A top Taiwan court ruled in favour of gay marriage Wednesday, a landmark decision that paves the way for the island to become the first place in Asia to legalise same sex unions.
The constitutional court said Taiwan's current Civil Code, which stipulates an agreement to marry can only be made between a man and a woman, "violated" the constitution's guarantees of freedom of marriage and people's equality.
It gave Taiwan's government two years to implement the ruling.
If parliament does not make the change within two years, the court said same-sex couples could register to marry regardless, based on its interpretation.
"The current provisions of the marriage chapter do not allow two persons of the same sex to create a permanent union of an intimate and exclusive nature for the committed purpose of managing a life together. This is obviously a gross legislative flaw," a statement from the court said.
The push for equal marriage rights has gathered momentum on the island with hundreds of thousands rallying in support.
But there has also been anger among conservative groups, who have staged mass protests against any change in the law.
The court ruled that the decision to allow gay marriage would contribute to social stability and protect "human dignity".
For Taiwan's pioneering gay rights campaigner, Chi Chia-wei, one of the petitioners who brought the case to the constitutional court, the decision was the culmination of 30 years of activism.
"I'm leaping with joy like a bird," Chi, 59, told AFP.
"I hope parliament will prioritise the bill instead of dragging it on for another two years," he added.
Supporters from both camps had gathered in central Taipei to await the decision, with hundreds of pro-gay marriage campaigners flying rainbow flags outside parliament.
A panel of 14 grand justices made the ruling - a majority of 10 was needed. Only two judges dissented.
Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi will open a new round of talks with some of the country's myriad ethnic groups on Wednesday, looking to revive a stuttering peace process after a tough first year in power that saw the worst fighting with rebels in years.
The conference comes amid continued tensions between ethnic armed groups, the military and Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, and it is unlikely to see any new groups join a landmark ceasefire accord negotiated by the previous administration.
Ending decades of near-perpetual civil war is Suu Kyi's stated No. 1 priority - which she sees as key to unlocking the resource-rich country's potential and guaranteeing basic development for its more than 50 million people.
Among issues on the agenda are whether the states that make up Myanmar would be allowed to draft their own constitutions and the status of religion.
In a last-minute boost to the conference, local media reported that several groups that have recently clashed with government troops, and whose attendance had been in question, would be joining the negotiations.
"It's unlikely that any new groups would sign the NCA, but they will discuss a set of potential consensus points," said Yangon-based analyst and former United Nations diplomat Richard Horsey, referring to the National Ceasefire Agreement negotiated by a quasi-civilian transitional government that took office after the end of junta-rule in 2011.
"The fact that there will be more of them in the room is a positive development."
Ethnic armed groups have complained that Suu Kyi has taken a top-down, approach to the process, unilaterally dictating the agenda, often ignoring or misunderstanding their grievances and siding too closely with the military.
When Suu Kyi took charge of the peace process last year, she dismantled a peace centre set up by the previous government that was leading talks with the rebels. Some observers say the move undermined the trust built up over the years.
"They should do more informal meetings. And the peace brokers between the groups, I think the government should recognise them and expand their role," said Aung Thu Nyein, the director of training at the Institute for Strategy and Policy, referring to informal peace negotiators.
Several conflicts have reignited since Suu Kyi took power, displacing an estimated 160,000 people, according to data from the United Nations.
A coalition of four rebel groups comprising one of Myanmar's most powerful militias, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), staged attacks on security forces in the north of the country in November.
In the spring, fighting with Kokang rebels in the hills along the Chinese border sent about 20,000 refugees fleeing to China's Yunnan province.
The conflict in northwestern Rakhine state, where an army crackdown on Rohingya Muslim insurgents forced 75,000 people to flee to Bangladesh amid allegations of widespread atrocities, is separate from the peace process and will not be discussed at the five-day conference in the capital Naypyitaw.
"I want to hope for the best. But this is not an easy process," an ethnic Shan woman told Reuters in Yangon. "No side wants to change their current position and lose or reduce their power and opportunities."
Qatar said on Wednesday its state news agency had been hacked, after it reported remarks purportedly by its ruler criticising aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia.
The comments attributed to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani continued to be carried by media in some other Gulf Arab states, even after Qatar said the report was fake, suggesting renewed strains between Qatar and some of its Gulf Arab neighbours.
"The Qatar News Agency (QNA) website has been hacked by an unknown entity. A false statement attributed to His Highness has been published," the Gulf Arab state's government communications office said.
"An ongoing investigation will be put in place to look into this matter. The statement published has no basis whatsoever, and the competent authorities in the State of Qatar will hold all those (involved) accountable."
Ties between Qatar and other Gulf Arab states suffered an eight-month breach in 2014 over Qatar's alleged support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group whose political ideology challenges the principle of dynastic rule.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have used their oil and gas revenues to influence events in other Middle Eastern countries, and rifts between them can alter the political environment in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The hacked report, which said Sheikh Tamim had spoken at a military graduation ceremony, cited him as being critical of renewed tensions with Gulf Arab adversary Iran.
A government spokesman told Reuters the Emir had attended a graduation ceremony for Qataris doing national service, "however, he did not make any speech or give any statements".
The incident happened four days after Qatar complained publicly that it was the target of "an orchestrated barrage" of criticism by unknown parties in the run-up to Trump's visit alleging the Gulf state supported terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Trump met Sheikh Tamim and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders on his trip to Saudi Arabia on Saturday and Sunday, where he renewed his assertion that Iran was a leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Iran denies the allegation and says Saudi Arabia, the dominant GCC power, supports militant Islamist armed groups such as al Qaeda and Islamic State. Riyadh, in turn, denies that.
