Venezuela court bars 4 lawmakers from office

CARACAS: The Supreme Court on Wednesday barred four incoming lawmakers from taking office, putting at risk the opposition’s newly won two-thirds legislative “super-majority.”
Responding to a legal challenge by supporters of the ruling socialist party, the Supreme Court blocked the four lawmakers from being taking their seats when the new National Assembly convenes Tuesday.
The ruling affects three opposition lawmakers and one socialist deputy, all from the sparsely populated state of Amazonas. The court will also consider challenges to a handful of other lawmakers, but has so far stopped short of barring those representatives from taking office.
The opposition won a landslide victory in Dec. 6 legislative elections, taking control of congress for the first time in more than a decade. The coalition captured 112 of 167 seats, giving it by one seat a two-thirds majority that would allow it to rein in socialist President Nicolas Maduro. 
Opposition leaders denounced Wednesday’s ruling and accused the government of using institutions to overturn the will of the people.
The socialist party has been in a frenzy of activity following the opposition’s win. The lame duck congress has approved new Supreme Court judges and made a series of other appointments, and Maduro has been using his expiring decree powers granted by congress to institute a series of new laws.

Texas ‘affluenza’ teen delays extradition, mother deported

FORT WORTH/MEXICO CITY: The mother of a Texas teenager, scorned for his “affluenza” defense in a trial over a deadly car crash, arrived in the United States on Thursday after deportation from Mexico, while her son won a delay in his extradition, media and Mexican officials said.
Ethan Couch, 18, and his mother, Tonya Couch, 48, were captured in the Mexican Pacific Coast city of Puerto Vallarta on Monday. They fled there after officials in Tarrant County, Texas, launched an investigation into whether Ethan violated the terms of a probation deal that kept him out of prison after he killed four people with his pickup truck in 2013 while driving drunk.
Tonya Couch, who is wanted on a charge of hindering apprehension, was flown out of Mexico and landed in Los Angeles early Thursday en route to Texas, the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press reported.
She was expected to be handed over to the US Marshals Service. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
It was unclear when her son would be sent back to the United States.
Ricardo Vera, a migration official in Mexico’s Jalisco state, said the pair had filed an injunction to delay their extradition and a judge in Mexico would have up to 72 hours to consider the injunction.
Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said he was not surprised by the pair seeking the delay.
“They have done everything that they can so far to avoid being accountable, or avoid being brought to justice. Any roadblock they can put in the way, any hurdle, I fully expect that,” Anderson said in an interview.
Anderson said when Ethan Couch does arrive back in the United States, he would appear at a detention hearing in the juvenile system. The judge could keep him in a juvenile detention facility or send him to an adult jail, he said.
During Ethan Couch’s trial in juvenile court over the crash in 2013, a psychologist testified on his behalf that he was afflicted with “affluenza,” and was so spoiled by his wealth that he could not tell the difference between right and wrong.
The diagnosis is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association and was widely ridiculed.
Couch was convicted on four counts of intoxication manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years of drink and drug-free probation, which critics saw as leniency because of his family’s wealth. His flight to Mexico rekindled anger over that sentence.
Couch and his mother fled the United States earlier this month after a video surfaced online apparently showing Ethan Couch at a party where beer was being consumed. Authorities launched an investigation into a possible parole violation, law enforcement officials said.
The two were tracked down and arrested in Puerto Vallarta. Mexican authorities said they had been working with the US Marshals Service since Dec. 24 to locate them.
In the car crash, Couch, then 16, was speeding and had a blood-alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit when he lost control of his pickup truck and struck a stranded motorist on the roadside and three people who had stopped to help.
During their last days in Puerto Vallarta, Couch and his mother lived in a modest apartment, kept a low profile and at least once used a false name as they tried to stay under the radar, local people and neighbors said.

Turbulence injures Air Canada passengers, diverts flight 

TORONTO: Turbulence on an Air Canada flight from China injured multiple passengers on Wednesday, forcing it to land in Calgary, Alberta, the airline said.
Twenty-one passengers were transferred to hospitals from the airport — eight with non-life-threatening injuries and 13 sent for observation, it said in a statement.
Air Canada flight 88 departed from Shanghai and was headed to Toronto, carrying 332 passengers and 19 crew.
The airline said it would be making arrangements to accommodate the other passengers, including those continuing on to Toronto, and that the incident was being investigated.
There was no immediate indication of what caused the turbulence.

