Syrian army captures part of rebel-held east Aleppo

The Syrian army said it had taken control of an important district in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Saturday after fierce fighting, with rebels blaming intense air strikes and lack of hospitals for their collapsing frontline.

Government forces advanced with a ground and air assault on the edge of the besieged eastern half of the city into the Hanano housing area, a move designed to split the rebel-held east in two.

Syria's war: 'There's no food in Aleppo's shops or markets'

Aleppo, which was Syria's biggest city before the start of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east, where UN officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after five and a half years of fighting.

The army said in a statement it had, alongside its allies, taken full control over the Hanano housing district, which is on the northeast frontline of the eastern sector.

"Engineering teams are removing mines and improvised explosive devices planted by terrorists in the squares and streets," the statement said.

The Syrian government calls all forces fighting against it "terrorists".

An official in an Aleppo rebel group said a map circulated by pro-government media showing government forces in control of the Hanano area was largely accurate.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had established control over Hanano, which was the first part of Aleppo taken over by armed opposition groups in 2012.

A renewed air assault on residential and frontline parts of east Aleppo began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling there.

“Every day there are a lot of attacks, helicopters dropping barrelbombs and war planes dropping bunker-buster bombs and cluster munitions,” Modar Shekho, an emergency nurse in al-Shaar neighbourhood.

An official from Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest groups fighting against Assad in northern Syria, told Reuters news agency: "The revolutionaries are fighting fiercely but the volume of bombardments and the intensity of the battles, the dead and the wounded, and the lack of hospitals, are all playing a role in the collapse of these frontlines."

Members of Jabha Shamiya have taken part in the fighting in Hanano.

He condemned the "international silence" and said the government and its allies were trying to exploit the period before the next US administration took over.

"The Iranians, Russians and regime know there is a vacuum and they are trying to exploit it using all means," he said.

"We are in touch with the friendly states but unfortunately Aleppo is being left to be slaughtered."

Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group, said rebel fighters had fought fiercely for more than 48 hours to defend Hanano and the southern front of east Aleppo from heavy government bombardment.

A Syrian state television reporter broadcast live from a part of Hanano on Saturday as government forces sought to establish full control over the area. Gunshots could be heard and behind him damaged buildings and rising smoke could be seen.

Rebels say much of Hanano has been empty of residents for some months.

Syrian state media said the army had secured the safe passage of at least 150 people out of Hanano, and showed pictures of people it said were evacuated residents in a reception centre.

In the 12 days since the renewed bombardment on east Aleppo, at least 201 civilians, including 27 children, have died in the besieged sector, the Observatory said. There were 134 rebel fighter deaths.

The monitor also documented 19 civilian deaths, including 11 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo.

Rebel shelling into the Sheikh Maqsoud district, which is under the control of the Kurdish YPG militia, has killed three people, it said.

Syrian state news agency SANA said three people died and 15 were injured on Saturday when rebels fired rockets into government-held west Aleppo.

Donald Trump calls Fidel Castro 'brutal dictator'

Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro was a "brutal dictator", US President-elect Donald Trump has said, hours after the 90-year-old's death was announced.

Mr Trump, who takes office in January, said he hoped Cubans could move towards a freer future.

Castro came to power in 1959 and ushered in a Communist revolution. He defied the US for decades, surviving many assassination plots.

Supporters said he returned Cuba to the people. Critics called him a dictator.

His brother Raul, who succeeded him as president, announced his death on state television on Friday night.

In a statement, Mr Trump said that while Cuba remained "a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve".

The US cut ties with Cuba in 1961 amid rising Cold War tensions and imposed a strict economic embargo which remains in place more than half a century on.

Under Barack Obama, the relationship warmed and diplomatic ties were restored in 2015.

Mr Trump roundly criticised Mr Obama's policy on the campaign trail but made no mention of his pledge to reverse it in his statement, saying his administration would do all it could to ensure Cubans could "begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty".

Mr Obama, meanwhile, said history would "record and judge the enormous impact" of Castro. America was extending "a hand of friendship to the Cuban people" at this time, he added.

Castro was the longest serving non-royal leader of the 20th Century. He had been retired from political life for several years, after handing power to his brother in 2006 because of illness.

He will be cremated later on Saturday at a private ceremony in Havana and a period of official mourning has been declared on the island until 4 December, when his ashes will be laid to rest in the south-eastern city of Santiago.

News of his death left some in Havana stunned. "I always said it couldn't be," said one woman, a government employee. "Even though they said it now, I say it can't be."

