Australian journalists detained in Malaysia for trying to question PM

Prime Minister Najib Razak

Two Australian journalists were detained overnight and have been barred from leaving Malaysia after they tried to “aggressively” question Prime Minister Najib Razak about a corruption scandal, police said Sunday.
The pair were detained after they crossed a “security line and aggressively tried to approach the prime minister” who was visiting a mosque in Kuching on Borneo island, according to a police statement.
“Both of them were subsequently arrested for failing to comply with police instructions not to cross the security line,” it said.

The journalists work for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners investigative programme.
“ABC 4Corners team arrested in Malaysia last night after trying to question PM Najib Razak over corruption scandal,” the programme’s executive producer Sally Neighbour tweeted Sunday.

Reporter Linton Besser and camera operator Louie Eroglu had approached Najib on the street before their arrest, the broadcaster added.

Nepal begins process to deliver grants nearly a year after quake

Tens of thousands are still living in tents and the government has been strongly criticised for delays in disbursing aid despite donor pledges of billions in assistance.

The National Reconstruction Authority, which is meant to oversee the rebuilding, partnered with local banks in the quake-hit northern Dolakha district to kickstart the disbursement of funds in six villages.
“We have signed grant contracts with local banks to begin distribution of cash,” authority spokesman Suresh Adhikari told AFP.

“Funds will be transferred beginning tomorrow and the beneficiaries will receive the money in a few days.”
Victims of the quake which struck on April 25 last year have so far received just $150 in compensation per household, while the government has promised an additional $2,000 for rebuilding homes — to be disbursed by the reconstruction authority.

Japan utility appeals court order to shut reactors

A Japanese utility on Monday appealed a court decision which ordered the shutdown of two nuclear reactors even though they had been declared safe under tougher rules prompted by the Fukushima meltdown.
The Otsu District Court last week issued the ruling, the first since reactors were restarted under a more rigorous safety regime adopted after the 2011 disaster.

The court ordered the shuttering of Kansai Electric’s No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Takahama nuclear plant 350 kilometres (215 miles) west of Tokyo.
The No. 4 reactor had been taken offline last month due to an unexpected technical glitch days after it restarted, while the No. 3 reactor was switched off soon after the court order.

A Kansai Electric spokesman said Monday that the utility “appealed the ruling” while also demanding that the shutdown reactors be allowed to restart pending the outcome of the appeal.
The shutdown order, issued Wednesday just two days before the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, was a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bid to bring back nuclear power.

Syria war begins sixth year as US, Russia pull the strings

(FILES) This file photo taken on February 11, 2016 shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad listening to a question during an exclusive interview with AFP in the capital Damascus.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pledged on MArch 1, 2016 to do his part to ensure a fragile ceasefire holds and offered “full amnesty” to rebels who hand in their weapons. / AFP / JOSEPH EID

00The United States and Russia are pulling the strings in Syria’s five-year war, experts say, pressuring opposing sides and leveraging rival regional powers to reach a settlement. 

 As the conflict enters its sixth year, the embattled regime and fractured opposition are in Geneva for indirect peace talks hosted by United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura.

But the real solution, experts say, is in Russian and American hands.
“The two great powers talk among themselves by phone or in meetings around the world. Then they inform their Syrian allies and de Mistura what they’ve decided,” says veteran opposition figure Haytham Manaa.
“Then, Russia and the US give the regional powers the red lines they’re not supposed to cross. The US bans the Turks from a ground incursion in Syria and asks the Saudis to stop sending arms. Russia does the same thing with Iran,” Manaa tells AFP.

3 Palestinians carry out shooting, car-ramming attacks, shot dead

Three Palestinians carried out two attacks — a shooting and a car-ramming — on Israelis in the southern occupied West Bank on Monday before they were shot dead, the Israeli army said.
“Two assailants opened fire at pedestrians waiting at a bus stop at the entrance of Kiryat Arba (near Hebron). Forces guarding the area responded and shot the assailants, resulting in their deaths,” a military statement read.

“Moments later, in an additional attack, a vehicle rammed into a military vehicle responding at the scene. Forces responded to the immediate danger and shot the assailant, resulting in his death.”
The army said a soldier was wounded in the shooting attack, and three others lightly wounded in the car-ramming.

A military spokeswoman said the assailants used a pistol and a submachine gun.
The Palestinian health ministry named the perpetrators as Qassem Abu Ouda, 30, and Amir Juneidi, 22, from Hebron, and Yousef Taraya, 18, from the nearby village of Bani Naim.

