Pope Asks Central American Nations To Help Resolve Cuban 'Humanitarian Drama'

Pope Francis kisses the statue of baby Jesus as he arrives in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican to celebrate the holy Mass for the families today. (AFP Photo)

VATICAN CITY:  Pope Francis today asked Central American nations to help end the "humanitarian drama" affecting thousands of US-bound Cubans stranded in the region.

"My thoughts at this moment go out to the numerous Cuban migrants who find themselves in difficulty in Central America and some of whom are victims of human trafficking," he said during Angelus prayers.

"I invite all the countries in the region to generously redouble all efforts needed to quickly find a solution to this humanitarian drama," he said.

Thousands of Cubans have been stuck in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua when Costa Rica last month dismantled a people-smuggling ring and Nicaragua, a Cuban ally, closed its border to them.

The Nicaraguan move has forced Costa Rica to make increasingly desperate pleas to other Central American nations to take the Cubans in to allow them to continue their journey to the US.

The United States has a decades-old policy of accepting Cubans if they set foot on its soil.

The number of Cubans trying to flee their island for a new life in the United States jumped this year. Many fear that a thaw in US-Cuban relations announced a year ago will end the American policy of automatically accepting them as refugees.

ISIS Claims Reasonability For Suicide Attack At Bangladesh Mosque

The suicide attack at a mosque during Friday prayers in northwestern Bangladesh wounded 10 people. (Associated Press photo)

DHAKA:  Terrorist group ISIS has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at a packed mosque of minority Ahmadi community during Friday prayers in northwestern Bangladesh, in which 10 people were wounded.

US-based monitoring group SITE reported that ISIS, which has claimed responsibility for many recent attacks in Bangladesh, said it targeted worshippers at the mosque in Bagmara town, some 250 kilometres from Dhaka, according to bdnews24 online.

The monitoring group quoted ISIS as saying that the bomber detonated an explosive belt at a mosque of the "polytheist Qadiani sect," a derogatory term for Ahmadi Muslims, the report said.

SITE had reported ISIS claiming credit for several previous militant attacks.

The Christmas-day attack came as Muslim-majority Bangladesh celebrated the birth anniversaries of Prophets Mohammad and Jesus Christ amid festivity and tight security.

"The explosion killed the suicide bomber and injured 10 others," a police officer has said.

The attacker had exploded the bomb he had concealed under his garments.

In recent months, homegrown militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and ISIS have claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on a shrine and a mosque of minority Shia Muslims in northern Bangladesh.

Members of other minority groups, including Sufis - who adhere to a mystical form of Islam - have also been attacked and killed in recent months, and two Christian priests have survived attacks claimed by Islamist militants.

Bagmara area is the hometown and stronghold of outlawed JMB kingpin Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, who was executed along with three other top leaders of the Islamist group in 2007.

Bangladesh has seen several violent incidents in recent months, including attacks on foreigners and secular bloggers claimed by the IS, although the government says the attacks have been carried out by local Islamist radical groups.

Last week, six people were injured when two Molotov cocktails exploded at a mosque inside a major naval base in Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong after Friday prayers.

The attacks have alarmed the international community and raised concerns that religious extremism is growing in the traditionally moderate South Asian nation.

Severe Flood Warnings In Parts Of United Kingdom As Army Helps

LONDON:  Parts of northwest England already hit hard by flooding in recent weeks were under severe flood warnings Saturday because of forecasts for more heavy rain, with some areas being evacuated.

The Environmental Agency "red alert" warnings issued Saturday mean there is a danger of loss of life due to flooding in those areas. Some 15 "severe" alerts had been issued by Saturday afternoon, with more expected.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in the Lancashire area 220 miles (355 kilometre) northwest of London after water breached flood barriers following torrential rains.

Water poured into the streets in some areas. People in some towns were told to abandon their homes for higher ground while others were told to move their valuables and listen to advice from emergency services about possible evacuation.

An Army company has helped build temporary flood defences in Cumbria in the northwest of England as residents struggle following waves of winter storms accompanies by heavy rains.

Floods Minister Rory Stewart said rainfall in the flooded areas is unprecedented.

Parts of northwest England already hit hard by flooding in recent weeks were under severe flood warnings today. (AP Photo)

He said in some areas, a month's worth of rain could fall in one day on ground already saturated from earlier rains.

