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READ MORE After weeks of intense negotiations, the UN has agreed to set up an investigation into alleged human rights violations in Yemen. Some European countries and Canada had asked for a Commission of Inquiry (COI) in Yemen , the UN’s highest level of investigation. But a compromise with a group of Arab states including Saudi Arabia was reached, which removed the call for the COI from the adopted version resolution. Yemeni government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have been battling Houthi fighters since 2015. How much has politics played in this UN decision? And who will hold those found guilty of war crimes to account? Presenter : Hazem Sika Guests: Hakim Masmari – Editor-in-Chief, Yemen Post Sami Hamdi – Editor, International Interest Rocco Blume – Conflict and Humanitarian Policy Adviser, War Child Source:   Al Jazeera

READ MORE North Korea’s state news agency has called the US-led effort to impose sanctions over its weapons programme futile, vowing the country inevitably will become a “state nuclear force”. The comments on Sunday came from the Korean Central News Agency’s website Uriminzokkiri after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met for talks with China’s top diplomats and President Xi Jinping in Beijing over the Korean nuclear crisis. Tillerson has been a proponent of a campaign of “peaceful pressure”, using US and UN sanctions and working with China to turn the screw on the regime. But his efforts have been overshadowed by an extraordinary war of words, with US President Donald Trump mocking North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “little rocket man” and Kim branding Trump a “dotard”. OPINION: What can actually trigger war on the Korean peninsula?   “The US and the South Korean puppet forces are mistaken if they think th...

READ MORE The Spanish region of Catalonia is set to hold a referendum on independence on October 1. The single question facing voters, “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”, has generated many more. Why does the referendum matter? Catalonia, an area in northeastern Spain of 7.5 million people, accounts for 15 percent of Spain’s population and 20 percent of its economic output. About 1.6 million people live in Barcelona, Catalonia’s capital, which is a major tourist destination. Sunday’s vote will be the region’s second referendum on independence in three years. The previous ballot, a non-binding vote in November 2014, returned an 80 percent result in favour of an independent Catalan state. However, less than half of the 5.4 million eligible voters participated. The Spanish government rejected the Generalitat’s, Catalonia’s regional government, proposal to hold a binding ballot on the grounds th...

READ MORE Après plus d’un siècle de lutte armée, la Colombie franchissait dimanche une nouvelle étape vers la paix, avec le premier cessez-le-feu bilatéral de son histoire avec l’ELN, dernière guérilla de Colombie, qui entrait en vigueur à minuit. Cette suspension des hostilités est temporaire: elle court jusqu’au 9 janvier dans un premier temps et pourra être prolongée. Elle a été conclue le 4 septembre dans le cadre des négociations de paix menées à Quito, dans l’Equateur voisin, pour mettre un point final au plus vieux conflit du continent. Le cessez-le-feu intervient après un processus similaire avec les Forces armées révolutionnaires de Colombie (Farc, marxiste): de l’arrêt des combats au désarmement, l’ancienne principale guérilla du pays, avec 7.000 combattants, est aujourd’hui transformée en parti politique légal. Mais ...

READ MORE Une longue veillée à refaire le monde et le procès des conservateurs au pouvoir en Espagne: des Catalans de tous âges ont passé la nuit dans une école de Figueras pour être sûrs d’y tenir dimanche leur référendum d’autodétermination interdit. L’appel avait été lancé samedi soir sur une petite place pluvieuse du centre de cette ville de 45.000 habitants, qui vit naître le peintre Salvador Dali. “Nous avons décidé d’occuper les bureaux de vote cette nuit et toute la journée de dimanche” dans huit écoles, annonçait l’instituteur Joan Font, devant le local du parti d’extrême gauche indépendantiste CUP. “Si quelqu’un veut nous déranger, ajoutait ce maître de 37 ans, il faudra rester très tranquilles, rire, pratiquer la résistance passive – nous avons beaucoup d’oeillets à distri...

READ MORE Le congrès du Parti conservateur britannique s’ouvre dimanche à Manchester (nord-ouest) dans une ambiance plombée par les divisions sur le Brexit et la question du leadership de la Première ministre Theresa May, affaiblie après son revers aux dernières législatives. La cheffe de l’exécutif traîne comme un boulet la déconfiture des tories au scrutin du 8 juin, qui lui a coûté sa majorité absolue au Parlement, mais aussi une bonne partie de son autorité. La dirigeante pâtit également des progrès poussifs des négociations sur la sortie de l’Union européenne, écartelée entre Brexiters purs et durs et partisans d’un divorce a minima, tandis que Bruxelles réclame du concret. Pour le Pr Simon Usherwood, de l’université du Surrey, “May est un handicap” pour son parti, et ne doit probablement sa survie qu’au risque que ferait...

