According to new reports, at least 19 people have been found dead following flash floods on the French Riviera.
The death toll rose after two bodies were discovered on October 5. One person remains missing but another was found alive, according to reports.
Violent storms and heavy rain on Saturday evening sent torrents of water and mud through several towns.
A Briton, an Italian woman and a Portuguese man were also among those killed, AFP said.
French President Francois Hollande has announced a state of “natural disaster” in the affected region.
Forecasters have faced criticism over the effectiveness of weather alerts.
The area is estimated to have received more than 10% of its average yearly rainfall in two days alone. Rivers burst their banks, sending water coursing into nearby towns and cities.
Photo Reuters
Divers found one body in the worst-hit town of Mandelieu-la-Napoule on October 5.
Eight are now confirmed killed there after being trapped in garages when they tried to remove their cars, officials say.
Three elderly people drowned when their retirement home in Biot, near the city of Antibes, was flooded.
Visiting the home on October 4, President Francois Hollande offered his condolences and urged residents to remain cautious, saying: “It’s not over.”
Hundreds of volunteers have been helping clear debris and clean homes affected.
Thousands of homes remained without electricity on October 5 following the floods.
Meanwhile Bernard Giampaolo, director of the Marineland amusement park in Antibes, said three loggerhead turtles were still missing after the enclosures were hit.
He told Nice Matin newspaper that polar bears, orcas and dolphins had survived, although the park was still without power.
Chickens, goats and sheep had been washed away, the newspaper reported.
According to German media, the number of refugees seeking asylum in Germany this year will be as high as 1.5 million – almost double the previous estimate.
The German government has not confirmed the new estimate, which comes from an internal official report cited by popular daily Bild.
The report warns that services helping refugees will not be able to cope.
Separately, a centre-right regional minister put the expected total at 1.2-1.5 million for 2015.
The German government previously estimated the number of asylum claims this year to reach 800,000 to one million in total.
Many are refugees fleeing the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are also many economic migrants from the Balkans, Asia and Africa.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has warned that Europe, in dealing with the migration crisis, is engaged in a “battle of compassion versus fear, and of tolerance versus xenophobia”.
Speaking in Geneva, Antonio Guterres said the world was facing the highest levels of forced displacement in recorded history and the principle of asylum must remain sacrosanct.
He urged Europe to defend “its founding values of tolerance and openness by welcoming refugees of all religions”.
The leaders of Hungary and Slovakia have said the influx of Muslims is a challenge to Europe’s “Christian” identity.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to meet EU leaders in Brussels shortly to discuss the Syria crisis, which has fuelled an exodus of Syrians to the EU via Turkey.
Greek islands near the Turkish coast are overburdened with migrants, many of them Syrians determined to reach Germany. The crisis has strained EU relations with Turkey, a mainly Muslim country.
On October 4, several thousand Germans opposed to mass immigration demonstrated in two eastern towns – Plauen and Sebnitz – after a call to action by the anti-Islamic PEGIDA movement.
PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West) has staged regular anti-immigration marches across Germany.
The migrant influx is stretching resources in many German cities, including Hamburg, where empty commercial properties can now be seized in order to house migrants.
There is growing political pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who continues to defend her open-door refugee policy. Germany can manage, the chancellor insisted at the weekend.
Many German politicians – including her conservative Bavarian CSU allies and various EU partners – have criticized the policy.
The Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania region, Lorenz Caffier, gave an estimate of 1.2-1.5 million asylum claims for this year.
However, federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said it was very hard to give accurate figures. Some refugees either avoided registration or moved elsewhere after being registered in one place, he said.
In 2014, the national total for asylum claims was 202,000.
Two Air France executives were forced to flee with their clothes in tatters after angry workers stormed a meeting at Charles de Gaulle airport in protest at 2,900 planned job cuts.
Human resources manager, Xavier Broseta, and director of Air France at Orly Airport, Pierre Plissonnier, were caught up in the protests.
