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Michael Cohen leaves court after pleading guilty to lying to Congress US President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in relation to the Russia inquiry. Cohen admitted misleading lawmakers on talks during the presidential race about a Trump property deal in Moscow. Mr Trump said his former right-hand man was "lying" to seek a reduced sentence. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to violating finance laws during the 2016 presidential election by handling hush money for Mr Trump's alleged lovers. Thursday's hearing was the latest twist in the US Department of Justice special counsel's investigation into whether Mr Trump or his inner circle colluded with an alleged Russian attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election. What did President Trump say? As he left the White House for a G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Mr Trump told reporters of Cohen: "He's a weak person and not a very sm...

The Frankfurt headquarters of Deutsche Bank have been raided by prosecutors in a money laundering investigation. Germany's public prosecutor alleged that two staff members have helped clients launder money from criminal activities. Police cars were seen outside the tower blocks that house the headquarters of Germany's biggest bank. Other Deutsche offices in the city were searched in an operation involving about 170 police and officials. Prosecutors are looking into whether Deutsche Bank staff helped clients set up off-shore accounts to "transfer money from criminal activities". The investigation was sparked by  revelations in the 2016 "Panama Papers"  - an enormous amount of information leaked from one of the world's most secretive companies, a Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca. Other banks, including Sweden's Nordea and Germany's Handelsbanken have been fined as a result of information contained in the Panama ...

People of African descent are facing "widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion" across the European Union, a study suggests. Race-related violence, discriminatory police profiling, and discrimination in the search for jobs and housing were commonplace for many, the EU's agency for fundamental rights (FRA) said. Finland had the highest rates of race-related harassment and violence while the UK had amongst the lowest. The FRA urged countries to take action. "It is a reality both shameful and infuriating: racism based on the colour of a person's skin remains a pervasive scourge throughout the European Union," FRA director Michael O'Flaherty said in the  foreword to the report . The Being Black in the EU surveyed nearly 6,000 people in 12 EU countries - including France and Germany - between 2015 and 2016. About 30% of the overall respondents said they had experienced some form of racial harassment in the five years before ...

Fish farming has been described a goldmine business venture by Mustafa Asekome. Mr Asekome, who stated this in an interview with Agbelonews at his Gowon Estate residence, where the catfish farm is situated, said he decided to go into fish farming because of his “flair for agriculture,” adding, “and looking at the present economy, I think it is now tilted towards food, which is feeding the nation, because most people are running away from farming and the population is increasing and we must feed. So, as such I decided to take the bull by the horn and start something no matter how small.” Mustafa (left) and Jalil in their fish farm Mustafa, a Banking and Finance graduate, who jointly runs the fish farm with his younger brother, Jalil Asekome, told Agbelonews that the farm took off with an initial capital of seventy thousand naira (N70,000.00) and eight hundred (800) fingerlings. Two years into the business, the fish farm has increased in capacity to three thousand, five (3,500...

A Chinese scientist who claims to have created the world's first genetically edited babies has defended his work. Speaking at a genome summit in Hong Kong, He Jiankui said he was "proud" of altering the genes of twin girls so they cannot contract HIV. His work, which he announced earlier this week, has not been verified. Many scientists have condemned his announcement, with one labelling it monstrous. Such gene-editing work is banned in most countries. Prof He's university - the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen - said it was unaware of the research project and would launch an investigation. What has the scientist claimed? Prof He announced earlier this week that he had altered the DNA of embryos - twin girls - to prevent them from contracting HIV. On Wednesday, Prof He spoke at the Human Genome Editing Summit at the University of Hong Kong for the first time about his work since the uproar. He revealed that the twin girls - ...

"Beekeepers were finding dead bees in front of their hives," a bee farmer says At least one million bees are suspected to have died of poisoning in a wine-producing area of South Africa. Brendan Ashley-Cooper told the BBC that an insecticide used by wine farmers, Fipronil, was thought to have killed the insects on his farm. Other honey bee farmers in the area around Cape Town have also been affected, but it is still unclear how many of the insects have died, he said. Fipronil has been blamed for the deaths of millions of honey bees in Europe. Campaigners say Fipronil is highly toxic to insects, and its use was restricted in Europe in 2013. About 100 of his bee hives, or 35% to 40% of those he owned in the affected areas, had been hit by the disaster, said Mr Ashley-Cooper, the vice-chairman of the Western Cape Bee Industry Association. He estimated this meant between 1-1.5 million bees had been killed. It is unclear how many bees there are in South Africa, bu...

Jonah Fisher talks to a commander of the Ukrainian Navy about the tensions in the Azov Sea Russia has fired on and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels off the Crimean Peninsula in a major escalation of tensions between the two countries. Two gunboats and a tug were captured by Russian forces. A number of Ukrainian crew members were injured. Each country blames the other for the incident. On Monday Ukrainian MPs are due to vote on declaring martial law. The crisis began when Russia accused the Ukrainian ships of illegally entering its waters. The Russians placed a tanker under a bridge in the Kerch Strait - the only access to the Sea of Azov, which is shared between the two countries. A tanker under the bridge shut all navigation from and into the Sea of Azov During a meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, President Petro Poroshenko described the Russian actions as "unprovoked and crazy". Russia has requested an emergency meeting of t...