READ MORE Donald Trump posted a series of tweets this morning slamming Puerto Rico’s mayors, including saying they “want everything to be done for them,” a day after San Juan’s mayor criticized aid delivery to the Hurricane Maria-lashed island. Trump, who is expected to visit the island Tuesday with his wife Melania Trump, first wrote three tweets Saturday criticizing the “poor leadership” in Puerto Rico, saying local mayors “want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort.”  George Takei, Lady Gaga among those slamming Trump for Puerto Rico tweets He then retweeted videos from the military and other emergency responders working in Puerto Rico.  On Friday, Carmen Yulin Cruz told a news conference she was “done being politically correct” because her people were dying in the aftermath of Maria,  the most powerful storm to hit Puerto Rico in nearly 90 years...

READ MORE For the first time, the Canadian Army is opening its doors at every reserve armoury across the country in an attempt to boost its dwindling part-time force. At more than 100 open houses, recruiters will pitch a new expedited enrolment process and guaranteed summer jobs for students. Reserve units will try to wow would-be members with demos of artillery equipment and combat training, as well as displays from medics, engineers and weapons technicians. ‘Recruit until you cannot recruit anymore.’ – Col. Thomas Mackay , Canadian Army Reserves There are approximately 21,000 army reservist positions in Canada. The reserve lost about five per cent, or about 1,000 soldiers per year, between the 2012-13 and 2014-15 fiscal years. Col. Thomas Mackay, director of the Canadian Army Reserves, attributes the shrinking force in part to a strong economy that offered part-time reservists other opportunities, as well a...

READ MORE ​Catalans started to form queues early on Sunday morning as they sought to defy Spanish authorities by voting in a banned independence referendum that has raised fears of unrest in the wealthy northeastern region. Catalans prepare to defy Madrid in banned independence vote Spain’s measures to block Catalan referendum criticized by UN rights experts The referendum, declared illegal by Spain’s central government, has thrown the country into its worst constitutional crisis in decades and raised fears of street violence as a test of will between Madrid and Barcelona plays out. Civil Guard national police reinforcements also began deploying in the pre-dawn darkness in Barcelona where about 100 police vans streamed into the capital of Catalonia from the port where they had been stationed, a Reuters witness said. “I have got up early because my country needs me,” said Eulalia Espinal I Tarro, a 65-year-old pensioner who started queuing with around 100 ot...

READ MORE Ahead of her talk in Saskatoon, Jane Goodall took some time to take part in a live conversation with CBC’s Madeline Kotzer and Canadians. Jane Goodall speaks in Saskatoon WATCH: A conversation with Jane Goodall on CBC Saskatchewan’s Facebook page Goodall talked about her work with chimpanzees, animal research, hope, the afterlife and how Indigenous wisdom can help us all make more sustainable choices. QA Madeline Kotzer: I’d like to go back to the beginning of your work with primates. The year in 1960, you’re 26-years-old, you have just arrived at the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanzania. What had you set out to do there? Jane Goodall: Well, I went to Africa — saved up and got there — in 1957. I would have studied any animal, anything, and I met the late Louis Leakey, Dr. Leakey, and it was he who suggested that I would study chimps. Because, chimps are so close to us and he spent his life searching for the fossil...

READ MORE The Vatican newspaper has broken a year-long silence and weighed in on director Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope , giving the television series generally positive reviews despite what it called the “frivolous,” “caustic” and “grotesque” way it painted the Vatican. L’Osservatore Romano dedicated a two-page spread in Sunday’s edition to the 10-episode series, which began airing in Italy in October 2016 and in North America earlier this year. The main essay was penned by Juan Manuel de Prada, a Spanish intellectual who explored the contradictions — in Sorrentino, in the character of Pope Pius XIII, played by Jude Law, and in the Vatican hierarchy — that were presented by the series. ‘Docile admiration for the church’ The Young Pope  opens with the improbable election of Lenny Belardo as history’s first American pope. Despite his youth, Belardo charts a deeply conservative, controversial...