2 UN police officers from Rwanda shot in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Authorities say two UN police officers from Rwanda have been fatally shot at their residence in northern Haiti.
In a statement, the Rwanda National Police said the two female officers who were serving under the UN stabilization mission in Haiti were shot and killed inside their living quarters in Cap Haitien by unidentified assailants. 
An investigation by the UN mission, Haitian National Police and Rwandan authorities has been launched.
Head of the UN mission Sandra Honore deplored the killings and sent her condolences to the women’s families.
The UN has kept peacekeepers in Haiti since the 2004 rebellion that ousted then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Modi hits out at opposition over stalled reforms

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out at the main opposition Congress party Thursday, accusing it of “disrupting” Parliament and stalling key reforms aimed at lifting millions out of poverty.
Modi’s government enjoys a comfortable majority in the lower house of Parliament but needs opposition support to push through laws in the upper house, where it doesn’t have the numbers.
Raucous scenes during the most recent parliamentary session saw heckling and rowdy protests from opposition lawmakers prevent the passage of several pieces of legislation.
Stalled bills include a key national goods and services tax — which the Congress party had supported when in power — and a proposed bankruptcy law.
“Our government is trying to take steps for the poor. There are many old, outdated laws and many new laws are needed,” Modi told thousands attending a public rally in Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi.
“But it is our misfortune that the Indian Parliament, where laws are made, is not being allowed to function,” he added.
India’s Parliament is notoriously rowdy, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) employed similar tactics to disrupt the former government before coming to power last year.
Modi had taken a conciliatory stance during the last Parliament session, hoping to win the opposition’s support for his government’s reforms.
But on Thursday he went on the offensive, urging Congress to demonstrate “responsiblity toward the people,” who elected them as lawmakers in the world’s largest democracy.
“Those who have been rejected by the people... are not allowing the parliament to function,” he said. “(They) have a responsiblity to not put their political interests before national interests,” Modi said, referring to Congress.
He asked the party to make a new year’s resolution “to not disrupt the Parliament.”

Police in Munich warn of ‘imminent threat’ of attack

BERLIN: Police in Munich warned of a “serious, imminent threat” by Daesh group suicide bombers wanting to commit an attack on New Year’s Eve and asked people to stay away from the city’s main train station and a second train station in the city’s Pasing neighborhood.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told reporters Friday night at Munich’s police headquarters authorities had received information that the militant group Daesh was behind the threat.
Munich police president Hubertus Andrae said German authorities had been tipped off by a foreign intelligence service that Daesh was planning attacks with five to seven suicide bombers, the German news agency dpa reported. Andrae said so far there hadn’t been any arrests.
Police spokesman Werner Kraus told The Associated Press that “after evaluating the situation, we started evacuating the train stations and also asked partygoers to stay away from big crowds outside.”
The warning came only hours before the city rang in the new year.
Despite police warnings to stay away from big crowds, thousands of people were on the streets of Munich at midnight to welcome the new year with fireworks.
Dpa reported massive delays in the city’s public transportation system after both train stations were quickly evacuated and trains were no longer stopped there.
Cities across Europe have been on edge since a terror attack in Paris in November killed 130 people.
A few days after the Paris attack, a soccer stadium in Hannover in central Germany was evacuated after a terror threat against a friendly match between Germany and the Netherlands. The authorities never reported any findings of explosives or concrete attack plans.

Smuggling of 3.5kg gold jewelry foiled

MADINAH: King Fahd Causeway customs officers have succeeded in thwarting an attempt to smuggle gold jewelry weighing 3.5 kg into the Kingdom hidden in a vehicle.
Deif Allah Al-Otaibi, director general of customs on the causeway, said that anti-money laundering laws require everyone to declare cash or precious metals worth more than SR60,000, or face penalties.

Blooming flowers add to color of Riyadh

RIYADH: With the onset of winter, the Riyadh municipality has beautified squares, roads, streets and open fields in the capital with varieties of about 3 million colorful flowers that fascinate its residents.
Commenting on the floral beautification during the winter, a senior municipality official said: "It reflects well on our commitment as we are not only keen on beautification of the squares, streets and roads of the capital, but equally interested in offering new varieties in terms of both quality and quantities of flowers in order to represent an addition to the capital. Hence such a huge number of colorful flowers blanket the roads and squares."
The gardening of these different flowers of various qualities and colors started at the beginning of the current winter season, the official said.
Characterized by a variety of new flowers like roses and marigolds, in close harmony and integration, it makes a stunning aesthetic form of colors including violet, white, pink, red and other colors.
The official noted that flowering shrubs were earlier planted on squares, roads and main streets before the onset of winter, which have now blossomed, enhancing the cosmetic aspects of green areas in different parts of the capital.
The gardening of flowers, especially at intersections and large fields, is also expected to attract visitors to the capital during the upcoming midterm school break, when the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, in association with Riyadh municipality and other government agencies like the National Museum, Al-Musmak Palace Museum and the national handicraft program (Bari), organize events for schoolchildren during winter holidays.

