An American woman who claims she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew criticised the royal's "ridiculous excuses" in an interview to be broadcast Monday.
The interview was recorded before Andrew's own BBC interview, which prompted him to stand down from public duties because of a backlash at his defence of his friendship with Epstein.
But Virginia Giuffre called on the British public to support her as she dismissed claims initially made by the prince's backers that a photograph apparently showing him with his arm around her might not be genuine.
"The people on the inside are going to keep coming up with these ridiculous excuses like his arm was elongated or the photo was doctored," she told the BBC's Panorama programme.
"I'm calling BS (bullshit) on this. He knows what happened, I know what happened. And there's only one of us telling the truth," she said in clips released in advance.
Andrew himself doubted the authenticity of the photograph during his ...

Prince Andrew accuser slams 'ridiculous excuses'

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Swedish teen eco-warrior Greta Thunberg was nearing the Portuguese coast on Monday after crossing the Atlantic in a catamaran to attend a UN climate change summit in Madrid, her entourage said.
Thunberg, 16, has become the face of young peoples' demands for climate action and made a point of making the journey back from September's New York climate summit by sea rather than fuel-guzzling plane.
She had expected to be heading for Chile, but the South American nation passed the hosting of the COP25 summit meeting to Spain after suffering a spate of deadly anti-government protests.
Rather than besmirch her status as an environmental activist by taking a carbon emissions-heavy air trip, Thunberg instead set sail on the 14-metre (45-foot) La Vagabonde catamaran on November 13 from Hampton, Virginia to return to Europe.
Thunberg, British navigator Nikki Henderson and the Australian family who own the vessel were expected to arrive in Portugal's capital Lisbon at around 0800 GMT on Tuesday ..

Greta Thunberg nearing Spain in time for climate summit

Thousands of Hindu devotees gathered in southern Nepal on Monday ahead of a festival believed to be the world's biggest ritual animal slaughter, despite court orders and calls by animal activists to end the event.
The sacrifices, set to begin on Tuesday, take place every five years in Bariyarpur village close to the Indian border, in honour of the Hindu goddess of power.
An estimated 200,000 animals ranging from goats to rats were killed during the last two-day Gadhimai Festival in 2014 and this year's preparations were well underway by Monday night.
Buffaloes were corralled into holding pens as worshippers slept and cooked along the road to the temple.
Among them was Sabu Sahani, 25, who travelled with his family for a day from India's Bihar with a goat offering.
"I am happy to be here. The goddess listened to me. We did not have children, but my wife has now given birth to a daughter," Sahani told AFP.
Unlicensed traders and pilgrims who cross the border between India and Nepal are .

Nepal prepares for mass animal sacrifice despite outcry

Chile's economic activity fell 3.4 per cent in October, as a prolonged bout of social unrest battered commerce and services, the central bank reported Monday.
The sharp drop in the bank's monthly index of economic activity was far greater than the 1.0 per cent anticipated in official estimates, and was the worst performance since 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis.
"Economic activity during the month was affected by the drop in services, commerce and manufacturing," the bank said.
Protests erupted in Chile on October 18 over metro fare hikes and quickly escalated into the most severe outbreak of social unrest since the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1990.
Mining activity -- Chile accounts for nearly a third of the world's copper production -- grew by 2.0 per cent, but non-mining sectors contracted by 4.0 per cent, the bank said.
In the third quarter, Chile's gross domestic product was up 3.3 per cent. But the crisis has put in question official estimates .

Chile's economic activity down sharply amid crisis

Three people were swept to their deaths by floodwaters in the south of France and three emergency workers were killed when their helicopter crashed while seeking to rescue victims, officials said Monday.
Twelve people have now been killed in the last 10 days in southeastern France, which has been battered by two successive late autumn storms bringing torrential rain, heavy flooding and high winds.
The EC145 helicopter lost radio and radar contact while on a rescue and reconnaissance flight in the Var region on Sunday night.
The pilot, a technician and a rescue specialist from the fire brigade were found dead at 1:30 am (00:30 GMT) near the town of Rove, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said in a statement.
Investigators are trying to determine the circumstances of the crash. Fog might have caused bad visibility at the time.
President Emmanuel Macron said in a message on Twitter that the whole country supported the rescuers' families and colleagues.
The crash came as Macron ...

