New Zealand's White Island volcano erupted suddenly on Monday, prompting fears for a group of visitors seen walking on the crater floor moments before.
The country's National Emergency Management Agency said a "moderate volcanic eruption is occurring at White Island and is hazardous in the immediate vicinity of the volcano."
Cameras providing a live feed from the volcano showed more than half a dozen people walking inside the rim at 2:10 pm local time, before images went dark when the eruption occurred minutes later.
The local mayor said she feared there had been "injuries" in the eruption.
"I've got limited understanding at present other than there's been an eruption, that there have been some people who were on the island at the time, who have had some injuries," Whakatane mayor Judy Turner told Radio NZ.
"I'm not sure of the extent or nature of those injuries... emergency services are all waiting for them to be returned from the island so they can attend to them." Police said they .

Injuries feared as popular New Zealand volcano erupts

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Britain's general election campaign enters its frenetic final stages on Monday, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn desperately seeking votes ahead of Thursday's crucial poll.
Johnson is hoping to regain the Conservative majority lost by his predecessor Theresa May in the last election, just two years ago, while Corbyn is aiming to upset the odds and usher in the first Labour government for nine years.
Hanging over the election is the issue of Britain's departure from the European Union, which will be thrown into doubt altogether should Johnson fail to achieve a majority.
The prime minister said on Sunday that the impact of Thursday's vote would be "felt for decades".
The high stakes and ideological divisions between Johnson and veteran leftist Corbyn have led to a fractious and personal campaign, with Johnson repeatedly facing questions over his trustworthiness and the Labour leader on the backfoot over anti-Semitism within his party.
The pair traded ...

UK election campaign enters final rounds with Brexit on the line

Nearly 1,000 tourists are stranded in the small New Zealand town of Franz Josef after stormy weekend weather triggered landslides and flooding along the town's main highway.
Authorities said road access to the town likely won't be restored until Friday.  Some of the tourists were choosing to leave by helicopter or small plane while others were waiting until the highway reopened.
Westland Mayor Bruce Smith said many of the 970 tourists in Franz Josef were taking the news in stride, but some were frustrated their travel plans had been disrupted.
He said there were about 20 planes and helicopters flying in and out of the town to help people leave. He said some tourists wanted to stay with their vehicles while others were trying to get confirmation their travel insurance would cover the extra costs of flying out.
They all have the option of taking fixed wing planes or helicopters," Smith said. It's just a question of who writes the check. I understand that.
Smith said there would have ...

Mudslides strand hundreds of tourists in New Zealand town

New Zealand's White Island volcano erupted suddenly on Monday, prompting fears for a group of visitors seen walking on the crater floor moments before.
The country's National Emergency Management Agency, said a "moderate volcanic eruption is occurring at White Island and is hazardous in the immediate vicinity of the volcano.
Cameras providing a live feed from the volcano showed more than half a dozen people walking inside the rim at 2:10 pm local time (0110 GMT), before images went dark when the eruption occurred minutes later.
The local mayor said he feared there had been "injuries" in the eruption.

New Zealand volcano popular with tourists erupts

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will welcome his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday -- the Russian's first visit to Washington since a controversial 2017 meeting with US President Donald Trump, the State Department announced.
The brief statement about the meeting, to be held at the State Department, said Pompeo and Lavrov would "discuss a broad range of regional and bilateral issues." On Friday, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the meeting was being "prepared" for Tuesday.
The situations in war-wracked Syria and Ukraine are likely to top the agenda. The Washington meeting will come on the heels of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky over the conflict in Ukraine's east in Paris on Monday.
Iran and North Korea are also of mutual concern in Washington and Moscow.
Pompeo and Lavrov met in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Lavrov has not been on an official visit to the US capital since .

US confirms Washington visit by Russian foreign minister

Overseas Citizen of India card holders are facing major problems while travelling to the country because adequate awareness has not been created among the diaspora about recent enforcement of a rule on renewal, a prominent Indian-American has said in a petition to the Indian Ambassador.
As a result, a large number of Indian-Americans are being forced to cancel their trips to India. In many cases they have been forced to return mid-way from places like Dubai and several airlines are refusing to board passengers on flight to India whose passport numbers do not match with the ones on their OCI card, said Prem Bhandari, chairman of Jaipur Foot USA.
"Airlines and immigration officials cite a recent advisory issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation and demand that passengers below 20 years of age and above 50 years of age need to have their OCI cards renewed after renewal of their passports. This has resulted in many passengers being turned back from the ...

