Following an epidemic of COVID-19 cases, officials in Chengdu, a city in southwest China, have announced a lockdown of its 21.2 million citizens and four days of citywide testing.
Residents of Chengdu must “remain home in principle” starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, according to a statement from city officials, non-essential workers are being requested to work from home to help fight a fresh wave of diseases. If a household can present a negative test result within the last 24 hours, they will be permitted to send one person each day to go shopping for essentials.
The statement went on to say all residents would be tested for the infection between Thursday and Sunday. They were urged to not leave the city unless “absolutely necessary.”
It was not clear how long the lockdown would last. The Reuters news agency reported most of the restrictions were intended to last a few days at this point, although two provincial cities in northern China extended curbs slightly beyond initial plans.
Similar measures have seen millions of people confined to their homes in the northeastern city of Dalian, as well as Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province that borders the capital city, Beijing.
State media report the economic center of Shenzhen, the most populous district in Baoan, and tech hub Nanshan, suspended large events and indoor entertainment for a few days and ordered stricter checks of digital health credentials for people entering residential compounds.
China’s state media reported Wednesday the restrictions will affect the start of the new school year in at least 10 cities as pandemic controls force schools to switch to measures like online learning.
China’s state-run news outlet China Daily reports, citing Chengdu’s Health Commission, that as of Wednesday there were 665 confirmed cases and 293 asymptomatic carriers under treatment or medical observation.
According to Randy Joe Sa’ah of the BBC, some of the local residents have been alarmed due to a bad smell coming from Lake Kuk in North-West Cameroon.
An unexpected gas breakout from beneath Lake Nyos in 1986 resulted in the deaths of over 1,600 people and tens of thousands of cattle. The lake and the surrounding Kuk settlement are close to that location.
Some then started to leave the area but others stayed put, linking the natural phenomenon to the recent death of a traditional ruler. In other words, the ancestors were responding to his passing.
The local authorities have urged people to be calm and said the strange smell and change in the water colour were due to the recent heavy rains, Journal du Cameroon reports.
Lawyers representing the electoral commission and President-elect William Ruto challenged the petition by presidential candidate Raila Odinga and six others seeking to overturn the result of the 9 August election.
The legal teams urged the court to dismiss pleas made by Mr Odinga and others saying they lacked merit because they had not tabled evidence to support their claims.
They challenged the petitioners to provide proof to demonstrate that the results transmission system was compromised.
The court was told that the allegations made about the dispute between the commissioners and the chairperson were merely sensational and do not warrant a nullification of the election outcome.
They accused petitioners of engineering a constitutional crisis to achieve their political objectives.
Lawyers will respond to questions and clarifications sought by the seven-judge bench on Friday.
The judges will then write the judgment over the weekend and deliver the ruling on Monday.
In an effort to bring Japan’s government into the digital era and cut down on red tape, Minister of Digital Affairs Taro Kono has vowed to do away with antiquated technologies like the floppy disk, CD, and MiniDisc.
A Japanese minister has declared “war” on old-fashioned technology, including the humble floppy disk, in a determined bid to drag the government into the digital age.
Almost 2,000 government procedures still rely on the business community using the now obsolete storage devices.
Minister of Digital Affairs Taro Kono said existing regulations would be updated to allow people to use online services.
Digital Minister declares a war on floppy discs.
There are about 1900 government procedures that requires business community to use discs, i. e. floppy disc, CD, MD, etc to submit applications and other forms. Digital Agency is to change those regulations so you can use online.
He also hopes to eliminate the use of outdated technology such as the CD and MiniDiscs.
“We will be reviewing these practices swiftly”, Mr Kono told a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.
The minister said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered his full support, according to reports in Japan.
“Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?” Mr Kono joked.
He also vowed to get rid of the fax machine during his speech.
He later tweeted: “There are about 1,900 government procedures that require [the] business community to use discs, i.e floppy disc, CD, MD, to submit applications and other forms.
“(The) digital agency is to change those regulations so you can use online.”
A committee found about 1,900 law, government, and ministerial clauses stipulating that specific storage devices, including floppy discs, are used to make administrative applications and keep data, the Japan Times reports.
The government is considering abolishing this requirement to reduce bureaucracy.
Any opposition from ministers or agencies would be “pushed down”, Mr Kono said.
Diarrhea, skin conditions, and eye infections are on the rise in areas affected by the most recent record-breaking floods.
In areas affected by recent record-breaking floods, Pakistani health officials have reported an outbreak of waterborne infections. Authorities are stepping up efforts to ensure that hundreds of thousands of people who lost their houses in the tragedy have access to clean drinking water.
Diarrhoea, skin diseases, and eye infections are spreading at relief camps set up by the government across the country. More than 90,000 diarrhoea cases were reported from one of the worst-hit provinces, Sindh, in the past 24 hours, according to a report released by the health officials on Thursday.
The latest development comes a day after the government and the World Health Organization raised concerns over the spread of waterborne diseases among flood victims.
Pakistan blames climate change for unusually early and heavy monsoon rains, which since June have caused flash floods that have killed nearly 1,200 people and affected 33 million people. About a million homes have also been damaged or destroyed.
Flood waters continued to recede in most parts of the country, but many districts in southern Sindh province remained underwater.
Nearly half a million flood-displaced people are living in relief camps. In Sindh, thousands of medical camps have been set up in flood-stricken areas to treat victims, said Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, the provincial health minister. Mobile medical units have also been deployed.
WHO says it is increasing surveillance for acute diarrhoea, cholera, and other communicable diseases and providing medical supplies to health facilities.
Doctors say initially they were seeing mostly patients traumatised by the flooding, but they are now treating thousands of people suffering from diarrhoea, skin infections, and other waterborne ailments. Many pregnant women living in flood-affected areas were also exposed to risks.
According to the UN Population Fund, 6.4 million flood victims need humanitarian assistance. It said about 650,000 pregnant women in flood-affected areas, including 73,000 expected to deliver in the next month, need maternal health services.
A man carries his son as he wades through floodwaters in Charsadda in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. [Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo]Pakistani health officials report an outbreak of waterborne diseases in areas hit by recent record-breaking flooding. [Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo]Flood waters continue to recede in most parts of the country, but many districts remain underwater. [Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo]A family takes some rest after salvaging belongings from their flood-hit home in Charsadda. [Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo]Flood victims use an inflatable tube as they travel in flood waters in Dera Allah Yar. [Amer Hussain/Reuters]Flood victims wade through water in Dera Allah Yar. [Amer Hussain/Reuters]General view of the submerged houses in Dera Allah Yar, Jafferabad. [Stringer/Reuters]
Scientists have unearthed in Zimbabwe the remains of Africa’s oldest dinosaur, which lived more than 230 million years ago.
The Mbiresaurus raathi was one metre tall, ran on two legs, and had a long neck and jagged teeth.
Scientists said it was a species of sauropodomorph, a relative of the sauropod, which walked on four legs.
The skeleton was discovered during two expeditions, in 2017 and 2019, to the Zambezi Valley.
“When we talk of the evolution of early dinosaurs, fossils from the Triassic age are rare,” Darlington Munyikwa, deputy director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, and who was part of the expeditions, told the BBC.
He said that fossils from that era – which ended more than 200 million years ago – had been unearthed in South America, India, and now Zimbabwe.
The find is expected to shed more light on the evolution and migration of early dinosaurs, back when the world was one huge continent and Zimbabwe was at the same latitude as those countries, he said.
Zimbabwe has been aware of other fossils in the area for decades and Mr Munyikwa said there were more sites that needed further exploration in the area, subject to funding availability.
“They, and the animals they lived with, seem to have been constrained to a particular environment in the far south – what is today South America, southern Africa and India.”
IMAGE SOURCE, STEPHEN TOLAN/VIRGINIA TECH
Image caption,
Christopher Griffin 2017, excavated part of the Mbiresaurus raathi skeleton
He added that the find was the “oldest definitive dinosaur ever found in Africa”.
Prof Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, a paleontologist at the University of Cape Town, told the BBC that the discovery was important because it was part of the lineage that gave rise to the sauropod dinosaurs, which includes the diplodocus and the Brontosaurus.
“It tells us that when dinosaurs were evolving, they were found on different continents, but they seem to have followed a hot humid environment rather than dry inhospitable one,” she told the BBC. “We hope there is more coming out of that area.”
“I hope that there is a strict policy in place to ensure that if they encounter fossils, they hand them over to the museums, so we don’t lose that material,” she said.
The near-complete skeleton of the Mbiresaurus raathi is stored in a room in a museum in Zimbabwe’s southern city of Bulawayo. It is thought to date to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period when today’s Zimbabwe was part of the massive supercontinent Pangaea.
