the U.S. or China  have agreed to require new cars and light commercial vehicles to be equipped with automated braking systems starting as soon as next year, a UN agency said Tuesday.
The regulation will require all vehicles sold to come equipped with the technology by which sensors monitor how close a pedestrian or object might be. The system can trigger the brakes automatically if a collision is deemed imminent and if the driver doesn't appear set to respond in time.  The measure will apply to vehicles at "low speeds": 60 kilometers per hour (42 mph) or less, and only affects new cars sold in the markets of signatory countries  so vehicle owners won't be required to retrofit their cars and trucks already on the roads today.
The regulation will start taking effect next year first in Japan, where 4 million cars and light commercial vehicles were sold in 2018, said Jean Rodriguez, the spokesman for the agency, called United ..

40 countries agree cars must have automatic braking

Technology company Infosys has announced a new partnership with a community college in Rhode Island to develop workers for digital jobs, with the goal of forming similar arrangements elsewhere in the country.
Infosys, an Indian digital design and technology company, formally launched its design center in Providence on Tuesday. Company executives said they're dedicating a lab there for employees to work with Community College of Rhode Island students.
CCRI President Meghan Hughes says students will explore ways to work with new technology, learn marketable skills and build a professional network.
Infosys President Ravi Kumar says they'd like to eventually form partnerships with community colleges near the company's other US hubs.
The company also said it has created 7,600 U.S. jobs and will soon hit its goal of 10,000 jobs.

Infosys forms community college partnership in Rhode Island

At least five French journalists have been suspended from their jobs for allegedly harassing people online with sexist, homophobic and racist insults that were coordinated through a private Facebook group.
France's Liberation newspaper and cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles said this week they suspended four of their journalists, including the creator of the Facebook group.
Called "League of LOL", its members included publicists and communication designers, as well as journalists, in Paris. French media have dubbed it a "boys club", a reference to male-dominated groups that demean others to prove strength.
One more journalist and two other group members also were suspended by their employers. Two more quit their jobs as a wave of indignation over the men's actions roiled France.
Liberation reported last week that League of LOL members allegedly posted the insults between 2009 and 2012. The Facebook group had about 30 members, the overwhelming majority of them men.
In recent days, ...

French journalists suspended over alleged cyberbullying

President Donald Trump says that despite his unhappiness with a tentative agreement to prevent another partial government shutdown, he's "thrilled" about the direction of border wall construction.
He says the bottom line is that "we're building a lot of wall."
Trump says he's able to do that by "supplementing things and moving things around." He says the money is coming from "far less important areas."
Trump said he needs to look further at the agreement to avert the shutdown, which would grant far less than the USD 5.7 billion he wants for a long wall along the US-Mexico border.
Republicans and the White House are anxious to avoid another bruising shutdown.

Trump says he's thrilled about 'a lot of wall'

The Afghan government has fired its election commission.
The move Tuesday by President Ashraf Ghani's administration comes more than three months after chaotic parliamentary elections  the results of which have still not been announced  and ahead of July's controversial presidential vote.
A terse four-sentence statement said both the Independent Election Commission and its complaints commission have been fired. It did not offer reasons but Ghani gave political parties and civil society representatives one week to nominate candidates to a new commission.
Last October's Parliamentary polls, which were held three years late, were marred by widespread chaos. Polling stations opened hours late and some did not open at all. Workers trained in the use of a biometric identification system, aimed at curbing fraud, did not show up..

Afghan government fires election commission

Canada's former justice minister has quit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet amid allegations Trudeau's office pressured her to avoid prosecuting a major Canadian engineering firm.
Veterans Affairs Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould released a letter Tuesday announcing her resignation. She was demoted from the post of justice minister last month.
The Globe and Mail newspaper reported last week that Trudeau or his staff pressured her to arrange a deal with Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin that would let it avoid criminal prosecution on allegations of corruption involving government contracts in Libya.
Wilson-Raybould has hired a former Supreme Court justice to advise her on what she can say publicly about the matter.
Her resignation is a potential blow to Trudeau as he faces re-election this year. He has denied directing Wilson-Raybold to arrange such a deal.

Trudeau cabinet minister resigns amid controversy

A politically charged trial of a dozen Catalan separatist leaders got underway Tuesday in Spain's Supreme Court amid protests and the possibility of an early general election being called in the country.
The defendants are being tried on rebellion and other charges stemming from their roles in pushing ahead with a unilateral independence declaration in October 2017.
The declaration was based on the results of a divisive secession referendum that ignored a constitutional ban.
The trial, arguably Spain's most important in four decades of democracy, began as the future of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's minority government hinges on last-minute negotiations with Catalan pro-independence parties to back his 2019 budget.
Sanchez could be forced to call an early election if the Catalan separatists, whose support brought the Socialists to power last year, don't change their current position of voting against his spending plan on Wednesday.
The separatists want Sanchez to agree to talks on ...

Trial of Catalan separatists begins in Madrid amid protests

Egypt says archaeologists have uncovered an ancient workshop used to build and repair ships that dates back to the Ptolemaic era (332 B.C.-30 B.C.) in the Sinai Peninsula.
The Antiquities Ministry says Tuesday that excavations took place in the Tel Abu Saifi archaeological site in Northern Sinai.
The site is said to have been the location of the Roman fortress of Silla.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the workshop includes two dry dockyards where ships were built or repaired.
The Greco-Roman period in Egypt spans from its fall to Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. to the Islamic conquest in the 7th century.
Egypt hopes such discoveries will spur tourism, which suffered a major setback during the unrest that followed the 2011 uprising.

