World News Delight

MAGALIA, CA – NOVEMBER 09: A Cal Fire firefighter pulls a hose towards a burning home as the Camp Fire moves through the area on November 9, 2018 in Magalia, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP The death toll in northern California’s so-called “Camp Fire” rose to 87, officials said late Saturday, adding that the blaze was almost fully under control. Cal Fire, the state fire authority, said in its latest bulletin that the fire – which broke out on November 8 – was 98 per cent contained. The office of the Butte County Sheriff said that 249 people remained unaccounted for – a steep drop from 474 missing reported earlier in the day. It added that only 54 of the fatalities have been identified. More than 153,000 acres have been torched, with nearly 14,000 homes and hundreds of other structures destroyed by the powerful blaze, California’s deadliest and most destructive fire ever. Previously the death toll had been put at 84. The rain that soaked the Butte Count

Prime Minister Theresa May made a dramatic direct appeal to the British public to support her deal to exit the European Union on Sunday even as backing from her own party for the agreement appeared to elude her. May is meeting the other 27 EU leaders in Brussels this weekend to sign off on a divorce treaty and political declaration to end more than 40 years as part of the world’s biggest trading bloc. In an open letter to the nation, May said she would campaign “heart and soul” to get her Brexit deal through Britain’s parliament – an increasingly unlikely prospect given stiff opposition from some of her own Conservative Party lawmakers and allies in Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) alike. “It will be a deal that is in our national interest – one that works for our whole country and all of our people, whether you voted “Leave” or “Remain,” she said. Sunday newspapers said different factions in her own party were preparing alternative Brexit plans t

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May / AFP European Union leaders formally agreed to a Brexit deal at a Brussels summit on Sunday, urging Britons to back Prime Minister Theresa May’s package, which faces furious opposition in the British parliament. The 27 leaders took barely half an hour to rubber-stamp a 600-page treaty setting terms for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union on March 29 and a 26-page declaration outlining a future free trading relationship. May joined them shortly afterwards for what will be a brief meeting to seal the accord. “This is the deal,” European Union chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters on his way into the meeting, saying he believed May would get it through parliament and ruling out big new concessions. “Now it is time for everybody to take responsibility — everybody,” said Michel Barnier, the Frenchman who has ground out the withdrawal treaty over the past 18 months. Juncker called it “a sad day”, saying Brexit was

A Syrian boy receives treatment at a hospital in the regime-controlled Aleppo on November 24, 2018. Official Syrian media accused the armed opposition of launching an attack with “toxic gas” on the northern city/ AFP Around 100 Syrians have been hospitalised with breathing difficulties in Aleppo, state media and a monitor said Sunday, after allegations rebels fired “toxic gas” into the regime-held city the previous day. State news agency SANA reported “107 cases of breathing difficulties” in an updated toll on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said a total of 94 people were hospitalised, but most had been discharged and the 31 cases that remained were not critical.

European Union’s President Donald Tusk The leaders of the 27 other European Union members states on Sunday approved the terms of a historic Brexit deal with Britain, at a special summit in Brussels. “EU27 has endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration on the future EU-UK relations,” EU Council President Donald Tusk announced on Twitter. Donald Tusk ✔ @eucopresident EU27 has endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration on the future EU-UK relations. 2,745 3:03 PM - Nov 25, 2018 Twitter Ads info and privacy 3,156 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy It follows more than 18 months of negotiations between the two sides, which began when the UK triggered Article 50 in the wake of the 2016 referendum. The UK is scheduled to leave the EU on 29 March 2019. The UK Parliament is expected to vote on the deal in early December but its approval is by no means guaranteed,

  Twelve people have been killed in a suspected Islamist attack in northern Mozambique, with thousands of villagers fleeing the area into neighbouring Tanzania, police sources said Sunday. Early Friday, “there was an attack in Nangane district, where there are no security patrols. The attackers killed 12 people, mostly women and children,” a police source in Cabo Delgado province, who asked not to be named, told AFP. The attack took place in the village of Chicuaia Velha, just a few kilometres (miles) from Tanzania, forcing several thousand people to cross the border to seek safety, police said. A local journalist said the villagers were killed by machete or died when their houses were set on fire by the attackers. It was the third such incident in the last month in Cabo Delgado, leaving 20 dead in all. The authorities have responded with a crackdown, rounding up some 200 suspects. Over the past year, hardline Islamists have been active in the region, stoking unr