OCI card holders facing problem while travelling to India, Ambassador told

A devastating measles outbreak continued to spread in Samoa, data released Monday showed, as the death toll from the epidemic climbed to 70, mostly young children.
Official figures showed there were 112 new cases in the 24 hours to Monday morning, despite a massive immunisation drive last week that saw the entire Pacific nation shut down for two days.
The government said the mobile vaccination teams had succeeded in ensuring 90 percent of the 200,000-strong population was immunised, up from around 30 percent when the epidemic began in mid-October.
However, the vaccine takes 10-14 days to take effect, meaning it is too early to say whether the outbreak has peaked.
The total number of cases was 4,693, with 229 people currently in hospital, including 16 critically ill children.  Infants are the most vulnerable to measles, which typically causes a rash and fever but can also lead to brain damage and death.
Among the 70 dead, 61 are children aged four or under.
Health authorities have ...

No reprieve as Samoa measles toll hits 70

Thousands of Colombian protesters including dozens of musicians marched, sang and banged pots and pans Sunday in a bold new show of discontent with President Ivan Duque's administration.
A sea of protesters quickly took over the center and north of the capital Bogota, pushing for changes in the conservative president's agenda.
Several times, shouts of "Get out Duque" were heard. Police presence was heavy.
"The streets will not be silenced!" read a slogan written in chalk on the sidewalk.
The march -- which included concert stages along the route where bands played -- wrapped up without incident.
"The government has just been indifferent. It doesn't want to listen to us, it doesn't want to sit down and talk, it wants to impose," said Alejandra Obregon, 27, a university student pushing for greater access to public education.
Protests against Duque's 15-month-old government first erupted less than three weeks ago -- what began as a general strike has morphed into a wider display of ...

In Colombia, musicians join anti-government protests

Washington state authorities say 4-year-old twins freed themselves from their car seats and climbed an embankment seeking help following a car crash that killed their father.
KING-TV reported 47-year-old Corey Simmons of Langley died when the vehicle with his daughters in the backseat crashed on Whidbey Island around 6 p.m. Friday.
Family members say the girls climbed about 200 feet (61 meters) up to the road after the accident 34 miles (55 kilometers) north of Seattle.
Authorities say Simmons was not wearing a seatbelt when the car crashed into trees and went down the embankment.
Police say the girls were transported to a hospital with minor injuries after an unidentified woman passing in her car went back to help and called 911.
Authorities say the accident is under investigation.

4-year-old twins free selves, climb to safety after crash

Arms sales rose by nearly five percent worldwide in 2018 in a market dominated by the United States, according to a new report published Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The turnover of the 100 biggest arms manufacturers came to $420 billion, thanks in large part to the US market, said the report.
US manufacturers alone accounted for 59 percent of the market, or a turnover of $246 billion, up 7.2 percent on the previous year.
"This is a significant increase over one year considering the already high levels of US combined arms sales," Aude Fleurant, the director of SIPRI's arms transfers and military expenditure programme, told AFP.
US firms were benefitting from the Trump administration's decision to modernise its armed services to reinforce its position against China and Russia.
Russia was second in the rankings for arms production, with 8.6 percent of the market, just ahead of the United Kingdom on 8.4 percent and France on 5.5 percent.
The ...

Arms sales worldwide up nearly 5%, says new report

A prominent civil society activist was shot dead late Sunday in Iraq's shrine city of Karbala while returning home from anti-government protests, a neighbour told AFP.
Fahem al-Tai, 53, had been taking part in weeks of rallies denouncing Iraq's entrenched political elite as corrupt, inept and beholden to neighbouring Iran.
On Sunday night, he was dropped off by two friends on a motorcycle near his home, according to a neighbour.
"The area is close to the shrines, the police station, the provincial headquarters -- it's a very secure area," the neighbour said.
"He was with two of his friends when he was killed." In footage from a street security camera seen by AFP, Tai could be seen disembarking from a motorcycle when another motorcycle with two men pulled up behind him.
The passenger could be seen shooting Tai at least twice with a pistol that appeared to have a silencer on it, before the driver also begins shooting.
The footage shows the activist collapsing and the assailants driving .