KSA wins first place in US mental math contest 

RIYADH: Fifteen Saudi students won first place in mental math international competition organized by the World Federation of Mathematics in San Francisco in the United States recently.
Called “Mini Al-Khwarizmi” group, the 15 Saudi children competed in mental arithmetic operations in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. 
“This means that the children made their computations mentally and did not use any pen or pencil and paper,” a mathematician said.
The group had been named after Muhammad bin Musa Al-Khwarizmi, an Arab mathematician and astronomer.
Al-Khwarizmi was known for his work on algebra called “Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing.”
The members of the group were nominated by their respective regions and governorates. They had participated and won in a contest and grouped into levels. Their levels and names are as follows:
Level A — Faisal bin Sarie (Jeddah) and Abdulrahman Suleiman (Jeddah), second place.
Level B — Fadia Al-Sous (Riyadh), first place; Ali Jaroudi (Qatif), second place; and Sultan Al-Mutairi (Hafr Al-Batin) and Malik Asmari (Asir), third place.
Level C — Joud Zein (Riyadh, third place.
Level D — Haya Al-Hussein (Riyadh), second place and Falwa Otaibi (Riyadh), Majid Al-Tuwairqi (Taif), Abdullah Al-Sheikh (Eastern Province), Ziad Ba-Hasan (Riyadh), Sondos Hilaibi (Makkah), Wajan Qahtani (Asir), third place.
Level E — Ruba Bashawri, third place.
Academic experts and specialists in mathematics trained the students for six months from July to December 2015 before they flew to the United States for the prestigious competition.
They were held in internal camps in their respective areas and finally in outdoor camp for three days in the United States before the competition.
While they were there, they were accompanied by their parents and guardians in attending scientific, educational and family activities.
There was also a program which allowed them to watch scientific presentations and visits various landmarks in San Francisco.

Haia members train in dealing with women

RIYADH: The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) held a training session recently for 100 of its members in the Saudi capital on the proper way to deal with women.
“The training was held to enhance the skills as well as knowledge of Haia’s employees so that they could deal with women in a way expected of them,” a report quoted Haia as saying.
The Haia’s General Department of Management Development came up with four programs attended by 100 employees during the training. Each program lasted 10 hours.
The report also said that the programs were designed in such a way that the Haia trainees would have the right mindset and be efficient enough when they deal with women in public.
“After their training, the Haia employees should be able to use the right approach and acceptable method as far as women are concerned,” the report said.
In developing the training program, the report added, Haia also considered the application of legal provisions and regulations to achieve the intended result.
It added that Haia’s General Department carefully evaluates training programs before implementation.
“No stone is left unturned to make sure that a program is proper and comprehensive as well as conforms to existing rules and regulations of the Kingdom,” the report said.
The Haia also coordinates with other government agencies, including the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), regarding programs to upgrade the skills of Haia’s employees in dealing with the public.
The report added that extensive efforts are made to ensure that programs are in accordance with the national vision of the Saudi leadership headed by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, the crown prince and the deputy crown prince.

Egypt and Kingdom hold talks on Mideast conflict

RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman called Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi on Thursday. 
During the phone call, relations between the Kingdom and Egypt and ways of enhancing them were discussed.
Earlier, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, second deputy premier and defense minister, met with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry here to discuss bilateral ties and conflicts in the region.
Ahmed Abu Zeid, spokesman of the Egyptian foreign ministry, was quoted as saying in reports that Shoukry would also meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, deputy premier and interior minister, and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir for further discussions including on the situation in Syria, Libya and Yemen.
Egypt has enjoyed the support of Saudi Arabia, and Gulf neighbors Kuwait and the UAE, since the military’s ouster of Mohammed Mursi from the presidency in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
During the Egypt Development Conference held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in March 2015, Saudi Arabia pledged $4 billion in investments and assistance for Egypt, including $1 billion which will be deposited in the Egyptian central bank, while the rest will be in the form of investments.

Nepalese women trafficked to Syria and forced to work as maids

While millions are fleeing the brutal conflict in Syria, hundreds of Nepalese women are being trafficked to the war-torn country and forced to work as domestic maids. The women, who are duped into travelling to Damascus, often arrive in the country with no idea they are being sent to a war zone.

“I didn’t know anything about Syria. I didn’t realise there was war going on … The agent told me it was like America,” said Gyanu Reshmi Magar, 25, who was promised a job in Dubai but found herself forced into domestic service in the Syrian capital.

Novel about Jewish-Palestinian love affair is barred from Israeli curriculum

A novel about a love affair between a Jewish woman and a Palestinian man has been barred from Israel’s high school curriculum, reportedly over concerns that it could encourage intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.

The rejection of Dorit Rabinyan’s novel Borderlife, which was published in 2014, created an uproar in Israel, with critics accusing the government of censorship.

