An American tourist has been killed and several people wounded in a spate of attacks targeting Israelis near Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, police say.
The American was one of 10 people who were stabbed by an attacker in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv.
US Vice-President Joe Biden was at an event close by at the time.
Earlier, two Israeli police officers were shot and wounded in occupied East Jerusalem. An ultra-Orthodox Jew was stabbed in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.
Israeli police said the attackers in all three incidents were Palestinian, and had been killed.
Wave of attacks
Israeli police said the attacker in Jaffa stabbed a number of people in the port area, before moving through the city attacking others.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said five of the wounded were in a serious condition.
No details were given about the American tourist who died.
Mr Biden, who had been attending an event with former Israeli president Shimon Peres in the nearby Peres Centre for Peace at the time, "condemned in the strongest possible terms the brutal attack" and "expressed his sorrow at the tragic loss of American life", the White House said in a statement.
Israeli police said the attacker was a 21-year-old from the West Bank town of Qalqilya who was shot dead at the scene.

In the Jerusalem attack, police said a gunman opened fire on a group of police officers outside the Old City's Damascus Gate, seriously wounding one of them. The suspect wounded another in the subsequent chase, but was then shot and killed, police said.
Meanwhile, witnesses in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva said a Palestinian attacker was killed with his own knife by the ultra-Orthodox Jew who he had just stabbed. The wounded man was rushed to hospital to be treated for wounds to his upper body.
At least 28 Israelis have been killed in a wave of stabbing, shooting or car-ramming attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since October.
More than 160 Palestinians - mostly attackers, Israel says - have also been killed in that period.
The assailants who have been killed have been shot dead either by their victims or by security forces as they carried out attacks. Some attackers have been arrested.
Other Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

Source : BBC WORLD NEWS

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has compared the rhetoric of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to that of German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In an interview with Mexican daily Excelsior, he called Mr Trump's rhetoric "strident".
He added that "that's how [Italian fascist leader] Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in".
The Mexican leader also said that Mr Trump had hurt US-Mexico relations.
Donald Trump has said that if he is elected he will build a wall along the US-Mexico border to keep migrants from crossing into the US illegally.
The Republican candidate has also insisted that Mexico would pay for the border wall, which President Pena Nieto dismissed out of hand.
He said there was "no scenario" under which Mexico would ever pay for such a wall.
Mr Trump, who has made the fight against illegal immigration the main plank of his campaign, outraged Mexicans last June when he called undocumented Mexican migrants "criminals" and "rapists".

Ominous situations'
President Pena Nieto said Mr Trump offered "very easy, simple solutions to problems that are obviously not that easy to solve"

"And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity," he said.
"That's how Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in, they took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis," he added.
President Pena Nieto, who had up until now avoided commenting on Mr Trump's candidacy, insisted he would be "absolutely respectful" of the US political process.
His predecessors in office, however, have been more outspoken.
Former President Vicente Fox used an expletive on live television when he said Mexico would not pay for the border wall proposed by Mr Trump.
Felipe Calderon, who governed from 2006 to 2012, also dismissed the idea saying: "Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall!"

Scource: BBC WORLD NEWS

Millions of people across Indonesia and the Pacific are about to be treated to a total solar eclipse.
Beginning late on Tuesday (GMT), the Moon will pass directly in front of the Sun, fully eclipsing the solar disk.
This will block all direct sunlight, turning day into night.
The eclipse will be total in Indonesia and the Central Pacific, while parts of Australia and east Asia will experience a partial one.
People along a 150km-wide strip running through Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi - the path of eclipse totality - will experience a blackout from about 07:00 to 11:00 local time.
Astronomers reiterated advice not to look directly at the Sun with the naked eye, or through a telescope. Experts recommend using either a professional solar filter in front of a telescope or camera, or special eclipse-viewing glasses.
The partial eclipse will commence at 23:19 GMT and the total eclipse at 00:15 GMT, with the moment of maximum shadow at 01:59 GMT.
The celestial event will end at sunset, local time, north of Hawaii (04:34 GMT).

Because the eclipse path crosses the International Date Line, in the local time zones it will begin on Wednesday 9 March and end on Tuesday 8 March.

Skywatchers in southern China, south-east Asia, Australia, Hawaii and Alaska will experience a partial eclipse when the Moon's penumbra - the outer region of the shadow - catches them. This will look as if a just a chunk of the Sun has been blacked out.

For eclipse watchers outside these regions, a number of astronomy institutes are hosting live streams of the event.

Scientists at Nasa said they planned to use the event to study solar physics.

From Indonesia, they will use an instrument called a polarization camera to capture 59 exposures of the Sun in just over three minutes, collecting data on the innermost parts of the sun's volatile, superheated atmosphere.

