The prosecutor’s office said it was investigating Turkey’s Fox Haber channel’s Fatih Portakal for “openly inciting others to commit a crime” after the journalist speculated whether Turks could protest like those in the “Yellow Vest” movement in France, Hurriyet and Milliyet dailies said.

“Come on, let’s have a peaceful protest, a protest against … rising natural gas fees. Come on, let’s do it. Would we be able to do it?” the journalist who has over six million followers on Twitter asked.

“For the love of God, tell me how many people would come out?” Portakal demanded as he speculated about the impact of Turks’ fears of protesting in a news programme on December 10.

During anti-government protests in 2013, Erdogan was criticised for the police’s heavy-handed crackdown against demonstrators.

Portakal’s comments were interpreted by Turkish officials as a call for protests as the country is suffering high inflation. Consumer prices reached over 25 percent in October before falling to 21.62 percent in November.

Portakal had made the comments during a news segment about France’s “yellow vest” movement, which started as a demonstration against fuel price hikes in November but has since snowballed into broader anti-government opposition.

Erdogan has repeatedly criticised the journalist for his comments, saying in mid-December: “He is calling people to get out on the street. Know your place! If you don’t know your place, the people will teach you a lesson.”

Earlier this week, Turkey’s audiovisual authority RTUK fined Fox Haber Turkey for an undisclosed amount and said the channel had to suspend three future broadcasts of the primetime news show.

Fox Haber Turkey gives greater coverage to the opposition parties than other mainstream channels in an increasingly constricted media landscape in Turkey under the rule of Erdogan.

Fox Haber, which means Fox News in Turkish, is not linked to the Fox News Channel in the United States.

The investigation comes after two famous Turkish actors were accused of insulting Erdogan during a television programme on Halk TV last week.

An Istanbul court on Monday released the two men on conditional bail after they were summoned to give statements to prosecutors.

Turkey’s allies and human rights defenders have raised concerns over a clampdown on freedom of expression under Erdogan, with dozens of journalists and civil society activists imprisoned.

In a burst of early morning tweets, the president said the alternative to funding his controversial wall project would be total separation from Mexico — including making US car companies pull out their factories based on the other side of the frontier.

The threat yet again upped the ante in a political row that has led to a partial shutdown of the US government and seems set to dominate the start to the third year of Trump’s presidency.

“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall,” Trump tweeted.

Trump said he would then take US-Mexican relations back to the days before the NAFTA agreement opened free trade across Canada, Mexico and the United States.

That would “bring our car industry back into the United States where it belongs,” he said.

It was not clear how separating the two huge neighbors would work. Bilateral trade totaled an estimated $615.9 billion in 2017, according to US government figures.

Neither did Trump make any mention of the new free trade agreement, known as the USMCA, which he only recently signed with the two neighboring countries to replace NAFTA and which he has repeatedly praised as a huge boost for American commerce.

In Mexico, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sidestepped Trump’s threat, telling journalists: “We don’t want to be imprudent and we don’t think we should get into this.”

$5 billion question

Trump wants $5 billion in funding for a wall along the more than 2,000-mile border, which he says is currently too porous to stop illegal immigration and which he claims has become a magnet for criminals, drugs and even terrorists.

Opponents — especially in the Democratic party but also some in Trump’s Republican party — say that a physical wall is impractical and that the idea is being used as a political tool to whip up xenophobia in Trump’s right-wing voter base.

Both sides have dug in. Democrats refuse to approve funding and the president — who has made hardline immigration policies a centerpiece of his presidency — has retaliated by refusing to sign off on a wider spending bill, leaving some 800,000 federal employees without pay.

Negotiations on lifting that partial government shutdown, perhaps by providing some border security funding, have sputtered out and no new debate is scheduled before next Wednesday.

The president, who had already scrapped a Christmas visit to his Florida golf resort, has also “canceled his plans for New Year’s,” his incoming chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said on Fox News.

Asked about the startling rhetoric, Mulvaney told Fox that Trump “is trying to draw light to the fact this is a crazy discussion to be having.”

For one Republican Congress member, Brad Wenstrup, the paralysis over the wall reflected “a lot of political posturing.”