There were more than 335 additional flood alerts for other parts of England, Scotland and Wales.

The government's emergency ministerial group, known as Cobra, met on Christmas Day to make contingency plans for more rainfall.

Christmas Wildfire Destroys More Than 100 Homes In Australia

SYDNEY:  More than 100 houses were destroyed by a Christmas Day wildfire that tore through a stretch of coastline popular with tourists in southern Australia, forcing thousands to flee their homes, officials said today.

Cooler weather and light rain today eased the immediate threat from the blaze along Victoria state's scenic Great Ocean Road, but officials warned that it could continue burning for weeks.

No one was killed or injured in the fire, said Victoria Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley.

"You've got to stand proud to say that people are with us - that is, they've walked away from the fire that had every potential to be a killer," Lapsley said.

Hundreds of firefighters spent Christmas battling the blaze, which was triggered by a lightning strike. The fire destroyed 116 houses in the small towns of Wye River and Separation Creek, Lapsley said. Many of the properties destroyed were holiday homes.

The fire has temporarily closed a section of the Great Ocean Road, which winds along Victoria's coastline and past the region's famed "Apostles" - a collection of giant limestone stacks that jut dramatically out of the sea.

Destructive wildfires are common across much of Australia during the southern hemisphere summer. In 2009, wildfires killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes in Victoria.

Barack Obama Feels 'Small' Compared With Members Of US Marines

US President Barack Obama is on a 16-day vacation from Washington. He is scheduled to return to the White House just after the start of the new year. (AP Photo)

KANEOHE BAY, HAWAII:  President Barack Obama is one of the most powerful men in the world. He's commander in chief of one of its mightiest militaries, too.

Yet in spite of all that, Obama feels inadequate from time to time. Especially when he's vacationing in Hawaii and working out alongside strapping Marines at their gym.

"The only problem I've got when I'm here is having to work out with Marines in the gym," Obama said during his annual Christmas Day visit with US troops at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay. "Because I generally feel like your commander in chief is in pretty good shape, and then I get next to some guy, you know, curling 100 pounds and it makes me feel small."

Obama works out at the base gym just about every day when he vacations here. With New Year's Day approaching, though, he told the troops he's inspired "to work harder so I can keep up with you next year."

Perhaps using the "workout stuff" his wife, Michelle, had said she was getting him for Christmas.

The 6-foot-1 Obama is known to enjoy a daily workout whether he's at home in the White House, traveling or on vacation. He also plays golf practically every weekend in Washington when the weather cooperates, and he swings his clubs just about daily during extended vacations on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, or here in his native Hawaii.

The Christmas visit with the troops has become a yearly tradition for the Obamas during their annual vacation on Oahu.

Obama said it's one of their favorite things to do because they get a chance to "say thank you on behalf of the American people."

This year's visit came four days after six US service members were killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan. In his first public comments on the attack, Obama praised the six individuals as "outstanding, brave men and women."

The six service members, including a New York City police detective who served in the US National Guard, were killed Monday at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the largest US facility in the country, when a suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden motorcycle into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Obama is on a 16-day vacation from Washington. He is scheduled to return to the White House just after the start of the new year.

China Says Carrier Operations Improving As Navy Chief Visits

BEIJING:  China is getting better and better at operating fighter jets from its lone aircraft carrier, with confident pilots and an increasing number of flying operations, the military's newspaper said today as China's navy chief visited the ship.

The Liaoning, a Soviet-era ship bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refitted in China, has long been a symbol of China's naval build-up.

China wants to develop an ocean-going "blue water" navy capable of defending the world's second largest economy's growing interests as it adopts a more assertive stance in territorial disputes with neighbours in the South China and East China seas.

The official People's Liberation Army Daily said in a front-page editorial that the carrier had achieved "obvious progress" in raising its combat effectiveness since the start of the year.

The number of aircraft based on the carrier and the number of daily flights had both increased, while "many" pilots had qualified to operate the Shenyang J-15 fighter jet on the carrier, the report said.

The navy had therefore made a "key breakthrough" in shifting from the testing phase to being able to operate ship-borne aircraft, the newspaper said.