Dinosaurs were believed to be well adapted to the high latitudes where today’s Zimbabwe is located, which were humid and had ample vegetation.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the federal government of Ethiopia are once again at war. The path toward discussions is at best unclear.
The southern boundaries of Tigray, where it borders the neighboring Amhara state at the town of Kobo, are where the first bullets were fired, according to both sides, early on August 24. Each team holds the other accountable for those shots.
What is clear – from information obtained from Western diplomats – is that the Ethiopian National Defence Force and its allied Amhara militia, known as the Fano, had mobilized a huge force to that location over prior weeks.
Meanwhile, mass conscription by the TPLF had swelled its ranks and it had devoted much of its resources to training and rearming, although it has denied forced recruitment.
Tensions were building. And yet, just a few weeks ago there was optimism that peace talks might soon be underway.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had authorized his deputy, Demeke Mekonnen, to head a peace committee, which began work in July.
Even before that, Mr Abiy had reportedly sent senior officials to secretly meet the TPLF.
In sessions in the Seychelles and Djibouti, it appears that an agreement was reached that Ethiopian forces would lift their blockade of Tigray, that Eritrea would withdraw the troops it had sent to support the government, and that the two sides would open full talks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, hosted by President Uhuru Kenyatta. The first agenda item would be a permanent ceasefire.
Behind the scenes, the US was strongly backing these talks and was working in partnership with Kenya.
Nearly five million people are in need of aid in Tigray
Visiting the Tigrayan capital Mekelle on 2 August, US Special Envoy Mike Hammer and envoys of the European Union and United Nations called for “a swift restoration of electricity, telecom, banking, and other basic services”, and “unfettered humanitarian access”, hinting that Mr Abiy had agreed to do these things.
However, the African Union envoy, Olusegun Obasanjo, remained silent on the siege. Briefing the envoys, Gen Obasanjo insisted that he was the sole mediator and surprised them by proposing to invite Ethiopia’s ally, Eritrea, to the talks.
The TPLF accuses the government of reneging on its commitments. The government doesn’t admit that any meetings took place. International envoys are also staying silent on exactly why the talks broke down.
The TPLF is unimpressed by international praise for a five-month “humanitarian truce”, which allowed the World Food Programme (WFP) to resume operations in Tigray, albeit on a limited scale.
It insists that Addis Ababa’s continued blockade amounts to using hunger as a weapon of war and that the aid operations were pitifully insufficient.
The WFP says it was reaching “tens of thousands” of people. That was a start, but far short of the 4.8 million in need.
In an open letter to international leaders on the eve of the fighting, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael said: “We are fast approaching the point at which we face death whichever way we turn. Our choice is only whether we perish by starvation or whether we die fighting for our rights and our dignity.”
Mass starvation is decimating the Tigrayans. No one knows how many have perished but an investigation by a Belgian-led academic team earlier this year estimated that as many as 500,000 Tigrayans had died of hunger and related causes since the war began in November 2020 following a massive fall-out between the TPLF-controlled regional government and Mr Abiy’s federal administration.
With the sole exception of a French TV crew from the channel ARTE, there’s been no foreign news correspondent in Tigray since the TPLF regained control of most of the region in June 2021.
In the short term, the humanitarian disaster can only deepen. Those limited aid operations are now at a halt. The first meager crops won’t be harvested for more than a month and fighting will cause further devastation.
The Ethiopian air force bombed Mekelle last week, hitting a kindergarten and killing seven, including three children, according to medical staff. The government denied the account and insisted it targeted military sites only. A second air strike was reported on Mekelle on Tuesday night.
IMAGE SOURCE,TIGRAI TV/REUTERS
Image caption,
Tigrayans say an air strike caused civilian casualties when it hit a kindergarten
The Tigrayans requisitioned 12 tankers of fuel from the UN, drawing irate condemnation from senior humanitarian officials.
The TPLF said they had loaned the UN fuel some months ago and were only reclaiming it, but the manner and timing of their act suggests it was not for delivering routine services, as their spokesman claimed.
The Ethiopian air force claimed to have shot down a plane bringing arms to Tigray from Sudanese airspace. The TPLF denied it.
On the morning of 1 September, the TPLF claimed that Eritrean artillery began a barrage of shells, while Ethiopian ground forces poised for a ground attack across the border. The Eritrean government has, characteristically, remained silent.
Through the fog of war, the news filtering out is that the battle for Kobo was huge. Tigrayan sources report a decisive victory against a massive force of 20 divisions, in which an enormous arsenal was captured. There’s no independent confirmation of this.
The Ethiopian government denies that it has suffered losses. It has also instructed the media to “carefully manage their reporting and access to information in times of crisis in order to reflect the country’s national interest”.
It said it had evacuated Kobo, and reports from the city of Woldia, 50km (30 miles) to the south, indicate that the army is nowhere to be seen.
So far, the TPLF has not moved its forces south, saying that it has no intention of repeating last year’s advance that reached within 200 km of the capital. In fact its spokesman made a point of denying reports that it had captured Woldia.
Hackers created a fake news website to harvest data from Australian government officials, journalists, and others, according to a top US security company.
The targets received emails claiming to be from Australian news outlets, which linked them to a malicious website.
The website, populated with articles stolen from BBC News, would then install malicious code on their device.
Proofpoint said it had “high confidence” the hackers were aligned with the Chinese government.
“We take attribution very seriously,” Proofpoint threat research and detection vice-president Sherrod DeGrippo said.
“We specifically don’t release attribution unless we have high confidence.
“Essentially, a big part of our attribution capability comes from the fact that the United States Department of Justice agrees with the attribution and data that we have released.
Proofpoint said the hackers were part of a group of which four members had been charged by the US in 2021 when the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said it was “almost certain” they were linked to the Chinese government.
It said the group was “a China-based, espionage-motivated threat actor that has been active since 2013, targeting a variety of organisations in response to political events in the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on the South China Sea.”
The Australian Cyber Security Centre has been approached for comment.
In the group’s latest hack, between April and June, victims had received emails claiming to be from someone who had started a news website, Proofpoint said.
They had then been asked to review the site and consider writing for it.
‘Anglo-styled names’
“What I think is quite novel about it is they went so far as to create these fake media websites, by scraping legitimate sites, including the BBC, in their efforts to appear real,” Ms DeGrippo said.
“And further, they created multiple identities that they were sending from.
“They created all of these sorts of pseudo identities to launch the attack from, making them more believable.”
The fake names – each with their own unique Gmail address – included Daisha Manalo, Blair Goodland, and Bethel Giffen.
IMAGE SOURCE,PROOFPOINT
Image caption,
Victims were invited to write for a new news website, which was fake
The fake website was filled with malware that would infect the victim’s computer with a tool called Scanbox, checking their profile, device and web pages visited.
“Scanbox essentially is a web reconnaissance and exploitation framework,” Ms DeGrippo said.
“When we think about that, in conjunction with the actor who is a China-based espionage group, it makes sense.”
‘Sensitive role’
The attack seemed to focus on people involved in energy production, such as offshore energy exploration in the South China Sea, wind-turbine manufacture, and alternative energy but also defence contractors and individuals involved in healthcare and financial services.
“Consumers generally are not on the radar of Chinese espionage services,” Ms DeGrippo said.
“However, anyone who has a sensitive role within their professional employment, even if they’re dealing with things such as engineering, things that might not seem like state secrets… the reality is China sees them as secrets and as important espionage information.”
People should ensure their browsers were updated and firewall and antivirus software turned on, Ms DeGrippo said.
But she added: “Organisations professionally must think about the kinds of data that their employees have access to and if they have the correct technological means in place to protect their employees from these kinds of attacks.
“By the time it gets to a human, it’s really too late.”
A little after noon on Thursday, a drone was seen flying over the waters near Lion Islet, a small island in the Kinmen County grouping that is governed by Taiwan and is located about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the coast of Xiamen, China.
The Kinmen Defense Command, a branch of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, said the drone was shot down after warning flares failed to drive it away.
This is the latest in a string of similar incidents to have taken place near the offshore group of islands.
On Tuesday, Taiwanese soldiers fired flares at three unidentified drones that flew near Kinmen and warning shots at one that re-entered the area.
It is not clear who is flying the drones, though China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday it was “not aware of the situation” and that it was “pointless for (Taiwan) to exaggerate the tension.”
After Tuesday’s incident, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said she had ordered the Defense Ministry to take “forceful countermeasures” against what she said were Chinese grey zone warfare tactics.
On Wednesday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reinforced that message at an international press conference called in response to Chinese military exercises in August, saying it will “act in accordance with operational orders to exercise our rights of self-defense.”
Tensions between Taiwan and mainland China have been raised since a visit by US Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei in August. China’s Communist Party claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, as part of its territory despite never having governed it and has long vowed to “reunify” the island with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary.
