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The latest twist comes in Yemen, where this week a USS warship launched Tomahawk cruise missiles into Yemen
According to a Pentagon spokesperson, the missiles targeted radar sites in Houthi-held territory, sites the US claims were being used to launch missiles toward a different American warship (the USS Mason) in two separate incidents earlier this week . The U.S. previously only provided logistical support and refueling to the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies, including supporters of Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on Thursday to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said. Those who threaten our forces should know that US commanders retain the right to defend their ships, and we will respond to this threat at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement. However, the Pentagon appeared to stress the defensive nature of the strikes, which were aimed at radar that enabled the launch of at least three missiles against the US Navy destroyer USS Mason since Sunday.
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The U.S. military launches Tomahawk cruise missiles from the USS Nitze against Houthi-controlled radar sites in Yemen following two incidents in which, according to U.S. military, missiles were fired on United States Navy vessels in the Red Sea.
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Image copyright AFP Image caption Boko Haram has shown some of those kidnapped on its propaganda videos
Twenty-one of the schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria, have been freed, the president's spokesman has confirmed. "A number of Boko Haram commanders" were released as part of the process in which the Islamist militant group released 21 Chibok schoolgirls this week, a source close to the negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government said. Dozens are still missing, and their whereabouts remain a mystery, but are believed to be somewhere in the forest. By (AFP/File)
Lagos (AFP) - Here is a snapshot of key events since the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram jihadists from the remote town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria more than two years ago.
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Negotiations between the Nigerian president's administration and Islamist militants free 21 of the 270 schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria (leaving 218 victims still unaccounted for).
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STOCKHOLM (AP) — Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, a stunning announcement that for the first time bestowed the prestigious award on a musician for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." The Swedish Academy cited Dylan for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Reporters and others gathered for the announcement at the academy’s headquarters in Stockholm’s Old Town reacted with a loud cheer as his name was read out. The Academy’s permanent secretary Sara Danius said Dylan’s songs were “poetry for the ears.”
The Nobel award is the latest accolade for a singer who has come a long way from his humble beginnings as Robert Allen Zimmerman, born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, who taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and piano. Dylan is the first American winner of the Nobel literature prize since Toni Morrison in 1993. This year, the prize carries with it a purse of approximately $900,000 and, as usual, inclusion on literature's most illustrious list — the pantheon of Nobel winners. The 2016 laureates will receive their awards—a gold medal and a diploma—at a formal ceremony in Stockholm as tradition dictates on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel.
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American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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"Following the shameful decision by UNESCO members to deny history and ignore thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, I have notified the Israel National Commission for UNESCO to suspend all professional activities with the international organization," Bennett said. A letter signed by Democratic and Republican lawmakers from the House of Representatives and Senate was sent earlier in the week to the executive board of UNESCO, the world body’s educational, scientific and cultural Organization, which is set to discuss the resolution on Thursday while meeting in Paris. T’ruah, the New York-based rabbinic human rights group, said the vote “represents an offensive and anti-Semitic attempt to erase thousands of years of Jewish history.”
While the UNESCO resolution affirms “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions,” it refers to the Temple Mount several times only as Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, the Islamic term for the Temple Mount, without mentioning its Jewish names in Hebrew or English. Israel’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, Carmel Shama Hacohen, said of the vote, according to Ynet: “Israel and the Jewish people don’t require UNESCO’s or any other country’s confirmation of the special connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel and Jerusalem in general and the holy sites therein like the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in particular. “When these divisions carry over into UNESCO, an organization dedicated to dialogue and peace, they prevent us from carrying out our mission.”
Bennett in his statement said of the UNESCO countries, “Your decision denies history and encourages terror. “Those who give prizes to the supporters of Jihad in Jerusalem the same week that two Jews are murdered in the city could god forbid encourage more victims.”
The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia voted against the resolution as 26 additional countries abstained, in what Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO called an improvement to previous UNESCO votes that were supported by Western countries although they contained similar language on Jerusalem. One of the world's most important religious sites and Judaism’s holiest site, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and Western Wall, was called an exclusively Muslim shrine Thursday in a United Nations draft resolution that denies Jewish connection to the site. The Palestinian Authority initiated the UNESCO campaign to reclassify the Temple Mount in 2015 and garnered support from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Sudan. While it affirms “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions,” it contains two references to Judaism: One in describing holy sites in Hebron and the other in decrying “the enforced creation of a new Jewish prayer platform south of the Mughrabi Ascent in Al-Buraq Plaza.”
The so-called al-Buraq Plaza is better known as the Western Wall Plaza – possibly Judaism’s holiest site.
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UNESCO declares the Western Wall an "Islamic site" and refrains from mentioning its connection to Jewish culture. Over half the voting countries chose to abstain.
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“In the absence of congressional action, however, it is Treasury’s responsibility to use our authority to protect the tax base.”
Business lobbyists said the rules would likely be challenged in court. Treasury also imposed a temporary rule in April to prevent foreign companies from engaging in serial inversions.
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The Obama administration's Treasury Department, in a move against corporate tax inversions, enacts regulations to combat a key tax-reduction technique known as earnings stripping.
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The storm was heading north west at about 11km/h in the Atlantic, and was expected on or near the British island territory within the next 24 hours.“Hurricane conditions are expected to begin on Bermuda on Thursday morning [today]. By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 2:03 PM GMT on October 13, 2016 From Weather Undeground
Category 3 Hurricane Nicole is pounding Bermuda after putting on an impressive round of rapid intensification that saw the hurricane top out as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds early Thursday morning. Nicole was located 295 miles south-southwest of Bermuda and moving north at 7 mph, but it is expected to accelerate toward the north and northeast tonight and Thursday, bringing it over or very near the island around midday. Nicole attained its Category 4 strength at 30.1°N, making it the latest Atlantic storm in the season to exhibit Category 4 strength that far north since Hazel (1954), which was a Cat 4 at 30.2°N.
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Hurricane Nicole impacts Bermuda at Category 3 strength, making it the strongest hurricane to effect the British Overseas Territory since Hurricane Fabian in 2003.
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TARBORO, N.C. (Reuters) - Floodwaters inundated the historic black town of Princeville, North Carolina, on Thursday, leaving homes submerged to their roof lines as the state’s death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew climbed to 22. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Flooding from the Tar River had been expected in Princeville, which was founded in 1885 and believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, and most of its 2,000 residents evacuated. Governor Pat McCrory warned of "extremely dangerous" conditions in the coming days in central and eastern North Carolina, where several rivers were at record or near-record levels. The Neuse River crested in Goldsboro on Tuesday night at a record 29 feet, while the Tar River is expected to rise to 35 feet in Tarboro on Wednesday afternoon and 25 feet in Greenville on Wednesday night. Pat McCrory said at a news conference Saturday that the victims were found in Cumberland County and Wayne County after flood waters from last weekend’s rains receded. Spencer Rogers, a coastal construction and erosion specialist with North Carolina State University’s Sea Grant program, said the flooding is driven by the dynamics of the state’s river systems as they run through the coastal plain. “And also, steps need to be taken where this won’t happen again in the future.”
McCrory said the flooding may be worse than what’s occurring to the south in Lumberton. That figure represents more than half of the deaths in the U.S. Southeast linked to the fierce Atlantic storm, which killed some 1,000 people in Haiti and displaced hundreds of thousands more as it tore through the Caribbean last week. Floodwaters have swamped areas across the central and eastern part of the state, forcing more than 3,800 residents to flee to shelters, closing down stretches of major interstate highways and shuttering 34 school systems, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said.
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The death toll in North Carolina rises to 22 as flood waters continue to rise. Governor Pat McCrory says places that had a foot of water in the morning, were under 12 feet of water.
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Former Alberta premier Jim Prentice among four people killed in plane crash near Kelowna
A plane carrying four people, including former Alberta premier Jim Prentice, crashed into a heavily wooded area near Kelowna on Thursday night (Oct. 13), killing everyone on board. Read more: Mirrors and miscalculations: Five Alberta election moments to remember
Transportation Safety Board spokesman Bill Yearwood told the Canadian Press that the aircraft with four people on board went down at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday after taking off from Kelowna on a flight to Springbank airport, outside Calgary. Prentice was Progressive Conservative premier of Alberta in 2014-15 and resigned immediately after losing the election to NDP leader Rachel Notley, who achieved a majority win after 44 years of Conservative rule. He served as MP for Calgary Centre-North from 2004 to 2010, with stints as industry minister, environment minister and minister of Indian affairs and northern development in Stephen Harper's cabinet. The Cessna Citation aircraft left Kelowna airport bound for the Calgary area, but crashed shortly after takeoff, approximately four kilometres north of Beaver Lake Road, east of Lake Country, stated RCMP spokesperson Cpl.
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A plane crash near Kelowna, BC, kills Canadian politician and former Premier of Alberta Jim Prentice along with three others.
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“The CMAG and the Commonwealth Secretariat seem to be convinced that the Maldives, because of the high and favourable reputation that the country enjoys internationally, and also perhaps because it is a small state that lacks material power, would be an easy object that can be used, especially in the name of democracy promotion, to increase the organisation’s own relevance and leverage in international politics,” the statement said. The Commonwealth had warned the Maldives last month of suspension if it failed to show progress in six areas, including freedom for detained political leaders, freedom of speech and assembly, strengthened separation of powers, and independence of the judiciary.
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The Maldives leaves the Commonwealth of Nations after 34 years, claiming that it has been "unfairly and unjustly" treated by the intergovernmental organization.
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UN secretary general-designate, Antonio Guterres (right), listens during a meeting of the UN General Assembly concerning his appointment, on Thursday (AP photo)
UNITED NATIONS, United States — The UN General Assembly on Thursday appointed Antonio Guterres as the new secretary general of the United Nations, in a shift towards a more high-profile leadership of the world body.
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The United Nations General Assembly officially appoints former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres its next Secretary-General.
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The pro-independence Sturgeon had said Thursday that her government would shortly publish a bill laying the groundwork for a new independence referendum — the first step toward a new vote on whether Scotland should leave the U.K.
An earlier referendum in 2014 ended with Scottish voters opting to remain part of the United Kingdom. “If the majority in the House of Commons stand up for what they know to be right, she will not get away with doing it.”
Speaking at the SECC in Glasgow, the SNP leader will step up attacks on eurosceptic Tories at a conference that is set to attract 3,000 delegates and see her plans for a second independence referendum come under the spotlight. To applause, Sturgeon told the prime minister: “Hear this: if you think for one single second that I’m not serious about doing what it takes to protect Scotland’s interests, then think again.”
Sturgeon then won a standing ovation when she announced that the draft Scottish independence referendum bill would be published next week – earlier than her officials had previously signalled. We’ll put forward proposals that respect the view that Scotland expressed in the referendum but if all that fails then I think Scotland does have the right to ask itself again does it want to stay part of the UK coming out of the EU or does it want to choose a different and in my view a better path because the UK we voted to stay part of in 2014 is not the UK we now face the prospect of.”
Sturgeon said that, regardless of polling that indicates that a convincing majority in favour of independence has yet to be reached, even after the vote to leave the EU, “I’ve got a duty to tell people straight what I think needs to be done to protect our interests.”.
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Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon will introduce a bill launching a new referendum to determine the final status of the country.
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Thais came to see the king as a father figure wholly dedicated to their welfare, and as the embodiment of stability in a country where political leadership rose and fell through decades of military coups. Bangkok: Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, has died after a long illness, plunging his south-east Asian country of 64 million people into a period of intense mourning and uncertainty. The king had been in hospital since October 3, the Royal Palace said, adding that a team of royal physicians had tried their best and provided the closest care, but that his health continued to decline gradually. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha addressed the nation shortly after the announcement of the king's death to say an heir to the throne had been designated since 1972 and that the government would inform parliament of the choice.Prayuth did not identify the heir but King Bhumibol designated Prince Vajiralongkorn, 64, the heir apparent when he invested him as the crown prince in 1972. He said the government will notify the National Legislative Assembly, or parliament, of the king's successor, and it will act accordingly with the laws of succession in the constitution. He has kept a lower profile than King Bhumibol for most of his life but in the past two years he took on more of the public duties the king was no longer able to perform. By virtue of his success, the late monarch has left behind a modern country that now has to come to terms with his passing. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his father was studying, King Bhumibol, whose name means "Strength of the Land, Incomparable Power", was educated in Switzerland before returning to Thailand to be crowned on May 5, 1950, with a promise to the nation: "We shall reign with righteousness, for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese [Thai] people." Bhumibol ascended to the throne in 1946, when his brother, 20-year-old King Ananda Mahidol, was found dead of a gunshot wound in the head in a palace bedroom under circumstances that remain mysterious. Bhumibol, left, is pictured in 1935 with his older brother, the former King Ananda Mahidol, in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the boys attended school. "They say that a kingdom is like a pyramid: the king on top and the people below," he once told an Associated Press reporter. The King put the monarchy at the center of Thai society, acting as a force for community and tradition even as the country flipped between political crises and military coups.
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The King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej dies at the age of 88. He was the world's longest currently serving monarch.
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Santos — who has staked his legacy on making peace — had previously said that the army would halt its ceasefire at the end of this month if no solution to the impasse was found by then. Santos said he made the decision to extend the ceasefire after a student at one of the meetings told him that “in the army and among the guerrillas there are young people who are aware of what is happening, who hope not to have to return to shooting.”
In his address Santos urged Colombians to “achieve forever an end to the violence, the return of the displaced to their homes.”
The Colombian leader won the Nobel Peace Prize just a few days after voters shot down the historic accord in a referendum that would have ended more than 52 years of conflict. “For that reason, and at the request of the students, I have taken the decision to extend the ceasefire until Dec. 31.”
The ceasefire can be extended further, but Santos said he hopes a new deal is approved long before then. My objection to who won the prize isn’t that the deal was too lenient to the FARC (for the record, I am a Colombian citizen who favoured the peace agreement) or that it was ironical (after all, nearly a century of Nobel peace prizes haven’t ended war, so past laureate’s effort’s efficacy are open to doubt), but to the fact that only President Santos won the prize. Led by hardline opposition senator and former President Alvaro Uribe, the "No" side wants leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to lose their freedom for at least five years and be banned from elected office. Uribe opposed FARC leaders receiving non-traditional sentences like clearing landmines, and instead insisted that those found guilty of war crimes should be confined for between five and eight years, even if they are held on farms. Although the FARC has said it is willing to hear new ideas, Uribe's proposals may be difficult for its leadership to accept, given they have repeatedly refused to consider jail time and want to form a political party.
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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos extends his ceasefire with the FARC rebels through the end of the year.
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ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Islamist militants killed 12 members of Egypt’s military in North Sinai province and wounded six more in an attack on a checkpoint on Friday, the military said, adding that it killed 15 militants in return. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the incident, which took place 40 km (25 miles) from the town of Bir al-Abd, making it the first major attack in the central Sinai area, which had so far escaped the militant Islamists’ campaign. Story highlights Assailants attacked the checkpoint using four-wheel drive vehicles
Egyptian military officials are sweeping the area for remains of the militant group
(CNN) An attack by "armed terrorists" on a security checkpoint in the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula on Friday has left a dozen military personnel dead, according to Egypt's military.
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A suspected ISIL attack on a security checkpoint in North Sinai Governorate, Egypt, leaves at least 12 Egyptian military personnel and 15 terrorists dead.