The incident was first reported by the Haaretz daily and confirmed in a statement by the education ministry on Thursday.

The rejection also touched on the climate of mistrust between Arabs and Jews, which has deepened during the current wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The ministry said a panel had debated adding Borderlife to the high school reading curriculum but decided against it. Israeli media said teachers had requested its inclusion on the student reading lists.

Earlier, Haaretz cited a letter by ministry official Dalia Fenig, who wrote that the book, which this year received Israel’s prestigious Bernstein literary prize, was excluded because its content was deemed unfit for high school students.

“Adolescent youth tend to romanticise and don’t have, in many cases, the systematic point of view that includes considerations about preserving the identity of the nation and the significance of assimilation,” Fenig was quoted as writing in the letter.

But Rabinyan said her award-winning book, whose love story plot line takes place in New York, had tried to highlight the similarities and differences between the main protagonists, observing the conflict from afar.

“The two heroes spend a winter overseas and manage to get to know each other in great detail, something that could not happen on the disputed land,” Rabinyan told Israel Radio. “Perhaps their ability to surmount the obstacles of the Middle East conflict is what threatens the education ministry.”

The Israeli high school curriculum includes books on a variety of hot-button issues, including Khirbet Khizeh, a 1949 novel about the expulsion of Arabs from a fictional village by Israeli soldiers, and A Trumpet in the Wadi, a 1987 novel about a love affair between a Jewish man and a Christian Arab woman. Rabinyan has another work on the list.

In an interview with Army Radio, Fenig said having another book on the list that deals with relationships between Jews and non-Jews was one reason Borderlife was excluded.

She also said the timing, coinciding with the current outburst of violence, was not right, fearing the book could inflame tensions in the classroom. She did not address the letter cited in Haaretz and AP could not reach her for comment.

Israel’s Channel 2 TV reported that sales of the book have increased dramatically since the ban and its news anchor jokingly asked education minister Naftali Bennett if the author had thanked him.

Bennett defended the move, saying its content shouldn’t be required reading for school students. He read out sections of the book, which he said portrays soldiers as “sadistic” and details a romance between a Palestinian jailed for security reasons and an Israeli woman. “Should I force Israeli children to read this? Is this a top priority?” Bennett asked.

He said his office “is not the culture ministry and people can read outside whatever they like, but we need to prioritize.”

More than three months of Israeli-Palestinian violence has killed 21 people on the Israeli side and 131 Palestinians, sending tensions between Arabs and Jews soaring.

Last year, religious Israeli lawmakers were outraged by news that the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dating a non-Jewish Norwegian woman.

Rabinyan told Army Radio the rejection of “Borderlife” was ironic because “the novel deals precisely with the Israeli fear of assimilation in the Arab milieu within which we exist.”

Dubai skyscraper ablaze near New Year's Eve fireworks

A huge fire has engulfed part of a luxury Dubai hotel, near where revellers had gathered to watch a New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

The inferno lit up the side of the Address Downtown hotel near the centre of the city, scattering bystanders and shoppers in a nearby mall. The Dubai government said one person had a heart attack as a result of the smoke and the rush to get out of the building. One person was described as moderately injured and 14 people were said to have suffered minor injuries.

The massive fireworks display later went ahead at the world’s tallest tower in Dubai, while plumes of smoke still billowed from the nearby fire.

Tens of thousands of people whistled and cheered at the display taking place at the Burj Khalifa.

Maj Gen Rashed al-Matrushi, general director of the Dubai civil defence, reportedly told the television channel Al Arabiya earlier: “There are no injuries, thank God ... Of course, it will not affect the celebration.”

The Dubai police said the blaze started on the 20th floor of the building, which is also a residential address. Footage taken by witnesses and uploaded to the internet shows huge flames rapidly climbing the hotel’s exterior from what appeared to be a terrace or balcony.

The flames appeared to have soared to near the top of the building within seconds. More than one hour after the fire started, it still appeared to be out of control.

Police question Sara Netanyahu over household spending

Israeli police have questioned the wife of the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, over her alleged inflated household spending – the latest in a string of accusations that have led critics to portray the first couple as a petty pair who improperly use state funds to subsidise an excessive lifestyle.

The questions are expected to focus on whether Sara Netanyahu used state funds to finance maintenance work and new furniture for the couple’s private home in the exclusive coastal city of Caesarea. She may also be asked whether she or the state paid for the nursing care of her late father.

Israeli media reported the questioning, and cameras posted outside the police station showed her car arriving. Police declined to comment.

The investigation follows a report by the official watchdog that detailed large sums of public money the couple spent. Last week, Israeli media reported that the Netanyahus asked for public funds to cover the cost of food for a dog they adopted, called Kaiya, which bit two guests at the PM’s Hanukkah party earlier in December.