Arguments over the Brotherhood, the most influential Islamist group in the world, were at the heart of a rift among Gulf Arab states that in 2014 saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdraw their ambassadors from Doha. They only returned after Qatar said it would not allow itself to be used by the Brotherhood for its activities.
Chi Chia-wei will find out on Wednesday if his decades long fight to make Taiwan the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage has been a success.
Chi, 59, a pioneering Taiwanese gay rights activist, is the celebrated face behind one of the most controversial legal cases the island democracy has seen in recent years, where 14 judges must rule if the civil code, which states that marriage is between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.
The constitutional court’s landmark ruling will not only determine the success or failure of draft new parliamentary laws to introduce marriage equality, but could cement Taiwan’s reputation as a beacon of liberalism in a region where the LGBT community faces increasing persecution.
Chi, an equal rights campaigner since he first came out as a gay teenager in 1975, remains pragmatic about making civil rights history. “If it doesn’t work out this time, I’ll keep on fighting for the people, and for human rights,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.
But he is determined that one day, the fight will be won.
“Somebody has to do it. I don’t want to see any more people commit suicide because they don’t have marriage equality,” he said.
Last October the suspected suicide of French professor, Jacques Picoux, who was unable to marry his Taiwanese partner of 35 years, Tseng Ching-chao, became a rallying call for Chi and other LGBT activists.
His struggle is also personal. Chi’s lawsuit, launched two years ago and supported by the municipal government in the capital, Taipei, is the latest of several attempts to get legal recognition for his 30 year relationship with his partner, who wishes to remain anonymous.
In 1986, when the nation was still under martial law, Chi was imprisoned for five months after submitting his first petition asking for gay marriage to be recognised.
As a flag bearer for equality, he hopes to inspire other LGBT activists fighting a crackdown across Asia.
On the eve of Taiwan’s court ruling, two gay men face a public caning in Indonesia. In South Korea, the military has been accused of carrying out a witch-hunt against gay recruits. In Bangladesh, 27 men were arrested last week on suspicion of being gay, a criminal offence.
Back in Taiwan, the political stakes of Wednesday’s decision are also high.
When President Tsai Ing-wen’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) passed the first draft of a bill to legalise same-sex marriage in December, it prompted a fierce conservative backlash.
The issue has split Taiwanese society and vocal protests from a coalition of religious and right-wing family groups have caused many legislators to have second thoughts.
The fate of the legislation, soon to face a second reading, now lies in the hands of the court, believes Yu Mei-nu, the DPP parliamentarian who drafted it.
If the court ruled clearly in support of same-sex marriage and President Tsai offered her unequivocal support, it would embolden wavering legislators to vote in favour of the new laws, she argued.
“If the grand justices make a decision that is not very clear, and it depends on a legislative yuan [parliament] vote, then it will be difficult. I think most legislators will abstain,” she said.
“We want her (Tsai) to be braver. If she can come out and say ‘yes I support it’ then it will be passed.”
Ahead of her election last year, Tsai voiced her support for marriage equality in a Facebook video. “In the face of love, everyone is equal,” she said.
But as she marked the first anniversary of her inauguration this weekend with low public approval ratings, Tsai faced criticism from all sides over her handling of gay marriage.
“It’s a little bit depressing for us. Before the election, she was really pro-gay rights. But now she has kind of disappeared,” said student Vic Chiang, 23, at a Taipei rally last week on the International Day Against Homophobia.
Meanwhile, Robin Chen, a spokesman for the Coalition For Happiness of Our Next Generation, which links support for gay marriage with increased HIV infections, criticised the government for rushing the laws through.
“The majority of the population does not know what’s happening,” he said. “We need to discuss things on different levels because family is the foundation of society.”
His fears were shared by Father Otfried Chan, secretary-general of the Chinese Regional Bishops Conference, who believes the court will likely back gay marriage. “There is no debate,” he said. “It’s a one-sided game.”
Nerves are frayed ahead of the ruling, with both sides intending to demonstrate outside the court.
But for
Chi, the choice is simple.
“To legalise marriage would mean that Taiwan’s civil code and constitution will say that gay people are people,” he said. “If the law can be changed, Taiwan’s gay community will have human rights.”
Dozens of students at Indiana's Notre Dame University protested White House policies on Sunday by walking out of a commencement speech by Vice President Mike Pence, who criticized political correctness at American colleges.
The members of the graduating class -- dressed in cap and gowns together with some two thousand classmates -- stood up and quietly left the school's football stadium when Pence began delivering his speech, videos posted online showed.
Others cheered and some booed.
Notre Dame, in the city of South Bend, is one of the country's most prominent Catholic universities.
Pence, who received an honorary degree from the university, said that "far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness -- all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech."
"These all-too-common practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge, and they are wholly outside the America tradition," he added.
A religious social conservative, Pence is a former Indiana governor who was born in the state and also served as one of its representatives in Congress for 12 years.
The protest comes amid a mounting controversy over what constitutes free speech at college campuses since the election of Donald Trump as president in November, with students objecting to appearances by divisive conservative figures. Some schools have canceled events.
In addition to Pence's record as governor, the protesters said they wanted to voice objections to Trump's threat to civil liberties and policies such as his attempts to ban travelers from some Muslim-majority countries.
