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38 killed in Nepal plane crash

38 people are confirmed killed and 23 injured, 10 still missing after US-Bangla Airlines aircraft crashed in Kathmandu today.

The US-Bangla airlines aircraft had crashed at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu during take off.

The plane, operated by Bangladeshi airline US-Bangla, veered off the runway at Kathmandu airport. 67 people had been on board at the time of incident.

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India politician who 'ran over' children surrenders

A local leader of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has given himself up to police after allegedly running over and killing nine children in the northern state of Bihar.

Police said Manoj Baitha was driving the SUV involved in the deaths, but he denies this. The party has suspended him for six years.

Baitha had been on the run since the incident on Saturday, police say.

At least 10 other children were injured when his SUV hit a crowd of students.

The students - who were aged between seven and 13 - were returning home from school when the incident took place. They were crossing a highway, as the village is located on one side and the school on the other.

Indian media reports said he had lost control of the vehicle after running down a 65-year-old woman near the school.

Officials began investigating the accused after a local resident, whose granddaughter was one of those killed, filed a complaint.

"We ran to the spot as soon as we found out about the accident," Anwarul Haq told BBC Hindi's Manish Shandilya, who travelled to the village soon after the incident.

One of Haq's daughters died in the accident while her sister escaped because she was on the other side of the road. "The children were strewn around. The impact of the attack was so strong that a few of them were even hanging on trees."

Indradev Sahni's nine-year-old daughter was killed in the incident while her younger brother was injured.

"Nothing is under control at home," said Sahni. "I couldn't attend my daughter's cremation. My father, brother and some neighbours organised her funeral. We had hoped that she would grow up to become an educated and bright woman."

Baitha is currently in hospital and is reportedly being treated for injuries related to the incident.

The opposition party in the state, which the BJP governs, has accused him of being intoxicated at the time.

Deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, has told the police to take the "sternest possible action" against him.

 

Source : BBC

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China's Xi allowed to remain 'president for life' as term limits removed

China has approved the removal of the two-term limit on the presidency, effectively allowing Xi Jinping to remain in power for life.

The constitutional changes were passed by the annual sitting of parliament, the National People's Congress.

The vote was widely regarded as a rubber-stamping exercise. Two delegates voted against the change and three abstained, out of 2,964 votes.

China had imposed a two-term limit on its president since the 1990s.

But Mr Xi, who would have been due to step down in 2023, defied the tradition of presenting a potential successor during October's Communist Party Congress.

Instead, he consolidated his political power as the party voted to enshrine his name and political ideology in the party's constitution - elevating his status to the level of its founder, Chairman Mao.

On paper, the congress is the most powerful legislative body in China - similar to the parliament in other nations. But it was widely believed that it would approve what it was told to.

Xi forever?

Analysis by Stephen McDonell, BBC China correspondent in Beijing.

It is now hard to see Xi Jinping being challenged in any way whatsoever.

He has amassed power the likes of which has not been seen since Chairman Mao Zedong.

Xi 1

Mr. Xi applauded after the amendment was passed (Reuters).

 Only five years ago Beijing was being ruled by a collective leadership. Under ex-President Hu Jintao you could imagine differing views being expressed in the then nine-member Politburo Standing Committee.

There was a feeling that Mr Hu needed to please various factions within the Communist Party and it seemed that every 10 years a new leader would come along with their own people in a process of smooth transition.

From today all this has gone.

The constitution has been altered to allow Xi Jinping to remain as president beyond two terms and they would not have gone to this much trouble if that was not exactly what he intended to do.

There has been no national debate as to whether a leader should be allowed to stay on for as long as they choose. Quietly but surely Xi Jinping has changed the way his country is governed, with himself well and truly at the core.

Rare dissent

The issue is not, however, without controversy.

Online censors in China have been blocking discussion around the topic, including images of Winnie the Pooh. Social media users have taken to using the cartoon character to represent Mr Xi.Xi 2

Social media users create "Winnie the Pooh" memes to avoid being seen as making derogatory posts against Mr. Xi (r). WEIBO/AFP

 One government critic described the proposal in an open letter last month as a "farce", in a rare show of public dissent.