Six die, including rescuers, in France's flood-hit south

European and US stock markets swooned into the red Monday on downbeat US economic data and news of fresh US tariffs against Argentina and Brazil.
Asian markets had been cheered earlier in the day by a surprise jump in Chinese factory activity, but the party ended with a tweet by US President Donald Trump.
Trump tweeted that owing to unfair policies by Brazil and Argentina, he would reinstate tariffs on steel and aluminium from those countries.
"It doesn't take a genius to guess how investors reacted," said analyst Connor Campbell at Spreadex.
"Reversing their early gains, the eurozone indices all sank into the red, joined by an irritated Dow Jones," he noted.
Trade-related concern was also stoked by China's Global Times newspaper, which said Beijing wanted all US tariffs rolled back as part of a mini deal, a move observers said Washington is unlikely to agree to.
On Saturday, China said its manufacturing sector expanded in November for the first time in seven months, providing a boost 

Stock markets sour on US data, Trump's new tariffs

The killing of 158 wild boar in a single day's hunting in eastern France has sparked anger in the region and accusations of "carnage", even if the hunters were within their allowed quotas.
The boar were killed in a "battue" in which beaters drove the game towards the 82 hunters last Wednesday in the eastern Ardennes region.
Local officials said the hunters were within their rights as they had still not attained their quotas for the season of some 300 animals.
But a participant in the hunt described the scene in a report in the local Ardennais newspaper, denouncing the extent of the killings as a true "carnage" that had left him shaken.
And the president of the hunting federation for the Ardennes, Jean-Pol Gambier, said that "such an image for hunting cannot be supported, we cannot allow this kind of excess."
He told AFP that the "exceptional" number of individuals killed was "intolerable".
"I am overcome by this carnage, even if there is a need to regulate (numbers)," Claude Maireaux, 

Carnage? Anger in France after 158 boar killed in single hunt

US President Donald Trump on Monday slammed the Opposition Democratic Party for scheduling impeachment hearings against him when he is attending the NATO Summit in the United Kingdom.
Trump left the White House on Monday morning to attend the NATO Summit in Britain.
"This is one of the most important journeys that we make as President. And for them (Democrats) to be doing this and saying this and putting an impeachment on the table, which is a hoax to start off with," Trump told reporters on the South lawns of the White House before boarding Marine One aircraft.
"The Democrats, the radical-left Democrats, the do-nothing Democrats, decided when I'm going to NATO -- this was set up a year ago -- that when I'm going to NATO, that was the exact time," he said.
Accompanied by First Lady Melania, Trump said the impeachment proceedings were a disgrace for the country.
"The Ukrainian president came out and said very strongly that President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. That should be ...

Trump slams Democrats for scheduling impeachment hearing during NATO meeting

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that Iran was the uniting factor behind protests around the Middle East, saying demonstrators in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran itself opposed the clerical regime.
While acknowledging diverse local reasons for the unrest that has swept the Middle East as well as other regions, Pompeo pointed the finger at Iran, considered an arch-enemy by President Donald Trump's administration.
Iraqi premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned "because the people were demanding freedom and the security forces had killed dozens and dozens of people. That's due in large part to Iranian influence," Pompeo said.
"The same is true in Lebanon, the protests in Beirut," he said at the University of Louisville.
"They want Hezbollah and Iran out of their country, out of their system as a violent and a repressive force," he said.
He said that protests inside Iran -- which Amnesty International says have killed more than 200 people -- showed that Iranians were also "fed up."
"They .

Pompeo says Iran the common villain in Mideast protests

Pakistan on Monday categorically rejected a reference towards it in a Joint Statement issued by Japan and India in New Delhi last week, calling it "gratuitous and completely unwarranted".
In their inaugural foreign and defence ministerial dialogue, India and Japan on Saturday voiced serious concern over the threat posed to regional peace and security by terror networks operating from Pakistan and asked it to take "resolute and irreversible" action to contain terrorism.
"This reference is gratuitous and completely unwarranted," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal said in a statement.
Pakistan also conveyed to the Japanese side through diplomatic channels its "serious concerns and rejection of the unacceptable reference Joint Statement," the statement said.
"It is important that partner countries take an objective and balanced view of the issues of peace and security in South Asia and refrain from endorsing positions that are one-sided and divorced from ground ...

