Tradisional Sabah Borneo

It was the worst violence in the capital since the government took power in February 2014.

The decentralization of power was a condition demanded by Russia for a truce signed in Minsk in February aimed at ending the fighting between Ukrainian government troops and Russia-backed separatists that has left more than 6,800 dead since April 2014.

But Ukrainian nationalists strongly oppose changing the constitution, saying that would threaten the country's sovereignty and independence.

In a televised address, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called decentralization "a difficult but a logical step toward peace," and insisted that it would not grant autonomy to the rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.The measure won preliminary approval on Monday with 265 deputies in the 450-seat parliament voting for it.

But three parties that are part of the majority coalition in parliament refused to give their support, showing the difficulty that Poroshenko faces even within his own pro-Western camp in fulfilling the peace agreement.

When the decentralization bill comes up for final approval, he will need to get at least 300 votes as required for amending the constitution.

"This is not a road to peace and not a road to decentralization," said the leader of one of those dissenting parties, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. "This is the diametrically opposite process, which will lead to the loss of new territories."

The officer who was killed in the clashes on Monday was a 25-year-old conscript, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters. He said 122 people were hospitalized — most of them officers, but also some Ukrainian journalists and two French reporters.

No injuries were reported among the several hundred protesters, including 100 die-hard activists, most of whom are members of Svoboda, a nationalist party that holds only a handful of seats in parliament. The protesters were carrying sticks and truncheons. Some of them were masked.

Avakov said that about 30 people have been detained, including the protester who threw the grenade, who he identified as a Svoboda member who fought in the east in one of the volunteer battalions that are loosely controlled by the government.

Poroshenko described the violence outside parliament as a "stab in the back" and pledged to prosecute "all political leaders" who were behind the clashes.

He said Monday's vote confirmed Ukraine's "position as a trusted partner which fulfills its international obligations" and said the country risks losing the support of the West and being left "alone with the aggressor" if it fails to meet the conditions of the truce.

The Minsk peace agreement was negotiated with the leaders of Germany and France, as well as with Russian President Vladimir Putin.While Ukrainian nationalists fear the decentralization bill would incite separatism, Moscow and the Russia-backed rebels say it doesn't give the regions sufficient powers and falls short of the pledges Kiev made in Minsk.

A final vote on the constitutional changes will be held during parliament's fall session, which begins on Tuesday. No specific date has yet been set.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in a live address on television, denounced the violence, saying the right-wing protesters were "worse" than the separatist rebels because they were destroying the country from within "under the guise of patriotism." He called for life imprisonment for the protester who threw the grenade.

"The cynicism of this crime lies in the fact that, while the Russian federation and its bandits are trying and failing to destroy the Ukrainian state on the eastern front, the so-called pro-Ukrainian political forces are trying to open another front in the country's midst."

He called on all Ukrainian political parties to rally around the government and to condemn the violence.

Avakov blamed the clashes on the Svoboda party, which polled less than 5 percent in last year's parliamentary election, and its leader, Oleg Tyahnybok, who stood side by side with the interior minister during the anti-government protests that toppled then-president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

"No political differences can justify what you did outside the Rada today," Avakov said, referring to the parliament.Svoboda blamed the government, saying that it "provoked Ukrainians to protest" by presenting a bill that it called tantamount to "capitulation to the Kremlin."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in comments to Russian news agencies, voiced Moscow's concern about the clashes in Kiev, but wouldn't comment on the bill.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called the clashes "worrying" and said the vote "will facilitate the implementation of the Minsk agreements."

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she's open to holding a new summit with the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and France on the settlement in eastern Ukraine.

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Yuras Karmanau reported from Minsk, Belarus. Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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A previous version of this story has been corrected to show that the age of the dead police officer is 25, not 24.

AP

Fears about a slowdown in China's economy and concerns about when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates pushed stocks sharply lower this month. While the market recovered much of the ground it lost, the Standard & Poor's 500 index still finished August down 6.3 percent, its worst showing since May 2012.

The selling started midway through the month after China shocked investors by devaluating its currency. The move, an effort to boost China's economy, seemed to have the opposite effect. Global investors interpreted the decision as a sign that China's economy, the second-largest in the world, was growing more slowly than anticipated. That combined with another plunge in Chinese stocks sent off red flags in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The selling was fierce and deep. Trading volume, which typically slows in summer, spiked. The S&P 500 index at one point fell into what's known as a "correction," which is when an index falls 10 percent or more from a recent high.

