Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders was Wednesday shouted down by protesters as he helped launch a new political party in Perth, the anti-Islam Australian Liberty Alliance.

The Dutch firebrand and euroskeptic, who was controversially granted a visa, said the new party was modeled on his own Freedom Party in opposing "the Islamisation process".

Widespread flooding in the Philippines caused by a powerful typhoon eased on Wednesday but the storm's death toll climbed to 47 and tens of thousands of people remained in evacuation centers.

As the weather improved three days after the onslaught of Typhoon Koppu, officials were also counting the cost of ruined crops and drowned livestock from heavy rain that flowed into the vast farming regions north of Manila.

Ali, a Palestinian-Syrian banker desperate to reach the Netherlands, had to hide his surprise when he finally met a shadowy forger known as "The Whale" at an Arab-style shisha cafe near Athens.

"It turns out the guy I'd been speaking to, who sounded so big and scary on the phone, was actually tiny," said 31-year-old Ali, now living as a refugee in The Hague which he reached by plane several months ago using a forged Italian identity card that cost him just 30 euros ($34).

Around 400 elderly South Koreans met privately Wednesday with North Korean relatives they haven't seen for more than 60 years, on the second day of a highly charged reunion for families torn apart by the Korean War.

In contrast to the previous day when their tearful and, in some cases, clearly traumatic meetings were played out in front of TV cameras, they were allowed two hours in their own rooms to try to bridge the decades of separation.

Poland's divided attitudes to the European refugee crisis were laid bare during a televised debate between political candidates Tuesday, ahead of a general election the conservative opposition is tipped to win.

Candidates from eight parties faced off on how Poland should approach the unprecedented influx into the EU of refugees and migrants fleeing war and unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, as the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party makes significant gains in opinion polls.

A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, but no tsunami threat was detected and no damage reported, seismologists said.

The quake hit at a depth of 131 kilometers (81 miles) about 335 kilometers from the capital Port Vila, the United States Geological Survey said.

Chile's congress on Tuesday approved one-time reparation payments for political prisoners and torture victims of the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

Regime victims already receive reparation payments of different types. This would be a blanket single payment for all recognized victims.

The Women's Equality Party (WE), a British political party that fights for women's rights, called for quotas to increase the number of female politicians as it launched its policy platform Tuesday.

"It's 2015. It's nearly a hundred years since women won the right to vote and yet men outnumber women in parliament by two to one," said WE leader Sophie Walker.

At least eight people were hurt by gunfire and teargas in Congo's capital Tuesday when protesters braved a government clampdown and took to the streets to protest the president's bid for a third term in office.

The clashes in Brazzaville erupted after authorities banned a planned protest rally against a referendum Sunday on President Denis Sassou Nguesso's quest to extend his three-decade stay in office.

The U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday it had delivered desperately-needed aid to Ukraine's pro-Russian breakaway region of Donetsk for the first time since its activities there were blocked three months ago.

The U.N. food agency said two convoys of trucks carrying enough food for nearly 16,000 people for one month had reached Donetsk over the past five days.