Former state newspaper editor Li Datong wrote that scrapping term limits for the president and vice-president would sow the seeds of chaos - in a message sent to some members of the national congress.

"I couldn't bear it any more. I was discussing with my friends and we were enraged. We have to voice our opposition," he told BBC Chinese.

State media, however, have portrayed the changes as much-needed reform.

US President Donald Trump was criticised by some commentators for seeming to approve of Mr Xi's unlimited rule, saying on Monday: "President for life... I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."

At a political rally on Saturday, Mr Trump insisted he had merely been joking during a fundraiser, and that his comments were represented unfairly by some media.

Xi Jinping thought

Mr Xi's possible third term is not the only item the National People's Congress is likely to approve. It was also expected to:

confirm China's new government line-up for the next five years, kicking off Xi Jinping's second term as president
ratify a law to set up a new powerful anti-corruption agency
ratify the inclusion of the president's political philosophy - "Xi Jinping thought" - in the constitution
Xi Jinping thought is the ideology approved by the Communist Party last October. Officially, it is "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era".

Schoolchildren, college students and staff at state factories will have to study the political ideology, which the Communist Party is trying to portray as a new chapter for modern China.

Mr Xi became president in 2013, and quickly consolidated personal power while cementing China as the regional superpower.

He also fought corruption, punishing more than a million party members - which has helped his popularity among some.

At the same time, however, China has clamped down on many emerging freedoms, increasing its state surveillance and censorship programs. Critics also say Mr Xi has used the anti-corruption purge to sideline political rivals.

(BBC)

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Former first lady arrested in graft case

Military police searched the home of former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on Wednesday and arrested his wife as part of a corruption inquiry by an international team of investigators.

Police arrived at the Lobo home outside the capital in six vehicles and searched the residence before leaving with former First Lady Rosa Elena Bonilla and her brother-in-law Mauricio Mora. Authorities did not say whether Lobo was present.

The arrest was announced by an anti-corruption mission of the Organization of American States, a team the government agreed to accept after large street protests against graft in 2016.

Investigators for the nongovernmental National Anti-corruption Council have told prosecutors that Bonilla deposited $600,000 in government funds into her personal bank account five days before Lobo ended his four-year term in January 2014. They also say she hasn't accounted for at least $6 million in government funds for her office during Lobo's administration.

"Today is a great step against impunity," council director Gabriela Castellanos said on her Twitter account.

Julio Ramirez, Bonilla's attorney, told journalists that his client "is innocent and I will prove it in the courts."

Past corruption cases involving public figures have generally ended without convictions, and the chief of the OAS mission, Juan Jimenez Mayor, resigned in mid-February, complaining of a lack of support from the Honduran government and the OAS.

In December, the mission announced corruption complaints against five Honduran legislators who were accused of shifting public money through a charity and into their own accounts. A month later, Congress passed a measure protecting them from prosecution by freezing any civil or criminal action over public spending until auditors have studied such cases for three years.

Jimenez then called that step a "pact of immunity" and said the mission's investigators had found strong indications that at least 30 current and former legislators had committed crimes.

Even so, the OAS mission's investigations led last week to the arrest of three high-ranking military officers accused of illegal association, false testimony and conspiracy involving a case in which civilians had been detained and tortured. Eight lower-ranking soldiers were previously convicted in the case. They had said they were only following orders.

 Source : Los Angeles Times

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Former Russian spy poisoned in UK

A man who is critically ill after being exposed to an unknown substance in Wiltshire is a Russian national convicted of spying for Britain.

Sergei Skripal, 66, was granted refuge in the UK following a "spy swap" between the US and Russia in 2010.

He and a woman, 33, were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping centre in Salisbury on Sunday.

Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury has been closed by police "as a precaution".

The substance has not been identified, but Public Health England said there was no known risk to the public's health.

