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The epicentre of the 7.2-magnitude tremor was near the town of Pinotepa de Don Luis in the Oaxaca state, the US Geological Survey said.

It said the quake was 24.6km underground.

There was no immediate information about casualties or the extent of damage caused.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that there was no tsunami threat.

After Friday’s tremor, people were seen fleeing buildings in the capital as the ground shook.

The authorities activated earthquake alert systems, urging residents to stay outdoors.

Last September, two devastating earthquakes in Mexico killed hundreds of people.

Mexico is one of the most seismically active regions in the world, sitting on top of three of the Earth’s largest tectonic plates – the North American, Cocos and Pacific plates.

The woman claims she was also sexually assaulted by another Oxfam worker after a party in South Sudan months later.

She says she was “screaming for help” during the incident at her accommodation “but nobody came”.

The charity announced it would set up a commission to probe past and present claims of exploitation by staff.

It has also agreed not to bid for any new UK funding until the government is satisfied it meets sufficient ethical standards, ministers said.

The British charity has faced criticism over the way it handled claims staff hired prostitutes in Haiti in 2011 following the earthquake the year before.

Speaking anonymously to the BBC, the former junior aid worker said her colleague in Haiti “literally just pinned me up against the wall – he was groping me, grabbing me, kissing me – I was just trying to shove him off”.

“I got him off eventually and he got mad and he threw his glass at me and it shattered on the floor,” she said.

But the woman – who said it had been her dream to work for Oxfam – said the assault continued in a car later.

“He got in next to me and I was scared so I got out and went to sit in the back,” she said.

“He just threw me out of my seat and pinned me into the ground and one of my colleagues – a woman who was also my roommate – reached back and tried to grab me and pick me out.

“I was hitting him and kicking him and she helped me and I got back into the middle seat and jumped into the front seat on the passenger side. As soon as we got home I just ran out of the car into my room… I didn’t want to say anything.”

The woman broke down in tears as she described how in South Sudan after she managed to fend the second colleague off she “stood at the door with all my might keeping it pushed shut as he was pushing it from the other end”.

The alleged attack took place in her staff quarters, as she started to get undressed and go to sleep.

The woman said: “He just walked in and shove me on the bed, tried to rip some of my clothes off – he did rip some of my clothes off. He got naked, forced himself. I was just shoving, kicking, pushing and just screaming for anyone.”

“Nobody came to help and I just pushed him and kicked him – eventually he got up and walked outside for a bit. I ran over to the door and shut it.”

Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima has invited victims to come forward “for justice to be done” for them, saying she was “here for all the women who have been abused”.

In a BBC interview, she admitted she could not guarantee there were not sex predators currently working at the organisation but vowed Oxfam would “build a new culture that doesn’t tolerate that behaviour”.

Earlier this month, news reports said that during a humanitarian mission in Haiti in 2011, prostitutes attended a villa occupied by the charity’s country director Roland van Hauwermeiren at a villa paid for by Oxfam.

Mr van Hauwermeiren, who left Oxfam in 2011 amid a sexual misconduct inquiry, has denied hiring prostitutes but said he had “intimate relations” with a woman who was “not a prostitute”.

The UK’s Charity Commission is to launch a full inquiry into Oxfam, saying the organisation may not have “full and frankly disclosed material details” about the Haiti sex scandal.

Oxfam has almost 10,000 staff working in more than 90 countries across the globe.

Its chief executive Mark Goldring has used an interview in the Guardian to repeat his apology for the charity’s failings, while maintaining that “the scale and the intensity of the attacks feels out of proportion to the level of culpability”.

President Michel Temer compared the violence to “a cancer” and said organised criminals had all but seized control of the state.

Rio’s governor issued an appeal for help after the annual carnival celebrations were marred by violence.

The army will oversee police and other security services.

Overseeing the operation will be Gen Walter Souza Braga Netto, head of the Eastern Military Command. He was widely praised for his part in co-ordinating security for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Signing the decree, Mr Termer said he was taking “extreme measures” because circumstances demanded it.

“The government will give tough and firm answers, taking all necessary measures to eradicate organised crime,” he said.

There were chaotic scenes during the famous Rio carnival, with gun fights and looting. Three police officers died in violent clashes.

National TV news bulletins also broadcast footage of gangs surrounding and robbing tourists.

With the security situation apparently spiralling out of control, state governor Luiz Fernando Pezao made a plea to the national government saying military intervention was the only way to tackle the heavily armed gangs.

