PUTIN SIGNS LAW ENABLING HIM TO STAY IN POWER UNTIL 2036

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday gave final approval to legislation allowing him to hold office for two additional six-year terms, giving himself the possibility to stay in power until 2036.

The 68-year-old Russian leader, who has already been in power for more than two decades, signed off on the bill Monday, according to a copy posted on the government's legal information portal.

Putin proposed the change last year as part of constitutional reforms that Russians overwhelmingly backed in a vote in July. Lawmakers approved the new bill last month.

The legislation will allow Putin to run in presidential elections again after his current and second consecutive term expires in 2024.

Putin was first elected president in 2000 and served two consecutive four-year terms. His ally Dmitry Medvedev took his place in 2008, which critics saw as a way around Russia's limit on two consecutive terms for presidents.

While in office, Medvedev signed off on legislation extending terms to six years starting with the next president.

Putin then returned to the Kremlin in 2012, winning re-election in 2018.

Kremlin opponents have criticised the legislation allowing him to run for two more terms, calling it a pretext to allow Putin to become "president for life".

TURKEY DETAINS EX-ADMIRALS OVER STATEMENT ON STRAITS TREATY

Turkey on Monday detained 10 former admirals after a group of more than 100 retired top navy officers issued a statement that government officials tied to Turkey’s history of military coups.

The 10 retired admirals were detained as part of an investigation, launched by the chief prosecutor in Ankara on Sunday, over suspicions that they had reached “an agreement with the aim of committing a crime against the security of the state and the constitutional order”, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Four others were not detained because of their advanced ages, but they were asked to report to authorities within three days, Anadolu reported. Authorities stripped the suspects of their rights to government lodgings and bodyguards, Anadolu reported, even before the investigation is concluded. A total of 103 retired admirals signed the statement declaring their commitment to an international treaty that regulates shipping through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

VIETNAM'S PANDEMIC RESPONSE LEADER SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT

The man behind Vietnam's successful handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, was formally sworn in as president in Hanoi on Monday.

Phuc, 66, was Vietnam's prime minister for the last five years, a period in which the economy boomed, and his government's Covid-19 response won plaudits at home and abroad.

Following secret voting on Monday, Phuc scored the maximum votes among the almost 500-member rubber-stamp national assembly.

"This is his well-deserved award," said Nguyen Khac Giang, a Vietnamese politics expert from New Zealand's Victoria University of Wellington.

Authoritarian Vietnam is run by the Communist Party and officially led by the party general secretary, president, and prime minister, with key decisions made by the 18-member politburo.

Vietnam is in the midst of its twice-a-decade leadership transition, with 76-year-old Nguyen Phu Trong re-elected in January as party general secretary, the most important of the three roles.

Phuc was the only candidate nominated for president, as Trong — who had held the presidency since 2018 after the sudden death of his predecessor — stepped down.

The National Assembly said earlier this was "the first time ever a prime minister was nominated to the position of the president".

JORDAN'S PRINCE HAMZAH PLEDGES ALLEGIANCE TO KING AFTER MEDIATION

The former crown prince of Jordan has pledged allegiance to King Abdullah, two days after he said he was placed under house arrest and accused of trying to destabilise the country.

Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, 41, issued a statement hours after mediation saying he was committed to the constitution.

Officials said the king had asked his uncle, Prince Hassan, to help resolve the unprecedented tensions.

The former heir to the throne denies the allegations of conspiracy.

In a signed letter released by the palace on Monday, Prince Hamzah said: "I place myself in the hands of his majesty the king... I will remain committed to the constitution of the dear Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan."

Malik Dahlan, a professional mediator and a friend of the family, issued a separate statement, saying the mediation had been "successful" and that he expected a resolution "shortly", according to the Associated Press.

'DIRTY AND UGLY' CITY? PARIS SLAMS VIRAL CAMPAIGN

A "dirty and ugly" urban centre spoiled by rubbish piling up and flotsam floating in the water? Or still the City of Light boldly dealing with modern metropolitan problems?