Wiltshire Police are investigating whether a crime has been committed. They said the pair had no visible injuries but had been found unconscious at the Maltings shopping centre.

They have declared a "major incident" and multiple agencies are investigating. They said it had not been declared as a counter-terrorism incident, but they were keeping an "open mind".

Col Skripal, who is a retired Russian military intelligence officer, was jailed for 13 years by Russia in 2006 for spying for Britain.

He was convicted of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working undercover in Europe to the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

Russia said Col Skripal had been paid $100,000 for the information, which he had been supplying from the 1990s.

He was one of four prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for 10 US spies in 2010, as part of a swap. Col Skripal was later flown to the UK.

He and the woman, who police said were known to each other, are both in intensive care at Salisbury District Hospital.

A number of locations in the city centre were cordoned off and teams in full protective gear used hoses to decontaminate the street.

The hospital advised people to attend routine operations and outpatient appointments unless they were contacted. It said its A&E department was open but busy because of the weather.

On the restaurant closure, police said Public Health England had reiterated the advice that there was no known risk to the wider public, but as a precaution advised that if people felt ill they should contact the NHS on 111.

"If you feel your own or another's health is significantly deteriorating, ring 999," police said.

Neighbours at Sergei Skripal's home in Salisbury say police arrived around 17:00 GMT on Sunday and have been there ever since.

They said he was friendly and in recent years had lost his wife.

The possibility of an unexplained substance being involved has drawn comparisons with the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Russian dissident died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with a radioactive substance.

A public inquiry concluded that his killing had probably been carried out with the approval of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

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Sridevi Kapoor: 'Case closed' in Bollywood star's death

Police in Dubai has closed the case into the death of Bollywood star Sridevi Kapoor after handing over her body to relatives.

The actress, 54, died on Saturday "due to accidental drowning following the loss of consciousness", police said. She was found in a hotel bathtub.

It had earlier been reported that she died of cardiac arrest while at a family wedding in Dubai.

Her body has been embalmed and is being flown to India for her funeral.

Crowds have gathered outside her home in Mumbai to pay their last respects ahead of the ceremony, which will take place in the city today.

Police had been holding the body pending the results of a post-mortem examination.

Prosecutors say a "comprehensive investigation into the circumstances of her death" is now complete.

The full post-mortem report has not yet been released to the public and will be expected to explain how the original report of cardiac arrest and the listing of "accidental drowning" are linked.

Source : BBC

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Chinese government sets trillion yuan military budget

China has announced a military budget of 1.11 trillion yuan ($175bn; £126bn) for the coming year.

The figure, an 8% increase on last year, was announced by Prime Minister Li Keqiang as the annual meeting of parliament got underway in Beijing.

Li also set a target of 6.5% growth for the economy.

The National People's Congress (NPC) is also expected to remove the two-term presidential limit, enabling Xi Jinping to remain in office indefinitely.

The move, which was long expected but has been controversial even in China,has helped cement Xi's status as the most powerful leader since Chairman Mao Zedong.

Thousands of Chinese legislators at Monday's meeting burst into applause when the plan to scrap the two-term limit was read out to the chamber.

The NPC is largely a rubber stamp parliament, endorsing decisions already made by the Communist Party.

Its delegates, about 3,000 of them representing all provinces and regions, are technically elected, but in practice, hand-picked by the Party.

The gathering takes place under tight security - known dissidents are routinely removed from the capital before it takes place.

Source : BBC

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Xi set to tighten grip on China by scrapping presidential term limit

Four months after a historic Chinese Communist party congress was expected to answer most questions about Xi Jinping’s second five-year term in office, China’s president has demonstrated that he can still “shock and awe” his political rivals.

Until Sunday afternoon, most guessing games ahead of the March 5 opening of China’s annual parliamentary session focused on the imminent political reincarnation of Wang Qishan, the recently retired head of Mr Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, and the race to succeed Zhou Xiaochuan, the veteran central bank governor.

