The Yemeni leader who resigned the presidency last month and has fled to the country's south says all actions taken since Shiite rebels stormed the capital last September are illegitimate, hinting that he will seek to reclaim his power and office.
	In a statement signed as the "President of the Republic" Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi called for a national dialogue in the southern port city of Aden or city of Taiz both areas not under control by the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis.
	He says he supports the power transfer plan backed by Gulf countries after Yemen's 2011 Arab Spring uprising, which envisaged a transfer of power to him from predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh until elections.
	He also called on military and security forces to support him.

Yemen leader says still president after flight to south

PTI Automatic

More than 1,000 people have formed a "ring of peace" outside Oslo's main synagogue at the initiative of a group of young Muslims.
	The event in the Norwegian capital follows a series of attacks against Jews in Europe, including the killing of a Jewish security guard and a Danish film maker by a Muslim gunman in neighbouring Denmark last week.
	One of the eight independent organisers, Hajrah Arshad said the gathering today shows "that Islam is about love and unity."
	Norway's Chief Rabbi Michael Melchior sang the traditional Jewish end of Sabbath song outside the synagogue before the large crowd holding hands.
	Co-organiser Hassan Raja said it was the first time he heard the song.

1,000 join Muslim 'ring of peace' outside Oslo synagogue

Attorney Barry Papazian says businessman Cy Tokmakjian has returned to Canada after being released from prison in Cuba.
	Papazian says in a statement that Tokmakjian has returned home for the first time in three years. He says Tokmakjian and his family will have no additional comment at this time.
	Tokmakjian had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Cuba on corruption charges. He is the owner of the Ontario- based automotive company Tokmakjian Group.
	His family has said in the past that the charges against him were concocted as an excuse to seize the automotive firm's USD 100 million in assets in Cuba.
	The company's Cuban offices were raided in 2011 as the government launched an anti-graft drive that swept up foreign business executives from at least five nations.

Attorney: Canada businessman home after released by Cuba

Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe turns 91 today, with his supporters saying they will back him to run his full term until 2018 and beyond despite nagging questions about his health and an economy that is crumbling under his watch.
	Mugabe's recent fall at Harare Airport fuelled renewed speculation that old age is catching up with the man who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. The spry Mugabe, however, succeeded in breaking his fall and apparently was not injured. His officials say he is in good health.
	In addition to being in power in Zimbabwe, this year Mugabe is also chairman of the 54-nation African Union and the 15-nation Southern African Development Community.
	Low key events marked today's birthday but lavish celebrations are planned next Saturday (February 28) in the resort town of Victoria Falls. Those celebrations will be held by the 21st February Movement, the group that has planned Mugabe's birthday celebrations since 1986. Members of Mugabe's ruling party, ...

Zimbabwe's Mugabe marks 91st birthday as country struggles

In a sign of improving relations with the US, Sri Lanka has terminated lobbying contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars a month that the previous government had signed to help it win friends in Washington amid war crimes allegations, the nation's ambassador says.
	The investment in lobbyists to foster political and economic ties had gathered steam last summer, in the dying months of the administration of then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, but with little apparent benefit, as Sri Lanka's international isolation deepened over its refusal to credibly probe civilian deaths during the civil war that ended 2009.
	But political change inside Sri Lanka itself has done the trick. There has been a turn-around in the US relationship after new President Maithripala Sirisena won January 8 elections and promised democratic reforms and accountability for human rights violations.
	Sirisena was elected in large part because of public dismay over the rising cost of living on the South Asian island, 

New Sri Lanka gov't ends US lobbying contracts

The US and Britain today discussed new sanctions against Russia as Ukraine's week-old cease-fire unravels, though it was unclear if the allies were on the same page about increasing pressure on an economy that means far more to Europe.
	As Ukraine's military and Russia-backed separatists blamed each other for the continued attacks, US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond held Moscow responsible. Kerry accused the Russians of "land-grabbing" in Ukraine while cynically speaking of peace.
	The top American diplomat pointed specifically to the strategic port of Mariupol, which Ukrainian forces say is threatened by a buildup of rebel military equipment. If the rebels seize the city, they would establish a land corridor between mainland Russia and the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
	"What's happening with respect to Mariupol even now is just simply unacceptable, so we are talking about additional sanctions, additional efforts," Kerry told ...

