News in pictures: Forest fires rage in Syria and Lebanon, Top Indian politician cremated, Modi to launch rural property card, Messi to stay with Barca? EU commissioner is COVID positive…

‘MESSI COULD BE CONVINCED TO STAY AT BARCA: Lionel Messi could be convinced to stay at Barcelona beyond this season, despite interest from Manchester City, according to his former team mate Luis Suarez. The Barca captain tried to force his way out of the club in the close season but agreed to stay until his contract ends in June 2021. Argentina forward Messi, 33, revealed his frustrations with the club's board and a lack of planning but said he would give his all this season. Messi, Barcelona's all-time top goalscorer, is free to negotiate with other clubs from January, including Pep Guardiola's City, who are interested in luring him to Manchester. "Maybe there's the possibility of him playing for another club, but if he feels comfortable and happy, and a new board come in, he will want to stay at the club," Atletico Madrid striker Suarez told ESPN television's 90 Minutes.

NORTH KOREA DISPLAYS NEW MISSILE: North Korea displayed what analysts said was a previously unseen new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at a military parade in Pyongyang on Saturday. Edited footage shown on state television showed an ICBM on a transporter vehicle with at least 22 wheels, larger than anything previously displayed by the nuclear-armed country. It was the first time since 2018 that North Korea has shown ICBMs at a military parade.

DUTCH HIT DAILY COVID-19 RECORD: The Netherlands reached a new record in daily coronavirus cases, hitting nearly 6,500 infections in 24 hours, data released on Saturday showed. The government has warned that new restrictions will have to be imposed across the country, one of the worst hit in Europe's second COVID-19 wave, if the number of infections and hospital admissions does not drop this weekend.

INDIA POLITICIAN CREMATED: The mortal remains of India’s Lok Janshakti Party founder and union minister Ram Vilas Paswan were consigned to flames with full state honours in Patna on Saturday. Ram Vilas Paswan's son Chirag performed the last rites at Digha ghat. The body of Lok Janshakti Party leader was flown from Delhi to Patna on Friday. The union minister died on Thursday after a long illness. He was 74. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president JP Nadda, and several other leaders paid their tributes to the late leader at his residence in the national capital. Ram Vilas Paswan held the portfolio of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

MODI TO LAUNCH RURAL PROPERTY CARDS: In a move likely to transform rural India and empower millions of Indians, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch via video conferencing on Sunday the physical distribution of property cards under the 'SVAMITVA' scheme. "The launch will enable nearly one lakh property holders to download their property cards through the SMS link delivered on their mobile phones. This will be followed by physical distribution of the property cards by the respective state governments," said a Union government statement. The beneficiaries belong to 763 villages across six states, including 346 from Uttar Pradesh, 221 from Haryana, 100 from Maharashtra, 44 from Madhya Pradesh, 50 from Uttarakhand and two from Karnataka. The beneficiaries from all these states except Maharashtra will receive physical copies of the property cards within a day -- Maharashtra has a system of recovering the nominal cost of the property card so it will take a month, the statement added.

FOSSILS OF MONKEYS DATING BACK 6.4 MILLION YEARS FOUND IN CHINA: Scientists have found three fossils of monkeys dating back 6.4-million years at the Shuitangba lignite mine in northeastern Yunnan Province of China. The discovery indicated that this monkey species existed in Asia at the same time as apes, and are probably the ancestors of some of the modern monkeys in the area, the study published in the 'Journal of Human Evolution', reported. "This is significant because they are some of the very oldest fossils of monkeys outside of Africa," said study author Nina G Jablonski from the Penn State University. "It is close to or actually the ancestor of many of the living monkeys of East Asia. One of the interesting things from the perspective of palaeontology is that this monkey occurs at the same place and the same time as ancient apes in Asia," Jablonski added.

TAMM ENHANCES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: The Abu Dhabi Government Services ecosystem, TAMM, announced new features for some of its services on the TAMM platform that will provide more ease and convenience for users when completing digital government tasks through the integrated platform. Aimed to enhance the customer experience by offering unique features, Abu Dhabi residents and citizens can enjoy access to services relating to education, business and social sector that are offered by different Abu Dhabi government entities with more ease and convenience. Among the new features users can benefit from are acquiring attested school certificated and grade reports, finding the perfect school for your children, getting career advice, viewing and comparing business licences, marriage procedures and completing inheritance documents, and making use of the social support services.

MORE THAN 1,000 MIGRANTS LAND IN SPANISH ISLANDS: More than a thousand illegal African migrants have landed in the Spanish Canary Islands in the last 48 hours, an influx not seen in at least 10 years, according to the Red Cross. African migrants have recently turned to the Canary Islands after agreements with Turkey, Morocco and Libya tightened control over the Mediterranean route to Europe's shores. Since Thursday, 1,015 people have arrived on 37 vessels to the islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Grand Canaria and Tenerife, the last two territories laying around 300 km (190 miles) off Africa's coast.

KYRGYZ FORMER PRESIDENT RE-ARRESTED AFTER JAIL ESCAPE: Kyrgyzstan's security service said Saturday that it had rearrested former president Almazbek Atambayev after supporters freed him from jail during post-election protests. The arrest came as the incumbent president Sooronbay Jeenbekov reasserted control following unrest after a disputed parliamentary election in which several prominent politicians were freed. The state national security committee said in a statement that Atambayev had been arrested on suspicion of organising mass disorder, along with one of his bodyguards and another accomplice.

EU COMMISSIONER TESTS COVID POSITIVE: EU commissioner Mariya Gabriel has tested positive for Covid-19, she said Saturday, the first top Brussels official known to have caught the coronavirus. Gabriel, the EU commissioner for research and innovation, had already announced on Monday that she would self-isolate after a member of her team tested positive for the virus. "After a first negative #COVID19 test on Monday, my second one is positive," tweeted Gabriel, who is Bulgaria's representative to the 27-member EU executive.

FLOODS CLAIM LIVES IN VIETNAM: Hundreds of families in three Cambodian provinces - Pursat, Battambang and Pailin - have been forced to evacuate amid extreme rainfall ahead of the arrival of a tropical depression across the Mekong region. Authorities do not yet have a clear picture of the extent of the damage or people affected but expect the situation to worsen on Sunday. In central Vietnam almost a metre of rain has fallen in recent days. Five people have died with eight still missing as floodwaters inundated more than 33,000 homes and forced more than 26,000 people to evacuate, the official disaster management authority said.

FOREST FIRES RAGE IN SYRIA, LEBANON: Forest fires in Syria and neighbouring Lebanon have killed two people and burned swathes of land since Thursday, state media and officials said. Syrian state television on Saturday morning broadcast scenes from the affected areas, where firefighters were working to extinguish the blazes. It said hundreds of hectares had burned in the countryside of Syria's coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces, and in the central Homs province. Dozens of fires were burning, including "45 in Latakia and 33 in Tartus", Syria's Agriculture Minister Mohammed Hassan Qatana told a radio station on Friday. In neighbouring Lebanon, there have been more than 100 fires across the country since Thursday, according to George Abu Musa, head of operations for the country's civil defence.