Popular tourist draw in France reopens after security threat

Police attend the scene of an evacuation at Mont Saint-Michel, on France's northern coast. Photo / AP

France: France's Mont Saint-Michel abbey has reopened after several hours of searching by police failed to locate a visitor who allegedly threatened French security services. A trickle of tourists started returning to the Mont across a promontory that connects the popular site in the English Channel to the mainland. French authorities evacuated tourists and others from the Mont Saint-Michel abbey and monument on Sunday morning after hearing about the reported threat. The site was closed for about four hours. The gendarme service says police have expanded their search to neighbouring towns.

Norway: A Norwegian man suspected by Russia of espionage has admitted to being a courier for Norway's military intelligence, his Norwegian lawyer says. Frode Berg, a retired former guard on the Norwegian-Russian border, has been detained since his arrest in Moscow last December, but had little knowledge of the operation he took part in, Berg's lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told daily Dagbladet and broadcaster NRK. "We're quite certain that what he did in Russia was partly to carry out tasks for Norwegian intelligence," Risnes told NRK, while adding that his client felt he had been let down by those who had sent him. "He did not understand the extent of this or how dangerous it could become," Risnes said.

Libya: Libyan coastguard officers have recovered the bodies of 11 migrants who died off Libya's western shore during an attempted crossing to Italy, a spokesman says. More than 80 migrants survived the incident off the city of Sabratha, about 70km west of Tripoli, and coastguards brought them back to the nearby city of Zawiya.
Australia: An 11-year-old autistic boy who ran away from his carer while at the shops in Sydney south has been found dead after being hit by a train. Police mounted a large search involving the dog unit and Polair after he ran off at Oatley Avenue shops at about 7.15pm local timeyesterday. The boy had been staying at a respite centre, police said. He was found dead at Oatley railway station about two hours after disappearing.

United States: Former New York Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg says he will write a US$4.5 million cheque to cover this year's US financial commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. President Donald Trump last year pulled the United States out of the pact, making the country the only one opposed to it. Bloomberg, in a CBS interview, said he hopes by next year Trump will have changed his mind. Bloomberg will continue to provide money for the pact if the US does not rejoin the agreement, according to a news release from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charity he founded.

ISIS suicide bombing at Afghanistan voter registration center kills 57 https://t.co/7ak6lVXI3F pic.twitter.com/AlQIeoLoMk

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 22, 2018

Afghanistan: The death toll after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration centre in the Afghan capital Kabul, has risen to at least 57 people. A further 100 have been injured, in the most serious attack yet on preparations for elections scheduled for October. Isis claimed responsibility for the attack on a project of key importance to the credibility of President Ashraf Ghani's Government, which has been under international pressure to ensure long-delayed parliamentary polls take place this year. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said a bomber on foot approached the centre where officials were issuing identity cards as part of the registration process for around 10 million voters across Afghanistan. Registration began this month.

Iran: Iranian police have arrested a former prosecutor known as the "torturer of Tehran," who faces a two-year jail term over the death of prisoners following protests in 2009, Iranian media reported. The official website of the judiciary, Mizanonline.com, said former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi has been arrested, without elaborating. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said police detained Mortazavi in a villa in northern Iran, near the Caspian Sea. Mortazavi was sentenced to prison by an appeals court in December. That court found him guilty of "aiding and abetting" the torture and deaths of protesters arrested after the disputed re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since that court decision, Mortazavi apparently couldn't be found by authorities.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Photo / AP

Russia: A Russian lawyer who discussed sanctions with Donald Trump jnr in New York during his father's 2016 campaign for the US presidency said today that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has not contacted her yet. Natalia Veselnitskaya also detailed her recent meeting in Berlin with investigators from the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Like Mueller, the committee is investigating allegations of Russian interference in the US presidential election. Veselnitskaya alleged in her interview with AP in downtown Moscow that if Mueller's team never questions her, it would mean that it "is not working to discover the truth." Veselnitskaya is a well-connected Moscow lawyer who has worked with a company called Prevezon Holdings Ltd. The company's owner is the son of a former Russian government official and a fierce advocate for rolling back US sanctions on Russia. At the time of her 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, she was defending Prevezon against charges it had engaged in money laundering from a US$230 million Russian tax fraud scheme.