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Philippines to host ASEAN Public-Private Partnership Networking Forum in December

  The Philippines will host the ASEAN Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Networking Forum in Manila in December 2014.President Benigno Aquino III made the announcement to fellow ASEAN leaders and top business officials during the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ABAC) dialogue, which was part of the recently-concluded 25th ASEAN Summit in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar.“The forum will take stock of the outcomes of recent PPP initiatives in ASEAN and will serve as an avenue for exploring the […]

Russian TV channel says photos show MH17 shot down by fighter jet

(Reuters) – Russian state-controlled TV has broadcast what it called “sensational” photographs, which it said supported Moscow’s theory that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet. Several commentators who have examined the photographs have described them as forgeries, however. The photographs, said to be taken by a Western satellite, appear to show a fighter jet firing a missile at a passenger plane over eastern Ukraine where the Malaysian airliner was shot down on July […]

Hong Kong student leaders blocked from taking democracy fight to Beijing

(Reuters) – Three Hong Kong student leaders were stopped from boarding a flight to Beijing on Saturday to take their fight for greater democracy directly to the Chinese government after airline authorities said their travel permits were invalid. The students, led by Hong Kong Federation of Students’ leader Alex Chow, had planned to go to Beijing with the intention of meeting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as efforts to reach agreement with officials in Hong Kong […]

Putin plans to leave G20 early after West blasts Russia over Ukraine

(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to leave the G20 summit early, a member of his delegation said, after Western leaders blasted Moscow on Saturday for the crisis in Ukraine and threatened more sanctions. The Russian official told Reuters that Putin planned to skip a working session on Sunday at the two-day summit in Brisbane and bring forward his departure because he needed to attend meetings in Moscow. Russia denied it was involved in a recent escalation of military […]

Family: doctor diagnosed with Ebola will be brought back to US this weekend

A Sierra Leonean doctor sick with Ebola is expected to depart the West African country on Friday night (November 14) to fly to theUnited States for treatment and be reunited with his American wife, according to the doctor’s church and employer. Dr. Martin Salia, 44, contracted the virus last week while working as the chief medical officer and surgeon at the United Methodist Church’s Kissy Hospital in Freetown in Sierra Leone, one of the three West African countries hardest hit […]

U.S. seeks to ease influx of Central American child migrants

Washington will allow some children in El Salvador,Guatemala and Honduras to apply for refugee status from their home countries, Vice President Joe Biden announced on Friday (November 14), in a bid to stem an exodus of undocumented migrants to the U.S. border through Mexico. Biden presented the plan while speaking at a conference in downtown Washington, D.C., at the InterAmerican Development Bank. Biden was joined at the event by three Central American presidents, including Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez […]

Scotland may seek new independence vote if UK delays devolution – Salmond

(Reuters) – Scotland may seek another independence vote if Britain’s rulers fail to honour their pledge to grant it further autonomy, outgoing Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond warned on Friday, less than two months after Scots spurned independence. Salmond, in his final speech as party leader, told members that Scotland would eventually secure his dream of independence from London. He also delivered a warning to British Prime Minister David Cameron: “Let the message be […]

Mali tries to trace 343 contacts in second Ebola wave

(Reuters) – Mali is trying to trace as many as 343 people linked to confirmed and probable Ebola victims in an effort to control its second Ebola outbreak, health officials said on Friday. An initial batch of contacts linked to a 2-year-old from Guinea who died of Ebola last month were close to the end of their 21-day quarantine period when Mali confirmed a second, separate batch of cases this week. There have been at […]

Ebola toll rises, but Liberia’s is revised lower – WHO

(Reuters) – At least 5,177 people are known to have died in the world’s worst recorded Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Friday, an increase of 17 since its last update on Wednesday. The total of 14,413 cases in eight countries includes 1,187 deaths in Sierra Leone, 1,166 in Guinea and 2,812 in Liberia. The Liberian toll has been revised downwards from 2,836 because of reclassification, the WHO said.  

Nigeria insurgents retake village of abducted schoolgirls

(Reuters) – Boko Haram insurgents have retaken the village of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria where the group abducted some 200 schoolgirls seven months ago, a lawmaker and a villager who fled the attack said on Friday. Boko Haram, which is trying to carve out a caliphate in religiously mixed northern Nigeria, has stepped up attacks since it rejected a ceasefire announced last month by the government. In a separate incident on Friday, a suicide bomber […]

Google Glass future clouded as some early believers lose faith

(Reuters) – After two years of popping up at high-profile events sporting Google Glass, the gadget that transforms eyeglasses into spy-movie worthy technology, Google co-founder Sergey Brin sauntered bare-faced into a Silicon Valley red-carpet event on Sunday. He’d left his pair in the car, Brin told a reporter. The Googler, who heads up the top-secret lab which developed Glass, has hardly given up on the product — he recently wore his pair to the beach. […]

Dwindling battery makes comet probe drill results uncertain

(Reuters) – European Space Agency scientists faced an anxious wait on Friday to see if a probe landed on a comet has enough power left to send results of a drill down into its surface back to Earth 500 million km (300 million miles) away. Time was getting tight after the probe, released by the Rosetta spacecraft on Wednesday after a 10-year odyssey from Earth, floated away from its planned landing site. The washing machine-sized […]