German authorities said Monday they're stepping up surveillance of the far-right Alternative for Germany amid growing concern the third-largest party in parliament is closing ranks with extremist groups.
Activists for AfD, the nationalist party's German acronym, marched in the eastern city of Chemnitz alongside leading figures in anti-migrant group PEGIDA and members of the area's militant neo-Nazi scene in the past week, after two refugees were arrested in a German citizen's fatal stabbing.
"Parts of AfD are openly acting against the Constitution," Justice Minister Katarina Barley told the RND media group.
"We need to treat them like other enemies of the Constitution and observe them accordingly." Authorities in northern Germany's Bremen and Lower Saxony said Monday they have begun monitoring the party's youth wings in the two states.
Boris Pistorius, Lower Saxony's interior minister, said the decision to keep an eye on the AfD's local youth wing, was unrelated to the recent events ..

German authorities take aim at far-right party's youth wing

PTI Automatic

In his final state of the union address Monday, outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto blamed surging violent crime in Mexico on the inability of state and local police to handle the smaller gangs that emerged following the capture of cartel leaders.
Pena Nieto, who leaves office with historically low approval ratings, sidestepped blame for poor economic growth and rising debt during his six-year term, and he warned Mexicans not to turn to a foreign policy of "indifference."
His successor, left-leaning Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who takes office December 1, has pledged to refrain from any kind of intervention in the affairs of other countries, in contrast to Pena Nieto, who has sought out solutions to Venezuela's economic and political crisis. Non-intervention was a bedrock of Mexico's foreign policy before 2000.
"Don't confuse non-intervention with indifference to what is happening in the world," Pena Nieto warned.
Apart from corruption scandals, one of the things that has reduced ...

Mexican president blames state, local police for crime surge

An Afghan asylum-seeker accused of stabbing two Americans in Amsterdam believes that Islam is insulted in the Netherlands, Dutch prosecutors said Monday, giving the first indication of why they think a "terrorist motive" was behind the attack.
The 19-year-old suspect is accused of stabbing the 38-year-old tourists Friday in an unprovoked attack after he arrived at Amsterdam's Central Station on an international train.
The American men were not targeted because of their nationality, which the alleged attacker did not know, prosecutors said. The suspect's grievance was with the European country where the assault took place, they said in a written statement.
"It is apparent from his statements that he believes that in the Netherlands, the Prophet Muhammad, the Quran, Islam and Allah are repeatedly insulted," prosecutors said, noting that the young Afghan man specifically mentioned Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who is well known for his fierce anti-Islam rhetoric.
"From the suspect's ...

Suspect in stabbing of Americans believes Dutch insult Islam

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who once compared himself favorably to Adolf Hitler, paid a solemn visit to Israel's national Holocaust memorial on Monday, branding the Nazi leader "insane" as he lamented the genocide of 6 million Jews.
The comments marked a dramatic turnaround for Duterte, who just two years ago had compared his anti-drug campaign to the Holocaust and said he would be "happy to slaughter" 3 million addicts. He later apologized.
Duterte, known for his profane outbursts and accused of committing widespread human rights abuses, spoke quietly and respectfully during his stop at the Yad Vashem memorial. He said the Holocaust should never be repeated and that "despots" have no place in the modern world.
"I could not imagine a country obeying an insane leader, and I could not ever fathom the spectacle of the human being going into a killing spree, murdering old men, women and children. I hope this will not happen again," he said.
"There is always a lesson to learn: ...

Duterte calls Hitler 'insane' at Israeli Holocaust memorial

Britain's home secretary says up to 80,000 people pose an online sexual threat to children, and warned that major internet companies could face new laws and regulations forcing them to ramp up efforts to protect children.
Sajid Javid said Monday that Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter and others should fight child abuse with the intensity used to remove extremist material from the internet.
Javid says the threat to children has evolved more quickly than the industry's response.
He says there has been a "horrifying" rise in pedophile activity on the internet.
"I am not just asking for change. I am demanding it," he said. "If technology companies do not take more measures to remove this type of content then I won't be afraid to take action.

