Bangladesh have included veteran  spinner Abdur Razzak in place of injured Shakib Al Hasan for  the first Test against Sri Lanka, a team official said today.
Shakib was ruled out of the Test starting Wednesday in  Chittagong after injuring a little finger during the tri-  series final against the islanders last weekend.
The 35-year-old Razzak, who bowls left-arm spin, was  recalled to the side four years after he played his last Test  against the West Indies in 2014.
"It is not easy to find a replacement for Shakib. We need  someone experienced to replace him. Sunzamul has yet to play  any Test, so we recalled Razzak," said chief selector Minhajul  Abedin.
"Now we will see his fitness in training before we  finally include him in the playing team," he said.
Razzak, one of three Bangladeshis to take more than 200  wickets in one-day internationals, played only 12 Tests after  making his debut in 2006. He picked up 23 wickets.
He showed his form with the red ball in the ongoing  ...

Bangladesh recall Razzak for Sri Lanka Test

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Bangladesh are depending on  their spin force led by veteran Abdur Razzaq to deliver the  opening punch against Sri Lanka in the first of two Tests  starting Wednesday.
Razzaq, 35, was the third spinner added to the squad for  the match in Chittagong after skipper and star all-rounder  Shakib Al Hasan was ruled out with a finger injury.
Uncapped left-arm orthodox spinner Sunzumul Islam and  leg-spinner Tanbir Hayder are also part of the 16-man squad to  be led by Mahmudullah Riyad.
Razzak, who played the last of his 12 Tests against West  Indies in 2014, is determined to prove that the selectors made  the right call.
"Shakib is the best player, not just in our team (but) he  is also the best all-rounder in the world," Razzak told  reporters in Chittagong on Monday.
"It's difficult to replace him because you need to pick a  bowler and batsman in his place and still there is no  guarantee that they will perform equally good.
"I will try to play my normal game without trying  anything ...

Spin-heavy Bangladesh to face upbeat Sri Lanka in 1st Test

The World Anti-Doping Agency said  it had launched an investigation into a possible glitch in  drug-testing kits which could allow sample bottles to be  opened manually.
WADA said in a statement it had been alerted by an  accredited laboratory in Cologne that bottles manufactured by  Swiss manufacturer Berlinger could be opened after being  frozen.
The glass containers, known as the BEREG-KIT Geneva, were  touted as the next generation of sample bottles after being  released last year in the wake of the Russian doping scandal  that dogged the 2014 Winter Olympics.
It was not clear if the new Berlinger bottles were due to  be used at next month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
WADA did not immediately respond to a request for  clarification from AFP.
In its statement, WADA said it had "initiated an  investigation into a potential integrity issue with the new  generation BEREG-KIT Geneva security bottles and will  recommend appropriate measures, if needed, in order to  maintain the ...

WADA probes possible flaw in test bottles

The European Union said today it  would react "swiftly and appropriately" if Washington imposed  trade curbs, after US President Donald Trump accused the bloc  of trading "very unfairly".
"The European Union stands ready to react swiftly and  appropriately in case our exports are affected by any  restrictive trade measures from the United States," European  Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters.

EU says would react 'swiftly' to any Trump trade curbs

The half-brother of North Korean  leader Kim Jong-Un met an unidentified American on a tourist  island in Malaysia four days before he was assassinated in a  Cold War-style hit, a court heard today.
Kim Jong-Nam met the man at a hotel in Langkawi on  February 9, a witness told the trial of two women accused of  the killing that stunned the world.
Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong  allegedly rubbed VX nerve agent on Kim's face at Kuala Lumpur  International Airport on February 13 as he waited to board a  flight to Macau.
Kim died in agony shortly afterwards and the women were  arrested days later.
The pair, who face death by hanging if convicted, have  pleaded not guilty and said they were tricked into believing  they were part of a prank reality TV show, with their lawyers  blaming North Korean agents.
South Korea also has accused North Korea of ordering the  murder, an allegation it denies.
Today's trial, defence lawyer Gooi Soon Seng questioned  senior ...

Kim Jong-Nam met American days before his death: witness

A Hong Kong pro-democracy  candidate has been given last-minute clearance to stand for  election after public anger at government meddling in vote  nominations, as Beijing increases pressure on the city's  activists.
The decision to approve the nomination of Edward Yiu  today, hours before the deadline, came two days after fellow  pro-democracy candidate Agnes Chow, 21, was barred from  standing because her party supports self-determination for  Hong Kong.
Around 2,000 people gathered outside government  headquarters last night to protest at Chow's disqualification.
Yiu said his approval was "absolutely not worth rejoicing  over" in light of the government's "evil acts".
"I'm really very, very angry because it reflects that the  government has manipulated the whole system, trying to control  the result of the by-election," Yiu told reporters.
He said that after submitting his nomination for a by-  election in March he was asked a range of detailed questions  by an electoral officer, ..