This region can only be observed during total solar eclipses when the Sun's bright face is completely blocked by the Moon.

The lower part of the sun's atmosphere, the corona, is thought to hold the keys to several solar mysteries, including the birth of explosive clouds of solar material called coronal mass ejections and the mystery of why the corona is actually hotter than the surface.
"The Sun's atmosphere is where the interesting physics is," said Nelson Reginald, from Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
The most recent total solar eclipse took place in the far northern hemisphere on 20 March 2015.

Scource: BBC WORLD NEWS

The UN has expressed concern over a radical EU-Turkey plan to ease the migrant crisis, saying it could contravene international law.
Under the plan, all migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey would be returned and for each Syrian sent back, a Syrian in Turkey would be resettled in the EU.
The UN's refugee agency said any collective expulsion of foreigners was "not consistent with European law".
Amnesty International called the plan a death blow to the right to seek asylum.
The deal, discussed at a summit in Brussels on Monday, has not been finalised and talks will continue ahead of an EU meeting on 17-18 March.
Europe is facing its biggest refugee crisis since World War Two. Last year, more than a million people entered the EU illegally by boat, mainly going from Turkey to Greece.
Most of them were Syrian, fleeing the country's four-year civil war. Another 2.7 million Syrian refugees are currently in Turkey.
What's in the EU-Turkey proposal?
The EU heads said "bold moves" were needed to tackle the crisis, and made the following proposals:
All new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands will be returned to Turkey, with the EU meeting the costs. Irregular migrants means all those outside normal transit procedures, ie without documentation. The term "illegal migration" usually refers to people smuggling
In exchange for every returned Syrian, one Syrian from Turkey will be resettled in the EU
Plans to ease access to the EU for Turkish citizens will be speeded up, with a view to allowing visa-free travel by June 2016
EU payment of €3bn ($3.3bn; £2.2bn) promised in October will be speeded up, and a decision will be made on additional funding to help Turkey deal with the crisis. Turkey reportedly asked for EU aid to be increased to €6bn
Preparations will be made for a decision on the opening of new chapters in talks on EU membership for Turkey
The BBC's Selin Girit says that says Turkish media have hailed the plan - particularly the visa-free access - but critics have accused the EU of turning a blind eye to Turkey's human rights record.

How have leaders reacted?
European Council President Donald Tusk insisted the leaders at the summit had made a "breakthrough", and he was hopeful of concluding the deal in the next week.
However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more circumspect, saying: "It is a breakthrough if it becomes reality."
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey had taken a "game-changing" decision "to discourage illegal migration, to prevent human smugglers, to help people who want to come to Europe through encouraging legal migration".

What are the legal concerns?
Vincent Cochetel, the UN's regional co-ordinator for the refugee crisis in Europe, said: "An agreement that would be tantamount to a blanket return of any foreigners to a third country is not consistent with European law."
Amnesty International said the plan was "wrought with moral and legal flaws".
Amnesty's Iverna McGowan said: "EU and Turkish leaders have sunk to a new low, effectively horse-trading away the rights and dignity of some of the world's most vulnerable people."
The EU believes the legal questions will be covered by declaring Turkey a "safe third country" for return. Amnesty says it strongly questions the whole concept of "safe third country".
Turkey is also not a full member of the Geneva Convention, which could raise more legal questions.

Can the return system work?
The system spelled out to the BBC by EU Commission spokesperson for migration Natasha Bertaud would see all migrants rescued in Greek waters taken to a Greek island for screening.
Irregular migrants would then be returned to Turkey to be screened again and "if they have no right to international protection" - which currently covers only Syrians - sent back to their country of origin.
All migrants rescued in Turkish waters would be taken back to Turkey, which would decide their status.
Serious questions remain. What will happen to the thousands of migrants already in Greece, which has struggled to shelter and register them?

The biggest problem will be the migrants themselves - having risked their lives and invested much of their money, will they not simply try other routes?
Vincent Cochetel said: "As long as the conflict is not solved, it's a myth to believe that people will not try to leave."