China responded to Pelosi’s trip by ordering days worth of military drills around Taiwan.
On Monday, asked about reports of private drones flying in the Kinmen area, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded: “Chinese drones flying over China’s territory — what’s there to be surprised at?”
Palestinian media has reported that some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel would go on a hunger strike to protest their living conditions.
Israel tightened restrictions after a dramatic jailbreak by six inmates last September, which led to widespread protest.
On Wednesday, a high-profile prisoner ended a six-month hunger strike after a deal with authorities.
Palestinians consider prisoners held by Israel one of their top issues.
There are some 4,500 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian officials. About 700 of them are held without charge under what is known as administrative detention.
Israel says the measure is necessary for its security, but civil liberty groups say the practice is a violation of human rights.
The head of the Palestinian Authority’s prisoners’ committee said a further 1,000 detainees would join the hunger strike if the prisoners’ demands were not met.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, said the action was a resumption of a hunger strike postponed in March after an agreement was reached between prisoners and the prison service. It accused the prison service of attempting to backtrack on the deal.
Palestinian prisoners have periodically staged or threatened hunger strikes as a tactic to pressure Israeli authorities to improve their conditions. They say conditions have got worse since six Palestinians were recaptured after tunneling out of a high-security jail last September and going on the run for nearly two weeks.
Concerns over new US limitations on the selling of artificial intelligence chips to China have caused shares of major chipmakers Nvidia and AMD to decline.
To address the possibility of chips being “used in, or diverted to a’ military end use’… in China and Russia,” according to Nvidia, the US government needs a new license, starting immediately.
There are worries that the rule will result in millions of dollars in revenue being lost.
Shares of both chipmakers slipped in after-hours trading in New York.
Nvidia’s shares were down by 6.6% while AMD slipped by 3.7%.
The new restrictions are a “gut punch for Nvidia”, Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities told the BBC.
Chinese officials have firmly opposed the latest move. According to state media, “actions from the United States deviated from the principle of fair competition and violated international economic and trade rules”.
In a statement, Beijing said, “The US side should immediately stop its wrongdoing, treat companies from all over the world including Chinese companies fairly, and do more things that are conducive to the stability of the world economy.”
The US Commerce Department told the BBC it was “not in a position to outline specific policy changes at this time”.
“We are taking a comprehensive approach to implementing additional actions necessary related to technologies, end-uses, and end-users to protect US national security and foreign policy interests,” a Commerce Department spokesperson said.
In a US regulatory filing on Wednesday, Nvidia said the new license requirement would hit exports of its A100 and H100 chips, which are designed to speed up machine learning tasks, and the systems which include them.
Around $400m (£345.2m) in sales to China could be affected, Nvidia added, “if customers do not want to purchase the company’s alternative product offerings or if the (US government) does not grant licenses in a timely manner or denies licenses to significant customers”.
An Nvidia spokesperson told BBC it was liaising with customers in China “to satisfy their planned or future purchases with alternative products”.
Meanwhile, an AMD spokesperson said the rules, which would prevent the shipment of its MI250 chips to China, were not expected to have “a material impact” on business.
Both Nvidia and AMD halted sales to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February.
It could also affect the earnings of US manufacturers such as Nvidia and AMD, said Mario Morales, a California-based analyst at market intelligence firm IDC.
“Both companies have a large exposure to China and could see more impact going forward, especially if China chooses to retaliate,” Mr Morales said.
Rising tensions
Last week, Nvidia reported revenue of $6.7bn in the second quarter, which was significantly lower than forecasts.
However, it said revenue from its data center business – which produces computer chips – surged by 61% from a year earlier.
“This is really a shot across the bow at China and it’s really going to fan those flames in terms of geopolitical (tensions). Nvidia’s caught in the crossfire,” Mr Ives said.
Reports indicate that Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s largest oil company, Lukoil, passed away after falling from a Moscow hospital window.
Although the company acknowledged his passing, it simply stated that Maganov, 67, had “passed away following a severe illness.”
According to Russian media, he passed away from his wounds while receiving treatment at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.
Maganov is the latest of a number of high-profile business executives to die in mysterious circumstances.
Investigating authorities said they were working at the scene to establish how he died. Tass news agency quoted sources saying he had fallen out of a sixth-floor window early on Thursday morning, adding later that he had taken his own life.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Lukoil board called for the conflict to end as soon as possible, expressing its sympathy to victims of “this tragedy”.
Several Russian energy oligarchs have died in unusual circumstances in recent months:
In May, a former Lukoil tycoon Alexander Subbotin died of heart failure, reportedly after seeking alternative treatment from a shaman.
Lukoil is Russia’s biggest private company. In its statement, it said it was down to Maganov’s managerial talent that it had evolved into one of the world’s largest energy firms.
He began working for the private oil company in 1993 and took over as chairman two years ago. Three years ago he was given a lifetime achievement award by President Vladimir Putin.
Maganov had been receiving treatment at a hospital on the western outskirts of Moscow, which is known for having Russia’s political and business elite among its patients.
After a girl was attacked on a path heading out of Stamshaw Park in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on August 29, police have published images of a suspect they want to speak with.
An urgent appeal has been launched after an 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in Portsmouth. She was approached when walking on a path leading out of Stamshaw Park on Monday, 29 August at 4.30 pm
A man grabbed her arm as she walked in the direction of Rudmore roundabout before making inappropriate comments and touching her over her clothing.
The girl managed to get away, but the man followed her.
He was dressed in black, apart from a white t-shirt with a black vest over the top.
He was also carrying a small black bag.
Hampshire Police said in a statement: “We have been conducting inquiries since this incident was reported to us and now have these images of a man, seen in the area at the time, who we would like to speak to in connection with our investigation.
After footage surfaced online that appeared to show security personnel abusing young girls at an orphanage, Saudi authorities claim they have launched an investigation.
The unverified video appears to show officers in plainclothes searching the Social Education House in Khamis Mushait.
A police officer strikes the screaming girl with a belt as one official appears to pull her along the ground by her hair.
The circumstances and the timing of the incident were not clear, but a Twitter user who claimed she edited the videos wrote that the girls had been staging a “strike against corruption and injustice” after they “demanded their rights from the orphanage and were rejected”.
She later posted photographs showing what she said were bruises some of the girls had sustained in the raid and alleged that a senior official had threatened them if the videos were not taken down from social media.
Human rights activists and dissidents expressed outrage at the footage after it emerged on Tuesday night, while the hashtag “Khamis_Mushait_Orphans” began trending on Twitter in Saudi Arabia.
The UK-based rights group ALQST said the footage was “disturbing” and that Saudi authorities “must hold the perpetrators accountable”.
The opposition National Assembly Party, which is composed of exiled dissidents, condemned the “vicious attacks” and demanded, “the protection of girls in shelters and orphanages in order to let them exercise their basic rights”.
The governor of the southwestern Asir region said in a statement on Wednesday that he had formed a committee to investigate the footage and that its findings would be referred to the competent authorities.
US-based human rights group Dawn reported this week that a Saudi woman had been sentenced to 45 years in prison over social media posts criticizing the kingdom’s leaders.
Court documents showed that Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani was convicted of “using the internet to tear the social fabric” and “violating public order by using social media”, it said.
Another Saudi woman, Leeds University Ph.D. student Salma al-Shehab, was jailed for 34 years over her Twitter activity earlier this month.
The Kremlin has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend Mikhail Gorbachev’s funeral because of his “work schedule.”
Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader and one of the most significant figures of the 20th century, will be laid to rest on Saturday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the ceremony will have “elements” of a state funeral, including a guard of honour, and the government was helping with the organization.
Mr Peskov said Mr Putin had paid his respects on Thursday morning by visiting and laying a wreath at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, where Mr Gorbachev died on Tuesday.
However, he confirmed the president will not be attending the funeral.
Mr Peskov said: “Unfortunately, the president’s work schedule will not allow him to do this on 3 September, so he decided to do it today.”
Mr Putin paid tribute to Mr Gorbachev on Wednesday as a leader who had a “huge impact on the course of world history” and found his “own solutions to urgent problems”.
The Russian president said in a statement: ” “He led our country during a period of complex, dramatic changes, large-scale foreign policy, economic and social challenges.
“He deeply understood that reforms were necessary, he strove to offer his own solutions to urgent problems.”
Mr Putin also noted the “great humanitarian, charitable, education activities” carried out by Mr Gorbachev in the years before his death aged 91.
When Mr Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, he set out to revitalize the communist system and shape a new union based on a more equal partnership between the 15 USSR republics.
However, he attempted political and economic reforms simultaneously and on too ambitious a scale, unleashing forces he could not control.