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Image copyright GoFundMe Image caption The condition occurs once in about 10 million births
Twin boys who were conjoined at the tops of their heads have been separated by a team of surgeons in New York. Thirteen-month-old Jadon and Anias McDonald underwent 16 hours of surgery, and are now undergoing additional procedures to rebuild their skulls. On Friday morning, the boys' mother Nicole McDonald wrote on Facebook that she is excited but "aches with the uncertainty of the future". She also posted a photo of Jadon alone in his own hospital bed. "I actually asked why they rearranged the room because I hadn't really internalised the idea that there would be two beds in here," Mrs McDonald wrote with the photo, also wishing her son a "happy rebirth day". Image copyright Facebook Image caption Doctors say the boys will need to be fed with tubes for another week
In an earlier post, Nicole wrote: "It's a bit surreal to sit here and type this... I should feel so happy... TWO SEPARATE BABIES!! !...and yet I ache with the uncertainty of the future." The boys were born with shared blood vessels and brain tissues, a very rare condition that occurs once in about 10 million births, doctors say. Dr James Goodrich, who has performed similar operations for other children including two Syrian twins earlier this year, prepared for the operation by creating 3D models of the attached heads. CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who witnessed the surgery, says that 80% of similar twins die if they have not been separated before the age of two. The McDonald family moved house with their two-year-old son and twin boys from Chicago to New York to be closer to Montefiore hospital. The family has raised more than $100,000 for the costs of surgery.
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Surgeons separate craniopagus conjoined twin boys in New York City.
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At an extradition hearing at Westminster magistrates court in March, the district judge, Quentin Purdy, ruled that Sarao could be sent to stand trial in the US. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Navinder Sarao, 37, who traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from his parents’ home near Heathrow airport, is wanted by the U.S. authorities on 22 criminal counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud and market manipulation. His actions, they allege, contributed to market instability which led to the May 6, 2010 flash crash when the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly plunged more than 1,000 points, temporarily wiping out nearly $1 trillion in market value. Revising allegations concerning links to the flash crash, counsel for the US said: “This case is connected to the flash crash in that he was trading on the day in question.” It is accepted, however, that he had ceased trading minutes before the crash. He faces 22 charges, which carry sentences totalling a maximum of 380 years, over claims that he contributed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging 600 points in five minutes, wiping tens of billions of pounds off the value of US shares.
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A London-based trader who traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Navinder Singh Sarao, accused of contributing to the 2010 Wall Street "flash crash" by placing bogus orders to spoof the market, fails in his legal bid to stop extradition and will now be sent to the United States to face trial where he is wanted by U.S. authorities on 22 criminal counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, and market manipulation. A judge initially approved his extradition in March, and today his bid to launch an appeal against that decision was rejected, ending his 18-month legal fight. He will now be extradited within 28 days.
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Image copyright Wales News Service Image caption Ched Evans leaves Cardiff Crown Court with his fiancee Natasha Massey
His legal team argued the case was "built around the myth" the complainant had been too drunk to agree to sex. The woman told the jury she woke up naked in a hotel room in Rhyl, north Wales, in May 2011 with no memory of what had happened but fearing she had been attacked after her drinks were spiked. Live: Ched Evans found NOT GUILTY of rape at Cardiff Crown Court
The 27-year-old was originally found guilty following a trial four years ago, but the conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal and a retrial ordered. • Ched Evans rape trial live: Footballer found NOT GUILTY after five-year battle to clear name
The 'heavily intoxicated' teenager had sex with Evans' former teammate Clayton McDonald in the hotel after a night out in the town. Ed Beltrami, chief crown prosecutor, said: "The prosecution argued that the complainant did not have the capacity to consent, but the jury found they could not be sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that the complainant did not consent, or that Evans thought she was not consenting." Evans spent two and a half years in prison for rape but his original conviction was quashed by the appeal court following a high-profile and well-funded campaign by family and friends that included the offer of a £50,000 reward for information leading to his acquittal.
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A retrial court finds Welsh footballer Ched Evans not guilty. He had previously been sentenced to five years imprisonment for rape in 2012.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), in another step to move past its costly diesel emissions cheating scandal, has agreed to pay $175 million to U.S. lawyers suing the German automaker on behalf of the owners of 475,000 polluting vehicles, two people briefed on the agreement said on Friday. A VW sign is seen outside a Volkswagen dealership in London, Britain, November 5, 2015. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett/File photo
In August, the lawyers in the class action litigation sought up to $332.5 million in fees and costs for their work in a $10 billion settlement that gives U.S. owners of 2.0 liter polluting cars the ability to sell back their vehicles to Volkswagen (VW). The latest deal with the lawyers means VW now has agreed to spend up to $16.7 billion to compensate U.S. owners and address claims from states, federal regulators and dealers arising from the “Dieselgate” scandal. The amount to be paid out to lawyers was first reported by Reuters on Friday. The resolution of legal fees clears another hurdle as the world’s No. 2 automaker looks to resolve all of the outstanding aspects of a scandal that disrupted its global business, hurt its reputation and led to the ouster of its chief executive officer last year. VW in September 2015 admitted using sophisticated secret software in its cars to cheat exhaust emissions tests, with millions of vehicles worldwide affected. The cheating allowed VW’s U.S. vehicles sold since 2009 to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution levels. The $175 million includes attorneys’ fees and other costs, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Lawyers for the owners of polluting vehicles and a spokeswoman for Volkswagen declined to comment. Lead plaintiff lawyer Elizabeth Cabraser, who is part of a committee of 22 lawyers overseeing the owner suits, said in August the amount sought in attorneys fees was far less than the “judicially established benchmark” for class actions of approximately 25 percent of the settlement amount. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Tuesday is set to hold a hearing in San Francisco on whether to grant final approval of the vehicle owners’ settlement announced in June, which would be the largest-ever automotive buy-back offer in the United States. Breyer must also decide whether to approve the legal fee agreement. VW has agreed to spend up to $10.033 billion to buy back the vehicles and compensate owners. It may also offer vehicle fixes if regulators approve. Under a timetable announced this summer, regulators could approve a fix for some 2015 VW diesel vehicles as early as next month. In addition, VW has agreed to pay up to $1.21 billion to compensate U.S. VW brand dealers, pay more than $600 million to 44 U.S. states, spend $2 billion on zero-emission vehicle promotion and infrastructure, and another $2.7 billion to offset diesel pollution. It still faces billions of dollars in potential fines from the U.S. Justice Department in its criminal probe into VW’s cheating scandal, and must resolve the fate of larger vehicles that were not part of the initial $10 billion settlement. VW and U.S. regulators are in continuing discussions over whether the automaker should agree to buy back 85,000 larger 3.0-liter Porsche, Audi and VW vehicles that also exceeded U.S. emission standards, and whether it should offer additional compensation to those owners. VW may have to pay additional owner attorneys’ fees as part of a separate potential 3.0-liter settlement, the sources said.
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Volkswagen agrees to pay $175 million to United States lawyers suing the German automaker on behalf of the owners of 475,000 polluting vehicles.
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Large crowds dressed in black gathered outside the Grand Palace in downtown Bangkok for the ceremonial bathing of the portrait of Thailand’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej,
The king, who died on Thursday, was a unifying figure in a country riven by political turmoil. Bhumibol ascended to the throne in 1946, when his brother, 20-year-old King Ananda Mahidol, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in a palace bedroom under circumstances that remain mysterious. Bhumibol's only son, Maha Vajiralongkorn, was officially appointed crown prince and heir apparent on December 28, 1972, at the age of 20. Junta leader and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said he held an audience with the 64-year-old heir apparent, and said the crown prince had asked him to hold back his accession to the throne “until the proper time” to allow him time to grieve.
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Thailand declares today a government holiday for mourning King Bhumibol Adulyadej's death.
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News Late Thai King’s Confidant Confirmed as Temporary Regent
Mourners enter the Grand Palace to pay their respects to the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej in Bangkok, Oct. 17. / Chaiwat Subprasom / Reuters
BANGKOK, Thailand — A 96-year-old confidant of late King Bhumibol Adulyadej has been formally confirmed as the regent to manage the throne in the place of the crown prince and heir apparent, but it wasn’t clear how long the caretaker arrangement would last. In a speech late Saturday, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said that Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn invited him and regent Prem Tinsulanonda for an audience to discuss the situation “as his royal highness was deeply concerned for the Thai people during this time of national bereavement.”
Prem heads the Privy Council, a body of advisers to the monarchy, and was the closest adviser of Bhumibol. He is also known to be close to Bhumibol’s highly popular daughter Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Vajiralongkorn, who should have ascended the throne, has asked for more time to grieve along with the nation before taking over the monarchy. The constitution dictates that the Privy Council head be the regent in such a situation. “His Highness’s only wish is to not let the people experience confusion or worry about the service of the land or even the ascension to the throne because this issue has the constitution, the royal laws and royal traditions to dictate it,” Prayuth said in his message broadcast on television. The 64-year-old crown prince implores everyone to help each other get through the grief first before thinking of his ascension to the throne, Prayuth said. “Once merit-making and the cremation has passed …then it should be the right time to proceed. This procedure should not impact the work plan or any steps,” he said. No date has been set for the cremation, which in royal families is usually months if not years later. Officials have suggested it would be at least a year. Buddhist funeral ceremonies have already begun at the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok’s historic center where Bhumibol’s body is kept in an ornate hall for the royal family members to pay respects. The hall will be opened to the public on Oct. 28. Analysts say the question of succession is important because the late king had been the unifying glue that had held Thailand’s often fractious politics together, and diffused tensions during crises when the dominant military was pitted against the civil society. While the institution of monarchy is generally revered and respected in Thailand, it is more so because of Bhumibol’s popularity that no other royal member commands. “His death means that the Thai political system must find an alternative focal point around which to unite the country’s factionalized population,” said Tom Pepinsky, a Southeast Asia expert at Cornell University. For ordinary Thais, succession was not particularly top on their minds for now as they were consumed by grief at the loss of a man many saw as their father and a demigod. Tens of thousands of people are thronging at the palace complex to pay their last respects to a beloved monarch who dominated the memories of generations of Thais. Authorities have allowed people to enter the complex for a limited time, and only to sign condolence books in another hall. The king of Bhutan is also expected to visit later Sunday. Bhumibol’s death after 70 years on the throne was a momentous event in Thailand, where the monarch has been glorified as an anchor for a fractious society that for decades has been turned on its head by frequent coups. Over the past 10 years, Thailand has suffered particularly intense political turmoil pitting arch-royalists against those seeking a redistribution of economic and political power, allied with Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup. But in recent years, Bhumibol had suffered from a variety of illnesses and seemed far removed from the upheavals of Thai politics, including the 2014 coup that brought current prime minister, an army general, to power. A one-year mourning period for the government has been declared together with a 30-day moratorium on state and official events. But no substantial demands have been made of the private sector. The government has only urged people to refrain from organizing entertainment events for a month, apparently mindful of the need to ensure that the sputtering economy, which relies heavily on tourism, does not suffer too much.
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Per Section 24 of the Constitution, Thailand formally confirms as the Regent pro tempore Prem Tinsulanonda, the President of the Privy Council and the former confidant of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
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More than a half-century after President John Kennedy made Cuban cigars and rum contraband, President Barack Obama announced Friday morning he will lift restrictions on the treasured vices, allowing American tourists to bring home all the Cuban rum and cigars they wish.The executive action, which goes into effect Monday, Oct. 17, allows Americans to purchase unlimited quantities of Cuban rum and cigars in any country where they are sold as long as they are for personal consumption. “The new rules also expand the opportunities for Cubans to receive grants and scholarships to study in the United States, streamline some previous trade authorizations and allow U.S. nationals to provide services to Cuba or Cuban nationals related to developing, repairing, maintaining and enhancing Cuban infrastructure in order to directly benefit the Cuban people,” noted the Miami Herald. The previous limit restricted travelers to a combined value of $100 in rum and cigars, although enforcement of the limit notably declined after President Barack Obama declared detente with Cuba in December 2014. Cuban rum and cigars will now be subject to the same duties as alcohol and tobacco from other countries, meaning most travelers will be able to bring back as many as 100 cigars and several bottles of rum. To boost U.S.-Cuba trade, Washington was also lifting a prohibition on foreign ships from entering a U.S. port to load or unload cargo for 180 days after calling on a Cuban port, according to a joint statement from U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments. “Today, I approved a Presidential Policy Directive that takes another major step forward in our efforts to normalize relations with Cuba,” Obama said in a statement, adding that his goal was to “make our opening to Cuba irreversible.”
A senior U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said the administration wants to lock in benefits from the new Cuba policy for U.S. citizens and companies and make it impossible for any future president to “turn back the clock.”
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton backs the policy of rapprochement with Havana. John Kavulich, president of the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said businesses were hoping to see a variety of other changes, including an expansion of exports to Cuba and the ability of Cubans to establish bank accounts in the U.S.
“Boardrooms and offices across the country are gratified that President Obama has made meaningful changes to regulations governing commerce and travel with Cuba,” he said. He added, however, that “challenges remain - and very real differences between our governments persist on issues of democracy and human rights.”
The previous package of measures, unveiled in March, made it far easier for Americans to visit Cuba and for the island’s Communist government to conduct long-restricted international trade.
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President Barack Obama issues an executive order on Cuba lifting monetary limits on the amount of Cuban products, including cigars and rum, which Americans can bring back for personal use, allowing Cubans and Americans to engage in joint medical research, and allowing Cubans to buy certain U.S. consumer goods online.
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Around 55 people were killed in Iraq in attacks on Saturday that targeted a Shi’ite Muslim gathering, a police check-point and the family of a Sunni paramilitary leader opposed to Islamic State, according to security and medical sources. The escalation comes as Iraqi forces are getting ready to launch an offensive to take back Mosul, the last Iraqi city still under control of Islamic State, in northern Iraq. The heaviest toll was caused by a suicide bomber who detonated an explosive vest in the middle of a Shi’ite gathering in Baghdad, killing at least 41 people and wounding 33. The explosion went off inside a tent filled with people taking part in Shi’ite Ashura rituals, which mourn the killing of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein in the 7th century. Islamic State claimed the attack in an online statement. Some people were also in the tent to mourn the death of a local resident, authorities said. The tent was set up in a crowded market in the city’s northern al-Shaab district. Gunmen believed to belong to Islamic State, a Sunni group, earlier in the day staged two attacks north of Baghdad, one targeting a police check-point and the other the house of a Sunni militia chief who supports the government, police sources said. Eight policemen were killed and 11 others wounded in the first attack which took place Mutaibija, south of the city of the city of Tikrit, while the militants had three dead in their ranks. In the second, the wife and three children of Numan al-Mujamaie, the leader of the Ishaqi Mobilization militia, were killed when gunmen stormed his house in the town of Ishaq in his absence. Slideshow (9 Images)
The assailants fled, chased by security forces, and later killed themselves by detonating explosive belts, police said. Islamic State has intensified bomb attacks in government-held areas this year as it loses territory to U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias. The group claimed a truck bombing in July that killed at least 324 people in the Karrada shopping area of Baghdad - the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
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Attacks targeting a Shi'ite Muslim gathering, a police check-point, and the family of an anti-Islamic State Sunni paramilitary leader, kill at least 55 people in Iraq.