Chinese navy chief Wu Shengli visited the ship this week, meeting pilots, sitting in an aircraft cockpit and answering questions about how China could speed up the operational capability of the ship, the report said.

It said the drills Wu oversaw happened somewhere in the Bohai Sea, off northeastern China.

The Liaoning has already taken part in operations in the South China Sea, where China has competing claims with Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei.

Successfully operating the 60,000-tonne Liaoning is the first step in what state media and some military experts believe will be the deployment of domestically built carriers by 2020.

Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in September China was building two aircraft carriers that would be the same size as the Liaoning.

Little is known about China's aircraft carrier programme, which is a state secret, although Chinese state media have hinted new vessels are being built.

The Pentagon said in a report earlier this year Beijing could build multiple aircraft carriers over the next 15 years.

'Hello, Is This Planet Earth?' Astronaut Dials Wrong Number On Christmas Call From Space

Astronaut Tim Peake dialed a wrong number from space. (AFP File Photo)

LONDON:  Tim Peake, the first British astronaut on the International Space Station, dialled a wrong number after trying to phone home for Christmas, asking a woman "Is this planet Earth?"

"I'd like to apologise to the lady I just called by mistake saying 'Hello, is this planet Earth?' - not a prank call...just a wrong number!" he tweeted late on Thursday.
 Peake, 43, became the first British astronaut to travel to the space station after blasting off from the Moscow-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier this month for a six-month mission

Australians Flee Bushfires As Homes Burn On Christmas Day

Smoke rises from a fast-moving bushfire near the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia on December 25, 2015. (Reuters photo)

MELBOURNE:  Fire crews battled into the night on Friday after raging bushfires reduced at least 53 homes to ashes in a famous Australian beauty spot on Christmas Day, sending hundreds of residents fleeing for their lives. Water bombing aircraft made a minimal impact on the fires, officials said, as flames set entire trees and hillsides alight in communities along the Great Ocean Road, a major tourist attraction southwest of Melbourne.

To the sound of blaring sirens, hundreds of residents cut short their Christmas celebrations and fled to hastily organised evacuation centres as the normally packed route was closed.

Although no one had been confirmed dead as of Friday evening, one of Victoria state's top fire officials said that at least 53 homes had been lost to the flames, while the fire remained out of control and the confirmed number of properties destroyed was expected to rise.

"There are a lot of areas we have not been able to get into," Steve Warrington, deputy head of the Country Fire Authority, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as he detailed the losses. "This is a big fire now. It is in dense forest. It will cause us problems for quite some time now."

More than 150 firefighters with eight aircraft and 60 fire trucks spent the holiday fighting the fires. The Great Ocean Road is one of Australia's leading tourist draws, famous for its scenic landscapes and for the bizarre rock formations visible offshore in the Southern Ocean.

Victoria's emergency services said at least 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) had so far been burned. It is the latest of a series of bushfires to hit the state this year. Another fire on the outskirts of Melbourne earlier in the day was brought under control. Although a change in the weather was predicted, emergency services said the threat was likely to remain for some time.

In 2009, Victoria witnessed Australia's worst ever bushfire disaster, which has since been dubbed 'Black Saturday'. Weather conditions reminiscent of that period have been reported in the last few weeks, with fires not only in Victoria but in several other states.

Fire officials said Friday's disaster was likely to be one of the worst to hit Victoria since 2009.

17,000 Polluting Industries Shut Down In China

BEIJING:  China today said it has shut down 17,000 polluting industries following a pollution discharge inspection of 1.41 million companies from January to September this year.

Another 28,600 firms were ordered to suspend their operations, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said today.

Among the violators, 46,800 enterprises were found to have discharged pollutants and 63,700 were involved in illegal construction projects, the ministry said.

The ministry received has 73 public tip-offs about pollution lodged through the 12369 telephone hotline in September.

The industries most complained about were chemicals, metal smelting and processing and non-metallic mineral processing.

In November, the ministry dispatched inspection teams to 504 enterprises across the country, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong and Xinjiang.

During the inspection, violations were found in urban treatment of dust, central heating and oil vapor recovery in petrol stations, the ministry said.