On Monday the declines were relatively modest. The Dow Jones industrial average gave up 114.98 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 16,528.03. The S&P 500 lost 16.69 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,972.18 and the Nasdaq composite lost 51.82 points, or 1.1 percent, to 4,776.51.The losses had been deeper, but oil prices, which were solidly lower earlier in the day, jumped after the U.S. Energy Department cut its estimate for the country's oil production. The news sent energy stocks higher, making energy the only industry in the S&P 500 to close with a gain.

U.S. crude surged $3.98, or nearly 9 percent, to $49.20 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international standard, jumped $4.10 to $54.15 a barrel in London.

It wasn't like U.S. markets were in perfect shape before China's spooked them. Investors had recently trudged through a corporate earnings season which delivered only meager profit growth.

"Earnings growth is waning and stock valuations are either fully valued or even a little overvalued right now. I think the investor complacency we had earlier in the summer has made this market primed to overact to basically anything out there," said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman Private Bank.

Things are not likely to change in September. Even setting aside the historical reputation of September being one of the toughest months for the market, investors will have to contend with the Federal Reserve's interest rate meeting on September 16 and 17 and more economic data from the U.S. and China that could drastically swing the market from one way to another.

"Concerns over slowing growth in China are unlikely to go away. Many investors have long awaited signs that China was on the verge of implosion," said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.nvestors are also keeping a close eye on the Federal Reserve.

Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said over the weekend that policymakers still had a "pretty strong case" for raising rates in September. That ran counter to recent market sentiment that China's economic slowdown and global market volatility might prompt the nation's central bank to wait.

Speaking at the Fed's annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fischer emphasized he was not saying what action the Fed might take at its September meeting, but analysts took his comments to mean he saw the economy moving close to satisfying the Fed's conditions for a hike. The Fed has kept rates ultra-low since the 2008 financial crisis.

Asian markets had another bumpy day. The Shanghai Composite Index fell as much as 2.6 percent, but recovered to close 0.8 percent lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng also spent most of the day in the red before closing up 0.3 percent. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 lost 1.3 percent.

European stocks also fell. Germany's DAX lost 0.4 percent and France's CAC-40 lost 0.5 percent. U.K.'s markets were closed for a holiday.

U.S. government bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.22 percent from 2.18 percent late Friday. The dollar declined to 121.22 yen from 121.38 yen on Friday. The euro rose to $1.120 from $1.1180.

AP

While his colourful reputation abroad stemmed from frequent barbed comments about the West and his scant regard for human rights, his authoritarian but essentially pragmatic policies at home won him much popular support and helped transform Malaysia into an Asian economic tiger.

During the process he turned himself into one of Asia's longest-serving leader, and when he retired in October he had been in office for 22 years.

Throughout his rule Dr Mahathir, 77, took a tough stand against those who opposed him or threatened his power.

Anwar Ibrahim, once his deputy and heir apparent, is still serving a jail sentence he began in 1998 after the prime minister abruptly dismissed him from his cabinet post and accused him of sodomy and corruption.More recently, Dr Mahathir was accused of using the US-led war on terrorism as an excuse to neutralise Islamic political opponents at home.

Scores of suspected militants have been arrested without trial under the much-criticised Internal Security Act.

But he was furious when he himself was subjected to rigorous security checks at a US airport. He said American "anti-Muslim hysteria" had led to him being treated like a terrorist. And he said the attacks on Afghanistan and then Iraq could degenerate into a campaign against the developing world as a whole.Favouring Malays

Since Dr Mahathir became prime minister in 1981, government patronage and positive ethnic discrimination in employment and higher education have created a Malay middle class, including some billionaires.

But the ethnic Chinese minority is still seen as having disproportionate wealth, and the prime minister has frequently accused his fellow Malays (or Bumiputras - "sons of the soil") of being complacent and unwilling to work hard.

"I feel disappointed", Dr Mahathir said before he stepped down, "because I have achieved too little in my principal task of making my race a successful race, a race that is respected."

Mahathir Mohamad's political career began in 1946, when at the age of 21 he joined the newly founded nationalist organisation United Malays National Organisation (Umno).

