South Korea set to change policy on North as liberal wins election
Exit polls suggest Moon Jae-in has won presidential election comfortably after predecessor ousted in corruption scandal
Moon Jae-in, a left-leaning liberal who favours engagement with North Korea, looks set to win South Korea’s presidential election, raising hopes of a potential rapprochement with Pyongyang.
The former human rights lawyer won 41.4% of the vote, according to an exit poll cited by the Yonhap news agency, placing him comfortably ahead of his nearest rivals, the centrist software entrepreneur Ahn Cheol-soo and the conservative hardliner Hong Joon-pyo.
South Koreans who backed Moon, 64, will be hoping the election result will mark a clean break from the corruption scandal surrounding his disgraced predecessor Park Geun-hye.
Isis beheads Russian 'intelligence officer' in Syria in gory propaganda video
Group lashes out at 'bankrupt' Russia after losing swathes of territory
Isis has beheaded a man claimed to be a Russian intelligence officer in a gory propaganda video released to coincide with Russia’s Victory Day celebrations. The lengthy video repeated the format used in previous hostage executions, including of James Foley and David Haines, showing a prisoner identified as Evgeny Petrenko giving a “confession” under duress.
He was shown dressed in a black jump suit, speaking with militants in prison, before kneeling in a desert and urging other Russian agents to surrender. Russia's defence ministry dismissed the video, which appeared authentic, as a "hoax" and said no members of its armed forces had been captured or killed.
Court sentences Jakarta governor Ahok to two years jail for blasphemy
Jakarta's outgoing Christian governor has been sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy over comments about the Quran. The trial was widely seen as a test of religious tolerance in Muslim-majority Indonesia.
A court in Indonesia found Jakarta's governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama guilty of blasphemy against Islam on Tuesday.
Purnama was "found to have legitimately and convincingly conducted a criminal act of blasphemy, and because of that we have imposed two years of imprisonment," presiding judge Dwiarso Budi Santiarto told the court.
The five-judge panel ordered the minority Christian governor to be detained immediately. Purnama had been free during the trial while he was seeking re-election.
Purnama said that he would appeal the court's guilty verdict and sentence.
Rubbish piles up, and rats roam, in the Ukrainian city of Lviv
For the past two months, rubbish has been piling up in the streets of the Ukrainian city of Lviv. Towering piles of waste cover pavements, alleys and sometimes even playgrounds and roads in neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city. As the days get warmer with the end of winter, exasperated residents are starting to have real fears for their health.
The Ukrainian city of Lviv, which was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1998, is known for its traditional architecture and historic town centre. Lviv is the seventh largest city in Ukraine and, each day, its residents produce 600 tonnes of rubbish. Almost a year ago, on May 30, 2016, four people were killed when a fire destroyed the city landfill site. The impact of the fire has since meant that the city waste management department hasn’t been able to deal with waste in the same way. The gap in services has meant that bags and bags of rubbish have been piling up in the streets of Lviv and its suburbs.
Some neighbourhoods, like the historic city centre, are regularly cleaned by municipal workers. However, the situation has reached crisis levels in some residential areas on the outskirts of the city where residents complain of the omnipresent stench of rubbish and rat infestations. In September 2016, a child was bitten by a rodent near one of these rubbish piles, according to reports published by local news site Leopolis.
Names of 82 freed Chibok girls released to public, but parents still have to wait to be reunited
The girls, captured three years ago by Boko Haram, were released in exchange for five commanders of the terrorist group.
Nigerian newspapers published the names Monday of 82 Chibok schoolgirls set free three years after being kidnapped by Islamic extremists, but they remained behind closed doors and their parents awaited word on whether they could see them.
It was unclear if many of the parents in the remote northeastern town of Chibok had seen the list of names or if any would travel the nearly 900 kilometers (560 miles) to the capital of Abuja to see their daughters who were abducted by the Boko Haram militant group.
Five Boko Haram commanders were released in exchange for the freedom of 82 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by the extremist group three years ago, a Nigerian government official said Sunday. The girls met with President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday.
Amazing haul of ancient human finds unveiled
A new haul of ancient human remains has been described from an important cave site in South Africa.
The finds, including a well-preserved skull, bolster the idea that the Homo naledi people deliberately deposited their dead in the cave.
Evidence of such complex behaviour is surprising for a human species with a brain that's a third the size of ours.
Despite showing some primitive traits it lived relatively recently, perhaps as little as 235,000 years ago.
That would mean the naledi people could have overlapped with the earliest of our kind - Homo sapiens.
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