Last chance for Gambia President to step down

BANJUL (Gambia) • Mr Yahya Jammeh has been given a last warning to step down from the presidency, which he has held since 1994, and make way for Mr Adama Barrow who won the election last month.

Troops from five African nations stood by to intervene as key regional leaders and long-time allies, including Mauritania's Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and Guinea's Alpha Conde, flew in yesterday to make a final plea to Mr Jammeh to hand over power.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Ukraine confectionery to close plant in Russia

KIEV • Ukraine's largest confectionery company, owned by President Petro Poroshenko, plans to close its only factory in Russia, saying it had become impossible to do business there because of trade restrictions and anti-Ukrainian sentiment.

Production has declined since March 2014 when Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and pro-Russian rebels rose up in eastern Ukraine.

REUTERS

Judge overseeing Brazil graft probe dies

SAO PAULO • Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki, who was overseeing a graft investigation into scores of powerful politicians, has been killed in a plane crash on Thursday, raising questions about who will take over the country's biggest-ever corruption case.

Judge Zavascki, 68, had been reviewing explosive testimony expected to implicate an array of politicians in a vast kickback scandal centring on state-run oil company Petrobras and other enterprises.

REUTERS

Mexico extradites drug lord to New York

NEW YORK • Mexico extradited drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, 59, to New York on Thursday, possibly ending a decades-long criminal career that included two jail breaks and a lead role in a national drug war.

Mexican officials said the timing was a gift to outgoing president Barack Obama, and an olive branch to new President Donald Trump.

REUTERS

No proof of defects in Tesla e-cars: Regulators

WASHINGTON • US regulators have found no evidence of any defects in Tesla electric cars after investigating the death of a man whose Model S collided with a truck while he was using its Autopilot system, the first fatality involving semi- autonomous driving software.

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters that drivers have a duty to maintain control of a vehicle and that carmakers must also explain the limits of semi- autonomous systems.

REUTERS