The Netanyahus have long faced scrutiny over their spending and accusations that their lifestyles are out of touch with regular Israelis. Sara Netanyahu has come under fire for her expensive tastes and alleged abusive behaviour toward staff.

The Netanyahus say they are the victims of a media witch-hunt and have denied any wrongdoing. The prime minister says political opponents cynically target his wife as a way to get even with him.

Sara Netanyahu has been a lightning rod for criticism going back to her husband’s first term in the late 1990s, when she was accused of squabbling with her employees and meddling in state affairs. Among other things, she was accused of firing a nanny for burning a pot of soup and of throwing a pair of shoes at an assistant.

Since her husband returned to office in 2009, she has sued an Israeli newspaper for libel and defamation of character, claiming it was “maliciously trying to humiliate” her.

A former housekeeper sued her in an Israeli labour court for allegedly withholding wages, unfair working conditions and verbal abuse. She has also been accused of using abusive language and forcing an employee to shower several times a day to ensure a “sterile” environment.

Fire engulfs Dubai hotel before New Year's Eve fireworks – video

A fire engulfed the Address Hotel in downtown Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday. The hotel is across a plaza from the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, where hundreds of people were gathering to view a New Year’s fireworks display

Iran denounces US over reports of 'arbitrary and illegal' new sanctions

Iran has reacted angrily to the prospect of fresh sanctions by the US against its ballistic missile programme, denouncing them as arbitrary and illegal.

According to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the US is preparing new sanctions against firms and individuals in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates.

The move follows a controversial test by Iran in October of its medium-range Emad rocket. A report by UN sanctions monitors said the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran insists the rocket is conventional, and purely for defence.

If they are imposed, the reported sanctions would be the first by Washington against Iran since Tehran signed a nuclear deal with world powers in July that will eventually involve Washington dropping separate, wider-ranging sanctions targeting that programme.

On Thursday, Iran’s foreign ministry denounced the Obama administration. “As we have declared to the American government ... Iran’s missile programme has no connection to the [nuclear] agreement,” state television quoted spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari as saying.

Ansari added: “Iran will resolutely respond to any interfering action by America against its defensive programmes.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that the US treasury department was preparing sanctions on two Iran-linked networks helping develop the missile programme. 

Egypt's president calls for parliament to assemble after three-year hiatus

Egypt’s president has called for a new parliament to convene on 10 January, more than three years after the old Islamist-dominated chamber was dissolved.

Egyptians held the second phase of parliamentary elections in November but critics said voting was undermined by a heavy security crackdown on Islamist and other opposition groups.

The new parliament, which will be dominated by an alliance loyal to President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has 568 elected members plus another 28 appointed by the president himself.

Egypt’s last parliament was elected in 2011-12 in its first free election, following a popular uprising that ended autocrat Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year presidency.

Voting at that time was marked by long queues and youthful excitement. The Muslim Brotherhood, long the main opposition movement, won about half the seats while the Islamist Nour bloc was the second biggest group.

A court dissolved that parliament in mid-2012. A year later, Sisi, then military chief, removed President Mohamed Morsi of the Brotherhood from power after mass protests against his rule.

The Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement, was subsequently banned, declared a terrorist organisation and thousands of its members were jailed.

Bob Hawke: Obama 'inadequate' in resolving Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke has criticised Barack Obama’s presidency as “inadequate” for not using his influence to bring together Israel and the Palestinians and has called for China to engage on the issue and “change the chemistry” of the Middle East.

Asked about the current situation in the Middle East and the terrorist threat posed by Islamic State and others, Hawke said the key to any progress was resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I believe that until the basic issue between Israel and the Palestinians is resolved, there’s never going to have any hope of any decent situation there,” Hawke said.“I think that President Obama has been inadequate in terms of using his influence and that of the United States in trying to bring together the Israelis and Palestinians.”

Hawke was speaking at a briefing for the release of thousands of cabinet documents from 1990-91 by the National Archives of Australia. The documents show a divided cabinet in Labor’s fourth term, on issues such as uranium mining at Coronation Hill in Kakadu, the treatment of asylum seekers and the leadership struggle between Hawke and his treasurer Paul Keating.

Hawke, who was prime minister from 1983 to 1991, said he supported Australia’s involvement in the current action against Isis, though he reminded the briefing he had predicted the second Gulf war would lead to increased support for Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.

“I believe it is appropriate that we should be part, whether we should be such a prominent part is a matter for debate, but we should definitely be part of the alliance fighting against IS there in the Middle East,” he said.

Hawke said China had shown an increasing interest in the Middle East in recent years with the country hosting both the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

“If China and the US were to sit down together and agree on a process of trying to secure a resolution, the whole chemistry of the situation would change because the simple fact is the Palestinians and the Arab states simply do not trust America.