Turkey pounds Kurdish camps after Ankara bombing

This picture taken on March 13, 2016, shows a burning car after a blast in Ankara.
An explosion ripped through a busy square in central Ankara on March 13, killing 27 people and wounding 75 more, with local media reports describing it as an attack. Ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion on Kizilay square, a key shopping and transport hub close to the city’s embassy area.
/ AFP / Mehmet Ozer

Turkish warplanes pounded Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq Monday, the day after a suicide car bomb tore through downtown Ankara killing at least 36 people, the third attack on the capital in five months. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest carnage, which reduced cars and buses to charred hulks on a busy road in the heart of the city, wounding more than 120 people.

But Ankara believes one of the bombers was a woman with ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Turkish official told AFP on Monday.

White House hopefuls hustle for votes as race turns ‘toxic’

An anti-Donald Trump protester is removed by security during a Trump rally at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago on March 11, 2016.
Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump cancelled his appearance at a Chicago rally Friday amid extraordinary scenes of chaos, with hundreds of protesters clashing with the frontrunner’s supporters and police struggling to maintain order. / AFP / Tasos KATOPODIS

White House hopefuls hit the ground in a last-minute push for votes Monday ahead of a crucial new election test, with violence marring Donald Trump’s race for the Republican nomination.

 Dubbed “Super Tuesday 2” by US media, the latest major date in the run-up to November’s presidential election will see Democratic and Republican primary contests in the states of Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina.

Merkel to stay refugee policy course despite vote debacle

German chancellor Angela Merkel delivers a speech at the last electoral meeting on March 12, 2016 in Haigerloch, southwestern Germany, ahead the regional state elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
More than 12 million voters are electing three new regional parliaments for the southwestern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as eastern Saxony-Anhalt in the so-called Super Sunday polls. / AFP / Thomas Kienzle

German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans no changes to her refugee policy despite heavy losses in state elections at the weekend, her spokesman said Monday.

 “The federal government will stay its refugee policy course, fully determined, at home and abroad,” the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told a news briefing.

London mayor Johnson blasts Obama over reported UK visit

US President Barack Obama pauses while speaking during a South by Southwest Interactive at the

 Long Center for Performing Arts in Austin, Texas on March 11, 2016. / AFP / Mandel NGAN

London mayor Boris Johnson on Monday accused Barack Obama of “hypocrisy” following a report that the US president is heading to Britain next month to make the case for the UK to stay in the European Union.

“Coming from Uncle Sam, it is a piece of outrageous and exorbitant hypocrisy,” Johnson, a leading member of the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wrote in his regular column for the Daily Telegraph.

“Can you imagine the Americans submitting their democracy to the kind of regime that we have in the EU?” he asked, adding: “This is a nation born from its glorious refusal to accept overseas control.”

Johnson went on to point out that the United States does not accept that its own citizens could be subject to the rulings of the International Criminal Court and does not recognise other jurisdictions.

Latest polls set stage for another Super Tuesday

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

The contested-convention movement got mixed news from the latest Quinnipiac polls of Florida and Ohio, two key winner-take-all states in today’s Super Tuesday II primaries. Donald Trump dominates in Florida, Marco Rubio’s last-stand ground and home turf, but only manages a tie against John Kasich in Ohio.
An outright win by Trump in both states will add 165 delegates to his total and put him more clearly on the path to a first-ballot nomination in Cleveland:

Separate surveys of likely Republican and Democratic primary voters in Florida and Ohio show:
Florida Republican – Trump with 46 per cent, followed by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida with 22 per cent, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas with 14 per cent and Ohio Governor John Kasich with 10 per cent.
Florida Democrat – Clinton over Sanders 60 – 34 per cent.

Chicago-bound Amtrak train derails in Kansas, 30 injured

Emergency personnel work on a train that derailed near Dodge City, Kan., Monday, March 14, 2016. An Amtrak statement says the train was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago early Monday when it derailed just after midnight. PHOTO www.rt.com900

Several coaches from Amtrak’s Southwest Chief Train 4 traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago derailed about 20 miles (32 km) west of Dodge City, Amtrak said in a statement. There were about 128 passengers and 14 crew aboard.

Thirty people were taken to hospitals in Garden City and Dodge City, Gray County spokeswoman, Ashley Rogers, said. She and Amtrak gave no details on their conditions, but in an earlier statement, the United States (U.S.) train service had said that initial reports were that there were no life-threatening injuries.
Other passengers were transported to a recreation center in Cimarron before being provided alternate transportation to their final destination.