Yemeni tribal and rebel officials said Saudi-led coalition airstrikes killed at least 17 people today, including children, in the southwestern city of Taiz and the northern rebel stronghold of Saada.
They said the Taiz airstrike hit a house in the Dimnat Khadir district, an area that has seen heavy fighting between Saudi-backed government forces and Iran-allied Houthi rebels.
At least 15 people were killed, the tribal officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Another airstrike hit a workshop in Saada, killing at least two people and wounding eight others, including several schoolgirls, said Aliaa Al-Shabby, the rebels' minister for human rights.
She urged an independent commission to be formed to investigate what she called "massacres committed against civilians and unarmed Yemeni people."
Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war pitting the Saudi-led coalition backing an internationally recognized government against the Iran-backed Houthis since March ..

Saudi-led airstrikes kill 17 in Yemen's center and south

PTI Automatic

President Donald Trump acknowledged today that farmers could be adversely affected by the escalating tariff dispute with China, but promised to make it up to them, saying they "will be better off than they ever were."
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, Trump addressed the Chinese threat to slap tariffs on soybeans and other agriculture staples grown in rural America, a move that could hit Midwestern farmers, many of whom are strong supporters of the president.
"If during the course of the negotiation they want to hit the farmers because they think that hits me. I wouldn't say that's nice, but I tell you our farmers are great patriots," Trump said.
"They understand that they're doing this for the country. We'll make it up to them. In the end they're going to be much stronger than they are right now."
China is threatening the tariffs in response to Trump moving to enact protectionist measures as punishment for Chinese theft of US intellectual property.
The US bought more than USD 500 ...

Amid trade fight, Trump says he'll 'make it up' to farmers

Arizona Gov Doug Ducey said today that 225 members of the state's National Guard were heading to the US-Mexico border to support President Donald Trump's call for troops to fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
More of the state's Guard members will be deployed on Tuesday, said Ducey, a Republican.
The Arizona troops were being sent after Texas announced Friday it would send 250 National Guard members and helicopters took the first of them to the border.
Trump said last week he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard members to the border.
New Mexico's Republican governor has said her state would take part in the operation but no announcement has been made on deployment. California Gov Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said if the state's Guard members will participate.
Trump has said he wants to use the military at the border until progress is made on his proposed border wall, which has mostly stalled in Congress.
Defence Secretary James Mattis last Friday approved ...

Arizona sends 225 troops to Mexico border, more heading soon

Saskatchewan's Ministry of Justice said today one of the deceased in the crash that killed 15 people en route to a hockey playoff game was misidentified, partly because the players all had blond-dyed hair and similar builds.
The ministry said the body of Parker Tobin was mistaken for that of Xavier Labelle.
It said Labelle is injured but alive, and Tobin is among the deceased. The accident occurred Friday. Drew Wilby, spokesman for the ministry, said the error was discovered Sunday night.
"The new information came to light last night that raised questions with the health care professionals. In turn they were able to identify Xavier Labelle as Xavier Labelle who of course we had previously said was Parker Tobin," Wilby said.
"A lot of these boys looked alike. They had the blond hair that was supportive of their team for their playoff run. They had very similar builds and all very similar ages." Wilby and the Office of the Chief Coroner apologized for the misidentification.
"To find who 

Canadian officials say body in bus crash misidentified

An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamic militant to nine years in prison today for masterminding a double suicide bombing last year that targeted police at a bus terminal in Jakarta.
Kiki Muhammad Iqbal, 38, was among six suspected militants who were arrested days after the attack, in which two bombers blew themselves up, killing three policemen and themselves. The attack also wounded 12 people, both police and civilians.
The suspects were believed to be members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, a network of about two dozen Indonesian extremist groups that formed in 2015 and pledges allegiance to Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The network, which the United States has designated a terrorist grouping, has been implicated in a number of attacks in Indonesia over the past year.
A panel of three judges at North Jakarta District Court ruled that Iqbal had organized and incited others to launch the suicide attacks through his jihadist sermons at a mosque in Bandung, the capital ..