“They see them as a shield and protector of Israel. If you had the Chinese and Americans working together I think the chemistry would change.”

Stories of 2015: the diplomats who stayed up all night to save the day

Diplomacy is the art of not going to war, and as for most endeavours aimed at stopping something else from happening, its failures are more noticeable than its successes. But 2015 provided a startling exception.

The multinational agreement curbing Iran nuclear programme, struck in Vienna on 14 July, stopped a drift to conflict that could have overshadowed all other Middle East wars. It was arguably one of the most significant diplomatic achievements since the cold war.

Everything about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – starting with its name and acronym – helps illustrate why diplomacy struggles to capture the public’s imagination. The agreement is 109 pages of dense, arcane and technical prose, put together word by word over nearly two years, mostly in featureless hotel conference rooms in Switzerland and Austria.

Stories of 2015: how Alan Kurdi's death changed the world

he photograph of Tima Kurdi’s nephew is perhaps the picture that the western world will remember most from 2015. The image of Alan, a two-year-old Syrian refugee, lying face down on a Turkish beach in early September is what woke the west to the urgency of the Syrian refugee crisis. Tima herself, however, still can’t bring herself to look at it for long: it was she who scrabbled together the money for Alan and his family to make the ill-fated journey that drowned the toddler, his brother and their mother.

“I cannot look at that picture,” says Tima. “It just breaks my heart, the way he was lying down. I don’t know how to describe it. He is desperate. He has no idea what’s around him. He has nobody.”

Turkish military policeman Mehmet Çıplak was the first person to find Alan’s body, and his voice still shakes when he remembers what happened next. “I checked for a signal of life, hoping he was still alive,” says Çıplak. “I was so sad. I am a father first. I have a six-year-old son. I empathised, I put him in my son’s place. There was an indefinable pain. Beyond being a military police officer, I behaved as a father.”

Çıplak had no idea that both his and Alan’s picture were about to be splashed across hundreds of international newspapers. “When the picture was online and then was on international press, my wife, my family, my colleagues called me,” remembers Çıplak. “They realized my face was in the pictures and they asked me: ‘How did you carry that burden?’”

It’s a burden that Tima Kurdi still carries: every day, she partly blames herself for what happened. A Kurdish hair-stylist, she moved to Canada in 1991, saying goodbye to four brothers and sisters in Syria. Twenty-four years later, the Syrian war forced her siblings to flee to Turkey, where refugees cannot work legally. Tima’s income kept all four families afloat, but her brother Abdullah was still living in poverty – prompting his decision to take Alan, his other son Ghalib and his wife, Rehanna, to Europe. “It wasn’t enough,” Tima says of her donations. “And that’s the guilt that will always follow me. It just breaks my heart. Every day I say: I wish I had sent them more food.”

UK couple gets life in prison for planned London attack

A British couple have been sentenced to life in jail for planning a major attack to mark the 10th anniversary of the deadly London bombings.

A court in London found the couple guilty of preparing an act of terrorism in May this year.

The court said Mohammed Rehman, 25, used the Twitter name "Silent Bomber" asking other users whether he should bomb a shopping center or the London Underground train network.

The tweet was accompanied by a link to a press release by al-Qaeda about the July 2005 bombings in which four men attacked London's transport system killing at least fifty-two people.

Meanwhile, police seized more than 10 kilograms of urea nitrate, which can be used to manufacture a large bomb, from their house.

Security sources said, If detonated on the London Underground, the bomb they were preparing would have caused multiple fatalities.

According to The Guardian, Rehman was sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years. He was also sentenced to 12 years to run concurrently for possessing an article for terrorist purposes.

Khan was sentenced to life with a minimum of 25 years.

Riyadi gear up to defend title against contenders

The 2015-16 Lebanese Basketball League tips off Saturday with plenty of action to offer.

Suarez double as Barca set record in Betis win

BARCELONA: Luis Suarez struck twice and Lionel Messi scored on his 500th appearance for Barcelona who set a new Spanish record of goals in a calendar year with a 4-0 win over Real Betis that lifted them top of La Liga Wednesday.

Late strikes from Angel Correa and Antoine Griezmann gave Atletico a 2-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano while Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty and missed another as Real Madrid beat Real Sociedad 3-1.

Messi slid home his 425th goal for Barca after 34 minutes to add to their lead which came from a Heiko Westermann own-goal following a controversial penalty.

Messi was harshly judged to have been fouled by ’keeper Antonio Adan and although Neymar slipped and hit the crossbar with his spot kick, Westermann put the rebound into the back of his own net.

Luis Suarez pounced twice in the second half to take Barca’s goal tally to 180 this year, two more than the previous Spanish record set by Real Madrid in 2014.

