World

The UN chief has called "for an immediate and unconditional de-escalation of violence" after Israel launched intensive air raids on what it called Iranian bases in Syria, raising tensions in the region.

"All concerned in Syria and the region have a responsibility and must abide by international law and relevant Security Council resolutions," Antonio Guterres said in a statement on Saturday.

"The secretary-general is following closely the alarming military escalation throughout Syria and the dangerous spillover across its borders," the UN chief's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The Israeli army on Saturday launched "large-scale" attacks inside Syria after intercepting what it said was an Iranian drone that entered occupied Golan Heights and the subsequent downing of an Israeli fighter jet by Syrian air defence forces.

The UN chief's reaction came after Russia, which intervened in support of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, said they were "seriously concerned" by the confrontation.

"We urge all parties involved to exercise restraint and to avoid any actions that could lead to an even greater complication of the situation," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"We consider it necessary to unconditionally respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and other countries of the region," it added.

Source : Al Jazeera

Aftershocks continue to rattle Taiwan after a strong earthquake that killed at least four people and injured more than 200 others.

The powerful 6.4-magnitude tremor struck at 23:50 (15:50 GMT) about 20km (12 miles) off the island's east coast.

Multiple buildings across the city of Hualien have been badly damaged. More than 140 people still remain unaccounted for from one building.

Hualien, a popular tourist hub, is home to about 100,000 people.

Residents in the city of Hualien have been told to stay away from their damaged homes, and about 800 have taken shelter in community buildings because of the aftershocks.

Images from the city showed tilted structures, scattered debris and extensive damage to roads in the area.

The Yunman Cuidi building, which has residential and commercial floors, is tilting to one side after sustaining major damage. About 143 of its residents remain unaccounted for, local media said.

Rescuers on Wednesday morning were still working to reach at least five other people who are thought to be trapped in buildings including two people believed to be stuck inside the Marshal Hotel.

Among the several badly damaged buildings was a hospital, local media said.

"We were still open when [the earthquake] happened," Lin Ching-wen, who operates a restaurant near the hospital told newswire Reuters.

"I grabbed my wife and children and we ran out and tried to rescue people."

Emergency responders, including soldiers, worked through the night, rescuing about 150 people from damaged buildings, but powerful aftershocks have disrupted rescue efforts.

Source : BBC

A cutting-edge scientific analysis shows that a Briton from 10,000 years ago had dark brown skin and blue eyes.

Researchers from London's Natural History Museum extracted DNA from Cheddar Man, Britain's oldest complete skeleton, which was discovered in 1903. University College London researchers then used the subsequent genome analysis for a facial reconstruction.

It underlines the fact that the lighter skin characteristic of modern Europeans is a relatively recent phenomenon. No prehistoric Briton of this age had previously had their genome analysed.

As such, the analysis provides valuable new insights into the first people to resettle Britain after the last Ice Age. The analysis of Cheddar Man's genome - the "blueprint" for a human, contained in the nuclei of our cells - will be published in a journal, and will also feature in the upcoming Channel 4 documentary The First Brit, Secrets Of The 10,000-year-old Man.

Cheddar Man's remains had been unearthed 115 years ago in Gough's Cave, located in Somerset's Cheddar Gorge. Subsequent examination has shown that the man was short by today's standards - about 5ft 5in - and probably died in his early 20s.

The Natural History Museum researchers extracted the DNA from part of the skull near the ear known as the petrous. At first, project scientists Prof Ian Barnes and Dr Selina Brace weren't sure if they'd get any DNA at all from the remains.

But they were in luck: not only was DNA preserved, but Cheddar Man has since yielded the highest coverage (a measure of the sequencing accuracy) for a genome from this period of European prehistory - known as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age.

They teamed up with researchers at University College London (UCL) to analyse the results, including gene variants associated with hair, eye and skin colour.

They found the Stone Age Briton had dark hair - with a small probability that it was curlier than average - blue eyes and skin that was probably dark brown or black in tone.

This combination might appear striking to us today, but it was a common appearance in western Europe during this period.

Cheddar Man's genome reveals he was closely related to other Mesolithic individuals - so-called Western Hunter-Gatherers - who have been analysed from Spain, Luxembourg and Hungary.

Source : BBC

The United Kingdom Ambassador to Maldives James Dauris on Monday claims the chief justice was quoted saying local judges are "under great pressure." 

