Auschwitz medic’s mass murder trial resumes after delays

The mass murder trial of a former SS medic who served at the Auschwitz death camp has got under way once again following a string of delays.
It is the fourth time Germany has attempted to put 95-year-old Hubert Zafke on trial.
His ill health has repeatedly forced proceedings to be postponed.
Mr Zafke is charged with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder at the Nazi death camp.
He was pushed into Neubrandenburg state court in a wheelchair on Monday, holding a wooden

Suspected debris from missing MH370 points to fire on plane

Charred debris, possibly belonging to the missing MH370 plane, has been handed to investigators – raising the prospect of a flash fire on board the ill-fated jet.
An American amateur investigator handed over several pieces of blackened debris to Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau on Monday in what may prove to be a breakthrough in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history.
Blaine Gibson said the material, which had washed up in Madagascar, included what appeared to be an internal panel.
“The top layer of paint has been singed, scorched black,” he told Australia’s Channel 7 of one piece. “It also shows some signs of melting… as you see when something is exposed to fire.
“It appears to be from the interior of the plane but not the main cabin, perhaps the cargo hold, perhaps the avionics bay.”
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board.

Duterte orders US advisers out of southern Philippines

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte holds up a photo and cites accounts of US troops who killed Muslims during the US’s occupation of the Philippines in the early-1900s, during a speech at the Malacanang palace in Manila on September 12, 2016.(AFP)

President Rodrigo Duterte ratcheted up his feud with the United States on Monday, ordering all American special forces out of the southern Philippines where they have been advising local troops battling Muslim extremists.
Duterte’s order came a week after he called US President Barack Obama “a son of a whore”, causing Obama to cancel their scheduled bilateral meeting at a summit in Laos.
The Filipino leader, the first to hail from the south and who claims Muslim ancestry, has been stepping up efforts to bring peace to the southern Philippines, where decades-long insurgencies with Muslim and communist rebels have claimed more than 150,000 lives.
Last month he restarted peace talks with the largest separatist group, the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which like others has been fighting since the 1970s for an independent Islamic state or autonomous rule.
US advisors in the area help train Filipino troops but are barred from engaging in combat except in self-defence.

EU’s Juncker launches probe into Barroso Goldman Sachs job

Jean-Claude Juncker

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has opened a probe into whether his predecessor Jose Manuel Barroso breached EU ethics guidelines by joining US investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In a letter to the European Union’s official watchdog, Juncker also said Barroso will now be received at the Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation bloc, as a lobbyist rather than as a former president.
Juncker said his team would send Barroso “a letter asking him to provide clarification on his new responsibilities and the terms of reference of his contract, on which I will seek the advice of the (Commission’s) Ad Hoc Ethical Committee.”
The committee’s findings are non-binding.
His letter was released late Sunday by European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly who had written to Juncker last week asking him to check whether Barroso’s appointment “conforms with ethics

Ex-British PM David Cameron resigns from parliament

David Cameron

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron has resigned from the UK parliament “with immediate effect”.
“It is not going to be possible to be a normal backbencher as a former prime minister,” Mr. Cameron told the BBC on Monday.
He added that his presence in parliament could be a “distraction” for his successor as Prime Minister, Theresa May.
Mr. Cameron had pledged to support Mrs. May, who “has got off to a cracking start” since she became the nation’s leader in July.
The ruling Conservative Party elected Mrs. May to lead the country after Mr. Cameron resigned following his failed campaign to persuade voters to remain in the European Union in Britain’s

Obama to host Italy’s Renzi for state visit Oct. 18

U.S. President Barack Obama (C) talks to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (R) during the opening of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, September 4, 2016.(Reuters)

President Barack Obama will host Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for an official visit on Oct. 18, the White House said on Monday.
Obama and Renzi, whose countries are NATO allies, have discussed security and economic issues in the past including the fight against Islamic State in Libya, the conflict in Ukraine, and the

Brazil Congress expels ex-speaker Eduardo Cunha

Eduardo Cunha

Two weeks after the removal of Dilma Rousseff as Brazil’s president, the lower house of Congress has expelled the politician who engineered her impeachment for lying about secret bank accounts in Switzerland.
Eduardo Cunha, who has been charged with corruption by the Supreme Court, was on Monday banned from politics for eight years and faces arrest now that he has lost his congressional prerogatives.
The chamber voted overwhelmingly 450-10 to strip the once powerful former speaker of his seat.
Rubens Bueno, of the Popular Socialist Party, said: “This shows that Brazil will no longer tolerate a politician who turned Congress into a business counter for bribes and favours.”
He said Cunha took kickbacks from companies and instructed them to donate to the campaigns of his allies.

Pilgrims defy new Saudi rule on ‘devil stoning’ ritual

Muslim pilgrims throw pebbles at pillars during the “Jamarat” ritual, the stoning of Satan, in Mina near the holy city of Mecca, on September 12, 2016.(AFP)

Pilgrims have defied new rules by the Saudi government on the ‘stoning of the devil’, compelling the authorities to revert to old guidelines.
The directive had been designed to prevent a repeat of the 2015 stampede, which caused the death of more than 2,000 pilgrims.
Under the new procedure, the estimated three million pilgrims would have been grouped into sets of 250, each with a Saudi guide and an assistant chosen from a participating country. Pilgrims were also not expected to proceed immediately to Makkah for Tawaf Al Ifada, as had been the practice.
Saudi authorities, at a meeting with stakeholders from African and non-Arab countries on September 5, had threatened stiff penalties, including arrest and prosecution for non-compliance. Culpable pilgrims also faced a 10-year ban from performing the hajj.