UK says 80,000 people pose online sexual threat to children

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has begun a two-day visit to Greece, starting off a week of high-level contacts between the two countries amid increased strain between the United States and Turkey.
Gen Joseph Dunford arrived Monday and is scheduled to meet his Greek counterpart Adm Evangelos Apostolakis in Athens Tuesday.
The US is keen to boost trade and military cooperation with NATO ally Greece as tension with neighbouring Turkey continues to escalate over a variety of regional and political disputes.
Later this week, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is due to visit an annual trade fair in northern Greece, along with Republican Sen Ron Johnson, who is chairman of the Senate committee of homeland security and subcommittee on European and regional security cooperation.

US military chief visits Greece amid strain with Turkey

Ugandan soldiers beat up pop star-turned-lawmaker Bobi Wine and squeezed his genitals until he passed out, he charged on Monday, three days after he departed for the United States for medical care for the injuries he allegedly sustained while in detention.
Soldiers "violated me as if they were beasts," said Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, in his first public statement since his arrest on Aug 14 for his alleged role in an incident in which the president's motorcade was pelted with stones.
"They wrapped me in a thick piece of cloth and bundled me into a vehicle," he said. "Those guys did to me unspeakable things in that vehicle! They pulled my manhood and squeezed my testicles while punching me with objects I didn't see."
A doctor later told him that one of his "kidneys ... had been damaged during the assault." Ssentamu's driver was killed in the violence that followed the alleged attack on the president's convoy, allegedly by government forces. Ssentamu said he believes ..

Uganda opposition pop star says soldiers beat, tortured him

Nigerian police say gunmen shot dead 11 people in an attack in central Nigeria suspected to be part of a series of communal violent incidents.
Police spokesman in Plateau state Terna Tyopev said in a press statement that the incident occurred late Sunday in Lopandet Dwei Du village just outside Jos, the capital of Plateau state.
He added that 11 more people were wounded and are now in hospital.
The attack comes a week after suspected herdsmen from the Fulani ethnic group killed eight people including a pastor and his wife in a village near Jos.
Plateau and other parts of central Nigeria have witnessed a spate of killings in recent months as herdsmen in search of grazing land and water for their cattle attack villages inhabited by farmers.
On June 23, more than 100 people were killed when herdsmen carried out simultaneous attacks on several villages in the Barkin Ladi area of Plateau state.
The growing conflict between the mainly Muslim herdsmen and the Christian farming communities ...

11 killed in suspected communal violence in central Nigeria

A migrant was convicted Monday of murdering his 15-year-old German ex-girlfriend and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison, the German news agency dpa reported.
The stabbing of the 15-year-old girl at a drugstore in the southwestern town of Kandel in December 2017 shocked Germany and fuelled a debate about violence by migrants.
The verdict comes at a time when Germany is struggling to come to terms with the influx of more than 1 million migrants since 2015.
Emotions have run high after another fatal stabbing last month, allegedly by two migrants, in the eastern city of Chemnitz. It has triggered sometimes violent protests by far-right groups.
Because of privacy rules, the victim in the Kandel stabbing has been identified only as Mia and the migrant as Abdul D, who was also convicted of assault at the district court in Landau.
Authorities did not confirm the perpetrator's nationality and his age, but German media have reported that he is most likely Afghan and he was tried as a minor.
Abdul 

German court convicts migrant of murdering ex-girlfriend

United Nations schools for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are starting the new school year on time, despite the US decision to cancel funding to the international body's Palestinian relief agency.
Students looked giddy as they arrived at the Haifa Intermediate School in Beirut's Bir Hassan neighborhood on Monday and sat attentively through their first language, history, and math lessons of the year.
Claudio Cordone, director of UNRWA affairs in Lebanon, called it a "joyful day," and called on donor nations to fill the deficit left behind by the US decision announced Friday.
UNRWA was founded in 1949 to serve Palestinians who were uprooted from their homes in the war to create Israel.
The Trump administration on Friday called UNRWA an "irredeemably flawed operation" and halted USD 300 million in planned donations.