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ISIL claims responsibility as a response to take back launching of its stronghold Mosul by the Iraqi forces.
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Russian border patrol was forced to open fire during inspection of a fishing vessel with North Korean crew onboard. The crew resisted search, behaved aggressively, and tried to flee with the members of the Russian security forces on board, according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). One Russian border patrol officer and nine North Korean fishermen were injured in the stand-off. One of the injured fishermen later died in the hospital. The incident happened on Friday evening at 22:20 Moscow time (19:20 GMT) in Russia’s exclusive economic zone in the country’s Far East, according to the FSB statement, released online on Saturday. The term "exclusive economic zone" describes an area of coastal water in a certain distance from the country’s shore, where the respective state has exclusive rights for fishing and other economic activities. Read more
“During the search and control activities, [Russian border guards] found illegally-obtained water bio resources on board the vessel. The ship’s crew behaved aggressively towards members of the search group, refusing to comply with legal requirements,” the FSB said in a statement. The vessel had 48 North Korean crew members on board. After a search group was dispatched to the vessel, the ship attempted to leave Russia’s exclusive economic zone towards North Korea, FSB announced. The Russian border guard vessel fired several “warning shots to stop” the North Korean ship, yet the vessel still continued its maneuver. The crew of the North Korean vessel also tried to attack the FSB members already on board their vessel. As a result “one of the members of the search team sustained a head injury.”
In the immediate aftermath Russian FSB agents fired shots at the North Korean crew to prevent them from “obtaining weapons” from the border guards and further “harming them.”
“Nine crew members of the intruder-ship were injured, one of them later died,” the FSB stated. After treating the injured, the North Korean crew was taken to the Russian border guard ships. The FSB also noted that the injured North Koreans from the vessel will be taken to different Russian ports in the region. The FSB has already “informed the Consulate General of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the [Russian] city of Vladivostok on the use of weapons and the measures undertaken.”
Later, the FSB announced that the captured vessel would arrive in the Primorsky Territory, for an investigation. "On board of the ship there is a doctor, who is delivering medical care [to any remaining injured fishermen],” an FSB spokesperson told RIA Novosti.
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Russian border patrol officers open fire on a North Korean fishing vessel, leaving one fisherman dead, and eight others injured.
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CAIRO (AP) — An investigation team with the Saudi-led coalition said on Saturday that wrong information led to the lethal bombing of a packed funeral in the Yemeni capital Sanaa last weekend, which killed around 140 people and wounded more than 600. The inquiry team concluded that “a party affiliated to the Yemeni presidency of the General Chief of Staff wrongly passed information that there was a gathering of armed Huthi leaders in a known location in Sanaa, and insisted that the location be targeted immediately as a legitimate military target. “The Air Operations Centre in Yemen directed a close air support mission to target the location without obtaining approval from the coalition command to support legitimacy and without following the coalition command’s precautionary measures to ensure that the location is not a civilian one that may not be targeted.” “Appropriate action... must be taken against those who caused the incident, and... compensation must be offered to the families of the victims.” The strike was one of the deadliest in the coalition's nearly 19-month-old bombing campaign in support of Yemen’s beleaguered government. “JIAT has found that because of non-compliance with Coalition rules of engagement (ROEs) and procedures, and the issuing of incorrect information a Coalition aircraft wrongly targeted the location, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries,” it said.
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Saudi Arabia accepts the finding of the Joint Incidents Assessment Team, a setup of coalition states to investigate complaints against coalitions conduct in Decisive Storm, that the October 8 coalition’s bombardment at a funeral ceremony in Sana'a, in which over 140 people were killed and more than 600 injured, was based on wrong information.
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Image copyright Reuters Image caption The advance comes after Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces captured the border town of Jarablus at the end of August
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels are advancing on Dabiq, a symbolic stronghold of so-called Islamic State. The small northern town holds great value for IS because of a prophecy of an apocalyptic battle, and features heavily in its propaganda. The advance on Dabiq is part of a wider offensive launched by an alliance of Syrian rebel groups, supported by Turkish forces, in late August. The group named its online magazine after it, but has downplayed its significance recently, saying this battle is not the epic that was prophesied. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to "keep cleaning" Aleppo of rebels and told a Russian newspaper that winning in the city would be a "springboard" to winning in the rest of the country. Last month a ceasefire collapsed after just a few days and since then Syrian forces, backed by Russia, have been bombing the city of Aleppo, which has become the epicentre of the conflict. 'Different approaches'
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met delegates from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Qatar in Lausanne to discuss ways to broker a new ceasefire. Both envoys spoke of "ideas" emerging, and Mr Kerry said it might be possible to shape "some different approaches" from the meeting.
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Turkish-backed rebels advance on the symbolic ISIL-controlled town of Dabiq, in northern Syria. ISIL believes Dabiq is the location where an apocalyptic battle will take place shortly before the end of the world.
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In this March 12, 2011 file photo, US destroyer USS Mason sails in the Suez canal in Ismailia, Egypt (AP photo)
WASHINGTON — Multiple missiles were fired on Saturday at three US warships in the Red Sea, though none was hit and there were no casualties, the US military said, amid rising tensions with Yemen's Houthi rebels. The latest attack could provoke further retaliation by the U.S. military, which launched cruise missiles on Thursday against three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen in response to the two previous failed missile firings against the Mason. “A US Strike Group transiting international waters in the Red Sea detected possible inbound missile threats and deployed appropriate defensive measures,” a US defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. But the US strikes earlier this week did not take out Houthi missiles and, though the radar destruction makes it harder to aim the weapons, officials have warned rebels could still use spotter boats or online ship-tracking websites to find new targets. The war has been largely overshadowed by the conflict against the Islamic State militant group elsewhere in the Middle East, though rights groups have increasingly criticized the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in recent months, as well as the United States as the coalition's primary weapons supplier.
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The United States Navy's USS Mason is fired on for the third time in a week from territory controlled by Houthi forces in Yemen, while in international waters of the Red Sea. The ship deployed countermeasures and was not struck, according to U.S. officials.
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Image copyright AP Image caption Asian elephants Guida and Maia arrived at the sanctuary earlier this week
The first elephant sanctuary in Latin America has opened in Brazil to provide a home for an estimated 50 circus animals from across the region. Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, was founded by the US-based non-profit organization Global Sanctuary for Elephants, and it already has its first two residents. Maia and Guida spent the past 40 years with a circus in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
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A wildlife sanctuary for rescued elephants opens in Brazil.
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The move, announced Thursday, will allow readers on Google news applications and websites to click on links to check facts where claims have been evaluated by fact-check organizations. “We’re excited to see the growth of the fact-check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divine fact from fiction, wisdom from spin,” Google news chief Richard Gingras said in a blog post. Google News “determines whether an article might contain fact checks” using an algorithm that evaluates claims and by seeking websites “that follow the commonly accepted criteria for fact checks,” the statement said.
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Google introduces a so-called "fact checking" feature on its news aggregate service to combat alleged political bias.
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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), today announced it is issuing an emergency order to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone devices from air transportation in the United States. Individuals who own or possess a Samsung Galaxy Note7 device may not transport the device on their person, in carry-on baggage, or in checked baggage on flights to, from, or within the United States. In a prepared statement, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said: "We recognize that banning these phones from airlines will inconvenience some passengers, but the safety of all those aboard an aircraft must take priority." “We are taking this additional step because even one fire incident inflight poses a high risk of severe personal injury and puts many lives at risk.”
The Transportation Department warned that passengers who packed the devices in checked luggage raised the risk of “a catastrophic incident.”
“Anyone violating the ban may be subject to criminal prosecution in addition to fines,” the department said in a press statement.
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The U.S. Transportation Department's emergency order banning Samsung Galaxy Note 7 from aircraft in the United States goes into effect.
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24 killed in stampede ahead of Hindu ceremony in India
LUCKNOW, India — At least 24 people were killed and 20 others injured in a stampede that occurred as they were crossing a crowded bridge to reach a Hindu religious ceremony in northern India on Saturday, police said. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 15, 2016 Varanasi, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is the holiest of seven sacred Hindu sites in India, and said to be the founding place of Buddhism, making it a destination for thousands of pilgrims and tourists One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Varanasi is regarded as the spiritual capital of India. Bhagat, another police officer, said that organizers were expecting 3,000 Hindu devotees at the ceremony, but that more than 70,000 thronged the ashram of a local Hindu religious leader, Jai Baba Gurudev, on the banks of the Ganges River. Panic spread as thousands of Hindu pilgrims tried to cross a bridge to a sacred site in one of the world’s oldest inhabited cities, at the heart of the home constituency of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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A stampede among Hindu pilgrims headed to Varanasi, India, kills at least 24 people and injures at least 20.
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Sarika is moving towards the South China Sea, weather officials said, but the risk of flooding, power outages and wind damage could still increase along its path. Typhoon Haiyan: Most powerful storm to ever hit land batters Philippines with 235mph winds 1/14 typhoon1.jpg A satellite image shows Typhoon Haiyan as it crosses the Philippines AP Photo/NOAA 2/14 v2-typhoon-quality.jpg A satellite image of the typhoon EUMETSAT 3/14 AN31618033Typhoon-Haiyan-hi.jpg Typhoon Haiyan hits the Philippines in this weather satellite image, courtesy of the Japan Meteorological Agency REUTERS 4/14 typhoon2.jpg A resident (right) walks past high waves pounding the sea wall amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan hit the city of Legaspi, Albay province, Manila AFP 5/14 typhoon3.jpg Residents stand along a sea wall as high waves pounded them amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan hit the city of Legaspi, Albay province, south of Manila AFP 6/14 typhoon4.jpg A mother and her children brave heavy rains as they head for an evacuation center amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan pounded Cebu City, in central Philippines AFP 7/14 typhoon-house.jpg A house is engulfed by the storm surge brought about by typhoon Haiyan that hit Legazpi city, Albay province AP Photo/Nelson Salting 8/14 typhoon8.jpg People stand at the pier as Super Typhoon Haiyan smashes into coastal communities on the central island of Bacalod AFP 9/14 typhoon6#.jpg Huge waves brought about by powerful typhoon Haiyan hit the shoreline in Legazpi city, Albay province AP 10/14 typhoon5.jpg Fishermen secure their boats in anticipation of the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan near Manila Bay in Bacoor, Cavite Reuters 11/14 typhoon1.jpg A man walks past a tree uprooted by strong winds brought by super Typhoon Haiyan that hit Cebu city, central Philippines Reuters 12/14 typhoon-trees.jpg A resident runs past an uprooted tree amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan pounded Cebu City, in central Philippines STR/AFP/Getty Images 13/14 typhoon.jpg A farmer inspects his cornfields that was damage by the passing of Super Typhoon Haiyan AFP 14/14 typhoon9.jpg Fisherman tights his boat safely ahead of the typhoon Getty Images 1/14 typhoon1.jpg A satellite image shows Typhoon Haiyan as it crosses the Philippines AP Photo/NOAA 2/14 v2-typhoon-quality.jpg A satellite image of the typhoon EUMETSAT 3/14 AN31618033Typhoon-Haiyan-hi.jpg Typhoon Haiyan hits the Philippines in this weather satellite image, courtesy of the Japan Meteorological Agency REUTERS 4/14 typhoon2.jpg A resident (right) walks past high waves pounding the sea wall amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan hit the city of Legaspi, Albay province, Manila AFP 5/14 typhoon3.jpg Residents stand along a sea wall as high waves pounded them amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan hit the city of Legaspi, Albay province, south of Manila AFP 6/14 typhoon4.jpg A mother and her children brave heavy rains as they head for an evacuation center amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan pounded Cebu City, in central Philippines AFP 7/14 typhoon-house.jpg A house is engulfed by the storm surge brought about by typhoon Haiyan that hit Legazpi city, Albay province AP Photo/Nelson Salting 8/14 typhoon8.jpg People stand at the pier as Super Typhoon Haiyan smashes into coastal communities on the central island of Bacalod AFP 9/14 typhoon6#.jpg Huge waves brought about by powerful typhoon Haiyan hit the shoreline in Legazpi city, Albay province AP 10/14 typhoon5.jpg Fishermen secure their boats in anticipation of the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan near Manila Bay in Bacoor, Cavite Reuters 11/14 typhoon1.jpg A man walks past a tree uprooted by strong winds brought by super Typhoon Haiyan that hit Cebu city, central Philippines Reuters 12/14 typhoon-trees.jpg A resident runs past an uprooted tree amidst strong winds as Typhoon Haiyan pounded Cebu City, in central Philippines STR/AFP/Getty Images 13/14 typhoon.jpg A farmer inspects his cornfields that was damage by the passing of Super Typhoon Haiyan AFP 14/14 typhoon9.jpg Fisherman tights his boat safely ahead of the typhoon Getty Images
Vietnam has already been dealing with flooding in its four central provinces, which have killed at least 11 people and displaced thousands.
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Typhoon Sarika (Karen) arrives at Luzon, Philippines, with the storm's future direction predicted to be toward Vietnam.
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The latest on a car plummeting from the Coronado Bridge onto a park, leaving 4 dead and at least 4 critically injured (all times local):
Authorities say four people were killed after an out-of-control pickup truck plunged off the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and plowed into a crowd gathered at a festival below Saturday. Richard Anthony Sepolio, 25, who was stationed at the naval base on Coronado Island across the bay from San Diego, was alone in the truck Saturday afternoon when he lost control and fell 60 feet onto a vendor’s booth at Chicano Park, California Highway Patrol Officer Jake Sanchez said. The driver, who was later arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, was in shock within seconds of the crash and asked witnesses who rushed to his aid to please contact his commander at a nearby military base. “I saw the truck coming at me, and if I hadn’t run, I’d be dead,” Jimenez told the newspaper. It’s horrific.”
Sanchez said the truck was traveling northbound on Interstate 5 when the driver lost control while exiting the freeway and crashed into a guardrail, sending the vehicle plummeting into the park below. “Innocent people were down here having a good time.”
Police and paramedics swarmed to the busy park when officers reported multiple casualties among the visitors. Four people died and nine people were injured, including the pickup driver, in the Saturday accident. One suffered major trauma, and seven others had minor to moderate injuries, said Lee Swanson, a spokesman for the city’s Fire-Rescue Department. Witnesses said the GMC pickup truck with Texas license plates landed on a vendor’s booth set up for La Raza Run, a motorcycle ride that ends with a celebration at the park and typically draws hundreds of participants. He said several officers who had stopped by to check on the crowd saw the pickup fly off the freeway. It was going so fast it flew over the stage and landed in front of the stage on a tent, a booth that was set up,” Chase Dameron told The San Diego Union-Tribune . He said the truck crushed a booth staffed with people selling T-shirts from the Wagon Wheel bar in Pico Rivera. It was like in slow motion,” he added, describing the scene as “instant chaos and panic.”
In addition to the four fatalities, nine people, including the driver, were injured but authorities did not disclose their conditions. One witnessed said it was “instant chaos and panic.”
The CHP immediately closed the I-5 north access to the bridge so investigators could do their work. People running crazy.”
Isaac Cardoza of Los Angeles was selling hats at a nearby booth nearby when the pickup came hurtling from the bridge. Up to 1,000 others, including families and children, were from the different neighborhoods in San Diego.
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A pickup truck hurls off San Diego, California's Coronado Bridge, plummets some 60 feet, and crashes onto a park where hundreds of people had gathered for a motorcycle rally, killing four people in a vendor's booth and injuring eight others.