Xavier Broseta climbed over barriers to escape from angry protestors.
Air France CEO Frederic Gagey had already left the room before the works council meeting near Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris, was interrupted about an hour after it had begun.
Parent firm Air France-KLM has said it will seek to take legal action over the protestors’ “aggregated violence”.
Ai France later confirmed the job cuts as part of a big restructuring that also involves route cuts.
The measures include cutting back the long-haul network by 10% and early retirement of aircraft leading to a smaller fleet by 2017.
Turkish army jets have intercepted a Russian warplane while violating Turkey’s airspace on October 3, Turkey’s foreign ministry says.
The Russian fighter plane “exited Turkish airspace into Syria” after being intercepted, the ministry said.
The Turkish minister has spoken to his Russian counterpart, as well as ministers from other NATO countries.
Russia has been carrying out air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Russian embassy in Ankara said a Russian plane did violate Turkish airspace, and Russia has “explained it” to Turkey, Interfax reports.
However, a Kremlin spokesman in Moscow did not confirm the incident: “Our ambassador was called to the foreign ministry and given a note, which mentions certain facts, which will be checked.”
The Russian air campaign began on September 30 with Moscow insisting it was targeting ISIS positions.
However, Syrian activists say Russian planes have also targeted other Syrian groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.
On October 5, Russia said it had “continued performing pinpoint strikes” on ISIS targets in Syria, carrying out 25 sorties and hitting nine ISIS targets.
Among those targets was a communications centre in Homs, and a command centre in Latakia, it said.
NATO said its Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg would meet the Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu at the organization’s headquarters in Brussels on October 5.
Last week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the Russian intervention in Syria as a grave mistake that would further isolate Moscow.
Saturday’s interception took place south of the Yayladagi/Hatay region, Turkey says.
The foreign ministry in Ankara summoned the Russian ambassador to issue a “strong protest” against the incident, it said.
Swedish author Henning Mankell, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most famous creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander, has died at the age of 67.
The crime writer revealed he had cancer in a newspaper column in 2014.
Henning Mankell dealt with the experience in his most recent book Quicksand: What It Means To Be A Human Being.
His best-selling mystery novels, which follow policeman Kurt Wallander through Sweden and Mozambique, were turned into a TV drama starring Kenneth Branagh.
The original, Swedish version of the drama starred Krister Henriksson in the title role.
Born in February 1948, Henning Mankell wrote dozens of plays, novels, children’s books and screenplays. But it was for his Wallander series that he was most renowned.
The rumpled and gloomy detective got his name when Henning Mankell ran his finger through a telephone directory, but went on to sell more than 40 million books.
Kurt Wallander first appeared in 1989’s Faceless Killers, investigating a murder in which the only clue is that the perpetrators appear to have been foreigners. When that information was leaked to the public, it triggered a series of racially-motivated attacks in Sweden.
At first, the author was unaware he had created a recurring character, “but then I realized after two or three novels that I had this… instrument who could be useful”.
Henning Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Mozambique, where he ran a theatre company and devoted time to the fight against AIDS.
He was active in the “memory books” project, which encourages parents with HIV to record their stories, not just for their children but for future generations.
Shortly after New Year 2014, Henning Mankell went to see an orthopedic surgeon in Stockholm with what he assumed was a slipped disc. But tests revealed a tumor in his lung, another in his neck, and evidence the cancer had spread throughout his body.
“It was a catastrophe for me. Everything that was normal to me up to that point was gone all of a sudden. No one had died of cancer in my family. I had always assumed I’d die of something else.” He told NPR in 2014
Henning Mankell leaves behind his wife of 17 years, Eva Bergman, the daughter of Ingmar Bergman’s second wife, the dancer Ellen Lundstrom.
American Apparel has filed for bankruptcy protection on October 5.
The Los Angeles-based clothing chain, which has been plagued by plunging sales, high debts and several management crises, said it had agreed a deal to restructure its finances.