In this file picture taken on April 7, 2018 Brazilian ex-president (2003-2011) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (L) speaks next to Brazilian former president (2011-2016) Dilma Rousseff during a Catholic mass in memory of Lula’s late wife Marisa Leticia, at the metalworkers’ union building in Sao Bernardo do Campo, in metropolitan Sao Paulo, Brazil. PHOTO: NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP Brazil has opened criminal proceedings against former left-wing leaders Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff for allegedly receiving bribes with money diverted from state-owned oil giant Petrobras. The Workers Party (PT) of the two ex-presidents has strongly denied the charges, calling them a “scandalous manoeuvre” with partisan motives. In addition to Lula and Rousseff, the PT’s current president and several former ministers are implicated. Attorney General Rodrigo Janot filed a complaint last year alleging the accused conspired to form a criminal organization that received 1,480 million r

FILE PHOTO: Marooned buildings on the banks of overflowing Pampa river in the flood waters in Alappuzha District in the south Indian state of Kerala. PHOTO: MANJUNATH KIRAN / AFP At least 28 people, many of them children, drowned on Saturday after their bus plunged into a canal in India, police said, in the latest tragedy on the world’s deadliest roads. Police said they retrieved 28 bodies from the private passenger bus after it veered off the road and fell into the canal in the Mandya district of the southern state of Karnataka. A police officer at the scene told AFP that many of the victims were school children returning to their homes. “Many children are among the 28 dead,” a police official told AFP by phone. Police could not provide the exact number of passengers on board or the cause of the crash but said the driver was apparently speeding. Local media said around 35 people were in the vehicle. Video footage on television showed locals using ropes to reach

At least 29 people died when a cruise boat capsized in poor weather on Saturday in Lake Victoria, Uganda, the deputy police spokesman said on Sunday. Police had said on Saturday at least 10 people were dead following the accident off Uganda’s Mukono district, close to the capital Kampala. “The boat was overloaded and secondly there was bad weather,” Patrick Onyango told Reuters, adding the boat was carrying 84 people. He did not say what the boat’s capacity was. Another 26 people had been rescued from the water, Onyango said, a lower figure than the initial 40 given by the police on Saturday. He attributed the discrepancy to some survivors’ failure to register with the police. “Our rescue team is still on the ground trying to rescue whoever we can find,” he said. Among those rescued on Saturday was Prince Daudi Kintu Wasajja, a brother of Ronald Mutebi, the king of Buganda kingdom, Uganda’s largest, police said. The East African nation has several kingdoms, whose ki

In this file photo taken on October 03, 2017 Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe attends the 2nd Session of the South Africa-Zimbabwe binational Commission (BNC) at Sefako Makgatho Presidential Guest House in Pretoria. PHOTO: Phill Magakoe / AFP Zimbabwe’s ex-leader Robert Mugabe is in Singapore for medical care and now unable to walk because of ill health and old age, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Saturday.  Mnangagwa told his ZANU-PF party supporters at a rally that the 94-year-old Mugabe had been receiving medical care in Singapore for the past two months. “He (Mugabe) is now old. Of course, he now is unable to walk but whatever he asks for we will provide,” Mnangagwa told hundreds of supporters in Mugabe’s home area of Zvimba, about 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital Harare. “We are looking after him. He is the founding father of the nation of Zimbabwe. He is our founding father of free Zimbabwe.” He said Mugabe was expected back in the country at

This file photo shows the Ato ceremony of the Kingdom of Dahomey, circa 1934 on May 18, 2018 at the Quai Branly Museum-Jacques Chirac in Paris.  Photo:  GERARD JULIEN / AFP France’s President Emmanuel Macron agreed Friday to return 26 artworks to Benin “without delay,” his office said. The decision came as Macron received the findings of a study he had commissioned on returning African treasures held by French museums, a radical policy shift that could put pressure on other former colonial powers. He proposed gathering African and European partners in Paris next year to define a framework for an “exchange policy” for African artworks. Macron agreed to return 26 royal statues from the Palaces of Abomey — formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey — that were taken by the French army in 1892 and are now housed at Paris’ Quai Branly museum. Benin had requested their restitution, and earlier this week welcomed that France had followed the process through to the end. But