Hong Kong democracy candidate cleared to run in fraught vote

Russia's team will be suspended from  the Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, but individual  athletes will be allowed to compete under a neutral flag, the  International Paralympics Committee said Monday.
The agreement is similar to that put in place to allow  able-bodied Russian competitors to take part in next month's  Winter Olympics that precede the Paralympics.
Russia was suspended by the IPC in August 2016 following  revelations of widespread state-sponsored doping uncovered in  a report by Richard McLaren on behalf of the World Anti-Doping  Agency (WADA).
After a review, the IPC said in a statement Monday that  "it is maintaining the suspension of the Russian Paralympic  Committee (RPC)".
"However, in recognition of the progress made by the RPC  in improving its anti-doping activities, it will allow  eligible Russian Para athletes who meet strict conditions to  compete in five sports under the name Neutral Paralympic  Athlete (NPA)," it said.
Eligible Para athletes from ...

Russia suspended from Paralympics, some athletes exempt: IPC

Delegates today arrived for  the first Syria peace congress in Russia, but expectations for  the dialogue were tempered after the war-torn country's main  opposition group said it would boycott the event.
Regime-backer Moscow has invited 1,600 people to the  talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as part of a broader  push to consolidate its influence in the region and start  hammering out a path to a political solution to end the bloody  conflict.
Only a fraction of the invitees are set to participate in  the event, however, according to a list of participants seen  by AFP which has about 350 people on it.
The aim of the congress tomorrow is to bring Syria closer  to creating a post-war constitution, after two days of  separate UN-backed talks in Vienna last week closed without  any sign the warring sides had met face-to-face to discuss the  groundwork for the document.
The Kremlin has downplayed expectations of the event,  with presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling ...

Syria peace talks to begin in Russia despite oppn boycott

Mussa Mustapha Mussa, who heads  Egypt's liberal Al-Ghad party that backs President Abdel  Fattah al-Sisi, said today before nominations closed that he  will contest the presidential election.
The last-minute surprise candidacy comes with Sisi, who  has led an authoritarian regime since 2014, set to romp home  to victory and another four-year term in the March 26-28  polls.
The run-up to the close of nominations has seen any  potential opposition sidelined, and many members of Al-Ghad  who were once seen as opponents of ousted president Hosni  Mubarak are now considered Sisi supporters.
"I am finishing up with some remaining matters and will  then go to the National Election Authority to present my  candidacy," Mussa told AFP.
He said he had gathered more than the necessary  endorsements to stand.
Under Egyptian law, presidential hopefuls must collect  endorsements from at least 20 lawmakers, or at least 25,000  registered voters, with a minimum of 1,000 signatures from  each of at ...

Pro-Sisi surprise candidate to stand in Egypt election

Indonesian police  forcibly cut the hair of a group of transgender women and made  them wear male clothing, authorities said today, amid a  crackdown on the LGBT community in the world's biggest  Muslim-majority nation.
The incident happened after police yesterday raided  several beauty salons in conservative Aceh province and  rounded up a dozen transgender employees over claims they had  teased a group of boys.
Police accused the employees of violating the province's  religious laws.
Dozens of locals tried to attack the group of beauticians  as they were hauled off to the police station, but they were  pushed back by authorities, they said.
Police then lopped off some members' long hair with  scissors as well as forcing the group to wear male clothing  and speak in a masculine voice.
"We have reports from mothers that their sons were teased  by the transgender women," local police chief Ahmad Untung  Surianata told AFP Monday.
"Their numbers are growing here -- I don't want that," ..

Indonesia police force 'manly makeover' on transgender

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin  Netanyahu accused Iran of wanting "to turn Lebanon into one  giant missile site" and warned of the consequences as he left  today for talks in Moscow.
Netanyahu has held a series of discussions with President  Vladimir Putin in recent months on Iran's influence in war-  torn Syria and in Lebanon.
The premier has sought to persuade Russia to limit Iran's  presence near Israeli territory and to stop it from  entrenching itself militarily in Syria.
Israel's military has also issued a series of warnings to  Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia backed by Iran.
Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are all backing Syrian  President Bashar al-Assad in his country's civil war.
Netanyahu has previously accused Iran of building sites  to produce "precision-guided missiles" in both Syria and  Lebanon.
"I will discuss with President Putin Iran's relentless  efforts to establish a military presence in Syria, which we  strongly oppose and are also taking action against," ...