The company has been involved in a drawn-out legal battle with its founder Dov Charney over misconduct claims.
American Apparel runs 260 shops and concessions in 19 countries.
The retailer, which has been trying to turn around its business, recorded a loss of $19.4 million in Q2 2015.
Photo American Apparel
American Apparel CEO Paula Schneider said: “This restructuring will enable American Apparel to become a stronger, more vibrant company.”
Under the restructuring agreement, American Apparel’s secured lenders will provide about $90 million in financing, the company said.
It expects to cut its debt to $135 million from $300 million through the restructuring, with the program set to be completed within six months.
The company said it would continue to operate its retail stores, and its wholesale and US manufacturing operations throughout the process.
American Apparel, known for making its products in the US, has not turned a profit since 2009.
In August, the company flagged up problems with its finances, saying it might not have enough capital to keep operations going for the next 12 months as losses widened and cash flows turned negative.
American Apparel was founded in 1989 by Canadian Dov Charney. The company fired Dov Charney in December 2014 over misconduct claims, and in June it was granted a restraining order against him.
ISIS militants have blown up the Arch of Triumph in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syrian officials and local sources say.
The Arch of Triumph was “pulverized” by the ISIS fighters who control the city, a Palmyra activist told AFP.
The monument is thought to have been built about 2,000 years ago.
ISIS has already destroyed two ancient temples at the site, described by UNESCO as one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world.
“The Arch of Triumph was pulverized. ISIS has destroyed it,” Mohammad Hassan al-Homsi, an activist from Palmyra told AFP on October 5.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the conflict, said sources on the ground had confirmed the destruction.
Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim also confirmed the news, and told Reuters news agency that if ISIS remains in control of Palmyra, “the city is doomed”.
UNESCO’s director general Irina Bokova has said the destruction constitutes a “war crime” and called on the international community to stand united against IS efforts to “deprive the Syrian people of its knowledge, its identity and history”.
ISIS believes shrines or statues represent idolatry, and should be destroyed.
In August, ISIS destroyed the ancient Temple of Baalshamin – one of the city’s best-known buildings built nearly 2,000 years ago.
The group has also published photos of militants destroying what it said were artifacts looted at Palmyra.
ISIS militants captured the historic site from Syrian government troops in May, amid a series of setbacks for forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria’s conflict, which began in 2011, has left more than 250,000 dead and about half the country’s population displaced.
The World Bank has decided to cut Asia growth forecast for 2015 and 2016, because of the risks posed from a sharp slowdown in China and raising US interest rates.
The bank now expects growth in developing East Asia and the Pacific to be 6.5% in 2015 and 6.4% in 2016, down from an earlier forecast of 6.7%.
The latest estimate is even lower than growth of 6.8% in 2014.
Major development banks have recently revised lower their growth forecasts.
Last month, the Asian Development Bank said slowing growth in China would drag down the developing region’s growth to 5.8% in 2015.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also flagged in September that slowing growth in the world’s second largest economy posed a threat to the global economy.
“Developing East Asia’s growth is expected to slow because of China’s economic rebalancing and the pace of the expected normalization of US policy interest rates,” said the World Bank’s regional chief economist Sudhir Shetty in a statement on October 5.
“If China’s growth were to slow further, the effects would be felt in the rest of the region, especially in countries linked to China through trade, investment and tourism.”
East Asia accounts for almost two-fifths of the world’s economic growth, according to the World Bank.
The World Bank now expects China’s economy to grow 6.9% this year and 6.7% in 2016, down from an earlier forecast of 7.1% and 7% respectively.
China is headed for its slowest growth in a quarter of a century in 2015 and calls are growing that it may undershoot the government’s official target of 7%.
Interest rates in the US, meanwhile, are expected to rise for the first time in nearly a decade in the coming months, which could result in a flood of capital leaving emerging markets as Asian currencies are hit.
