Trump walks out of shutdown talks with a 'bye-bye'
President Donald Trump has walked out of a meeting with Democratic leaders as negotiations broke down on the 19th day of a US government shutdown.
The Republican president ended talks after Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer stuck by their refusal to fund his planned US-Mexico border wall.
Mr Trump called his meeting with the pair "a total waste of time".
Some 800,000 federal workers will go without pay this week for the first time since the shutdown began.
The president tweeted afterwards that he had said "bye-bye" to the top Democrats.
Toe the line: China bans foot fetish videos and political spoofs as censorship tightens
China’s new guidelines come after a year in which the government stepped up censorship efforts
China released new guidelines on censoring short videos on Wednesday, prohibiting everything from foot fetishes to spoofing the national anthem, as Beijing continues to clamp down on “harmful” information.
The China Netcasting Services Association, one of the country’s largest government-backed internet associations, published a detailed list of 100 types of content that short video platforms must scrub.
Political subjects topped the list, including Taiwan independence, criticism of Communist Party leaders, and parodying China’s national anthem.Don't be distracted by violence on the fringes of European politics, the far right are taking over by legitimate means too
Ahead of the European parliament elections, these groups are on track to form a rallying point for those who wish to defy EU rules on everything from human rights to budget deficitsSean O'Grady
Far-right yobs yelling abuse and threatening MPs and journalists in Westminster. The gilets jaunes, a rag bag of populists and discontents, burning the streets of Paris. A far-right German MP beaten up in Bremen.
Nothing to trivialise there. And yet none, even taken together, and even with several degrees of escalation, seriously threaten the future of European liberal values. But there is a much more lethal threat to European democracy – from the ballot box itself, and it will soon enough be upon us.
In May, there will be elections to the European parliament. It seems very likely indeed that this important European institution, once the very seat of federalist ambitions, will be transformed into a sort of playpen for the fruitcakes, nutcases and plain evil hard cases of European politics.
Opinion: Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro has lost all legitimacy
Up to now, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has at least ruled as an elected leader. As he begins his second term, it seems the last vestiges of democracy in the country are gone, writes DW's Uta Thofern.
Venezuela's last genuinely free elections were held in 2015. The opposition won that vote by a landslide, which international observers interpreted as a glimmer of hope for the country and its run-down economy. But, alas, this optimism did not last long. President Nicolas Maduro and his Chavistas soon began hollowing out the country's democratic institutions — abolishing the rule of law and the separation of power.
Opposition candidate Felix Tshisekedi wins DR Congo presidential poll, says electoral commission
Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission on Thursday declared opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi the winner of a disorganised and contentious Dec. 30 presidential election.
The result could lead to Congo's first democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, with longtime President Joseph Kabila due to step down in coming days.
But vote tallies compiled by Congo's Catholic Church found that another opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu, clearly won the election, two diplomats said, raising the spectre of a standoff that many fear could lead to violence.
Election commission (CENI) president Corneille Nangaa said Tshisekedi had received more than 7 million votes, compared to about 6.4 million for Fayulu and about 4.4 million for Kabila's hand-picked candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.
A second mysterious repeating fast radio burst has been detected in space
By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Far outside our Milky Way galaxy, something is causing repeating short bursts of radio waves to be released into space. Scientists have recorded the second repeating fast radio burst to be discovered, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The finding was also presented at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.
These radio bursts are only millisecond-long radio flashes, and such rapid bursts themselves aren't rare in space.
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