Atletico substitute Correa fired home from a Thomas Partey pass after 88 minutes and Griezmann sealed the victory over Rayo.

“It was a tough battle and we managed to break through at the end,” Correa told reporters.

“He [coach Diego Simeone] just told me to go on and help the team to win and luckily we did.”

Ronaldo blazed a spot kick over the bar after 24 minutes but slotted home another three minutes before the break to put Real ahead.

Sociedad substitute Bruma equalized for the visitors after 49 minutes before Ronaldo struck a volley through a crowded penalty area into the net midway through the second half.

Lucas Vazquez sealed the win with a goal after 87 minutes that will ease the pressure on coach Rafa Benitez.

“Sometimes you play better or worse but what is important is to get the three points,” Vazquez told reporters. “The public has the right to applaud or whistle. We have to keep working on these lines and win games.”

Barcelona and Atletico have 38 points, with the Catalan side having played a game fewer, two more than third-placed Real.

Atletico were missing regular central midfielders Gabi Fernandez and Tiago Mendes through suspension and injury while Filipe Luis was also banned. Yannick Carrasco posed the main attacking threat and went close with a couple of chances but generally there was little invention.

It was heading toward a stalemate when Correa showed his predatory instincts inside the area and struck the ball into the roof of the net.

Rayo were stunned and Griezmann took advantage to finish clinically from a Martinez pass.

Real won a penalty after a slight push from full-back Yuri on Karim Benzema but Ronaldo missed a penalty for the 15th time in his career with a poor effort that went over the crossbar.

He made no mistake with a second spot kick, though, tucking the ball into the right corner after Gareth Bale’s cross was handled by Yuri.

Sociedad lost Sergio Canales with suspected knee ligament damage but came out stronger in the second half and Bruma, given too much space on the right of the area, curled a shot into the top corner.

Just as the game was turning Sociedad’s way and the home fans were starting to get on the back of the Real players, Ronaldo volleyed in from a corner for his 57th goal of the year and Vazquez struck late on from another Bale cross.

Mystery around Gadhafi case grows more peculiar

The mystery surrounding Hannibal Gadhafi’s arrest deepened Wednesday when news leaked that a Libyan judicial delegation to Lebanon had to suddenly leave the country a day earlier.

Twin suicide bombings in Qamishli kill, wound dozens

Twin suicide bomb blasts hit two restaurants in a Kurdish-controlled city in northeast Syria Wednesday, killing or wounding dozens of people, a Kurdish official and an activist group said.

Booby-trapped houses, Daesh delay civilians’ return to Ramadi

BAGHDAD: About 700 Daesh (ISIS) fighters were believed to be hiding in the center and eastern outskirts of Ramadi Wednesday, three days after Iraqi government forces claimed victory over the militants in the western city, the U.S.-led coalition said.

The U.N. refugee agency, assisting families who have left the Anbar provincial capital, said that despite gains by security forces, conditions were not yet good enough for tens of thousands of displaced residents to return. “There is extensive destruction in the city as a result of terrorist activity and military operations,” said Ibrahim al-Osej, a member of the Ramadi district council.

Much of the center of Ramadi, which previously had a population exceeding 400,000, still needs to be cleared of explosives laid by the militants who seized the city 100 km west of Baghdad in May, the coalition said. “Preliminary estimates show that more than 3,000 homes have been completely destroyed” in Ramadi, Osej said.

He said that the figure would grow because assessments could not be immediately carried out in some neighborhoods that had not been cleared of mines.

“Thousands of other homes have suffered varying degrees of damage,” Osej said.

“All water, electricity, sewage and other infrastructure – such as bridges, government facilities, hospitals and schools – have suffered some degree of damage,” he said.

In the center of Ramadi, which lies on the Euphrates River, “there are five bridges in various states of destruction,” U.S. operations officer Maj. Michael Filanowski said Wednesday.

“For all of them at least the span has dropped,” he said, adding that he estimated it would take at least weeks to repair them. After months of cautious advances backed by coalition airstrikes, the Iraqi army retook Ramadi Sunday, its first big victory against the hard-line Islamists since they swept through a third of Iraq in mid-2014.

“Within what we call central Ramadi, they estimate still up to 400 Daesh members, and then, once you go east of that toward Fallujah, you’ve got about 300 out there in that direction,” U.S. Army Capt. Chance McCraw, a coalition intelligence officer, told reporters in Baghdad.

Some of these Daesh militants could try to attack Iraqi forces or returning civilians with snipers and bomb attacks.

Security sources said insurgents clashed with federal police and tribal fighters Wednesday in Husaiba al-Sharqiya and Jweba, on the eastern fringes of Ramadi. There was no immediate confirmed information on casualties.