He studied medicine at the University of Malaya and for seven years ran a private medical practice in his home state of Kedah.

"Dr M", as he is popularly known, became an Umno member of parliament in 1964.

But in 1969 he lost his seat and was expelled from the party after releasing an open letter attacking the then Prime Minister,Tunku Abdul Rahman, for neglecting the Malay community.

Exiled to the political wilderness, he developed his ideas in a controversial book entitled The Malay Dilemma.

He wrote that the Malays had been marginalised during the colonial era and castigated them for apathetically accepting their second-class status.

Anti-colonialist rhetoric

It set the tone for future attacks on Western neo-colonialists and others he sees as bent on subjugating Malaysia and threatening its success.

The Malay Dilemma struck such a chord with younger Umno leaders that he was invited back into the party, re-elected to parliament in 1974, and appointed minister of education.Within four years he had become deputy leader of Umno, and in 1981 he became prime minister.

Dr Mahathir set about putting his ideas into practice, following the example set by Japan, transforming Malaysia from an exporter of rubber and tin into a manufacturer of electronic equipment, steel and cars.

Defending Asian and Malaysian values, he criticised what he called Western double standards and won a following among developing countries.

His prestige projects to boost national pride included the world's tallest building - the Petronas Towers - and the transformation of a palm oil plantation near the capital into the world's first "Multimedia Super Corridor" - a cyber powerhouse intended to rival California's Silicon Valley.

With the onset of the Asian economic crisis in 1997, Dr Mahathir refused to accept that his grandiose schemes were partly to blame for Malaysia's massive debt. Instead he blamed foreign currency traders, including the financier George Soros, for what he termed a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Malaysia emerged relatively unscathed from the Asian financial crisis after Dr Mahathir defied the International Monetary Fund, introducing controversial currency controls which effectively isolated his country from the global economy.But relations with the West have continued to fluctuate. In June this year Dr Mahathir described Westerners - or more particularly "Anglo-Saxon Europeans" -- as proponents of "war, sodomy and genocide".

Days before he resigned, he angered several foreign governments and Jewish groups by claiming the a Jewish cabal "ruled the world

BBc news".

Yikes, it looks as though Zayn Malik’s recent antics are making him more and more unpopular within the music biz. 

After being slammed by the likes of Conor Maynard and Example, Rixton’s Jake Roche has now come forward to slag off the former One Direction star’s treatment of his fiancée, Jesy Nelson’s, BFF Perrie Edwards

Original posted by bluburrystylinson

. In case you’ve been living under a rock these last few months, Zayn dumped Perrie in a text message after three years together before humiliating her when he retweeted a message that said Fifth Harmony’s single was better.

As much as we love the bae, his behaviour really just wasn’t cool… And Jake seems to agree with a passion.

Really laying into one, the star ranted to The Sun: “I think he’s a f*cking idiot. The way he’s treated her is horrible. 

Original posted by inwardsbeauty

He’s not a very nice man. Professionally he’s talented but - and I’m speaking from what I’ve seen - he should be ashamed.“ 

The singer also reckons that Zayn ruined his image when he humiliated Pez, adding: "I’d at least send an email! It’s more formal. But it’s not about treating a woman like that, it’s about treating a human like that. It’s disrespectful. 

Original posted by thirles

And the whole re-tweeting thing. He finished with her! Why antagonise it? It’s done! 

 "It’s a shame. He’s talented but he’s spoiled it." 

Blimey, say what you really feel, Jake - somebody remind us to never get on his bad side.

Jake melted all of our hearts a few weeks back when he surprised Jesy with a romantic wedding proposal, getting down on one knee as Ed Sheeran serenaded the lovebirds in the background.

It was all very beautiful and, when he’s that in love with Perrie’s bestie, no wonder he was left fuming when Zayn broke her heart. 

Talk about going up in the world, eh?

Following the huge, huge, HUGE success of Jack Whitehall’s ‘Bad Education’ feature film, the comic has blagged himself a role i

 .Wink*

The film started shooting earlier this month in Atlanta, and Jack shouldn’t have too much trouble getting into character considering he will be playing a British stand-up comedian.

Nice.

He will also be the boyfriend of Britt Robertson’s character, Kristin, so he’s probs feeling more than a little bit chuffed about that. 

