World

The US says "the world is watching" how Iranian authorities respond to anti-government protests that have broken out in several cities.

Thousands of people have joined the protests, with scores arrested.

A White House statement said Iranians were fed up with "the regime's corruption and its squandering of the nation's wealth to fund terrorism".

Meanwhile, authorities urged supporters to turn out for nationwide demonstrations on Saturday.

The rallies are commemorating the 2009 demonstrations held in support of the then conservative government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Those demonstrations were in response to protests by reformists over a disputed election which returned him to power.

The BBC's Persian Service says thousands of people were likely to have been bussed into a rally in the capital Tehran.

What was the US response?

"The Iranian government should respect their people's rights, including their right to express themselves. The world is watching," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Twitter.

The tweet later appeared on President Donald Trump's Twitter account.

The US State Department urged all nations "to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption".

 What is Iran saying about the protests?

First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri has suggested that government opponents are behind the protests, according to comments reported by state broadcaster IRIB.

He said: "Some incidents in the country these days are on the pretext of economic problems, but it seems there is something else behind them. They think by doing this they harm the government, but it will be others who ride the wave.

Earlier, Fars news agency reported that protesters in Kermanshah had destroyed some public property and were dispersed.

The governor-general of Tehran said that any such gatherings would be firmly dealt with by the police, who are out in force on the main roads.

Officials in Mashhad said the protest was organised by "counter-revolutionary elements", and video online showed police using water cannon.

Source : CNN

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NEW YORK: The US has slashed its contributions to the United Nations by $285 million for the 2018-19 fiscal year. By announcing the cut, President Trump has achieved another of his commitments made during the presidential campaign.

Calling it “a big step in the right direction,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced the historic reduction in the United Nations biennial operating budget. Haley said “the inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known. We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked."

She added: “This historic reduction in spending – in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable UN – is a big step in the right direction.” The United States is seeking a $250 million cut to the UN budget for 2018-19, on top of $200 million in savings already proposed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, AFP reported two weeks ago. Guterres has proposed capping the UN biennial budget at $5.4 billion, shaving off $200 million from the 2016-17 budget.

The UN's operating budget is separate from its peacekeeping budget, which was cut by $600 million this year, under pressure from President Donald Trump, AFP reported. The US pays about 22 percent of the UN’s budget, or roughly $3.3 billion, and 28 percent of its peacekeeping effort. Trump last week threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that voted in favor of a draft UN resolution calling for the US to withdraw its decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

(The International)

Pakistan's military has warned the United States against the possibility of taking unilateral action against armed groups on its soil, in its strongest response yet to tensions between the two allies.

Speaking to journalists in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, Pakistan military spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor rejected the notion that Pakistan is not doing enough to fight armed groups.

"We have sacrificed a lot. We have paid a huge price both in blood and treasure," Ghafoor said. "We have done enough and we cannot do any more for anyone."

He said Pakistan would continue to fight armed groups in the region in Pakistan's self-interest, rather than at the behest of other countries.

"Had we not supported [the US], al-Qaeda would not have been defeated," he said.

Since 2007, Pakistan has been battling armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda and their allies, who have been seeking to impose a strict version of Islam on the country. The military has launched multiple military operations to regain territory where the groups' fighters once held sway.

Violence has dropped since the launch of the latest operation in 2014, but sporadic, high-casualty attacks continue to occur. Earlier this month, at least nine people were killed in a suicide bombing on a church in the southwestern city of Quetta.

The US has often called on Pakistan to "do more" in its fight against armed groups, accusing it of selectively targeting armed groups and not taking action against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, both of whom target US and Afghan forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

US criticism

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson repeated the call for Pakistan to take on groups allegedly offered safe haven on its soil.

"We are prepared to partner with Pakistan to defeat terrorist organisations seeking safe havens, but Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to partner with us," he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times.

Tillerson's message echoed US President Donald Trump's words when he announced a new South Asia strategy in August, singling out Pakistan for criticism. Since then, a series of high-level contacts between the two governments have taken place, although no breakthrough achievements have been announced.

During his press conference on Thursday, Ghafoor linked the difficulty of acting against armed groups such as the Haqqani Network to the number of Afghan refugees resident in Pakistan.

