The Palestinian health ministry says Israeli troops have shot and killed a Palestinian youth who threw stones at the soldiers during West Bank clashes. The ministry says 21-year-old Mohammed Bsharat was shot in the chest early on Wednesday, during confrontations with Israeli soldiers in the village of Tamoun in northern West Bank. It says five other rioters were wounded by ...

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with family members of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh on Tuesday, state media said. The Saudi rulers met with Khashoggi’s son Salah and brother Sahel at the royal palace, state-run news agency SPA reported.   The report said King Salman and Prince Mohammed offered their condolences to the ...

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge, the world’s longest cross-sea bridge, opened to public traffic at 9 a.m. Wednesday, reports Xinhua.   The bridge connects China’s mainland province of Guangdong with the country’s two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.  Starting on Wednesday, the customs in Zhuhai, Hong Kong and Macao will offer round-the-clock service for customs clearance to facilitate traffic ...

At least 20 people were injured when an escalator in the Rome metropolitan system collapsed Tuesday night. A video shown on Sky TG24 shows the escalator accelerating suddenly, and the people riding down on it collapsing one onto another. The dramatic footage shows people on the parallel escalator trying to pull others to safety.   The cause was not immediately ...

The European Commission has told Italy to revise its budget, an unprecedented move with regard to an EU member state. The Commission is worried about the impact of higher spending on already high levels of debt in Italy, the eurozone’s third-biggest economy.   Italy’s governing populist parties have vowed to push ahead with campaign promises including a minimum income for ...

Salty water just below the surface of Mars could hold enough oxygen to support the kind of microbial life that emerged and flourished on Earth billions of years ago, researchers reported. In some locations, the amount of oxygen available could even keep alive a primitive, multicellular animal such as a sponge, they reported in the journal Nature Geosciences.   “We ...

Theresa May has said she is prepared to “explore every possible option” to break the deadlock in Brexit talks.   She told MPs 95% of the terms of exit were agreed but the Irish border was still a “considerable sticking point”.  While willing to consider extending the UK’s transition period beyond 2020, she said this was “undesirable” and would have ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has officially opened the world’s longest sea crossing bridge, nine years after construction first began. Including its access roads, the bridge spans 55km (34 miles) and connects Hong Kong to Macau and the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai.   The bridge has cost about $20bn (£15.3bn) and seen several delays.   Construction has been dogged by ...

 Saudi Arabia’s investment conference has gone ahead despite international pressure for a boycott. The Future Investment Initiative (FII) was due to feature 150 high profile speakers from 140 firms.   But around 40 attendees are understood to have pulled out amid allegations the country was behind Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing.   Prominent Saudi critic Khashoggi vanished on 2 October ...

Search engine giant Google has created a new Doodle on its homepage celebrating the life of Bangladeshi poet, columnist and journalist Shamsur Rahman on the occasion of his 89th birth anniversary, UNB reports.   Shamsur Rahman (23 October 1929 – 17 August 2006) who emerged in the latter half of the 20th century wrote more than sixty books of poetry ...