Trump looking at fast ways to quit global climate deal – report

President-elect Donald Trump is seeking quick ways to withdraw the United States from a global accord to combat climate change, a source on his transition team said, defying broad global backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Since Trump’s election victory on Tuesday, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement during climate talks involving 200 nations set to run until Friday in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Trump has called global warming a hoax and has promised to quit the Paris Agreement, which was strongly supported by outgoing Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama.
Trump’s advisers are considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord, according to the source, who works on Trump’s transition team for international energy and climate policy.
“It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election” on Tuesday, the source told

DR Congo prime minister resigns

Congolese Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo resigned Monday to make way for an opposition figure to take his place following talks aimed at averting a political crisis.
“I have offered my resignation as well as those of the members of my government… to respond to the spirit and the letter of the accord,” said Matata as he left a meeting with President Joseph Kabila, referring to the deal struck after a political dialogue boycotted by the main opposition parties.
DRC’s political crisis deepened last month after a presidential election, which had been due before the year’s end, was postponed until April 2018.

Mexico abducted priest found alive

A priest abducted in the Mexican state of Veracruz has been found alive after three days, but with signs of torture, Church officials say.
The disappearance of Fr Jose Luis Sanchez Ruiz had sparked two days of unrest in the town of Catemaco.
He is the third Roman Catholic priest abducted in the eastern Mexican state since September. The other two were found shot dead by a roadside.
Clerics said Fr Sanchez Ruiz had been targeted because he fought corruption.
“He had received threats in recent days because he is a defender of human rights,” said Fr Aaron Reyes, a spokesman for the diocese. “He has criticised the system of corruption and the crime problem in Catemaco.”

First woman to fly China’s J-10 fighter dies in crash

The first woman to fly China’s J-10 fighter plane was killed in a crash during an aerobatics training exercise, state-run media reported Monday.
Yu Xu, 30, a member of the Chinese air force’s “August 1st” aerobatic display team, ejected from her aircraft during a training exercise in the northern province of Hebei at the weekend, the China Daily newspaper said.
She hit the wing of another jet and was killed, it said, although her male co-pilot ejected safely and survived.
“As one of only four female pilots in the country capable of flying domestically made fighter jets, her death comes as a tremendous loss to the Chinese air force,” the Global Times newspaper said.
Yu, from Chongzhou in the southwestern province of Sichuan, joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in 2005, reports said.
She graduated from training four years later, one of the first 16 Chinese women pilots qualified to fly fighter jets, the China Daily said, and in July 2012 was the first woman to fly the J-10. Fans dubbed her the “golden

Pro-Russia Rumen Radev wins Bulgarian presidency

Radev won 59.4 percent of the vote, compared with 36.2 percent for the candidate of the ruling centre-right GERB party.Peter Ganev/Reuters

Pro-Russia, anti-migration candidate Rumen Radev won the Bulgarian presidential election, partial official results showed on Monday.
Former air force commander Radev won 59.4 percent of the vote, compared with 36.2 percent for the candidate of the ruling centre-right GERB party, Tsetska Tsacheva, with 99.3 percent of polling stations counted.
Bulgaria faces an uncertain future after centre-right Prime Minister Boyko Borisov quit his post following the crushing defeat of his presidential nominee at the hands of Radev.
“The results clearly show that the ruling coalition no longer holds the majority,” the premier, who was re-elected in 2014 for a second time, said on Sunday evening.
“I apologise to those who supported us. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Radev, a former fighter jet pilot and novice to politics, has tapped into public anger with political elites and

New Zealand hit by most powerful ever-recorded earthquake

A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed two people and caused massive infrastructure damage in New Zealand on Monday, as forecasters warned wild weather could hamper rescue efforts.
The tremor, one of the most powerful ever recorded in the quake-prone South Pacific nation, hit just after midnight near the South Island seaside tourist town of Kaikoura.
It triggered a tsunami alert that sent thousands of people fleeing for higher ground across large parts of the country’s rugged coastline before the threat abated.
Rescuers were left scrambling to reach Kaikoura, which had no telecommunications and was isolated by landslips, making it accessible only by helicopter.
Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said a clearer picture of the scale of the damage was slowly emerging.
“I think had there been serious injury or suspected further loss of life than we would have heard about it by now,” he told Radio New Zealand.
He added: “It looks as though it’s the infrastructure that’s the biggest problem, although I don’t want to take away from the suffering… and terrible fright so many people have had.”
Brownlee and Prime Minister John Key flew over the affected area in a military helicopter.
Aerial footage outside Kaikoura showed railway tracks ripped up and tossed 10 metres (30 foot) by the force of the quake.

WikiLeaks’ Assange faces questioning by prosecutors

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces questioning by prosecutors Monday at the Ecuadoran embassy in London in a twist in the long-running legal battle over a rape allegation against him.
An Ecuadoran prosecutor will quiz the founder of the secret-spilling website at the red-brick building where he has been holed up for more than four years, with Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and a Swedish police inspector also attending, officials said.
The 45-year-old Australian sought refuge in the central London embassy in June 2012 after Swedish prosecutors issued a European arrest warrant against him, over allegations of rape and sexual assault filed by two women who met Assange during a 2010 trip to Sweden.
He denied the claims, saying they were politically motivated, and insisting his sexual encounters with the two women were consensual.
He has refused to travel to Sweden for questioning, fearing he would be extradited to the United States over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Kerry in Oman for Yemen peace talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived Monday in Muscat, Omani state media said, for talks expected to focus on efforts to end Yemen’s 19-month conflict.
ONA news agency said Kerry will be in the Gulf sultanate for two days, in one of his last trips as secretary of state before President Barack Obama’s administration ends on January 20.
He is scheduled to hold talks on Monday with Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi and to meet ruler Sultan Qaboos.
Kerry has been pushing for a settlement of Yemen’s deadly conflict, which escalated with the military intervention of a Saudi-led coalition to support the government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in March 2015.