Good. Bad. Outspoken Donald Trump King Of Simple Speech

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guests at a campaign rally on December 21, 2015 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (AFP Photo)

WASHINGTON:  Good. Bad. Stupid. When it comes to his choice of words, Donald Trump keeps it simple.

So simple, in fact, that even a nine-year-old can get what the outspoken Republican White House hopeful is saying.

That's according to a test developed for the US Navy that assesses the complexity of an English text by looking at sentence length and counting syllables.

When this Flesch-Kincaid method is applied to the opening and closing statements made during the last Republican debate, the GOP frontrunner takes the cake for poorest vocabulary among the nine contenders who faced off in Las Vegas on December 15.

It reveals that a mere seven percent of the words used by Trump in a minute and a half had more than three syllables, meaning that even children as young as nine or 10 would have been able to understand him.

Trump caused astonishment this week by appearing to coin an obscene neologism -- "schlonged," derived from a Yiddish term for penis -- to disparage his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.

But the billionaire businessman typically favors basic, brief words such as "good," "bad" and "great" for getting his point across on the campaign trail.

"If I'm elected president, we will win again. We will win a lot. And we're going to have a great, great country, greater than ever before," Trump promised at the end of the debate.

The tycoon sums up his foreign policy in equally simple terms, for instance describing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a "bad guy, very bad guy."

Elaborate speeches deceptive?

"Donald Trump tries to reassure his audience by appealing to our elementary political instinct," said Peter Lawler, a political science professor at Berry College and author of a book on American political rhetoric.

"He uses simple, repetitive words," he told AFP.

"Some part of the population associates simplicity in rhetoric to honesty," added Matthew Baum, a communications professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"They think that elaborate speeches are too deceptive."

The 69-year-old tycoon often employs the term "stupid" to describe his rivals and the current government.

"We are being run by stupid people. I used to say incompetent. But stupid is really, you know, is the next stage," he said earlier this month.

The real estate magnate's campaign trail bombast -- including extraordinary comments that stunned many observers -- appears to have done him no harm in the polls as he solidifies the frontrunner status he has maintained since late July.

A new national CNN/ORC poll of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters has Trump leading with 39 percent support, more than twice that of his nearest competitor Senator Ted Cruz on 18 percent.

So how do Trump's Republican rivals measure up when it comes to their lexicon?

The estimated age necessary for understanding the statements of other candidates at the last primary debate fluctuated between 11 years for senator Rand Paul and 15 years for fellow lawmaker Ted Cruz or retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

The share of words with more than three syllables in the statements of the other participants was 14 percent on average, double that for Trump.

Cruz used 24 percent of "complex" words, while former Florida governor Jeb Bush used 15 percent.

"The other candidates study a lot before the debates, and their answers seem scripted," Lawler said.

"Trump says whatever he has in mind. But in my opinion he does that on purpose, he knows what he is doing."

The leader of the Republican pack used such simplistic rhetoric during the debate to touch on the ISIS group's use of the Internet.

"We should be able to penetrate the Internet and find out exactly where ISIS is and everything about ISIS," he said, using an alternate acronym for the extremists.

"And we can do that if we use our good people."

Lawler said it didn't seem to matter to some potential voters that Trump lacks insight in some fields.

"There are some subjects where he has no knowledge at all, but people don't seem to care," he said.

Mars Gullies Sculpted By Dry Ice, Not Liquid Water

Since 2000, the cameras in orbit around Mars have transmitted numerous images of small valleys cut into slopes, similar in shape to gullies formed by flowing water on Earth.

LONDON:  Gullies on Mars may be formed by dry ice processes rather than flowing liquid water, as previously thought, a new study has found.

The study conducted by French scientists shows that, during late winter and spring, underneath the seasonal CO2 ice layer heated by the Sun, intense gas fluxes can destabilise the regolith material and induce gas-lubricated debris flows which look like water-sculpted gullies on Earth.

Since 2000, the cameras in orbit around Mars have transmitted numerous images of small valleys cut into slopes, similar in shape to gullies formed by flowing water on Earth.

The gullies seem less than a few million years old - and sometimes less than a few years old. This suggested that significant volumes of liquid water may form on Mars today.

This scenario has recently been questioned by frequent monitoring of the Martian surface by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This showed that gully formation is ongoing on present-day Mars, at seasons when the surface environment of Mars is much too cold for liquid water to flow.