He apologised to those revellers affected, saying: “We were not ready. There were mistakes in the first days and we reinforced the patrols.”

Rio’s police budget has been slashed in recent years because of a financial crisis. There have been criticisms that police do not even have the money to pay for the petrol in their patrol cars.

Finances in Rio state have been badly hit by a national recession and a slump in oil prices, as well as high levels of corruption.

The financial problems have only emboldened criminal gangs.

Figures from the Rio state government show an 8% increase in killings last year over 2016 and a 26% jump since 2015.

By OP’S NEWS 

What happens now?

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

But how he ended up almost 3,000 miles (4,800 km) across the country remains something of a mystery.

Constantinos Filippidis, 49, vanished on Wednesday afternoon during a ski trip on Whiteface Mountain.

On Tuesday morning, he called emergency services from the Sacramento airport and told them he was a missing person.

New York State authorities, who had launched a search for the Toronto firefighter announced he was found “alive and in good health”.

Sergeant Shaun Hampton, with the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department, said Mr Filippidis told authorities he believed he had sustained a head injury at some point in the last few days.

Officers who were dispatched to the airport confirmed Mr Filippidis’ identity. The Toronto man appeared disoriented and was occasionally confused.

He was still wearing snow boots and his ski jacket, and was carrying his helmet.

The firefighter told police he had travelled across the country as a passenger on a big rig truck but could not recall anything about either the vehicle or the driver.

Mr Hampton said Mr Filippidis told them could not remember much at all about the last two days.

The police officer said it also appeared Mr Filippidis got a haircut and bought an iPhone while in California.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions “to say the least”, said Mr Hampton.

Mr Filippidis was brought to a local hospital. He does not face any charges.

Toronto Fire Services Chief Matthew Pegg said in a statement his colleagues are very relieved to know Mr Filippidis is safe.

The changes were intended to separate interactions with friends from branded content – including that of celebrities and influencers.

Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel wrote in a blog post that he believed blurring the two had contributed to the rise of fake news.

However, thousands of Snapchat users say that the new layout is hard to use.

Nic Rumsey, who set up the petition, wrote that some are using Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps – which use servers abroad to mask the location of a device – in order to access the older version of the platform: “That’s how annoying this update has become,” he said.

“Many ‘new features’ are useless or defeat the original purposes Snapchat has had for the past years.”

The petition, posted on the change.org website, is one of several appealing to Snapchat to revert to its previous state.

Users now swipe left to see and interact with their friends, and swipe right to see branded and celebrity content.

Model Chrissie Teigen tweeted that she didn’t like feeling that her followers no longer felt like “friends” as a result.

“How many people have to hate an update for it to be reconsidered?” she asked.

Kylie Jenner asked her Twitter followers what they thought of the changes, and then agreed with a follower who replied that they hated it.

Snapchat reiterated its statement that updates “can take a little getting used to”.

Rohan Midha, managing director of influencer marketing agency PMYB, told the BBC that Snapchat had made a mistake in removing celebrities and influencers – high profile individuals with lots of followers – from the “friends” section.

“They hadn’t realised the value that influencers add to the app,” he said.

“People want to follow influencers because they really like them, whereas Snapchat just sees them as brands.”

However Mr Midha added that he didn’t think the petition would force Snapchat into a u-turn.

“It doesn’t surprise me that so many people have signed it,” he said.

“But I don’t think this large Silicon Valley company is going to take notice of a petition.”

In a press briefing, he condemned Barnaby Joyce for a “shocking error of judgement”.

Mr Joyce will take a leave of absence from Monday amid scrutiny over whether he breached ministerial standards.

Both Mr Joyce and Mr Turnbull deny that any rules, as defined, were broken.

But the prime minister said he would overhaul the “truly deficient” ministerial code of conduct.

“Ministers must behave accordingly. They must not have sexual relations with their staff – that’s it,” he told reporters.

Mr Turnbull earlier told parliament that Mr Joyce would not fill his post as acting leader next week when the prime minister travels to the US.

The scandal has dominated Australian politics since last Wednesday when Mr Joyce’s affair with media adviser Vikki Campion was publicly revealed.

Mr Turnbull said Mr Joyce would be on leave for a week from Monday. Opposition parties called on him to resign.

The high-profile conservative had only returned to parliament in December after briefly losing his job over his New Zealand dual citizenship.

Mr Turnbull said his deputy had caused “terrible hurt and humiliation” to his estranged wife, Natalie Joyce, their four daughters, and Ms Campion.

“Barnaby made a shocking error of judgement in having an affair with a young woman working in his office,” he said.