The country is home to more than 2.7 million Afghan refugees, by the military's figures, many of whom have lived in Pakistan for more than three decades.

Source : Al Jazeera

Pope Francis has strongly defended refugees at his Christmas Eve mass, urging the world not to ignore the plight of people who are "driven from their land" because of leaders willing to shed "innocent blood".

The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics on Sunday led a solemn ceremony for about 10,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, while many others followed the service from the square outside.

In his homily, Francis likened refugees to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem and said faith demands that foreigners be welcomed.

"So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary," said the Argentine pontiff, himself the grandson of Italian migrants.

"We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away, but driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones."

Caption:Syrian internally displaced people walk in the Atme camp, along the Turkish border

Many engulfed in the ongoing migration crisis were forced to flee from leaders "who, to impose their power and increase their wealth, see no problem in shedding innocent blood", said the 81-year-old.

'Herods of today'

Wearing white vestments in the flower-bedecked church, Francis called for a "new social imagination ... in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this earth".

Francis has made defence of migrants a major plank of his papacy, often putting him at odds with politicians.

The pope also condemned human traffickers who make money off desperate refugees as the "Herods of today" with blood on their hands, a reference to the Biblical story of the king who ordered the killing of all newborn male children near Bethlehem because he feared Jesus would one day displace him.

More than 14,000 people have died trying to make the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean to Europe in the past four years.

On Christmas Day on Monday, Francis is set to deliver at noon the traditional Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world) message and blessings from the central balcony of the Vatican basilica.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

A massive late night fire that broke out at a Mumbai complex has killed at least 15 people, officials said.

The blaze erupted just after midnight at a building in the popular Kamala Mills restaurant and shopping compound. It engulfed the structure within 30 minutes, local media reported.

More people have been injured in the blaze with several being treated in hospital.

The fire started at the 1 Above rooftop restaurant, media reported.

According to the Times of India, many of the guests tried to seek shelter in the bathroom and got trapped there. The paper also cites a hospital doctor saying that all the deaths were due to suffocation.

TV and social media footage showed firefighters and rescue teams at the scene with the top of the building consumed by flames and plumes of smoke.

Most of the casualties were women attending a party. A 28-year-old woman who was celebrating her birthday died in the fire, according to her grandfather who spoke to the Reuters news agency.

Kamala Mills is a refurbished industrial compound and houses several upscale restaurants, bars, offices and hotels.

It is also home to several media outlets with a number of national news channels affected by the fire, including Times Now, Mirror Now and ET Now.

Police have reportedly launched an investigation.

Source : BBC

Fire swept through a shopping mall in the Philippines killing at least 37 people, most of them workers at a call center, city government officials said on Sunday.

 A fire rages on at the NCCC shopping mall in Davao: dozens of people are thought to have been trapped inside. Photograph: Manman Dejeto/AP

The vice mayor of the southern city of Davao, Paolo Duterte, said the chance of survival for any of the 37 people missing at the NCC Mall was “zero”.

“Let us pray for them,” said Duterte, the eldest son of President Rodrigo Duterte.

The fire broke out on Saturday at a furniture store on the mall’s third level and quickly engulfed an outsourcing business on the upper floor, said a spokeswoman for the city government, Ma. Teresita Gaspan,

The cause was not known but an investigation was being launched, she said.

President Duterte and his daughter, Sara Duterte, who is mayor of the city, visited the scene late on Saturday to meet anxious relatives of the missing and survivors.

Six people were rescued and taken to hospital.

American reconnaissance satellites have reportedly spotted Chinese ships suspected of selling oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

South Korean officials told the Chosun Ilbo that the ships were allegedly trading in the West Sea between China and South Korea in a bid to bypass strict United Nations sanctions on oil exports to the pariah regime over its ongoing nuclear and weapons programme.

The US Treasury published surveillance photographs reportedly taken on October 19 of the North Korean vessel Rye Song Gang 1 lashed to a large Chinese vessel in deep waters.

“We need to focus on the fact that the illicit trade started after a UN Security Council resolution in September drastically capped North Korea’s imports of refined petroleum products,” an unnamed source told the paper.

The US Treasury published surveillance photographs reportedly taken on October 19 of the North Korean vessel Rye Song Gang 1 lashed to a large Chinese vessel in deep waters, apparently showing hoses transferring oil.