However, the observed gully activity seems to occur when CO2 ice (condensed from the atmosphere during winter) is defrosting on the Martian surface.

Cedric Pilorget from CNRS/Universite Paris-Sud and Francois Forget from the Laboratoire de meteorologie dynamique have developed a numerical model to simulate the environment on a slope.

From the underlying regolith to the atmosphere above, the model takes into account the energy exchanges due to radiations, thermal conduction or induced by CO2 phase changes.

A key characteristic of the locations where CO2 ice condenses is that there is always a permafrost layer composed of water ice - cemented grains a few centimetres below the surface.

When CO2 condenses on the surface in winter, the air present in the porous near-subsurface is trapped between the impermeable permafrost layer below and CO2 ice layer above.

At the end of winter or in spring, the solar light penetrates into the translucent CO2 ice layer and heats it from below.

The CO2 ice does not melt, but "sublimes" (it passes directly to the vapour state). This gas diffuses down through the near surface porous soil.

A fraction can recondense there, while the rest of the gas accumulates in the porous volume. This can considerably increase the near-subsurface pressure, up to several times the atmospheric pressure value.

The CO2 ice layer eventually ruptures, inducing a violent decompression. Within a few seconds and up to a few minutes, several cubic meters of gas have to flow up through the soil.

Such fluxes are able to destabilise the soil grains to form granular flows. Moreover, they can also fluidise the avalanche which may behave like a viscous fluid.

A Christmas Economy Thrives All Year Long in a Mexican Village

TLALPUJAHUA, MEXICO:  In the land of the forever Christmas, there are no elves, no reindeer and no snow. And the creepy wooden Santa that sits outside one of the stores here confronts shoppers with a gigantic beard and not an ounce of cheer.

This small village, embedded in the lush mountains of Michoacán, is no North Pole. Yet it celebrates Christmas every day of the year all the same, as a production center of handmade ornaments for the Mexican, U.S. and Canadian markets.

Despite the absence of a traditional Christmas setting, Tlalpujahua, a former mining town, does not lack for charm. The narrow cobblestone streets sweep up sharp slopes to an airy plaza, where a 300-year-old church with a pink bell tower dominates the tiled rooftops and the surrounding landscape. Stores are tiny and tidy, stacked side by side, and the village's entrance is graced with a giant Christmas tree that stays up all year.Tourists come from across Mexico and the world to shop and get a firsthand look at the craftsmanship, which renders everything from traditional Christmas balls to trumpets, candy canes and pieces of fruit. Ornaments are hand-painted by a second group of workers, whose exacting work gives the decorations the appearance of being machine-made.

Craftsmen and women sit at small tables with torches, molding pieces of glass tubing with a delicate blend of glass blowing and gentle twists. The average ornament takes just a few minutes for skilled artisans, though complicated ones can take as long as 15.

The ornaments delight the eye with their rich colors and shapes, hanging from ceilings, dangling off trees and piled in baskets, as if harvested from orchards of colored glass.

Though high season is October to December, production takes place year-round, as it has to some extent for the last 50 years, work that keeps the local economy going and employs more than 250 families. The village's one major factory, Fimave, said it shipped close to 50 million ornaments out of the country this year.

"Before we used to have to look for customers," said one of the owners of Fimave. "Now the people come on their own to buy goods." She declined to give her name because, she said, she did not want too much attention.

Her reticence is understandable in the context of life in the rest of the state of Michoacán, where drug violence, kidnappings, extortion and poverty are a more defining characteristic than Christmas cheer.

Not so long ago, officials and local people say, criminals extorted payments from the ornament producers. While no longer the case, especially since the uptick in tourism of recent years has bought more attention and police to the town, fears from that time linger for older members of the community. But those fears are seldom discussed, locals say.

The town, after all, has survived worse. Established in the 1460s, Tlalpujahua fell from indigenous hands to the Spanish conquistadores, who transformed it into a mining town. Mining remained its lifeblood until 1937, when a landslide destroyed the majority of the town, leaving it without an economy.

But in the mid-1960s, a villager named Joaquín Muñoz Orta, who had traveled to the United States and discovered the art of making ornaments, returned home and set up shop. Though his operation, which at one point employed about 1,000 people and was said to be the largest in Latin America, did not survive, the culture did.