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I don’t how long it will take, it’s for the Home Office to decide.”
Britain’s Home Office says small groups of refugee children have been coming in a weekly basis for the last few months and hundreds are now expected to cross the Channel legally before the Calais camp is destroyed. Although the home secretary Amber Rudd promised last week that as many children as possible with direct family links in Britain would be brought to the UK, it has also emerged that the Home Office has yet to produce any detailed operational plans setting out precisely how the children will be transferred.
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Syrian child refugees previously settled in the Calais jungle legally immigrate into England.
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“The failed launch shows North Korea’s launch capability isn’t perfect, so Kim Jong Un might fire a Musudan again or any other missile soon given his temper,” Yoo Dong Ryul, President of Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy in Seoul, said by phone. That test was hailed by leader Kim Jong Un as proof of the North’s ability to strike U.S. bases across “the Pacific operation theater.”
Saturday’s failed launch was detected at 12:03 Pyongyang time Saturday from the northwestern North Korean town of Kusong. The U.S. military first reported the launch was attempted at 11:33 p.m. EDT Friday (12:03 p.m. Saturday local time) and that the missile didn’t pose a threat to North America. Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross strongly condemned the missile test and stressed the U.S. commitment to defending allies South Korea and Japan is “ironclad.”
“This provocation only serves to increase the international community’s resolve to counter the DPRK’s prohibited activities,” he said, using the acronym for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He said the U.S. would raise concerns at the U.N.
“Our commitment to the defense of our allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, is ironclad,” Ross said.
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The United States Defense Department reports its Strategic Command systems detected a failed North Korean ballistic missile launch near the city of Kusong in North Pyongan Province.
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The deal that will give Rosneft, commodities trading house Trafigura and private investment group United Capital Partners a 98 per cent stake in Essar's oil arm is "US-sanctions compliant," said Essar Group's chief executive, Prashant Ruia. GOA, India (Reuters) - India and Russia signed billions of dollars of defense and energy deals on Saturday at a summit that sought to inject new life into a relationship that has been tested by shifting global alliances and conflict in the Middle East.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin sign several agreements including a $12.9 billion defense and energy deal. Russian state oil major Rosneft pays for a controlling stake in both India's Essar Oil and port facilities that it already owns.
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LOS ANGELES — The Latest on a Los Angeles shooting that left 3 dead and 12 wounded (all times local):
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is calling a shooting at a restaurant that left three people dead and 12 wounded the latest example of senseless gun violence in America. Police questioned two possible suspects shortly after the incident, but officials said later no one was in custody. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 11 Detectives pass a woman, left, comforting the wife of a man who died in the shooting. Three people died at the scene, and 12 others were transported to local hospitals. Of the injured, police said one man remains hospitalized in extremely critical condition. Paul Elen, 64, who was visiting his brother in the neighborhood, said he “heard about 15, 20 shots.”
“First it was two shots,” he said. “He’s well-respected in our community, our Jamaican circles.”
The man said he often comes and gets food at the house — plates he described as “next to home-cooked meals that we’re used to back home.”
“Real authentic Jamaican food,” he said. There were at least 50 people inside the restaurant in the 2900 block of Rimpau Boulevard at the time of the incident, Sgt. Frank Preciado tells The Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/2diVuqZ ) that the restaurant was “a bloody scene with shell casings everywhere.”
The Times described the restaurant as a popular Jamaican eatery in a converted house that features a DJ on Friday night.
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A gun battle that started when three armed men returned to a restaurant in Los Angeles, leaves 3 people dead and 12 others wounded. Police set up a dragnet for the suspects.
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They only take as a platform to sow their resistance to Beijing.”
It’s an idea that resonates with the young people who sat for days on Hong Kong streets in 2014, surrounded by umbrellas.
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Police in China detain 75 people in connection with a service that determined the female gender of unborn babies for the purpose of abortion. Authorities say that at least 300 people were involved in the illegal service in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. Expectant parents wanting male children smuggled fetal blood samples to Hong Kong for gender testing. China ended its one-child policy last year.
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The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) was attempting to claw back the $1.2 billion from the Wall Street giant in relation to nine equity derivatives investments carried out in 2008, which turned out to be worthless. In the trial, which ran for seven weeks in London's High Court in the summer, the LIA argued that Goldman exercised "undue influence" and "unconscionable bargaining" to get it to enter the trades, asserting that the terms of the transactions were "overreaching and oppressive", as defined by English law. It heard claims that Haitem Zarti, the brother of an LIA executive who previously run nothing more substantial than a video club, was flown business class to Dubai and out up at the five star Ritz Carlton hotel in Dubai to attend a Goldman conference and he was later offered a prestigious 11-month internship at Goldman in the bank’s hope that he would one day become an important LIA official, the court heard in the trial.
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Judge Vivien Rose of London's High Court, finds in favor of Goldman Sachs, that the bank is not liable for the failure of highly speculative trades made by the sovereign wealth fund of Libya.
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The deal, which includes the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China, divides countries into three groups with different deadlines to reduce the use of factory-made hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases, which can be 10,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as greenhouse gases. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption HFCs are commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioning systems
More than 150 countries have reached a deal described as "monumental" to phase out gases that are making global warming worse. The agreement announced Saturday morning, after all-night negotiations, caps and reduces the use of HFCs in a gradual process beginning in 2019 with action by developed countries including the United States, the world’s second worst polluter. More than 100 developing countries, including China, the world’s top carbon emitter, will start taking action by 2024, when HFC consumption levels should peak. A small group of countries including India, Pakistan and some Gulf states pushed for and secured a later start in 2028, saying their economies need more time to grow. “It’s a very historic moment, and we are all very delighted that we have come to this point where we can reach a consensus and agree to most of the issues that were on the table,” said India’s chief delegate, Ajay Narayan Jha. Environmental groups had hoped that the deal could reduce global warming by a half-degree Celsius by the end of this century. "Absolutely it's a historic day," said Durwood Zaelke, from the Institute for Government and Sustainable Development (IGSD), a long time participant in the Montreal Protocol talks. Zaelke’s group said this is the “largest temperature reduction ever achieved by a single agreement.”
The new agreement is “equal to stopping the entire world’s fossil-fuel CO2 emissions for more than two years,” David Doniger, climate and clean air program director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. Three-way deal
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped forge the deal in a series of meetings in the Rwandan capital, said it was a major victory for the Earth. International treaty designed to protect the environment against the impact of harmful substances
Created in 1987 following the discovery of a large hole in the Earth's ozone layer over Antarctica
Came into force in 1989 with the main aim of ending the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
CFCs replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
Amendment proposed after scientists discovered that, while they pose no threat to the ozone layer, HFCs contribute to global warming by trapping heat radiating off the Earth
The protocol has undergone a number of revisions since it was introduced and has been successful in eliminating more than 100 fluorinated gases
Other developing countries, specifically India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the Gulf states will not freeze their use until 2028.
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The Obama administration agrees to an international limit on the use of hydrofluorocarbon gases in refrigeration and air conditioning.
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Ambulances and security members attend the scene, near an explosion site after suicide bombers blew themselves up on Sunday during a police raid against suspected Daesh militants near the Syrian border, in Gaziantep, Turkey (AP photo)
ISTANBUL — A suicide bomber blew himself up on Sunday during a Turkish police raid against suspected Daesh terror group members near the Syrian border, killing three police officers and wounding nine other people, an official said. In a separate explosion, a man suspected of being responsible for an IS suicide bomber cell in Gaziantep blew himself about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away in another district of the city, provincial governor Ali Yerlikaya said in a televised statement. The militants blew themselves up when they understood that they could not escape, the agency reported. At least 10 people, including civilians and police, were wounded in the explosion in Gaziantep city, the private Dogan news agency reported. The privately-run Dogan news agency said police were raiding a second address in the city in connection with the blast, and that there were reports of further explosions and gunfire. The governor said police raid followed a tip that the group could be planning an attack on an Alawite cultural association in the city, according to Anadolu. Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly attacks over the past year, carried out by Daesh or Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. In August, 54 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up during an outdoor wedding celebration in Gaziantep.
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A suicide bomber kills three police officers and wounds at least nine people in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep during a police raid on a suspected ISIL safehouse.
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The Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group, said rebel forces “captured Dabiq after IS members withdrew from the area.”
The Fastaqim Union, an Ankara-backed rebel faction involved in the battle, said Dabiq had fallen “after fierce clashes.”
Fastaqim said rebels then went on to seize several nearby towns, including Sawran, Ihtimaylat and Salihiyah. An Islamic prophecy names Dabiq as the site of a battle between Muslims and infidels that will presage doomsday, a message Islamic State used extensively in its propaganda, going so far as to name its main publication after the village. It also chose Dabiq as the location for its killing in 2014 of Peter Kassig, an American aid worker held hostage by the group, by Mohammed al-Emwazi, better known as Jihadi John. Turkey launched the Euphrates Shield operation, bringing rebels backed by its own armor and air force into action against Islamic State, in August, aiming to clear the group from its border and stop Kurdish fighters gaining ground in that area. But Dabiq and its surroundings, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State had brought 1,200 fighters in recent weeks, occupied a salient path into territory captured by the Turkey-backed rebels.
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Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army rebels seize control of the symbolic town of Dabiq, Aleppo Governorate, following clashes with ISIL militants.
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He died in 1914 after living for years with leprosy that he was said to have contracted from one of his faithful. Francis cleared him for sainthood earlier this year and on Sunday canonized Brochero along with six others in one of the final big Masses of his Holy Year of Mercy. At the time of Brochero’s beatification, Pope Francis wrote a letter to Argentina’s bishops praising Brochero for having had the “smell of his sheep.” That’s a phrase Pope Francis has frequently used to describe his ideal pastor- one who accompanies his flock, walking with them through life’s ups and downs.
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Pope Francis declares seven new saints. {Vatican Radio)
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LONDON (Reuters) - The United States and Britain called on Sunday for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Yemen to end violence between Iran-backed Houthis and the government, which is supported by Gulf states. The Saudi-led campaign in Yemen has come under severe criticism since last Saturday's air strike on the funeral gathering in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, killing 140 people according to one U.N. estimate, and 82 according to the Houthis. Houthi-led forces had responded to the attack by launching missiles into Saudi Arabia and possibly at a U.S. warship stationed off the Yemeni coast, prompting U.S. retaliatory strikes against what Washington said were Houthi radar sites. A U.N. statement said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the special envoy, "welcomes the restoration of the Cessation of Hostilities, which will spare the Yemeni people further bloodshed and will allow for the expanded delivery of humanitarian assistance." Why Yemen conflict has become another Syria Read more
“This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table,” Kerry said after a brief meeting with the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and other officials in London. Kerry said they were calling for the implementation of the ceasefire “as rapidly as possible, meaning Monday, Tuesday.”
The UN’s special envoy said he had been in contact with the Houthi’s lead negotiator and the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. He also said he hoped for “clearer plans” for a ceasefire in the coming days
Johnson said the conflict in Yemen was “causing increasing international concern; the fatalities that we’re seeing there are unacceptable.”
“There should be a ceasefire and the U.N. should lead the way in calling for that ceasefire.”
Their call came after meetings in London with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and senior UAE officials. Slideshow (7 Images)
Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Saturday in Switzerland on the sidelines of Syria talks. He added that the release of two American prisoners by Yemen’s Houthi and the evacuation of Yemeni civilians wounded in a Saudi airstrike were “an important humanitarian gesture by the Saudis to address the humanitarian concern.”
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The United States and the United Kingdom call for, "within hours," an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Yemen to end the violence following last week's Saudi airstrikes, based on bad information, that killed around 140 people.
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HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) — Authorities are investigating after a local Republican Party office in North Carolina was set on fire in what a state GOP official called an act of “political terrorism.”
A bottle filled with flammable liquid was thrown through the window of the Orange County Republican Party headquarters overnight, according to a Sunday news release from the town of Hillsborough. A bottle of flammable liquid was thrown through the Orange County Republican headquarters, police said
"The flammable substance appears to have ignited inside the building, burned some furniture and damaged the building's interior before going out. Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican party, told CNN's John Berman and Kate Bolduan that roughly 80 county GOP offices were told to close early Sunday, and a temporary mobile office was erected in Orange County, near the site of the firebombing. The Hillsborough Police Department said in a statement Monday that it was still processing evidence from the scene and that it was receiving assistance from the FBI, North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. State GOP executive director Dallas Woodhouse said people sometimes work after-hours and he felt lucky no one was there at the time. It is a miracle that nobody was killed,” he said in an interview, calling the fire an act of “political terrorism.”
He said Republican offices around the state were re-examining their security. Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning @NCGOP — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2016
Woodhouse told CNN's John Berman and Kate Bolduan that roughly 80 county GOP offices were told to close early Sunday, and a temporary mobile office was erected in Orange County, near the site of the firebombing. Very grateful that everyone is safe.”
Republican nominee Donald Trump blamed the act on Democrats in a Tweet and he also encouraged local Republicans, saying: “With you all the way, will never forget. Tom Stevens, mayor of the town about 40 miles northwest of Raleigh, said it was fortunate the fire didn't burn the office and other adjacent buildings that are decades old to the ground. Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in Orange County, according to elections board data, and President Barack Obama won 70 percent of the vote there in the 2012 presidential election.
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An arsonist firebombs a Republican Party office in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and leaves a graffiti message reading, "Nazi Republicans get out of town or else."
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A Mars lander left its mothership on Sunday after a seven-month journey from Earth and headed toward the red planet’s surface to test technologies for Europe’s planned first Mars rover, which will search for signs of past and present life. After a seven-month journey from Earth as part of the European-Russian ExoMars program, the Schiaparelli lander is expected to separate from spacecraft Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) at 1442 GMT (10:42 a.m. EDT) and start a three-day descent to the surface. Schiaparelli, part of the European-Russian ExoMars program, represents only the second European attempt to land a craft on Mars, after a failed mission by Britain’s Beagle 2 in 2003. Landing on Mars, Earth’s neighbor some 35 million miles (56 million km) away, is a notoriously difficult task that has bedevilled most Russian efforts and given NASA trouble as well. Slideshow (4 Images)
The ExoMars 2016 mission is led by the European Space Agency (ESA), with Russia’s Roscosmos supplying the launcher and two of the four scientific instruments on the trace gas orbiter.
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The European Space Agency-Roscosmos operated Schiaparelli EDM lander successfully separates from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, beginning a three-day descent to the surface of Mars.
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The family of Anthony Foley, the Munster head coach who died suddenly in a Paris hotel on Sunday hours before a Champions Cup match against Racing 92 at the age of 42, issued a statement on Monday saying they had been “plunged deep into an incomprehensible darkness”. #RIPAxel pic.twitter.com/gHI2lGBy1N — Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) October 16, 2016 "He was regarded with great respect and deep affection not just among the Munster rugby fans but by all those interested in Irish sports and those with whom they interacted abroad," added Higgins, who is also patron of the Irish Rugby Union. Anthony was a great opponent and someone who has gone too soon from our rugby family.”
A spokesman for the SRU stated: “Everyone at Scottish
condolences to the Munster colleagues and family of Anthony Foley at this very sad time.”
Former Scotland utility back Michael Dods said: “Anthony was a great player, ambassador and gentleman. “Munster Rugby thank Racing 92, EPCR, broadcasters and partners, and the many fans who travelled to Paris for their understanding and support at this time.”