Ambassador Dauris who tweeted the highlights of his conversation with Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, said that the two had phone conversation in which Saeed affirmed the signatures on Supreme Court orders have not been forged.

"He told me about the great pressure judges are under," Dauris tweeted.

Dauris urged the Maldivian citizens respect and support an independent judiciary in the country. He added "it is in the fundamental interests of every Maldivian that the independence of the judiciary is respected & supported."

Supreme Court on Thursday night issued a release order for nine political leaders from jail that includes former President Mohamed Nasheed along with Jumhooree Party leader Qasim Ibrahim and former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb among others.

President Yameen on Sunday claimed the top-court order for the release of political leaders cannot be implemented accordingly as it was 'unconstitutional.'

Government inaction to implement the top-court order has come to international communities' attention. Maldives government has been advised to respect the Supreme Court order from United States, United Kingdom, Sri Lanka and even the European Union.

The mounting international and opposition pressure on the state to implement the top-court order has become exacerbating for Yameen's administration.

(Mohamed Rehan, Maldives)

Bangladeshi police have clashed with thousands of protesters, as opposition leader Khaleda Zia was jailed for five years for corruption.

Zia, a former prime minister, denies misusing international funds donated to a charitable children's trust. The jail sentence may mean the 72-year-old is barred from parliamentary polls due later this year.

The case is one of dozens pending against Zia, a long-time rival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Zia has described the charges against her as politically motivated. As she went into court, she told weeping relatives: "I will be back. Do not worry and be strong", according to the Daily Star.

The verdict was read out in a court in Dhaka after police used tear gas to disperse thousands of her supporters. Several police officers were injured in the violence, reports said.

Zia was led away to jail minutes after the verdict, bdnews24 reported. Her son Tarique Rahman was given 10 years in jail in absentia as he is in London. The same jail term was handed down to four of her aides.

The trial against Ms Zia centred around $252,000 (£182,000) intended for an orphanage trust set up when she was prime minister. She was found guilty of embezzling the funds.

Source : BBC

Security forces in the Maldives have sealed off the country's parliament and arrested two opposition legislators, amid a deepening crisis over President Abdulla Yameen's refusal to free jailed politicians.

Soldiers in riot gear surrounded the parliament building in Male on Sunday, soon after the opposition petitioned the parliament to remove the island nation's attorney general and its chief prosecutor.

Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the parliamentary leader of the opposition, accused the pair of breaking the law by failing to act on a Supreme Court verdict overturning "terrorism" convictions against nine dissidents, including exiled former President Mohamed Nasheed.

The top court's ruling has plunged the Maldives into fresh political turmoil and dealt a major blow to Yameen, who is accused of corruption, misrule and rights abuses. He denies the allegations.

 Source : Al Jazeera

One of US President Donald Trump's top aides has resigned amid abuse claims from his two ex-wives. White House staff secretary Rob Porter said "these outrageous allegations are simply false" as he announced he would step down.

The accusations were first reported in the Daily Mail and include accounts of physical and emotional abuse.

The White House would not comment on a report that Porter, 40, failed to receive security clearance.

His ex-wives, Colbie Holderness and Jennifer Willoughby, both recounted stories of Porter's alleged misconduct.

His first spouse, Holderness, said the White House aide had been verbally and physically abusive.

Holderness, a US government analyst, said Porter had kicked her on their 2003 honeymoon in the Canary Islands.

She also alleged he punched her in the face while they were on holiday a couple of years later in Florence, Italy.

 Holderness supplied a photo of herself with a black eye to the media.

Willoughby, a motivational speaker, told the Daily Mail she was married to Porter from 2009-13. She wrote about her experiences in a blog post entitled Why I Stayed

Source : BBC

Nigel, a handsome gannet bird who lived on a desolate island off the coast of New Zealand, died suddenly this week. Wherever his soul has landed, the singles scene surely cannot be worse.

The bird was lured to Mana Island five years ago by wildlife officials who, in hopes of establishing a gannet colony there, had placed concrete gannet decoys on cliffsides and broadcast the sound of the species’ calls. Nigel accepted the invitation, arriving in 2013 as the island’s first gannet in 40 years. But none of his brethren joined him.

In the absence of a living love interest, Nigel became enamoured with one of the 80 faux birds. He built her — it? — a nest. He groomed her “chilly, concrete feathers . . . year after year after year,” the Guardian reported. He died next to her in that unrequited love nest, the vibrant orange-yellow plumage of his head contrasting, as ever, with the weathered, lemony paint of hers.