"The participation and degree-conferring of VP Pence stand as an endorsement of policies and actions which directly contradict Catholic social teachings and values and target vulnerable members of the university's community," Notre Dame student Xitlaly Estrada said in a statement by the student group WeStandForND, which organized the protest.
More than 100 people walked out, organizers said. Many wore rainbow pins or flags, a symbol of gay pride.
Pence delivered his speech while Trump was on the first day of his first trip abroad as president. In a speech in Saudi Arabia, he called on Middle Eastern leaders to help defeat Islamist extremism.
North Korea on Monday declared its medium-range Pukguksong-2 missile ready for deployment after a weekend test, the latest step in its quest to defy UN sanctions and develop an intercontinental rocket capable of striking US targets.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency said the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un oversaw Sunday’s launch, which sparked a fresh chorus of international condemnation and threats of tougher sanctions.
The missile tested was the Pukguksong-2, which uses solid fuel that allows for immediate firing, KCNA said.
So far almost all the North’s missiles have been liquid-fuelled, which have to be painstakingly filled with propellant before launch, while solid fuel missiles can be fired far more rapidly.
That would dramatically shorten the time available for any attempt to intervene and prevent a launch, requiring any such decision to be taken much more quickly.
Seoul military officials have previously said the Pukguksong-2 -- a land-based version of Pyongyang’s submarine-launched weapon—uses solid fuel.
Kim said “with pride” that the Pukguksong-2 was a “very accurate” missile and a “successful strategic weapon”, KCNA said, adding he “approved the deployment of this weapon system for action”.
The launch “completely verified” the reliability and accuracy of the device, and its late-stage warhead guidance system, KCNA said, adding the test results were “perfect”.
Images carried by the Rodong Sinmun—the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea—showed a smiling Kim clapping surrounded by his aides in an outdoor observation post as the missile shot up into the air.
It also had several pictures of the Earth said to have been taken from the rocket from space—the first such pictures released by the North.
Kim “said he was very happy to see pictures of the Earth taken by our rocket and that the world looks beautiful”, KCNA said, adding that he ordered the missile to be “rapidly mass-produced”.
The missile, which was described by Washington as medium-range, was fired from Pukchang in South Pyongan province and travelled about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before landing in the Sea of Japan, according to the South’s armed forces.
The rocket used a cold-launch system, KCNA said.
The technology uses compressed gas to propel a missile upwards before its engine ignites in mid-air. It is considered safer and also makes it easier to hide the launch location.
A spokesman for Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters that South Korean and US intelligence authorities “assess that North Korea secured meaningful data in advancing the reliability of its missile technology through yesterday’s missile launch”.
But he added: “Our position is that the stable re-entry of the warhead needs more verification.”
The US, South Korea and Japan sharply denounced the launch and jointly requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which will be held Tuesday.
The launch came just one week after the North fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile, which according to Pyongyang was capable of carrying a “heavy” nuclear warhead”.
Analysts said that at 4,500 kilometres the Hwasong-12 had a longer range than any previous ballistic missile launched by the North, putting US bases on the Pacific island of Guam within reach—and that it could serve as a platform to develop a long-range ICBM.
Pyongyang has long had missiles that can reach targets across South Korea and Japan but is accelerating efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States—something President Donald Trump has vowed “won’t happen”.
The launches, and a threatened sixth nuclear test, have fuelled tension with the Trump administration, which has warned that military intervention was an option under consideration, sending fears of conflict spiralling.
But so far Washington has opted for sanctions and diplomatic pressure, while looking to China, the North’s closest ally, to help rein in Pyongyang.
Seoul’s foreign ministry slammed the “reckless and irresponsible” weekend firing as “throwing cold water on the hope and longing of the new government and the international community” for denuclearisation and peace on the Korean peninsula.
South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-In has previously taken a more conciliatory line towards Pyongyang than his conservative predecessors, but has reacted strongly to the latest two missile tests.
Beijing systematically dismantled CIA spying efforts in China beginning in 2010, killing or jailing more than a dozen covert sources, in a deep setback to US intelligence there, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The Times, quoting 10 current and former American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades.
It said that even now intelligence officials are unsure whether the US was betrayed by a mole within the CIA or whether the Chinese hacked a covert system used by the CIA to communicate with foreign sources.
Of the damage inflicted on what had been one of the most productive US spy networks, however, there was no doubt: at least a dozen CIA sources were killed between late 2010 and the end of 2012, including one who was shot in front of colleagues in a clear warning to anyone else who might be spying, the Times reported.
In all, 18 to 20 CIA sources in China were either killed or imprisoned, according to two former senior American officials quoted. It was a grave setback to a network that, up to then, had been working at its highest level in years.
Those losses were comparable to the number of US assets lost in the Soviet Union and Russia because of the betrayals of two infamous spies, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said.
Western espionage services have traditionally found it exceptionally hard to develop spy networks in China and Russia.
The CIA’s mole hunt in China, following the severe losses to its network there, was intense and urgent. Nearly every employee of the US Embassy in Beijing was scrutinized at one point, the newspaper said.
Meantime, then-president Barack Obama’s administration was demanding to know why its flow of intelligence from China had slowed.
The revelations come as the CIA seeks to determine how some of its highly sensitive documents were released two months ago by WikiLeaks, and the FBI examines possible links between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia.
West African schoolgirls, some not yet teenagers, have taken a starring role at an engineering competition in Senegal, busting stereotypes with robotics expertise and innovative projects for their communities.