What emerged eventually shielded the village from the violence and notoriety of the rest of Michoacán, turning it into a sort of holiday Brigadoon.

Most residents are deeply grateful for a viable industry that not only creates jobs but also attracts tourists, and whose products adorn trees in faraway places.

Gerardo Martínez Chavarría, a former doctor who owns a workshop here called Saint Dumont and who has been in the business for 40 years, said the way of life also kept families together. Like many of the artisans here, his employees do their work at home, where they can put in the hours they want and still watch their children, tend to their chickens and fix meals.

"It's amazing," Martínez yelled excitably while giving a tour of his store, showing off glass teddy bears, snowmen and fruit. "It's the secret to success."

The village seems quite unified in its embrace of an economy built on one day a year. Workshops with names like White Christmas, Christmas Milar and the House of Santa open their doors to passers-by, and the village puts on a three-month fair every year, which is billed as the definitive Christmas decoration shopping experience.

It also helps that the town was named one of Mexico's so-called Pueblos Mágicos in 2005, part of a marketing campaign to rebrand certain small towns around the country as destinations for those looking to experience Mexico's colonial charm.

Since then, the production and popularity of the ornaments have steadily increased. Though not the most exacting with numbers, local tourism officials (there are two) say that production has increased nearly 30 percent this year from 2014.

And the number of artisans who dedicate themselves to the craft has increased. From 200 families or small artisan groups making the ornaments last year, there are now more than 250. New workers arrive from elsewhere and find work at a shop, and many then go into business for themselves within a few years. New shops are popping up all the time to meet the demand.

What Tlalpujahua lacks, however, is more than one large-scale manufacturing facility to capitalize on the number of workers.

The closest thing is Fimave, which employs about 50 people and says that it churns out as many as 50 million ornaments a year, about 90 percent of which go to the United States.

Why Tlalpujahua does not have more factories connecting with clients in other countries is a study in Mexico's informal economy and the deterrence of bureaucracy. For the most part, rather than deal with the taxes, salaries and oversight required of a company, most artisans would rather stay small.

"I could go bigger, but clients are hard to find and the hassle isn't really all that worth it," said Luis Alberto Vidal, who works with his brothers and their families in his own little craft shop. "For now, it's mostly local customers and tourists."

Spain PM Rajoy Starts Talks To Form Government After Vote Backlash

MADRID:  Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy met with the leader of the main opposition party today to launch complicated talks on forming a coalition or minority government after his party won the most votes in national elections but fell short of a parliamentary majority.

Rajoy hosted Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez at Spain's presidential palace after Sunday's election gave Rajoy's Popular Party 123 seats in the 350-member lower house of parliament, down from the 186 won in 2011.

The Socialists got 90 seats, followed by the far-left Podemos and allies with 69 and the business-friendly Ciudadanos with 40.

Spain has never had a "grand coalition" of the Socialist and Popular parties and analysts predict weeks or months of uncertainty before the country has a functioning government led by the Popular Party or the Socialist Party - or fresh elections in the spring if neither party succeeds.

Sanchez said after Sunday's election that it's up to the Popular Party to try to form a government because it got the most votes.

But a Socialist Party spokesman has said the Socialists would not abstain in a parliamentary confidence vote.

Abstention by the Socialists would allow a Rajoy-led minority government because Ciudadanos has already said it would abstain.

In a first parliamentary vote, the candidate must get more than 50 percent of the full 350 votes in order to form a government.

If he falls short, he must get more votes for him than against him in a second ballot 48 hours later. That's a lower bar allowing parties to abstain, letting a rival into power in return for concessions.

If there is still deadlock after two months, King Felipe VI calls a new election.

Indonesia Sends Warships To Help Look For 70 After Boat Sank

MAKASSAR, INDONESIA:  Indonesian navy will dispatch warships to join the search for 70 people still missing after a passenger boat sank Saturday in central Indonesia, officials said today.

The Marina Baru carrying 118 passengers and crewmen sank in the Gulf of Bone while on its way from Kolaka in Southeast Sulawesi province to Siwa town in South Sulawesi province.

Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said the navy will dispatch warships to the area where nine ships and 15 fishing boats are already searching for the victims.