As pro-democracy protests swept across communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force – unlike predecessors who had deployed tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The demonstrations fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the republics, and the last Soviet leader failed to anticipate the strength of nationalist feelings.
Snapchat will cancel a number of new projects and lay off 20% of its workforce.
As a result of the restructuring, which was anticipated following a year of subpar financial outcomes, around 1,200 staff would lose their employment.
A year ago, the corporation had a $130 billion (112 billion) value. It is now only worth around $20 billion (£17 billion).
Snapchat said the cuts would help the company save an estimated $500m (430m) in annual costs. The company’s CEO said the changes would be “difficult”.
Despite reducing spending in some areas, Snapchat must now “face the consequences of our lower revenue growth and adapt to the market environment,” its CEO Evan Spiegel said.
Mr Spiegel said he wanted to focus the company’s attention on its traditional lifeblood – making money from advertising.
It means the jettisoning of projects like mobile games and Pixy, the small drone designed to take selfies.
However, high inflation and nervousness around the state of the global economy have left many advertisers reluctant to spend.
Snapchat has also been affected by privacy updates by Apple – introduced last year.
The changes have made it more difficult for advertisers to track people on their phones – which makes targeted adverts less focused.
The reason why social media companies can charge so much to advertisers is that they hold so much information about their users. Without that information, advertisers are less willing to spend.
Mr Trump’s legal team contended he had been engaged in a “standard give-and-take” with the National Archives over the return of his files when the search warrant was executed.
“There is no question… that the matters before this court centre around the possession, by a president, of his own presidential records,” says the court filing.
IMAGE SOURCE,US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Image caption,
Apparently classified files on the floor of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office in the 8 August search, released by the Department of Justice
His lawyers argue: “The notion that Presidential records would contain sensitive information should have never been cause for alarm.”
The court filing came less than 24 hours after the justice department alleged that Mr Trump’s aides had probably tried to conceal secret documents inside the West Palm Beach estate.
A National Archives team visited the seafront golf club in January and retrieved 15 boxes of White House records that contained “highly classified reports”, said the filing.
The justice department began investigations which found evidence that “dozens of additional boxes” probably containing sensitive material still remained at Mar-a-Lago.
On 3 June, three FBI agents and a justice department lawyer arrived at Mar-a-Lago to collect materials but were “explicitly prohibited” by Mr Trump’s representatives from searching any boxes inside a storage room at the property, according to the 54-page filing.
Evidence was also found that records were “likely concealed and removed” from the storage area and that efforts were “likely taken” to obstruct the investigation, officials said.
On Thursday, a judge will hold a hearing on whether an independent legal official known as a special master should be appointed to oversee the evidence and determine whether any of it is protected under executive privilege – a rule which shields some presidential documents.
The justice department has argued that a special master is not necessary, given that it says most of the evidence has already been inspected by investigators.
In Wednesday’s court papers, Mr Trump’s lawyers accused the justice department of “gratuitously” including a photograph in its Tuesday filing of “allegedly classified materials” that had been “pulled from a container and spread across the floor for dramatic effect”.
“Left unchecked, the DOJ will impugn, leak, and publicize selective aspects of their investigation,” Mr Trump’s lawyers wrote, arguing why a special master was necessary.
In a long-awaited assessment examining charges of abuse in the province of Xinjiang, the UN has charged China with “serious human rights abuses.”
China has pleaded with the UN to withhold the report, referring to it as a “farce” orchestrated by Western powers.
According to the report, China disputes allegations of abuse against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities.
But investigators said they found “credible evidence” of torture possibly amounting to “crimes against humanity”.
The report was released on Michelle Bachelet’s final day on the job after four years as the UN’s high commissioner for human rights. Her term has been dominated by accusations of abuse against the Uyghurs.
Her team’s report accused China of using vague national security laws to clamp down on the rights of minorities and establishing “systems of arbitrary detention”.
It said prisoners had been subjected to “patterns of ill-treatment” which included “incidents of sexual and gender-based violence”.
Others, they said, faced forced medical treatment and “discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies”.
The UN recommended that China immediately takes steps to release “all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” and suggested that some of Beijing’s actions could amount to the “commission of international crimes, including crimes against humanity”.
While the UN said it could not be sure how many people have been held by the government, human rights groups estimate that more than a million people have been detained at camps in the Xinjiang region, in north-west China.
“Despite the Chinese government’s strenuous denials, the UN has now officially recognized that horrific crimes are occurring,” Uyghur Human Rights Project Executive Director Omer Kanat said.
The long-standing accusations have prompted protests around the world, including this one in Jakarta in January
There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang. The UN said non-Muslim members may have also been affected by the issues in the report.
The US and lawmakers in several other countries have previously denounced China’s actions in Xinjiang as a genocide, but the UN stopped short of making the accusation.
Beijing – which saw the report in advance – denies allegations of abuse and argued that the camps are a tool to fight terrorism.
China has always insisted that Uyghur militants are waging a violent campaign for an independent state, but it is accused of exaggerating the threat in order to justify the repression of the Uyghurs.
Its delegation to the UN human rights council in Geneva on Thursday rejected the findings of the report, which it said “smeared and slandered China” and interfered in the country’s internal affairs.
“This so-called ‘assessment’ is a politicised document that ignores the facts, and fully exposes the intention of the US, Western countries and anti-China forces to use human rights as a political tool,” it said in a lengthy statement.
The ball is now in the global community’s court. Already, Uyghur rights activists are calling for a commission of inquiry to be set up, and asking businesses around the world to cut all ties with anyone abetting the Chinese government in its handling of the Uyghurs.
Whether increased international pressure will result in concrete change is debatable. Beijing has doubled down on its stance, denying that atrocities have taken place and insisting it is a victim of a Western-led smear campaign. It says Xinjiang is now socially stable and economically developed and has even called it “the greatest human rights achievement”.
The UN report is no doubt embarrassing, further chipping away at China’s insistence that it is a responsible member of the international community.
But this investigation is just the latest in a long series of damning reports that Beijing has summarily dismissed.
Domestic pressure is also unlikely. The issue of Uyghur human rights abuses has never been a top concern for many in China, mostly because it has long been a taboo topic and heavily censored – as of Thursday afternoon, the UN report had yet to be mentioned in Chinese mainstream media or social media platforms.
The fate of the Uyghurs depends on when the Chinese government decides it has fully vanquished what it sees as the threat of terrorism and radicalism in the community.
It is anyone’s guess when it will reach that conclusion – if ever.
But publication was delayed several times, leading to accusations by some Western human rights groups that Beijing was urging her to bury damaging findings in the report.
Last week she admitted that she was under “tremendous pressure to publish or not to publish” the report. But she defended the delay, arguing that seeking dialogue with Beijing over the report did not mean she was “turning a blind eye” to its contents.
Amnesty International condemned “the inexcusable delay” in publishing the findings.
Tom Tugendhat, chair of the UK’s foreign affairs select committee, said the findings of the report represented an “extremely serious charge” and rejected Beijing’s argument that the allegations were stoking anti-Chinese sentiment.
Earlier this year, the BBC obtained leaked files that revealed an organized system of mass rape, sexual abuse, and torture of Uyghur Muslims at a network of camps.
The Xinjiang Police Files were passed to the BBC and revealed targeting of the community on orders leading all the way up to Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.
According to Lorna Mackintosh, Craig Mackintosh of Thetford, Norfolk, passed away on August 24 “in the line of duty.”
Ms Mackintosh has raised more than £5,000 on a GoFundMe page to bring her brother’s body back to the UK, asking: “Please help us bring this war hero home.”
The Foreign Office said it was supporting the family.
“He gave his life to save others and he needs to come back home to have the service he deserves.
“A true hero’s service surrounded by his family and friends. Please, please help to bring our hero home.”
As of Thursday morning, the family had exceeded its target, raising more than £5,000.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told the PA news agency: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Ukraine and is in contact with the local authorities.”
The centre, where Che Guevara’s personal archives are stored, promote the revolutionary leader’s “life, work and thought”.
Cuban officials said Camilo Guevara died while on a visit to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
Cuban President Miguel DÃaz-Canel paid tribute to him in a tweet, saying that “with deep sorrow, we say goodbye to Camilo, Che’s son and promoter of his ideas”.
Born in Argentina, Che Guevara arguably became the most famous face of the Cuban revolution after joining brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro in their successful fight to overthrow the government of Fulgencio Batista.
He was five years old when his father was shot dead in Bolivia, where he had travelled to set up a guerrilla group.
He studied law but spent much of his life looking after the documents and memorabilia left behind by his father.
Unlike some of Fidel Castro’s close relatives who became vocal critics of the aftermath of the Cuban revolution, such as his sister Juanita Castro and his daughter Alina Fernández, Camilo Guevara remained loyal to the Castro brothers.