“I would hope that it could be ended soon,” he told CNN television. “If you sit down and talk about that, why is that such a hard thing to do?”

– Caravan ‘invasion’ –

Experts are divided on solutions to policing the long, often inhospitable border separating the world’s biggest economy from the far poorer countries to its south.

Although there is a huge cross-border drug trade and immigrants often enter illegally, others have genuine claims for asylum. Central Americans are also deeply integrated in the US economy, often performing physically demanding, low-pay jobs in construction, agriculture and other vital sectors.

Trump has consistently painted the asylum seekers and economic migrants in outlandish terms, raising the specter of rapists, gang members and people with infectious diseases roaming freely across the border.

Trump has latched particularly on to what have become known as the “caravans” — groups of several hundred or even more migrants who make epic treks across Central America and Mexico to try to reach the United States.

According to Trump, the “caravans” amount to organized attempts at invading the United States.

In one tweet Friday, Trump warned: “word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it.”

As a result, he said, “we will be cutting off all aid” to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The impoverished, often dangerous countries have long received American assistance to boost democracy, human rights, education and security.

But according to State Department figures, the aid is already dropping steeply.

Honduras is currently set to receive $65.7 million in 2019, down from $105.6 million in 2017, while Guatemala is slated for $69.4 million, down from $145 million.

El Salvador received $88 million in 2017 and is set for $45.7 million next year.

Their remarks came a day after representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) announced that a fresh ceasefire would start Saturday morning.

More than 10,000 people have been killed since the Moscow-backed insurgency broke out in eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions in April 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

The 2015 Minsk summit laid out a ceasefire and international monitoring in eastern Ukraine, but a pro-Russian insurgency has persisted.

In a joint statement, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the latest ceasefire announcement.

“The approach of the New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas holidays must serve as an opportunity for the stakeholders in the conflict in eastern Ukraine to focus on the needs of civilians, who have suffered all too long as a result of this conflict and its consequences,” the leaders said.

“The guarantee of a safe and secure environment should enable the implementation of crucial humanitarian measures. We now call on the parties to assume their full responsibilities, especially with regard to civilians in the area.”

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced the end of martial law in the country’s border regions, which was introduced last month after Russia’s seizure of three of Kiev’s navy vessels in the Sea of Azov.

Russian border patrol boats fired on, boarded and seized the three Ukrainian vessels, along with 24 sailors, in November off the coast of Crimea. The sailors are still being held in detention by Russian authorities.

Macron and Merkel said these “excessive inspections” were a source of “deep concern”.

“We call for all ships using the Kerch Strait to be given safe, free, and unhindered passage, and for the immediate and unconditional release of the Ukrainian sailors. They too must be allowed to spend the holidays with their families.”

In a separate statement, Merkel’s office said the chancellor had also discussed the Ukrainian issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call Friday and urged the release of the sailors.

More than 500 flight cancelations and 5,700 delays were reported Friday as the winter storm blanketed areas from the north central plains and the Midwest with eight to 12 inches (20-30 centimeters) of snow.

As much snow, if not more, was forecast to fall in the coming days in the southwestern state of New Mexico, along with a deluge of rain in some southern and eastern states — ruining New Year travel plans for thousands of Americans.

Millions more in the South were warned of potential flooding from heavy rains.

A 58-year-old woman in Louisiana was killed Wednesday evening when lightning struck a tree, which then fell on her home, according to TV station WDSU.

In Kansas, police said icy roads caused a fatal car crash Thursday on an interstate highway. Another crash involving a snow plow and a car in North Dakota claimed one life.

More than 6,500 flights were delayed and some 800 more were canceled on Thursday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

Some airline passengers reported being stranded for days.

“I didn’t want to spend three days in the airport, missing out on the holidays — New Year’s and all that,” Anthony Scott told Texas television station KDFW at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

“I have to go back to work the first of the year. So this is my time,” he said. “This was my little vacation. I’m not trying to spend it in the airport.”

– Road travel treacherous –

Numerous roads were closed Thursday in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Kansas and Iowa. Ground crews worked to clear affected areas, but many remained packed with snow and ice Friday.

The South Dakota Department of Transportation said advisories warning against travel remained in effect.