Under the current tough sanctions regime Pyongyang is only allowed 500,000 barrels of oil imports a year. North Korea last week denounced ever tightening economic sanctions as “an act of war.”

Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea on the high seas is also forbidden under UN rules but very hard to patrol without an aggressive Chinese crackdown on smuggling.

Peru's government has ordered the expulsion of two North Korean diplomats after declaring them persona non grata over Pyongyang's "continued violations" of UN Security Council resolutions with its nuclear programme.

"The government of Peru has informed the North Korean embassy of its decision to declare First Secretary Pak Myong Chol and Third Secretary Ji Hyok persona non grata as officers of the aforementioned diplomatic mission in Lima," Peru's foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The ministry ordered the two officials to leave the Latin American nation within 15 calendar days.

Persona non grata is the most serious form of censure a government can take against a person with diplomatic immunity and is often used by governments as a symbolic expression of displeasure.

The government made the announcement late on Friday after "having verified that the diplomatic staff carried out activities incompatible with its diplomatic functions".

North Korea's "continued violations" of United Nations Security Council resolutions also contributed to the decision, the ministry said.

The move comes as the UNSC unanimously voted to impose tough new sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's latest missile test.

The sanctions, passed on Friday, included a ban on nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea. Proposed by the United States, the restrictions are designed to prevent Pyongyang from furthering its nuclear programme.

The resolution also orders North Koreans who work abroad to return to the country within 24 months.

Peru, a non-permanent member of the UNSC, had strongly condemned North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile on November 29.

In September, Peru also dismissed North Korea's ambassador, Kim Hak-Chol, over Pyongyang's nuclear programme after having downsized the North Korean embassy in the capital Lima earlier this year

Source: Al Jazeera

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained on 12 December after meeting police officers offering them information.

They are charged with illegally obtaining information, but Reuters has called for their release and says they were simply doing their jobs.

The two will now be held at Insein prison in Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were previously in custody in a police compound.

They have been charged under the Official Secrets Act, introduced under British colonial rule. It allows a maximum 14-year jail term.

The government says the two "illegally acquired the information with the intention to share it with foreign media". They had been invited to dinner with the police officers.

Appearing at Mingaladon court, the journalists were allowed to see their families and lawyer for the first time.

The conflict has seen some 665,000 Rohingya flee Rakhine state. The military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies targeting civilians.

But the United Nations describes the offensive as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

The authorities see the Rohingya, who are Muslims, as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and deny them citizenship.

Access to Rakhine state is very tightly controlled and journalists are forced to seek information from other sources, says BBC South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.

Despite improvements in media freedom since the military relaxed its grip on Myanmar five years ago, journalists have continued to face criminal prosecution for their reporting, with more than a dozen arrested over the past two years, he adds.

Source : BBC News

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed a military commander who played a big part in the ousting of the former leader, Robert Mugabe, as one of his deputies in the ruling party.

The appointment of retired general Constantino Chiwenga at the senior ZANU-PF position was announced in a statement by the presidential press secretary.

Kembo Mohadi, a long-serving state minister, was also named ZANU-PF vice president.

Chiwenga, who resigned this week from his military role, was instrumental in a coup last month that eventually forced 93-year-old Mugabe to hand in his resignation letter, after ruling the country for 37 years.

The appointments are seen as the first step towards their elevation to vice president of the country.

Ruling party deputies are traditionally named state vice presidents, although this is not legally required. The president can have two deputies.

Chiwenga is one of several high-ranking military officials who has been given important roles in Zimbabwe after Mugabe's ousting.

Earlier this month, two ministerial posts were given to senior military officials and war veterans who played a role in the brief coup.

Mnangagwa, like Mugabe, is a veteran of the struggle for independence from Britain. He was considered by the military to be an appropriate replacement for the former president, who, at 93, was Africa's oldest leader.

Since being sworn in, Mnangagwa has been under pressure from opposition parties and the public to revive Zimbabwe's economy and implement political reforms in an attempt to fight corruption.

On Thursday, Mnangagwa vowed to build a "new Zimbabwe" based on honesty, transparency and accountability, in an attempt to attract foreign investors.

Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold presidential elections in 2018, in which Mnangagwa will run as a candidate for ZANU-PF.

Source : Al Jazeera

Everyone has family trouble around the holidays, even strongman leaders suspected of crimes against humanity. Just ask Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte.

On Christmas Day, Duterte’s eldest son Paolo abruptly resigned from his post as Vice Mayor of Davao City following an expletive-laden social media fight with his 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Isabelle.

On Friday, Isabelle unloaded on her dad on her private twitter account, saying he “fucks up my [Christmas] every year,” according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

In September, Duterte vowed to kill his son if the drug claims proved true.

She hinted he’d physically beaten her, saying: “It’s not that if you have power, you can already hurt people…. The one you’re touching is also human!!!! Not only human but a child!!!!”

Davao City is a longtime power base for the Duterte family, and the current president himself served as mayor for years before ascending to the presidency. Paolo’s sister, Sara, took over as mayor after their dad moved to running the country from the capital, Manila.

Paolo didn’t suffer his daughter’s online criticism silently. He fired back on Facebook, in a post which has since been deleted: “FIX YOUR FUCKING LIFE FIRST before I will stop 'fucking up' your Christmas every year.”

Paolo accused his daughter of having let herself be “pimped twice” by someone he didn’t name, and criticized her attempts to enter show business.

“Change your family name if you want!,” he wrote. “You don't have respect! You just embarrassed yourself! Get an education so your brain isn't empty. You don't know how to listen anymore because you're famous??? Famous, for what, Belle? Famous for disparaging a father? Just wait for my death so you will be free from me! Pray for it, woman!”

He went on to say the whole Duterte family would likely be humiliated by their all-too public back-and-forth, but that he thought social media was the only way to reach her.

“I know all of us will be embarrassed over this post. But this is what you want!,” Paolo wrote. “Let's talk here because you are a millennial, as they say. You'll only listen here by your number of likes?!”

On Monday, a more restrained Paolo resigned from his post in the city, citing “recent unfortunate events in my life that are closely tied to my failed first marriage,” as well as “the very public squabble with my daughter.”

Paolo also mentioned the “maligning of my reputation” following allegations that he himself was involved in drug trafficking.

In September, Duterte vowed to kill his son if the drug claims proved true.

More than 180 people are reported to have been killed as a tropical storm swept through the southern Philippines, with dozens more missing.

Storm Tembin brought flash flooding and mudslides to parts of Mindanao island.

Two towns badly hit were Tubod and Piagapo, where a number of homes were buried by boulders.

Tembin, with winds of up to 80km/h (50 mph), has passed across Mindanao and reached the resort islands of Palawan, and will now move further west.

The Philippines suffers regularly from deadly tropical storms, although Mindanao is not often hit.

Tembin, known as Vinta in the Philippines, started lashing Mindanao on Friday, with a state of emergency declared in some areas including the Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur regions.

Regional officials quoted by the Rappler website said there were 127 fatalities in Lanao del Norte, up to 50 in the Zamboanga peninsula and at least 18 in Lanao del Sur.

Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told the AFP news agency that there had been at least 19 deaths in the town, which is in Lanao del Norte. The remote village of Dalama was wiped out by flash floods.

"The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there," he said.

He said volunteers were digging through mud to try to recover bodies in the village.

Another official told AFP that at least 10 people had died in the town of Piagapo, 10km east of Tubod.

"We've sent rescuers but they're making little progress," Saripada Pacasum said.

More deaths were reported in the towns of Sibuco and Salug.

Andrew Morris, from the UN children's agency Unicef in Mindanao, said in some areas there were big risks for disease, particularly for children, and restoring clean water supplies would be a priority.

"Lanao del Sur province is the poorest in the Philippines, and in the past seven months there have been around 350,000 people displaced in that province because of fighting," he told the BBC, referring to battles between government forces and Islamist militants in Marawi.

"So the priority yesterday and this morning has really been to check their situation."

Storm Tembin made a second landfall on Balabac island in the Palawan archipelago and is forecast to travel west, south of the Spratly Islands, reaching southern Vietnam in about three days.

A week ago, Tropical Storm Kai-Tak hit the central Philippines, killing dozens.

The region is still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 5,000 people and affected millions in 2013.

Source : BBC