But Cuban dissident group Ladies in White, which was founded by wives of jailed dissidents, tweeted: "May God forgive him, I won't".

In Miami, where there is a large Cuban community, there have been celebrations in some parts of the city, with people banging pots and cheering.

So much of Fidel Castro's legacy is defined by the relationship of the US with the Cuba that he controlled. But given his withdrawal into the background in recent years, what impact will his passing really have in that regard?

It was the Obama philosophy that more influence could be exerted on Cuba by being more of a friend to the regime than through isolation.

While he had said differently in the past, as a presidential candidate Donald Trump became more and more hard-line, even talking of reversing the decisions made by Barack Obama on Cuba, such that many of the Cuban-Americans who took to the streets of Miami to celebrate Castro's death even carried "Trump" signs.

In a sense though, Castro's death gives Mr Trump room for manoeuvre in his tough stance towards the Cuban regime to make more progress, particularly in the economic relationship between the two countries.

The same Cuban-Americans praising him now will be watching closely to see if he keeps to his promise of demanding real reform in Cuba before adhering to the commitments made by his predecessor.

How Castro defied the US

Throughout the Cold War, Fidel Castro was a thorn in Washington's side.

An accomplished tactician on the battlefield, he and his small army of guerrillas overthrew the military leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959 to widespread popular support.

Within two years of taking power, he declared the revolution to be Marxist-Leninist in nature and allied Cuba firmly to the Soviet Union - a move that led to the missile crisis in 1962, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war before the Soviet Union abandoned its plan to put missiles on Cuban soil.

Despite the constant threat of a US invasion as well as the long-standing economic embargo on the island, Castro managed to maintain a communist revolution in a nation just 90 miles (145km) off the coast of Florida.

Despised by his critics as much as he was revered by his followers, he maintained his rule through 10 US presidents and survived scores of attempts on his life by the CIA.

He established a one-party state, with hundreds of supporters of the Batista government executed. Political opponents have been imprisoned, the independent media suppressed. Thousands of Cubans have fled into exile.

How has the world reacted?

Many world leaders have paid tribute to Castro. Russian President Vladimir Putin described him as a "reliable and sincere friend" of Russia, while Chinese President Xi Jinping said his people had "lost a good and true comrade".

The Soviet Union's last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said: "Fidel stood up and strengthened his country during the harshest American blockade, when there was colossal pressure on him."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged advances in education, literary and health under Castro, but said he hoped Cuba would "continue to advance on a path of reform, greater prosperity and human rights".

Pope Francis, who met Castro, an atheist, when he visited Cuba in 2015, called his death "sad news".

In Venezuela, Cuba's main regional ally, President Nicolas Maduro said "revolutionaries of the world must follow his legacy".

Growing South Korean protests demand President Park's resignation

Approval ratings for South Korean President Park Geun-hye have dipped into single digits -- and protests calling for her ouster swelled to hundreds of thousands of people Saturday.

In the face of cold and snow, demonstrators filed into the streets of Seoul over the growing scandal that has engulfed Park's presidency and plunged the nation's government into uncertainty.

Massive protests have broken out since late October, and the latest marked the fifth consecutive week of such an immense demonstration.

Organizers of Saturday's protest had called for 2 million people to hit the streets -- no small feat for a country of 50 million. Protesters clutched umbrellas, signs and candles near the Blue House, the presidential residence, in Seoul. Organizers also had called for rallies in other cities, too.

There were small gatherings of support for Park, but they were a fraction of the demonstration against her.

Park is accused of letting her confidante Choi Soon-sil, who does not hold an official government post, view confidential documents and presidential speeches. Choi is accused of using her relationship with Park to accumulate millions of dollars in donations to her foundations. Choi is charged with abuse of power, fraud and coercion, and two of Park's former aides also face criminal charges.

Park will not be charged because the South Korean Constitution affords the President immunity while holding office.

Although she has apologized several times, Park has resisted the public pressure to resign, infuriating her critics -- who have questioned her judgment and credibility.

She is set to leave office in February 2018 as she cannot run in the presidential election in December next year. 

Choi charged following arrest

The presidential scandal started when CNN South Korean affiliate JTBC found evidence that Choi had received secret documents on an abandoned tablet device.

Choi succeeded her father, Choi Tae-min, as leader of the Eternal Life Church after his death. For years, she has given Park spiritual guidance.

"It's much more than simply, 'Oh she knows this person,' it's deeply intertwined, almost like they're Rasputin and Park Geun-hye is just a puppet," David Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California.