What are the other obstacles?
There is major opposition among some EU members to compulsory migrant quotas. Hungary says it vetoed the Turkish resettlement proposal on Monday and may do so again at the next EU meeting.
Turkey's bid for EU membership is another thorny issue, not helped by the recent wrangle over the court-ordered seizure of the opposition Zaman newspaper.
More problematic is Turkey's request for visa-free access for all its citizens to the EU's Schengen zone, which it hopes to achieve by June. This may draw a lot of opposition.
The future of Schengen - which allows passport-free travel in a 26-nation zone - is already in doubt, given that eight of its members have introduced temporary border controls.

source: BBC WORLD NEWS

On Super Tuesday Donald Trump's hostile takeover of the Republican Party should come even closer, and like stiff-collared executives in some wood-panelled boardroom trying belatedly to fight off a corporate raid, the GOP high command seems incapable of stopping him.
For them, Super Tuesday could become Black Tuesday. Friday must have been gloomy enough, when Chris Christie, supposedly a card-carrying member of the establishment, kissed Donald Trump's hands and gave this political outsider his endorsement.
Christie's blessing came as a bolt from the blue, and taught us once more to expect the unexpected. But shouldn't the establishment - and us in the media, for that matter - have seen the billionaire coming? After all, for years the Republican standard bearers have been vulnerable to a challenge from an anti-establishment candidate.
Before going on, we should say what we mean by the Republican Party establishment, a term regularly bandied around but rarely explained. Fifty years ago, it was easier to identify.
It was an eastern establishment dominated by Wall Street bankers and corporate executives, who were strongly pro-business, ideologically moderate and politically pragmatic.
Nelson Rockefeller, the scion of the banking dynasty and Governor of New York - who lived, like Donald Trump, in great splendour on Fifth Avenue - was their figurehead.
These days, however, the Republican establishment is harder to define and more diffuse, which also explains why it is easier to topple.
Commonly it is broadly taken to mean the Republican National Committee, senior office-holders (like Chris Christie), present and past, conservative lobbyists, like the US Chamber of Commerce, big-money donors and opinion-formers, who write for publications like the Weekly Standard, the National Review and op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. But that definition is open to debate. Its disparate membership explains its inability to exert control.
The most obvious reason for the decline of the Republican establishment has been the rise of anti-establishment adversaries. The Tea Party, an insurgent grassroots movement that emerged after Barack Obama's inauguration, has posed the most serious threat.
Its hatred of the president is matched almost by its loathing for establishment Republicans in Washington, like the Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who activists complain could have done more to thwart the White House.
Tea Party primary challengers have ousted senior establishment fixtures, like Senator Richard Lugar, who represented Indiana for 36 years.
The "Hell No" Caucus on Capitol Hill, a rump of 50 or so Tea Party-backed Republican hardliners in the House of Representatives, was strong enough to push the former House Speaker John Boehner to the point of resignation.
As for opinion formers, most of the loudest and dominant voices in the modern-day conservative movement, like the talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the commentator Ann Coulter, are vehement critics of the establishment.

The Fox News channel, even though it has often given a platform for anti-establishment voices, doesn't fall into that same category. But it has become a rival power centre, outside the control of the GOP high command.
Going into the 2016 campaign, there were big clues that establishment candidates would be vulnerable. Eric Cantor, the House Republican majority leader, was ousted, unexpectedly, ahead of the 2014 congressional mid-terms. Boehner was pressured to resign as House Speaker.
However, most of us made the mistake of interpreting the results of the congressional mid-term elections as a major setback for insurgents, because they failed to make more breakthroughs.
Their attempt, for example, to oust the Republican Senator Thad Cochran in Mississippi, then a six-term incumbent, was unsuccessful. In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell also crushed a Tea Party challenge in the Republican primary.
According to polls, Tea Party favourites, like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, also lost their lustre.

Even though the Tea Party was waning - in October last year, a Gallup poll suggested its support had dwindled to just 17% - the anger and rage that gave rise to it had not gone away.
Conservative insurgents just needed a better candidate and more effective mouthpiece.
The most obvious figure was Ted Cruz, a long-time darling of the Tea Party. But Donald Trump has proved more adept at giving voice to the politics of frustration and rage, even though he is not a Tea Party candidate per se.
Long before announcing his presidential bid, the billionaire had already burnished his reputation among Tea Party devotees by becoming the most prominent "birther" - claiming, falsely, that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. His outspoken attacks on Mexicans and Muslims, combined with his contempt for political correctness, are music to insurgents' ears.
Another analytical failure was to assume that the Republican establishment could do in 2016 what it has done successfully in the past seven presidential elections: to see its anointed favourite become the nominee.

George Herbert Walker Bush, Bob Dole, George W Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney. All were Republican establishment favourites. What's perhaps most remarkable about that run of success for the party's high command is that it continued so long.
We should have paid more attention to the difficulty Mitt Romney had securing the nomination in 2012 and also the extent to which he was assisted by the absence of a strong establishment rival.
A central problem for the GOP high command this year, of course, has been that Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie have split the vote.
Not only that, we should have been more mindful of Rick Santorum's surprise showing four years ago. The right-wing former Pennsylvania Senator won 11 states and four million votes, even though he was viewed at the outset of the race as a woefully weak candidate.
It suggested that the Republican establishment would face a more serious problem in 2016 if a more compelling right-winger emerged.
Besides, one of the reasons why anti-establishment fervour is so strong this time round is because the grass roots is so fed up with being saddled with establishment moderates, like Romney.