Indonesian militant given 9 years jail for inciting attacks

A rare terror trial opened today in Finland in the case of a Moroccan asylum-seeker and alleged Islamic State sympathizer charged with fatally stabbing two people and wounding eight others.
Abderrahman Bouanane was led handcuffed into a makeshift courtroom set up inside a prison in Turku, the southwestern Finnish city where the August 18, 2017 attack took place. Some of the victims were present in court.
The stabbing rampage at Turku's main market square lasted some three minutes and left two women dead and six women and two men wounded, some of them seriously.
State Prosecutor Hannu Koistinen has charged Bouanane with two counts of terror-related murder and eight counts of attempted murder with a terror-related motive, the first terror-related charges issued in Finland.
Prosecutors allege that Bouanane, who was born in 1994, wanted to spread fear among citizens and likely wished to be shot by police and die as a martyr.
"We find that Bouanane's intention was to carry out a terror ...

Finland's first terror trial opens over 2017 stabbings

Four popular Chinese news apps have been temporarily removed from the Android store in China following an order from regulators to tighten control over the spread of information, state media reported today.
Toutiao, Phoenix News, NetEase News and Tiantian Kuaibao suspended their downloading services before 3 pm today, the Beijing Daily newspaper said on its microblog.
It said Toutiao will be suspended for three weeks and will resume service on April 30, while Phoenix will be taken down for two weeks, NetEase for one week and Tiantian for three days. Users can still download the apps from Apple's App Store.
Android phones are far more common in China and the government has great sway over domestic communications and Internet platforms.
Further details on the regulatory measure were not immediately available and calls to the government's oversight body, the Cyberspace Administration of China, rang unanswered today.
China maintains tight control over news sources and heavily censors the .

China state media say 4 popular news apps suspended

The attorney for a porn actress who says she had an affair with President Donald Trump plans to release a composite sketch today of the person he says threatened Stormy Daniels to stay quiet, and says there will be a reward for help with identification.
Michael Avenatti said today that a "sizeable monetary reward" will be offered to anyone providing information identifying the person that Daniels says threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011. He said the sketch will help provide "additional details about what happened here."
A hard-charging attorney who has relentlessly kept the case in the headlines, Avenatti said "common sense dictates" that this person could only have been someone associated with Trump or the Trump Organization. He said the money would likely come from a crowd-sourced legal fund.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had sex with Trump once in 2006 and was paid $130,000 by Trump's personal attorney days before the 2016 presidential ...

Porn star's attorney alleging Trump affair to offer reward

British Prime Minister Theresa May says the Syrian regime "and its backers, including Russia, must be held to account" if the government is found to be responsible for a suspected poison gas attack in the country.
May says those who back "the brutal actions by (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and his regime ... they need to look very carefully at the position they have taken." She calls Saturday's suspected attack on the besieged town of Douma "a reprehensible attack," adding Britain is in talks with its allies about "what action is necessary."
After meeting with her Danish counterpart Lars Loekke Rasmussen during a visit to Copenhagen, May said: "it is a brutal regime that is attacking its own people and we are very clear that it must be held to account.

British PM lashes out at Syria, backers, including Russia

The UN maritime agency is holding a weeklong meeting aimed at curbing emissions from ships.
Environmental activists say that while shipping contributes only 2-3 per cent of global greenhouses gases, the industry's efforts are essential to combating climate change.
Proposals at the International Maritime Organization meeting that began Monday in London include keeping emissions below 2008 levels, but some shipping nations oppose such a cap.
European Union members and other countries want a 70 per cent to 100 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050.
They cite a study which found that alternative fuels, wind-assisted ships and electric engines could replace shipping fuels without endangering global trade.
Proposals to cut sulfur oxide emissions and to extend to the Arctic a ban on heavy fuel oil that already covers the Antarctic also will be considered.