UN schools for Palestinians defy funding cuts, open on time

Some 400 prisoners escaped from a jail in the Libyan capital, authorities said, as recent fighting between rival militias that has killed dozens compelled the UN-backed government to declare a state of emergency in and around Tripoli.
The inmates overwhelmed guards and forced open the gates of the Ain Zara prison after riots broke out there, police said yesterday in a statement posted on Facebook.
The prisoners included many supporters of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi who had been found guilty of killings during the 2011 uprising that ended his rule and plunged the country into chaos.
The fighting in Tripoli erupted last week when the Seventh Brigade, militias which hail from Tarhouna, a town about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of Tripoli, attacked southern neighborhoods of the capital.
The Tripoli Revolutionaries' Brigades and the Nawasi Brigade, militias which support the UN-backed government, have come to the city's defence.
At least 47 people, including civilians, have ..

Libyan police say 400 prisoners escape amid Tripoli clashes

Iran's foreign minister held talks with officials in Syria on Monday as Syrian forces and their allies prepare for an assault on the last opposition stronghold in the country.
Syria's foreign ministry and Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said Mohammad Javad Zarif was received by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad upon his arrival in Damascus, and was to meet later with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Iran has lent crucial military and economic support to Assad throughout the seven-year civil war and the discussions are expected to focus on the looming battle for Idlib.
Assad has vowed to defeat the opposition in its last refuge in the northwestern province if the rebels do not surrender to government rule.  Idlib and the surrounding area is home to some 3 million people  nearly half of them already displaced more than once by the civil war  choosing to live in opposition areas.
UN officials believe an offensive on Idlib would trigger a wave of displacement that could uproot an ...

Iran FM to meet with Assad as Syria showdown looms

In an unusual move between two of soccer's most powerful organizations, FIFA has hired a pair of top lawyers away from UEFA.
FIFA, soccer's world governing body, is run by president Gianni Infantino. He was the general secretary at UEFA, European soccer's governing body, until 2016.
On Monday, former UEFA legal director Alasdair Bell and former managing director for integrity Emilio Garcia will start work at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, people familiar with the move told The Associated Press.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the hirings have not been publicly announced.
FIFA declined to comment when asked about the moves on Monday.
Both men worked at UEFA under Infantino, who is also a lawyer.
The job switches have been widely speculated among soccer officials in recent weeks, though Bell and Garcia declined to confirm their moves when contacted by the AP.
Bell will become FIFA's deputy secretary general for administration at a time when Infantino is promoting a $25 .

FIFA hires 2 top lawyers away from UEFA

British ex-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has slammed Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit policy, a move likely to fuel speculation that he is seeking to oust her.
Johnson wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Monday that May's so-called Chequers plan for continued ties with the European Union after Brexit will leave Britain in a weakened position.
He said that May is giving EU leaders a "victory" without even trying to forge a Brexit plan that would strengthen Britain's hand after it leaves the EU in March.
He said that Britain has "gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank." May's government is involved in delicate negotiations with EU leaders about Britain's future relationship with Europe.
Johnson resigned as foreign secretary in July to protest May's Brexit policy.

UK ex-minister Johnson slams prime minister's Brexit policy

The ruler of Dubai has announced the names of two astronauts from the United Arab Emirates who will be heading to the International Space Station, a first for the Gulf nation.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who also serves as the UAE's vice president and prime minister, made the announcement on Monday on Twitter.
Sheikh Mohammed named the astronauts as Hazza al-Mansouri and Sultan al-Nayadi. Their missions are scheduled for next year.
The UAE has a fledgling space program with big ambitions. It hopes to launch its first locally made satellite, KhalifaSat, in October from Japan.
It also wants to launch a probe to Mars in 2020.
The UAE says it wants to colonize Mars by 2117, with a fully functioning city of 600,000.

UAE names 2 astronauts to go to International Space Station

China's foreign ministry says it is looking into the circumstances surrounding the arrest of e-commerce billionaire Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, in the US on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct.
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news conference on Monday that the Chinese Consulate in Chicago was "closely following the relevant situation" and trying to verify facts regarding the situation.
Hennepin County Jail records show Liu was arrested late Friday night and released Saturday afternoon pending possible criminal charges.
The jail records don't provide details of the alleged incident.
Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said Sunday that he couldn't provide any details because the investigation is considered active.
He declined to say where in the city Liu was arrested or what he was accused of doing.