The Pan-African Robotics competition (PARC) in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Saturday reflects the growing consciousness of science education as a top priority for a government growing the economy and getting development off the ground.
Rows of young women from Senegal, The Gambia and Mali distinct in their various uniforms—blue headscarves, black pinafores and white polo shirts—screamed for their teams as robots picked up plastic cones and dropped them onto markers, all adamant they would win.
Senegal’s Mariama-Ba all-girls academy won the high school category for a “made in Africa” pump solution to flooding, and girls were well represented in the winning 11-15 age group on Saturday after showing off their robotics skills.
“Our generation is definitely the one,” said Umu Tarawally, a 14-year-old Gambian who aspires to be a doctor and patiently explained to an assembled audience of dignitaries how groundnut shells could be converted into fuel.
Her friends, she added, were telling her they want to become engineers following a week of robot and tech workshops.
Resembling a cross between the TV show Robot Wars and a TEDx ideas conference, Saturday’s competition is the brainchild of Sidy Ndao, an engineering professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who left Senegal for the United States as a teenager.
“(It) inspires the kids to like science, inspires them to be future engineers and scientists,” the founder said, but the World Bank-funded event now in its second year places a special importance on girls.
Saturday’s event organised by Ndao’s SENEcole project attracted 250 children, boys and girls, aged between 11 and 19.
“There’s not a lot of them, but when there are they are typically top of the class,” he said of girls studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
“In order for any country to be sustainably developed, you have to really work on science and engineering,” he added, but Senegal’s brightest minds tend to undertake studies abroad lured by hopes of higher salaries and better lifestyles.
Senegal is trying to open the sector by backing girls’ coding clubs and maths teaching in schools, while a technology hub is being constructed near the capital for research and training as part of broader efforts to fill domestic skills shortages.
“As Senegal wants to become an emerging nation, we have to master the sciences, technology, engineering sciences and maths so we have the expertise to manage our own natural resources and also to create the innovations to construct our future,” said Mary Teuw Niane, Senegal’s minister of higher education and research.
A flood of new engineers would be timely, with Senegal on the cusp of a potential oil and gas boom from important deposits being found regularly off its coast.
Ndao emphasised the need to keep the costs of science and technology resources for schools down in a country where electricity and water, let along computers, are often lacking in rural areas.
A shortage of qualified science teachers is also a huge problem, the government has admitted.
Just over half of Senegal’s children complete school, and traditional expectations remain entrenched that girls should be content taking care of domestic duties, especially in poor families.
A focus on science, said Ndao, would “solve the cycle of problems in Africa,” where natural resources are still largely controlled by foreign firms, shipped abroad for processing and therefore stripped of a large amount of their value for the population living where the oil, gold or diamonds are taken.
For Aminata Ndiaye, 15, battling machines in a Senegalese stadium was a foundation of something much larger as she scooped the prize with her school in the northern city of Saint-Louis.
“It has changed my future. It is not just a robotics competition,” she said.
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has won a sweeping endorsement for efforts to end Iran’s international isolation and bring greater freedoms at home, with an unexpected landslide victory in a fiercely contested re-election bid.
His powerful mandate protects the nuclear deal, which has been his landmark achievement to date, and his courting of foreign investment. It could also have much longer-term implications for Iran’s future, by giving reformists a greater influence over the looming battle to choose a new supreme leader.
Polling stations were forced to stay open until midnight in parts of the country because so many Iranians wanted to vote, defying fears of voter apathy. Rouhani claimed 23.5 million votes, while his rival Ebrahim Raisi trailed on 15.8 million, after nearly three-quarters of the electorate cast their votes, the interior ministry said.
In a victory speech to the nation on live TV, Rouhani promised to rule for all Iranians. But while celebrating his huge mandate in the election, which he labelled the “most competitive ever”, he also described his opponents as dangerously backward-looking.
“Yesterday, you said no to those who wanted us to return to the past,” he told the nation. The scale of his victory provides a strong platform to challenge hardliners who still hold ultimate control in a Iran’s unwieldy hybrid of theocracy and democracy.
And in a signal that he planned to turn an outspoken campaign into a combative second term, Rouhani also thanked reformist figurehead Mohammad Khatami, his most important ally and backer. Security forces have banned any mention of the hugely popular former president’s name in the media, meaning Rouhani crossed a red line just hours into his new term.
“Millions and millions of people are happy because Rouhani won,” said businessman Ahad Esmaili, 31, one of a crowd breaking into dance at a spontaneous celebration in the heart of Tehran’s crowded bazaar, when the final figures were announced.
The election was a tense showdown between Rouhani and hardliner Raisi, both senior clerics but with little else in common. The challenger consolidated conservative support behind his initially lacklustre bid for power, by mounting a campaign that mixed economic populism with religious conservatism and an isolationist foreign policy.
Raisi’s last-minute surge may have unwittingly helped Rouhani, as moderates spooked by the prospect of slipping back into international isolation and stricter controls at home raced to the polls.
“I’m even happier than I was four years ago when he won the first time,” said tailor Mariam Farmayeshi, 34. “My husband voted for the first time in 20 years, because he thought it was necessary to keep out Raisi.”
Watch salesman Yousef Khaleghi said he spent the entire day driving dozens of friends and relatives to the polls. He had gone bankrupt during the government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and was determined to do everything he could to prevent another hardliner coming to power.
“I love Mr Rouhani,” he said with a grin, before adding he was grateful to Iranian women for their part in the re-election success. “We should acknowledge that Iranian women did a lot for him to win. At each polling station (in areas that supported Rouhani) they made up more than half of the voters waiting in line,” he added.
