The Saudi-led coalition pounded Shiite rebels in Yemen today, killing 20 in a city in the country's west as the civilian death toll rose to 38 from airstrikes the day before in the capital, Sanaa, officials said.
	The US backed campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies, mainly Gulf Arab countries, is aimed at crushing the rebels, known as Houthis, who have taken over Sanaa and areas in northern Yemen and have been pressing an offensive to expand their gains in the rest of the country, including the southern port city of Aden.
	The ground fighting and the airstrikes have pushed Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, to the brink of collapse. The fighting has also taken on the appearance of a proxy war between Iran, the Shiite powerhouse backing the Houthis, and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.
	Today, airstrikes hit a gathering of the Houthis in the western of Ibb, killing 20 fighters, security officials on the ground said. The rebels were assembling to head to Aden as reinforcements in ..

Saudi airstrikes pound Yemen's Shiite rebels, killing 20

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A car bomb killed at least nine people and wounded many others at a restaurant in Somalia's capital today, police said.
	In addition to the deaths, at least eight people were wounded in the attack, said police officer Mohamed Hussein.
	Security forces secured the area around the Banoda restaurant, in Mogadishu, after the attack, said another senior police officer Mohamed Abdi.
	The car with the bomb had been parked near Somalia's heavily guarded presidential palace when it exploded, he said.
	Although no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, it bears the hallmarks of Somalia's Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which frequently carries out attacks in Mogadishu and throughout Somalia.
	At least seven people were killed yesterday when a bomb planted in a UN van exploded in the northern area of Puntland, a semiautonomous region that is normally peaceful.
	Four UN staff working to help Somali children were among those killed in that attack, the UN children's agency ...

Somalia police: 9 killed by car bomb in capital

Greek authorities have picked up more than 120 migrants who illegally entered the country by sea on three separate vessels, a day after a yacht with 90 people on board foundered just off the island of Rhodes, drowning three.
	The Merchant Marine Ministry says 42 people, including seven children, were taken off a small boat near the eastern Aegean Sea islet of Agathonissi. All are in good health.
	A further 84 people were located in separate incidents earlier today on the islet of Farmakonissi and the island of Lesvos.
	About 550 migrants have reached Greek shores over the past three days, amid a surge of illegal immigration that has seen arrivals exceed 12,000 so far this year - a nearly threefold increase over 2014.

126 migrants reach Greek shores, a day after fatal sinking

A car bomb killed at least five people and injured several others at a restaurant in Somalia's capital today, police said.
	Security forces have secured the area around the Banoda restaurant in Mogadishu, said senior police officer Mohamed Abdi. The car with the bomb was parked near Somalia's presidential palace, he said.
	No group has yet claimed of responsibility for the attack, but it bears the hallmarks of Somalia's Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which frequently carries out attacks in Mogadishu and throughout Somalia.
	At least seven people were killed Monday when a bomb planted in a UN van exploded in the northern area of Puntland, a semiautonomous region that is normally peaceful.
	Four UN staff working to help Somali children were among those killed in that attack, the UN children's agency announced Tuesday.
	Al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaida, appears to be stepping up attacks in Somalia and across borders even as it loses ground inside Somalia.
	Despite losing some ..

Somalia police: 5 killed by car bomb in capital

An Indonesian court found an American couple guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced them to prison on Tuesday in the death of the woman's mother on the resort island of Bali.
	The Denpasar District Court sentenced Tommy Schaefer to 18 years in prison and Heather Mack to 10 years for intentionally killing Sheila von Wiese-Mack while vacationing last August. The body was found in a suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort.
	The three-judge panel said it decided to be lenient toward Mack, 19, because she recently gave birth to a baby.
	The court ruled that Schaefer, 21, was guilty of battering von Wiese-Mack to death in a hotel room at the resort, and that his girlfriend Mack had helped with the Aug. 12 killing.
	Schaefer and Mack, both from Chicago, were tried separately in the same court with the same judges and prosecutors.
	They were arrested a day after the badly battered body of von Wiese-Mack, 62, was found in the suitcase.
	The charge of premeditated .