Pakistan rejects reference towards it in India-Japan Joint Statement

An Austrian court on Monday sentenced former Olympic judo champion Peter Seisenbacher to five years in jail after he was found guilty of sexually abusing two girls he coached from the late 1990s to the early 2000s.
He abused one of the two girls from the age of nine with the abuse lasting several years, according to the verdict. The second girl was 13 when the abuse started.
A third woman says Seisenbacher tried to sexually abuse her at a holiday camp when she was 16.
Passing down the sentence, judge Christoph Bauer said the three testifying against him seemed "extraordinarily credible".
"We didn't have the impression that the three lied, that they were mistaken, or that they colluded," Bauer said.
Seisenbacher, who was facing a maximum penalty of 10 years, had said that he was innocent of the charges at the start of the trial a week ago.
The verdict can be appealed from both sides.
Prosecutors in Vienna issued an international warrant for the now 59-year-old's arrest after he failed .

Austrian Olympic judo champion found guilty of child sex abuse

US President Donald Trump on Monday said his maiden trip to Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day was very successful.
"I loved going to Afghanistan. It was great -- as you know -- we had some good meetings with a lot of people including (Afghanistan President Ashraf) Ghani, you know that, right? And he was terrific. It was great meeting with him," Trump told reporters on the South Lawns of the White House.
"But my trip to Afghanistan was very successful," he said responding to a question on his unannounced trip to Afghanistan last week to meet US soldiers stationed in the war-torn country and thank them for their service.
During the unannounced visit on Thursday, Trump had a hastily-arranged bilateral meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
On Monday, Trump left the US for the United Kingdom to attend a NATO Summit. Afghanistan is likely to be one of the major issues of discussion at the summit.

Had a successful trip to Afghanistan: Trump

US President Donald Trump on Monday said he will reimpose punitive tariffs on import of steel and aluminum from Argentina and Brazil, accusing the two countries of devaluating their currencies.
"Brazil and Argentina have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies", which is not good for farmers," Trump said.
"Therefore, effective immediately, I will restore the Tariffs on all Steel & Aluminum that is shipped into the US from those countries."
He said the Federal Reserve Board should likewise act so that countries, of which there are many, no longer take advantage of America's strong dollar by further devaluing their currencies.
"This makes it very hard for our manufactures and farmers to fairly export their goods. Lower Rates & Loosen  Fed!," he tweeted.
Later, Trump defended his imposition of tariffs on import of steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina. "Well, Brazil has really discounted -- if you take a look at what's happened with their currency, ...

Trump restores aluminum and steel tariffs on Brazil and Argentina

A former Miss Ukraine stripped of her crown and barred from competing for Miss World because she is a mother has launched legal action against the contest, demanding a rule change.
"We demand a change of rules, @missworld", allowing all women to participate, 24-year-old Veronika Didusenko said on her Instagram on Monday after launching a campaign called #righttobeamother.
Didusenko was crowned Miss Ukraine in 2018, but was dethroned after the organisers found out that she has a five-year-old son and disqualified from going on to compete for the Miss World title.
"The reason I was not allowed to compete in Miss World after winning the title  #MissUkraine is because I had been married and have a child," she wrote on Instagram.
The rules of Miss World ban mothers and married women from taking part in the beauty pageant and oblige the contestants to sign a corresponding agreement.
Didusenko accused organisers of "discrimination" and said that global beauty pageants "seem to be stuck in ...

Ukrainian beauty queen barred for being mother sues Miss World

Union members on one of Britain's busiest railway networks walked out on Monday, on the first day of a planned 27-day strike that could affect hundreds of thousands of commuters.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) stopped work on lines run by South Western Railway, which operates lines in and around London, and to towns and cities in southwest England.
Passengers have been warned to face disruption in the run-up to Christmas, as only half of services will run, including to and from Britain's busiest railway station Waterloo.
The planned stoppage -- one of the longest in living memory -- was called after talks broke down between unions and bosses about the role of guards on trains.
South Western wants to hand responsibility for closing doors on trains from guards to drivers, but the RMT says that reduces the role of guards and comprises safety.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said the guard would become "little more than a passenger in the longer term" and put their jobs at risk ...

British rail union starts month-long strike

Eight children were among 11 civilians killed Monday in a Turkish artillery attack that hit near a school in a northern Syrian town in Aleppo province, a war monitor said.
The shelling on Tal Rifaat, controlled by local Kurdish fighters, took place as students were leaving the building and wounded 21 others, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Most of those killed in the attack were displaced from the Afrin region which was captured last year by Turkish troops and their Syrian proxies, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Tal Rifaat, a strategic town located 20 kilometres south of Turkey's frontier, is the site of regular confrontations between Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish fighters they view as "terrorists".
Turkey threatened to launch a cross-border offensive to capture Tal Rifaat last year after taking Afrin from the US-backed People's Protection Units (YPG) militia.
But Russia intervened to stop the planned offensive.
In October, it said it agreed ..