In an apparent nod to that vital support base, Rouhani thanked voters on Instagram with a picture that is likely to particularly outrage conservatives smarting from their loss.
It shows a family group celebrating their vote, with three of the younger women wearing colourful clothes and headscarves set back so far on their heads that they are barely visible. “Great people of Iran, you are the true winners of this election,” he wrote underneath.
Many of the women who turned up to vote for Rouhani felt their personal freedoms were under threat from Raisi, whose supporters frequently accused the president of abandoning Islamic values. Many were particularly exercised about women’s dress, at one rally even handing out suggestions about covering up to women who they deemed not appropriately clothed.
“I felt much better with Rouhani, more secure and freer. If his rival had come to power there would have been more restrictions on women,” said Tehran housewife Pantea Mehrabadi, 46. “I voted for him first because I wanted to support him, but also to combat Raisi.”
But victory also comes with a heavy weight of expectations that Rouhani may find it hard to fulfil, given the constraints of Iran’s complex government system and the weight of a US sanctions regime that Washington is in no hurry to lift.
The end of nuclear sanctions that followed his landmark deal was not followed by the hoped-for flood of foreign investment because unilateral US sanctions stayed in place, making doing business in Iran complicated or illegal.
For Rouhani to meet the expectations generated by his victory he will need western governments to push for those sanctions to be rolled back, or to step up investment in the areas they allow.
Although victory has tilted the political balance towards reformists in the short term, Raisi secured a face-saving vote tally high enough to mean that he is not finished politically, and lying ahead is the contest over who will be the new supreme leader.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds the position for life, but he is 77 and thought to be in poor health. A hardliner keen to preserve his legacy, he is believed to have tacitly backed Raisi as president, and possibly favoured him as a possible successor.
After the vote he issued a statement addressed to the Iranian people in which he praised the “massive and epic” turnout. However in contrast to the 2013 elections, he offered no congratulations to Rouhani.
While Raisi lost the election, he won enough support to preserve his political career. His 16 million votes, combined with success in persuading hardliners to back him, could put him in a good position to run in 2021 when Rouhani will be barred from seeking another term in office.
“Mr Rouhani should not forget that more than 16 million people did not vote for him,” Reza Gholami, a cleric allied with the hardliners, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency. “So he should respect their right to criticise him.”
White House lawyers have begun researching impeachment procedures to prepare for the possible impeachment of the US President Donald Trump, although officials still believe this is a distant possibility, according to a CNN report.
White House officials believe the President has the backing of Republican allies in Congress and that impeachment is not in the cards, according to the people briefed on the legal discussions.
Even Democrats have tried to calm impeachment talk out of concern as it is premature.
But lawyers in the White House counsel’s office have consulted experts in impeachment during the past week and have begun collecting information on how such proceedings would work, a person briefed on the matter told CNN on Friday.
However, a White House official denied the report saying “it’s not true” that the lawyers are researching impeachment procedures.
The legal discussions are part of a broader internal effort to bolster the President’s legal defence, which has become more complicated with the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to pursue the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Earlier this week, close advisers to the President, including lawyer and surrogate Michael Cohen, visited the White House to discuss his need to hire personal attorneys for Trump.
If an impeachment hearing was opened with the majority of votes at the House of Representatives, it would then require at least two thirds of the votes at the Senate, which is still controlled by a conservative majority, reports Efe news.
Only three US presidents have ever faced impeachment or imminent threats of impeachment.
Former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached but later acquitted, while Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974 before impeachment proceedings could begin.
James Comey, the former FBI chief fired by President Donald Trump, has agreed to publicly testify about Russian interference in the US elections, as fresh allegations increased pressure on the American leader.
In an Oval Office meeting with senior Russian officials last week, Trump called Comey a “nut job” and said firing the intelligence chief had relieved “great pressure” on him, The New York Times reported.
The exchange supports claims that Trump sacked Comey over the bureau’s probe into possible collusion between the real estate mogul’s campaign and Moscow.
The Washington Post meanwhile said the FBI has identified an unnamed senior White House official as a “significant person of interest” in its sprawling probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The reports came just as Trump flew to Saudi Arabia to kick off his first foreign trip as US leader—highlighting how the controversy over his team’s alleged links to Moscow is dogging his fledgling presidency.
Comey will testify in open session of the Senate Intelligence Committee at some point after the Memorial Day holiday, May 29, though a date has not yet been set.
The ex-FBI chief has not spoken publicly since his surprise firing last week.
“I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media,” panel Chairman Richard Burr said in a statement.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, said he expects Comey to “shed light on issues critical to this Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.”
However, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Comey declined their invitation to testify before the panel over the circumstances surrounding his abrupt removal.
“We’re extremely disappointed in James Comey’s decision not to testify voluntarily before the Judiciary Committee,” said Chairman Chuck Grassley and the panel’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, urging Comey to reconsider.
“There is no reason he can’t testify before both the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees... Given his commitment to the people and the mission of the FBI, we expected him to be responsive to the senators responsible for vetting its next proposed leader.”
The White House has been thrown into turmoil by a succession of stunning allegations against the president this week, including that he may have obstructed justice by asking Comey to drop an investigation into one of his top advisors.
Top prosecutor Marianne Ny said his arrest warrant was being revoked as it was impossible to serve him notice.
Mr Assange, 45, has lived in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012. He fears extradition to Sweden would lead to extradition to the US where he is wanted over leaks.