US couple sentenced to prison in Bali suitcase killing

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent religious offerings today to a Tokyo shrine that honors convicted World War II leaders among its war dead, a likely signal that he won't pray there ahead of trips to Asia and the United States.
	Previous visits and offerings to the controversial Yasukuni shrine have drawn sharp rebukes from China and South Korea. Abe's last visit to Yasukuni, in December 2013, also drew criticism from Washington.
	The shrine said Abe sent "masakaki" offerings, with a name card showing his name and official title. He sent similar offerings marking last year's spring and fall festivals at the shrine, which honors war criminals including wartime leader Hideki Tojo, among the 2.5 million war dead.
	Even though Abe's offerings signal he won't be praying at the shrine during this year's spring festival, they still come at a sensitive time.
	Abe heads to Indonesia later today for an Asia-African conference ahead of his US visit next week. He has expressed hopes of ...

Japan's leader sends offerings to controversial war shrine

Islamic extremists set off a bomb in a UN van in normally tranquil northern Somalia, killing at least seven people, including four employees of the UN children's agency in an attack that was widely denounced.
	Two Kenyans, one Ugandan, one Afghan and three Somalis died in the explosion in Garowe town and one American, one Sierra Leonean, one Ugandan, one Kenyan and four Somalis were wounded, police Col Ali Salad told The Associated Press.
	Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called it a direct attack on the future of the country.
	"This attack is not just targeted at the United Nations, but in attacking UNICEF, al-Shabab has also attacked Somali children. It is an attack against the future of our country and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Mohamud said in a statement.
	Al-Shabab, which is battling to convert Somalia into a hard-line Islamic state, claimed responsibility through its radio station for the attack in Garowe, capital of Puntland state.
	UNICEF Executive ..

Al-Shabab bombs UN van in Somalia, 4 UNICEF workers killed

A fierce storm lashing Australia's southeast destroyed homes, left dozens stranded in swirling floodwaters and may have led to the deaths of three people, officials said today.
	The storm, which has been pounding Sydney and other parts of New South Wales state since yesterday, has dumped more than 30 centimeters (a foot) of rain in some areas, with wind gusts more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) per hour.
	People were trapped in cars and homes and stuck on rooftops amid flash flooding. Emergency officials received 4,500 calls for help and rescued nearly 50 people from floodwaters, New South Wales premier Mike Baird said.
	The worst-hit area was the town of Dungog, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Sydney, where three people were found dead and at least one home was swept away. Police said they were trying to determine how the two men and one woman died.
	"It looks very much like we have lost three residents," Baird said. "They were elderly residents. At the moment, the ...

Fierce storm lashes southeast Australia; 3 feared dead

Afghan officials say an explosion near a southern police station has killed three people and wounded 17.
	Samim Khpalwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the explosion today struck the city of Kandahar, the capital of Kandahar province. Authorities initially believed a car bomb caused the explosion, but later said they were unsure what happened.
	Qayyum Pokhla, the head of Kandahar's regional hospital, says the blast killed three people, including two police officers and one woman. He said the explosion wounded 17.
	No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
	Kandahar is the heartland of Taliban insurgents and the city was the capital of the extremists' government from 1996-2001.
	Attacks on Afghan security forces have intensified in recent weeks as the insurgents mount their annual summer offensive.

Officials say explosion in southern Afghanistan kills 3

The Austrian publishers of US writer Frederic Morton say he has died at age 90.
	The Deuticke publishing house said yesterday that Morton died overnight in his Vienna hotel room.
	Morton wrote 12 books including "The Rothschilds" and "A Nervous Splendor," both of them National Book Award finalists.
	"The Rothschilds" was made into Tony Award-winning musical, while "A Nervous Splendor," chronicling 1888 to 1889 in Vienna, focused on the major Austrian personalities and events of that year among them the birth of Adolph Hitler, whose rise to power led to Morton's self-exile 40 years later.
	Morton was born Fritz Mandelbaum in Vienna on October 5, 1924. He and his family fled first to London then to New York a year after Hitler's 1938 annexation of Austria.