“Roads are icy, blowing snow is still limiting visibility,” the agency said. “Crews are working but mother nature is making safe travel tough.”

North Dakota on Friday lifted a no-travel advisory that had been issued for the entire east side of the state, even as drifting snow continued to frustrate drivers.

National Weather Service (NWS) officials in Minnesota cautioned that roads in the upper Midwestern state were cloaked in snow.

The weather service predicted the treacherous weather would continue through the weekend across the country.

Heavy snow was expected in the southwestern state of New Mexico from a new storm, with as much as 18 inches possible, NWS said.

To the south, heavy rains were forecast in the central Gulf Coast, in the Florida Panhandle, and stretching east to the mid-Atlantic.

A risk of flash flooding was possible in a few areas.

The nasty weather was still no match for a colossal blizzard that smothered the eastern United States in January 2016.

That storm shut down New York and Washington, leaving 15 people dead and impacting some 85 million residents.

Forecasters said the storm — dubbed “Snowzilla” — dumped 22.2 inches in Washington and 25.1 inches in New York’s Central Park, the third highest accumulation since records began in 1869.

Ibrahim al-Assaf, a former veteran finance minister who was briefly detained last year in what Riyadh said was an anti-corruption sweep, replaced Adel al-Jubeir as foreign minister in a major government shake-up on Thursday ordered by King Salman.

The surprise reshuffle was seen partly as an attempt to elevate the kingdom’s marginalised old guard, adding a veneer of checks and balances to the policy decisions of 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who faces intense global scrutiny over the October 2 murder of journalist Khashoggi.

But speaking to AFP in his first interview since his appointment, Assaf insisted the restructuring was motivated not by the Khashoggi affair, but the need to make the government machinery more efficient.

“The issue of Jamal Khashoggi… really saddened us, all of us,” Assaf told AFP at his residence in Riyadh, adorned with mahogany furniture, a wall-mounted elephant tusk and other hunting trophies.

“But all in all, we are not going through a crisis, we are going through a transformation,” he added, referring to social and economic reforms spearheaded by the crown prince.

– Combative foreign policy –

Assaf, 69, inherits the ministry after a series of combative foreign policy moves by the crown prince, who along with regional allies imposed a blockade on neighbouring Qatar, launched a military campaign in Yemen and engaged in a bitter diplomatic row with Canada.

Topping it all, Khashoggi’s murder in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate by what it calls “rogue” agents is testing relations with key ally Washington, particularly after a US Senate resolution recently held Prince Mohammed responsible for the killing.

When asked whether his biggest foreign policy challenge was to repair the kingdom’s tarnished reputation, Assaf replied: “I wouldn’t say ‘repair’ because the relationship between my country and a vast majority of countries in the world is in excellent shape.”

Before him, Jubeir also sought to vigorously defend the government and the crown prince, widely known as MBS, on the international stage over Khashoggi’s murder.

In Thursday’s reshuffle, Jubeir was appointed minister of state for foreign affairs, fuelling speculation that he had been demoted after he failed to quell global criticism over Khashoggi.

“This is far from the truth,” Assaf said.

Jubeir’s new role, he insisted, was tantamount to a division of labour and not a demotion, in a bid to accelerate the task of remaking a ministry known to be overly bureaucratic.

“Adel represented Saudi Arabia and will continue to represent Saudi Arabia… around the world,” Assaf said.

“We complement each other.”

Jubeir was not immediately reachable for comment.

– ‘Checks and balances’ –

A seasoned bureaucrat, Assaf was briefly held in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel last year along with hundreds of elite princes and businessmen, in what the government called a crackdown on corruption.

Saudi officials say he was released after being cleared of any wrongdoing, and he subsequently led a government delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

His reappointment to a cabinet role indicates the government is seeking to slowly “rehabilitate” the experienced old guard, widely seen to be sidelined by the young prince, observers say.

“King Salman is seeking to bolster his son by appointing seasoned technocrats like Assaf who are not from MBS’s inner circle, indirectly reinstating an internal system of checks and balances that was swept away in (MBS’s) drive to consolidate power,” said Becca Wasser.

“Adding experienced government hands from an older generation, will serve to check some of MBS’s impulses,” the policy analyst at the US-based RAND Corporation told AFP.