A helicopter and a CN-235 aircraft are searching from the air while soldiers and police were combing the coastline, Soelistyo said.

The head of the local disaster mitigation agency, Alamsyah, said rescuers have discovered 41 survivors and seven dead.

The last recovered survivor was the boat's captain, who was found Monday snagged on a fishing platform, while the last four dead were discovered on Tuesday, added Alamsyah, who uses a single name.

The fiberglass ferry reportedly sank after being overwhelmed by waves more than 3 meters (10 feet) high during stormy weather.

Boats are a popular and relatively cheap form of transportation in the world's largest archipelago nation which spans more than 17,000 islands with a population of 256 million. Sea accidents are common, with boats often overcrowded and safety regulations poorly enforced.

China's Shenzhen Warned Of Waste Problem A Year Before Disaster

BEIJING:  Over a year ago, a government-run newspaper warned that a boomtown in southern China would run out of space to dump the waste left behind from a building frenzy.

On Sunday, a mountain of mud and construction waste collapsed at an industrial park in Shenzhen, the rapidly growing town next to the border with Hong Kong, burying 33 buildings and leaving nearly 100 people missing.

Besides new buildings, a network of subway lines is being built in Shenzhen, and mounds of earth are being excavated and dumped at waste sites.

The official Shenzhen Evening Post, published by the city government, quoted an unnamed official as saying in October last year that choosing somewhere to locate these dumps was becoming "exceedingly difficult" and that it was "the only thing" on his mind.

"Shenzhen has 12 waste sites and they can only hold out until next year (2015)," the newspaper said.

The frequency of industrial accidents in China has raised questions about safety standards following three decades of breakneck growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Provincial authorities sent a team to investigate the Shenzhen mudslide, the Ministry of Land Resources said.

The amount of mud and waste at the site was immense and was stacked too steeply, "causing instability and collapse, resulting in the collapse of buildings", the ministry said in a statement.

Fan Xiao, a senior engineer at the government-linked Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said such risks from man-made mountains were prevalent nationwide, especially as China also has many slag heaps from the mining industry.

"Shenzhen is a modern city after all; ultimately its management standards are pretty high. It is possible that some other cities have not reached Shenzhen's standards of management. Now that Shenzhen has this problem, you can't rule out a lot of other places having such risks," Fan said.

Shenzhen is supposed to be a model, modern city for China. Once a quiet fishing village, it was chosen by Beijing three decades ago to help pioneer landmark economic reforms, and it has boomed ever since.

The waste site that collapsed on the industrial estate was only supposed to have had a lifespan of around a year and should have stopped operating in February this year, according to the Shenzhen government's online news portal.

But workers said it continued to take waste mud, the report added.

Shenzhen media has reported several times in the past few years that companies were illegally dumping construction waste as the legal dumps were all full.

The Shenzhen government did not respond to requests for comment.

Another local newspaper, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily, said companies were becoming so desperate that even old ponds once use to farm fish were being filled by building waste, though low-lying land and mountain hollows were preferred.

Such dump sites were often forced through despite opposition by residents, media reports said. Environmental impact assessments were likely skipped, they said.

Bus Crash Turns Malaysian Family's Holiday To Tragedy

KUALA LUMPUR:  A horrific bus crash in Thailand which killed 13 Malaysian tourists and injured several others left four members of the same family dead, it was reported today.

The four dead spanned three generations, including an 85- year-old grandmother and her 39-year-old granddaughter, according to the The Star newspaper in Malaysia.

"We are all in shock," a relative of the family in Malaysia was quoted as saying by The Star. Two members of the family survived the accident.

Some 22 Malaysians, mostly elderly, had gone to Chiang Mai on December 17 for a five-day tour organised by Malaysian tour operator Chiu Travel.

The accident occurred on Sunday in Doi Saket district 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Chiu Travel manager Terence Yung told AFP that the company had flown 15 Malaysian relatives of victims to Thailand and they were expected to reach Chiang Mai today evening to help identify bodies.

Thai police said a total of 14 people were killed in the accident, 13 Malaysians and one Thai. Malaysia's foreign ministry and Chiu Travel confirmed the number of Malaysians killed in the crash as 13. Chiu Travel said one Thai tour guide had died as well.