Had we reached further back into Republican Party history we would have seen that hostile takeovers have succeeded in the past.
In 1980, Reagan ran as an anti-establishment candidate, beating the blue-blood Republican George HW Bush, a scion of the establishment.
Then there was Barry Goldwater's success in 1964, when he scored that highly symbolic victory over Nelson Rockefeller, the great pillar of the establishment.
The victory of an Arizonian right-wing firebrand over a New York moderate personified the shift in the Republican Party's centre of gravity during the civil rights era from the north-east to the south and south-west.
It changed the character of the party, setting it on its present course.
Revulsion right now of the permanent political class and party elites seems to be a global phenomenon, but in America it is particularly pronounced, on the left as well as the right.
But an anti-establishment figure like Donald Trump would not have become so strong had not the party establishment become so weak. The GOP, the Grand Old Party, has been ripe for a takeover for years.

Collected From : BBC WORLD NEWS

A Catholic priest of Congolese origin has resigned in southern Germany after getting death threats and racist abuse.
Olivier Ndjimbi-Tshiende, 66, told parishioners of his decision during a church service on Sunday in Zorneding, a small town near Munich in Bavaria.
A statement on the parish website (in German) said: "We are shocked and saddened by these [death] threats." He began preaching in the town in 2012.
Tensions had arisen between him and two local conservative CSU politicians.
Fr Ndjimbi-Tshiende criticised language used by local CSU leader Sylvia Boher in October. She had spoken of an "invasion" by Eritrean "refugees from military service".
The surge in asylum seekers entering the EU includes many Eritreans fleeing military service, to avoid years spent in deplorable conditions for little or no pay.
After Fr Ndjimbi-Tshiende's intervention a CSU friend of Ms Boher, Johann Haindl, lashed out at the priest with a racist insult.
Both CSU politicians were heavily criticised over the affair and resigned from their party posts.
Police investigation
The Christian Social Union (CSU), based in Bavaria, is politically allied with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
Police are now investigating a suspected crime of racial incitement and abuse targeting Fr Ndjimbi-Tshiende.
Germany is struggling to accommodate record numbers of non-EU migrants - 1.1 million asylum seekers were registered last year.
German media say the priest, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had received five death threats.
An online petition (in German) has been launched urging him to stay in Zorneding. But the Catholic Church Archbishopric in Munich plans to transfer him to a new post on 1 April.
The local broadcaster BR says that in 2014 a school project to help 35 child refugees in Zorneding triggered a barrage of xenophobic emails.

Collected from : BBC WORLD NEWS

Former world number one Maria Sharapova has revealed she failed a drugs test at the Australian Open.

The Russian, 28, tested positive for meldonium, a substance she has been taking since 2006 for health issues.

Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam champion, is provisionally suspended from 12 March pending further action.

"I did fail the test and take full responsibility for it," said Sharapova, who won the Wimbledon title as a 17-year-old in 2004.

"For the past 10 years I have been taking a medicine called mildronate by my doctor, my family doctor, and a few days ago after I received the letter from the ITF [International Tennis Federation] I found out it also has another name of meldonium, which I did not know."

Failed test on day of Williams defeat

Sharapova provided the anti-doping sample in question on 26 January, the day she lost to Serena Williams in the Australian Open quarter-finals.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) analysed the sample and returned a positive for meldonium, leading to the Russian being charged on 2 March.

"It is very important for you to understand that for 10 years this medicine was not on Wada's banned list and I had been legally taking that medicine for the past 10 years," said Sharapova.

"But on 1 January the rules had changed and meldonium became a prohibited substance, which I had not known."

She added: "I received an email on 22 December from Wada about the changes happening to the banned list and you can see prohibited items, and I didn't click on that link."

'I made a huge mistake'

Sharapova has been the highest-earning female athlete in the world for the past 11 years, according to the Forbes list.

She first reached world number one in August 2005 and is currently seventh in the rankings - but she has played just four tournaments since Wimbledon last July as she struggled with an arm injury.

Sharapova, who turns 29 in April, hopes to be able to return to tennis in the future.

she said-

"I made a huge mistake," 

"I have let my fans down, and let the sport down that I have been playing since the age of four that I love so deeply.

"I know that with this I face consequences and I don't want to end my career this way. I really hope to be given another chance to play this game."

There had been speculation Sharapova was going to announce her retirement and a large media contingent gathered for the Los Angeles news conference, which was streamed live online.

"I know many of you thought that I would be retiring today but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet,"

Collected From : BBC WORLD NEWS