Fond of photography, he could often be seen clutching a Leica camera in one hand and a cigar in the other.
He is survived by his 85-year-old mother Aleida, his 61-year-old sister – also called Aleida – who works as a paediatrician, his younger sister Celia, who is a vet, and his younger brother Ernesto. He runs motorcycle tours of the Communist-run island.
He is a former host of BBC Breakfast, passed away at age 66 following a prolonged battle with prostate cancer, according to his family.
They said the presenter and journalist died “peacefully” at home in Suffolk on Wednesday, surrounded by his family following a “challenging and committed fight against prostate cancer”.
Turnbull had announced his battle with the disease in 2018, following his diagnosis the previous year.
Image: Turnbull with former BBC Breakfast co-host Susanna Reid
His former BBC Breakfast co-host Susanna Reid paid tribute on Twitter, writing: “Bill was the kindest, funniest, most generous man in the business. I feel lucky to have worked with him and he taught me everything.
“But above all, he was devoted to his family and I am heartbroken for them. RIP Bill. We will miss you so much.”
A favourite with viewers, Turnbull hosted BBC Breakfast for 15 years, also presenting alongside journalists including Sian Williams, Kate Silverton, Natasha Kaplinsky, and Louise Minchin during that time.
Fighting must stop immediately in the area of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility, according to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“In the event of a nuclear leak, it will be difficult if not impossible to provide humanitarian assistance… and this is why fighting should stop,” Robert Mardini told a news conference during a visit to Ukraine.
“The scenario could be a massive incident, and… there is very little anyone can do to mitigate the dire consequences of this.”
A mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) set off for the plant this morning, but a Ukrainian official claimed they were unable to reach the facility due to Russian shelling along the route.
Mr Mardini welcomed the planned visit, saying: “It is, therefore, time to stop playing with fire and instead take concrete measures to protect this facility, and others like it, from military operations.
“The slightest miscalculation could trigger devastation that we will regret for decades.”
He added the Red Cross was not stockpiling or distributing iodine tablets to people near the plant to avoid sowing panic.
“We don’t want to give a signal that this is inevitable,” he said. “This is totally self-inflicted risk that should be totally stopped.”
Up to 60 Ukrainian soldiers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, had allegedly crossed the Dnipro River in boats and were attempting to retake control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
It stated that the “sabotage gang” was being eliminated with helicopters in its most recent statement.
State-owned news agency RIA cited the ministry as saying the group had launched an attack from two boats but both had been sunk.
A Reuters news agency reporter near the plant in Russian-controlled Enerhodar saw increased military activity this morning with soldiers running about and helicopters flying overhead.
IAEA inspectors have just rolled out of Zaporizhzhia, on their way to the Russian occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear â˜¢ï¸ power plant. pic.twitter.com/tjdOPI5HcO
Despite the “severe” dangers of their mission, a group of international experts is headed to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for a scheduled inspection of the facility on Thursday, according to Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Upon arrival at the plant, the team will start an immediate “assessment of the security and safety situation,†Grossi told reporters, with the ultimate goal of “establishing a continued presence of the IAEA at the plant.â€
“I have been briefed by the Ukrainian regional military commander about the inherent risks but weighing the pros and cons and having come so far, we are not stopping, we are moving now,” Grossi said. “We know that there is a so-called ‘gray zone’ where the last line of Ukrainian defense [ends] and the first line of Russian occupying forces begin; where the risks are significant.
“At the same time, we consider that we have the minimum conditions to move, accepting that the risks are very high. Still, myself and the team feel we can proceed with this, we have a very important mission to accomplish.â€
Union general secretary Mick Whelan said workers did not want to go on strike but said the train companies had forced their hand.
The strike is the latest of several in the rail industry in recent months.
Aslef drivers have previously walked out on 30 July and 13 August, causing disruption and cancellations to train services across the country.
Train drivers at the following companies are set to strike:
Avanti West Coast
Chiltern Railways
CrossCountry
Greater Anglia
Great Western Railway
Hull Trains
LNER
London Overground
Northern Trains
Southeastern
TransPennine Express
West Midlands Trains
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, has previously said it wants to give its workers a pay rise but added “to fund it unions must recognize that as an industry that has lost 20% of its revenue, we can either adapt or decline”.
Mr Whelan said when taking into account rising prices, the companies “want train drivers to take a real term to pay cut – to work just as hard this year as last, but for 10% less”.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “For the ninth time this summer, union leaders are choosing self-defeating strike action over constructive talks, not only disrupting the lives of millions who rely on these services but jeopardizing the future of the railways and their own members’ livelihoods.
“These reforms deliver the modernizations our rail network urgently needs, are essential to the future of rail, and will happen; strikes will not change this.”
The increase has led to many unions calling for pay rises to help workers cope. Several industries, including rail, telecoms, ports, and the postal sector, have voted to go on strike.
But the government and the Bank of England have warned against employers handing out big increases in salaries over fears of a 1970s-style “inflationary spiral”, where firms hike wages and then pass the cost on to customers via higher prices.
The US Catholic nun who was abducted by armed men in April in Burkina Faso has been released, according to the local bishop of Kaya, in the country’s north-east.
“Sister Suellen is currently in a safe place and in good health,” Bishop Theophile Nare said in a statement.
Suellen Tennyson, 83, was taken hostage from a local parish in the middle of the night, leaving behind her glasses and blood pressure medication.
Bishop Nare said he did not have any information on the circumstances leading to Sister Suellen’s release. The FBI had put out a missing person notice after the kidnapping.
Several militant groups allied to al-Qaeda and Islamic State operate in the Sahel region and are known to carry out attacks and kidnappings against civilians in Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries.
Regional nations continue to launch several offensive operations against the militant groups.
It is a record for the country, according to Saudi Arabian authorities, to have recovered 46 million amphetamine pills hidden inside a consignment of flour.
The shipment was followed by security personnel as it entered the Riyadh Dry Port and was transported to a storage facility, according to the General Directorate of Narcotics Control.
Six Syrians and two Pakistanis were arrested in a raid on the warehouse.
The GDNC did not name the amphetamine, but Saudi Arabia is the largest market for tablets bearing the captagon logo.
A 2021 Foreign Policy article cited researchers as saying that “boredom and social restrictions”, as well as easy availability, were driving the use of captagon in Saudi Arabia.
The drug has also been consumed by combatants in the civil war in Syria, who say it dims fear on the battlefield.
The global trade in captagon is growing rapidly and was worth an estimated $5.7bn (£4.9bn) last year, according to a recent New Lines Institute report.
A toddler has died of severe head trauma on Wednesday morning after being struck by a four-inch hailstone during a fierce storm in northeastern Spain, while she was out with her parents, according to reports in the country.
The girl was with her parents in the town of La Bisbal d’Emporda in the Catalonia region when she was struck by the hailstone on Tuesday, mayor Carme Vall told Spanish Television, the national broadcaster.
The girl died of severe head trauma in hospital on Wednesday morning, Murcia Today reported.
The hailstone that struck her was four inches (10cm) in diameter, the news website added.
The name and nationality of the girl have not yet been reported.
The British monarch, Queen Elizabeth has experienced mobility problems since last autumn, and she now frequently employs a walking stick. She had to reschedule a number of public events earlier this year, which meant that she significantly missed her Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
The Queen will receive the new prime minister at her Balmoral estate in Scotland for the first time in her long reign.
Her Majesty will meet them on 6 September, a day after the new prime minister is announced.
She would normally appoint prime ministers from Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.
However, the 96-year-old monarch has been advised to remain at her Balmoral residence in Aberdeenshire, where she is enjoying her summer holiday.
It will be from there that she will install either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss as prime minister on 6 September, breaking years of royal precedent.
It is understood the decision was taken at this stage in order to provide certainty for the prime minister’s diary.
If the Queen had experienced an episodic mobility issue next week and the plan had been to travel to London or Windsor, it would have led to alternative arrangements needing to be made at the last minute.
Since last autumn, the Queen has suffered from mobility issues and now regularly uses a walking stick.
This year, she has been forced to cut several official engagements short, and she notably missed much of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, only appearing briefly on the palace balcony.
In June, she missed Royal Ascot for the first time since her coronation, with the Duke of Kent taking her place in leading the royal carriage procession.
She also contracted COVID-19 back in February, and later spoke about how it left her feeling “very tired and exhausted”.
The winner of the Tory leadership contest to succeed Boris Johnson is set to be announced on Monday 5 September.
His successor will then travel to Balmoral to be officially appointed by the Queen the following day.
The chairman of the state oil corporation NNPC Ltd stated on Tuesday that every section of Nigerian society is involved in the theft of millions of barrels, adding that makeshift pipes and stolen fuel have even been discovered in churches and mosques.