US, Britain discussing new Russia sanctions over Ukraine

Suspected Boko Haram fighters killed at least 34 and injured several others in attacks on villages near Chibok and Konduga in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state earlier this week, residents and local officials said.
	The gunmen attacked the Tamsu-Shehuri village on Wednesday night where they killed more than 12 people, said a resident.
	"Many of them came riding on (motor)bikes and Hilux ?vans, and all of them were armed with rifles," said Aisami Bashir, a member of a local civilian protection militia.
	"They opened fire on the village as residents began to flee. Many aged persons who could not run were caught and killed. They broke into homes and looted their belongings, especially their food items."
	Barely 24 hours after the first attack, gunmen hit a nearby village, Ladi-Shehuri, where they killed and burned a man in his car. Soldiers from Konduga responded and killed about a dozen of the attackers, according to Bashir.
	"The soldiers in Konduga did well when they arrived on time .

Boko Haram kills 34 in villages in northeastern Nigeria

An armed group in South Sudan has abducted at least 89 boys in a northern state, the UN children's agency said today.
	The boys, some as young as 13, were abducted near Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile state, according to a UNICEF statement.
	Malakal, which is currently under government control, has recently seen intense fighting between rebel forces and government troops who accuse each other of violating multiple peace agreements.
	Armed men surrounded the community and searched house by house, forcibly taking boys older than 12, said witnesses, according to the UNICEF statement, which said the latest abductions were carried out while the children were doing their exams in the Wau Shilluk area. The number of those abducted could be much higher, it added.
	It is not clear which group carried out the abductions.
	Last year 12,000 children were used as soldiers by armed forces and groups across South Sudan, according UNICEF.
	"The recruitment and use of children by armed forces ...

UNICEF: 89 boys abducted by South Sudan armed group

Indonesia says it has recalled its newly designated ambassador to Brazil to protest the abrupt postponement of the approval of his credentials.
	Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff welcomed ambassador Toto Riyanto at a ceremony yesterday in the capital, Brasilia, but delayed approving his credentials amid tensions over the impending execution of a Brazilian citizen in Indonesia for a drug offense.
	Indonesia's foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday that it was unacceptable to delay the approval of the credentials when the ambassador designate was already at the palace.
	Rodrigo Gularte is currently awaiting execution in Indonesia along with seven other foreign drug offenders from Australia, France, Ghana, Nigeria and the Philippines. Another Brazilian citizen, Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, was executed by an Indonesian firing squad last month for a drug offense.

Indonesia recalls newly assigned envoy to Brazil over delay

Twenty-five people were killed and 40 wounded in suicide attacks at a hotel in Somalia's capital, the Somali government said today.
	One Islamic extremist rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gate of the Central Hotel and another went in and blew himself up yesterday, a statement from Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke's office said.
	Government officials were meeting at the Central Hotel at the time, and the statement said Mogadishu's deputy mayor and two legislators were among the dead. It was unclear whether the government's report of 25 dead included the two bombers.
	Al-Shabab, Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, claimed responsibility for the attack. Despite the loss of key strongholds in Somalia, al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaida, continues to stage attacks in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere.
	Somalia's president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud condemned the attack and said it would not derail efforts by his government to restore peace to Somalia which is ...

25 people dead in Friday's al-Shabab attack on Somali hotel

Aides close to Yemen's former president say he has fled the capital after Shiite rebels who surrounded his house let him go under international and local pressure.
	The aides said today morning that former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi will go to Aden, then leave the country to receive medical treatment.
	Hadi has been under house arrest following a coup by Shiite Houthi rebels. The rebels earlier captured the capital, Sanaa, in September.
	The aides say the rebels let Hadi go after pressure from the United Nations, the US, Russia and local political parties.
	The aides spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.