Saturday's accident occurred off Uganda's Mukono district, near Kampala At least 29 people are now known to have died after a cruise boat carrying party revellers capsized on Lake Victoria, Ugandan police say. The vessel was carrying close to 100 people when it sank on Saturday near Uganda's capital, Kampala. Ugandan media named a number of well-known people said to be on the boat, adding that the prince of a traditional kingdom had survived. Lake Victoria sees regular accidents, often involving overcrowded vessels. Scores of people died when a ferry sank on the lake  off Tanzania in September. Saturday's accident occurred off Uganda's Mukono district. Deputy police spokesman Patrick Onyango told Reuters news agency: "The boat was overloaded and secondly there was bad weather." More than 20 people have been rescued from the water, police say, but an unknown number remain missing. Cries from the shoreline The BBC's Cathe...

Want to know what $9m looks like? Phil Mickelson claimed the $9m (£7m) winner-takes-all prize in a dramatic duel with Tiger Woods which finished under floodlights in Las Vegas. The matchplay between the two Americans went to a 22nd hole before Mickelson, 48, sunk a four-foot putt for victory. Woods, 42, chipped in on the 17th to stop Mickelson putting for the match, then missed a chance himself from eight feet on the first extra hole. That led to a sudden-death play-off on a 93-yard hole which Mickelson edged. With 19 majors between them and two decades at the top of the game, Woods and Mickelson are two of the most recognisable golfers on the planet and this head-to-head battle was the latest chapter in an enduring rivalry. Playing under the lights was a suitably extraordinary finish to an event which, although lacking quality as a sporting spectacle, had promised to show golf as it had never been seen before. "I'm just trying to calm down, my heart can...

A report commissioned by the French president recommends that disputed artworks should be returned to their countries of origin French President Emmanuel Macron has said that France will return 26 artworks taken from the west African state of Benin in the colonial era. His announcement follows an experts' report recommending that African treasures in French museums be returned to their countries of origin. The 26 thrones and statues were taken in 1892 during a colonial war against the then Kingdom of Dahomey. They are currently on display in the Quai Branly museum in Paris. What do you know about Africa's 'looted treasures'? A guide to Africa's 'looted treasures' Benin officially asked for their return some years ago. President Macron said the statues would be returned "without delay". His office said the return of art to Benin should not be an isolated case. The president "hopes that all possible circulation of these works ...

Two police officers were killed in the attack Gunmen have killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Gunshots were heard at about 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT) outside the consulate in the upmarket Clifton area. Police shot dead three attackers. Separatist militants who oppose Chinese investment projects in western Pakistan say they carried out the attack. In another incident on Friday, at least 30 people were killed in a bomb attack in north-west Pakistan. The blast occurred in a mostly Shia neighbourhood in Orakzai district. Police say a suicide bomber on a motorbike drove into a crowded marketplace. Pakistan's Shia minority has often been targeted by Sunni extremists. What happened in Karachi? Three gunmen tried to enter the consulate but were stopped by guards at a checkpoint, reports said. Two of those killed in the attack were police officers. A burning vehicle near the attack site Eyewitnesses r...

The woman served up her boyfriend's remains in a traditional Emirati dish like this A Moroccan woman has been accused of killing her lover and serving up his remains to Pakistani workers in the United Arab Emirates, prosecutors say. The woman killed her boyfriend three months ago, they say, but the crime was only recently discovered when a human tooth was found inside her blender. She confessed to police, calling it a moment of "insanity", state-owned newspaper The National reports. The woman, who is in her 30s, will go on trial pending an investigation. She had been in a relationship with the victim for seven years. According to The National,  she killed him after he told her he was planning to marry someone else from Morocco . While police did not reveal how he was killed, they said his girlfriend had served up his remains as part of a traditional rice and meat dish to some Pakistani nationals working nearby. The discovery was only made when the victim...

The Sentinelese have always resisted outside contact An American man has been killed by an endangered tribe in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands. Fishermen who took the man to North Sentinel island say tribespeople shot him with arrows and left his body on the beach. He has been identified as John Allen Chau, a 27 year old from Alabama. Contact with the endangered Andaman tribes living in isolation from the world is illegal because of the risks to them from outside disease. Estimates say the Sentinelese, who are totally cut off from civilisation, number only between 50 and 150. Seven fishermen have been arrested for illegally ferrying the American to the island, police say. On 21 October, @johnachau posted that he was travelling to the region Local media have reported that Chau may have wanted to meet the tribe to preach Christianity to them. But on social media the young man presented himself as a keen traveller and adventurer. "Police said Chau had pr...

This is one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul in recent months A suicide bomb attack on a gathering of religious scholars in the Afghan capital, Kabul, has killed at least 43 people, officials say. At least 83 people were also wounded as the clerics met at the Uranus wedding hall, a large banqueting complex near the airport, to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. It is one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul in recent months. No-one has yet admitted responsibility for the blast. What happened at the hall? Some 1,000 people were said to be in the complex at the time of the explosion. Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul police, said that "Islamic scholars and their followers had gathered to recite verses from the holy Koran to observe the Eid Milad-un-Nabi festival". The suicide bomber gained entry and headed for the centre of the gathering, where he detonated his explosives. Religious studies lecturer Mohammad Hanif said there was a deafening explos...