“In central Ramadi the house-borne IED [improvised explosive device] continues to be a threat even once CTS [counterterrorism service] goes through and that’s why you don’t see civilians moving back into various areas,” McCraw said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Wednesday ordered the immediate formation of a high-level committee including the Anbar governor and senior federal government officials to stabilize and rebuild Ramadi.

He called for the immediate removal of explosives and the restoration of basic services to allow the safe return of civilians to their homes.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Abadi Wednesday and offered U.N. support to help restore basic services in Ramadi to allow civilians to return, a U.N. spokesman said in a statement.

The U.N. estimates initial reconstruction needs in Ramadi require about $20 million, but the longer term outlay is likely to be much greater for a city battered by U.S. airstrikes and Daesh explosives over the past six months.

“Areas are still insecure, littered with IEDs, and there has been extensive damage of public buildings and houses. Electricity and water services have been damaged,” the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said Wednesday.

The Iraqi Trade Ministry said it was preparing to send emergency food aid to Ramadi.

Some districts of the city are littered with explosives.

McCraw said that in one of the more heavily defended areas, Iraqi forces had found about 300 explosives planted along a 150-meter stretch south of the main government complex. After clearing that area, they found more bombs scattered every 50 meters or so, he said.

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced from all of Anbar province, according to U.N. estimates. Iraq’s government says most civilians fled Ramadi before its assault on the city.

McCraw and other coalition officials declined to estimate how long it would take Iraqi forces to secure the whole city. They said about 400 members of the Anbar police had arrived to help hold areas cleared by better trained and equipped counterterrorism forces that spearheaded the Ramadi operation.

Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad, next year and said this would deal a final blow to Daesh. It is the largest Iraqi city under the group’s control and is expected to be harder to recapture than Ramadi.

Baghdad has said Sunni tribal fighters will make up the main holding force in Ramadi, a role played in other areas taken from Daesh by mainly Iranian-backed Shiite armed groups, but the latter were held back from Ramadi for fear of stoking sectarian tensions.

The coalition said its advisers were not on the ground during the Ramadi battle but provided training and equipment to Iraqi forces.

NSA spied on Israeli calls with U.S. officials

WASHINGTON: The U.S. National Security Agency’s foreign eavesdropping included phone conversations between top Israeli officials and U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing current and former U.S. officials.

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign against the nuclear deal with Iran, according to the unidentified officials, the Journal said.

An Israeli minister and close ally of Netanyahu Wednesday sought to play down revelations that the United States monitored the premier’s private communications.

“I didn’t fall off my chair from The Wall Street Journal report,” said Yuval Steinitz, energy minister and a former intelligence minister.

NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations, which they learned through Israeli spying operations, the newspaper reported.

The NSA reports allowed Obama administration officials to peer inside Israeli efforts to turn Congress against the deal, according to the Journal.

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, was described as coaching unidentified Jewish-American groups on lines of argument to use with U.S. lawmakers, and Israeli officials were reported pressing lawmakers to oppose the deal, the newspaper said.

Asked for comment on the Journal report, a White House National Security Council spokesman said: “We do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike.”

In March, Israel denied reports in the newspaper that its security forces spied on the negotiations between Tehran and major powers.

“Israel does not spy on or in the U.S.; we adhere to that rule, and one could expect others to do the same,” said Steinitz, who was in charge of the Iranian file while intelligence minister between 2013 and 2015.

“But we are not naive. We know that countries – even friendly ones – try to collect intelligence on us, and we conduct ourselves accordingly.”

Steinitz did not mention the case of American Jonathan Pollard, whom U.S. authorities freed in November after he had spent 30 years in jail for spying for Israel.

He reaffirmed the friendship between Israel and the U.S., “our greatest and most important friend,” and stressed the two countries’ “excellent cooperation” on intelligence matters.

“I don’t think it caused us damage,” he said of the WSJ report.

Netanyahu’s office, as well as the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, declined to comment on the report.

Following former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s disclosures of the agency’s spying operations, President Barack Obama announced in January 2014 that the United States would curb its eavesdropping of friendly world leaders.

A number of figures, including French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, were put on a list declared off-limits to U.S. eavesdropping. But Obama maintained the monitoring of Netanyahu on the grounds it served a “compelling national security purpose,” the Journal reported.

After Israel’s lobbying campaign against the Iran nuclear deal went into full swing on Capitol Hill, it did not take long for administration and intelligence officials to realize the NSA was sweeping up the content of conversations with American lawmakers, the newspaper said.

A 2011 NSA directive said direct communications between foreign intelligence targets and members of Congress should be destroyed when they are intercepted. But the NSA director can issue a waiver if he determines the communications contain “significant foreign intelligence,” the Journal said.