“In doing so he has set off a world of woe for those women, and appalled all of us. Our hearts go out to them.”

On Tuesday, Mr Joyce publicly apologised to all six for what he called a “searing personal experience”.

Mr Turnbull said such behaviour was not acceptable “today, in 2018”, and ministers must oversee respectful workplaces.

Joyce takes cover

By OP’S NEWS 

It’s unlike Barnaby Joyce to step away from the front line. He’s a hardened battler who normally revels in the noisy confrontation of politics.

Mr Joyce is the man who took on Johnny Depp, a man he called a “dipstick”, and won; the politician who survived the citizenship row and was re-elected with an increased majority.

The man in the Akubra hat was riding high until his extramarital affair was exposed and he lost authority within his own party.

With the storm around him showing no sign of slowing, Mr Joyce will hope his impromptu holiday can somehow calm matters.

But his opponents are unlikely to stop sniping, just because he’s taken cover.

On Thursday, the Senate passed a motion calling on Mr Joyce to resign – although it has no power to force such a move.

Mr Joyce has faced questions over the timing of two unadvertised jobs within his party that were taken up by Ms Campion last year.

Under the code of conduct, Mr Turnbull must approve any ministerial department job given to the partner of a frontbencher. No permission was sought for Ms Campion.

However, both Mr Joyce and Mr Turnbull maintain that Ms Campion was not the deputy prime minister’s partner at the time.

Mr Joyce was due to step in as acting prime minister while Mr Turnbull is on his trip to the US, in line with usual convention.

The role will instead be taken up by Mathias Cormann, the government’s leader in the Senate.

Mr Zuma was under intense pressure from his own ANC party, which told him to step down or face a vote of no-confidence in parliament.

In a televised statement he said he was quitting with immediate effect but said he disagreed with the party’s decision.

Mr Zuma faces numerous corruption allegations but denies any wrongdoing.

As deputy president, Mr Ramaphosa automatically became acting president when Mr Zuma stood down.

The Christian movement, called 40 Days for Life, insists its presence at the Queen’s Medical Centre is “peaceful”.

However, researchers into this type of activism have said it is a form of street harassment that is “incredibly intimidating and distressing”.

The hospital said the activists had previously caused “distress”.

John Edwards, from Nottingham 40 Days for Life, said the group was “always peaceful”.

“40 Days for Life is a vigil of prayer, not a protest. We pray – for the unborn, and for their mothers, who are also harmed by abortion,” he said.

“If anyone approaches us, we will talk to them, and can direct women to sources of support to help them keep their baby if that is what they wish. Many women around the country have been helped by such vigils.”

The movement claims to help women by showing them an alternative to abortion, and claims many women have been grateful for their presence outside clinics.

The BBC asked to speak to some of these women but 40 Days for Life has not provided any contact details.

The action has been timed to coincide with Lent and it is the third year in a row that it has taken place in Nottingham.

They intend to be there from 06:00 GMT to 18:00 every day, with different activists signing up for “vigil hours”.

In previous years they gathered outside the Circle Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre, where abortions and other medical procedures are carried out. However, this year they are by the hospital entrance on Leen Gate, which is just off NHS land.

It is thought to be Nottingham City Council land, and the council is investigating what action it can take.

Councillor Nick McDonald, portfolio holder for adults and health, said: “We understand that despite a clear warning from both NUH [Nottingham University Hospitals] and from the council that this protest is not wanted in Nottingham, its organisers have pushed ahead with it.

“We will repeat, we fully support the trust’s stance on this issue, and for our part we will not put up with Nottingham residents, whether staff or patients, being intimidated or harassed as has happened in previous years.”

Councillor Toby Neal, portfolio holder for community and customer services, said: “We are aware that the protest has started, and we are investigating what action we can take to ensure the protection of the public. We will not shy away from taking any action we deem necessary to do that.”

In November, Home Secretary Amber Rudd ordered an assessment of protests outside abortion clinics following concerns about the tactics of some “aggressive” protesters.

Dr Pam Lowe from Aston University has been researching anti-abortion activism in public spaces for nearly three years.

“All the evidence suggests that women do find this incredibly intimidating and distressing and we think it constitutes a form of street harassment,” she said.

“It’s all very well for them to say ‘we’re peaceful’, and that might be the case, but women approaching don’t know that, they don’t know who these people are.

“You have to understand that women generally are nervous about public places, or can be nervous if they see a group of strangers.”

Dr Lowe said the Nottingham demonstration is unusual because it is at a hospital, while most demonstrations take place outside abortion clinics.

