Ambitious Turkish top flight side Antalyaspor, which boasts a star-studded line up including Samuel Eto'o and Samir Nasri, on Thursday named Brazilian Leonardo as its new manager."Following talks, our club has signed a two-year agreement with Leonardo," Antalyaspor said in a statement without giving financial details. Leonardo, who has previously been manager of AC Milan and Inter Milan as well as director of football at Paris Saint-Germain, replaces Riza Calimbay who stepped down after a slow s

MOSCOW -- Russia and the United States agreed Wednesday to cooperate on a NASA-led project to build the first lunar space station, part of a long-term project to send humans to Mars.The US space agency said earlier this year that it was exploring a programme called the Deep Space Gateway, a multi-stage project to push further into the solar system.File photo: This handout artist impression released by the European Space Agency (ESA) on September 22, 2017 shows a multi-dome lunar base being const

WASHINGTON  -- US President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused North Korea of brutally abusing an American student who had been held captive in North Korea, saying the young man had been “tortured beyond belief.”Otto Warmbier, 22, died in June a few days after he was sent home in a mysterious coma after more than a year in prison in North Korea.Trump had previously blamed Pyongyang’s “brutal regime” for Warmbier’s plight but it was the first time the president publicly accused North Korea of tortur

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Spiking nuclear tensions between the United States and North Korea showed little sign of abating Sunday as Russia warned of a “very unpredictable nosedive” if Washington does not ease up on its fiery war of words with Pyongyang.US bombers and fighter escorts flew off the coast of North Korea on Saturday and US President Donald Trump took to Twitter with verbal threats as the brinkmanship with Pyongyang intensified.“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at UN. If he

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday congratulated Angela Merkel on a "historic" German election victory but called for the formation of a strong coalition government as soon as possible.Merkel met with her party Monday after winning a fourth term with a far weaker mandate, facing the double headache of an emboldened nationalist opposition party and thorny coalition talks. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gives a press conference at the European Commission in

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday called a snap election, seeking a fresh term at the helm of the world's third-largest economy as tensions with nearby North Korea reach fever-pitch.Abe hopes to capitalise on a weak and fractured opposition to sweep back into power, as polls show him regaining ground after a series of scandals."I will dissolve the House of Representatives on the 28th" of September, Abe told reporters, a precursor to a general election. The prime minister did not give

SINGAPORE (AFP) -- A Singaporean member of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria has appeared in a video challenging Britain's Prince Harry to fight the jihadists, a monitoring group and authorities said Sunday.British Prince Harry. EPA-YonhapIt is believed to be the first time that a fighter from the affluent city-state has featured prominently in one of IS's videos. In the English-language video released Saturday, a man identified as "Abu 'Uqayl" from Singapore took issue with Prince Harry tal

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israel's culture minister asked the attorney general Sunday to order the investigation of a prominent Arab Israeli filmmaker who spoke out against the Jewish state during a visit to Lebanon.Xinhua-YonhapMohammed Bakri, who is in Lebanon as part of the "Palestine Days" cultural festival, reportedly said over the weekend that "normalisation with the Zionist enemy is treason, and the debate surrounding it is disgraceful and totally unacceptable".Bakri called his presence in Leban

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday that the United States would not carry out a strike on North Korea because it knows Pyongyang has nuclear bombs. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gives a press conference during the 72nd session of UN General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters. Yonhap"The Americans won't carry out a strike on (North) Korea because it's not that they suspect, they know for sure that it has nuclear bombs," Lavrov said in an intervie

KARANGASEM, Indonesia (AFP) -- More than 34,000 people have fled from a rumbling volcano on the resort island of Bali as the magnitude of tremors grows, prompting fears it could erupt for the first time in more than 50 years, an official said Sunday.  Villagers rest at a temporary shelter in Klungkung, Bali, Indonesia, Saturday. AP-YonhapIndonesia's disaster mitigation agency said the number of people fleeing their homes surrounding the volcano had tripled since Friday amid growing alarm that Mo