But the party’s announcement that its central committee had recommended scrapping the two-term limit for the state president and vice-president was a reminder that in Mr Xi’s China, such personnel reshuffles matter much less now. One person with close ties to China’s leadership says that people worried about Mr Xi’s authoritarian tendencies are “not just scared, they are desperate”.

The person adds that scrapping the two-term limit “has put us back 30 years”, by threatening painstaking efforts to institutionalise peaceful party and government leadership transitions every 10 years This is not what anyone was expecting at the beginning of the reform era Kevin Carrico, Macquarie University After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the two-term limit on the presidency and vice-presidency was written into China’s state constitution by Deng Xiaoping, who launched China’s era of “reform and opening” in the late 1970s and wanted to prevent a return to the excesses of one-man rule experienced under Mao Zedong.

“We’ve had so many steps backwards [under Xi],” adds Kevin Carrico, a lecturer in Chinese studies at Macquarie University in Australia. “Media controls have become stricter, internet controls have become stricter. And now one of the few seemingly effective checks on a senior leader’s power that he can only be in power for two terms is now just being completely cast aside. This is not what anyone was expecting at the beginning of the reform era.”

While last October’s Congress made it clear that Mr Xi would remain the party’s dominant figure as long as he were alive and healthy, Sunday’s announcement paves the way for him to retain the presidency indefinitely, too.

Source : The Financial Times

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Trump praises Xi’s power grab

President Donald Trump bemoaned a decision not to investigate Hillary Clinton after the 2016 presidential election, decrying a "rigged system" that still doesn't have the "right people" in place to fix it, during a freewheeling speech to Republican donors in Florida on Saturday.

In the closed-door remarks, a recording of which was obtained by CNN, Trump also praised China's President Xi Jinping for recently consolidating power and extending his potential tenure, musing he wouldn't mind making such a manoeuvre himself.

"He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great," Trump said. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday."

The remarks, delivered inside the ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate during a lunch and fundraiser, were upbeat, lengthy, and peppered with jokes and laughter. But Trump's words reflected his deeply felt resentment that his actions during the 2016 campaign remain under scrutiny while those of his former rival, Hillary Clinton, do not.

"I'm telling you, it's a rigged system folks," Trump said. "I've been saying that for a long time. It's a rigged system. And we don't have the right people in there yet. We have a lot of great people, but certain things, we don't have the right people."

Trump has repeatedly said that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, should launch investigations into Clinton, and has continued to lambast Sessions on Twitter for not taking what he views as appropriate steps to probe Clinton's actions involving her private email server.

The stewing anger with Sessions has soured Trump's mood over the past week, including on Wednesday evening, when he fumed inside the White House over his attorney general's decision to release a statement defending himself after Trump chastised his approach to an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses as "DISGRACEFUL" on Twitter.

The episode was just one irritant in a long series of upsetting moments for Trump this week. Morale at the White House has dropped to new lows, and Trump himself has seethed at the negative headlines.

 

Source : CNN

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Israelis demand Netanyahu resignation over looming corruption charges

Some 1,500 people have rallied in central Tel Aviv demanding the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu over corruption allegations and a recent Israeli police recommendation that charges be brought against the Prime Minister.

 The “Bibi Netanyahu go home” slogan once again united the Israeli crowd holding their weekly anti-government corruption protest in Tel Aviv. Waving signs that read “Bibi, you are not above the law,”“Love Israel, separate from Netanyahu,” they chanted, “A mafia country and a corrupt Prime Minister.”

Earlier this month Israeli police recommended that Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted over allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Despite the pressure and daily calls to resign, Netanyahu maintains his innocence, further exacerbating the public anger.

“In the past, whenever there was an indictment recommendation with the police, politicians used to resign,” one protester told RT’s Ruptly video agency. “It's very difficult to see Bibi resigning. He’s not the kind of [person] who resigns.”

“I came here to protest and to defend the democracy in Israel because it’s important that people will fight corruption wherever it is because the government here forgot that they need to serve us and not we need to serve them,” noted another activist present at the rally.