The elevation of seasoned allies in Thursday’s reshuffle has bolstered the authority of Prince Mohammed after the removal of younger aides in his inner circle implicated in Khashoggi’s murder, including former royal court advisor Saud al-Qahtani.

Assaf, who is on the boards of state oil giant Aramco and the vast Public Investment Fund, said his appointment as the top diplomat would help bring his financial experience to foreign affairs amid a current “dip” in the economy.

The top crude exporter, facing a sharp fall in oil prices, is scrambling to restore confidence in foreign investors rattled by a series of what many see as rash foreign policy decisions.

“Economic relationships now dominate foreign” affairs, Assaf said.

Key measures in the big-spending budget have been watered down as the government tries to avoid being punished by the European Commission and the markets.

Senators passed the draft last week in a vote of confidence that avoided discussing around 700 amendments put forward by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the anti-immigration League coalition but provoked acrimonious scenes over the lack of substantive debate.

Similar scenes were repeated on Friday in the lower house, where the session was suspended after copies of the budget were thrown around, and the government will again resort to a vote of confidence on Saturday or Sunday.

If next year’s budget is not passed before December 31, the government will continue to function on a monthly basis using the 2018 budget.

“There was no deliberate wish by the government to avoid discussion,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told an end of year press conference on Friday as the opposition Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court over the sidelining of parliament.

Conte, a lawyer, is not a member of either of the ruling parties and has worked to achieve compromises between the parties and with Brussels since the government was formed in June.

In a historic first, in October the European Commission rejected Italy’s big-spending budget, which promised a universal basic income and scrapped pension reform.

But Italy last week agreed to reduce the cost of both of its landmark measures, and is now committed to not adding to its colossal two-trillion euro debt load next year.

In the latest hiccup to the tightly balanced revised budget, charities were on Thursday up in arms over a sudden decision to double their tax rate from 12 to 24 percent.

M5S leader and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio bore the brunt of criticism as he had said the budget would “end poverty”.

He said there was no time to remove the measure before the end of the year and so the law would have to be changed again in January.

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s League has also had to climb down on costly pension reform.

The government has struggled to come up with a budget that pleases their voters, Brussels and the market, with many Italians complaining about measures being watered down to placate the European Commission.

The EU and Italy negotiated intensely with both sides worried that a protracted feud would alarm the markets and ignite a debt crisis in the eurozone’s third biggest economy.

Without the compromise, Italy would have ultimately faced a fine of up to 0.2 percent of the nation’s GDP after a long and rancorous process with its eurozone partners.

The talks centred on the so-called structural deficit, which includes all public spending minus debt payments.

Italy’s first budget was set to blow through commitments made by the previous government, and require Rome raising even more debt.

Last week’s deal anticipates that this will now be balanced, with the overall deficit target lowered to 2.04 percent of GDP.

“It’s not at all true that the budget was written in Brussels, it was written in Italy,” Conte insisted on Friday.

Italy’s public debt is a big problem and now sits at a huge 2.3 trillion euros ($2.6 trillion), or 131 percent of Italy’s GDP — way above the 60 percent EU ceiling.

Authorities have deployed around 600,000 police, army and other security forces ahead of Sunday’s vote, a senior official said, following a deadly campaign marred by clashes.

The forces — which also include the elite Rapid Action Battalion, navy, border and coast guards and auxiliary police units — are providing security to some 40,000 election booths.

“We have ensured the highest level of security in Bangladesh as per the capacity of the country,” Rafiqul Islam of the election commission told AFP.

“We hope there will be a peaceful atmosphere,” he said.

Clashes have gripped the Muslim majority country of 165 million in the run-up to the polls.

Thirteen people have been killed and thousands injured in skirmishes between supporters of Hasina’s ruling Awami League and activists of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

The BNP, which boycotted the 2014 election, says its supporters have been deliberately targeted in a a bid to deter them from voting and rig the election in Hasina’s favour.

The Awami League and BNP are leading their own alliances in the country’s 11th parliamentary polls since independence in 1971.

The BNP, whose leader Khaleda Zia is in prison on graft charges, has accused the election commission of bias during the electoral campaign — a charge rejected by its chief commissioner, K.M Nurul Huda.