UN holds meeting on curbing greenhouse emissions from ships

A city official says a fire at a condominium complex in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City has killed at least 13 people and injured another 27.
The city fire and police department official says it's unclear whether anyone is missing in the blaze early today morning and declined to give more details.
More than 700 apartments in the three buildings were built six years ago.
The official Vietnam News Agency reported that most people died of suffocation or jumping from high floors.
It said the blaze started in the basement parking area and took more than 200 firefighters more than an hour to put under control.
In 2002, a fire at a trade centre in the southern commercial hub's downtown killed 60 people in one of Vietnam's worst fires.

Fire at condominium in southern Vietnam kills at least 13

China has announced a list of US goods including pork and aluminium pipe it says may be hit by higher tariffs in response to President Donald Trump's higher import duties on steel and aluminium.
The Commerce Ministry today called on Washington to reach a negotiated settlement of the dispute "as soon as possible" but gave no deadline.
It said China last year bought about USD 3 billion worth of the goods affected by the proposed higher tariffs.
The ministry criticised Trump's action as a violation of global trading principles.

China says it may hike tariffs on US pork, other goods

Eight people were killed and 11 wounded after gunmen burst into a social event in central Mexico.
The Guanajuato state prosecutors' office said today the mass shooting took place a day prior in the town of Purisima del Rincon.
Prosecutors said gunmen pulled up in several vehicles, opened fire on those attending the event, and then fled toward the state of Jalisco.
There were no immediate details on the possible motive, but the region has recently seen violence.
Earlier this week, three film students disappeared on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco. Today, hundreds of students marched to demand they be found.

8 killed in attack by gunmen in Mexico

US prosecutors said today they have dismissed all criminal charges against seven of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's bodyguards stemming from a brawl in Washington last year in which protesters were beaten.
The charges were dropped last month just a day ahead of a meeting between Erdogan and now-outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but the State Department said the timing was coincidental.
Prosecutors said they dropped the charges against the seven on February 14 after dropping charges against four others in November. Assault charges are still pending against four other members of Erdogan's security detail as well as two Canadian citizens accused in the May 2017 altercation outside the Turkish ambassador's Washington home during a visit by Erdogan.
The incident sparked outrage in Washington and elsewhere and was condemned by the State Department and local officials.
Turkey has said the demonstrators were outlawed Kurdish militants and loudly complained when charges were .

US drops charges against Erdogan bodyguards over DC brawl

Special counsel Robert Mueller is scrutinising the connections between President Donald Trump's campaign and the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which has come under fierce criticism over reports that it swiped the data of more than 50 million Facebook users to sway elections.
Mueller's investigators have asked former campaign officials about the Trump campaign's data operations, particularly about how it collected and utilised voter data in battleground states, according to a person with direct knowledge of the line of inquiry but not authorised to discuss it publicly.
The investigators have also asked some of Trump's data team, which included analysts at the Republican National Committee, about its relationship with Cambridge Analytica, according to two former campaign officials. The campaign paid the firm just under $6 million for its work in 2016, according to federal records.
Authorities in Britain and the United States are investigating whether Cambridge Analytica may have 

Mueller examining Cambridge Analytica, Trump campaign ties

President Donald Trump's lead lawyer in the special counsel's Russia investigation has resigned amid a shake-up of the president's legal team.
Attorney John Dowd confirmed his decision in an email today to The Associated Press, saying, "I love the President and wish him well."
Dowd's departure comes three days after the Trump legal team added a new lawyer, former US attorney Joseph diGenova, who has alleged on television that FBI officials were involved in a "brazen plot" to exonerate Hillary Clinton in the email investigation and "frame" Trump for nonexistent crimes.
It already was a delicate time in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as Trump's attorneys have been negotiating with Mueller over the scope and terms of an interview of the president.
Trump has told reporters that he was eager to speak with Mueller, but Dowd has been far more apprehensive, and the lawyers have not publicly committed to making the president available for questioning.
Over the weekend, Dowd ...