US writer who fled Austria to escape Holocaust dead at 90

A pilot Obama administration program to prevent radicalisation from taking root is creating suspicion that it's a plot to profile American Muslims.
	Local law enforcement officials have been doing such outreach for years. But now that federal officials are putting their stamp on it, some Muslims and others fear it is profiling disguised as prevention and worry it could compromise civil liberties and religious freedoms.
	The effort divides Muslim leaders who, on one side, argue that more must be done to fight extremism in their community and that this program is a historic opportunity for input.
	Others fear the program, which could be rolled out nationwide after being being tested in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Boston, is just another veiled way for law enforcement to target their community.
	Skeptics remember the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslims, uncovered by The Associated Press in an investigation in 2011, and an FBI informant's description of how he was taught 

Where US sees terror prevention, some Muslims see profiling

Chinese and foreign film producers, companies and investment firms signed movie cooperation deals worth 13.8 billion RMB (USD 2.3 billion) today, demonstrating how foreign movie makers increasingly want a piece of the growing Chinese market.
	The 36 deals were signed on the sidelines of the Beijing International Film Festival, an annual event in its fifth year, and were worth about a third more than those signed last year, according to Zhao Zhiyong, of the festival organizing committee.
	The former chairman of Walt Disney Studios signed a deal with CITIC Guoan, a unit of state-owned CITIC Group Corporation, to invest USD 150 million into his new Dick Cook Studios.
	Cook, chairman and CEO, told the signing ceremony: "Our discussions with CITIC Guoan have always come back to the importance of family entertainment, whether it's through movies, television, books and even things that have not even been invented. In the coming years we will look forward to telling quality stories for the ...

Chinese and foreign film producers sign deals worth USD 2.3B

A suburban New York man who was thwarted in his attempt to fly to Yemen to join a Middle Eastern terrorist group and then admitted continuing to plot with others to assist them was sentenced today to 25 years in prison.
	Marcos Alonso Zea, 26, pleaded guilty in September to attempting to provide material support to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as Ansar al-Sharia, and obstruction of justice.
	Federal prosecutors said the man flew to London on his way to Yemen in January 2012. He was rejected by customs officials in London and returned to the United States. Once home, prosecutors say, Zea continued participating in the conspiracy. He was arrested in October 2013.
	US District Court Judge Sandra Feuerstein rejected an appeal for lenience from Zea's attorney, Marc Bogotin, who argued that despite the guilty plea, his client had not actually committed any violent acts that would require him to receive the maximum penalty. Had he gone to trial, Zea could have faced up to ...

New York man who plotted to join terror group gets 25 years

An Egyptian court has sentenced a popular Armenian belly dancer to six months in prison for "insulting the Egyptian flag" after she allegedly wore a tight dress in its red, white and black color scheme.
	The court in Agouza, west of Cairo, said today that Sofinar Gourian, known popularly as "Safinaz," was fined 15,000 pounds (almost USD 2,000) and paid another 10,000 pounds bail pending appeal. The case had been initiated by a private complaint.
	Insulting the flag was made illegal by decree under Egyptian President Adly Mansour who ruled for a year after the army overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013.
	Gourian, who lives in Egypt, had argued that she did not insult the flag intentionally and as a foreigner was less aware of Egyptian laws.

Egypt court sentences belly dancer for 'insulting' flag

A struggling Chinese property developer says it has defaulted on dollar-denominated debt, exposing international creditors to potential losses as it grapples with a slumping property market amid a slowdown in the world's second biggest economy.
	Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. Said in a filing late today that it failed to pay USD 51.6 million in interest payments on its bonds due in 2017 and 2018.
	The company said in its statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange that it failed to make the payments within a 30-day grace period.
	It's the latest sign of turmoil for the troubled company, whose fortunes have tracked the rise and fall of China's housing market.
	The company was popular with foreign investors, who gave it piles of cash at a time when China's property market was blazing hot. Beijing's track record of bailing out troubled borrowers to preserve confidence in its fledgling credit markets also gave investors reassurance.
	But the situation has changed. Chinese real estate has cooled .