Police earlier announced that they gathered sufficient evidence to start legal proceedings against the premier in two separate probes – Case 1000 and Case 2000. Although the recommendations were submitted to the attorney general, it may take months before the decision is made.

Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu, along with his wife Sara, received lavish gifts worth thousands of dollars from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, in exchange for favors. The other probe revolves around suspicions of Netanyahu conspiring with the owner of the top-selling Israeli newspaper, Arnon Mozes, to get a more positive coverage of himself. The Prime Minister has repeatedly denied the allegations as “baseless.”

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Blizzards 'risk to life' as storm batters UK

A highly-unusual red weather warning for snow is in force for south-west England and south Wales until the early hours of Friday.

UK roads, railways and airports are being severely hit by snow for a third day, with thousands of schools shut.

A seven-year-old girl has died after a car crashed into a house in Looe, Cornwall.

A 75-year-old woman has been found dead in a snowy street in Leeds. She was found partially hidden beneath a car in the Farsley area of the city.

Elsewhere, a 46-year-old man has died in a road crash after a collision with a lorry in icy conditions on the A34 near Tot Hill services, Berkshire.

Earlier, a baby was born in a car in snowy conditions on the A66 at Elton near Stockton in County Durham. The mother and baby have since been taken to hospital.

National Grid says there may not be enough gas to meet demand on Thursday in the UK, leading to possible shortages for industrial users.

If suppliers cannot provide more gas, industry, large businesses and gas-fired power stations will be asked to use less but this advice would only be passed on to consumers as a last resort.

Schools are closed in south Wales, southern England and Scotland.

Several sports fixtures have been disrupted by the weather conditions including the postponement of four Super League rugby league games and the Premier League Darts in Exeter being cancelled.

A red alert for snow in Scotland - the country's first- has been lifted but an amber alert remains in place.

More than 300 people were stranded on a motorway in Scotland in freezing temperatures overnight on Wednesday - some for 20 hours.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has urged people there not to travel, while Wales' transport secretary has also warned against driving.

Blizzards, biting winds and significant travel disruption are also affecting southern, western and central England, parts of Wales and Northern Ireland.

This is the third day of disruption caused by heavy snowfall, with reports of "near zero visibility" on some roads in Cumbria.

The Met Office says the cold weather could last into next week and possibly the following week.

There is potential for up to 50cm (19.6 inches) of snow over parts of Dartmoor and Exmoor, the Met Office added, with up to 20cm (7.8 inches) falling in southern England, Wales and the West Midlands.

 

Source : BBC

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In One Tweet, Kylie Jenner Wiped Out $1.3 Billion of Snap’s Market Value

Snap Inc.’s flagship platform has lost some lustre, at least according to one social-media influencer in the Kardashian-Jenner clan.

Shares of the Snapchat parent company sank 6.1 percent on Thursday, wiping out $1.3 billion in market value, on the heels of a tweet on Wednesday from Kylie Jenner, who said she doesn’t open the app anymore. Whether it’s the demands of her newfound motherhood, or the recent app redesign, the testament drew similar replies from her 24.5 million followers. Wall Street analysts too have begun to notice, citing recent user engagement trends noticed since the platform’s redesign.

Jenner’s tweet was followed late Thursday by one from Maybelline New York, asking its followers if it should stay on the Snapchat platform. The beauty-product brand owned by Paris-based L’Oreal SA said its “Snapchat views have dropped dramatically,” but it still wanted to connect with its followers.

Citigroup analyst Mark May downgraded the stock to sell from neutral earlier this week after seeing a “significant jump” in negative reviews of the app’s redesign. He expects the reviews could cause user engagement to fall, hurting financial results.

Meanwhile, as the app takes criticism, Chief Executive Evan Spiegel may become one of the highest paid executives in the U.S. After the company’s IPO last March, Spiegel got a $636.6 million stock grant that will be payable through 2020.

Source : Bloomberg

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