The classified information scandal, while rare and shocking in South Korea, isn't the only reason many are calling for Park to step down.

There has been growing frustration with her, including over the country's stagnating economy and the Sewol ferry sinking, which killed more than 300 people. Many South Koreans were outraged at the systemic lapses that contributed to the sinking.

CRICKET: India v England LIVE!

10:31

Over 69 – England 215-6 (Bairstow 69, Woakes 2)England were starting to bat sensibly, a big partnership was building, but again a batsman brings his own downfall. Buttler had played very nicely on his Test return up until that point but that will be little comfort to him – he will know a big score was for the taking on this pitch.

10:21

Over 66 – England 210-5 (Bairstow 68, Buttler 41)Shami is not quite finding the same amount of reverse-swing as Umesh did in his earlier spell, but he does find a bit of shape in this over… there’s a hint of outswing to Buttler, which he watches onto the bat and prods to cover for a single. Bairstow then works one off his toes as Shami follows it up with a ball that moves into the right-hander this time.

10:13

Over 65 – England 208-5 (Bairstow 67, Buttler 40)Buttler scampers through for a single down to long-on off the last ball of Jadeja’s over, to keep the strike.

10:10

Over 64 – England 207-5 (Bairstow 67, Buttler 39)Shami starts the session at the other end and starts with a maiden to Bairstow.

10:05

Over 63 – England 207-5 (Bairstow 67, Buttler 39)Buttler and Bairstow pick up a single each in Jadeja’s first over back after lunch.

09:45

So after losing four wickets in the morning session, that one cost England just the solitary scalp of Stokes - and while India can still feel pleased with their day's work so far, the tourists have taken some of the gloss off.

 Over 62 – England 205-5 (Bairstow 66, Buttler 38)
Time for Shami to sneak in another over before tea. Buttler swivel pulls for one to deep square before Kohli draws screams of delight from the crowd by sprinting across from slip to dive and cut off a dabbed Bairstow single.
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South Africa join Cameroon in women's Nations Cup semi-finals

South Africa thumped Egypt on Friday to reach the women's Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals, alongside Cameroon.

Banyana Banyana's 5-0 victory made them runners-up to Group A winners Cameroon, who beat Zimbabwe 2-0 also on Friday.

Andisiwe Mgcoyi hit the opener - South Africa's first goal of the finals - with Nothhando Vilakazi, Refiloe Jane, Jermaine Seoposenwe and Linda Motlhalo also on target in an impressive win.

Cameroon's victory came courtesy of a brace by Michelle Henriette Akaba.

The Indomitable Lionesses - hosts of the tournament - went into the game assured of their place in the last four and were comfortable against Zimbabwe as they kept up a 100% winning record.

In contrast, South Africa knew only a win would take them above Egypt, who started the match in second place with a two-point cushion over their opponents.

Banyana totally dominated the first half in terms of possession and territory and got their reward on 28 minutes when Mgcoyi scuffed home.

They continued to press after the break and on the hour mark scored twice in quick succession, Vilakazi cutting in from the right to slot in and then Jane finishing off a rebound to make it 3-0.

Seoposenwe added another with a powerful shot and Motlhalo completed the rout with a fine solo effort, dribbling round several defenders before finishing in style from the edge of the area.

Cameroon will stay in Yaounde to play the runners-up from Group B, which will be decided on Saturday - Nigeria, Ghana and Mali are all in contention. South Africa will stay in Limbe to play the winners of the group.

Both semi-finals are on Tuesday 29 November.

Fidel Castro, Cuba's longtime revolutionary leader, dies at 90

Fidel Castro, the Cuban despot who famously proclaimed after his arrest in a failed coup attempt that history would absolve him, has died aged 90.

Castro's brother, Raul, announced his death on Cuban TV.

At the end, an elderly and infirm Castro was a whisper of the Marxist firebrand whose iron will and passionate determination bent the arc of destiny.

"There are few individuals in the 20th century who had a more profound impact on a single country than Fidel Castro had in Cuba," Robert Pastor, a former national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, told CNN in 2012.

"He reshaped Cuba in his image, for both bad and good," said Pastor, who died in 2014. "Cuba will be a different place because he lived and he died."

Castro lived long enough to see a historic thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States. The two nations reestablished diplomatic relations in July 2015 and President Barack Obama visited the island earlier this year.

Cuban President Raul Castro -- who took over from his ailing brother more than eight years earlier -- announced the breakthrough to the nation, but observers noted Fidel's silence on the matter.

