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  • Berlin truck attack suspect killed in Italy shootout

     

    German prosecutors issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000-euro reward for information and warning he "could be violent and armed"

    Italian police on Friday shot dead the prime suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack, ending a frantic four-day hunt for Europe's most wanted man.

    But just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed relief that suspected attacker Anis Amri no longer posed a threat, she pledged a "comprehensive" analysis of how he was slipped through the net in the first place.

    Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian, is believed to have hijacked a lorry and used it to mow down holiday revellers at the market on Monday, killing 12 and wounding dozens more.

    "We can be relieved at the end of this week that the acute danger is over," Merkel told reporters.

    AFP / Jean Michel CORNU, Simon MALFATTOBerlin attack suspect killed

    "However the danger of terrorism in general endures, as it has for several years. We all know that."

    The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility and released a video Friday in which Amri is shown pledging allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

    He had been missing since escaping immediately after the attack, but his time on the run was cut short thanks to a combination of luck and the quick reflexes of rookie Italian police officer Luca Scata.

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  • Mane could make Liverpool return at West Ham

    Sadio Mane could make his Liverpool comeback at West Ham United on Saturday after making encouraging progress in his recovery from a hamstring injury, manager Jurgen Klopp revealed on Friday.

    The Senegal winger has not played for Liverpool since October 1 after getting injured on international duty, but he returned to training with his team-mates on Thursday.

    "Sadio trained yesterday for the first time with the team and looked really, really good. We will see what we do with that," Klopp told reporters at Liverpool's Melwood training centre.

    "Yesterday it looked like he is ready for at least 20-25 minutes, but we have to wait to see how his body reacts to the session because it was his first football session for a long time.

    "He did really well. He obviously didn't miss his abilities or skills during the injury break, so that's good."

    Liverpool are sixth in the Premier League table, 12 points adrift of leaders Manchester City.

    But with City hosting fifth-place Arsenal on Sunday and fourth-place Chelsea entertaining second-place Manchester United, they have an opportunity to make up ground on the teams above them.

    Philippe Coutinho has been ruled out of the trip to London Stadium due to an adductor muscle problem that kept him out of Liverpool's 3-0 wins over Huddersfield Town and Maribor.

    But Georginio Wijnaldum, forced off early on against Maribor after turning his ankle, and Dejan Lovren, who sustained a thigh injury prior to the Huddersfield game, could be able to play.

    "Phil is not available. With the rest, it will be close," said Klopp.

    "Gini I'm not sure, we have to see. It's painful what he has, but maybe he can cope with it.

    "Dejan, yes, maybe today is the clearing session and we know that in weeks like this you have to wait until the last second to make the squad or the line-up."

    Klopp hopes Adam Lallana will be able to return after the international break, having been sidelined by a thigh problem since before the start of the season.

    Klopp also said he would not pressurise midfielder Emre Can to sign a new contract, with the Germany international's current deal set to expire at the season's end.

    "What could I do now? I could say, 'Yes, it is a big problem,' but it isn't," said Klopp.

    "I could say it is a big problem which we have to resolve now and put pressure on the player, put pressure on the club, but it makes no sense.

    "We have to respect his contract is ending and that is how it is.

    "As long as Emre doesn't give me one sign his mind is somewhere else, I don't have to talk about this. It is a normal thing in football."

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  • Thousands urge peace in anti-Trump protest in S. Korea

    Thousands of South Koreans protested Sunday against an upcoming visit by Donald Trump and called for peace as the US President begins an Asian tour dominated by North Korea's nuclear programme.

    Trump, who arrived in Tokyo on Sunday, is set to visit the South from Tuesday to Wednesday as part of his first Asian trip as head of state that also includes Vietnam, China and the Philippines.

    He is scheduled to hold a summit with President Moon Jae-In and visit a US military base, with all eyes on his message to the North and its leader Kim Jong-Un.

    Tensions flared after Pyongyang staged a sixth atomic test in September and test-launched multiple missiles capable of reaching the US mainland, while Trump and Kim have traded colourful personal attacks.

    South Korea is a key US ally and hosts 28,500 US troops but many of Trump's critics in the South see him as a warmonger whose recent war of words with Kim has heightened tensions on the flashpoint peninsula.

    "We oppose war! Negotiate peace!" the protesters chanted in central Seoul, waving banners and balloons emblazoned "Peace, not war" and "We want peace".

    Many slammed both Trump and Kim for heightening the risk of conflict.

    "Trump and Kim... are using the current military standoff for their own political gain, while we South Koreans are trembling with fear of war!" one activist said on stage.

    One mother whose son is serving the South's mandatory two-year army conscription accused the US leader of putting her son's life at risk.

    "My heart stirs at every single word Trump says about North Korea," she said.

    Organisers estimated the number of protesters at around 5,000.

    Separately on Sunday a group of conservative activists held a rally to welcome Trump, urging Washington to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in the South to guard against threats from the North.

    The latest standoff between Trump and Kim has raised concern among South Koreans, who have over decades grown indifferent to regular threats of attack from Pyongyang.

    But some Trump advisers say US military options are limited because any armed conflict on the peninsula would be expected to cause huge casualties.

    Seoul is home to 10 million people and only about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the heavily-fortified border, within range of Pyongyang's artillery.

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  • NY attack 'in name of IS,' Trump vows visa crackdown

    he Uzbek who killed eight people in New York acted in the name of the Islamic State group, police confirmed Wednesday, as the US president vowed to scrap the visa program that allowed him to enter the country.