Ecuador has called on the UK to allow him safe passage out of the country.
However, police in London said they would still be obliged to arrest him if he left.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said Mr Assange still faced the lesser charge of failing to surrender to a court, an offence punishable by up to a year in prison or a fine.
But the UK has not commented on whether it has received an extradition request from the US, where Mr Assange could face trial over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.
Mr Assange's Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelson, said the prosecutor's decision on Friday represented "a total victory" for his client.
But the Wikileaks founder responded angrily in a tweet: "Detained for 7 years without charge... while my children grew up and my name was slandered. I do not forgive or forget."
The plaintiff in the rape case was "shocked" by the decision, her lawyer said, and maintained her accusations against Mr Assange, Agence France-Presse reported.
The decision coincided with the release by Wikileaks of another tranche of documents about the CIA's technical capabilities.
A former FBI boss has been named special counsel to oversee an inquiry into Russia's alleged meddling in the election and any Trump campaign ties.
In naming Robert Mueller, the deputy attorney general said it was in the public interest to have an outsider, reports the BBC.
The appointment was widely endorsed by politicians from both sides.
Calls for a special investigation had mounted since President Donald Trump fired the most recent FBI director, James Comey, last week.
The announcement apparently took the White House by surprise, with Trump only being informed of it after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had signed the order.
The FBI and Congress are looking into potential links between Trump's campaign team and Russia. Mueller will take over the FBI investigation.
US intelligence agencies believe Moscow tried to tip the election in favour of Trump.
Meanwhile the New York Times reports that Trump aide Michael Flynn had told his transition team in early January - earlier than was previously thought - that he was under investigation for working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the election campaign.
Trump appointed Flynn as his national security adviser weeks later despite the warning, but he was sacked after just 24 days.
Mueller, who will have wide-ranging powers, said simply: “I accept this responsibility and will discharge it to the best of my ability.”
Indian teenager Rifath Shaarook has designed and built what is thought to be the world's lightest satellite - and it's due to be launched at a Nasa facility in June.
The 64-gram device is made from 3D printed carbon fibre, and was the winning entry in Cubes in Space, a design contest for young inventors organised by education company idoodle, with backing from Nasa and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.
Rifath has named his creation KalamSat, after former Indian president Abdul Kalam. It will be launched from Nasa's Wallops Island facility in the US next month, entering into a four-hour sub-orbital flight. For 12 minutes of the flight it will be operating in a micro-gravity environment.
Rifath, who is lead scientist at Chennai-based science education organisation Space Kidz India, said: “We designed it completely from scratch.
"It will have a new kind of on-board computer and eight indigenous built-in sensors to measure acceleration, rotation and the magnetosphere of the earth.
"The main challenge was to design an experiment to be flown to space which would fit into a four-metre cube weighing 64 grams”.
Rifath, who comes from a small town in Tamil Nadu, previously built a helium weather balloon as a part of a competition for young scientists when just 15 years old.
Chelsea Manning has been released from prison after being convicted of passing classified information to WikiLeaks.
Ms Manning served seven years of her 35-year sentence, which was commuted by Barack Obama as one of his final acts as President.
Donald Trump called the former intelligence analyst an "ungrateful traitor" following the decision, claiming she "should never have been released from prison".
“I appreciate the wonderful support that I have received from so many people across the world over these past years,” Ms Manning told ABC News.
“As I rebuild my life, I remind myself not to relive the past.
“The past will always affect me and I will keep that in mind while remembering that how it played out is only my starting point - not my final destination.”
A spokesperson for the US Army confirmed to the BBC that Ms Manning had left Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas on Wednesday.
In her final tweet before leaving jail, Ms Manning said she was looking forward to “the freedom of civilian life”, before taking a swipe at Donald Trump’s healthcare policy.
“The nightmare will end, soon,” Ms Manning added, previously saying she planned to move to Maryland.
After being arrested in 2010, she filed a transgender rights case in prison and attempted suicide twice last year, according to her lawyers.
They refused to give details of how she would be freed over security concerns for the transgender soldier, who was known as Bradley Manning before transitioning in prison.
She was convicted in 2013 of 20 charges, including six Espionage Act violations, theft and computer fraud, but was acquitted of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy.
The diplomatic cables and military files she passed to WikiLeaks, gained on assignment as an Army intelligence analyst, exposed abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan by the American military and provoked global outrage.
They included secret documents on the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, killings by military contractors in Iraq, civilian deaths in Afghanistan and individual incidents including the killing of two Reuters war correspondents in Baghdad.
Ms Manning said she wanted to expose the US military's alleged disregard of the effects of war on civilians and chose to release information that she believed would not harm the US.
Critics said the leaks laid bare some of the nation's most-sensitive secrets and endangered information sources, prompting the State Department to move to protect their safety.
Several ambassadors were recalled, expelled or reassigned because of embarrassing disclosures.
Mr Obama's decision to commute Ms Manning's sentence to about seven years, including the time she spent in custody before being convicted, drew strong criticism from some American politicians including Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who called the move “outrageous”.
The Obama administration argued the case was fundamentally different to that of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who fled to Russia after leaking documents on its secretive spying programme.
“It has been my view that given she went to trial, that due process was carried out, that she took responsibility for her crime, that the sentence that she received was very disproportionate relative to other leakers,” Mr Obama said at the time, stressing that he was not pardoning Ms Manning but believed “justice has been served”.
In a statement last week, Ms Manning thanked that former President and said that letters of support from veterans and fellow transgender people inspired her “to work toward making life better for others.”