“Whether or not he was lonely, he certainly never got anything back, and that must have been [a] very strange experience,” conservation ranger Chris Bell, who also lives on the island, told the paper. “I think we all have a lot of empathy for him because he had this fairly hopeless situation.”

As he persisted in this futile courtship, Nigel accrued something of a fan base. Mana is a scientific reserve that, like other New Zealand islands, has been the focus of replanting and rodent eradication efforts. Friends of Mana Island, one of the groups that have planted trees and shrubs, said on Facebook that Nigel “won the hearts” of members and volunteers who “spent many hours over the years maintaining the concrete colony.”

Another gannet spent some time on Mana last year. Unfortunately, it was a he, dubbed Norman.

Perhaps the saddest twist to this tale is that three other gannets settled on Mana last month after conservation officials tweaked the sound system used to attract them, according to the New Zealand website ‘Stuff’. This raised the possibility of breeding. But Nigel paid them no attention.

“This just feels like the wrong ending to the story,” Bell told Stuff. “He died right at the beginning of something great.” But Nigel — whose nickname was “no mates” — will forever be remembered as the pioneer of the colony and credited with signalling to the new trio that Mana was suitable habitat, Bell said.

Source : Washington Post

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's estranged wife, Jashodaben, survived a fatal crash on Wednesday on a national highway, police confirmed.

One of her relatives died when their vehicle collided with a truck in the western state of Rajasthan. Jashodaben, her bodyguard and the driver suffered minor injuries. Seven people were travelling in the SUV.

Police have launched an inquiry to find out what caused the accident.

Jashodaben, who does not live with Modi, married him in 1967 when he was 17 years old.

She has said in interviews that he had left her after three years, during which they spent some three months together and that they had parted amicably.

Modi publicly admitted his marriage for the first time in 2014 when he filed his nomination papers as the prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party which went on to win the election.

Critics have accused him of deserting his wife after he joined the Hindu nationalist organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which prizes celibacy. They say the fact that he refused to acknowledge her for so long is a telltale sign of his attitude towards women.

Source : BBC

Fears over a dengue vaccine in the Philippines have led to a big drop in immunisation rates for preventable diseases, officials have warned. Health Under-Secretary Enrique Domingo said many parents were refusing to get their children vaccinated for polio, chicken pox and tetanus.

The fears centre on Dengvaxia, a drug developed by French company Sanofi.

Sanofi and local experts say there is no evidence linking the deaths of 14 children to the drug.

However, the company had warned last year that the vaccine could make the disease worse in some people not infected before.

Dengue fever affects more than 400 million people each year around the world. Dengvaxia is the world's first vaccine against dengue.

The mosquito-borne disease is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children in some Asian and Latin American countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

What did Domingo say about immunisation rates?

"Our programmes are suffering... (people) are scared of all vaccines now", he warned. Domingo added that vaccination rates for some preventable diseases had dropped as much as 60% in recent years - significantly lower that the nationwide target of 85%.

He expressed concerns about potential epidemics in the Philippines - a nation of about 100 million people, many of whom are impoverished.

What triggered fears about Dengvaxia?

More than 800,000 children were vaccinated across the country in 2016-17. Fourteen of them have died. Dengvaxia immunisations were halted last year, as the Philippines launched an investigation into what caused the deaths.

On Saturday, Doctors for Public Welfare (DPW) said a clinical review conducted by Philippine General Hospital forensic pathologists had determined that the deaths were not linked to the vaccine, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

What about Sanofi's reaction?

In a statement, the French company said: "The University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital expert panel confirmed... that there is currently no evidence directly linking the Dengvaxia vaccine to any of the 14 deaths.

"In Dengvaxia clinical trials conducted over more than a decade and the over one million doses of the vaccine administered, no deaths related to the vaccine have been reported to us.

"Clinical evidence confirms dengue vaccination in the Philippines will provide a net reduction in dengue disease."

Last November, Sanofi announced that its vaccine could worsen the potentially deadly disease in people not previously infected.

"For those not previously infected by dengue virus, however, the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination upon a subsequent dengue infection," the firm said in a statement.

Sanofi says Dengvaxia has been registered in 19 countries and launched in 11 of them.