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) -- Bangladesh needs "massive international assistance" to feed and shelter the 436,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar in recent weeks, the head of the UN refugee agency said Sunday. Rohingya refugees reach up for relief supplies at the Kutupalong refugee camp. AFP-YonhapUN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said there were "immense" challenges after visiting the overflowing camps around Cox's Bazar in southern Bangladesh."I was struck by the incredible ma

PYONGYANG -- Petrol prices are being pumped higher in Pyongyang in the wake of United Nations sanctions restricting exports of oil products to nuclear-armed North Korea.Retail prices have gone up around 20 percent in two months, AFP saw in the capital -- and are now more than double what they were at the beginning of the year.Two weeks ago the UN Security Council imposed its eighth set of sanctions on the North in an effort to rein it in following its sixth nuclear test, which Pyongyang said was

WASHINGTON -- An escalating war of words between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ratcheted up a notch on Friday as the US president dubbed North Korea‘s leader a “madman,” a day after the reclusive regime hinted it may explode a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.Hours earlier, in a rare personal attack, Kim took aim at Trump, branding him “mentally deranged” and a “dotard,” and warning he would “pay dearly” for his threat to destroy North Korea if challenged, uttered before the United Nations Ge

BEIJING -- A shallow 3.5-magnitude earthquake hit North Korea near the country’s nuclear test site Saturday, US seismologists said, in what China’s seismic service said was a “suspected explosion”, but Seoul deemed a “natural earthquake”. (Yonhap)The earthquake came after days of increasingly bellicose rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions raised international alarm.The United States Geological Survey (USGS) sai

British police said Friday they had charged an 18-year-old man with attempted murder following last week's bombing of a London Underground train, which injured 30 people. (AP-Yonhap)Ahmed Hassan, who was arrested the morning after the attack on September 15, was also charged with use of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a statement said. (AFP)

British police said Sunday they had made a second arrest over the bombing of a London Underground train, as their probe into the terror attack widened.The 21-year-old man, who has not been named, was detained late Saturday in Hounslow, on the western rim of the capital, a police statement said. (Yonhap)Officers had earlier arrested an 18-year-old man over Friday's attack at Parsons Green station, which injured 30 people, and said they were hunting for more suspects.Home Secretary Amber Rudd said

Tropical Storm Norma surged to hurricane strength late Friday off Mexico's Pacific coast which was pounded just hours earlier by Tropical Storm Max.   Norma looked likely to churn toward the Los Cabos resort area, according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.   At 0300 GMT, Norma was 270 miles (435 km) south of Cabo San Lucas, packing top sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kmh). It was expected to strengthen in coming days the NHC said.After barreling into Mexico's Pacific coast as a Categ

North Korea is seeking an "equilibrium" of military force with the United States, state media reported Saturday, after Pyongyang sparked global condemnation with a sixth nuclear test then fired a second missile over Japan in less than a month.The North's leader Kim Jong-Un said the country was close to the goal of completing their nuclear force and should use all state power to finish as they have "nearly reached the terminal", the official KCNA news agency reported."Our final goal is to establi

After 20 years in space, NASA's famed Cassini spacecraft made its final death plunge into Saturn on Friday, ending a storied mission that scientists say taught us nearly everything we know about Saturn today and transformed the way we think about life elsewhere in the solar system.Cassini, an international project that cost $3.9 billion and included scientists from 27 nations, disintegrated as it dove into Saturn's atmosphere at a speed of 75,000 miles (120,700 kilometers) per hour."The signal f

Norway's foreign minister Borge Brende on Friday announced he has been appointed as president of the World Economic Forum (WEF), a foundation that organises a high-level global economy event every year in Davos, Switzerland. Speaking at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Erna Solberg in Oslo, Brende, 51, said he would step down as foreign minister in mid-October. "World Economic Forum has some of the largest companies in the world as partners and works with politicians, the industry and