“While this increase has been anticipated and is likely to be orderly, there is still a risk that markets could react sharply to such tightening, causing currencies to depreciate, bond spreads to rise, capital inflows to fall, and liquidity to tighten,” the World Bank said.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley says rainfalls in parts of the state have been higher than at any time “in 1,000 years”, with at least six reported deaths as a result of the floods.
More than 13 inches has fallen in three days in the historic city of Charleston.
Schools will shut on October 5 and several inter-state highways have been closed.
The torrential rains have been made worse by a weather system connected to Hurricane Joaquin in the Caribbean.
Hurricane Joaquin is not expected to hit the eastern US, but the moisture associated with it is contributing to heavy rainfall.
“We haven’t seen this level of rain in the low country in 1,000 years. That’s how big this is,” Governor Nikki Haley said on October 4.
Photo NBC News
Nikki Haley urged residents to stay indoors.
“The water is not safe and a lot of areas across the state where you see this deep water, it’s got bacteria in it. So, stay inside and don’t get in there,” she said.
President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency in South Carolina. The move means state and local authorities can receive federal help to deal with the flooding.
“We have every ambulance in the county out responding to calls. People are being moved from their homes in boats,” Georgetown County spokeswoman Jackie Broach told Reuters.
About 100 people were rescued from their cars on flooded roads on October 3.
In Charleston, many streets have been closed and sandbags have been piled up to keep floodwaters out.
For the first time less than 10% of the world’s population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015, the World Bank has said.
The World Bank said it was using a new income figure of $1.90 per day to define extreme poverty, up from $1.25.
The bank forecasts the proportion of the world’s population in this category to fall from 12.8% in 2012 to 9.6%.
However, it said the “growing concentration of global poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is of great concern”.
Photo Getty Images
Although the share of people in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to fall from 42.6% in 2012 to 35.2% by the end of 2015, this will still represent around half of the world’s poor.
“We are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said.
The bank says the downward trend was due to strong growth rates in developing countries and investments in education, health, and social safety nets.
However, Jim Yong Kim warned that continuing the progress would be “extraordinarily hard, especially in a period of slower global growth, volatile financial markets, conflicts, high youth unemployment, and the growing impact of climate change”.
The World Bank warned that poverty is “becoming deeper and more entrenched in countries that are either conflict ridden or overly dependent on commodity exports”.
Portugal’s centre-right governing coalition has won the country’s parliamentary elections, exit polls and early results suggest.
The coalition, led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, is ahead with about 40% of the vote, followed by the Socialists on just under 32%, the partial results suggest.
Portugal’s elections were seen as a referendum on four years of spending cuts.
Photo AP
The governing coalition had vowed to continue the policies, in place since 2011 after it was forced to seek a eurozone bailout.
The opposition Socialists, led by Antonio Costa, and other left-wing groups had criticized the cuts.
Unemployment has been falling for two-and-a-half years, but many regard the recovery as fragile.
The centre-right Social Democratic Party and its right-wing ally, the People’s Party, put up joint lists.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has demanded an independent inquiry by an international body into the airstrikes that hit its hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz.
At least 22 people, including MSF staff, were killed in attacks the charity blames on US-led NATO forces.
MSF said it was making the call for an inquiry “under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed”.
The US military says it is investigating the incident.
Twelve MSF staff members and 10 patients were killed when the hospital was hit as Afghan government forces, backed by the US-led coalition, battled to retake the northern city from Taliban fighters.
Dozens were injured and the hospital severely damaged by a series of airstrikes lasting more than an hour from 02:00 local time on Saturday morning, October 3.
Photo RT
On its Twitter feed, MSF said: “The hospital was repeatedly and precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched.
“Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the US air strike on Saturday morning.”
Afghan troops are now reported to have recaptured most of Kunduz, six days after it was seized by the Taliban.
MSF said it was pulling most of its staff out of the area but some medical staff was treating the wounded at other clinics.
“The MSF hospital is not functional anymore. All critical patients have been referred to other health facilities and no MSF staff are working in our hospital,” a spokeswoman for the charity told AFP.