China on Friday condemned an attack on its consulate in the Pakistani city of Karachi that killed two policemen and urged its ally to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said all consular staff and their families were safe following the shooting, which was claimed by a separatist group. “China strongly condemns any violent attacks against diplomatic agencies and requests that Pakistan takes practical measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in the country,” Geng said at a regular press briefing. Three gunmen stormed the Chinese consulate on Friday morning and exchanged gunfire with security forces who shot them down. The attack was claimed by a separatist militant group from Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, which is at the center of a major Chinese investment project in the country. The spokesman of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) branded Beijing as “an oppressor” along with

Central American migrants -mostly Hondurans- moving towards the United States in hopes of a better life, walk in the Mexican border city of Mexicali, Baja California state on their way to Tijuana, Mexico, on November 20, 2018.  PEDRO PARDO / AFP Hundreds of Central American migrants staged a boisterous demonstration on the US Mexico border on Thursday, screaming for President Donald Trump to let them in as US soldiers and riot police put on a menacing show of force. The increased tension over the presence of a thousands-strong migrant caravan came as Trump marked Thanksgiving Day by threatening to close the border if he thinks Mexico has lost control of it. Vehicle and pedestrian traffic at the busy San Ysidro crossing came to a halt for 40 minutes as dozens of US police wearing helmets and holding rifles formed a line facing the Mexican side of the frontier. Separately, riot police rehearsed deployment movements. US Customs and Border Protection called all of this a “larg

Pakistani rangers gather in front of the gate of the Chinese consulate after an attack in Karachi on November 23, 2018. At least two policemen were killed when unidentified gunmen stormed the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on November 23, officials said. ASIF HASSAN / AFP Four people were killed on Friday when gunmen armed with hand grenades and a suicide vest stormed the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani city of Karachi, officials said, with the attack claimed by a separatist group which branded Beijing “an oppressor”. Pakistani authorities said that security forces had secured the area after the attack, the latest assault on Chinese nationals in the country, where Beijing has poured billions of dollars into one of the largest projects in its massive Belt and Road programme. China “strongly condemned” the attack and asked Pakistan to take measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in the country, as well as the China-Pakis

Pakistani paramedics transport an injured bomb blast victim to a hospital after the bombing at a market in Kohat on November 23, 2018. At least 31 people were killed and 50 wounded when a bomb hidden in a carton of vegetables ripped through a crowded marketplace in Pakistan’s restive northwestern tribal region November 23, officials said.  BASIT SHAH / AFP At least 31 people were killed and 50 wounded when a suicide blast ripped through a crowded marketplace in Pakistan’s restive northwestern tribal region on Friday, officials said. The attack took place during the regular Friday bazaar in Kalaya, a town in a Shiite-dominated area of Orakzai tribal district, senior local official Khalid Iqbal told AFP. Initial investigations showed it was an improvised explosive device hidden in a carton of vegetables, but officials later said it had been a suicide blast. “It’s not clear whether the bomber was on foot or riding a motorcycle,” senior official Ameen Ullah told AFP. Shahb

Pope Francis  Pope Francis on Friday revealed the organizing team for a special meeting on the protection of children to be held in February, in response to the pedophilia scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church worldwide. His hand-picked team is all close associates: the archbishop of Malta Charles Scicluna, Father Hans Zollner, US cardinal Blase Cupich and Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias. Archbishop Scicluna spent 10 years as a Vatican prosecutor investigating cases of pedophilia among the priesthood. Zollner, a Jesuit priest, is an academic and psychotherapist who has traveled widely as part of his work in child protection. He is already part of the committee of experts advising the pope on the issue. “The February meeting is unprecedented, and one that shows Pope Francis has made the protection of minors a fundamental priority for the Church,” said Vatican spokesman Greg Burke. “This is about keeping children safe from harm worldwide. Pope Francis wants Church le