    Tuesday's attack, which mowed down pedestrians and cyclists at high speed on Lower Manhattan's West Side, was the deadliest attack blamed on terrorism in America's financial capital since the September 11, 2001 hijackings.

    While 29-year-old suspect Sayfullo Saipov had not previously been the subject of an FBI investigation, police confirmed he had planned the attack for weeks.

    Saipov, who moved to America legally in March 2010, rented a pickup truck in New Jersey without suspicion, before driving into New York, mounting a bike path and unleashing mayhem as children and their parents prepared to celebrate Halloween.

    Five of the dead were Argentines, visiting for a school reunion. A Belgian woman was also killed. Of 12 injured, nine remain in hospital -- four in a critical but stable condition. One Argentine, a German and three Belgians, were among the injured.

    The suspect was shot in the abdomen by a police officer after he crashed into a school bus and exited his truck, brandishing paintball and pellet guns. He has been interviewed in hospital and remains in custody, police said.

    "He did this in the name of ISIS," John Miller, the head of New York police intelligence and counter-terrorism, told a news conference.

    - Animal -

    "He appears to have followed almost exactly to a 't' the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels before with instructions to their followers on how to carry out such an attack," Miller added.

    Vehicle rammings have been a frequent tactic deployed by IS sympathizers in the West, including in Barcelona, London, Stockholm and in Nice, where a Tunisian suicide truck bomber killed 86 people on Bastille Day last year.

    Police said it was too early to determine when Saipov may have become radicalized, but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said it happened after he moved to the United States. He is not a US citizen but a legal permanent resident.

    AFP / St. Charles County Dept. of CorrectionsSayfullo Saipov, the suspected driver who killed eight people in New York, mowing down cyclists and pedestrians, before striking a school bus in what officials branded a 'cowardly act of terror'

    Trump, confronting the worst jihadist-inspired attack of his 10 months in office, denounced Saipov as an "animal" and charged that he had been a point of contact for up to 23 immigrants or would-be immigrants, quipping that he "would certainly consider" sending him to Guantanamo Bay.

    The Republican president said that he was "starting the process of terminating" the popular green card lottery, which he said had enabled Saipov to enter the country.

    "We have to do what's right to protect our citizens," the Republican president told reporters. "We will get rid of this lottery program as soon as possible."

    The 1990 program awards US permanent resident visas to around 50,000 applicants around the world each year, opening the door as well for members of their wider families to follow them, so-called chain migration.

    Trump has already slashed the country's annual refugee intake by more than 50 percent, tightened visa issuance around the world and attempted to ban travelers from 11 countries, most of them with Muslim-majority populations, but not Uzbekistan.

    "We also have to come up with punishment that's far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now," the president said.

    Saipov lived in Florida and Ohio, before moving to Paterson, a former industrial hub in New Jersey about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of New York, where he lived with his wife and three children. The truck was rented in New Jersey.

    - 'Scary' -

    Neighbors in the working-class, immigrant community reacted with shock and horror on Wednesday, saying that they knew little about the man who kept to himself.

    "It's a very quiet neighborhood. We leave our doors unlocked. We thought we were pretty safe, but to know that someone like that lives down the street is scary," said Kimberly Perez, 20, who lives across the street.

    In New York, leaders vowed that the annual marathon would go ahead as planned on Sunday. Police said the event, which attracts more than 50,000 runners and 2.5 million spectators, would be the most protected ever.

    "We will not be cowed, we will not be thrown off by anything," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

    While officials say preliminary evidence suggests Saipov acted alone and was not part of a wider plot, Cuomo has drastically stepped up security at airports, tunnels and Penn Station, which he called the busiest rail hub in the hemisphere.

    Uzbekistan, a majority Muslim country that borders Afghanistan and formerly part of the Soviet Union, is a landlocked country racked with poverty, corruption and a stifling authoritarian regime.

    In less than a year, three other men with Uzbek links have been blamed for a deadly nightclub shooting in Istanbul, a Saint Petersburg metro bombing and Stockholm attack.

    In March 2015, two Uzbeks and a Kazakh living in New York were arrested on charges of supporting IS. One of them, who threatened former president Barack Obama, was sentenced to 15 years in prison last week

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  • Robert Mugabe slams Zodwa Wabantu's 'no-panty policy'

    Speaking at an interface rally in Bindura on Saturday, President Robert Mugabe told a crowd of thousands that he knew he was  "disappointing many men" for banning Zodwa Wabantu from performing in Zimbabwe.

    The Zimbabwean president lambasted the Durban entertainer, who is famous for her sultry moves and revealing clothes, for attending parties without wearing underwear.

    He said: "I'm sorry we disappointed many men... You just come without covering your decency. What do you want? Men to see you? We don't want such..."

    Zodwa was set to perform in Zimbabwe, but was banned by the acting minister of Tourism and Hospitality last month when he ruled that the Durbanite will not be allowed to perform at the Harare International Carnival.

    This happened after actress Anne Nhira complained to the tourism board that Wabantu should not be invited because she was not a Zimbabwean, she dressed scantily and she was a lesbian.

    Zodwa told TshisaLive she blamed her gig cancellation on "political games".

    "The show was cancelled at the last moment. They said I must tell everyone that I am sick and they would send me money to cover the trouble. It's a political thing. It was politics behind closed doors because apparently people were protesting that they want me to perform and sponsors were pulling out of the event because reports about me were drawing too much (negative) attention to the event," she said.

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