New shelling has been reported in the rebel-held east Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, shortly after the peace deal reached in Minsk.

There are no confirmed reports of casualties. Both cities are near the front line where the pro-Russian rebels face government forces.

The ceasefire agreed in the Belarusian capital is to begin in eastern Ukraine after midnight (22:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The EU has warned Russia of new sanctions if the deal is not respected.

Foreign journalists in Donetsk city heard new shelling on Friday morning though they said it sounded less intense than in recent days.

Reports say the city of Luhansk came under bombardment on Thursday evening.

Doubts remain about the deal, which was agreed at talks between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.

Leaders from the four countries finalised the truce on Thursday morning after marathon overnight negotiations in Minsk.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad says his government is receiving messages from the US-led coalition battling the jihadist group, Islamic State.

Mr Assad told the BBC that there had been no direct co-operation since air strikes began in Syria in September.

But third parties - among them Iraq - were conveying "information".

He also denied that Syrian government forces had been dropping barrel bombs indiscriminately on rebel-held areas, killing thousands of civilians.

Mr Assad dismissed the allegation as a "childish story", in a wide-ranging interview with BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in Damascus.

"We have bombs, missiles and bullets... There is [are] no barrel bombs, we don't have barrels."

Our correspondent says that his denial is highly controversial as the deaths of civilians in barrel bomb attacks are well-documented.
Analysis: Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor

Mr Assad's many enemies will dismiss his view of the war.

For them, he has been in charge of a killing machine that has been chewing Syrians up and spitting them out.

As the war enters its fifth year, the barrel bomb has become the most notorious weapon in the regime's arsenal.

Two or three years ago, I saw the results of what must have been one in Douma, a suburb of Damascus that has been held by rebels since close to the beginning of the war.

Mr Assad insisted that the Syrian army would never use them in a place where people lived.

"I know about the army. They use bullets, missiles and bombs. I haven't heard of the army using barrels, or maybe, cooking pots."

It was a flippant response; the mention of cooking pots was either callousness, an awkward attempt at humour, or a sign that Mr Assad has become so disconnected from what is happening that he feels overwhelmed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to discuss a peace plan for east Ukraine with the German, French and Ukrainian leaders by phone.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande are pushing a plan to end bloody fighting between government and rebel forces.
Meeting Mr Putin in Moscow on Friday, they agreed to four-way talks with Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko on Sunday.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the east since April.
Thousands more have been injured and more than a million have fled their homes.

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Petro Poroshenko: "Every day the number of civilian victims is rising"

Ukraine's military reported continued shelling on Saturday, accusing the rebels of preparing new offensives, while the rebels accused the government itself of attacking along the line dividing their forces.
Mr Poroshenko has called on the West for support up to and including weapons.
He made the plea at a security conference in Munich on Saturday, when he brandished passports that he said were those of Russian troops in Ukraine.
Russia denies intervening directly in eastern Ukraine.

Analysis: Jonathan Marcus, BBC News, Munich
The escalating winter war in Ukraine provides a grim backdrop to the talks in Munich. Behind the scenes here there have been serious efforts to try to breathe life into the peace process.
But in public nobody was pulling any punches. US Vice-President Joe Biden made clear Washington's distrust of the Russians and its determination to "allow Ukraine to defend itself".
Could that mean giving it weapons? That's the way US thinking seems to be going, to the horror of most of its European allies. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel for one spoke out passionately against such a move.
But there's really no new peace plan in the offing, only a revamp of the old one that was never implemented - the Minsk Agreement of last year. If diplomacy fails and President Barack Obama goes ahead with arms deliveries to Ukraine, it may not only divide Nato, but provoke an even more aggressive Russian response.

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 Jordan’s King Abdullah vowed a “relentless” war against Islamic State on their own territory on Wednesday in response to a video published by the hard-line group showing a captured Jordanian air force pilot being burned alive in a cage.

Jordan hanged two Iraqi jihadists, one a woman, on Wednesday and vowed to intensify military action against Islamic State.

“We are waging this war to protect our faith, our values and human principles and our war for their sake will be relentless and will hit them in their own ground,” state television quoted the king as saying during a security meeting.

US officials said on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates had withdrawn from flying air strikes in the US-led coalition campaign against Islamic State after the Jordanian pilot’s plane went down over Syria in December.

Jordan, which is part of the US-led alliance, had promised an “earth-shaking response” to the killing of its pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, who was captured after his F-16 crashed.

Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said on Wednesday: “We are talking about a collaborative effort between coalition members to intensify efforts to stop extremism and terrorism to undermine, degrade and eventually finish Daesh.” Daesh is used as a derogatory Arabic term for Islamic State.

He said it was a continuation of Jordan’s long standing policy in fighting hard-line Islamist militants and that King Abdullah, who cut short a trip to the United States, headed a meeting with senior security officials on Wednesday. “All the state’s military and security agencies are developing their options. Jordan’s response will be heard by the world at large but this response on the security and military level will be announced at the appropriate time,” Momani said.

Islamic State had demanded the release of Sajida al-Rishawi in exchange for a Japanese hostage whom it later beheaded. Sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack in Amman, Rishawi was executed at dawn. Jordan also executed a senior al Qaeda prisoner, Ziyad Karboli, an Iraqi man who was sentenced to death in 2008.

The Jordanian pilot was the first from the coalition known to have been captured and killed by Islamic State.

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Many people believes that fingerprint scanning technology is the best way to secure iPhone. Everyone know that this is an unique locking system nobody can hack into phones without owner’s touch. But, what if your fingerprints may not keep your iPhone safe any more.?

Someone has figured out how to use photos and commercially available software to break through an iPhone 6’s fingerprint sensor, which is known as Touch ID.

In a cyber security convention in Hamburg last week, a German hacking group, known as Chaos Computer Club claims that it can recreate your fingerprints from the other side of the world. they claims there is a way to copy your fingerprint, using your picture.

In the past, we have read many forgers have used tape, a scanner, glue and some plastic material to build a gummy fingerprint that can fool scanners. But the Chaos Computer Club says this is the first time when fingerprints have been spoofed from afar. The group’s leader “Starbug” said to CNN, he was able to recreate the thumbprint of the German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen, from several news photos. He said he had HD photos of German Minister of Defense Leyen’s fingers while she was at a presentation in October — standing nine feet away from the official. The gruop leader said he wasn’t able to verify von der Leyen’s fingerprint was accurate, but he was still confident it was a workable copy.

There will be no need to steal objects carrying the fingerprints anymore. After this talk, politicians will presumably wear gloves when talking in public.

–Chaos Computer Club.

Whatever the hackers said but experts believe that there is no need to worry. The fingerprints are still more secure than regular passwords.

According to Dr. Elizabeth Cohen, Communication Studies Professor at West Virginia University:

Even though people are going to develop ways to hack fingerprint scanners, this doesn’t negate their effectiveness. Just like people find ways to hack into passwords, they’re going to find ways to hack into fingerprints. But in many ways, this system is still more secure than a traditional password.

The news was originally appeared at CNN .