In its latest advice on the vaccine, the WHO said that "until a full review has been conducted, WHO recommends vaccination only in individuals with a documented past dengue infection".

Source : BBC News

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is to attend Friday's opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, which are being held in the South, ministers in Seoul say.

Kim Yo-jong is the youngest daughter of late leader Kim Jong-il and her role was strengthened last year when she was promoted to the politburo.

Both Koreas will march under one flag at the opening ceremony. The North's participation has been seen as a thawing of bilateral ties. However, experts say it is unlikely to have any impact on the North's nuclear ambitions.

The US believes the North is using the Olympics for propaganda purposes and is sending Vice-President Mike Pence to the opening ceremony to counter it.

"We're travelling to the Olympics to make sure that North Korea doesn't use the powerful symbolism in the backdrop of the Winter Olympics to paper over the truth about their regime," he said.

Kim Yo-jong, who shares the same mother as Kim Jong-un, will accompany the North's ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong-Nam, whose attendance was announced at the weekend.

Source : BBC

Fidel Castro’s oldest son, Fidel “Fidelito” Castro Díaz-Balart, committed suicide on Thursday in Havana, according to Cuba’s state media.

Castro, 68, whose resemblance to his father earned him the nickname “Fidelito,” had been seeking medical attention for the past few months after falling into a “deep depression,” Cuban officials said.

Fidel Castro’s oldest son, Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, center, committed suicide late Thursday, according to various news reports. Getty Images.

Fidelito was born to Fidel Castro’s first wife, Mirta Díaz-Balart, on Sept. 1, 1949 in Havana. He was cousin to Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart — two South Florida Republican political leaders known for their vehement opposition to Castro. Mario is a congressman; his brother Lincoln is a former congressman and now an attorney.

Along with Castro’s wife Dalia Soto del Valle, Fidelito and six siblings formed Castro’s family.

Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Coral Gables-based nonprofit Cuban Studies Institute, said Fidelito was the only one of Castro’s children who chose a life in government and politics.

“He worked with his father, and his father tried to build him up,” Suchlicki said.

The son was sent to the Soviet Union to study nuclear physics, and he oversaw Cuba’s nuclear power program from 1980 to 1992 — until Castro publicly fired his son.

“He was fired for incompetence,” the father declared.

In the twilight of Castro’s life, Fidelito’s role and stature diminished, a trend that continued when Castro’s brother, Raúl Castro, took over in 2006. Fidel Castro died in November 2016 at age 90 — one of the last times Fidelito was seen in public.

The eldest son of the Cuba’s revolutionary leader had less clout in recent years.

“In the past few years, his star had been declining. He hadn’t been doing much,” Suchlicki said. “I understand he was depressed for a while.”

Frank Calzon, executive director for the advocacy group Center for a Free Cuba, said there may be tensions in the Castro family stemming from Raúl Castro’s ascendancy to power.

“There has been some speculation of the anger and disappointment of Fidel’s family after General Raúl Castro became president and his children took the spotlight, and hardly anything else was heard of Fidel’s offspring,” Calzon said, adding he didn’t know whether the tense family relations played any role in Fidelito’s suicide.

Calzon noted that other prominent figures in Cuba’s Castro-era history have taken their own lives. Haydée Santamaría, a heroine of the revolution who remained in a leadership position until her death, killed herself on the anniversary of the revolution in 1980. Eddy Suñol, a rebel army officer who later became a judge, killed himself after Fidel Castro overruled one of his decisions.

The suicide rate in Cuba is among the highest in the Americas, according to a 2014 study by the Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization.

Prior to his death, Fidelito served as a scientific adviser to the Cuban government and was the vice president of the country’s Academy of Sciences.

He began his studies in Cuba and later moved to the now-defunct Soviet Union, where he received his Ph.D. in physics from the Kurchatov Institute in Russia. He later earned a degree from Lomonosov Moscow State University and continued his studies in Cuba and Spain.

He had three children — Mirta María, Fidel Antonio and José Raúl — with his first wife Natasha Smirnova, whom he met in Russia. After divorcing Smirnova, he married María Victoria Barreiro from Cuba.

Fidelito is also survived by five half brothers: Alexis, Alexander, Antonio, Alejandro and Angel (children of Castro’s second wife), as well as a half sister, Alina Fernández Revuelta, who was born out of wedlock.

Funeral arrangements will be made by the family, according to Cuban officials.