BRITISH PM TO MEET BUSINESS CHIEFS ON BREXIT

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May is to meet business chiefs on Monday in a bid to reassure them that the Brexit process is on track, following a bruising week for her leadership. A plot to oust her by around 30 MPs in her Conservative Party went public on Friday, but cabinet colleagues refused to join the push. The plot came after her showpiece speech to the center-right party’s annual conference on Wednesday—intended to steady her leadership—was plagued by mishaps. A prankster managed to hand her an unemployment notice, a persistent cough left her almost unable to deliver her speech, while the set behind her started falling down. Monday’s business meeting at May’s Downing Street office will come as British and European Union negotiators resume talks in Brussels in the hope of a breakthrough in the Brexit negotiations.

RUSSIA STRIKES KILL 120 IS FIGHTERS, OVER 60 ‘ FOREIGN MERCENARIES’ IN SYRIA – MOSCOW

MOSCOW: Some 120 Islamic State fighters and 60 foreign mercenaries were killed in a series of Russian air strikes in Syria over the past 24 hours, the defense ministry in Moscow said on Saturday. “A command post of the terrorists and up to 80 (IS) fighters including nine natives of the Northern Caucasus were destroyed in the area of Mayadeen,” the ministry said, adding some 40 IS fighters were killed around the town of Albu Kamal. As a result of an air strike more than 60 foreign mercenaries from the former Soviet Union, Tunisia, and Egypt were killed south of Deir Ezzor. The ministry said the “large numbers of foreign mercenaries” were coming into the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal from Iraq. Mayadeen is one of the Islamic State group’s last bastions in Syria.

US ENDS SUDAN TRADE EMBARGO, CITES PROGRESS ON RIGHTS

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The United States announced an end to its 20-year- old trade embargo against Sudan on Friday (Saturday in Manila), citing what it said are improvements in Khartoum’s human rights record. Washington did not drop Sudan from its blacklist of state terror sponsors nor end its support for the international war crimes indictment targeting President Omar al-Bashir. But the decision was nonetheless a breakthrough for Bashir’s regime, which has engaged with Washington in a bid to end the international isolation that it has suffered since the bloody crisis in Darfur that broke out in 2003. Some human rights advocates denounced the move, the fruit of an intense 16-month diplomatic initiative that began under former US president Barack Obama, but other observers cautiously hailed it as a small step forward for the region. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson published a report confirming the decision, and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the order would come into effect on October 12.

OBAMA MAKES IMPASSIONED PLEA FOR CLEAN ENERGY IN ARGENTINA

CÓRDOBA, Argentina: Former US president Barack Obama made an impassioned plea on Friday (Saturday in Manila) for the world to embrace clean energy and overcome climate change at a gathering of experts in Argentina. Obama told an audience of government ministers, business leaders and young environmental activists they were part of a generation with the scientific means and imagination to begin to repair the planet. “This is no longer speculation, this is no longer an issue that we can put off, this is firmly in the present.” Obama said and added “we cannot condemn our children and their children to a future they cannot repair.” The two-day Green Economy conference in the central city of Cordoba heard from experts including Nobel economic laureate Edmund Phelps that the global fight for clean energy rests with businesses and ordinary people because governments were lagging behind.

DECAPITATED HEAD OF SWEDISH JOURNALIST KIM WALL FOUND — DANISH POLICE

COPENHAGEN: Danish police said Saturday they have found the decapitated head and two legs belonging Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who vanished after interviewing a Danish inventor aboard his homemade submarine. Copenhagen police inspector Jens Moller Jensen told reporters police had found one bag with her missing clothes, and another bag containing her head and legs. “Last night our forensic dentist confirmed that it was Kim Wall,” Jensen said. Wall’s headless torso was found floating in waters off Copenhagen on August 21. Submarine inventor Peter Madsen has been accused of her death.