Netanyahu says Iran wants Lebanon to be 'giant missile site'

The world's biggest  carmaker Volkswagen faced fresh scrutiny today over reports it  helped finance experiments that saw monkeys and humans breathe  car exhaust fumes.
VW "distances itself clearly from all forms of animal  abuse," the group said in a statement Saturday, after the New  York Times reported that a US institute commissioned by German  auto firms carried out tests on 10 monkeys in 2014.
But the embarrassment deepened for the group today as  German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported tests on the  effects of inhaling toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) were also  carried out on some 25 healthy human beings.
VW's "dieselgate" scandal saw the group admit in 2015 to  manipulating some 11 million cars worldwide to fool regulatory  tests, making it appear as though they met NOx emissions  limits when in fact they exceeded them by many times in real  on-road driving.
On its website the World Health Organisation points to  "growing evidence" that nitrogen dioxide exposure "can  ...

VW under fire for diesel tests on monkeys, humans

Fresh fighting flared in Yemen's  southern city of Aden today after separatist forces seized  government buildings in what the prime minister said was an  attempted coup.
Aden has served as the headquarters of Saudi-backed  President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government since it was  forced out of the capital Sanaa by Shiite rebels three years  ago.
The separatists -- who want the return of the independent  South Yemen that existed before 1990 -- supported Hadi's  forces against the rebels but tensions between the two sides  have risen in recent months.
The flare-up in Aden has added yet another dimension to  one of the world's most complicated conflicts, a civil war  that left thousands dead and millions on the brink of  starvation.
On Monday, sporadic clashes continued after fighting  overnight in the port city, especially in its north where  separatist forces tried to take control of a military camp,  security sources said.
The separatists dispatched additional forces from the  ...

Fighting flares in Yemen's Aden after separatist 'coup'

A prominent Chinese human rights  attorney has been charged with "inciting subversion of state  power" and will be held in isolation far from his home, his  lawyer said today.
Yu Wensheng, 50, was initially charged with "disrupting a  public service" after he was detained by a dozen police  officers as he left his Beijing apartment to walk his son to  school on January 19.
But on Saturday police in the eastern city of Xuzhou,  Jiangsu province, added the more serious subversion  accusation, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15  years, five times longer than the first charge, according to  defence lawyer Huang Hanzhong.
Police also told his family members that Yu will be held  under "residential surveillance at a designated place", Huang  told AFP.
Best known for suing the Beijing government over the  city's once chronic pollution, Yu has been a persistent voice  for reform despite an increasingly severe crackdown on  activism under President Xi Jinping.
Hours before his ...

China rights lawyer charged with 'inciting subversion'

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte  today punished an anti-graft prosecutor suspected of leaking  his bank records after an opposition politician had accused  Duterte of corruption.
When he was still a presidential candidate Duterte was  accused of unlawfully failing to disclose 211 million pesos  (USD 4.1 million) in secret bank accounts. The 2016 complaint  was lodged with the Ombudsman, an anti-graft prosecutor.
Duterte has denied the allegation. On Monday his  spokesman Harry Roque said the president's chief aide had  suspended the deputy Ombudsman, Melchor Arthur Carandang, for  three months.
The Ombudsman's office had no comment.
Carandang told a local television station last year that  the Ombudsman had since 2016 been quietly investigating  Duterte and his family's bank transactions.
The probe followed a complaint filed by Senator Antonio  Trillanes, a Duterte critic.
Trillanes had alleged Duterte embezzled government funds  and engaged in other illegal activities during his 

Philippines' Duterte sanctions corruption prober after bank

Sri Lanka's government is still  using draconian anti-terror laws that give police sweeping  powers to arrest and detain suspects despite promising to  abolish them, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) allows the  detention of suspects for long periods without trial and was  widely used during the decades-long civil war that ended in  2009.
The government of President Maithripala Sirisena promised  to abolish the act after it was elected in 2015, but has so  far failed to do so.
"The Sri Lankan government has been all talk and no  action on repealing the reviled PTA," said HRW's Asia director  Brad Adams as the rights group released a new report detailing  alleged abuses under the act.
"Replacing this draconian counterterrorism law with one  that meets international standards should be an urgent  priority if the government is serious about protecting human  rights."
Sri Lanka says more than 80 detainees are still being  held under the act, although ...

