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New York helicopter crash: five dead after aircraft ditches in East river
Russia tries to entice voters to polls to prop up Putin's legitimacy
Marine Le Pen marks Front National leadership win with rebrand proposal
Falklands: Argentinian soldiers' relatives to put names on graves
German parties to vote on 'out of date' Nazi-era abortion law
Normandy advert to seduce UK firms after Brexit banned
Trump under pressure over chaotic approach to North Korea nuclear talks
British dual citizen sentenced to six-year jail term, Iran reveals
Elizabeth Warren seeks to use Trump Pocahontas 'racial slur' as political tool
Bono: bullying allegations at charity made me furious
Greek protesters demand release of two soldiers held in Turkey
US steelworkers say Trump tariff plan has appeal – 'but about 40 years too late'
Russia says it has successfully launched powerful new missile
May likely to blame Russia for Salisbury attack, Tory MP says
Narcopisos: Spain's 'drug flats' give focus for fight against heroin threat
Nearly half of US arms exports go to the Middle East
José Rivera on Kiss of the Spider Woman: I had to kill what I loved
Saving the yellow-eyed penguin – a photo essay
Police seek victims of alleged paedophile ring at Sydney boys' home
Low-cost housing needs dignity, says Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi
New York: helicopter comes down in East river – video
Crowds watch as tallest building in Kentucky's capital is demolished - video
Xi Jinping set to be president for life after scrapping term limits – video report
'Solve drug problem through toughness': Trump advocates death penalty for drug dealers – video

New York helicopter crash: five dead after aircraft ditches in East river

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 01:39 AM PDT

Pilot rescued but all passengers perish after Eurocopter AS350 comes down in Manhattan waterway

Five people have died after a helicopter crashed into New York's East river on Sunday night and flipped upside down in the water.

Video taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter showed the red helicopter land and then capsize, its rotor blades slapping at the water.

Russia tries to entice voters to polls to prop up Putin's legitimacy

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 04:16 AM PDT

Worried about turnout, officials experiment with raffles, selfie competitions and referendums

In the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, political activists are raffling a car, while in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, the prize is an iPhone X. In Berdsk, the best selfie will be plastered across a billboard. The catch? To qualify for a chance to win, Russians must turn out to vote.

There is little doubt that Vladimir Putin will win a fourth term as president in the election next Sunday, making him the first Kremlin leader since Stalin to serve two decades in power.

Marine Le Pen marks Front National leadership win with rebrand proposal

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 09:46 AM PDT

After re-election, Le Pen suggests party could change name to National Rally

Marine Le Pen has been re-elected leader of the Front National and immediately proposed changing the far-right party's name to Rassemblement National (National Rally), saying it must serve as a "rallying cry" to new voters.

Le Pen said FN had moved from its roots as a protest group into opposition and was now ready to govern under a new name.

Falklands: Argentinian soldiers' relatives to put names on graves

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 08:16 AM PDT

Identification of previously unknown soldiers made possible thanks to DNA testing and humanitarian initiative

The relatives of 89 previously unidentified Argentinian soldiers killed during the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands will travel there this month to put names on their graves.

Their identification has been made possible due to painstaking DNA testing and the humanitarian initiative of a British captain who in 1982 gathered more than 120 dead soldiers, with their effects, and placed them in graves each marked with the words "Argentine soldier known only to God".

German parties to vote on 'out of date' Nazi-era abortion law

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 05:57 AM PDT

Doctors face two-year jail sentences for advertising or giving information on abortion

A debate over proposals to scrap a Nazi-era law that forbids German doctors from providing information on abortion is expected to set the tone of the new coalition government when it is voted on this week.

Under paragraph 219a of the German penal code, it is a crime to advertise, offer or give information on abortion services, and those found guilty of doing so can face a two-year jail sentence or a hefty fine.

Normandy advert to seduce UK firms after Brexit banned

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 06:48 AM PDT

TfL deems ads on tubes and buses calling for businesses to relocate too sensitive

An advertising campaign from the Normandy government urging British businesses to flee across the Channel to escape Brexit has been banned by Transport for London because it may cause "public controversy or sensitivity".

