Israel election: Netanyahu set for record fifth term
PM Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to secure a record fifth term after almost complete results from Israel's election suggest a new right-wing coalition.
His Likud party is expected to finish with a similar number of seats as ex-military chief Benny Gantz's centrist Blue and White alliance.
But Likud and right-wing allies are set to be the largest bloc with 65 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, local media said.
The 69-year-old premier is facing corruption allegations.
However, the election result means he could become Israel's longest-serving prime minister later this year, overtaking Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion.
Fukushima disaster: first residents return to town next to nuclear plant
Parts of Okuma are open for business once again, but only a few hundred former residents have moved home
A town next to the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant partially reopened on Wednesday, eight years after a triple meltdown forced tens of thousands of people in the area to flee.
About 40% of Okuma, which sits immediately west of the plant, was declared safe for residents to make a permanent return after decontamination efforts significantly reduced radiation levels.
However, media reports said just 367 people from Okuma’s pre-disaster population of 10,341 had registered as residents, suggesting that very few people will return to neighbourhoods that have been abandoned since a deadly earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the nuclear plant in March 2011.
Amnesty International reports global drop in executions
Amnesty International's annual death penalty report finds that executions have decreased worldwide. The trend is overshadowed by a new law in Brunei that allows authorities to kill people for homosexual activities.
Amnesty International has published its annual report on global executions. "The main finding of our report is that the number of global executions has been falling — has gone down to reach the lowest figures we have reported in at least a decade," said Chiara Sangiorgio, an advocate against the death penalty with AI. The organization notes that significantly fewer executions were carried out in countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Iraq in the past year than in previous years.
The incremental improvement, however, is overshadowed by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah's recent declaration that people said to have engaged in homosexual or adulterous activities in Brunei would be put to death.
Clues emerge in 'missing' ocean plastics conundrum
It's a puzzle that has perplexed scientists for years: humanity dumps millions of tonnes of plastics into the world's oceans annually, yet only a tiny fraction remains visible on the surface.
Now an international team of researchers believe they may be closer to determining where Earth's "missing plastics" end up, using an unprecedented global effort to track and draw down one of the most polluting materials ever invented.
As images of plastic-clogged beaches and swirling gyres of detritus bobbing on the high seas are prompting governments and cities to curb their throwaway culture, a growing body of evidence suggests a deeper problem of plastic permeating all ocean depths.
Welsh and Hawaiian were saved from extinction. Other languages might not be so lucky
Updated 0132 GMT (0932 HKT) April 10, 2019
At work in central Hong Kong, David Hand is surrounded by people speaking Chinese and English. But inside his home, the Welsh language rules.
Hand's three children -- Arwen, Huw and Tomos -- have never lived in Wales, spending their entire lives in Asia.
Inculcating his native language in them thousands of kilometers from the only place it is widely spoken wasn't easy. As well as only speaking to them in Welsh himself, Hand hired nannies from Wales -- usually teenagers taking time out between high school and university -- and arranged for them live to with the family.
Their Australian mother speaks to them in English.
Iran's Khamenei calls U.S. blacklisting of Guards a 'vicious move'
By Parisa Hafezi
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the United States had made "a vicious move" in designating the Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization, and Tehran vowed to take action against U.S. forces in the region.
"They wish to plot against our Sepah (the Guard corps) ... it is in the front line of confronting enemies of our (1979 Islamic) revolution and has always defended the country ... America has failed to block our advances," Khamenei, who controls the Guards, was quoted as saying by the state media.
"In spite of all the pressure over the past 40 years, Americans have failed to do a damn thing and their vicious move will bear no fruit," Khameni said, a day after a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump that is likely to raise tensions in the Middle East.
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