A veteran of Irish and Munster rugby, Foley played for Ireland 62 times, captaining his country on three occasions. Anthony Foley captained Munster when they won the European Cup in 2006
A decorated playing career
Foley, whose father Brendan also played for Ireland, made 201 appearances in the back row for Munster in a playing career that spanned 13 years. He was a magnificent player and a superb coach and he will be sorely missed.”
Former Ireland and Munster player Donal Lenihan said Munster Rugby was Anthony Foley’s life.
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Anthony Foley, coach of Irish rugby union team Munster, dies suddenly at the age of 42 in a hotel near Paris. Officials postpone Munster's European Rugby Champions Cup match against Racing 92.
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IRBIL, Iraq — The Latest on the Iraqi operation to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State group (all times local):
Iraq's military and the country's Kurdish forces are on the move to the south and east of the Islamic State group-held city of Mosul. (IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – General Commander of Iraqi Armed forces and Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, announced on Monday launching the battle to liberate Mosul from the ISIS grip, and pointed out that the security forces that will participate in the battle are Iraqi army, police and national police. Two years after the jihadists seized the city of 1.5 million people and declared a caliphate from there encompassing tracts of Iraq and Syria, a force of some 30,000 Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Sunni tribal fighters began to advance.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announces the start of the Battle of Mosul, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, to retake ISIL-held Mosul, the self-declared caliphate's capital in Iraq.
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By Peter Martell (AFP/File)
Malakal (South Sudan) (AFP) - At least 56 rebels and four government soldiers were killed over the weekend as heavy clashes erupted in northeastern South Sudan, an army spokesman said Monday. A civil war that began in South Sudan in December 2013 has left tens of thousands of people dead, with a peace agreement that saw Machar join a transitional government thrown into turmoil in July, when renewed violence forced him from the capital.
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Clashes between government troops and rebels in South Sudan, leave at least 56 people killed.
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MULTAN, Pakistan -- Two passenger buses collided head-on in central Pakistan on Monday, killing 25 people and injuring 69, officials said. The accident, which occurred on a dangerous curve in Khanpur town in Rahim Yar Khan district, was likely caused by speeding, said police official Jamshid Shah. Women and children are among the dead and another 69 are thought to be injured. Fatal road accidents are common in Pakistan, where traffic rules are rarely enforced and roads in many rural areas are poor.
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Two buses collide near the city of Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan, killing at least 30 people and injuring 69 others.
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News of the explosion came less than two hours after BASF said four people were injured in a gas explosion at its Lampertheim facility, a plant near Ludwigshafen that makes additives for plastics. BERLIN — One person is still missing after an explosion at chemical firm BASF's plant in the southwestern German city of Ludwigshafen that left at least two people dead, the company said Tuesday. A fire that broke out following the blast sent up plumes of smoke for hours, prompting BASF and the city of Ludwigshafen to urge residents in the surrounding area to avoid going outside and to keep their windows and doors shut. Company spokeswoman Ursula von Stetten said the explosion occurred late Monday morning at a river harbor in Ludwigshafen, where BASF is based, that is used to unload flammable liquids and liquid gas.
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An explosion and fire in Ludwigshafen, at the largest production site of BASF in Germany, kills at least two people and injures six more with two people still missing. BASF is the world's biggest chemical producer.
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The state’s chief minister Naveen Patnaik said yesterday that he had visited the evacuated patients in hospital and ordered an inquiry into what he called a “tragic incident”. As many as 106 patients, who were shifted from Sum Hospital following the blaze on Monday night, are now undergoing treatment at different hospitals in the city, Health Secretary Arti Ahuja said, amid reports that some of them are in critical condition. Mr. Banarjee said the hospital management would extend all cooperation to the inquiries ordered on the mishap. While 20 deaths were officially confirmed, the authorities of different hospitals where the injured were shifted last night put the death toll at 22. Most of the critical patients were on ventilators and died in the blaze, he said. A day after the fire mishap in the city-based SUM Hospital claimed 20 lives and left 100 others injured, Odisha police on Tuesday arrested four officials of the hospital. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to the incident on Twitter, calling it a "mind-numbing" tragedy.
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A fire breaks out at a hospital in the East Indian city of Bhubaneswar, Odisha, killing at least 20 people.
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A ceasefire between warring factions will begin at 2359 local time (2059 GMT) on Wednesday, the United Nations said on Monday, raising hopes of an end to a war that has killed thousands of civilians and left people starving. A cessation of hostilities that first went into effect in April “will re-enter into force at 23:59 Yemen time (2059 GMT) on 19 October 2016, for an initial period of 72 hours, subject to renewal,” the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said in a statement. Houthi rebels -- a minority Shia group from the north of the country -- drove out the US-backed government, led by President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and seized the capital of Sanaa. The Iranian-aligned Houthis and their allies, forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, hold most of Yemen’s northern half, while forces loyal to the Saudi-backed Hadi share control of the rest of the country with local tribes. Saudi Arabia and several Gulf Arab allies have carried out air strikes and deployed troops in Yemen in support of the exiled Yemeni government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which was toppled by the Houthis in 2015. The conflict in Yemen has killed almost 6,900 people, wounded more than 35,000 and displaced at least three million since March last year, according to the United Nations.
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The United Nations announces that the warring parties in Yemen have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire starting October 19 at 23:59 AST (4:59 EDT).
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People remove belongings from a damaged site after a Sunday air strike in the besieged, rebel-held Al Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria, on Monday (Reuters photo)
LUXEMBOURG — The European Union on Monday strongly condemned Russia for the bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo, saying air strikes by Moscow and Damascus could amount to war crimes. “Since the beginning of the offensive by the regime and its allies, notably Russia, the intensity and scale of the aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo is clearly disproportionate,” EU foreign ministers said in a statement after talks in Luxembourg. “The deliberate targeting of hospitals, medical personnel, schools and essential infrastructure, as well as the use of barrel bombs, cluster bombs, and chemical weapons, constitute a catastrophic escalation of the conflict... and may amount to war crimes,” they said in a statement. The reference to war crimes is potentially significant since if pressed, a case could be taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It called for an immediate end to conflict, so a peace process could start after almost six years of war, seeking a wider role for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to talk to regional powers including Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In their statement, EU foreign ministers said the EU will act “swiftly ... with the aim of imposing further restrictive measures against Syria, targeting Syrian individuals and entities supporting the regime as long as the repression continues.”
Britain has also raised the prospect of sanctions on Russians involved in the Syrian conflict, diplomats told Reuters although that had less support on Monday. While the close allies said diplomacy was their primary focus, the tone was tougher than Saturday’s message from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after he launched a new diplomatic effort to resolve the 5 1/2-year civil war.
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The European Union condemns Russia's air campaign in Syria, saying it may be guilty of war crimes, and it vowed to impose more sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad's government. The bloc's 28 foreign ministers sought to show their anger at the Russian-backed campaign, which has killed several hundred people including dozens of children since the collapse of a truce brokered by Russia and the United States.
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(Reuters) - A Florida man was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday for shooting at George Zimmerman, who had shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 in a case that garnered national attention, prosecutors said. A Seminole County jury sentenced 38-year-old Matthew Apperson to 20 years in prison for attempted second-degree murder for shooting at George Zimmerman.While driving on Lake Mary Boulevard, Apperson fired a single shot at Zimmerman’s truck on May 11, 2015. In 2013, a majority white jury exonerated Zimmerman, 33, of the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, whom he stalked with a nine millimeter as the teenager returned from a trip to a convenience store in Sanford, Fla., a suburb of Orlando. Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson in Seminole County called Apperson “a danger to the community” as she handed down the mandatory minimum sentence on Monday, ABC-affiliate WFTV 9 said. Apperson also was sentenced to 15 years each for convictions of shooting into an occupied vehicle and aggravated assault with a firearm stemming from the altercation with Zimmerman, who sustained minor injuries from shattered glass, Florida State Attorney spokeswoman Lynne Bumpus-Hooper said.
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Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson in Seminole County, Florida, sentences Matthew Apperson, convicted by a jury last month of second-degree attempted murder, to 20 years in prison for shooting at George Zimmerman, who had shot and killed unarmed Trayvon Martin in February 2012.
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China on Monday moved a step closer to establish its permanent space station by 2022 as it launched a spacecraft carrying two astronauts, in its longest-ever manned space mission, who would later join its second experimental space lab orbiting the Earth. (Ju Zhenhua/Xinhua via AP) In this photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency, the Long March-2F carrier rocket carrying China's Shenzhou 11 spacecraft blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu Province, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016. Lei Fanpei, chairman of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), recently said China plans to launch the experimental core module of its space station around 2018 with a Long March-5 heavy load carrier rocket, and the 20 ton combination space station will be sent into orbit around 2022. About 19 minutes after the 7.30am blast-off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert in Gansu province, the mission was declared a success by Zhang Youxia, commander-in-chief of China’s manned space programme. China, Russia and the United States are the only countries that have independently launched humans into space, and while the others have more experience in manned space travel, China’s military-backed program has made methodical progress in comparatively short time. The “taikonauts”, as they are called in China, will dock with the Tiangong 2 space laboratory, or “Heavenly Palace 2”, which was sent into space last month.At 30 days, it will be the longest stay in space by Chinese astronauts, the Xinhua news agency reported. “I announce the launch of Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft is a complete success.”
The two member crew on the spacecraft includes veteran astronaut Jing Haipeng, who flew on Shenzhou-7 in 2008 and Shenzhou-9 in 2012, as well as newbie astronaut Chen Dong who is making his first spaceflight. “Although the job is challenging, risky and dangerous, there is nothing more I would rather do,” Jing, who is commander of this mission, told reporters on Sunday. China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so, and has since staged a spacewalk and landed its Yutu rover on the moon. The space lab was launched as part of China’s efforts to set up its own manned space station by 2022, which will make it the only the country to have such a facility in service as the current in-service International Space Station (ISS) retires by 2024.
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China launches Shenzhou 11, the country's sixth manned spaceflight mission and the first one to the Tiangong-2 space laboratory, with two taikonauts on a 30-day mission.
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This image provided by NASA shows the Orbital ATK Antares rocket is rolled to launch pad Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va. Orbital ATK's sixth contracted cargo resupply mission with NASA to the International Space Station will deliver over 5,100 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory and its crew. WASHINGTON: Orbital ATK on Monday blasted off its revamped Antares rocket carrying supplies and science experiments to the International Space Station two years after a major rocket explosion. It was the first flight of Orbital ATK's unmanned Antares rocket since the Oct. 28, 2014, blast that wrecked the pad and destroyed everything on the space station supply run. The accident, which occurred while the rocket was being fueled for a routine prelaunch test, has temporarily grounded SpaceX, the only company apart from Orbital currently contracted by NASA to fly cargo to the space station.
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Orbital ATK Antares 230 rocket launches carrying an unmanned resupply spacecraft, the Cygnus CRS OA-5 cargo ship, to the International Space Station from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The mission returns the Antares rocket to flight after an anomaly on October 28, 2014, caused an Antares-series rocket to explode seconds after liftoff.
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Twenty people were killed after three days of clashes between Twa Pygmies and Luba Bantus in Kabalo in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The member of parliament for the area, Kalunga Mawazo, who confirmed the death toll to AFP said the clashes occured between Sunday and Tuesday. “4 deaths were recorded among the Lubas and 16 among the Pygmies who have been quarreling since Sunday over customary royalty paid by the Bantu,” the MP Kalunga added. The clashes are suspected to have been caused by a disagreement over caterpillar harvest as anonymously confirmed by a Catholic priest of the Tanganyika diocese in northern Katanga. “The Pygmies believe they now enjoy the same rights as the citizens. They refused to pay this illegal tax and killed two Lubas with an arrow for demanding they pay the tax,” the priest said. “It was during a retaliatory attack that two more Lubas and 16 Pygmy bodies were found,” the Catholic priest added. “Tension is high in Kabalo, we sent a team there and reinforcements to restore order,” the Governor of Tanganyika, Ngoy Kitangala, told AFP without confirming the death toll. In early September, local authorities had reported the resumption of hostilities between the two ethnic groups. Since 2013, the North Katanga region is the scene of many clashes between Bantus of Luba and Pygmies of Twa ethnicity.
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Clashes between Pygmy and Bantu tribes in Tanganyika region of Democratic Republic of Congo leave 20 people dead.
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A low ranking police officer was shot dead and another injured by a police conscript on Tuesday when a work-related argument turned violent in Cairo’s upscale Garden City neighbourhood. In a statement on its Facebook page, the ministry of interior said the conscript—deployed as part the Central Security Forces securing foreign embassies in the area—suffered from a "bad psychological state" resulting from a work feud with the officers. The ministry said that one of the officers insulted the conscript and threatened to write him up for administrative violations, which could have deprived him of his monthly leave. The statement added that the conscript has been detained and the prosecution is conducting investigations. The Central Security Forces, which falls under the authority of the ministry of interior, uses thousands of army conscripts, who have low levels of educational attainment, for police work in 3-year mandatory service. Short link:
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A gunman shoot dead a policemen in Cairo.
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HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is bracing for Typhoon Sarika as the death toll from flooding in the central part of the country triggered by heavy rains rose to 31. The typhoon with sustained winds of 165 kph (103 mph) and gusts of up to 200 kph (124 mph) is moving toward northern Vietnam at 15 kilometers per hour (9 miles per hour), the national weather forecast center said Tuesday. Local authorities are being urged by the government to prepare to evacuate people in high risk areas. Sarika, named after a singing bird in Cambodia, slammed the northern Philippines on Sunday, killing two people and displacing 150,000.
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The death toll in Vietnam, from Typhoon Sarika, rises to at least 31 people.
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UNESCO’s resolution, sponsored by several Arab countries, referred to the Temple Mount and Western Wall — Judaism’s holiest sites — only by their Muslim names, and condemned Israel as “the occupying power” for various actions taken in both places. Israel had already suspended its funding to UNESCO when Palestinian membership was approved, along with the United States, which used to provide 22 percent of the agency's budget. The latest resolutions created unease at the top of the organisation, with Michael Worbs, who chairs UNESCO’s executive board, calling for Tuesday’s vote to be put off so a compromise could be worked out.
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UNESCO's executive board approves the "Occupied Palestine" resolution which reaffirms the cultural heritage of Palestine, especially East Jerusalem, and criticizes certain Israeli actions regarding the Palestinian territories. For the land in Jerusalem where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands, the board uses only Islamic naming terms without also mentioning Jewish or Christian historical references.
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BERLIN -- The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France agreed Wednesday on a "road map" aimed at reviving the stalled peace process in eastern Ukraine, though details of the plan still need to be worked out by the countries' foreign ministers over the coming month. While Syria is likely to inform Thursday’s discussion on Russia, leaders are expected to do little more than distil Monday’s declaration from foreign ministers which denounced Russia’s actions in Aleppo. Merkel invited Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and French President Francois Hollande to "assess the implementation of the Minsk (peace) agreements since the last meeting and discuss further steps," Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement Tuesday. The talks will take place just over a year after the four leaders last met in the so-called “Normandy Format,” and against the backdrop of heightened tensions between Russia, Europe and the United States about Moscow’s military role in Syria. The 2015 Minsk agreement brokered by France and Germany has helped end large-scale battles between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, but clashes have continued and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel invites the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and France to meet tomorrow in Berlin to discuss peace efforts in eastern Ukraine.