Large-scale pipeline theft has slowed down exports, forced some businesses to halt production, and destroyed the economy of the nation.
NNPC chief Mele Kyari said he was not accusing institutions, including the government, but at virtually every level of Nigerian society, individuals were siphoning off a total of around 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) from what is typically Africa’s largest exporter.
Kyari said Nigeria was building a “national reserve company” that would run the pipelines on a commercial basis and would be able to manage theft and other issues differently.
“Some of the pipelines and some of the products that we found are actually in churches and in mosques,” Kyari said, adding this meant those complicit included “members of the communities, members of the religious leaders and also, most likely, government officials”.
It was not immediately clear if the government had found crude oil, in addition to fuel, in those places.
The impact on exports is a reduction of 700,000 bpd, Kyari said, because theft had forced at least 700 “lock-ins” of oil production.
Kyari said some of the pipeline taps were so sophisticated that they ran for 3-4 kilometers and would have involved cranes, industrial equipment, and at least 40 workers.
NNPC has engaged companies, including those owned by ex-militants, to stem theft, and Kyari said the nation’s anti-graft agency was also following the cash and would prosecute those involved.
Local photographer J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije opened a small studio in the then-colonial capital Accra, a generation before the Gold Coast became Ghana, where his family would become the de facto visual historians of a nation that had not yet been born.
For 100 years, three generations of Bruce-Vanderpuijes have painstakingly amassed the world’s largest collection of 20th-century Ghanaian photographs under one roof. They believe their Deo Gratias photo studio is the oldest in West Africa.
From glass plates to digital files of nation-shaping events to intimate personal portraits, the family’s 50,000-image archive offers a unique glimpse into Accra’s transition from a colonial port into a bustling modern metropolis.
“The story they tell is that of [Ghana’s] history,” said Kate Tamakloe, Bruce-Vanderpuije’s granddaughter and keeper of the modern archive. “Without a history, you have no future.”
Virtually unchanged since opening in 1922, Deo Gratias sits on a busy street in the heart of Jamestown, the capital’s oldest district. Grainy archive photos reveal the area was once much quieter before traffic and billboards clogged the streets.
Today, the faces of local families, as well as famous musicians, politicians, and patrons adorn the studio’s walls. A black-and-white photo of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first leader on gaining independence in 1957, hangs near others of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and disgraced American president Richard Nixon.
“Pictures speak tonnes, louder than what has been written,” said Daniel Tetteh, a Ghanaian historian who volunteers with Deo Gratias as an archivist. “If we don’t preserve them, it means that the nation will lose its memory.”
Tamakloe took over Deo Gratias when her father Isaac Bruce-Vanderpuije, a lifelong photographer who inherited the studio from his father J.K., began to lose his eyesight. What began as a mission to digitise the archive has since become a full-time job, one she hopes to pass on to the next generation when the time comes.
Seated in a lush garden outside the capital, Kate and Isaac flipped through an album of their favourite prints. One showed J.K. elegantly perched atop a racehorse. Another showed a young and beaming Isaac aiming his camera towards an unknown subject.
“One must feel proud that for 100 years something has been preserved, and the coming generation will see what’s happened,” he said, gripping his cane while Kate looked on with a smile. “And I think that is not the end.”
Emma Raducanu’s attempt to defend her US Open title was unsuccessful when she was defeated by Alize Cornet of France in straight sets.
The 19-year-old Raducanu shocked the world by winning the major as a teenage qualifier, but her subsequent appearance on the court at Flushing Meadows was less noteworthy.
The British number one was out-hustled and out-scrapped by the experienced Cornet, who won 6-3 6-3 in New York.
Raducanu seeded 11th, will tumble down the rankings after losing the points she earned with the title last year.
“This one obviously hurts a bit because it’s my favourite tournament and there are a lot of emotions in the past year,” she said.
“I’m proud for putting myself out there every match, every day, knowing I’m pushing myself to be the best I can.”
The teenager has found her full-time transition to the WTA Tour a testing one, with the season punctured by niggling injuries that have contributed to inconsistent results.
Even her build-up to the US Open was not without bumps. A poor practice session on Friday was described as “one of those bad days”, although she played down the significance of a wrist injury that needed treatment.
Drawing Cornet, a wily and talented player with some notable results at the majors, in the first round was also about as tough as it could have been.
Cornet, 32, is ranked 40th in the world and narrowly missed out on a seeding.
At Wimbledon, she ended world number one Iga Swiatek’s 37-match winning streak and reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open at the start of what could be her final year as a professional.
A warm ovation greeted Raducanu’s arrival for Tuesday’s night session at Louis Armstrong Stadium, despite the match being far from a sell-out, and she was given plenty of vocal support throughout.
There were the odd signs of Raducanu’s quality as she traded blows with Cornet, particularly in a tussle of a first set, but the reality was she made too many mistakes against an opponent simply in better form.
Raducanu had her service broken seven times and an overall tally of 31 unforced errors illustrated her current position.
That was in stark contrast to the teenager’s clean and free-swinging approach last year in New York, where she did not drop a set on the way to lifting the trophy.
A gusty wind whipping around the court made conditions tricky for both players, but Cornet initially handled them better as Raducanu struggled on serve and also to find consistent rhythm in her groundstrokes.
“Alize’s defence was pretty good. Like, I thought she was just scrapping everything back. There were junk balls in the middle of the court.
“With the wind blowing around, it was really difficult. She just kept getting it back.”
Spraying wayward returns from both sides, Raducanu fell 4-2 behind in the opener and, after breaking back, threw in another poor service game for 5-3 to allow Cornet to take the opener.
Raducanu called for the physio at the end of the set, wincing as she received treatment for blisters on her hand.
“I’ve been getting some blisters throughout the weeks in the States. But I think that’s just down to humidity and stuff,” said Raducanu, who also suffered from them during her Australian Open defeat in January.
After returning to court with more tape, things looked ominous when she was broken in the first game of the second set.
But she showed more resilience to break back and, assisted by a string of double faults by Cornet, move 3-1 ahead.
Many of the American fans leaped to their feet, showing their support for the Briton, but the atmosphere quickly dampened as Cornet rediscovered her level to swing the match back in her favour.
Department of Justice officials has announced that former president Donald Trump may have hidden and removed papers from his residence during an FBI visit to it in June.
The agency claimed in a court document that “efforts were probably made to hinder the government’s investigation.”
The document was sent in response to Mr. Trump’s lawsuit seeking the appointment of a “special master” to oversee a portion of the ongoing litigation.
Mr. Trump asserted that the materials were declassified while denying any misconduct.
In the filing released on Tuesday, the Justice Department’s counterintelligence chief, Jay Bratt, gives the clearest picture so far of the department’s attempts to retrieve documents from the former president.
Those attempts led to a National Archives team visiting his Mar-a-Lago home in January, an FBI team visiting in June, and the FBI searching the mansion on 8 August.
The FBI is investigating whether Mr Trump improperly handled records by taking them from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after he left office in January 2021.
US presidents must transfer all of their documents and emails to the National Archives.
Who visited Mar-a-Lago, when, and why?
In January, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago, where they found highly classified records were “unfoldered” and “intermixed with other records” – some pages had been torn up.
Upon learning the boxes contained “highly classified reports”, the Justice Department and the FBI began investigations which found evidence that “dozens of additional boxes” likely containing classified information still remained at his property.
On 3 June, three FBI agents and a DOJ attorney arrived at Mar-a-Lago to collect materials. According to Mr Trump’s lawyers, he told them:Â “Whatever you need, just let us know.”
But agents were “explicitly prohibited” by his representatives from searching any boxes inside a storage room at Mr Trump’s property, according to the latest filing.
Mr Bratt, from the DOJ, said this gave “no opportunity for the government to confirm” that no classified documents remained at the property.
Evidence was also found that the records were “likely concealed and removed” from the storage and that efforts were “likely taken” to obstruct the investigation, officials said.
Following the June visit, FBI teams searched Mr Trump’s property again in August – where they found over a hundred classified documents.
Mr Bratt said that this “casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter”.
At the time, Mr Trump rejected reports he had mishandled official records as “fake news”.
He is suing for a detailed list of exactly what was taken from his estate and is asking for the government to return any item which was not in the scope of the search warrant.
Mr Trump’s lawyers have asked that a “neutral” third-party attorney – known as a special master – be brought in to determine whether the seized files are covered by executive privilege, which allows presidents to keep certain communications under wraps.
A Canadian intelligence agent helped Shamima Begum get into Syria after she escaped the UK and joined the Islamic State.
According to documents obtained by the BBC, he claimed to have smuggled other Britons to fight for IS and given Canada Ms. Begum’s passport information.
