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Bannon to address Front National as French far-right leaders seek unity
Trump-Kim talks: US signals hardline stance as it scrambles to define position
Martin Shkreli jailed: 'Pharma Bro' sentenced to seven years for fraud
Death of investigative journalist sparks mass protests in Slovakia
NRA sues Florida over new gun law in wake of Stoneman Douglas shooting
Government advising New Jersey town on ferry service to Kushner resort
Canadian doctors: cancel our pay rise and spend money elsewhere
'Work actively' to oppose abortion reform, Irish Catholics urged
Ground Gupta family's jet, Canada asks South African court
Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond is first woman on Canadian currency
Catalan leader cannot leave jail to attend debate, court rules
Frida Kahlo’s great-niece calls for Barbie doll to be redesigned
Trans-Pacific Partnership signed: 'world will be drinking more Australian wine'
What do nerve agents do and how hard are they to make?
Russian spy attack: Rudd calls emergency Cobra meeting
There’s one hero of Entebbe who deserves his own film. I remember him well
Cynthia Nixon: Sex and the City star mulls politics and New York state
Dennis Rodman on Trump-Kim meeting: I said doors would open
Wayne Swan to run against Mark Butler for Labor party presidency
Man arrested over murder of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh
'A national disgrace': fury over £100m aid deal between UK and Saudi Arabia
'Attacks and killings': human rights activists at growing risk, study claims
'Hollowed out' White House: Trump is on a dangerous path toward no advisers
Wayne Swan confirms he will run for ALP president - video
Martin Shkreli sentencing ‘could have been a lot worse’, says lawyer of ‘Pharma Bro’ – video
Smoking orangutan: Indonesian zoo condemned over incident – video
After the tsunami: Japan's sea walls – in pictures
UN official says Philippine president needs psychiatric evaluation – video

Bannon to address Front National as French far-right leaders seek unity

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 03:39 PM PST

Marine Le Pen aiming to use conference to resolve rifts as some question her leadership

The Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, will attempt to pull her divided far-right party together when it meets this weekend for its first conference since she lost to Emmanuel Macron in the final round of the French presidential election.

Hours before the conference opened it was revealed Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon would be speaking on the first day of the event.

Trump-Kim talks: US signals hardline stance as it scrambles to define position

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 02:14 PM PST

Pence says maximum pressure strategy on North Korea is working
US, China and Japan vow no let-up in sanctions ahead of talks

Donald Trump will take a hardline position at his planned summit with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the White House said on Friday, as US officials scrambled to keep pace with the president after his sudden acceptance of Kim's offer to talk.

Martin Shkreli jailed: 'Pharma Bro' sentenced to seven years for fraud

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 11:47 AM PST

Shkreli, convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy, sought leniency from the court after calling the trial a 'witch-hunt'

In a packed Brooklyn courthouse on Friday, Martin Shkreli, the "Pharma Bro" who rose to international notoriety after increasing the price of a lifesaving drug 50-fold, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Shkreli, 34, was convicted of two counts of securities fraud and a single count of conspiracy last August. He had dismissed the trial as "a silly witch-hunt perpetrated by self-serving prosecutors".

Death of investigative journalist sparks mass protests in Slovakia

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 12:12 PM PST

Ján Kuciak and his fiancee were killed after he wrote an article linking politicians to the mafia

Tens of thousands of Slovaks have rallied to demand the resignation of prime minister Robert Fico's government following the murder of a journalist that has shocked the central European nation and stoked anger over sleaze in public life.

Ján Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, both 27, were found shot dead at their home near Bratislava on 25 February. Police have said Kuciak's death was "most likely" related to an investigation of his that resulted in an article on alleged ties between Slovakia's top politicians and the Italian mafia, which his employer posthumously published.

NRA sues Florida over new gun law in wake of Stoneman Douglas shooting

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 04:27 PM PST

National Rifle Association attempts to block state from raising rifle-buying age, saying it violates second amendment

The National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a federal lawsuit over gun control legislation on Friday, just hours after Florida's governor Rick Scott signed it into law.

Lawyers for the NRA want a federal judge to block the new age-restriction on buying a gun – raised to 21 from 18 – from taking effect, saying it violates the second amendment.

Government advising New Jersey town on ferry service to Kushner resort

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:56 AM PST

Long Branch city and transit officials working to get more funds for pier and ferry service to resort co-owned by Kushner

The federal government has been advising a beach town on the Jersey Shore on plans to build a pier and start a ferry service that would speed New Yorkers to the doorstep of a resort co-owned by Jared Kushner.

Canadian doctors: cancel our pay rise and spend money elsewhere

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:03 AM PST

Doctors in Quebec say negotiated pay rises are 'shocking' given 'draconian cuts' to other parts of province's healthcare system

Nearly 800 doctors and medical residents in the Canadian province of Quebec have signed a letter protesting against plans to raise their pay, arguing that the funds would be better spent on other areas of the province's beleaguered healthcare system.