READ MORE The Invictus Games closed Saturday night with a celebration of spirit, an emphatic dose of classic rock and an official handover to the 2018 hosts from Sydney. The week-long event, aimed at helping the war wounded with their recovery, was capped with a two-hour closing ceremony at Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Prince Harry, who founded the games in 2014, took to the stage Saturday with a message of inspiration rounding out the one he delivered at the opening ceremony a week ago. ‘You are all winners’: Prince Harry opens Invictus Games with message of inspiration “Let me issue you a challenge,” he said. “Don’t just move on from these games with happy memories. Instead, make an Invictus goal for yourselves.” ‘It doesn’t matter how big or small your step is’ “Let the examples of service and resilience that you have seen inspire you to take action to improve something big or small, in your life, for your ...

READ MORE Three vineyards have had grapes and even whole vines stolen since mid-September, police told AFP on Wednesday. They said about six and a half tonnes of grapes disappeared from a vineyard in Genissac near the world-famous Saint Emilion region, adding that the theft was clearly committed by professional vintners. Between 600 and 700 kilogrammes (1,300 and 1,500 pounds) of grapes were stolen from a vineyard in Pomerol, which produces top quality reds. Thieves also uprooted 500 vines from a vineyard in nearby Montagne, police said. A fourth grape robbery took place in Lalande-de-Pomerol, according to a local press report. Thieves making away with grapes is not a new phenomenon but it has surged this year apparently because of a disastrous yield. “There’s a great temptation to help oneself from (the vineyard) next door,” an industry expert told AFP on condition of anonymity. France faces its poorest wine harvest sinc...

READ MORE Scientists at the Louvre in Paris, where his masterpiece is held, have been examining a charcoal drawing known as the “Monna Vanna” which had been attributed to the Florentine master’s studio. The large drawing has been held since 1862 in the huge collection of Renaissance art at the Conde Museum at the palace of Chantilly, north of the French capital. Curators from the museum believe that after a month of tests at the Louvre the “drawing is at least in part” by Leonardo. “The drawing has a quality in the way the face and hands are rendered that is truly remarkable. It is not a pale copy,” curator Mathieu Deldicque told AFP. “We are looking at something which was worked on in parallel with the Mona Lisa at the end of Leonardo’s life,” he added. “It is almost certainly a preparatory work for an oil painting,” he added, with the obvious inference being that it is closely connected to the Mona Lisa. ...

READ MORE Spanish police have sealed off most public buildings earmarked as polling stations for a banned referendum on Catalonia’s breakaway from Spain, according to officials. Separatists in the northeastern region on Friday evening and Saturday morning started occupying voting stations in a bid to ensure Sunday’s poll, which has been declared illegal by Spanish authorities, goes ahead. READ MORE: Catalonia independence referendum – All you need to know The Spanish interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the “majority” of public buildings that had been identified as referendum sites had “stayed shut” and “only a few” are occupied by people “with the only aim” of obstructing police work. The central government in Madrid had previously said that 1,300 of 2,315 designated voting stations have been sealed off by police, who have been mobilised in the thousands in the region. Also earlier on Saturday, Enric M...

READ MORE Tom Alter, an Indian actor of American descent who worked on more than 300 films, has died at age 67 after battling skin cancer. Alter died at his home in Mumbai, India’s financial hub and entertainment capital, late on Friday night. He was diagnosed with skin cancer last year and had received treatment, but had suffered a relapse earlier this month. Indian leaders as well as top film and theatre personalities expressed grief at his demise and offered condolences. “While we mourn deeply, we are grateful he is now at peace,” a statement from his family said. “Our family is so grateful for the overwhelming outpouring of love for our dear Tom.”  Goodbye, Tom Alter. You might have been American, we might have made you play an Englishman, but you were all ours. RIP, sir. pic.twitter.com/2oV1EXKpy6 — Raja Sen (@RajaSen) September 30, 2017 Born in India to US missionary parents, Alter spoke Hindi fluently and acted in both Bollywood and intern...

READ MORE The wish of Catalans to vote in a banned referendum on breaking away from Spain “is unstoppable”,  Carles Puigdemont, the region’s president, has told Al Jazeera, even as Spanish authorities step up efforts to stop the poll from happening. The central government in Madrid has  mobilised thousands of police to the northeastern region to stop the referendum, while the country’s  Constitutional Court suspended the vote after authorities challenged its legality. Speaking to Al Jazeera’s John Hendren on the eve of the poll,  Puigdemont said “r eferendums are not carried out by the courts or the police”. “It’s voters who make up a referendum,” he added. “The wish to vote is unstoppable. You cannot put a brake on it.” If it takes place, Sunday’s vote will be the region’s second referendum on independence in three years. The previous ballot, a non-binding vote in November ...