Archaeologists discover ancient workshop in Egypt's Sinai

The United Nations refugee agency says 13,000 people have fled renewed fighting and violence in parts of South Sudan in recent days, many into neighboring Congo.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees cites a "surge" of arrivals into Congo's Ituri province since clashes erupted Jan. 19 between the South Sudanese army and a rebel group, the National Salvation Front.
UNHCR said Tuesday that thousands of people  mostly women, children and the elderly  arrived by foot over the weekend in northeastern Congolese villages near the border town of Ingbokolo.
Another 8,000 are reported to have been internally displaced near the South Sudan town of Yei.
Last week, the U.N. envoy for South Sudan, David Shearer, said fighting there had "diminished greatly" since a peace agreement was signed in September.

UN agency cites refugee 'surge' from new South Sudan clashes

Vietnam's foreign minister arrived in North Korea on Tuesday ahead of a planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam's capital later this month.
Pham Binh Minh is expected to stay until Thursday. No further details of his schedule have been released by his North Korean hosts.
Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, is to host the summit between Trump and Kim on February 27-28.
The two leaders held their first summit last June in Singapore.
The United States is hoping to get a firm commitment on denuclearization from Kim.

Vietnam foreign minister arrives in North Korea

Retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who rocketed to the national spotlight when his Congresswoman wife Gabrielle Giffords was shot in a failed assassination attempt, announced Tuesday he's running to finish John McCain's last term in the U.S. Senate.
Kelly is a top Democratic recruit to take on Republican Martha McSally in one of the most closely contested Senate races of the 2020 election.
McSally is a former Republican congresswoman who was appointed to McCain's seat last year after she narrowly lost to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.
McSally leaned heavily on her record as the first woman to fly a combat mission as a fighter pilot, but she was hurt by her embrace of President Donald Trump.
If Kelly is nominated, the race would pit a Navy veteran and astronaut against a trailblazing Air Force pilot in the contest to replace McCain, a legendary Navy flyer who was famously shot down and held captive.
Democrats are eagerly watching the Arizona contest, having already defeated McSally in a Senate ...

Mark Kelly announces run for McCain Senate seat in Arizona

Australia's ruling party suffered a rare defeat in Parliament on Tuesday after the opposition joined minor parties and independent lawmakers in passing a bill that would give sick asylum seekers easier access to mainland hospitals.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison's conservative government argues that the bill, passed 75 to 74 by the House of Representatives, will undermine Australia's tough refugee policy.
The policy banishes asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat to camps on the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
The bill would allow doctors instead of bureaucrats to decide which asylum seekers in the camps can fly to Australia for medical treatment. It is likely to be made law by the Senate as early as Wednesday.
"This bill is acceptable in absolutely no form. It only weakens our borders, it does not strengthen them," Morrison said Tuesday.
Australian governments rarely lose votes in the House of Representatives, where parties need a majority to form .

Australian ruling party defeated in Parliament on refugees

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday invoked the 30th anniversary of the demise of communism to implore countries in Central and Eastern Europe to resist Chinese and Russian influence.
Speaking in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, Pompeo said China and Russia pose twin threats to the democratic and free-market gains made since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
He said the post-communist countries are particularly vulnerable to Chinese and Russian predatory investment and political meddling.
To combat the threat, he said the United States is committed to boosting its engagement in the region, through defense cooperation agreements and exchange programs.
"I want to make sure that the Slovakian people understand that America is engaged, we're back," he said at a brief ceremony at Slovakia's "Gate of Freedom"  a memorial on the banks of the Morava River at the Slovakian border with Austria that commemorates the 400 people killed at the borders of the former Czechoslovakia while 

Pompeo warns eastern Europe on Chinese and Russian meddling

The US-led coalition says it has hit a mosque used by the Islamic State group as a command and control center in eastern Syria.
The coalition said Tuesday it launched the strike in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are fighting to drive the extremists from their last tiny stronghold near the border with Iraq.
It said the strike occurred Monday as IS was using the mosque to direct attacks and employ suicide car bombs against the SDF.
The coalition's deputy commander, Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, was quoted in the statement as saying "this mosque lost its protected status when ISIS deliberately chose to use it as a command and control center."
The SDF on Saturday launched its final push to clear the area after months of fighting.

US-led coalition hits mosque in Syria used by Islamic State

Turkey's state-run news agency says authorities have issued detention warrants for 1,112 people suspected of links to the US-based Muslim cleric who is blamed by Ankara for a failed coup attempt in 2016.
Anadolu Agency says the warrants were issued Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged cheating in an exam in 2010 that allowed police officers to become deputy police inspectors. Prosecutors say questions were given to followers of cleric Fethullah Gulen before the test.
Anadolu says police launched simultaneous operations in the capital Ankara and 75 provinces.
The operation was one of the biggest against Gulen's network since the coup attempt. Some 77,000 people have been arrested and around 130,000 others have been dismissed from state jobs since the coup.
Gulen denies involvement in the attempt.

Turkey seeks 1,112 suspects linked to failed coup

The top Pentagon official arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday to consult with American military commanders and Iraqi government leaders on the future US troop presence in Iraq.
Pat Shanahan, the acting secretary defense, said before his unannounced trip that he wanted to hear first-hand about the state of Iraq's fight against remnants of the Islamic State group. Shanahan, who is on his first visit to Iraq, is also to meet with Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
In remarks to reporters after leaving Washington on Sunday, Shanahan declined to say whether he would propose that additional US special operations troops be brought to Iraq to, in effect, compensate for a pullout from Syria to begin within weeks.
The U.S. has about 5,200 troops in Iraq to train and advise its security forces, 16 years after the US invaded to topple Saddam Hussein.
President Donald Trump upset Iraqis by saying earlier this month that US forces should use their Iraqi positions to keep an eye on neighbouring Iran.
That ..

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