World

NAIROBI/ADDIS ABABA,  (Reuters) – An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off yesterday, killing all 157 people on board and raising questions about the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new model that also crashed in Indonesia in October.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – India will hold a general election in seven stages starting on April 11, the election commission said yesterday, in what will be the world’s biggest democratic exercise with Prime Minister Narendra Modi likely to benefit from tension with Pakistan.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Brexit could be reversed if lawmakers reject the government’s exit deal, British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said yesterday after two major eurosceptic factions in parliament warned that Prime Minister Theresa May was facing a heavy defeat.

AMMAN,  (Reuters) – Hundreds of Syrians in the southern city of Deraa protested yesterday at the erection of a new statue of President Bashar al-Assad’s late father, nearly eight years after the original was toppled at the outbreak of Syria’s civil war.

NAIROBI,  (Reuters) – An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet to Nairobi crashed early today with 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard, the airline said, and there were no survivors, according to the state broadcaster.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido yesterday called on citizens nationwide to travel to the capital Caracas for a protest against socialist President Nicolas Maduro, as the country’s worst blackout in decades dragged on for a third day.

(Reuters) – Singer R. Kelly was released from a Chicago jail yesterday after a child support payment of more than $161,000 was made to an ex-wife, police said, ending his second incarceration in two weeks after a prior arrest on sex assault charges.

TUNIS, (Reuters) – Tunisia’s health minister Abdel-Raouf El-Sherif resigned yesterday after 11 babies mysteriously died within 24 hours in a hospital in the capital, state news agency TAP said.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Fourteen people were killed in a plane crash in the Colombian plains province of Meta yesterday, the country’s civil aviation agency said.

MANAGUA, (Reuters) – Nicaragua’s government said yesterday it would release prisoners rounded up in months of protests and implement electoral reforms, as talks continue with the opposition to end the country’s worst political crisis in three decades.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition activists scuffled with police and troops on Saturday morning in the run-up to a rally intended to keep up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro, as electricity remained intermittent after the country’s worst blackout in decades.

OTTAWA,  (Reuters) – Canada’s Federal Court yesterday rejected a bid by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc to challenge prosecutors who insist the construction company must face trial on charges of corruption.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – U.S. authorities yesterday announced criminal charges against the alleged leaders of an multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme involving the sale of a fraudulent cryptocurrency, OneCoin.

HELSINKI,  (Reuters) – Finland’s coalition government resigned yesterday a month ahead of a general election, saying it could not deliver on a healthcare reform package that is widely seen as crucial to securing long-term government finances.

CHICAGO,  (Reuters) – A grand jury in Chicago has returned a 16-count felony indictment against television actor Jussie Smollett, accusing him of falsely reporting to police that he was the victim of a hate-crime assault, according to court documents made public yesterday.

(Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed yesterday to break up Amazon.com

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – Indian cricketers wore army camouflage-style caps in a match with Australia on Friday in solidarity with Indian paramilitary police killed in a militant attack by a Pakistan-based group and in an unusually strong display of patriotic fervour in sport.

OTTAWA, (Reuters) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday denied interfering in Canada’s judicial system as he sought to defuse a crisis threatening his political future, and offered no apology, asserting only that lessons had been learned.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.,  (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced yesterday by a U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO,  (Reuters) – Brazil’s far-right president yesterday described the country’s armed forces, which led the country under a military dictatorship for over two decades, as the ultimate arbiters of democracy.