Castro's stage was a small island nation 90 miles from the underbelly of the United States, but he commanded worldwide attention.

Cuban President Fidel Castro glances over his shoulder during the May Day conmemoration of Revolution Square in Havana May 1, 2004.

"He was a historic figure way out of proportion to the national base in which he operated," said noted Cuba scholar Louis A. Perez Jr., author of more than 10 books on the island and its history.

"Cuba hadn't counted for much in the scale of politics and history until Castro," said Wayne Smith, the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba from 1979 to 1982.

Castro became famous enough that he could be identified by only one name. A mention of "Fidel" left little doubt who was being talked about.

Castro and the road to power

It was a bearded 32-year-old Castro and a small band of rough-looking revolutionaries who overthrew an unpopular dictator in 1959 and rode their jeeps and tanks into Havana, the nation's capital.

The primary leader of the Cuban Revolution, Castro's influence was to last decades.

They were met by thousands upon thousands of Cubans fed up with the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and who believed in Castro's promise of democracy and an end to repression.

That promise would soon be betrayed, though, and Castro held on to power for 47 years, until an intestinal illness that required several surgeries forced him to temporarily relinquish his duties to younger brother Raul in July 2006. Castro resigned as president in February 2008 and Raul took over permanently.

One Castro or another has ruled Cuba over a period that spans seven decades and 11 U.S. presidents. Fidel Castro outlived six of those presidents including Cold War warriors John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

At the height of the Cold War, Castro used a blend of charisma and repression to install the first and only Communist government in the Western Hemisphere, less than 100 miles from the United States.

Cuba and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations on May 8, 1960, further eroding the relationship with the United States. Castro, who had long blamed many of Cuba's ills on American influence and resented the U.S. role in hemispheric politics, quickly intensified cooperation with the Soviet Union, which began sending large subsidies.

"Fidel Castro came to power with a conviction that he was going to have a major revolution in Cuba, that he was going to stay in power indefinitely, that he was going to fight American imperialism and that he needed a 'daddy' and his 'daddy' was the Soviet Union," said Jaime Suchlicki, the director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.

'Taunted, antagonized and irritated'

In doing so, Castro defied a hostile U.S. policy that sought to topple him with a punishing trade embargo that started in 1962 and continued for the rest of his life.

"He taunted, antagonized and irritated the United States for more than a half-century," said Dan Erikson, a senior adviser for Western Hemisphere affairs at the U.S. State Department and author of "The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution."

Castro also survived numerous assassination attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency and anti-Castro exiles in the early 1960s. He took delight in pointing out how none of them succeeded, not even the plot that called for explosives to be placed in the ubiquitous cigars he later would quit smoking for health reasons.

Fidel Castro announces general mobilization after the announcement of Cuba blockade by US President John F Kennedy, in Havana, on October 29, 1962.

"I have never been afraid of death," Castro said in 2002. "I have never been concerned about death."

Until his last breath, Castro held tightly to his belief in a socialist economic model and one-party Communist rule, even after the Soviet Union disintegrated and most of the rest of the world concluded state socialism was a bankrupt idea whose time had passed.

"The most vulnerable part of his persona as a politician is precisely his continued defense of a totalitarian model that is the main cause of the hardships, the misery and the unhappiness of the Cuban people," said Elizardo Sanchez, a human rights advocate and critic of the Castro regime.

But Castro's defenders in Cuba point to what they see as social progress, including racial integration, universal education and health care. Instead of blaming an inept socialist system, they fault the U.S. embargo for the country's economic woes.

"What Fidel achieved in the social order of this country has not been achieved by any poor nation, and even by many rich countries, despite being submitted to enormous pressures," said Jose Ramon Fernandez, a former Cuban vice president.

Castro's political staying power was a source of puzzling consternation and bitter frustration for Cuban exiles, who never imagined he would rule so long.

"We came here with a round-trip ticket ... because we thought the revolution was going to last days," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who came to Florida as a child and went on to become the first Cuban-American elected to Congress. "And the days turned into weeks, and the weeks to months, and the months to years."

Castro occasionally allowed disenchanted Cubans to leave, with most going to the United States. More than 260,000 Cubans left in a U.S.-organized airlift between 1965 and 1973. In 1980, Castro let another 125,000 leave in the chaotic Mariel Boatlift. Among them were criminals released from Cuban jails who brought a violent crime wave to Florida.