The loss of Ms. Begum’s citizenship is being contested by her attorneys on the grounds that she was a victim of trafficking.
Ms Begum was 15 when she and two other east London schoolgirls – Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-old Amira Abase – traveled to Syria to join the IS group in 2015.
At the main Istanbul bus station, the girls met Mohammed Al Rasheed, who would facilitate their journey to IS-controlled Syria.
A senior intelligence officer, at an agency that is part of the global coalition against IS, has confirmed to the BBC that Rasheed was providing information to Canadian intelligence while smuggling people to IS.
He told authorities that he had gathered information on the people he helped into Syria because he was passing it to the Canadian embassy in Jordan.
Rasheed, who was arrested in Turkey within days of smuggling Ms Begum to IS, told authorities he had shared a photo of the passport the British schoolgirl was using.
The dossier shows that Ms Begum was moved to Syria through a substantial IS people-smuggling network that was controlled from the group’s de-facto capital in Raqqa.
Rasheed was in charge of the Turkish side of this network and facilitated the travel of British men, women, and children to IS for at least eight months before he helped Ms Begum and her two friends.
Ms Begum told the BBC’s forthcoming I’m Not A Monster podcast: “He organized the entire trip from Turkey to Syria… I don’t think anyone would have been able to make it to Syria without the help of smugglers.
“He had helped a lot of people come in… We were just doing everything he was telling us to do because he knew everything, we didn’t know anything.”
Rasheed kept information about the people he helped, often photographing their ID documents or secretly filming them on his phone.
One recording shows Ms Begum and her friends getting out of a taxi and into a waiting car not far from the Syrian border.
There were reports of an HGV trailer on fire at about 01:04 BST, and the southbound lane between junctions 3 and 2 prompted the dispatch of firefighters.
Pictures taken at the scene showed thick plumes of smoke being emitted from what was left of the vehicle.
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service said no injuries had been reported.
The first swimmer from Singapore to win an Olympic gold medal, Joseph Schooling, has been barred from swimming competitions after confessing to using marijuana abroad.
The 27-year-old became a local sporting hero when he won the country’s first Olympic gold at the 2016 Rio Games.
But the scandal has now divided opinion in a country known for its strict drug laws.
Many expressed sympathy for the national swimmer, noting that his father had died last November and he was facing immense pressure as an athlete.
“Every young person makes mistakes,” one person commented in an article about the case. Another wrote: “This is a nothingburger. Many have tried it overseas.”
However, there were also those who condemned Mr Schooling.
“It is totally unacceptable as a top sportsman who is supposed to be a national role model,” a Facebook commenter said.
Singapore regulates the consumption of controlled drugs – such as cannabis – not only within the country but outside of it as well. Citizens or permanent residents who fail urine tests for illegal drugs on entering the country face up to 10 years in prison and a S$20,000 ($14,300; £12,300) fine.
It also has a mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking, which has become increasingly controversial as more young Singaporeans begin to speak up against capital punishment.
“I gave in to a moment of weakness after going through a very tough period of my life,” he said.
Another national swimmer, 29-year-old Amanda Lim, also admitted to consuming cannabis. She was given a warning by the Central Narcotics Bureau after an investigation.
“There is no excuse, and I will take the warning given to me seriously and reflect on my mistakes,” she said in a statement.
Singapore’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that Mr Schooling passed the urine drug tests, but the 27-year-old confessed that he consumed cannabis while he was on a break from his military service to train and participate in the Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi, Vietnam in May.
Given the “abuse of disruption privileges”, Mr Schooling will no longer be able to take leave or disrupt his military service to train or compete, the ministry said.
He will also be put on a supervised urine test regime for six months and could be sentenced to up to nine months of detention in military detention barracks if he tests positive.
All male Singaporean citizens and permanent residents have to serve about two years of full-time military service, usually starting when they are 18 unless they are exempted.
The start date for Mr Schooling’s military service was deferred multiple times so he could compete in international competitions before he enlisted in January this year
Research has revealed that the Home Secretary should utilize their power to restructure “failed” police forces and, if necessary, appoint a new chief constable.
According to Policy Exchange, a center-right research organization, policing has “lost its way” and some ordinary infractions are “in essence almost totally decriminalized.”
A serious intervention, according to the report’s author, former detective chief inspector David Spencer, is required.
Making Britain safer, according to Boris Johnson, has always been a top goal.
The report said that the public feels police officers are “more interested in being woke than solving crimes”.
It said police should avoid acts that may be intended to show solidarity against discrimination, such as taking the knee or wearing a badge on their uniform.
These acts could be interpreted as having “a partisan political view” and “has the potential to be hugely damaging to public confidence,” the report said.
Mr Spencer said the police’s ability to solve common crime is “woefully low” with only 3.5% of residential burglaries, 6.3% of robberies, and 4.1% of thefts solved during the last year.
He said tackling online crime should be a priority for law enforcement and the government.
“Less than 2% of all police officers in the UK are dedicated to the investigation of fraud or the sexual abuse of children online,” Mr Spencer said.
“The threats to individuals, the public and wider society from online child abusers, computer hackers and online fraudsters are huge and growing.”
He said the government’s aim to recruit 20,000 more police officers in England and Wales by 2023 “will fail to make any real contribution to tackling the online threat” because they are mostly “uniformed police officers deployed to do traditional policing”.
“As a result, these offenses are in essence almost entirely decriminalized.”
The report said regulations should urgently be amended to allow police chiefs to dismiss officers found guilty of criminality or serious misconduct.
IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS
Image caption,
Boris Johnson will meet new front-line officers on one of his last visits as prime minister
Mr Johnson will meet new police officers on the frontline on Wednesday as part of one of his final visits as prime minister.
Speaking ahead of his visit, Mr Johnson said: “Making our streets safer has always been central to my mission to level up this country because everyone should have the security, confidence, and opportunity that comes from having a safe street and a safe home, wherever they live.”
He said the government is cracking down on “vile gangs” and putting dangerous offenders behind bars for longer.
He said the government’s plan to recruit 20,000 new officers will provide the “firepower for years to come in the fight against crime”.
The government says more than 13,790 extra police officers have been hired across England and Wales as part of Mr Johnson’s pledge to put 20,000 additional officers on the streets.
Due to the need for maintenance, Russia has fully stopped supplying gas to Europe through a major pipeline.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline will be restricted for the next three days, according to Russian state-owned oil company Gazprom.
Russia already considerably cut back on pipeline-based gas shipments.
It also denies claims that energy supplies were used to penalize Western countries for enacting sanctions in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline stretches 1,200km (745 miles) under the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast near St Petersburg to north-eastern Germany.
It opened in 2011 and can send a maximum of 170m cubic metres of gas per day from Russia to Germany.
The pipeline was shut down for 10 days in July – again for repairs, according to Russia – and has recently been operating at just 20% capacity because of what Russia describes as faulty equipment.
European leaders fear Russia could extend the outage in an attempt to drive up gas prices, which have already risen by 400%.
The steep rise threatens to create a cost of living crisis over the winter months, potentially forcing governments to spend billions to ease the burden.
On Tuesday, French Energy Minister Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher accused Russia of “using gas as a weapon of war”.
She was speaking after Gazprom said it would be suspending gas deliveries to the French energy company Engie.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s spokesman has rejected the accusations and insisted that Western sanctions have caused the interruptions by damaging Russian infrastructure.
He insisted that “technological problems” caused by Western sanctions are the only thing preventing Russia from supplying gas via the pipeline, without specifying what the problems were.
The most recent controversy has been over a turbine that arrived in Germany after being repaired in Canada and which Russia refused to take back, arguing it was subject to the Western sanctions.
Germany, however, denies this.
Earlier this month, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said the pipeline was fully operational and said there were no technical issues as claimed by Russia.
Earlier this week, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised to intervene in energy markets, telling a conference in Slovenia that they are “no longer fit for purpose”.
“We need a new market model for electricity that really functions and brings us back into balance,” she said.
The majority of the players are also scoring goals to support their teams and attain personal aims.
Here are the top scorers in the 2022/2023 Spanish premier division:
On the first spot we have Robert Lewandolski of Fc Barcelona, he is leading the Spanish premier division top scorers to chat with 4 goals in the 3 matches played.
The player in the 2nd spot we have Borja Iglias of Real Betis, he has also scored 4 goals in his first 3 games for Real Betis in the Spanish premier league.
On the 3rd spot we have Iago Aspas of Celta De Vigo, he has scored 3 goals in the 2022/2023 Spanish premier division.
In the fourth spot we Karim Benzema of Real Madrid, he has also scored 3 goals in the laliga.