Images posted online by local news outlets showed scene of devastation as rescuers battled to reach those trapped inside the smashed bus, which had come to rest in thick foliage with its roof caved in.

Some of those still inside had suffered severe injuries. In one picture seven parts of white sheeting had been draped to cover either bodies or body parts.

Yung said his company was still trying to find out how the accident happened but said, based on information he had received from Thailand, the crash was a result of the driver trying to overtake another vehicle.

"The only way we can stop these accidents is for the tour leader to ensure the local (Thai) drivers don't drive recklessly," he said.

Prime Minister Najib Razak expressed sadness on his Facebook page.

"I am saddened to hear news of the accident in Chiang Mai where 13 Malaysians died and express my condolences to the victims' families," he wrote.

"The government would ensure every effort is made in bringing home the victims' bodies and help the victims' families."

Pope Francis Tells Vatican Government 'Reform Will Move Forward With Determination'

VATICAN CITY:  Pope Francis said today that reform of the Curia, the Church's governing body, would "move forward with determination, clarity and firm resolve", during his annual address to cardinals, bishops and priests running the Holy See.

The remarks follow those he made a year ago, in December 2014, when he suggested the Vatican's administrative hierarchy was beset by a "spiritual Alzheimer's" and a lust for power.

NASA Training Space Robots With Virtual Reality

NEW YORK:  NASA is training space robots with Virtual Reality (VR) where the operators are using Sony's PlayStation VR to control a "humanoid" in the space environment.

Part of "Mighty Morphenaut" project, the PlayStation VR lets the operator make decisions by taking into account the robot's environment and the robot will then respond accordingly, ubergizmo.com reported.

However given the distances involved, the project counters that with "ghost hands" that immediately respond to the operator while the robot's hands follow later.

This will enable the operator to ascertain the lapses in movement due to lag.

The VR experience essentially recreates the robot's environment, allowing the operator to get the humanoid to perform certain tasks or safely navigate obstacles remotely.

NASA has long been working on the project, creating dexterous humanoids which can aid and eventually replace humans in space.

These humanoids can take control over dangerous tasks that humans on the International Space Station (ISS) have to perform themselves.

The VR technology is entering the mainstream with products like Samsung's Gear VR and companies like Oculus and Sony are set to launch consumer versions of their virtual reality headsets soon.

Barack Obama Chides Republicans For Lack Of Alternatives On ISIS

HONOLULU:  US President Barack Obama said his administration is open to some "legitimate criticism" for failing to adequately explain its strategy to counter ISIS, though he chided Republican presidential candidates for criticizing his policy without offering an alternative.

In a December 17 interview aired on NPR public radio at 5 am ET (1000 GMT) today, Obama attributed his low approval ratings for how he has handled terrorism to the saturation of ISIS attacks in the media after the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Obama noted that the United States has carried out 9,000 strikes against the ISIS and taken back towns including Sinjar, Iraq from the militant group.

"When you ask them, 'well, what would you do instead?' they don't have an answer," Obama said of Republican candidates he has observed in televised debates.

The interview is one of many recent attempts by the President to ease Americans' fears following the Paris attacks and the shootings by a radicalized Muslim couple in San Bernardino, California on December 2 that killed 14 people.

A national survey by the Pew Research Center found 37 per cent of respondents approve of the way Obama is handling terrorism, while 57 per cent disapprove, the lowest rating he has received on the issue.

In his year-end news conference before leaving for a two-week vacation in Hawaii, Obama urged Americans to stay vigilant against homegrown threats while not allowing themselves to become terrorized or divided.

"Now on our side, I think that there is a legitimate criticism of what I've been doing and our administration has been doing in the sense that we haven't ... on a regular basis ... described all the work that we've been doing for more than a year now to defeat ISIL," he said, using an acronym used to describe Islamic State.

Asked if he would consider instating a no-fly zone in Syria, as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has suggested, Obama said such a move would not serve to counter Islamic State since the militant group does not have an air force.

Obama also used the interview to criticize Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for exploiting the fear of blue-collar men who have had trouble adjusting to recent economic and demographic changes.

Obama said Trump is exploiting their "anger, frustration, fear."

"Some of it justified but just misdirected. I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That's what he's exploiting during the course of his campaign," Obama said.