The opposition says that some 14,000 of its activists have been detained since the election schedule was announced on November 8. It also alleges that around 12,000 activists were injured in attacks by ruling party followers. The ruling party denies the allegation.

Rafiqul Islam said election authorities were still hopeful the vote would be credible. The United States has raised concerns about the elections while the United Nations called for greater efforts to make the vote fair.

“We’re trying our best to have a free and fair election,” he said.

Islam added that authorities may slow down internet speeds on election day in an effort to “prevent the spread of rumours”, that could trigger unrest.

The country’s telecoms regulator shut down higher speed internet services on Thursday before restoring them on Friday morning.

The election commission has also imposed restrictions on public transport and cars on polling day in an effort to maintain security and “conduct the election smoothly”, he said.

The quake struck southeast of Davao City at a depth of 59 kilometres (35 miles), the US Geological Survey said, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said “hazardous tsunami waves from this earthquake are possible” along the coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines.

However tsunami waves were forecast to be less than 30 cm (12 inches) high, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.

The Philippines’ government seismology office said cities in the south of the country felt “moderately strong” shaking.

The provincial civil defence office said it had no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the quake.

According to the USGS, there was a low likelihood of casualties and damage, although it warned recent earthquakes in the area had caused landslides.

The Philippines and Indonesia lie on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

The most recent major quake disaster to strike the Philippines was in 2013 when a 7.1-magnitude quake left more than 220 people dead and destroyed historic churches in the central islands.

Indonesia has been hit by two major tsunamis this year. More than 400 people were killed last weekend after an erupting volcano triggered a deadly wave that struck the coastlines of western Java island and south Sumatra.

A quake-tsunami in September killed around 2,200 people in Palu on Sulawesi island, with thousands more missing and presumed dead.

A statement by the public prosecutor’s office said 11 other tourists from Vietnam and an Egyptian bus driver were wounded when the homemade device exploded.

The improvised explosive device was placed near a wall along the Mariyutiya Street in Al-Haram district near the Giza Pyramids, it said.

The bus was carrying a total of 16 people including 14 Vietnamese tourists, an Egyptian driver and a tour guide, according to the statement.

Armed security personnel quickly deployed to the site and cordoned off the area for inspection.

The white tourist bus could be seen with its windows shattered and surrounded by soot-covered debris.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli visited the injured tourists in hospital, where he announced that the tour guide had died from his wounds.

Madbouli urged against “amplifying” the incident as he insisted that “no country in the world can guarantee that its 100 percent safe”.

“It’s possible at times that an individual incident takes place here or there,” he told journalists.

“We have to know that it’s possible that it would be repeated in the future.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

Later, a statement issued by the United States condemning the attack.

“We stand with all Egyptians in the fight against terrorism and support the Egyptian government in bringing the perpetrators of this attack to justice,” State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said.

Tourism struggling

Egypt’s tourism industry has been struggling to recover from terror attacks and domestic instability that has hit the country in recent years.

In July 2017, two German tourists were stabbed to death by a suspected jihadist assailant at the Egyptian Red Sea beach resort of Hurgada.

In October 2015, a bomb claimed by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group killed 224 people on board a passenger jet carrying Russian tourists over the Sinai peninsula.

That incident dealt a severe blow to Egypt’s tourism industry still reeling from the turmoil set off by the 2011 uprising that forced veteran leader Hosni Mubarak from power.

Egypt has since been seeking to lure tourists back and spur the lucrative sector by touting new archaeological discoveries and bolstering security around archaeological sites and in airports.

Tourism has slowly started picking up. The official statistics agency says tourists arrivals in Egypt in 2017 reached 8.2 million, up from 5.3 million the year before.

But that figure was still far short of the record influx in 2010 when over 14 million visitors flocked see the country’s sites.

Egypt has for years been battling an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai, which surged following the 2013 military ouster of president Mohamed Morsi.

Security forces have since February been conducting a major operation focused on the Sinai Peninsula, aimed at wiping out a local IS branch.

More than 450 suspected jihadists and around 30 Egyptian soldiers have been killed since the offensive began, the army said in October.

The pyramids of Giza are the only surviving structure of the seven wonders of the ancient world and a major tourist draw attracting visitors from across the globe.