“For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea,” she said.
“I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world. Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine.”
Ms Manning’s representatives said she was subjected to violence in prison and argued the military mistreated her by requiring her to serve her sentence in an all-male prison, restricting her physical and mental health care and not allowing her to keep a “feminine” haircut.
The Army said she would remain on active duty in a special, unpaid status of “excess leave” that will legally entitle her to military medical care along with commissary privileges, while her court-martial conviction is under review.
France’s centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, has appointed a prime minister from the right to lead his bid for a parliamentary majority in June’s elections and push through his plans to loosen strict labour laws.
Édouard Philippe, 46, the mayor of the Normandy port town Le Havre, comes from Les Républicains, the party that was headed by Nicolas Sarkozy until last year and whose candidate, François Fillon, was knocked out in the first round of the presidential election.
Philippe supported Alain Juppé, the moderate, centre-right former prime minister, in the party’s presidential primary race last year.
His appointment is seen as a strategic move by the French president to destabilise the already divided French right and win over rightwing politicians to his La République en Marche (La REM) movement.
Macron, who served as economy minister under the Socialist former president François Hollande, has attracted dozens of centre-left MPs to his new movement and needed to reach out to the right. The move was also calculated to lure parliamentary hopefuls from Les Républicains as a way of securing the majority he needs to enact his manifesto promises to provide more flexibility for business.
Taking office at the grandiose prime minister’s residence of Le Hôtel Matignon, Philippe stated pointedly: “I am a man of the right”, but added that he respected politicians on the left and was driven by “the greater good”.
His appointment is a blow to Les Républicains, who have been trying to regroup after the presidential vote and prevent defections to Macron’s camp.
Party officials insisted Philippe’s move was strictly a personal decision, but about 20 MPs broke ranks and issued a statement urging Les Républicains and centre-right allies to accept Macron’s “outstretched hand”, saying the right needed to “take the full measure of the political transformation taking place before their eyes”.
Philippe was born in Rouen in Normandy and based his political career in Le Havre, where his grandfather was a docker. The son of two teachers, he speaks German and spent part of his childhood in Bonn when his father was the headteacher of the French lycée. He comes from the same university background as Macron: he studied at Paris’s prestigious, political science institute, Sciences Po, then attended the exclusive École Nationale d’Administration, the civil service graduate school seen as a factory of the French elite.
As a student, Philippe was briefly a social democrat activist within the French Socialist party before moving to the right. He has never held a government post and is relatively little-known outside his fiefdom in the north, which helps Macron present him as a new face as part of his promise to renew politics.
Philippe has veered between politics and the private sector including working for an American law firm and holding a senior position at the French nuclear company Areva.
The French left and the Greens reacted to the appointment by saying he was too rightwing and not focused enough on green issues, citing his time working in the nuclear industry. The government lineup, which will be announced on Tuesday, will show exactly what importance Macron intends to place on environmental issues.
Philippe has co-authored two novels set in the political sphere. One, published 10 years ago, described the French prime minister’s office and residence of Matignon as “a type of hell: golden, sought after by many and satisfying for the ego, but hell nonetheless”. He described a prime minister quickly “submerged” and drowning under “a mass of information”.
Although he has been a longstanding advocate of what Macron has defined as a new form of pragmatic “neither left nor right politics”, Philippe was sometimes critical during the campaign in columns written for the leftwing daily Libération. He said Macron had impressed with his “power of seduction and reformist rhetoric” but that it was wrong to compare him to John F Kennedy who “had more charisma”.
As a member of parliament for Normandy, Philippe abstained during the vote to legalise same-sex marriage in France in 2013, and the feminist group Osez Le Féminisme has complained that he abstained in 2014 on a vote for a sweeping gender equality law.
Macron is now under pressure to ensure that he fulfils his promise to appoint more women to senior positions in the new government. Macron said half of the ministers would be women but his key cabinet and senior advisor positions in the Elysée, announced on Sunday, were all men.
Russia has branded reports that Donald Trump revealed state secrets “fake news”.
On Monday, two US officials said the US President disclosed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Isis operation, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump’s short tenure in office.
The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.
The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.
And now the Russian foreign ministry itself has declared the claims fake, according to the Interfax news agency.
Senior Republican Senator Bob Corker said they were “very, very troubling”:
“The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. Obviously they’re in a downward spiral right now and they’ve got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening.”
The White House moved quickly to deny the claims.
“The story that came out tonight as reported is false,” H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.
“At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known…I was in the room. It didn’t happen,” he said.
The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focussed on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.
Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.
The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump’s conduct “dangerous” and “reckless”.
North Korea has claimed that the missile it tested on Sunday (May 14) was a new type of rocket capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead.
The missile, launched at a steep angle, reached an altitude of 2,000km (1,242 miles) and travelled about 700km, landing in the sea west of Japan, reports the BBC.
North Korea said on Monday (May 15) it was a test of the abilities of a “newly developed ballistic rocket”.
South Korea's military said it could not yet verify the North's claims.
But it said the North's missiles did appear to be able to leave and re-enter the atmosphere, which is crucial to developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the Yonhap news agency reported.
Repeated missile tests by the North this year - not all of them successful but all a breach of UN sanctions - have sparked international alarm and raised tensions with the US.
The US and Japan have called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
While unusual, this sharp trajectory with an extremely high altitude allowed North Korean scientists to test the range of the missile without directly flying over any neighboring countries.