Before the demonstration began, Tracy Taylor, chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Previous protests by this group have caused very considerable distress to patients, visitors and staff, which we are not prepared to allow to happen again.

“As such, we do not give permission for any such protest to take place on our site.”

However, the activists are thought to be just off NHS land, so it is not clear what the hospital can do.

The trust has said it does not support “any protest, on any matter” that “impacts adversely on our patients, visitors and staff”.

It has not specified what action it will take, but in a statement said: “We are working closely with partner agencies to protect our patients and staff and have proactively explored a range of options should action be necessary from Wednesday so that we can ensure that all who need to access our services can do so and without intimidation or unnecessary distress.”

Dr Lowe has analysed comments made by women who have encountered anti-abortion activists on their way into clinics.

“It is intimidating, if all you know as a woman approaching the clinic seeking an abortion is there is a group of people on the pavement who want to stop you and you don’t know what they’re going to be doing,” she said.

“Also they feel it’s an invasion of healthcare privacy, so it draws attention to the space and it’s a shaming position. It’s drawing public attention to what’s happening.

“This is a very private decision, it’s a healthcare decision, and we wouldn’t normally expect our private decisions to be made public in the way that it is.”

She said counter demonstrations can potentially have a negative effect on women too, although some are timed so they are run at times when the clinics are not seeing women.

“The more there is a public spectacle outside the clinic the more difficult it can be for women. So it would be better for everybody involved if no-one was right outside the clinic,” she said.

Rachel Strong, an activist with Pro-Choice Nottingham, took part in counter demonstrations in 2017 and campaigned to stop 40 Days for Life from going on the hospital site again.

“A small group of us were quite horrified by what they were doing because we are aware that it’s really intimidating for anybody accessing reproductive healthcare to have to walk past these kind of vigils, these kind of demonstrations,” she said.

The group had planned further counter demonstrations if 40 Days for Life returned to the entrance to Circle Nottingham, where women have abortions. However, the demonstrations have been cancelled for now as 40 Days for Life are in a different location.

“As this area is away from the treatment centre entrance and there is no sight of it from there we will not be holding a counter demo unless the situation changes,” said Ms Strong.

Social services allowed Jennifer Crichton, 35, to keep baby Amelia despite the previous attack, which was not prosecuted.

She was convicted of Amelia’s murder, and cruelty and causing grievous bodily harm to the other child, at Preston Crown Court on Tuesday.

Lancashire’s Safeguarding Children Board has set up a serious case review.

Police arrested Crichton over the earlier attack but never charged her because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there was not enough evidence.

She went on to admit harming the child to a social worker, a nurse and a doctor but it was only after she murdered Amelia that she was prosecuted for it.

The court heard Amelia was living with Crichton under a Lancashire County Council care plan which had been outsourced to a local care provider.

On 19 April, a social worker visited them at home in Leyland, Lancashire.

The social worker eventually left but an hour and 20 minutes later Crichton called for an ambulance.

Amelia had suffered “catastrophic” injuries including a fractured skull and died two days later.

Crichton was found guilty of Amelia’s murder plus three counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and child cruelty to the earlier attack victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

She will sentenced after undergoing psychiatric assessment.

Det Insp Simon Cheyte, of Lancashire Constabulary, said: “The assault on the other child was subject to a previous investigation.

“Jennifer Crichton was arrested but it was decided by the Crown Prosecution Service there was not enough evidence to prosecute.

“Following the murder of Amelia, it was reviewed and further evidence was discovered.

“This was considered along with the supporting evidence of Amelia’s sad death and it was decided that charges could be brought.”

Rahul Odedra, 46, from Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, placed small cameras in cubicles or toilets rolls.

At Gloucester Crown Court he was sentenced to four years and three months in prison for voyeurism and making indecent images of children.

Judge Ian Lawrie said the teacher’s compulsion was a “toxic secret”.

Odedra was caught when a pupil noticed he was trying to film up her skirt and reported him.

Police seized 200 videos showing women or girls on the toilet or filmed up their skirts.

At an earlier hearing, Odedra pleaded guilty to 20 counts of voyeurism, two counts of making an indecent image of a child and one of attempting to make an indecent image of a child.

The offences took place over an eight-year period at three different schools and at another location.

Judge Lawrie said Odedra’s actions had been “persistent and deliberate”.

“It is clear that your actions, although you didn’t realise it at the time, which I find surprising, caused immeasurable harm to the victims,” he added.

Odedra was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.