Donald Trump denies transition disarray after sackings
US President-elect Donald Trump has defended his handling of the transition to the White House, amid reports of disarray in his team.
Mr Trump tweeted that the process of selecting his new cabinet and other positions was "very organised".
US media say two senior members of the transition team working on national security have been forced out.
Mr Trump, a property tycoon and Republican outsider, won an unexpected victory against Hillary Clinton.
He has already replaced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie with Vice-President-elect Mike Pence as head of the transition team
Jakarta's Christian governor to face blasphemy trial over Islam insult claim
Case against Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama seen as test of Indonesia’s commitment to religious tolerance and pluralism
The Christian governor of Jakarta, the capital of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has been named a suspect in a case of alleged blasphemy, Indonesian police announced on Wednesday.
The case involving Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has caused uproar across the country in recent weeks and is being seen by some as a test of Indonesia’s commitment to religious tolerance and pluralism.
The police announcement follows mounting pressure by religious hardliners who earlier this month initiated mass protests across the country to demand the popular figure be arrested and charged with insulting Islam. Some analysts believe the protests to be politically motivated.'Isis is full of killers, the worst come from Tal Afar': Bitter fight for city ahead and the violence may not end there
The city of Tal Afar has become notorious for sectarian hatred - with many worried that even an Isis defeat on the road to Mosul will not bring peace
Tal Afar is a small city notorious for sectarian hatred and slaughter, which may soon be engulfed by a final battle between Isis and its bitterest enemies. Shia paramilitaries seeking revenge for past massacres of their co-religionists may soon assault the place which has provided many of the most feared Isis commanders, judges and religious officials.
“Isis is full of killers, but the worst killers of all come Tal Afar,” says a senior Iraqi official who did not want his name published. Abbas, a 47-year-old Shia Turkman from Tal Afar living in exile in the Kurdish city of Zakho, agrees, saying that several of the senior military commandersof the self-declared Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi come from there. He adds that officers from the Shia paramilitaries have been told that they will soon attack the city. The Turkmen are on of Iraq's smaller minorities but important because of their links to Isis and to Turkey.
Opinion: Is Africa attempting to undermine the credibility of the ICC?
Member states of the International Criminal Court are beginning their annual meeting in The Hague. Three African states are leaving the court, but it is still needed writes Tanzanian analyst Anaclet Rwegayura.
Under the flag of the United Nations all member states believe in equality and justice. But inequality of nations persists. And, yet every nation is expected to play its fair role in this game of inequality!
I am raising these points in the wake of dissatisfaction expressed by some African countries with regard to the performance of the International Criminal Court (ICC). They charge that there has been no fair play with regard to Africa.
Last month Burundi, South Africa and Gambia, began the formal process to withdraw from the founding treaty of the ICC, the Rome Statute. Was their decision based on domestic politics or on international legal grounds?
Detainee tells of hellish existence in Australia's off-shore detention centre
Being forced to live on a palm-dotted island in the midst of the Pacific Ocean might seem like heavenly escape for a lot of people. However, it’s more like hell for people imprisoned in Australia’s off-shore detention centre on the island of Manus.
The Australian government uses the centre to lock up refugees and migrants who were caught trying to enter Australia by sea. Many of these prisoners have spent years trapped on this island, which belongs to Papua New Guinea. Condemned to live in terrible conditions, many have lost hope.
“Do you know the television series ‘Lost’? I feel like I’m living that series. It’s like we’re all dead and stuck in limbo, or maybe even in hell,” says Amir.
For the past three years, Amir – who is originally from Iran – has been trapped on Manus island. This tiny, idyllic island, which is part of Papua New Guinea, is a mere speck in the Pacific Ocean. Since 2012, the Australian government has been banishing men caught trying to enter Australia by sea. The men imprisoned in the camp in Manus were all traveling alone. Those traveling with their families are imprisoned alongside women and children in another detention centre on the tiny island nation of Nauru.
Elected Hong Kong leaders to appeal disqualification for 'insincere' oaths
Supporters of Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching, two leaders of the independence movement in Hong Kong, see their exclusion from elected office as a threat to Hong Kong's sovereignty under 'one country, two systems' doctrine.
Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching, two young pro-independence legislators who were recently elected to Hong Kong's legislative council, have been disqualified from serving in the government, a Hong Kong judge ruled on Tuesday, the latest step in a case that many observers say demonstrates unusually direct intervention from Beijing into the city's judicial system.
The ruling by a Hong Kong court comes a week after Beijing issued a reinterpretation of Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which critics say aims to prevent the pro-independence legislators from getting a foothold in the local government.
Judge Thomas Au, who handed down the ruling against Mr. Leung and Ms. Yau, says that he would have reached the same ruling even without Beijing's influence, according to the BBC. But many critics are already protesting what they see as a fundamental breach of the "one country, two systems" doctrine, established when Hong Kong was returned to China from Britain in 1997, which gives the city relative autonomy on domestic issues until at least 2047.
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