So these are the top scorers in the 2022/2023 Spanish premier division, they hope to score more to double their tally before the end of the season.
The Black Princesses and Hasaacas Ladies’ forward, Doris Boaduwaa, believes her team’s loss in the CAF Women’s Champions League final was a very hard lesson learnt.
In the 2021 CAF Women’s Champions League final, Hasaacas Ladies lost 2-0 to Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies FC of South Africa.
Doris Boaduwaa played an instrumental part in that campaign, and in an interview with Ohene-Bampoe Brenya on Happy FM, she said the team got the exposure needed and they are looking forward to representing Ghana again.
“I really cried on that day of the finals because during our campaign in the competition, we had not tasted defeat and to lose in the finals, was a very painful one.
“The entire country and even our loved ones were looking up to us to win the trophy so it was really disappointing to let everyone down and I think we have really learned from it but in a painful way,†she added.
Sadio Mane honors his Muslim principles by refusing to hold a beer in the team photo for Bayern Munich, which is sponsored.
Bayern Munich has made images from their usual photo shoot available in honor of their collaboration with the Munich-based brewery Paulaner.
The photoshoot featured all members of the Bayern Munich first team in traditional German outfits called Lederhosen, posing in orderly sitting and standing positions.
All but two of the 31 players in the team photoshoot was holding a tall glass of Paulaner beer each, most notably Sadio Mane.
Sadio Mane empty-handed
Mane was one of seven players sitting in front but while the other six could be seen visibly holding up their glasses of beer, the Senegalese forward was with his hands down held together.
The ever-smiling Mane is an openly practicing Muslim and his religion forbids the consumption or association with alcohol of any form which is presumably why he was without a beer in the photo.
The Bayern Munich new signing is one of two openly Muslim players in the current Bayern Munich squad, the other being Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui who was also empty-handed.
Paulaner is a German brewery, established in 1634 in Munich and is one of the six breweries that provide beer for Oktoberfest, an annual German celebration in which Bayern are heavily involved.
Bayern stars uphold traditional Twitter
Both Munich-based institutions have established a relationship over the years and the annual photoshoot is one of the ways they celebrate their alliance.
The famous 3-liter beer glasses 3-liter beer glasses have become a part of Bayern Munich’s history over the years.
Prior to the 2022 World Cup, Boateng, who just quit his position as Aston Villa U2-assistant 3’s coach, has been scouting Ghanaian talents in the UK.
The Black Stars technical staff, led by Otto Addo, is making every effort to put together a strong team that can honorably represent Ghana in Qatar later this year.
As part of his scouting mission, the Black Stars assistant trainer met with the former England youth star who has switched allegiance to play for the West African powerhouse.
The Brighton defender is among the five Europe-born Ghanaian players who have switched nationality to represent the four-time African champions.
George Boateng has already met Jordan Ayew and Jeffery Schlupp who plies their trade for Crystal Palace in the Premier League.
He is expected to visit other national team players ahead of the 2022 World Cup tournament.
On a fun night in New York full of hope and excitement, Serena Williams extended her US Open farewell with a tough opening victory.
Williams defeated Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, winning 6-3 6-3. Williams will retire after the competition.
A fairly full 25,000-person Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd yelled at their hero, who reacted with trademark tenacity.
Williams, 40, will play Estonian second seed Anett Kontaveit in the second round on Wednesday.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, who is one short of Australian Margaret Court’s all-time record, is also playing in the doubles alongside older sister Venus, adding another exciting element to what she hopes will be a long goodbye this fortnight.
Her first assignment was beating Kovinic, ranked 80th in the world, and there was a thunderous noise when she took the first of three match points to ensure her singles career was not over yet.
Williams jumped on the spot when Kovinic’s backhand return hit the net, then twirled ecstatically in the center of the court before blowing kisses to her adoring fans when she had returned to her seat to soak in the occasion.
“The more tournaments I play, I feel like the more I can belong out there. That’s a tough feeling to have, and to leave knowing the more you do it, the more you can shine.
“But it’s time for me, you know, to evolve to the next thing. I think it’s important because there are so many other things that I want to do.”
Williams thrills the crowd on a night of celebration
Williams’ announcement about her retirement plans led to a surge in ticket sales and a record 29,402 fans turning up at the opening night session of the tournament
Williams has long been more than a tennis player and it was a sign of her status – as an American icon and one of the world’s most recognizable sports stars – that she announced her retirement in an essay for glossy fashion magazine Vogue.
Although the former world number one did not use the word retirement itself, preferring to say she was “evolving away” from the sport, there is no mistaking her intention is to end her glittering career this fortnight at her home major.
Suitably, for what could have been her final match, it was a night of celebrity and glamour.
Williams – wearing a glittery, figure skating-inspired dress and diamond-encrusted trainers to add further theatre to the occasion – unsurprisingly arrived on the court to a rapturous reception, moments after the stadium watched a video montage in celebration of what she has achieved as a player and a person.
“When I walked out, the reception was really overwhelming. It was loud and I could feel it in my chest. It was a really good feeling,” she said.
“It’s a feeling I’ll never forget. It meant a lot to me.”
Kovinic had already come out to the court, leaving her with a long – and what must have been nervous – wait next to her chair.
Film director Spike Lee, who called Williams his “little sister” in a video released earlier on Monday, took part in the coin toss, while Vogue editor Anna Wintour, another close personal friend, was sat in her support box behind the player’s family.
Other famous faces picked out by the stadium cameras included former US President Bill Clinton, soul singer Gladys Knight, boxer Mike Tyson and model Bella Hadid.
The outcome of the checks by the Athletico Bilbao medical team will determine whether he will be available for the friendly matches in September or not.
The MTN FA Cup winner and the Ghana Premier League champion compete in the cup match during the off-season.
Accordingly, victors of the two competitions, Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko were billed to lock horns in the Super Cup as a curtain raiser for the 2022/23 football season.
Amid talk that both clubs are considering pulling out of the Super Cup, the Executive Council of the Ghana FA has met to discuss the matter.
At the end of the meeting, the GFA Exco decided to call off the Super Cup.
The decision is to give both clubs enough time to prepare adequately for the upcoming season.
Ayew’s posters have been noticed on well-traveled streets in the Arab nation with less than three months till the start of the world event, which will be watched by millions.
Former captain of the Black Stars, Stephen Appiah, has denied rumors that he may leave retirement to represent Ghana at the World Cup.
The former Juventus player fueled speculation that he would play for the Black Stars again at the 2022 World Cup after posting a photo of himself working out recently at a stadium.
“This was an advert I shot in Thailand for Vitamilk oooo… Retired 10 years ago and I am not turning back… Just ignore any such news,†Appiah tweeted.
Stephen Appiah was part of Ghana’s team that qualified for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and scored against the USA to help Ghana qualify to the round of 16 where they were eliminated by Brazil.
He said: “It has to improve for the future because it would be really bad if somehow a championship was dictated by a financial regulation and not technical or sporting.”
His comments come in the wake of claims Red Bull will introduce a lighter car in forthcoming races.
It is a widespread belief in F1 that Red Bull will introduce a new chassis that is 4kg lighter than its existing one as it seeks to close off Max Verstappen’s second world drivers’ title and the constructors’ championship.
The Singapore Grand Prix at the beginning of October, in three races’ time, is said to be the target event, although it could be sooner.
Red Bull has said a number of times this season that they have been working on reducing the weight of their car this year and 4kg would amount to a lap-time gain in the region of 0.14 seconds.
Asked whether this was Red Bull’s plan, team principal Christian Horner said: “No, there is no [lighter chassis]. These chassis will run for the next few races.”
Asked about the governing body’s monitoring budget cap procedures, an FIA spokesperson said: “The FIA is committed to robust monitoring processes and will continue to strengthen, develop and refine all areas of its activities in this new era of Formula 1.”
Red Bull is widely expected to introduce a new, lighter chassis before the end of the season
Binotto said: “I cannot know what they are doing if they have a [lighter] chassis or not, but the budget cap is always a concern.
“The financial regulations can make differences between teams in the way they are interpreting and somehow executing it.
“And we know we need a very strong FIA to make sure they are properly focusing, otherwise the regulations will not be fair and equitable.
“And if they are, it is back to the regulation itself – is it fair enough, is it equitable enough, is the policing sufficient?”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: “We wouldn’t be able to introduce a chassis at that stage of the season. We are massively overweight, which we haven’t been able to sort out because we are trying parts on the car in order to solve our various issues, so can’t afford that, full stop.
“So what was aimed for by introducing the cost cap absolutely hit the target. It is what they wanted to achieve. The big teams can’t just throw money at it.”
The budget cap was introduced in 2021 and was set at $140m (£119m) this season, but teams have been permitted a 3.5% overspend because of the rise in inflation.