'Work actively' to oppose abortion reform, Irish Catholics urged

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 08:41 AM PST

Bishops make forceful intervention as Irish parliament begins to debate referendum bill

The Catholic church in Ireland has called on its followers to vote against liberalising the country's strict anti-abortion laws in a referendum in May, in its most forceful intervention yet in the debate.

As the Irish parliament began to debate a referendum bill, the bishops called on Catholics to "work actively" to resist change.

Ground Gupta family's jet, Canada asks South African court

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:25 AM PST

Family accused of corrupt links with Jacob Zuma has defaulted on $41m aircraft loan, court told

A court in South Africa has been asked to ground a private jet used by the wealthy Gupta family who have been accused of corruptly influencing the former president Jacob Zuma.

Export Development Canada (EDC), Canada's state-run trade credit agency, has alleged the family's businesses have defaulted on a $41m (£29.6m) loan for the Bombardier Global 6000 aircraft.

Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond is first woman on Canadian currency

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 12:42 PM PST

New $10 notes are 'beautiful', says sister of Viola Desmond, whose act of defiance in a theater helped spark Canada's civil rights movement

A black woman who refused to leave the whites-only section of a Canadian movie theatre in 1946 – nearly a decade before Rosa Parks's act of defiance – has been honoured on the country's newest $10 bill.

Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond was selected from the more than 26,000 submissions that rolled in after the Bank of Canada announced plans to put a Canadian woman on the country's circulating currency for the first time.

Catalan leader cannot leave jail to attend debate, court rules

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:27 AM PST

Regional presidency candidate Jordi Sànchez refused permission to go to investiture debate

Spain's supreme court has ruled that the jailed Catalan independence leader chosen to run for the regional presidency cannot leave prison to attend an investiture debate next week.

Jordi Sànchez, the former head of the influential grassroots organisation Catalan National Assembly (ANC), has been in custody for five months over allegations that he and another civil society group leader used huge demonstrations to try to stop Spanish police officers from following a judge's orders to halt the unilateral independence referendum held on 1 October last year.

Frida Kahlo’s great-niece calls for Barbie doll to be redesigned

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:55 AM PST

'The doll should have to match what the artist really was,' says lawyer for late Mexican artist's great niece

The toymaker Mattel is in a dispute with a distant relative of the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo over rights to a Frida Barbie doll released as part of the company's Inspiring Women series.

Trans-Pacific Partnership signed: 'world will be drinking more Australian wine'

Posted: 08 Mar 2018 08:39 PM PST

Malcolm Turnbull says preferential treatment for Australian beef exports to Japan is key win

Pacific nations will be "drinking more Australian wine, eating more Australian beef and using more Australian services" thanks to a new trade agreement with 10 other countries in the region, according to the trade minister Steve Ciobo.

Malcolm Turnbull also hailed the signing of the restructured Trans-Pacific Partnership as a vital win for Australian industry and attacked Labor for giving up on the deal when Donald Trump pulled the US out of the pact.The TPP-11, as it is now known after the departure of the US, was signed by Ciobo in Chile on Friday. It is hoped it will eliminate 98% of tariffs in a marketplace worth close to $US14 trillion.

What do nerve agents do and how hard are they to make?

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 03:41 AM PST

The ingredients for the lethal substances apparently involved in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal are easy to obtain and are usually absorbed quickly through the skin or inhalation

After days of analysis, police investigators announced on Wednesday that they believe a nerve agent was used to poison former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter on Sunday, raising questions of how it was created and how the attack was carried out.

Russian spy attack: Rudd calls emergency Cobra meeting

Posted: 10 Mar 2018 01:08 AM PST

Hundreds of troops join investigation in Salisbury where focus turns to local cemetery

Investigators have been summoned for emergency talks on the investigation in Salisbury, where the repercussions of a suspected nerve agent attack continue to grow.

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, will chair a meeting of the government's Cobra committee at 3pm on Saturday to receive updates on the police inquiry, Downing Street said.

There’s one hero of Entebbe who deserves his own film. I remember him well

Posted: 10 Mar 2018 01:00 AM PST

Michel Cojot-Goldberg acted as go-between for the hijackers and passengers, and his actions saved almost all the hostages

The forthcoming film Entebbe, starring Daniel Brühl and Rosamund Pike, will introduce a new generation to the story of how an Air France flight in 1976 from Tel Aviv was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells. There is one central figure who isn't in the film, but should be.

Michel Cojot-Goldberg was one of my father's oldest friends, and he was on that flight with his then 12-year-old son, Olivier. Fluent in multiple languages, Michel acted as the translator for Uganda's president Idi Amin, as the go-between for the hijackers and the passengers, and became a central figure in the eventual rescue. But I can understand why the film-makers left him out, because Michel's story is so incredible it requires its own movie.