Prominent activist gunned down in Iraq shrine city Karbala

The Saudi gunman who killed three people at the Pensacola naval base had apparently gone on Twitter shortly before the shooting to blast U.S. support of Israel and accuse America of being anti-Muslim, a U.S. official said Sunday as the FBI confirmed it is operating on the assumption the attack was an act of terrorism.
Investigators are also trying to establish whether the killer, identified as 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, of the Royal Saudi Air Force, acted alone.
Alshamrani, who was killed in the attack at a classroom building Friday, was undergoing flight training at Pensacola, where members of foreign militaries routinely receive instruction.
"We are, as we do in most active-shooter investigations, work with the presumption that this was an act of terrorism," said Rachel L. Rojas, FBI agent in charge.
Authorities believe the gunman made social media posts criticizing the U.S. under a user handle similar to his name, but federal law enforcement officials are investigating ...

FBI says it presumes base shooting was act of terrorism

Puppeteer Caroll Spinney, who brought Big Bird to life on the iconic children's show "Sesame Street" for half a century, died on Sunday at the age of 85.
Spinney died at home in Connecticut after living with the movement disorder dystonia for some time, according to a statement from Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces the show.
The actor had announced his retirement from the show last year, having hand-picked successors to play both Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch -- two characters he helped create and which marked the childhoods of millions.
"Caroll was an artistic genius whose kind and loving view of the world helped shape and define Sesame Street from its earliest days in 1969 through five decades," said the statement from his colleagues.
"His legacy here at Sesame Workshop and in the cultural firmament will be unending." "His enormous talent and outsized heart were perfectly suited to playing the larger-than-life yellow bird who brought joy to generations of ...

'Sesame Street' puppeteer Caroll Spinney dies at 85

Rapper Juice WRLD, who launched his career on SoundCloud before becoming a streaming juggernaut and rose to the top of the charts with the Sting-sampled hit Lucid Dreams, died Sunday after a medical emergency at Chicago's Midway International Airport.
The rapper, whose legal name was Jarad A. Higgins, was 21. Authorities have not released details about his cause of death.
The Cook County medical examiner's office was notified of Higgin's death Sunday morning, according to office spokeswoman Natalia Derevyanny, who said an autopsy was likely Monday.
Chicago police launched a death investigation after a 21-year-old male experiencing a medical emergency was transported from Midway to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead. Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said the man experienced cardiac arrest and was taken to a hospital from a small hangar at Midway, away from the main terminal, where private planes land.
The artist, who was named top new artist at the 2019 ...

Rapper Juice WRLD dies after medical emergency in Chicago

Key lawmakers called Sunday for a halt to a Saudi military training programme after a shooting rampage at a US naval base in which a Saudi officer killed three American sailors.
US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said he has ordered a review of vetting procedures while defending the training programme that brought Mohammed Alshamrani to Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.
Alshamrani, a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the Saudi Royal Air Force, opened fire in a classroom at the base on Friday, killing the three sailors and wounding eight other people before being shot dead by police.
The FBI said Sunday the shooting was being investigated with the "presumption" it was an act of terrorism, but that authorities had yet to make a final determination.
Alshamrani was reported to have posted a manifesto on Twitter before the shooting denouncing America as "a nation of evil." "We need to suspend the programme until we investigate," Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Republican on ...

Calls for halt to Saudi military training in US after attack

Iran's president said on Sunday his country will depend less on oil revenue next year, in a new budget that is designed to resist crippling US trade embargoes.
Iran is in the grip of an economic crisis. The US re-imposed sanctions that block Iran from selling its crude oil abroad, following President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
"The budget sends a message to the world that despite the sanctions, we will manage the country," President Hassan Rouhani told the opening session of Parliament.
The proposed budget will counter "maximum pressure and sanctions'' by the US, he said.
Iranian media, including the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, said that the submitted budget would raise taxes, sell some government-owned property and add more government bonds. But it wasn't immediately clear from Rouhani's speech whether these proposed measures would fully compensate for plummeting oil revenues.
Rouhani added that Iran will also benefit ..