“I can’t confirm at this stage whether our Kunduz trauma centre will reopen, or not,” she added.
MSF says the hospital was a lifeline for thousands in the city and in northern Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama has expressed condolences and says the US has launched a “full investigation” into the incident which happened on Saturday. He said he would await the results of the inquiry before making a definitive judgement.
The US military said a strike targeting Taliban in Kunduz may have caused “collateral damage”, and that the results of a multinational preliminary investigation would be available “within days”.
“Additionally, the US military has opened a formal investigation… to conduct a thorough and comprehensive inquiry,” it added.
The UN called the strikes “inexcusable and possibly even criminal”, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling for a thorough and impartial investigation.
At least 17 people have died and four more are missing after violent storms hit south-eastern France, officials say.
Three elderly people drowned when their retirement home near the city of Antibes was flooded.
Others died trapped in their cars in tunnels and underground car parks as the waters rose.
President Francois Hollande announced a state of “natural disaster” in the affected region.
He thanked rescuers and expressed the “solidarity of the nation”.
Framcois Hollande offered condolences as he visited the retirement home in the town of Biot and urged residents in the region to remain cautious, saying: “It’s not over.”
Heavy rain hit the French Riviera on October 3.
The city of Nice is estimated to have received 10% of its average yearly rainfall in two days alone.
The river Brague burst its banks, sending water coursing into nearby towns and cities. Social media pictures showed water gushing down the streets of Cannes.
Cannes mayor David Lisnard said: “Some cars were carried off into the sea. We have rescued a lot of people, and we must now be vigilant against looting.”
Eric Ciotti, president of the Alpes-Maritimes department, tweeted: “We have lived through an apocalyptic situation that we have never experience before.”
The main highway through the area has been closed, trains halted and hundreds of tourists sought shelter at Nice airport overnight. About 10,000 homes were still without power on October 4, mainly in Cannes.
Some concertgoers attending a show by rock legend Johnny Hallyday at a venue in Nice had to sleep overnight there after becoming stranded.
Israeli police have banned Palestinians from East Jerusalem from entering the Old City for two days after two Israeli men were killed and three injured in separate attacks in Jerusalem.
The Palestinian attackers were shot dead by police.
The latest violence comes two days after an Israeli couple was shot dead in the West Bank.
Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold emergency talks with security officials on October 4.
The restrictions will stop Palestinians from entering the Old City unless they live there. But Israelis, local business owners and schoolchildren will be allowed in.
The first stabbing incident took place on Saturday evening, just after the end of the Jewish Sabbath, close to Lion’s Gate in the Old City.
The two Israelis killed by Palestinians were Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, 41, a resident of the Old City, as well as 21-year-old Aharon Bennett who lives in a West Bank settlement.
The Palestinian man – named as Mohammad Halabi, a 19-year-old law student from a village near Ramallah in the West Bank – attacked Aharon Bennett, his wife, their two-year-old son and baby daughter who were on their way to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement.
Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, a reserve officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was killed as he tried to defend the family, the ministry said.
Aharon Bennett’s wife was seriously wounded, while their son suffered minor injuries and their baby was unharmed, it added.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the Palestinian attacker had taken a gun from one of the wounded men and opened fire at police and tourists. He was then shot and killed by an Israeli police officer who had rushed to the scene.
Police later identified the attacker as a 19-year-old from al-Bireh, near Ramallah in the West Bank. The militant group Islamic Jihad issued a statement claiming him as one of its members.
In the second incident, a Palestinian teenager stabbed an Israeli teenager on a street in West Jerusalem in the early hours of Sunday, October 4. The attacker was also shot dead by police, similar to the earlier incident on Sunday.
There has been a recent flare-up in tensions between Israel and Palestinians, with violent confrontations between security forces and Palestinian youths in a compound holy to both Jews and Muslims in East Jerusalem.
This year’s World Beard and Moustache Championships are taking place in the small village of Leogang, Austria.