The adverts urging entrepreneurs worried about the UK's departure from the EU to "vote with their feet" will run in national newspapers, including the Guardian, this week. But they will not be carried on public transport in the capital after TfL said the ads "did not fully comply" with its advertising guidelines.

Trump under pressure over chaotic approach to North Korea nuclear talks

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 09:42 AM PDT

Republicans: denuclearisation must be prerequisite for meeting
CIA director and White House spokesman contradict each other

Donald Trump faced criticism from Republican allies on Sunday after apparently agreeing to meet Kim Jong-un without demanding that North Korea start scrapping its nuclear program.

British dual citizen sentenced to six-year jail term, Iran reveals

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 01:38 PM PDT

Authorities claim unidentified British-Iranian citizen is 'agent of England's intelligence service'

Iran revealed on Sunday that it had sentenced an unidentified Iranian-British dual citizen to six years in jail for spying for Britain in a case that appears not to have previously been disclosed.

No details of the case were given, including when the person was arrested or where.

Elizabeth Warren seeks to use Trump Pocahontas 'racial slur' as political tool

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 07:08 AM PDT

Senator raises issue of sexual assault against Native Americans
Massachusetts Democrat 'not running for president in 2020'

Elizabeth Warren has responded to Donald Trump's latest "Pocahontas" jibe by highlighting the problem of sexual violence against Native American women, a tactic she said she would pursue each time the president "threw out" such a "racial slur".

Bono: bullying allegations at charity made me furious

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 01:55 AM PST

U2 singer apologises after claims workers at One office were 'treated worse than dogs'

The singer Bono has apologised after claims were made that workers at a charity he co-founded were subjected to a culture of bullying and abuse.

The U2 singer, 57, said he was left furious after the allegations surfaced in November last year. He admitted the One organisation failed to protect some employees at its Johannesburg office and said: "I need to take some responsibility for that."

Greek protesters demand release of two soldiers held in Turkey

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 11:24 AM PDT

Defence minister says arrests have aggravated already strained ties between two countries

Protesters have taken to the streets of northern Greece demanding the release of two Greek soldiers detained by Turkey, amid rising tensions between the two countries.

Greece's defence minister, Panos Kammenos, described the pair as "hostages" and ordered border patrols to be stepped up along the heavily defended land frontier the two nations share.

US steelworkers say Trump tariff plan has appeal – 'but about 40 years too late'

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 04:34 AM PDT

Workers in Pennsylvania, once a steel hub, are conflicted about the tariffs proposal and fear Trump could just be playing politics

To say former steelworkers in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley are conflicted about Donald Trump's 25% tariff on steel imports is not quite to capture the mood.

Russia says it has successfully launched powerful new missile

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 04:10 AM PDT

Vladimir Putin recently unveiled hypersonic Kinzhal missile as part of an array of weaponry

Russia has said it successfully launched a hypersonic missile described by Vladimir Putin as an ideal weapon when he unveiled new armaments earlier this month.

The Kinzhal missile was launched from a MiG-31 aircraft that took off from an airfield in south-western Russia, the defence ministry said.

May likely to blame Russia for Salisbury attack, Tory MP says

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 02:25 AM PDT

Tom Tugendhat says he would be very surprised if the PM did not point the finger at the Kremlin

Theresa May is likely to announce that the UK believes Russia is behind the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, a senior Conservative MP has said before Monday morning's national security council (NSC) meeting.

Narcopisos: Spain's 'drug flats' give focus for fight against heroin threat

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 10:00 PM PDT

Neighbourhood groups want more action from police and politicians to shut down apartments

The heroin dealers of El Raval do not discriminate and nor does their product.

"We've seen executives in suits and ties arrive by taxi at six in the morning, couples, pregnant women, people with every type of disability, teenagers," says Carlos, a resident of the central Barcelona district.

Nearly half of US arms exports go to the Middle East

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 06:01 PM PDT

Saudi Arabia is world's second biggest importer, with global US sales up by 25% in past five years

Nearly half of US arms exports over the past five years have gone to the war-stricken Middle East, with Saudi Arabia consolidating its place as the world's second biggest importer, a report has shown.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said on Monday that global transfer of major weapons systems between 2013 and 2017 rose by 10% compared with the five-year period before that, in a continuation of an upward trend that began two decades ago.