Former Yemen president flees capital after rebels let him go

The French interior minister said he asked Google, Facebook and Twitter to work directly with French officials during investigations and to immediately remove terrorist propaganda when authorities alert them to it.
	"We emphasized that when an investigation is underway we don't want to go through the usual government to government channels, which can take so long," said French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve after a meeting with representatives from the US tech giants.
	"It's important to have full cooperation and quick reaction" he added.
	Cazeneuve's one-day visit to San Francisco and Silicon Valley comes weeks after terrorist attacks in Paris left 20 people dead, including three gunmen.
	On January 7, two gunmen killed 12 people and injured 11 more during an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
	A third gunman killed a policewoman January 8 and then killed four more people a day later after taking hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. Police killed the 

French minister meets with Google, Facebook, Twitter

The US Department of Justice is investigating the shooting of a young black man killed by white police officers while wielding a samurai sword at a shopping centre, according to a letter released by the man's family.
	The letter released yesterday from the US Attorney's Office in Utah and the Justice Department's civil rights decision said federal officials, including FBI agents, are reviewing the September shooting of Darrien Hunt by two Saratoga Springs police officers.
	In the letter, dated Thursday, federal officials said they are seeking any additional information the family would like to provide about the case.
	The letter was shared with reporters by an attorney for Hunt's family, which has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officers and the city of Saratoga Springs.
	Saratoga Springs spokesman Owen Jackson said last night that the city had not yet been notified of the review. "We welcome any outside official investigation, and we'll cooperate with it," he said.
	Messages 

Justice Department reviewing Utah man's killing by police

An Ecuadorean satirist whose biting online political humour provoked the ire of President Rafael Correa has announced that he's ceasing and desisting after receiving anonymous death threats.
	The man known as Crudo Ecuador directly addressed Correa on his website. "You won," he said. "My family comes first and I don't want to expose them to this mafia," he tweeted.
	Crudo Ecuador, who has insisted on remaining anonymous, published a photo of a floral arrangement that he said arrived at his home with a threatening note.
	The satirist, who works in advertising, told The Associated Press by phone that he has no intention of continuing with what he called a hobby.
	"My entire family is worried," he said. "I'm abandoning my accounts so they leave me in peace."
	He said defiantly on his website, however, that Correa hadn't really won because he "didn't respect the law or my rights" and because Crudo's work became very popular. Crudo gained 390,000 Facebook fans and 42,000 Twitter ...

Ecuadorean satirist halts jokes after death threats

Iran's vice president is going to meet the US energy secretary in Geneva to discuss ongoing nuclear negotiations, the official IRNA news agency has reported.
	Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi is going to meet the US energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, during two days of expert-level talks between Iran and the US in Geneva, Behrouz Kamalvand, spokesman for Iran's Atomic Organisation, told IRNA.
	Salehi is also chief of Iran's nuclear organisation. He will leave Tehran for Switzerland today, Kamalvand said.
	Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry will also meet in Geneva on Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday.
	Kerry last met Zarif earlier this month in Munich.
	The US and other nations negotiating with Tehran have long suspected Iran's nuclear program is secretly aimed at weapons capability. Tehran insists the program is entirely devoted to civilian purposes.
	Iran and world powers are to hold a new round of nuclear ...

Iran's Atomic chief to meet the US energy secretary

The UN special envoy to Syria will travel to Damascus this month to pursue a start date for a proposed six-week suspension of government airstrikes and artillery shelling in the city of Aleppo, a new report says.
	Staffan de Mistura this week announced the Syria government's willingness to try his plan to freeze hostilities in Syria's largest city, though it's not known whether opposition forces will agree to it.
	The latest report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Syria's humanitarian crisis, released yesterday, says de Mistura will send a team to Aleppo by the end of this month to assess the conditions for the freeze, "following which he expects to be able to announce when the beginning of the six weeks will come into effect."
	The report says de Mistura will press the opposition to "do their part" and avoid the use of heavy weapons, including rockets and mortars, in Aleppo during the six-week period.
	The proposed pause in hostilities in the northern city is meant to allow the UN 