Located in the heart of Salzburg Land, Leogang is the capital of bearded people from all over the world from October 2 to October 4.
In 2005, Leogang was host to the Beard Olympics and in 2010 to the Beard European Championships.
Hirsute contestants from 20 countries have converged on Leogang for the event, with many of the competitors hailing from Germany and Austria.
Beards and moustaches were judged by a jury in 18 different categories, including best goatie, best stubble and best fashion beard.
Photo Twitter
An American has swept the winning title of the 2015 World Beard and Moustache Championships in Leogang on October 3. Madison Rowley, a contestant from Portland, Oregon, beat hundreds of competitors from around the world and was crowned the winner of the “full natural beard” category.
At least 13 people have been killed and six are missing after violent storms and flooding have hit southeast France, officials said.
Three elderly people drowned when their retirement home near the city of Antibes was inundated with floodwater.
Another five people are reported to have died as they tried to park their cars under shelter and became trapped.
France’s President Francois Hollande has thanked rescuers and expressed the “solidarity of the nation”.
Francois Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve are due to visit the affected regions.
Officials earlier gave the death toll as 13 but this has since been revised. With the worst-hit areas yet to be reached there are fears the toll could rise.
Heavy rain hit the French Riviera, which lies on the Mediterranean coast and borders Italy, on Saturday evening, October 3.
The city of Nice is estimated to have received 10% of its average yearly rainfall in two days alone.
The river Brague burst its banks, sending water coursing into nearby towns and cities. Social media pictures showed water gushing down the streets of Cannes.
“Some cars were carried off into the sea,” said mayor Davis Lisnard.
“We have rescued a lot of people, and we must now be vigilant against looting.”
“We have lived through an apocalyptic situation that we have never experience before,” tweeted Eric Ciotti, President of the Alpes-Maritimes department.
The main highway through the area has been closed, trains halted and hundreds of tourists sought shelter at Nice airport overnight. Around 27,000 homes are without power.
Some concertgoers attending a show by rock legend Johnny Hallyday at a venue in Nice had to sleep overnight there after becoming stranded.
A state of emergency has been declared in South Carolina by President Barack Obama, as heavy rainfall is set to lead to more flooding over the weekend in many parts of the east coast.
It has been raining for much of the week, but a weather system connected to Hurricane Joaquin in the Caribbean is expected to make the situation worse.
It is regaining strength and has been reclassified as a Category 4 Storm.
Hurricane Joaquin, currently off the Bahamas, has winds of up to 155mph.
The storm is not expected to hit the eastern US, but the moisture associated with it is contributing to heavy rainfall, particularly in South Carolina.
The National Weather Service says parts of the state could see over 15 inches of rain by Sunday evening, October 4.
In the historic city centre of Charleston, many streets have been closed and sandbags have been piled up to keep floodwaters out.
“Where we normally are dealing with flooding for a few hours, we’re dealing with it in days here,” Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen told the Associated Press.
The emergency declared by President Barack Obama means state and local authorities can receive federal help to deal with the flooding.
On October 1, El Faro cargo ship went missing after sailing through Hurricane Joaquin off the Bahamas.
The US has launched a “full investigation” into airstrikes that killed 19 people at a Medecins Sans Frontieres-run Afghan hospital on October 3, President Barack Obama.
According to the US military, a strike targeting Taliban in the northern city of Kunduz may have caused “collateral damage”.
Offering his “deepest condolences”, President Barack Obama said he expected a “full accounting of the facts” and would then make a definitive judgement.
At least 12 MSF staff members and seven patients were killed in the incident.
The UN called the strikes “inexcusable and possibly even criminal”, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling for a thorough and impartial investigation.
“International and Afghan military planners have an obligation to respect and protect civilians at all times, and medical facilities and personnel are the object of a special protection,” said UN High Commissioner Ra’ad Al Hussein Zeid.
The hospital, run by the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), was severely damaged by a series of strikes lasting more than an hour from 02:00 local time on October 3. Dozens were also injured in the attack.
