World

Police in Dubai has closed the case into the death of Bollywood star Sridevi Kapoor after handing over her body to relatives.

The actress, 54, died on Saturday "due to accidental drowning following the loss of consciousness", police said. She was found in a hotel bathtub.

It had earlier been reported that she died of cardiac arrest while at a family wedding in Dubai.

Her body has been embalmed and is being flown to India for her funeral.

Crowds have gathered outside her home in Mumbai to pay their last respects ahead of the ceremony, which will take place in the city today.

Police had been holding the body pending the results of a post-mortem examination.

Prosecutors say a "comprehensive investigation into the circumstances of her death" is now complete.

The full post-mortem report has not yet been released to the public and will be expected to explain how the original report of cardiac arrest and the listing of "accidental drowning" are linked.

Source : BBC

Indian film star Kamal Haasan has launched his new political party in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Haasan, 62, made the announcement in the town of Madurai before crowds of his party supporters. The state has a history of actors-turned-politicians - three have even served as chief ministers.

In December, Rajnikanth, another Tamil movie star, told his fans that he would form a political party before the next state election due in 2021.

Haasan said in October he wanted to enter politics. His new party is called Makkal Needhi Mayyam, which roughly translated means Centre for People's Justice, the Press Trust of India reported. He had said he would work towards becoming the state's chief minister so he can "right the wrongs of corruption and communalism" in the state.

Tamil Nadu has been politically unstable since the death last year of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram, also a former film star.

Source : BBC

Four months after a historic Chinese Communist party congress was expected to answer most questions about Xi Jinping’s second five-year term in office, China’s president has demonstrated that he can still “shock and awe” his political rivals.

Until Sunday afternoon, most guessing games ahead of the March 5 opening of China’s annual parliamentary session focused on the imminent political reincarnation of Wang Qishan, the recently retired head of Mr Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, and the race to succeed Zhou Xiaochuan, the veteran central bank governor.

But the party’s announcement that its central committee had recommended scrapping the two-term limit for the state president and vice-president was a reminder that in Mr Xi’s China, such personnel reshuffles matter much less now. One person with close ties to China’s leadership says that people worried about Mr Xi’s authoritarian tendencies are “not just scared, they are desperate”.

The person adds that scrapping the two-term limit “has put us back 30 years”, by threatening painstaking efforts to institutionalise peaceful party and government leadership transitions every 10 years This is not what anyone was expecting at the beginning of the reform era Kevin Carrico, Macquarie University After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the two-term limit on the presidency and vice-presidency was written into China’s state constitution by Deng Xiaoping, who launched China’s era of “reform and opening” in the late 1970s and wanted to prevent a return to the excesses of one-man rule experienced under Mao Zedong.

“We’ve had so many steps backwards [under Xi],” adds Kevin Carrico, a lecturer in Chinese studies at Macquarie University in Australia. “Media controls have become stricter, internet controls have become stricter. And now one of the few seemingly effective checks on a senior leader’s power that he can only be in power for two terms is now just being completely cast aside. This is not what anyone was expecting at the beginning of the reform era.”

While last October’s Congress made it clear that Mr Xi would remain the party’s dominant figure as long as he were alive and healthy, Sunday’s announcement paves the way for him to retain the presidency indefinitely, too.

Source : The Financial Times

All Singapore citizens aged 21 and above will get a one-off “SG Bonus” of up to S$300 each as the 2017 budget came in with a surplus of almost S$10 billion (US $7.6 billion), the city-state’s finance minister announced on Monday.

Finance minister Heng Swee Keat made the announcement during his budget speech in Parliament, describing the bonus as a “hongbao”, the Mandarin word for a monetary gift given on special occasions.

He said this “reflects the government’s long-standing commitment to share of the fruits of Singapore’s development with Singaporeans”, according to Channel News Asia.

The “SG Bonus” will cost the government S$700 million (US $533 million).

The bonus will be paid according to people’s assessable income. About 2.7 million people will get the payouts, which are due by the end of 2018.

Those with an income of S$28,000 or below will be eligible to receive S$300, those whose incomes ranging from S$28,001 to S$100,000 will receive S$200, and those with incomes in excess of S$100,000 will receive S$100.

Singapore’s revised budget for fiscal 2017 showed a surplus of S$9.61 billion, thanks to contributions from statutory boards and higher-than-expected stamp duty.

The surplus will also be used in other ways. Heng said S$5 billion will be set aside for the Rail Infrastructure Fund to save up for new railway lines that Singapore is building.

Another S$2 billion will be set aside for premium subsidies and other forms of support for Eldershield, an insurance scheme that helps senior citizens with severe disabilities to cope with the financial demands of their daily care.

Source : The Hindustan Times

Some 1,500 people have rallied in central Tel Aviv demanding the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu over corruption allegations and a recent Israeli police recommendation that charges be brought against the Prime Minister.