Iran says new budget bucks US oil embargo, uses Russian loan

Investigators believe the Saudi gunman who killed three sailors at the Pensacola naval base visited New York City, including Rockefeller Center, days before the shooting and are working to determine the purpose of the trip, a US official said Sunday.
Authorities also believe the gunman made social media posts in which he talked about US support for Israel and charged that Americans are anti-Muslim, said the official, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The FBI and others are trying to establish whether the attack Friday was an act of terrorism and whether the gunman, 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, of the Royal Saudi Air Force, acted alone. Alshamrani was a flight student at Pensacola, where members of foreign militaries are routinely trained by the US.
FBI agents trying to determine the purpose of his New York visit are attempting to locate and question anyone who may have dealt with him, the official ...

Official: Base gunman visited New York days before shooting

Women in Saudi Arabia will no longer need to use separate entrances from men or sit behind partitions at restaurants in the latest measure announced by the government that upends a major hallmark of conservative restrictions that had been in place for decades.
The decision, which essentially erodes one of the most visible gender segregation restrictions in place, was quietly announced Sunday in a lengthy and technically worded statement by the Municipal and Rural Affairs Ministry.
While some restaurants and cafes in the coastal city of Jiddah and Riyadh's upscale hotels had already been allowing unrelated men and women to sit freely, the move codifies what has been a sensitive issue in the past among traditional Saudis who view gender segregation as a religious requirement. Despite that, neighboring Muslim countries do not have similar rules.
Restaurants and cafes in Saudi Arabia, including major Western chains like Starbucks, are currently segregated by "family" sections allocated ...

Saudi restaurants no longer need to segregate women and men

Indian team's frailties while batting first were thoroughly exposed by a disciplined West Indies, which kept the three-match T20 series alive with a comfortable eight-wicket victory in the second game here on Sunday.
A below-par score of 170 for 7 with only 38 runs in the final five overs was never going to be enough keeping the dew factor in mind and senior opener Lendl Simmons (67 no off 45 balls) along with Evin Lewis (40 off 35 balls) added 73 for the first wicket to seal the issue. West Indies reached the target with as many as nine balls to spare.
With another poor day on the field barring an exceptional sidways running catch from skipper Virat Kohli, the Indian bowlers were way of target, especially spinners Ravindra Jadeja (1/22 in 2 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (0/36 in 3 overs) were off the mark.
West Indies' dominance was evident by the half-dozen sixes that they hit apart from 11 boundaries compared to five maximums by the hosts, four of which were hit by rookie all-rounder 

2nd T20 Int'l: India below-par batting first as West Indies level series with 8-wkt win

West Indies beat India by eight wickets in the second T20 International to level the three-match series 1-1 here on Sunday.
Batting first, India scored 170 for 7 with Shivam Dube hitting 54 off 30 balls and Rishabh Pant contributing an unbeaten 33 off 22 as West Indies seamer Kesrick Williams and leg-spinner Hayden Walsh got two wickets apiece.
IN reply, Lendl Simmons scored an unbeaten 67 off 45 balls and Nicholas Pooran scored 38 off 18 balls to finish the chase in 18.3 overs.
Brief Scores: India 170/7 (Shivam Dube 54 off 30 balls, Roshabh Pant 33 no of 22 balls, Kesrick Williams 2/30, Hayden Walsh 2/28)
West Indies 173/2 in 18.

West Indies beat India by 8 wkts in 2nd T20 Intl

Rwanda on Sunday started a voluntary Ebola vaccination programme at its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in a bid to prevent the spread of the deadly virus from its neighbour.
All countries in high-risk areas, even if not hit by Ebola, had been advised by the WHO to use a new vaccine developed by US group Johnson & Johnson, the country's health minister, Diane Gashumba, told journalists.
The idea was "to protect those with high chances of getting in contact with people living in areas where Ebola has been reported to be active", she said.
The vaccine, Ad26-ZEBOV-GP, is an experimental drug produced by US pharmaceuticals giant, Johnson & Johnson. It was used for the first time in mid-
November in Goma in DR Congo, on the other side of the border.
So far, there have no confirmed cases of Ebola in Rwanda.
The epicentre of the outbreak in DR Congo, which has killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018, is located 350 kilometres (217 miles) north of Goma, in the ...

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