Chinese property developer Kaisa defaults on dollar bonds

A civil aviation official in the Dominican Republic says a small plane has crashed, killing all seven people on board.
	Civil Aviation Institute spokesman Hector Olivo says the plane crashed shortly after taking off today from the airport in the Punta Cana resort area on the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic.
	The single-engine Piper PA-32 was headed to the Samana Peninsula off the north coast with a pilot and six passengers.
	The plane was apparently attempting to make an emergency landing when it struck the ground in a golf course adjacent to the airport and burst into flames.

Small plane crash in eastern Dominican Republic kills 7

Iranian state TV says an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition has hit close to the Iranian Embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, shattering windows but causing no casualties or injuries.
	The report says Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the kingdom's envoy to Tehran to protest over the bombing today.
	It quotes Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, as warning the Saudis to abide by their international obligations and respect diplomatic missions. The report adds that Tehran holds Riyadh responsible for the safety of its mission in Sanaa.
	Sanaa came under heavy bombardment on Monday as Saudi-led coalition warplanes targeted weapon caches held by Iranian- backed Shiite rebels known as the Houthis who have seized much of Yemen.
	The Saudi air campaign in Yemen is now in its fourth week.

Iran says Saudi airstrike hit near its embassy in Yemen

South Africa's president has postponed a key ceremony after the deaths of seven people in recent attacks on immigrants in South Africa, his office said today.
	The ceremony scheduled for next week bestows the country's highest official honor on South Africans and foreigners who have contributed to South Africa, the office of President Jacob Zuma said. The event will be postponed so South Africa can mourn the victims of anti-immigrant violence, including three South Africans and four foreigners, it said.
	The annual ceremony was to be on April 27, a holiday commemorating the first all-race elections in 1994 that ended apartheid.
	The anti-immigrant violence has been in specific areas of Durban and Johannesburg. Six people died in attacks since the end of March in the coastal city of Durban, where looters broke into shops owned by immigrants, police said. The violence has since subsided.
	South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper published photographs of a fatal attack on a Mozambican man ..

South Africa reports 7 deaths in anti-immigrant violence

Germany's Parliament is set to use the term genocide in a resolution marking the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 100 years ago, and the government said Monday that it "stands behind" the motion drawn up by the ruling parties.
	A draft of the non-binding motion to be debated Friday says the Armenians' fate is "exemplary for the history of mass destruction, ethnic cleansing, expulsions and genocides by which the 20th century is marked in such a terrible way." It stresses Germany's awareness of the "uniqueness" of the Nazi Holocaust.
	Germany's government so far has avoided referring to the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Turkey vehemently rejects using the term for those killings.
	However, there were consultations between lawmakers and the government on the resolution, and government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that "the government, after the talks that have taken place, stands behind this motion."
	Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told today's .

German Parliament to label killings of Armenians as genocide

South Korea's oceans ministry today said that it was ready to start work to salvage a ferry that sank last year, killing more than 300 people, and that the operation would begin soon after it gets formal approval.
	The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said in a statement that it would ask the government's safety agency to approve plans to hoist the ship from the seafloor off the country's southwest coast. The Ministry of Public Safety and Security said it would review the request on Wednesday.
	The safety agency is widely expected to endorse the plan as President Park Geun-hye promised on Thursday the anniversary of the April 16, 2014, sinking to lift the ship.
	The oceans ministry statement said it aimed to choose a company to hoist the ship within two months of getting approval and would map out detailed salvaging plans in the following months.
	Ministry officials said some of the work to lift the ship, such as deploying barges where workers can stay during the salvaging operation, .

South Korea ready to start work to salvage sunken ferry

Iran's seismological center says a magnitude-4.1 earthquake has jolted a sparsely populated district some 200 kilometers southeast of Bushehr, a Persian Gulf town that is home to Iran's nuclear power plant.
	The center's website says the temblor hit at 1:36 p.M. local time today and its epicenter was the town of Jam, some 880 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran.
	In 2013, a magnitude-6.1 quake killed at least 37 people and injured hundreds more in the same region.
	Bushehr, which went online with Russian help in 2011, is built to resist earthquakes up to magnitude 8.0.
	Iran experiences frequent earthquakes. In 2003, some 26,000 people were killed by a magnitude-6.6 quake that flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam.

AP

AP

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