A viral hashtag has in recent days sought to rally Parisians' anger on what some residents see as an unacceptably dirty city, a far cry from the romantic image of the French capital promoted in books and films.

The hashtag -- #saccageparis (trashed Paris) -- has seen residents bombard Twitter with photos of grim Paris scenes in a drive that the city hall, run by Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, has denounced as a "smear campaign".

"Like all cities in France, Paris is faced with incivility and problems of regulating public space," the city hall said in a statement on Twitter, accusing users of posting pictures before cleaning teams had intervened.

It noted too that numbers on the city's cleaning teams were down by around 10 percent due to Covid cases or self-isolation forced by contacts.

"The City of Paris is the target of a smear campaign via #saccageparis," it said.

Many Twitter users lashed out at Hidalgo -- who analysts think could be mulling a crack at the French presidency in 2022 -- as they denounced a "rubbish tip city" that had been left to "abandon".

Her right-wing opponents on the city council seized on the debate, urging an exceptional meeting of the body to discuss the cleanliness of Paris.

MORE THAN 1,800 PRISONERS ESCAPE AFTER ATTACK ON NIGERIA JAIL

More than 1,800 inmates have escaped after heavily armed men attacked a prison in southern Nigeria using explosives, prison authorities said Monday, in one of the country's largest jailbreaks.

The attackers blasted their way into the Owerri prison in Imo state, engaging guards in a gun battle, the national corrections authority said in a statement.

"I can confirm that the Imo State command of the Nigerian Correctional Service was attacked by unknown gunmen in Owerri," Imo state corrections service spokesman James Madugba told AFP, adding that the number of escaped inmates was yet to be confirmed.

"The situation is under control," he said.

The assailants arrived in pickup trucks and buses before storming the facility, the correction authority said.

President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement called the attack an "act of terrorism" and urged security forces to capture the assailants and the escaped detainees.

The governor of neighbouring Abia state imposed a night curfew on two towns there after the prison escape, a statement said, to protect local residents.

MORE THAN 75 DEAD IN INDONESIA, EAST TIMOR FLOODS, DOZENS MISSING

More than 75 people have died and dozens are still missing after flash floods and landslides hit Indonesia and neighbouring East Timor, officials said on Monday.

Floods sparked by torrential rain have wreaked havoc and destruction on islands stretching from Flores in Indonesia to East Timor, sending thousands fleeing into shelters.

The deluge and subsequent landslides caused dams to overflow, submerging thousands of houses and leaving rescue workers struggling to reach trapped survivors.

"There are 55 dead, but this number is very dynamic and will definitely change, while some 42 people are still missing," Indonesia disaster management agency spokesman Raditya Jati told broadcaster MetroTV.

At least 21 people had also died in East Timor, said an official in the tiny half-island nation that lies between Indonesia and Australia.

Many of the deaths were in Timor's inundated capital Delhi.

GREECE MAKES FRESH WWII REPARATION CLAIMS FROM GERMANY

The government in Athens has revived its demand for talks with Germany on wartime reparations just ahead of the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Greece by German troops in World War II.

“The question remains open until our demands are met. These demands are valid and active, and they will be asserted by any means,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexandros Papaioannou told the German news agency DPA.

Greece last made an official call for negotiations in 2019, under leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. But the government of current conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in January 2020 that Athens still considered the issue an open one, although it had so far refrained from pressuring Berlin on the matter.

The cost of the damage caused by Nazi Germany in Greece during the war has been estimated at €289 billion ($339 billion) by a Greek parliamentary commission. That amount includes a loan that Greece was forced to grant the German central bank.

After invading Greece on April 6, 1941, German armed forces went on to carry out numerous massacres in the country, with tens of thousands of civilians dying during the conflict.

Germany has said it considers the issue to have been resolved by the so-called Two Plus Four Agreement, signed in 1990, which allowed the united Germany to become fully sovereign the following year. The signatories to the treaty were the former East and West Germanies and the former occupying powers, France, the US, Britain and the Soviet Union.

Reparations were not explicitly mentioned in the document. Countries such as Greece and Poland that had been invaded by Germany in the war were not included in the negotiations for the treaty.