China says looking into e-commerce billionaire's US arrest

Judges at the United Nations' highest court are listening to arguments in a case focused on the legality of British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, including Diego Garcia, where the US has a major military base.
Mauritius argues that the Chagos archipelago has been part of its territory since at least the 18th century and was unlawfully taken by the UK in 1965, three years before the island nation gained independence from Britain.
Britain insists it has sovereignty over the archipelago, which it calls the British Indian Ocean Territory.
The UK sealed a deal with the US in 1966 to use the territory for defense purposes.
Washington maintains a forward operating location there for aircraft and ships that contribute to regional and global security.

UN court hears case over strategic Indian Ocean islands

French children who are going back to school today after summer vacation will have to do so without their mobile phones.
The government passed a law banning phone use in all primary and middle schools for the entire day, including during breaks  with exceptions in cases of emergency and for disabled children.
Pupils are requested to shut down their mobiles or put them in a locker.
High schools can also voluntarily implement the measure.
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said it aims to help children focus on lessons, better socialize and reduce social media use. The ban is also designed to fight online bullying, and prevent thefts and violence in school.
The law allows teachers to confiscate phones until the end of the day in cases of non-compliance.

Phone ban at school: French children forced to hang up

Within 48 hours of being dropped by new Spain coach Luis Enrique, Jordi Alba and Iago Aspas responded on the field by scoring in standout wins for their teams in the Spanish league.
Alba scored once, provoked an own-goal and set up two more goals to fuel Barcelona's 8-2 demolition of Huesca on Sunday, a day after Aspas ensured Celta Vigo surprised Atletico Madrid by sealing a 2-0 victory.
Their strong showings came after Luis Enrique left both players, along with Atletico's Jorge "Koke" Resurreccion, out of his squad for upcoming matches against England and Croatia.
The three players appeared to have paid the price for Spain's disappointing World Cup. Aspas and Koke both missed spot kicks in the penalty shootout with Russia in the round of 16. Luis Enrique took over Spain following the World Cup disappointment.
While striker Aspas was a relative newcomer to Spain with six goals in 13 appearances, left back Alba has 66 caps and eight goals, including one in the final of the 2012 ...

Alba, Aspas respond to Spain slight with goals in Liga wins

Gianluigi Buffon screamed from the dugout watching his Paris Saint-Germain teammates crumble in the second half of Saturday's game.
PSG wasn't playing Marseille, Monaco or Lyon away from home but Nimes  the side with Ligue 1's smallest budget returning to the top flight after 25 years.
PSG won 4-2, but could have lost as Nimes clawed back from 2-0 down to equalize, hit the crossbar and draw a save from PSG's goalkeeper.
During that flurry of pressure, PSG's composure completely disappeared and it looked anything but a team able to win the Champions League. That's what doubtless flustered Buffon, one of the best goalkeepers of all time.
The 40-year-old Italian has played 176 times for Italy, winning the World Cup and playing in a European Championship final. In a glittering career with Juventus he has played in three Champions League finals and won the past seven Serie A titles.
This is a player who has seen it all, and simply does not accept complacency.
Although nearly retired, he ...

Veteran Buffon screams a warning to complacent PSG teammates

Suspended Australia cricket captain Steve Smith is returning home from the Caribbean Premier League after suffering an abdominal strain.
Smith was due to play for the Barbados Tridents Monday against the St Lucia Stars and his banned Australia teammate David Warner, but was a late withdrawal.
Tridents captain Jason Holder told the host broadcaster Smith had pulled an abdominal muscle and will not play again in the tournament, which has two rounds left.
Coach Robin Singh said Smith was already on his to Australia.
Smith and Warner received 12-month bans for their roles in the South African ball tampering scandal in March. But the ban applies only to international matches and those under the direct control of Cricket Australia. The pair have been free to play in overseas and independent leagues.
Smith scored 185 runs at an average of 26.4 in seven innings in the CPL.

AP

AP

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