The altitude would also allow the North to test the atmospheric re-entry vehicle under the extreme heat, pressure and vibration.
North Korea is known to be developing both nuclear weapons - it has conducted five nuclear tests - and the missiles capable of delivering those weapons to their target. Both are in defiance of UN sanctions.
But it remains unclear whether it has the ability to make the weapons small enough to be mounted on a rocket, and it has never tested a long-range ICBM which could reach, for example, the US.
A total of around 20 migrants are feared to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean on Saturday, the United Nations refugee agency said, citing testimony from survivors arriving in Italy.
Seven men were found dead during Saturday's rescues, but survivors brought to Trapani in Sicily indicated a further 13 had been lost at sea, UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said.
Among the people reported missing are a child, several Nigerian women, men from the Ivory Coast and possibly other men from Bangladesh, Sami said.
"When they saw the rescuers coming there was probably some agitation," Sami told Reuters. "Some of the people on board may have already been unwell, (the survivors) told us people were squashed, suffocated and then many ended up in the water."
Saturday's incident on the shortest route to Europe from Africa was the latest in a grim series which the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) calculates has killed more than 1,200 people so far this year.
More than 45,000 have successfully made the crossing, a more than 40 per cent increase on the same period of 2016.
Most are packed into unseaworthy boats by gangs who have taken advantage of factional fighting and a breakdown in government in Libya to set up lucrative trafficking businesses.
Libya's U.N.-backed government is asking for help to secure its chaotic south, and both Germany and Italy have called for greater European Union commitment to stabilise the region.
Sami said the UNHCR was looking into whether there had been another incident on Saturday, after Italy's coast guard told the agency it had received a satellite call from a boat near Sabratha, in western Libya, but then lost contact with it.
Cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link North Korea with the global WannaCry "ransomware" cyberattack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday.
Symantec and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies have identified as a North Korea-run hacking operation.
"This is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry," Kaspersky Lab researcher Kurt Baumgartner told Reuters.
Both firms said it was too early to tell whether North Korea was involved in the attacks, based on the evidence that was published on Twitter by Google security researcher Neel Mehta. The attacks, which slowed on Monday, are among the fastest-spreading extortion campaigns on record.
The research will be closely followed by law enforcement agencies around the world, including Washington, where President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser said on Monday that both foreign nations and cyber criminals were possible culprits.
The two security firms said they needed to study the code more and asked for others to help with the analysis. Hackers do reuse code from other operations, so even copied lines fall well short of proof.
U.S. and European security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that it was too early to say who might be behind the attacks, but they did not rule out North Korea as a suspect.
FireEye Inc, another large cyber security firm, said it was also investigating a possible link.
"The similarities we see between malware linked to that group and WannaCry are not unique enough to be strongly suggestive of a common operator," FireEye researcher John Miller said.
The Lazarus hackers, acting for impoverished North Korea, have been more brazen in pursuit of financial gain than others, and have been blamed for the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank, according to some cyber security firms. The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment.
Regardless of the source of the attack, investors piled into cyber security stocks on Monday, betting that governments and corporations will spend more to upgrade their defenses.
The perpetrators had raised less than $70,000 from users paying to regain access to their computers, according to Trump homeland security adviser Tom Bossert.
"We are not aware if payments have led to any data recovery," Bossert said, adding that no U.S. federal government systems had been affected.
WannaCry demanded ransoms starting at $300, in line with many cyber extortion campaigns, which keep pricing low so more victims will pay.
Still, some security experts said they were not sure if the motive of WannaCry was primarily to make money, noting that large cyber extortion campaigns typically generate millions of dollars of revenue.
“I believe that this was spread for the purpose of causing as much damage as possible,” said Matthew Hickey, a co-founder of British cyber consulting firm Hacker House.
The countries most affected by WannaCry to date are Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and India, according to Czech security firm Avast.
The number of infections has fallen dramatically since Friday’s peak when more than 9,000 computers were being hit per hour. Earlier on Monday, Chinese traffic police and schools reported they had been targeted as the attack rolled into Asia for the new work week, but no there were no major disruptions.
Authorities in Europe and the United States turned their attention to preventing hackers from spreading new versions of the virus.
Shares in firms that provide cyber security services rose sharply, led by Israel's Cyren Ltd and U.S.-based FireEye.
Cisco Systems closed up 2.3 per cent and was the second-biggest gainer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as investors focused more on opportunities that the attack presented for technology firms than the risk it posed to corporations.
Morgan Stanley, in upgrading the stock, said Cisco should benefit from network spending driven by security needs.
Beyond the immediate need to shore up computer defenses, the attack turned cyber security into a political topic in Europe and the United States, including discussion of the role national governments play.
In a blog post on Sunday, Microsoft Corp President Brad Smith confirmed what researchers already widely concluded: The attack made use of a hacking tool built by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that had leaked online in April.
He poured fuel on a long-running debate over how government intelligence services should balance their desire to keep software flaws secret - in order to conduct espionage and cyber warfare - against sharing those flaws with technology companies to better secure the internet.
On Monday, Bossert sought to distance the NSA from any blame.
"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data. This was a tool developed by culpable parties, potentially criminals or foreign nation-states, that were put together in such a way as to deliver phishing emails, put it into embedded documents, and cause infection, encryption and locking," Bossert said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, noting the technology's link to the U.S. spy service, said it should be "discussed immediately on a serious political level."
"Once they're let out of the lamp, genies of this kind, especially those created by intelligence services, can later do damage to their authors and creators," he said.