José Rivera on Kiss of the Spider Woman: I had to kill what I loved

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 11:00 PM PDT

When Rivera re-read Manuel Puig's book he loved its surreal dialogue and brilliant footnotes. But something had to give. He explains what he sacrificed for his stage version – and why he saved the zombies

Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman is many novels in one. It's a political critique of unlimited right-wing power; a psycho-emotional exploration of state terror and incarceration; an interior dreamscape; and a redemptive love story between two prisoners, the apolitical window dresser Molina and the committed leftist guerrillero Valentin.

Most of the novel is told in dialogue. These long, complex, emotionally fraught conversations read as if they are word-for-word transcripts of the prisoners' secretly taped encounters. Some sequences feel like jazz, others play like hallucinations. There are dazzling, surreal, stream-of-consciousness internal monologues – extended fever dreams inspired by Faulkner and Joyce. There are also chilling police reports on the ruling junta's efforts to spy on the newly released Molina. And there are scores of lengthy footnotes detailing Freud's analysis of homosexuality and the elimination of repression (the association of sex and sin), as well as Herbert Marcuse's championing of the "free flow of the libido"

Saving the yellow-eyed penguin – a photo essay

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 12:00 AM PDT

Photographer Murdo Macleod visits New Zealand's South Island where conservationists are seeking to protect the endangered yellow-eyed penguin from predation, disease and habitat destruction

At the end of the day, having avoided being bitten on the flipper by a barracouta or chewed by a shark, a shy yellow-eyed penguin prepares to come ashore and make its bed in the bush. Emerging from the surf, he scans the apparently empty sandy strip with his beady eye for signs of danger. Though he is a swift swimmer, he is fettered by his stumpy legs when ashore. But he grows confident as he comes close to the dense brush.

Then the unexpected happens: eight dark figures spring from three different locations and sprint toward the hoiho – or "little shouter" as the yellow-eyed penguin is known in Māori. He has been bushwhacked like this before and offers only token resistance. "Oh no, not again!" he may have thought.

Police seek victims of alleged paedophile ring at Sydney boys' home

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 11:06 PM PDT

Detectives believe there could be more victims who attended Daruk training school

Police are calling for those who lived in a western Sydney boys' home from 1965 to 1985 to come forward, saying many of them suffered "horrific experiences" being abused by an alleged paedophile ring.

A man allegedly linked to a paedophile ring based at Daruk training school that terrorised vulnerable children has been brought before the courts – and police are circling dozens of other offenders.

Low-cost housing needs dignity, says Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 12:00 AM PDT

Fresh from scooping architecture's most august award, the champion of housing for the poor is urging greater compassion

The winner of architecture's "Nobel prize", Balkrishna Doshi, has called on his profession to rethink the way it approaches building for the most impoverished communities.

The internationally noted champion of housing for India's poor, Doshi was awarded the Pritzker prize last week, in large part for the Aranya low-cost housing project. It accommodates 80,000 people with houses and courtyards linked by a maze of pathways in the city of Indore.

New York: helicopter comes down in East river – video

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 06:35 PM PDT

Video shows a helicopter carrying several people crashing into New York City's East river. The red Eurocopter AS350 hit the water with its rotors still turning and tail lights flashing, before sinking.

Crowds watch as tallest building in Kentucky's capital is demolished - video

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 05:28 PM PDT

The tallest building in Kentucky's capital city came crashing down in a controlled implosion on Sunday, delighting onlookers who then quickly scurried away to avoid the dust cloud that billowed overhead. Demolition of the 28-story Capital Plaza Tower will make way for a new modern five-story office building and a 1,100-space parking garage. The tower opened in 1972 as a state office building and closed in 2016.

Xi Jinping set to be president for life after scrapping term limits – video report

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 08:22 AM PDT

China's leader has successfully abolished presidential term limits, allowing him to remain in power for many years to come. Almost 3,000 members of the national people's congress voted on the proposal, and 2,957 of them were in favour

'This could destroy China': parliament sets Xi Jinping up to rule for life

'Solve drug problem through toughness': Trump advocates death penalty for drug dealers – video

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 03:34 AM PDT

US president tells a rally in Pennsylvania that drug dealers are 'killing our kids, they're killing our families, they're killing our workers', and says countries such as China do not have a drug problem because they have capital punishment