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VIGAN, Philippines (AP) — At least five people were killed after Super Typhoon Haima smashed into the northern Philippines with ferocious winds and rains overnight, flooding towns and forcing thousands to flee before weakening Thursday and blowing into the South China Sea, officials said. Trees were forced down, houses lost their roofs and fences and metal sheets were flying around all night.”
The fast-moving Pacific typhoon slammed into shore in northeastern Cagayan province late Wednesday then barreled northwestward before blowing out into the South China Sea with sustained winds of 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 185 kph (115 mph), according to forecasters. Haima then roared across mountain and farming communities of the northern regions of the main island of Luzon overnight, causing widespread destruction and killing at least four people who were buried by landslides, authorities said. President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday night all possible preparations had been made for Haima, with tens of thousands of people evacuated, but he still struck an ominous tone.
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The Philippine government places more than two dozen provinces on alert before Typhoon Haima makes landfall over Luzon. Haima, downgraded by the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System to a Category 4 storm, landfalls Cagayan province in the island's northeast. Weather forecasters expect the storm to impact up to 2.7 million people before veering northwest toward the Chinese coast on October 21.
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Firefighters who responded to what should have been a routine call about a gas leak in Portland, Oregon, likely saved lives when they decided to evacuate the building and pulled a fire alarm to warn holdouts just minutes before a powerful explosion, officials said. Three firefighters, two police officers and three civilians were hurt, and one of the firefighters underwent hours of surgery for a broken leg, Portland Fire Chief Mike Myers said at an afternoon news conference. It was not clear whether there were any injuries in the Wednesday morning blast, or the extent of damage. Structural engineers were asked to assess the building’s integrity, and neighbors were told to shelter in place. The utility that serves the area got a call saying that a construction crew had hit a gas line and authorities and utility workers who investigated had evacuated the building, said Melissa Moore, a spokeswoman for NW Natural. Before the explosion residents could smell gas, and crews arrived and told them to evacuate, the station reported. An employee at a nearby kitchen accessories store said he was in the washroom when he felt a huge explosion and emerged to find thick smoke and haze. “He was obviously in shock and crawling and having a hard time standing up,” said Bergler, who was still visibly shaken by the ordeal as he gathered with co-workers in a parking lot. “There are a lot of people alive” who might not be “but for the excellent work by our first responders,” Mayor Charlie Hales said.
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A natural gas explosion damages several buildings and injures eight people in downtown Portland, Oregon.
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Nasa announces Juno craft circling gas giant had to shut down camera and instruments, while ESA says Schiaparelli lander may have crashed on red planet
Bad day for space probes: one lost on Mars, another in 'safe mode' at Jupiter
Nasa’s Juno space probe orbiting Jupiter went into “safe mode” with cameras and instruments offline just as it prepared to pass over the immense planet’s dense cloud tops, the space agency said. The disc-shaped 577-kg (1,272 lb) Schiaparelli lander, which will test technologies for a rover due to follow in 2020, is expected to enter Mars's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 21,000 km (13,049 miles) per hour at 1442 GMT. A European lander that descended to Mars on Wednesday has failed to send signs of life to its mothership, leaving scientists uncertain whether it touched down on the Red Planet gently as planned, or crashed and broke apart, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. At the time it was dubbed “a heroic failure.”
Landing on Mars, Earth’s neighbor some 35 million miles (56 million km) away, is a notoriously difficult task that has bedeviled most Russian efforts and given NASA trouble as well. The primary part of the current Russian-European ExoMars mission, bringing the Schiaparelli lander's mothership into orbit around Mars to search for signs of life, was meanwhile a success. The spacecraft on which the Schiaparelli lander traveled to Mars, Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), carries an atmospheric probe to study trace gases such as methane around the planet.
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The European Space Agency fails to contact its Schiaparelli lander during its descent through the atmosphere of the planet Mars.
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Nasa announces Juno craft circling gas giant had to shut down camera and instruments, while ESA says Schiaparelli lander may have crashed on red planet
Bad day for space probes: one lost on Mars, another in 'safe mode' at Jupiter
Nasa’s Juno space probe orbiting Jupiter went into “safe mode” with cameras and instruments offline just as it prepared to pass over the immense planet’s dense cloud tops, the space agency said. Juno had rebooted its onboard computer and could communicate with Earth but its activities were limited until engineers diagnosed what went wrong, Nasa said. “It’s too early to take a guess” but the issue with Juno was not caused by the intense radiation belts surrounding Jupiter because the spacecraft was far away when it entered safe mode, said mission chief scientist Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. But it's been a rough week for space robots across the solar system: On Wednesday, the European and Russian space agencies were able to insert a satellite into orbit around Mars as part of the ExoMars mission. The mother ship successfully slipped into orbit around Mars and will study the atmosphere, but the fate of the lander was still unknown. It’s the second setback in less than a week for the solar-powered Juno, which has been orbiting the giant planet since July on a $1.1 billion mission to explore its poles, atmosphere and interior. Last week mission managers decided to postpone an engine firing planned for Wednesday after a pair of valves in the spacecraft’s propulsion system did not work as expected. Nasa said this and the latest problem were not related. The delay means Juno will not swing close again to Jupiter until December. The spacecraft made its first close pass in August, beaming back pictures of Jupiter’s stormy north pole, which appeared bluer than the rest of the planet. Scientists continued to pore over close-up images from the first flyby, determining that Jupiter’s magnetic fields and northern and southern auroras were more powerful than expected. The Juno mission was designed to fly closer to Jupiter than previous spacecraft, coming within 2,500 miles of the surface. Some three dozen close passes are planned during the 20-month mission.
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NASA's Juno probe, in orbit around Jupiter, enters safe mode.
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Photo by Ben Nabong / Rappler
MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Protesters and police clashed in front of the US Embassy in Manila on Wednesday, October 19, as cops tried to disperse a rally of indigenous peoples protesting alleged military and US presence in their ancestral lands. They were trying to enter the embassy," Riparip told AFP news agency. AP Television footage showed the van repeatedly ramming the protesters as it drove wildly back and forth after protesters had surrounded and started hitting the van with wooden batons they had seized from the police. At least three student activists had to be taken to a hospital after they were ran over by the van driven by a police officer, protest leader Renato Reyes said. "There was absolutely no justification [for the police violence]," Renato Reyes, secretary general of left-wing activist group Bayan, said. "Even as the president vowed an independent foreign policy, Philippine police forces still act as running dogs of the U.S."
Police lobbed tear gas and arrested at least 23 protesters who broke through a line of riot police and hurled red paint at the officers and a U.S. government seal at the start of the rally at the seaside embassy compound. A fire engine doused the rowdy protesters with water to push them back, but they took hold of the water hose and confronted the outnumbered police with rocks and red paint. After breaking through the police corridor, they scribbled "U.S. troops out now" and other slogans at the embassy's tall fence with red paint. “Even as the president vowed an independent foreign policy, Philippine police forces still act as running dogs of the U.S.”
The violence happened as the protesters gathered to demand an end to the presence of U.S. troops in the country and to support a call by President Rodrigo Duterte for a foreign policy not dependent on the U.S., the country’s longtime treaty ally. The demonstration comes as controversial Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte visits China after indicating he would seek to strengthen relations between the two countries. "The Philippines will not be dictated on, whether by the U.S. or China," they said in a statement.
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A police dispersal occurs between combined minority groups and anti-U.S. activists and the Philippine National Police in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Police arrest 30 protesters with 60 people injured, several rammed by a police van driven during the dispersal.
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A man identified as a Russian hacker suspected of pursuing targets in the United States has been arrested in the Czech Republic, police announced Tuesday evening. The statement said that “the man was a Russian citizen suspected of hacking attacks on targets in the United States,” and that the raid was conducted in collaboration with the FBI after Interpol issued an arrest warrant for him. The suspect, who was captured in a raid at a hotel in central Prague, did not resist arrest, but he had medical problems and was briefly hospitalised, police said in a statement. Another police spokesman, David Schoen, told The Associated Press the arrest took place on Oct. 5 and that police delayed releasing information about it for "tactical" reasons. “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”
Clapper said that “such activity is not new to Moscow,” and he accused Russia of using similar tactics across Europe to influence public opinion.
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Czech police announce the arrest of a man at a Prague hotel two weeks ago who they claim is a Russian hacker suspected of targeting the U.S.
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Watch the final presidential debate Wednesday on CNN at 9pm ET
Las Vegas (CNN) For Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, it's time to begin the closing arguments. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, accompanied by and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, speaks during the third presidential debate at University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Wednesday for the third presidential debate. But it’s bad experience.”
Trump said, “The problem is, you talk, but you don’t get anything done, Hillary.”
Clinton responded by comparing her record over the past three decades to Trump’s resume as a businessman.
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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump meet for the third presidential debate of the 2016 U.S. election at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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ZAGREB (Reuters) - The Croatian parliament approved on Wednesday a new government led by the conservative HDZ party leader Andrej Plenkovic whose main task will be to boost growth and sort out fragile public finances in one of the weakest European Union economies. Croatia's new Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic (C) poses with his ministers after his government was approved by the parliament in Zagreb October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic
The new government was formed by the HDZ and its junior center-right reformist partner Most (“Bridge”) after several weeks of negotiations following a Sept. 11 snap election. The government got support of 91 out of 151 parliamentary deputies. “We will be the government that knows how to bring about changes,” Plenkovic told the parliamentary deputies while presenting his cabinet. He said that spurring growth and improving the business climate would be his government’s priorities. “We will ease conditions for doing business and implement tax reform to make the taxation system simpler and ease burden for citizens and businesses,” Plenkovic said. In the past many investors have largely shunned Croatia due to red tape, high taxes, frequently changing regulations and a slow judiciary. Plenkovic said that the 2017 budget, which is expected in November, will clearly reflect efforts to reduce the fiscal gap and public debt which now stands at around 85 percent of gross domestic product. Tentatively, the government wants to reduce the gap to two percent next year from some 2.5 percent expected this year. Among the main challenges for the new government will be disputes with Hungary’s MOL over decision-making in jointly owned Croatian energy group INA, with public sector trade unions over wage hike promise, and with local banks over the forced conversion of Swiss franc loans into euros. Disputes over the promise of higher wages, dating back to 2009, and CHF loans, whose conversion cost was entirely imposed on the banks, could potentially inflict costs worth billions of kuna and undermine fiscal consolidation plans. Analysts widely believe that without measures to significantly improve the business climate, the country is unlikely to surpass the 2.5 percent growth figure in the coming years. HDZ won most parliamentary seats in the snap election following a collapse of the previous HDZ-Most government in June, after just five months in power, due to a row over a conflict of interest case involving a former HDZ leader..
Analysts believe the new government, led by the new HDZ leader, has a good chance of completing the four-year term.
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Croatian lawmakers approve conservative Croatian Democratic Union party leader Andrej Plenković's new coalition government 91–45.
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TORONTO (AP) — Andrew Miller has been selected the MVP of the AL Championship Series after his latest splendid performance in relief helped the Cleveland Indians reach the World Series. With 4 1/3 fearless innings from the most unlikely playoff hero in franchise history -- an unheralded 24-year-old Texan named Ryan Merritt -- followed by a familiar whitewashing from Andrew Miller and an indomitable bullpen, Cleveland's storybook year continued in a 3-0 win over the Blue Jays in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series on Wednesday at the Rogers Centre. Cleveland, which has never hosted a World Series opener, will play Game 1 at Progressive Field on Tuesday night against either the Chicago Cubs or Los Angeles Dodgers. (Stan Behal/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network)
Toronto Blue Jays’ Marco Estrada during Game 5 of the American League Championship Series between Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians in Toronto on Oct. 19, 2016.
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The Cleveland Indians defeat the Toronto Blue Jays and win the American League Championship Series 4–1, advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1997. Major League Baseball names Cleveland reliever Andrew Miller the series Most Valuable Player.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish jets and artillery struck U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria Thursday, and Turkey's state-run news agency said as many as 200 militiamen were killed, in a major escalation of Turkey's offensive in northern Syria. Further south, a humanitarian pause announced by Russia for the besieged rebel-held city of Aleppo took effect, and the Syrian military, using loudspeakers, called on residents to evacuate and for gunmen to lay down their weapons. As in Iraq where the Kurdish fighters are at the forefront of the offensive to retake the city of Mosul, Kurdish forces in Syria have also been battling the Islamic State group and have made significant territorial gains, including advances in the last few days against IS militants in Aleppo province, upsetting Ankara. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail
The jets targeted positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in three villages, northeast of the city of Aleppo, that the SDF had captured from Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late on Wednesday. The Turkish military confirmed its warplanes had carried out 26 strikes on areas recently taken by the Kurdish YPG militia, the strongest force in the SDF, and that it had killed between 160 and 200 combatants. BEIRUT — Kurdish-led forces in Syria are pressing their campaign to drive Islamic State militants from areas in northern Aleppo province, expanding the front line with rival Turkish-backed opposition fighters also operating in the area, activists and rebels said Wednesday. Turkey says the group is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey over the past year and considers it to be a terrorist organization. The advance by the Kurdish-led forces has widened the front line between them and rival Syrian rebels, who in recent weeks have pushed into northern Aleppo backed by Turkish tanks and aircraft, driving out the Islamic State group from villages and towns it controlled.
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Turkish jets hit Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia with 26 airstrikes in three recently-captured-from-ISIL villages west of al-Bab and northeast of Aleppo. The Turkish General Staff says between 160 and 200 have been killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 11 dead and dozens of people wounded.
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At least four people were killed after Super Typhoon Haima smashed into the northern Philippines with ferocious wind and rains, flooding towns and forcing thousands to flee although it slightly weakened Thursday after slamming into a mountain range on its way to the South China Sea, officials said. Haima's blinding winds and rain had rekindled fears and memories from the catastrophe wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, but there were no immediate reports of any major damage amid faulty communications and power outages in several villages cut off from government aid and rescue teams by fallen trees, landslide and flood. But the evacuations from high-risk communities helped prevent a larger number of casualties and thousands were still in emergency shelters due to a powerful that hit the north a few days. Two construction workers died when a landslide buried their shanty in La Trinidad town in the mountain province of Benguet, officials said, while two villagers perished in another landslide and another was swept away in a river and remains missing in Ifugao province, near Benguet. "In my age, I'm 60 years old, this is the strongest typhoon I have ever seen," village councilor Willie Cabalteja told The Associated Press in Vigan city in Ilocos Sur province. Haima, with sustained winds of 225 kilometers (140 miles) per hour, hit northeastern Cagayan province late Wednesday then barreled northwestward before blowing out into the South China Sea with sustained winds of 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 185 kph (115 mph), according to forecasters. After dawn, the extent of damage in Cagayan — about 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of Manila — and nearby regions became evident, with overturned vans, toppled or leaning electric posts and debris blocking roads. Most stores, their window panes shattered and canopies shredded by the wind, were closed. In northern Ilocos Sur province, rice fields resembled brown lakes under waist-high floodwaters, although cleanup operations had started. Image copyright EPA Image caption Over 10 million people were in the path of the storm
At least four people have been killed in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Haima hit the country. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, on an official visit to China, urged people in the typhoon's path to heed orders by disaster agencies, including abandoning coastal communities prone to storm surges. Duterte is on a state visit to China and is to fly home Friday. About 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, adding to the many burdens in a country that is also threatened by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and considered one of the world's most disaster-prone nations.