Cynthia Nixon: Sex and the City star mulls politics and New York state

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 11:00 PM PST

The actor and education campaigner is reportedly considering a run for governor but beating Andrew Cuomo will not be easy

The rumors began in August last year. Cynthia Nixon, best known for her role in Sex and the City, was said to be mulling a run for New York governor. Nixon never confirmed it but talk continued. This week it was reported she has begun reaching out to people who could run her campaign. The actor is a longtime education activist in New York City and has ties to both Hillary Clinton and the mayor, Bill de Blasio. She is rumoured to have recruited the two politicos who propelled De Blasio to office.

Dennis Rodman on Trump-Kim meeting: I said doors would open

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:32 PM PST

Ex-basketball star who has visited with North Korean ruler three times sends 'much respect' to both leaders and calls for 'peace love not war'

The former NBA star Dennis Rodman – the only prominent American who has met Kim Jong-un – has said he knew the doors between North Korea and the United States would open one day.

"Much respect to President Trump and Marshall Kim Jong-un for their upcoming historic meeting," Rodman wrote on Twitter.

Wayne Swan to run against Mark Butler for Labor party presidency

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:01 PM PST

Exclusive: Former treasurer's pitch will draw on his public campaigning on inequality

The former treasurer and Queensland rightwinger Wayne Swan has confirmed he will face off against the leftwing Labor frontbencher Mark Butler for the ALP presidency.

Swan said on Saturday he had entered the field "because I want to make a contribution to winning the battle of ideas with the radical right that have taken over the Liberal party of Australia".

Man arrested over murder of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 11:07 PM PST

High-profile editor and activist was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru in September

Indian police arrested a member of a hard-line Hindu group on Friday for the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017, officials said.

KT Naveen Kumar was arrested on suspicion of supplying the weapons used to kill Lankesh, according to a senior police officer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to talk to media. More arrests are expected, he said.

'A national disgrace': fury over £100m aid deal between UK and Saudi Arabia

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:26 AM PST

Unveiling of plan to create infrastructure in poor countries overshadowed by unease over Saudi role in Yemen conflict

The controversial aid deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia announced on Friday has been branded a "national disgrace".

Amid further outcry over Britain's relationship with the Gulf state, government ministers have signed a £100m aid agreement with Riyadh to coincide with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to London this week.

'Attacks and killings': human rights activists at growing risk, study claims

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 05:12 AM PST

Research shows 34% rise in attacks against campaigners defending land, environment and labour rights in the face of corporate activity

Human rights defenders who challenge big corporations are being killed, assaulted, harassed and suppressed in growing numbers, researchers have claimed.

A survey by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center recorded a 34% global rise in attacks against human rights activists last year, including 120 alleged murders and hundreds of other cases involving threats, assaults and intimidation. The number of incidents were found to have risen sharply, with 388 attacks recorded in 2017 compared with 290 the previous year.

'Hollowed out' White House: Trump is on a dangerous path toward no advisers

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 11:00 PM PST

There's never been such a rapid turnover of administration personnel in modern times, and the stampede appears to be accelerating

Like many American presidents before him, Donald Trump held court in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by chandeliers, gold curtains, mirrors and portraits of George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt. He had a message for the press: "You know, I read where, 'Oh, gee, maybe people don't want to work for Trump.' Believe me, everybody wants to work in the White House … I could take any position in the White House, and I'll have a choice of the 10 top people having to do with that position. Everybody wants to be there."

Wayne Swan confirms he will run for ALP president - video

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:01 PM PST

Former treasurer Wayne Swan confirms he will run against Labor frontbencher Mark Butler for the position of ALP president.

Martin Shkreli sentencing ‘could have been a lot worse’, says lawyer of ‘Pharma Bro’ – video

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 01:36 PM PST

Martin Shkreli, the 'Pharma Bro', faces seven years in jail for fraud in a sentencing which could have been 'much worse' according to his attorney Benjamin Brafman. Shkreli has been convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy but avoided the 15-year sentence asked for by the prosecution

Martin Shkreli jailed: 'Pharma Bro' sentenced to seven years for fraud

Smoking orangutan: Indonesian zoo condemned over incident – video

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 11:50 AM PST

An orangutan has been filmed smoking at an Indonesian zoo after a visitor flicked a cigarette into its enclosure. Animal rights activists have condemned the zoo over the incident with some calling for its closure after a series of incidents involving substandard animal welfare conditions

After the tsunami: Japan's sea walls – in pictures

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:10 AM PST

Seven years on from the earthquake and tsunami, residents on the north-east coast have rebuilt their lives alongside huge sea walls that should protect them if another disaster strikes

UN official says Philippine president needs psychiatric evaluation – video

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 08:08 AM PST

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein says Rodrigo Duterte should submit himself to psychiatric evaluation after the Philippine president included a UN human rights investigator on a list of alleged communist terrorists. The Philippine government claims the UN's special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, is a member of a Maoist rebel group