Photo AP
MSF president Meinie Nicolai described the incident as “abhorrent and a grave violation of international humanitarian law”.
“All indications currently point to the bombing being carried out by international Coalition forces,” MSF said.
A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, said on October 3 that US forces had conducted an air strike in Kunduz “against individuals threatening the force” at the same time.
He added: “The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
President Barack Obama expressed his “deepest condolences” for the deaths in a White House statement.
He added: “The Department of Defense has launched a full investigation, and we will await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgment as to the circumstances of this tragedy.”
MSF nurse Lajos Zoltan Jecs was sleeping at the facility when it was hit.
“It was absolutely terrifying,” he said.
He saw a fellow nurse “covered in blood, with wounds all over his body”, a statement issued by MSF said.
Lajos Zoltan Jecs and other staff went outside when the bombing stopped.
“What we saw was the hospital destroyed. We tried to take a look into one of the burning buildings. There are no words for how terrible it was. In the intensive care unit six patients were burning in their beds.”
The Afghan interior ministry said a group of 10 to 15 militants had been hiding in the hospital.
The Taliban denied that any of its fighters were there.
A Taliban statement described the air strikes which hit the hospital as “deliberate”, and carried out by “the barbaric American forces”.
There has been intense fighting in Kunduz since Taliban fighters swept into the northern city on September 28.
Portugal is voting in a parliamentary election that is widely seen as a referendum on four years of spending cuts and market reforms.
The centre-right governing coalition has vowed to continue austerity policies in place since 2011, after it was forced to seek a eurozone bailout.
The Socialists and other left-wing groups have criticized the cuts.
Photo AP
President Anibal Cavaco Silva called for a high turnout on October 4, saying Portugal was facing a crucial moment.
Years of austerity have left Portugal’s electorate deeply split, and with an unusually large number of undecided voters.
Socialist leader Antonio Costa has said that only a vote for his party is a “useful vote” against the government.
The centre-right Social Democratic Party led by PM Pedro Passos Coelho and its right-wing ally, the People’s Party have put up joint lists of candidates in all electoral districts.
Portugal’s unemployment has been falling for two and a half years, but many regard the recovery as fragile.
Chris Harper Mercer, the gunman who killed nine people in a shooting rampage at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, then killed himself as police arrived, officials have said.
At a news conference in Roseburg, they revealed that Chris Harper Mercer, 26, was enrolled in the class where the shooting took place.
They also said that 14 weapons were later found at his home.
Police earlier released the names of the victims, who ranged in age from 18 to 67. The oldest was a teacher.
Photo NBC News
President Barack Obama on October 2 expressed his anger at gun violence, calling on the public to press their politicians to support reform.
“The medical examiner has determined the cause of death of the shooter to be suicide,” Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin told reporters on October 3.
He said that investigators were checking numerous leads and had already interviewed hundreds of people in the area.
On October 1, Chris Harper Mercer – dressed in a flak jacket – brought six guns to Umpqua Community College and opened fire.
The attacker killed eight students and a teacher.
He then killed himself after a gun battle with police officers who arrived at the college.
Chris Harper Mercer enlisted in the army in 2008, but was discharged after less than a month in basic training, for reasons unknown.
It is unclear why he carried out the killings. Two victims have said religion was an issue – the gunman asked his victims to state their religion and shot dead the Christians.
Chris Harper Mercer’s father, Ian Mercer, said he was “just as shocked as everybody” by his son’s actions.
Air France-KLM is reportedly planning to cut 2,900 jobs after talks with pilots unions were unsuccessful.
The airline would not confirm the number of cuts, but said it would present a cost-cutting plan on October 5.
Profits at Air France have been hit in part by strikes by pilots, who have been protesting over the expansion of its budget subsidiary.
It also faces stiff competition from low-cost rivals as well as airlines in the Middle East.
Air France said after a board meeting that it had decided to implement a new restructuring plan in order to accelerate its recovery.