At other times, desperate Cubans fled the island nation in makeshift boats across the treacherous Straits of Florida. Thousands died from drowning or exposure to the brutal Caribbean sun.

The center of the exile community is Miami, where the Cuban American National Foundation became a powerful lobbying group courted by U.S. politicians. For nearly five decades, pressure and political donations from the exile community have thwarted any efforts to lift the embargo.

Fidel's early years

Castro was born August 13, 1926, in Oriente province in eastern Cuba. His father, Angel, was a wealthy landowner originally from Spain. His mother, Lina, had been a maid to Angel's first wife.

Educated in private Jesuit schools, Castro went on to earn a law degree from the University of Havana in 1950 and became a practicing attorney, offering free legal services to the poor.

In 1952, at the age of 25, he ran for the Cuban congress. But just before the election, the government was overthrown by Batista, who established the dictatorship that put Castro on the road to revolution.

On July 26, 1953, Castro led a group of about 150 rebels who attacked the Moncada military barracks in Santiago in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Batista. Most of the attackers were killed. Castro and a handful of others were captured.

The attack made him famous throughout Cuba, but it also earned him a 15-year prison sentence.

At his sentencing, Castro told the court, "Condemn me, it doesn't matter. History will absolve me."

He was released in 1955 as part of an amnesty for political prisoners and lived in exile in the United States and Mexico, where he organized a guerrilla group with brother Raul and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentine doctor-turned-revolutionary. They named themselves the July 26 Movement, after the date of the failed Moncada attack.

In 1956, Castro and a few dozen rebels headed for Cuba aboard an old yacht called the "Granma." Off course and long overdue, they beached the craft off the coast of Oriente province.

Batista's soldiers were waiting for them, and, again, most of Castro's followers were killed.

The Castro brothers, Guevara and a handful of other survivors fled into the Sierra Maestra mountains along the nation's southeastern coast, where they waged their guerrilla campaign against Batista.

Piracy in Nigeria

The event followed a now familiar pattern: a small convoy of dusty 4x4 vehicles drove on to the edge of the airstrip at Galkayo in Puntland, north-central Somalia; armed security guards took up watchful positions nearby and a number of bemused-looking men stepped gingerly from the cars and lined up to have their photographs taken by the media.

On this occasion there were 11 of them; all had been hostages until that morning. They were sailors from a Malaysian cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates a few years ago and held until a ransom was paid for their release.

One of them gave a brief account of what had happened. "On November 26, 2010 our ship was hijacked in the Indian Ocean. Their demand was 20 million. After that, they threatened the owner. You now increase money or we will shoot the crew. The owner didn't increase the money and then one Indian is shot with just three bullets. Then they hit us and tortured us. Tell your family to bring us money, otherwise we will kill you!"

The crew had been held for three and a half years but they were the fortunate ones. Five of their crew mates had died in that time. Now the survivors were going home and a UN plane with two envoys on board was flying in to see them to safety.

Such scenes have become relatively commonplace in Galkayo in recent times. Eighty percent of global trade is carried by sea and Somalia sits on a key maritime route linking Europe and Asia. More than 18,000 ships pass its shores every year. Over the past decade, Somali pirates, often former fishermen whose traditional livelihoods have been destroyed by foreign trawlers and toxic waste dumping, have attacked more than 300 vessels and kidnapped 700 people.

Faced with such a threat, the international community responded aggressively. In 2008, European states, the US and others began sending naval forces to these seas. They are still there today - warships, planes and helicopters patrolling thousands of square miles and doing a fair job of keeping the hijackers at bay. The UN and others have also played an increasing role in facilitating negotiations for the release of hostages - such as those set free at places such as Galkayo - for whose liberty large ransoms have been paid.

But if the problem is now slowly coming under control in Somalia, the same cannot be said for other parts of the world where piracy is on the increase. Lawlessness, desperation, poverty, greed and even political radicalism have brought the phenomenon to the waters of South America, Asia and, perhaps most aggressively, to West Africa.  

In an effort to understand the reasons why, Bertrand Monnet, a French academic and filmmaker, has been travelling to piracy hot spots around the coast of Africa. In an extraordinary and very tense series of encounters, he came to face to face with heavily armed pirate gangs operating in and around the Niger Delta, where Nigeria's huge offshore oil industry, which employs thousands of expatriates, offers rich ransom pickings. It gradually became clear that piracy in West Africa has many of the same root causes as piracy in Somalia and elsewhere, not least of which is that those who don't share in the benefits and profits of global trade have ever fewer reasons these days to respect the security of those who do.