 The “Bibi Netanyahu go home” slogan once again united the Israeli crowd holding their weekly anti-government corruption protest in Tel Aviv. Waving signs that read “Bibi, you are not above the law,”“Love Israel, separate from Netanyahu,” they chanted, “A mafia country and a corrupt Prime Minister.”

Earlier this month Israeli police recommended that Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted over allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Despite the pressure and daily calls to resign, Netanyahu maintains his innocence, further exacerbating the public anger.

“In the past, whenever there was an indictment recommendation with the police, politicians used to resign,” one protester told RT’s Ruptly video agency. “It's very difficult to see Bibi resigning. He’s not the kind of [person] who resigns.”

“I came here to protest and to defend the democracy in Israel because it’s important that people will fight corruption wherever it is because the government here forgot that they need to serve us and not we need to serve them,” noted another activist present at the rally.

Police earlier announced that they gathered sufficient evidence to start legal proceedings against the premier in two separate probes – Case 1000 and Case 2000. Although the recommendations were submitted to the attorney general, it may take months before the decision is made.

Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu, along with his wife Sara, received lavish gifts worth thousands of dollars from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, in exchange for favors. The other probe revolves around suspicions of Netanyahu conspiring with the owner of the top-selling Israeli newspaper, Arnon Mozes, to get a more positive coverage of himself. The Prime Minister has repeatedly denied the allegations as “baseless.”

Christchurch and two other districts on New Zealand's South Island have declared a state of emergency as former cyclone Gita hit the country.

Dozens of schools have been shut and roads closed on the South Island as the storm made landfall on Tuesday. New Zealand's national airline has cancelled all flights in and out of the capital, Wellington, on North Island.

Residents were told to expect floods and winds of up to 150km/h (90mph). The Grey District and Buller Districts on South Island have now also declared a state of emergency.

 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that troops had been sent out to areas that were likely to be hardest hit by the storm. She added that the national Civil Defence office in Wellington was also on standby.

Gita last week left a trail of destruction in the Pacific island nations of Tonga and Fiji. Tonga, in particular, is reeling from the storm, which injured people and destroyed buildings including the parliament.

Source : BBC News

Snap Inc.’s flagship platform has lost some lustre, at least according to one social-media influencer in the Kardashian-Jenner clan.

Shares of the Snapchat parent company sank 6.1 percent on Thursday, wiping out $1.3 billion in market value, on the heels of a tweet on Wednesday from Kylie Jenner, who said she doesn’t open the app anymore. Whether it’s the demands of her newfound motherhood, or the recent app redesign, the testament drew similar replies from her 24.5 million followers. Wall Street analysts too have begun to notice, citing recent user engagement trends noticed since the platform’s redesign.

Jenner’s tweet was followed late Thursday by one from Maybelline New York, asking its followers if it should stay on the Snapchat platform. The beauty-product brand owned by Paris-based L’Oreal SA said its “Snapchat views have dropped dramatically,” but it still wanted to connect with its followers.

Citigroup analyst Mark May downgraded the stock to sell from neutral earlier this week after seeing a “significant jump” in negative reviews of the app’s redesign. He expects the reviews could cause user engagement to fall, hurting financial results.

Meanwhile, as the app takes criticism, Chief Executive Evan Spiegel may become one of the highest paid executives in the U.S. After the company’s IPO last March, Spiegel got a $636.6 million stock grant that will be payable through 2020.

Source : Bloomberg

A court in Pakistan has given a 24-year-old man, Imran Ali, four death sentences for raping and murdering a six-year-old girl last month.

Zainab Ansari's body was found in a rubbish dump in the city of Kasur, south of Lahore, on 9 January. Her murder triggered outrage across the country, including riots against alleged police incompetence in which two protesters died.

The victim's father was in court to hear the verdict, amid heavy security. Zainab's killer has also been linked by police and the chief minister of Punjab province to the murders and assaults of other girls in the area.

Ali's alleged crimes stretch back at least a year and angry residents say authorities should have been quicker to identify him as the perpetrator.

Ali will be tried over the rest of the cases later, government prosecutor Ehtisham Qadir Shah told Reuters news agency. Dozens of witnesses testified against Ali in the trial, where forensic evidence including DNA and polygraph tests were also presented.His lawyer had withdrawn from the case after Ali confessed, reports say.

Ali was handed death sentences for kidnapping, rape, murder and an act of terrorism, a life sentence for sodomy and a large fine. He now has a 15-day window in which he may appeal against the verdict.

Source : BBC

Around 400 kilos of cocaine was siezed by Police from the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentine Minister for Security Patricia Bullrich announced.

Addressing a press conference, Bullrich said that the drugs were discovered in an annex of the Russian embassy and had a street value of around $50 million.

“A gang of narco-criminals was trying to use the diplomatic courier service of the Russian embassy to ship the drugs to Europe,” she said.

Caption:

Bullrich told reporters that Russian and Argentine police had decided to mount a sting operation after the Russian ambassador informed them of the drugs find in December 2016.