Jack is yet to acknowledge his huge career break on his social media channels, but that’s most likely because he is so ruddy busy soaking up the success of ‘Bad Education: The Movie’.

The bigscreen adaptation of Jack’s hit BBC3 sitcom, the comedian plays a school teacher, Mr. Wickers, who takes his class on one last school trip after they’re GCSE exams.

Mother’s Day’ will be released stateside in April, and in the UK shortly after - needless to say, we can’t wait to see Jack in the cinema again; especially if he will be sharing it with such Hollywood royalty. 

Watch out Benedict Cumberbatch, there’s some fresh posh totty in town. 

The British star will appear in ‘Mother’s Day’, a romantic comedy that will also feature - get this - Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudston, and Julia Roberts.

Phwoar, we think that we can work out what tempted Jack to the role, if ya know what we mean.

The undercarriage failed to retract when the plane left the airport at the eastern town of Varna, the ministry said in a statement.

The Falcon 2000 carrying Borisov circled over the Black Sea for 15 minutes to use up fuel before returning to Varna.

"At no time was the life or health of the passengers in danger," it said.

Borisov was to return to Sofia late Sunday on another plane, after missing a ceremony in the southern city of Plovdiv.

In an almost identical incident on February 11, the same government aircraft carrying the prime minister was forced to return to Sofia after the landing gear failed to retract on a flight to Brussels.

AFP

The 90-year-old made his debut as a street protester in the Bersih 4 rally like many others since yesterday, using the public trains and after alighting at the Kuala Lumpur KTM station and footing it downtown to the Pasar Seni LRT station, Central Market and Masjid Jamek.“I’m here to show solidarity with the people,” he told a news conference later.

“There’s no more avenue for legal redress. We have to resolve through demo. That’s why I’m here. If there is a taskforce to investigate where is the money, I wouldn’t be here,” he added.

Dr Mahathir had made his intention to oust Najib from power very plain since he began his verbal attacks against the prime minister over Putrajaya’s handling of the debt-ridden state investment company 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) issue.

He stepped up his campaign against Najib in recent days, following the exposé of RM2.6 billion cash deposits into the prime minister’s personal bank accounts, which the opposition believe to be funnelled from 1MDB but which the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and some senior Umno leaders have said were donations from a friendly Middle Eastern nation.

Like many others, Dr Mahathir blamed the current decline of the ringgit and the country’s economic blues on the government’s handling of 1MDB and the introduction of a new consumption tax in AprilI told them not to introduce GST. That is why investors are leaving. That’s why RM is going down. Lots of problem created by the government.

“I don’t know if this is a game changer or not,” he said, when asked about the Bersih 4 rally organised by polls reform group Bersih 2.0, which is pressuring for Najib to resign from office to take responsibility for the country’s purported current gloomy outlook.

“Previously, there was no need to take part in demos. If we make police report, people took action,” he added.

Dr Mahathir drew parallels between Malaysia’s present to the Philippines in the 1960s through to the 1980s under the rule of Ferdinand Marcos.

“It is the last option (street demo). When Marcos ruled they have to overthrow him through demo,” Dr Mahathir said.

The elder politician said he had heard that an Umno MP would file a motion of no-confidence against Najib in the Dewan Rakyat when Parliament reconvenes in October, although he quickly added that he did not know the identity of the person.

He urged the federal lawmakers from both sides of the political divide, but especially Umno, to support the proposal when it is filed.

“You have to tell all your MPs not to support Najib. Support your MP, tell them ‘If you do not support no-confidence motion, we will not elect you as MPs’.

“This is your job as citizens to make this a corruption-free country,” he said.

This time, Dr Mahathir drew parallels to protests in Guatemala where the citizens kicked into major action with marches and road blocks last week demanding the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina over his alleged involvement in a major corruption scandal that has thrown the central American nation into political crisis.

“If you want the no-confidence vote to succeed, Umno MPs who are loyal to the party must support it. After that, the Najib administration will fall.

“The government after that must be BN, because BN has the majority,” he said.

Dr Mahathir told the news conference he would not stay on for the remainder of the 34-hour rally still going strong in the streets near Dataran Merdeka despite rain in the late afternoon.

“I’m tired. I’m going to go back home,” he said.

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