UN envoy to Syria this month to pursue freeze start date

YouTube is going to release a mobile app that will only show video clips suitable for young children to help parents control what their kids are watching on the Internet.
	The YouTube for Kids app, scheduled to be released for Android devices on Monday, features thousands of kid-focused channels that provide both entertainment and education. The content is mostly meant for children two to eight years old.
	Clips are selected by computer algorithms and human review.
	Although YouTube doesn't permit pornographic videos or most other clips containing nudity, a wide range of salacious, violent and crude material is available on the site.
	That prompted many parents to ask YouTube for a "family-friendly" version of its service, said Shimrit Ben-Yair, a product manager for the kids' app.
	The concept is similar to a kids section that Netflix set up on its Internet video subscription service more than three years ago.
	Besides excluding inappropriate clips, YouTube's kids app also will ...

YouTube to release kids app to ease parents' worries

Greece and its creditors in the 19-country eurozone have reached an agreement on the country's request to extend its bailout.
	Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the eurozone's top official, says a deal has been agreed that will extend Greece's loans for another four months.
	In return, Greece has committed to not pursue any "unilateral" measures that may affect the country's budget targets.
	Greece has also committed to provide a list of reforms based on the country's current bailout program for assessment on Monday.
	Dijsselbloem says today's agreement was a "first step in this process of rebuilding trust" between Greece and its euro partners and allows for a strategy to get the country "back on track.

Greece and eurozone creditors reach deal on loan

The relatives of four Coptic Christian hostages held by gunmen in Libya for months are appealing for help from local and Libyan authorities to ensure their safe release.
	A video released earlier this week by the Islamic State group's Libyan branch showed the beheading of another 21 Egyptian Christian hostages.
	The four hostages, all members of the same family from the southern Egyptian city of Abu Teeg, were abducted last August while trying to flee the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
	Wageh Hakim, whose brother and cousins are being held, told The Associated Press today that the four men were separated from Muslim friends at a checkpoint.
	The four men were working in Tripoli as construction workers when Islamic and tribal militias overran the capital in August.

4 Egyptian Christians held hostage in Libya, says family

Turkey's state-run news agency says prosecutors have launched an investigation following reports in pro-government newspapers that claimed authorities had uncovered an assassination plot against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's daughter.
	The Anadolu Agency says the Ankara State Prosecutor's office initiated the probe today after the newspapers Aksam, Gunes and Star claimed that US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen had ordered Sumeyye Erdogan's assassination and that Turkey's opposition party supported the plot.
	The papers, which are prone to exaggeration, based their reports on alleged intercepted Twitter messaging between a journalist who is close to Gulen and opposition legislator Umut Oran.
	Gulen's lawyer called the reports a "preposterous scenario." Oran denounced them as plot to frame the opposition.
	Erdogan accuses Gulen of orchestrating corruption allegations last year in an attempted "coup" to unseat him.

Probe launched into alleged plot to kill Erdogan's daughter

Multiple suicide car bombings struck an eastern Libyan town, killing at least 45 people today not far from a main base of the Islamic State group's Libyan offshoot.
	The group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it came in retaliation for recent Egyptian airstrikes that avenged the beheading of 21 Christian hostages by Libyan Islamic State militants.
	The massive bombings rocked the town of Qubba, which is under control of the country's internationally recognized government and about 30 kilometers from Darna a stronghold of Libya's Islamic State branch.
	In a statement posted on social networking sites, the group said two of the "Caliphate's knights" carried out the bombings, targeting what they described as a Libyan army operations room.
	The deadliest bombing was carried by an attacker who rammed an explosives-packed ambulance into a gas station where motorists were lined up, army spokesman Mohammed Hegazi said.
	"Imagine a car packed with a large amount of explosives ...

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