“The cocaine was replace by flour and monitoring devices were placed to monitor delivery” of the 16 bags of the drug, Bullrich said. She said the sting had resulted in the arrest of five suspects — two in Argentina and three in Russia.

The drug, of “very high purity,” was destined for Russia and probably also Germany, where the suspected mastermind lives. “We believe the German police will arrest this fugitive,” Bullrich said.

The minister said Russian security service agents “came to Argentina on three occasions to assist in the investigation” that took more than a year.

One of the two people arrested in Argentina is a naturalized Russian who was a member of the police force in Buenos Aires, said Bullrich.

Investigators believe the cocaine likely originated in Colombia or Peru.

(AFP)

A fire broke out at the most important shrine in Tibetan Buddhism - the Jokhang Monastery in Lhasa.

Footage posted online showed flames billowing from the roof and what appeared to be at least one gutted pagoda.

Chinese state media said the blaze started late on Saturday and was soon put out. No casualties were reported.

The extent of damage to the sprawling compound is unclear. State media said there was no damage to cultural relics.

Tibet, the remote and mainly-Buddhist territory known as the "roof of the world", is governed as an autonomous region of China.

The Jokhang monastery is more than 1,000 years old and is listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Reports say that Chinese authorities quickly tried to block footage and images of the fire appearing on social media.

Beijing maintains tight control of news reports from Tibet, where Buddhist sites have been a focal point for separatist unrest in the past.

The fire comes as Tibetans celebrate Losar, their traditional new year, which began on Friday.

Tibet has had a tumultuous history, during which it has spent some periods functioning as an independent entity and others ruled by powerful Chinese and Mongolian dynasties.

China sent in thousands of troops to enforce its claim on the region in 1950. Some areas became the Tibetan Autonomous Region and others were incorporated into neighbouring Chinese provinces.

China says Tibet has developed considerably under its rule.

But rights groups say China continues to violate human rights, accusing it of political and religious repression - something Beijing denies.

 Source : BBC

Pakistan’s supreme court has barred Nawaz Sharif from his position as president of the country’s ruling party, ordering the reversal of all decisions he has taken in the role, in a move that plunges the country’s politics into fresh uncertainty.

The former prime minister, who was sacked by the supreme court last year, had managed to retain power by driving through a law that allowed disqualified politicians to lead political parties.

Twice-deposed in coups during the 1990s, the 68-year-old has long claimed his most recent eviction as prime minister is the result of a shadowy, anti-democratic conspiracy concocted between the judiciary and – behind the scenes – the army.

“This is only going to add to the wave of support for the PML-N [Sharif’s party],” Daniyal Aziz, a cabinet minister, told the Guardian. “The public think the party is being victimised.”

It was not unexpected that the supreme court would debar Sharif as party head. The same five judges originally ordered his dismissal as prime minister on the grounds that, in failing to declare a foreign bank account, he fell short of the vague constitutional requirement that politicians be “honest” and “righteous”.

But the verdict goes further. In a five-page judgement, the chief justice, Saqib Nisar, ruled that all “orders passed, directions given and documents issued” by him as party chairman since then “have never been passed, issued or given.”

Most immediately, this nullifies all of the tickets given out by Mr Sharif to PML-N candidates for senate elections, on which his career partly hinges. If the party win enough seats to cobble together a majority in the 102-seat senate, Sharif would be able to remove the clause in the constitution which prevents his return as prime minister.

The Election Commission of Pakistan is expected to delay the vote planned for 3 March. This will give time for a new PML-N head to reappoint the party’s candidates.

The most likely replacement for Sharif as PML-N chief is his wife, Kalsoom, who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer in London, analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi told the Guardian. “Through his wife,” Rizvi said, “Mr Sharif would still be able to control the party.”

Source : The Guardian

Sixty-six people have been killed in a passenger plane crash in Iran, airline company officials say. The Aseman Airlines plane, en route from Tehran to the south-western city of Yasuj, came down in the Zagros mountains. The Red Crescent deployed search and rescue teams to the site near the city of Semirom in Isfahan province.

Flight EP 3704 left Tehran at 08:00 local time (04:30 GMT) and disappeared from radar about an hour later. The aircraft crashed on Dena Mountain, 22km (14 miles) from Yasuj, news channel Irinn reported.

The plane was a French-made twin-engine turboprop ATR 72-500. Those on board were 60 passengers, two security guards, two flight attendants and the pilot and co-pilot.

"After searches in the area, unfortunately we were informed that the plane crashed. Unfortunately, all our dear ones lost their lives in this incident," airline spokesman Mohammad Tabatabai said.

A child was among the victims, emergency services head Pir Hossein Kulivand was quoted as saying. Bad weather had hampered rescue efforts. Emergency teams had to travel to the crash site by land rather than using a helicopter, Mr Kulivand said.

Source : BBC