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Typhoon Haima, the second tropical cyclone to hit the Philippines in less than a week, kills at least seven people and causes flooding, landslides, and power outages before heading out to sea.
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Despite the clarification, the tough-talking president kept up on his tirades against the U.S., saying in a late-night speech in his southern hometown of Davao city that he would never travel to America “in this lifetime.”
At an economic forum Thursday in Beijing, where he made a state visit, Duterte declared “my separation from the United States ... both in military and economics also.” His pronouncement was met with applause, but Duterte did not explain what he exactly intended to do and when. “In this venue, your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States,” Duterte told Chinese and Philippine business people, to applause, at a forum in the Great Hall of the People attended by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. “I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to (President Vladimir) Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world - China, Philippines and Russia. It’s in the best interests of my country that I don’t do that,” Duterte told reporters in his hometown of Davao after returning from China. On visit to China the leader repeats his denunciation of Barack Obama as a ‘son of a whore’
This article is more than 2 years old
This article is more than 2 years old
President Rodrigo Duterte met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping Thursday, state media said, as the Philippines’ leader seeks closer ties with the Asian giant while blasting his US allies. During a speech addressing the Filipino community in Beijing Wednesday, the firebrand president said the Philippines had gained little from its long alliance with the US, its former colonial ruler. "America is very friendly and a very long (term) friend of Filipinos."
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Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte says he plans to cut ties with his country's former colonial ruler, the United States, while strengthening ties with China.
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REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
All 28 EU governments support the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), but Belgium cannot give assent without backing from five sub-federal administrations and French-speaking Wallonia has steadfastly opposed it. The second day of an EU leaders’ summit is expected to be dominated by consideration of the EU’s trade policy, though the discussion is likely to be overshadowed by continuing uncertainty over the EU-Canada deal. Juncker said he has invited Canada’s International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland to join talks Friday with the EU and Belgium to persuade Paul Magnette, president of the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia, to sign off on a deal his legislature has repeatedly rejected. While ambassadors can technically sign off on the agreement before Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau leaves for Europe next Wednesday, Monday seems to be the last possible date for ratification.
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The European Union calls an emergency two-day meeting about the planned EU-Canada free trade agreement, approved by all 28 EU member governments but held up by the "non" vote in Walloonia, one of Belgium's five sub-federal administrations.
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That blow to the credibility of the court was followed in 2015 by South Africa’s embarrassing refusal to arrest Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president wanted by the ICC for genocide in Darfur, when he arrived for an African Union (AU) conference chaired by Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. On Friday at a press conference in the capital, Masutha said: “The implementation of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court Act 2002 is in conflict and inconsistent with the provisions of the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act 2001.”
Any move to leave would take effect one year after notice is formally received by the United Nations secretary general, currently Ban Ki-moon. An “instrument of withdrawal” signed by international relations minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and dated October 19th, has been sent to the United Nations in New York – and takes effect one year after receipt by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings/File Photo
Pretoria last year announced its intention to leave after the ICC criticized it for disregarding an ICC order to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of genocide and war crimes, when he visited South Africa.
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South Africa will notify the United Nations that the country is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC). This separation would take effect one year from when notice is formally received by the U.N. Secretary-General. Last week, Burundi's parliament voted to leave the ICC, but the required paperwork has not yet reached the U.N.
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MELBOURNE (dpa-AFX) - Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton plc (BHP.AX, BLT.L, BBL, BHP) has rejected criminal charges by Brazilian prosecutors filed against the company and its current and former employees in relation to last year's fatal Samarco dam disaster, which killed 19 people.
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Brazilian prosecutors file homicide charges against 21 people employed by the companies Samarco, Vale, and BHP Billiton for the November 2015 iron ore mine dam burst in the state of Minas Gerais that killed 19 people and polluted waterways.
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IRBIL -- Militants armed with assault rifles and explosives attacked targets in and around the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk early on Friday in an assault quickly claimed by the Islamic State group and likely aimed at diverting authorities' attention for the battle to retake IS-held Mosul. He said it was not clear who carried out the airstrike and that officials have launched an investigation. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption IS militants have been targeting buildings linked to the Iraqi government
Islamic State (IS) militants have mounted a ferocious counter-attack in north Iraq, killing at least 19 people in and around the city of Kirkuk. BARTELLA, Iraq (AP) — The Iraqi army pushed into a town near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul on Saturday, a day after dozens of IS militants stormed into the northern city of Kirkuk, setting off two days of clashes and killing at least 80 people, mostly security forces. The claim was carried by the IS-run Aamaq news agency early on Friday, and could not immediately be verified. The fighting raged late into the afternoon, and heavy smoke billowed up from the area of the provincial headquarters, where clashes were underway, according to live footage on the local Terkmeneli TV channel. The governor of Kirkuk, Najm al-Din Karim, insisted that Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and counter-terrorism forces were completely in control of the situation. In Kirkuk, meanwhile, some fighting continued a day after the IS assault on the city, some 170 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Mosul. Kirkuk province has absorbed hundreds of thousands of displaced people since IS first overran wide stretches of northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014, capturing Mosul, the country’s second largest city. Hours after the initial assault, witnesses in Kirkuk said gunfire could still be heard and militants were walking openly through the streets. Kirkuk is an oil-rich city some 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul that is claimed by both Iraq's central government and the country's Kurdish region.
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ISIL militants launch attacks on government buildings, police stations, and a power station in the city of Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurdistan, killing dozens of people.
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Singer-songwriter’s failure to respond to phone calls from the Swedish Academy after being awarded the Nobel literature prize ‘unprecedented’
This article is more than 2 years old
This article is more than 2 years old
A prominent member of the academy that awards the Nobel literature prize has described this year’s laureate, Bob Dylan, as arrogant, citing his total silence since the award was announced last week. COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A member of the Swedish Academy that awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature to Bob Dylan says the American singer-songwriter’s silence since receiving the honor is “impolite and arrogant.”
Per Wastberg said Dylan’s lack of reaction to the honor the academy bestowed on him last week was predictable, but disrespectful nonetheless. "We were aware that he can be difficult and that he does not like appearances when he stands alone on the stage," he told Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper in a separate interview. BOB DYLAN AND THE FACE OF MYSTERY
The Swedish Academy, which is responsible for selecting Nobel Laureates in Literature, this year, 2016, has nominated Bob Dylan, an American singer, writer, songwriter and musician whose music genres run from folk, rock, gospel, and blues to country, for the prestigious award with the following citation for his:
“Having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Already the world of literature is abuzz with a mixture of confusion, excitement, and utter shock. The academy said it has failed to reach the tight-lipped laureate since he became the first musician in the Nobel’s 115-year history to win the prize in literature. The literature prize and five other Nobel Prizes will be officially conferred in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
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Per Wästberg, a member of the Swedish Academy, says that songwriter and artist Bob Dylan has not yet indicated whether he intends to accept the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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LONDON (Reuters) - British American Tobacco (BATS.L) has offered to buy out U.S. cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc RAI.N in a $47 billion takeover that would create the world’s biggest listed tobacco company with brands including Newport, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall. “BAT is proud of its track record of consistent delivery for shareholders and this transaction would further strengthen that delivery in the future.”
READ MORE: Plain cigarette packaging to hit shelves after court battle win
The offer would value the 57.8 per cent stake at $56.50 dollars a share, representing a 20 per cent premium against yesterday’s closing price of Reynolds shares. The total price for the remaining 57.8 per cent of Reynolds would be $47-billion, of which approximately $20-billion would be in cash and $27-billion in BAT shares. The proposed merger of our two great companies is the logical progression in our relationship and offers all shareholders a stake in a stronger, truly global tobacco and next generation products company.”
Under US law, as a part-owner of Reynolds, BAT was required to announce its offer immediately and before the Reynolds board had responded. The company currently employs more than 50,000 people globally and sells its products across 200 markets.
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British American Tobacco offers to buy out U.S. cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc in a $47 billion takeover that would create the world's biggest listed tobacco company.
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Time Warner, which has a market capitalisation of about $65 billion, is an attractive target for AT&T, which has a market capitalization of about $238 billion, because of its premium cable channel HBO, the CNN news network, film studio Warner Bros and other media assets. AT&T will pay $107.50 per Time Warner share, half in cash and half in stock, worth $85.4 billion overall, according to a company statement. The acquisition would combine a telecom giant with a leading cellphone business, DirecTV and internet service with the company behind some of the world’s most popular entertainment, including “Game of Thrones,” ”The Big Bang Theory” and professional basketball. The venerable phone company with roots back to Alexander Graham Bell has to contend with slowing growth in wireless services, given that most Americans already have smartphones, and it faces new competitors for that business from cable companies. AT&T recently completed the acquisition of satellite TV provider DirecTV, which has access to 20 million households in the United States and also holds the lucrative rights to the National Football League's Sunday Ticket package. A purchase of Time Warner would immediately make AT&T a global media giant, on par with cable company Comcast (CMCSA) -- which also owns NBCUniversal and DreamWorks Animation -- as well as Disney (DIS), the parent of ESPN, ABC, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel. Time Warner Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes rejected an $80-billion offer from Twenty-First Century Fox Inc <FOXA.O> in 2014, but sources said on Friday that the former suitor had no plans to renew its bid. REUTERS/Eric Thayer/File Photo
(Reuters) - AT&T; Inc (T.N) reached a deal to buy media company Time Warner Inc TWX.N for more than $80 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. AT&T declined to comment to CNNMoney, and Time Warner (TWX) did not immediately return requests for comment.
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AT&T reportedly agrees in principle to buy Time Warner for about $85 billion.
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TOKYO: A strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit western Japan on Friday, severely shaking the region and reportedly causing several injuries, damaging power lines and collapsing a house. FOR LIVE UPDATES: Twitter, Facebook
The earthquake, which struck at 2:07 p.m. local time on Friday, was about 8.5 kilometers (5.3 miles) south of the city of Kurayoshi, which is located in Tottori Prefecture. The meteorological agency said there was no danger of a tsunami from the inland temblor. Tremors were felt across the western part of the island, with Tottori Prefecture and Okayama Prefecture reporting the strongest shaking, but there was no immediate indication that the earthquake had caused serious damage or fatalities.
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A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Tottori Prefecture in western Japan. Local media report that there are 14 injuries in Kurayoshi. Tottori is Japan's least populous prefecture.
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A total of 26 people were treated at the airport after suffering from breathing difficulties and two were taken to hospital, the London Ambulance Service said. All evacuated to the tarmac.”
LorcanJPT London City Airport has been evacuated due to a fire #London
A spokeswoman for London Fire Brigade said three fire engines had been sent to the scene. "Two complete sweeps of the airport building were carried out jointly by firefighters and police officers both wearing protective equipment," the London Fire Brigade said in a statement. He added: “No elevated readings were found and the building was ventilated, searched and declared safe.”
Medics trained to treat people in hazardous situations also attended the scene. The airport was reopened shortly after being declared safe at around 7pm.
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Authorities evacuate London City Airport after a chemical incident, but, after some remediation, police later declare the airport safe.
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ESEKA, Cameroon (Reuters) - Fourteen people remained trapped on Friday under the wreckage of a packed passenger train that derailed en route between Cameroon’s two largest cities, killing at least 55 and injuring 575, the government said in a communique read on state television. The Camrail inter-city train was traveling from the capital, Yaounde, to the port city of Douala when the accident occurred around 11 a.m. local time (1000 GMT) near the train station in the town of Eseka, around 120 km (75 miles) west of the capital. At least three people were killed and others were injured when a packed passenger train traveling between Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, and the port city of Douala derailed and overturned on Friday, witnesses said.
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A passenger train derails in central Cameroon, killing at least 53 people and injuring 575 others.
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Investigators said in a statement that an Mi-8 helicopter carrying 22 people had crashed Friday night outside the city of Novy Urengoy and that “19 people have died from multiple injuries at the scene, according to preliminary data.”
The helicopter was flying from the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk to the town of Urengoy in the Yamalo-Nenetsky region when it crashed Friday between 1400 and 1500 GMT, investigators said. Two survivors were injured and a third unscathed, TASS news agency reported, citing a regional health official.
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A Mil Mi-8 helicopter crashes and leaves at least 19 dead and three others injured on the Yamal Peninsula in Russia's Extreme North.
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There were almost farcical scenes when the Sudanese president attended a summit in Johannesburg at the invitation of the African Union, then disappeared during dinner after resounding calls from human rights groups for South Africa to uphold its obligation as a member of the ICC to detain him in line with the outstanding arrest warrant. The ruling African National Congress party holds a majority of seats, and its parliament office welcomed the decision to leave the court, saying “the ICC has allowed non-member states to dictate and interfere with its work to suit their own imperialist agendas.”
South Africa’s announcement follows a dispute last year over a visit by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur. Justice Minister Michael Masutha told reporters in Pretoria that the court was “inhibiting South Africa’s ability to honor its obligations relating to the granting of diplomatic immunity.”
“There is a view in Africa that the ICC in choosing who to prosecute has seemingly preferred to target leaders in Africa,” Masutha added to AFP. "South Africa's proposed withdrawal from the International Criminal Court shows startling disregard for justice from a country long seen as a global leader on accountability for victims of the gravest crimes," said Dewa Mavhinga, the NGO's Africa division senior researcher. The country's department of justice said via Twitter that South Africa was "hindered" by certain parts of the Rome Statute, primarily the one that "compels South Africa to arrest persons who may enjoy diplomatic immunity under customary international law, who are wanted by the ICC for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, to surrender such persons to the International Criminal Court." Earlier this month Burundi said it would withdraw from the court, and Namibia and Kenya have also raised the possibility. The government was facing a possible defeat in the Constitutional Court next month over the issue, but said that Friday's decision meant its legal battle would be dropped. “We were called as country to arrest and prosecute a sitting head of state and the natural consequence would have been forced regime change in that country by South Africa,” Justice Minister Masutha told AFP. Of the ten ICC probes since 2002, nine have been into African countries and one into Georgia, though most ICC cases have been referred to the court by African governments themselves. The push among some African countries to withdraw from the court began after it indicted Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on charges of crimes against humanity over 2007 postelection violence in which more than 1,000 died.
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South Africa formally begins the process of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court amid a dispute over the country's refusal to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at last year's African Union summit in Johannesburg.
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This is what happened on Friday, as major tech companies like Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, Amazon, Spotify — which are catered to by major DNS service-provider called DYN — suffered malfunctions in their service, an internet outage, because of a malware attack. Dyn, one of the nation's largest domain name system (DNS) providers, confirmed a large-scale hack took down more than a dozen major websites early Friday, slowing—and in some cases halting—internet traffic to, Twitter, Pandora, Netflix, Pinterest, Reddit, Spotify, PayPal and the PlayStation Network.“We have been aggressively mitigating the DDoS attack against our infrastructure,” Scott Hilton, a vice president at Dyn, said in a statement provided to The Atlantic. This malware, now identified as 'Mirai', essentially infects Internet-of-Things devices, floods them with artificial commands and causes them to shut down under a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack — which means that the devices simply go dead and refuse to perform their functions because of server overload. “This is not some hacker sitting in his basement typing away on a keyboard.”
The attack was said to put a troubling new spin on an old hacker attack known as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), where millions of devices in the fast-growing Internet of things took part in the cyber onslaught. U.S. officials told Reuters that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating.