Trump lawyer in Russia probe leaves in legal shake-up

Moammar Gadhafi's cousin says the corruption allegations against former French President Nicolas Sarkozy are "God's punishment" for his role in the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed the longtime Libyan leader.
Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam, a close aide to Gadhafi based in Cairo, told The Associated Press that he was aware of the millions of euros Gadhafi's government allegedly gave to Sarkozy.
Investigators are examining allegations that Gadhafi's regime secretly gave Sarkozy 50 million euros (USD 62 million) for his 2007 presidential campaign. Sarkozy has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
As president, Sarkozy put France in the forefront of the NATO-led air campaign in support of Libyan rebels in 2011. Gaddaf al-Dam says most of the Libyans involved in the money transfers are imprisoned, dead or fearing assassination.

Gadhafi's cousin calls Sarkozy charges 'God's punishment'

The British Parliament's media committee has recalled the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, to testify in its investigation into fake news.
Committee chair Damian Collins told Nix in a letter today that there were "a number of inconsistencies in your evidence."
Collins highlighted Nix's denial that he received data from the Global Science Research company, the entity set up by a Cambridge academic who created the app blamed for harvesting information from some 50 million Facebook accounts.
A whistleblower has alleged that Cambridge Analytica improperly used the material in US President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.
Collins warned Nix that "giving false statements to a select committee is a very serious matter. We urge you to come forward and explain your comments to a committee hearing.

Cambridge Analytica CEO to testify in UK

Pat Cummins turned it around for Australia in a day-changing eight-over spell in the final session, taking four quick wickets as South Africa crashed from 220-2 to 266-8 on the opening day of the third test today.
Cummins removed AB de Villiers for 64 after tea to end his 128-run stand with Dean Elgar and start South Africa's sudden slide.
Cummins added the wickets of captain Faf du Plessis (5), Temba Bavuma (1) and Quinton de Kock (3) as Australia took six wickets for 46 runs late in the day at Newlands.
Cummins claimed 4-12 in eight overs in his devastating spell and Mitchell Marsh and Mitchell Starc pitched in to remove Vernon Philander and Keshav Maharaj.
Opener Dean Elgar was 121 not out -- having been dropped on 53 and 87 --but South Africa's momentum had been completely removed by Cummins after the home team made a strong start to the crucial third test.
Australia was on top after struggling through the first two sessions.  The four-match series is level at 1-1, and South ...

Australia turns it around as South Africa crashes to 266-8

South Korean ex-President Lee Myung-bak was arrested and jailed early today over a range of corruption allegations, becoming the latest in a series of disgraced leaders embroiled in scandals and other problems after leaving office.
A convoy of vehicles, including a black sedan carrying Lee, entered a detention center in Seoul after the Seoul Central District Court approved his arrest warrant, citing what it called serious alleged crimes and a possibility that he might try to destroy evidence. Prosecutors can detain him for up to 20 days before formally charging him.
"Right now, I feel it's all my fault and I have a guilty conscience rather than blaming others," Lee said in a statement issued shortly before his arrest, according to Yonhap news agency.
"Over the past 10 months, I've suffered a big pain that I couldn't endure ... I hope my arrest will relieve the pains of my family and those who worked with me."
Lee, 76, a conservative, briefly waved to former aides gathered at his Seoul 

Ex-S Korean President Lee arrested over corruption scandal

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis is applauding Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian aid to war-torn Yemen.
Speaking at the start of a Pentagon meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mattis said the US is committed to working with Saudis and the United Nations to accelerate a political solution to the civil war.
Mattis says the appointment last month of a new UN envoy to Yemen is an opportunity to speed up the push for a political resolution to the conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 civilians since it started in March 2015.
He called the Saudis "part of the solution," adding that "we are going to end this war" on terms that are positive for the people of Yemen and their neighbours on the Arabian Peninsula.

AP

AP

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