8 children among 11 killed in Turkish shelling on Syria: monitor

A World Trade Organization panel found on Monday that the EU had failed to remove illegal subsidies given to Airbus, which are at the centre of bitter dispute between Washington and Brussels.
Last month, a WTO arbitrator gave the United States the green light to slap tariffs on USD 7.5 billion worth of European Union imports, a landmark moment in the 15-year legal battle between Airbus and American planemaker Boeing.
The arbitrator's award, the largest in the organisation's history, was in retaliation for various subsidies and other support given to Airbus by the EU, which violated WTO rules.
An initial compliance panel had found that the EU was breaking the rules but last year Brussels asked for a second panel to weigh in, arguing that it had modified its behaviour.
The second panel, which issued its decision Tuesday, said the EU was still giving improper support to Airbus.
"The European Union and certain member States have failed to implement the recommendations and rulings of the ..

EU loses bid to overturn WTO Airbus ruling

Two Ukrainian security officers were killed in the country's war-torn east, Kiev said Monday, a week before a crucial summit aimed at ending more than five years of conflict.
Unidentified explosive devices detonated, killing the men, as a group of Russian-backed separatists tried to break through enemy lines, the Ukrainian armed forces said.  The army said the combatants died at the scene.
Ukraine's SBU security service identified the troops as its officers, who were fighting alongside Ukraine's military against the pro-Russian insurgency in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased.
"We will definitely achieve a ceasefire," Zelensky wrote on Facebook.
"This will be the end of children's tears, mothers' pain and loss of our brothers."
The casualties came as Zelensky plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin during a four-way summit in Paris next week that is aimed at ending the war with the separatists, who have ...

Two security officers killed in east Ukraine ahead of summit: army

Saudi Arabia is hosting a two-day media summit that began on Monday, just days after a crackdown on writers and bloggers and a year after journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder.
Riyadh, which appears to be intensifying a crackdown on free expression, is seeking to shore up its international reputation following criticism over its human rights record as it prepares to host the G20 summit next November.
The Saudi Media Forum is hosting more than 1,000 journalists from Arab and international media, in a first such conference focused on "opportunities and challenges" in the industry, organisers said.
The forum will also host a media award ceremony.
"We believe in the important role media plays today, as well as freedom and independence of the press," Mohammed al-Harthi, president of the forum, said in a statement.
This year Saudi Arabia slid to 172 out of 180 countries in an index ranking freedom of the media, prepared annually by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
De facto ruler Crown Prince .

Saudi media summit held a year after Khashoggi murder

At least 208 people are believed to have been killed during a crackdown on protests in Iran last month that followed a sharp fuel price hike, Amnesty International said Monday.
"The number of people believed to have been killed during demonstrations in Iran that broke out on 15 November has risen to at least 208, based on credible reports received by the organisation," said the London-based rights group, adding that the actual death toll was likely higher.
The new toll ups the number of deaths according to Amnesty by almost 50, with the organisation saying dozens were recorded in Shahriar city in Tehran province, "one of the cities with the highest death tolls".
Protests erupted on November 15 after the shock announcement of a fuel price hike of up to 200 per cent but were quickly quashed by authorities who also imposed a week-long near-total internet blackout.
Philip Luther, Amnesty's research and advocacy head for the Middle East, called the number of deaths "evidence that Iran's ...

Iran unrest killed 'at least 208': Amnesty International

Hot weather can cause a spike in the number of babies being born early, a phenomenon that may harm infant health and is likely to get worse as temperatures climb due to climate change, scientists said Monday.
Researchers in California said an average of 25,000 children were born up to two weeks early during warmer than average periods in the United States between 1969-1988 -- equivalent to 150,000 lost gestational days annually.
While it is not certain why mothers appear to go into labour early as the mercury climbs, the authors of the study published in Nature Research Journals said premature births was an issue to be taken seriously.
"It is very likely that being born earlier will affect child development and have lasting impacts into adulthood, but more research is needed to confirm this," Alan Barreca, from the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California-Los Angeles.
"Hot weather increases maternal levels of oxytocin, which is a key hormone that ...

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