Sri Lanka still using draconian anti-terror laws: HRW

Fluorescent wigs askew and leaving  broken stiletto heels and a cloud of glitter in their wake,  Myanmar drag queens pounded across the finish line and crashed  into a waiting coterie of photographers at a groundbreaking  festival.
The race and other games including handbag throwing were  some of the highlights of the "&Proud" festival, which took  place in public for the first time in a country where same-sex  relations are still officially illegal.
"Some people don't know about LGBT people," said 20-  year-old Thaw Zin, who attended the weekend event at a Yangon  park sporting a bright pink T-shirt, dyed strawberry blond  hair and blue contact lenses.
"You get people who are LGBT but they don't know what  that is. They don't understand. So that's why it's difficult  for other people to understand as well."
Myanmar's notorious Section 377, a remnant of British  rule, criminalises so-called "unnatural" sex and has been used  to target LGBT people in the socially conservative ...

Myanmar LGBT festival goes public for first time

Australian and US aircraft will  join the search for survivors from a ferry which sank with 50  people aboard in the remote Pacific, rescue officials said  today.
A New Zealand Air Force Orion plane, which yesterday  found seven survivors drifting in a dinghy, is already combing  a search area larger than Italy.
The survivors -- three men, three women and a 14-year-old  girl -- had been aboard the MV Butiraoi, which set off from  Kiribati on January 18.
Officials in the island nation raised the alarm on Friday  after hearing nothing from the vessel since its departure.
An Australian Maritime Safety Authority jet and a US  Coast Guard Hercules agreed to join the search today, Rescue  Coordination Centre NZ said.
The centre's senior search and rescue officer Greg  Johnston said the remote area where the ferry went missing  made it a challenging operation.
He said 385,000 sq kms had already been searched and the  area was constantly expanding as current modelling was used to  estimate ...

Australia, US join Pacific search for sunken ferry survivors

France's Sanofi announced today that  it had reached a deal to acquire Belgian biotech firm Ablynx  that values the firm at 3.9 billion euros (USD 4.8 billion),  beating out Danish rival Novo Nordisk for the nano-drug maker.
Novo Nordisk earlier this month made a 2.6-billion-euro  offer to buy the firm that is developing nano-drugs to treat  blood disorders, which Ablynx rejected as too little.
Chief executive Olivier Brandicourt said by acquiring  Ablynx that Sanofi will be expanding its portfolio of drugs  that are close to market and "strengthening our platform for  growth in rare blood disorders."
Ablynx specialises in the development of nanobodies:  small fragments of antibodies that like larger antibodies can  bind onto the antigens that cause an immune system response.
One of its nanobodies furthest along in development,  caplacizumab, aims to treat a certain type of blood clot.
Ablynx's chief executive Edwin Moses said "we believe  Sanofi's global infrastructure, commitment to 

Sanofi wins big in battle for nano-drug maker

Japan's businesses must realise  Britain's membership of the European Union is "over," French  Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said today, while touting  France as an attractive post-Brexit alternative.
"The message is clear for us: firstly, the presence of  Britain in the European Union is over," he said describing his  discussions with local business leaders during a four-day trip  to Japan.
"I felt that there were maybe some voices saying 'perhaps  it...' No! It's over," he added, encouraging Japanese  companies to face the reality of Britain's departure from the  EU.
"In March 2019, it will be the end," he said at a  conference on the last day of his trip.
Japanese banks were among the first to react to Britain's  June 2016 referendum decision to leave the EU, with Sumitomo  Mitsui Financial Group saying in 2017 it would create a  subsidiary in Frankfurt in preparation for Brexit.
But Japanese companies present in Britain have been more  cautious about publicly announcing ...

Britain's EU days are 'over', French FM tells Japan firms

Gunmen and suicide bombers launched a  pre-dawn attack claimed by the Islamic State group on a  military compound in Kabul today, killing 11 soldiers in the  third major assault in the Afghan capital in recent days.
The series of assaults, including one of the deadliest  bombs in Kabul in recent years, have left already war-weary  citizens grief-stricken and angry as the Taliban and IS  escalate their offensive.
Today's attack on an Afghan army battalion killed at  least 11 soldiers and wounded 16, a defence ministry spokesman  said.
"Two bombers detonated themselves and two were killed by  our forces and one was detained alive," the spokesman, Dawlat  Waziri, told AFP, adding that the attack was over.
Officials said the men, armed with a rocket, two  Kalashnikovs and at least one suicide vest, had attempted to  breach an army battalion near the Marshal Fahim military  academy, where high-ranking officers are trained.
An officer at the academy told AFP he could hear an  explosion and .

AFP

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