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A series of cyberattacks utilizing distributed denial-of-service attacks, targeting networks operated by DNS provider Dyn, makes major Internet platforms and services unavailable to large swaths of users in Europe and North America. Affected companies include Amazon, Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, PayPal, Netflix, and Airbnb.
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Image copyright Reuters Image caption Demonstrations marked the second anniversary of the students' disappearance last month
The former police chief of the Mexican city where 43 students disappeared in 2014 has been detained after two years on the run, officials say. The former police chief of the Mexican city of Iguala -- where 43 students disappeared two years ago -- was arrested Friday in connection with the case, according to Mexico's National Security Commission's Twitter page. Felipe Flores was police chief of Iguala when the incident took place on 26 September 2014, and his arrest may offer new clues as to what exactly happened then. Felipe Flores Velázquez was captured as he was visiting his spouse in Guerrero, the state where the students went missing in 2014, National Security Commissioner Renato Sales Heredia said at a news conference. The missing 43 at a glance
Image copyright AP
Who are they? Karam said in November 2014 that the students were abducted on orders of a local mayor, turned over to a gang who killed them, burned their bodies in a landfill and tossed the remains into a river. They think officials have failed to investigate the role soldiers from a nearby barracks may have played in the students' disappearance.
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After two years on the run, Mexican officials arrest the former police chief of a Mexican city, Felipe Flores, capturing him in Iguala in the southern state of Guerrero. The city is where 43 students disappeared in September 2014. The police arrested the students and then handed them over to a drug cartel who killed them and incinerated their bodies.
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In 1973, the TVA, one of the nation's largest public power providers, began building two reactors that combined promised to generate enough power to light up 1.3 million homes. Story highlights TVA is one of the nation's largest public power providers
The first reactor, delayed by design flaws, went live in 1996
(CNN) The Tennessee Valley Authority is celebrating an event 43 years in the making: the completion of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. Now, after billions of dollars in budget overruns, the second reactor has finally started sending power to homes and businesses. Standing in front of both reactors Wednesday, TVA President Bill Johnson said Watts Bar 2, the first US reactor to enter commercial operation in 20 years, would offer clean, cheap and reliable energy to residents of several southern states for at least another generation. "If you're in the nuclear business, the sight behind me is a lovely sight," Johnson said. "It's a sight we've been waiting for some years to see, which is steam coming out of both cooling towers, meaning that both units are running. You can hear that turbine rolling. It's a great day." TVA, which operates seven of those reactors, does not currently have any plans to build more.
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The Tennessee Valley Authority completes the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, the first U.S. nuclear reactor to enter commercial operation in 20 years.
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KIRKUK, Iraq – Islamic State militants launched a wave of pre-dawn attacks in and around the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday, killing at least 14 people and setting off fierce clashes with Kurdish security forces that were still raging after sundown. Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition launched the multi-pronged assault this week to retake Mosul and surrounding areas – the largest operation undertaken by the Iraqi military since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Mosul is believed currently to have a population of about 1.5 million people, it added. Ravina Shamdasani, of the U.N. human rights office, said it had “verified information” that IS forced 550 people to relocate to Mosul from the nearby villages of Samalia and Najafia on Monday, part of an “apparent policy of preventing civilians from escaping to areas controlled by Iraqi security forces.”
Shamdasani reiterated concerns IS could use civilians as human shields, and said the office was investigating reports that the group had killed at least 40 civilians for suspected disloyalty. BARTELLA, Iraq (AP) — The Iraqi army pushed into a town near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul on Saturday, a day after dozens of IS militants stormed into the northern city of Kirkuk, setting off two days of clashes and killing at least 80 people, mostly security forces.
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The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant executes at least 284 people in Mosul.
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At Least 70 Die In Train Derailment In Cameroon; Hundreds Injured
Enlarge this image toggle caption AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images
The death toll is rising at the site of a train derailment in Cameroon, with President Paul Biya saying the crash of the crowded car Friday killed more than 70 people and wounded 600 more. Bodies were strewn along the tracks as workers continued looking for others injured and dead in Friday's crash. Officials have put the death toll at 53 but said it will climb as they raced to transport more than 600 injured people to hospitals in the capital, Yaounde, and the port city where the train was going, Douala. The rescue workers and medical staff spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press about the issue. The train carried about 1,300 passengers, instead of its capacity of 600. The collapse of a section of the main highway between Yaounde and Douala amid heavy rain earlier on Friday had blocked hundreds of vehicles on the road and prompted increased numbers of passengers to make the journey by rail. The 30-year-old railway line and train could not carry the load, officials told state radio. President Paul Biya ordered the evacuation of the injured to the country's two main cities because Eseka's hospital was overwhelmed, with only about 60 beds, said transport minister Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo'o. "I am calling on everyone to double efforts to save the lives of the injured," Ngo'o said. One of those injured died as he arrived in Douala, and "we are doing everything possible to save the lives of the close to 200 victims sent to Douala," said Governor Ivaha Diboua Dieudonne of the western Littoral region. The circumstances that led to the accident will be investigated, government spokesman Issa Tchiroma said.
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The death toll from the October 21 crash of a Camrail train rises to at least 73 people with another 600 wounded.
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Russel arrives as confusion lingers over Manila's ties with Washington, with President Rodrigo Duterte saying on Saturday the United States remains the Philippine's "closest friend", after earlier provoking alarm by announcing his country's "separation" from the United States and realignment with China. Explaining Duterte's "Goodbye America" remarks, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay said on Saturday the United States remained the "closest friend" of the Philippines, but Manila wanted to break away from a "mindset of dependency and subservience" and forge closer ties with other nations. Russel said that while Washington welcomes the relaxation of tensions between Manila and Beijing under Duterte, the rapprochement should not come at the expense of the U.S. or other nations. Upon returning home the day after his stunning remarks, Duterte said he did not mean he was severing diplomatic ties with Washington but only wanted to end a foreign policy that's overly oriented toward the U.S.
"I've pointed out to Secretary Yasay that the succession of controversial statements, comments and a real climate of uncertainty about the Philippines' intentions has created consternation in a number of countries, not only in mine," Russel told reporters Monday in Manila after a meeting with Yasay that went overtime. The visit by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affair Daniel Russel is part of a three-nation swing through Southeast Asia that also includes Thailand and Cambodia, the U.S. State Department announced on its website.
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Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay states that the United States remains our "closest friend," but that the Philippines wants to break away and forge closer ties with other nations.
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ARCAHAIE, Haiti (AP) — Police officers were searching cars and boats for escaped prisoners on Sunday after recapturing at least a dozen of the 172 inmates who overpowered guards and escaped from a lockup in central Haiti, the prison’s director said. Haiti’s Minister Of Justice, Camille Edouard Junior, said one prisoner died after falling off a wall and hitting his head during the escape from the Arcahaie prison on the coast north of capital Port-au-Prince. “One guard was killed during the incident,” Edouard Junior told Reuters. Prime Minister Enex Jean-Charles said the interim government has given clear instructions to the justice minister to “take all necessary measures to remedy this unacceptable situation.”
Judge Henry Claude Louis-Jean said Saturday that the escapees stole an unknown number of weapons and some exchanged gunfire with police during the chaotic breakout. The inmates attacked after they were released from a crammed holding pen to bathe, according to provincial authorities. Haitian prisons are notoriously overcrowded and many inmates spend years in pre-trial detention. It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the escaped inmates in Arcahaie were convicted of serious crimes and how many were awaiting trial. Police asked jittery residents of the coastal area to follow authorities’ instructions as a manhunt intensified. The U.S. embassy in Haiti issued a security message about “a violent prison break in Arcahaie,” and advised its citizens to avoid the area.
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At least 174 inmates escape in Arcahaie, Haiti, leaving one guard dead. Authorities seek the fugitives with support from UN peacekeepers.
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Among the sites targeted on Friday were Twitter, Paypal and Spotify. The massive siege on Dyn, a New Hampshire-based company that monitors and routes Internet traffic, shows those ominous predictions are now a reality. Dyn said attacks were coming from millions of internet addresses, making it one of the largest attacks ever seen. Cybersecurity analysts believe the distributed-denial-of-service attack gainst internet performance company Dyn was carried out using an "Internet of Things" made up of various internet-connected home devices including CCTV video cameras and digital video recorders. Security researchers working with Dyn to investigate the attack have linked it to a network of web-enabled CCTV cameras made by a single Chinese company, XiongMai Technologies. Allison Nixon, director of research at the security firm Flashpoint, said its web-enabled CCTV cameras and digital video recorders were forcibly networked together using the sophisticated malware program Mirai to direct the crushing number of connection requests to Dyn’s customers. “It’s remarkable that virtually an entire company’s product line has just been turned into a botnet that is now attacking the United States,” she told security researcher Brian Krebs. Krebs, whose website was targeted by a similar attack in September, said the XiongMai devices are "essentially unfixable" and will remain a danger to others unless they are totally removed from the internet. An unknown person released it to the hacker underground earlier this month, and security experts immediately warned it might come into more general use. That breadth of "attack surface," as security experts call it, is one of the things that makes Mirai so difficult to fight, said Kyle York, Dyn’s chief strategy officer.
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Security analysts state that the October 21 denial-of-service attacks on Internet performance management company Dyn was perpetrated using Mirai malware-created botnets that used consumer internet of things (IoT) smart devices, such as digital video recorders, cable set-top boxes, routers, etc. Technology experts warn that the security included with IoT is weak, or sometimes even nonexistent.
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FIFA described its latest creation, unveiled during a live television show in the presence of Russian deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko and former Brazil striker Ronaldo, as "a wolf who radiates fun, charm and confidence". Zabivaka, whose name means “the one who scores” in Russian is described as “charming, confident and social” and has “always dreamt of becoming a football star”, received 53% of the one million votes in a Fifa poll, beating competition from a tiger who got 27% and cat which collected 20%. “Eighteen months after kicking-off this project, we are extremely happy that the 2018 mascot is the result of a team effort where the Russian people demonstrated their creative flair and their strong commitment to putting on a successful FIFA World Cup.”
“I am sure Zabivaka will be a massive hit among fans at the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™,” added the Local Organising Committee Chairman Vitaly Mutko, who attended the live TV show that crowned the wolf. "Mascots are great ambassadors for promoting the event and bring so much joy to the stadiums," said Ronaldo.
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A public poll on the internet in Russia selects the cartoon wolf Zabivaka as the official mascot of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which the country will host in June and July 2018.
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The Test record caps a remarkable 12 months in which the All Blacks became the first team to successfully defend the World Cup, retained the trans-Tasman Bledisloe Cup for a 14th consecutive year and won the Rugby Championship for the fourth time in five years. “This conference tonight seems to have been hijacked by something that’s really got nothing to do with rugby, someone feeling a little aggrieved about things that you guys have done, making him be a clown,” he said. But we can only call it a turning-point if we lose by less than one score.”
Savea’s name was the next on the scoresheet in the 54th minute as New Zealand typically exploited turnover ball inside their own half to set the hulking winger for his 44th try in 49 tests. He was rewarded with his side’s final try which ended a passage of play which lasted more than two minutes, one which started when the Australia flanker Dean Mumm intercepted a pass and ran into New Zealand’s half where the force of Coles’s challenge made him spill the ball. Beauden Barrett missed the extras but four minutes later centre Lienert-Brown was running in the second try after Australia winger Henry Speight’s attempted intercept left a huge hole in the defensive line.
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In rugby union, the New Zealand All Blacks win a record 18th consecutive test match, defeating the Australian Wallabies 37–10 at Eden Park, Kingsland, Auckland, New Zealand.
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CHICAGO -- The Chicago Cubs won their first National League pennant since 1945 and are a step closer to ending a 108-year World Series drought after beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 on Saturday to clinch a 4-2 victory in the NL Championship Series. Kyle Hendricks outpitched Clayton Kershaw; Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras homered early and the Cubs won their first pennant since 1945, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 Saturday night in Game 6 of the best-of-seven NL Championship Series. Chicago will face the Cleveland Indians, who have not celebrated a Major League Baseball title since 1948, in the best-of-seven World Series starting on Tuesday in Ohio. The Cleveland Indians, which has the longest drought in the American League, last won the World Series title in 1948. The Indians had their own history of sporting futility in the city on the southern shore of Lake Erie once nicknamed the “Mistake on the Lake”, going without a World Series title since 1948. The eternal “wait till next year” is over. Transformed by a new management regime led by team president Theo Epstein, who also helped the Boston Red Sox exorcise the Curse of the Bambino with their first Series win in 86 years, the Cubbies will enter the 112th Fall Classic as favourites after a major league-leading 103 regular season wins. This is a new team, this is a completely different time of our lives. We’re enjoying it and our work’s just getting started.”
Hendricks pitched two-hit ball for 7 1/3 innings. The lefty allowed four earned runs and seven hits while dropping to 4-7 with a 4.55 earned-run average in 18 playoff games.
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The Chicago Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers and win the National League Championship Series 4–2, advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1945.
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The ceasefire, agreed in order to allow an increased flow of much-needed humanitarian aid, ended without renewal after a day of heavy fighting between the Saudi-led Arab alliance and the Iran-allied Houthi movement. Sanaa air raids resume as Yemen truce expires-residents
SANAA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition attacked targets in Sanaa at dawn on Sunday, hours after a three-day truce in Yemen's war expired, residents in the capital said. Each side accused the other of repeatedly violating the three-day truce and U.N. attempts to extend it before it lapsed appeared to have failed. Air strikes were reported over some military sites in Sanaa in the Hafa camp to the east and in the Nahdein area in the South. Radar positions were also targeted in the Houthi-controlled city of Hodeida, residents reported. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the exiled vice president and a powerful military leader, said in a statement that U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had asked for the truce to be extended for another 72 hours on Friday. The U.N. and diplomats had hoped a pause in the conflict would pave the way for talks to end a 19-month-old war which has killed at least 10,000 people in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country, and would allow badly needed aid to be delivered.
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Saudi Arabian-led air raids on the Yemeni capital Sana'a resume after a truce ends.
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Profile: India's Maoist rebels
'Top leader'
The police say that, following a tip-off, they ambushed a group of about 30 Maoist rebels in the forest early on Monday. The gunfight broke out late Sunday after police received a tip that 60 Maoist rebels were gathered in forests on the border of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states, said a police officer speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
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Indian police kill at least 24 Maoist rebels during a raid in eastern Orissa State.
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At least three people died and 13 were injured after a powerful gas explosion ripped through a block of flats in the Russian city of Ryazan. The blast ripped through several floors, practically destroying flats and raining concrete blocks on cars parked below. “A total of 16 people were injured, three of whom died, while 13 needed medical care. Four were hospitalized, and outpatient care was provided to nine others,” TASS news agency was told by the local branch of Russia’s Emergencies and Disaster Response service. Earlier reports suggested 16 people were injured and three had died. Photos and videos of the devastated apartment block in Ryazan, a city some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow, emerged early Sunday, with the incident taking place late at night. Police say they are investigating the circumstances of the blast, which is thought to be a likely household gas explosion. Three of the 16 people injured were found in their flats, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said, adding that a child was among the injured. At least 60 people had to be placed in a nearby school as a temporary shelter as experts are assessing the damage dealt to the building.
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A gas explosion in the Russian city of Ryazan kills at least three people and injures 13 others.
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