“Facing the impossibility of reaching an agreement to implement the productivity measures within Air France and restore long-term profitability, the board members consider it essential to introduce an alternative plan and have unanimously agreed to mandate Air France-KLM and Air France Management to carry this out,” the company said in a statement.
The plan will be presented to the Works Council on October 5.
Union sources leaked the planned job cuts to reporters at two news agencies.
The unions also said the restructuring could include retiring five long haul planes next summer and nine others in 2017.
One official is quoted as saying: “These points were presented to the board for information, but no vote has been taken.”
The private email account used by Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state was targeted by Russia-based hackers, newly released emails show.
Hillary Clinton received at least five emails containing malware.
The “phishing” emails, disguised as speeding tickets, would have enabled the hackers to control her computer.
The infected computer would have sent information to at least three computers overseas, including one in Russia.
A spokesman for HillaryClinton said there was no evidence of a breach.
The hacking attempts were included in thousands of emails released by the State Department.
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Hillary Clinton’s opponents have accused her of putting US security at risk by using an unsecured computer system.
The Democrat presidential hopeful says no classified information was sent or received.
The five emails, sent over a four-hour period in August 2011, show hackers had Hillary Clinton’s email address, which was not public, and contained a virus concealed as a speeding ticket from New York state, where she lives.
The email containing instructions to open and print the speeding ticket misspelled the name of the city concerned, Chatham, came from a supposed New York City government account and contained a “Ticket.zip” file of the kind usually picked up by commercial antivirus software.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, said there was no evidence to suggest she replied to the emails or opened the attachment.
“All these emails show is that, like millions of other Americans, she received spam,” he said.
The state department disclosed that Hillary Clinton used a private server during her time as secretary of state (between 2009 and 2013) after journalists requested copies of her government emails.
Hillary Clinton has admitted that her decision to use a private email server at her New York home was a mistake.
However, the latest set of her emails to be released also reveal frustration within the State Department at the technology it was using while she was in office.
In one email exchange Hillary Clinton’s then head of policy Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote that the department’s technology was “so antiquated” that high-level officials “routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively”.
Anne-Marie Slaughter suggested writing an opinion piece to highlight the problem and Hillary Clinton agreed the idea “made good sense”, but her chief of staff Cheryl Mills warned against “telegraphing” how often senior officials relied on their private email accounts to do government business because it could encourage hackers.
According to the Labor Department figures, the US economy added only 142,000 jobs in September 2015, lowering the chance of an interest rate rise this year.
The number of jobs created in September was far lower than the 205,000 increase forecast by economists.
The July and August figures were revised down by a combined 59,000.
On October 2, Wall Street opened sharply lower, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes both down about 1.3%.
However, both indexes later recovered to be up about 0.5% and 0.6% respectively.
The poor figures also resulted in a rollercoaster ride for the FTSE 100, which ended the day up 0.9% at 6,129.9 points despite also turning negative in afternoon trading.
The Labor Department numbers reinforced fears that the China-led global economic slowdown is hitting America’s recovery, adding to doubt about whether the Federal Reserve will raise rates before 2016.
The number of new jobs for August was cut by 37,000 to 136,000 – in sharp contrast to the upward revision expected by economists.
The July total was also reduced, by 22,000 to 245,000.
The number of new jobs created in the US has averaged 198,000 a month for 2014 – below last year’s average of 260,000.
However, the unemployment rate held steady at 5.1%.
The jobless rate, which is derived from a separate survey of households, was unchanged only because 350,000 workers stopped looking for work last month and were no longer counted as part of the labor force.
The proportion of Americans who either have a job or are looking for one fell to a 38-year low, partly reflecting retirements of older workers from the baby boomer generation.
Average hourly wages fell by 1 cent to $25.09 during the month and were only 2.2% higher than the same month in 2014.
The data also knocked the dollar lower, with the pound rising 0.6% to $1.5238 after the numbers were released. Yields on government bonds also fell.
