Conservatives pick new leader in Canada

TORONTO • Canada's Conservative Party has settled on a stay-the-course candidate as its next leader, choosing Mr Andrew Scheer to be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's chief rival, in a surprise multi-ballot victory.

Mr Scheer, a 38-year-old bilingual father of five, was elected from a field of 14 candidates in voting revealed last Saturday in Toronto.

The new leader pledged to rescind a federal minimum price on carbon due to take effect next year, and to balance Canada's Budget in two years through unspecified spending cuts.

BLOOMBERG

Uber chief's mum dies in boat accident

SAN FRANCISCO • The mother of Mr Travis Kalanick, who founded on-demand ride service Uber, was killed in a boating accident and his father was seriously hurt.

An initial investigation showed that Mrs Bonnie Kalanick, 71, died last Friday after the boat she was in struck a rock in Pine Flat Lake near the central California city of Fresno, said the Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner's Office in a statement last Saturday.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Photojournalist ends hunger strike

PARIS • A French photojournalist held in Turkey for nearly three weeks has ended a week-long hunger strike, press freedom body Reporters Without Borders said last Saturday.

Photographer Mathias Depardon was detained on May 8 while working on a report in Hasankeyf in the south-eastern Batman province for National Geographic magazine.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Human rights award for jailed lawyer

ROME • A United Arab Emirates lawyer sentenced to 10 years' jail in 2013 for plotting against the regime was conferred a major human rights award last Saturday.

Mohammed al-Roken was among 69 people jailed on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government following a mass trial criticised by rights groups.

Awarding him the Ludovic Trarieux Award, the prize committee said Roken had devoted two decades to defending fundamental freedoms.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE