Fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra hit out at "tyranny" today via a cryptic tweet quoting a French Enlightenment thinker in his first comments since his sister fled overseas.
	Yingluck Shinawatra, who like her brother was also booted from office by a coup, dramatically disappeared days before a court was about to deliver judgment in a criminal negligence trial.
	Party and junta sources say she went to join her brother, who lives in self-exile in Dubai.
	On Wednesday Thaksin broke a long public silence, issuing tweets in both English and Thai that quoted 18th century French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu.
	"Montesquieu once said 'There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice'," he wrote on his Twitter account.
	It is the first time Thaksin has used Twitter in more than two years, in an apparent swipe at the military rulers who forced him out of office in 2006 and toppled his sister's administration .

Thaksin hits out at Thailand 'tyranny' in cryptic tweet

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David Warner struck his 19th Test century before all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan took three quick wickets to put Australia under pressure in the first Test in Dhaka on Wednesday.
     At lunch on the fourth day, the visitors were 199-7, requiring another 66 runs to win with only three wickets remaining.
     Glenn Maxwell was batting on 14 with Pat Cummins on two at the break.
     Bangladesh, who set Steve Smith's men a target of 265, have never won in their five previous outings against Australia since gaining Test status in 2000.
     Left-arm spinner Shakib brought Bangladesh back into the game with his triple strike after Warner hit 112 off 135 balls with the help of 16 fours and a six.
     Shakib's spin partner Taijul Islam chipped in with two wickets to peg back the Aussies, who made 217 in their first innings in reply to Bangladesh's 260.
     Australia appeared to be coasting towards their fifth consecutive win against Bangladesh when Warner and Smith resumed on 109 for two.
    

Bangladesh spinners strike after Warner ton

China is working with other members of the United Nations Security Council on a response to North Korea's missile launch over Japan, the Chinese foreign minister said today.
	Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke hours after the UN Security Council unanimously condemned Tuesday's test and Japan's UN ambassador suggested that a new sanctions declaration could come next.
	Wang said China -- which is Pyongyang's only major ally -- was "now working with other members of the Security Council to discuss the recent developments of the situation".
	He added that "based on the consensus of Security Council members, we are going to make a necessary response to the recent test launch of the missile".
	But Wang did not specify whether a fresh set of sanctions was looming.
	"Whether there will be new measures going forward, that should be discussed by the Security Council and consensus needs to be formed," Wang told a news briefing.
	The foreign minister said China opposes the missile launch, which he ...

China says working with UN on North Korea response

Australia today added left-arm slow bowler Steve O'Keefe to their squad for the second Test against Bangladesh starting next week.
     O'Keefe, 32, was left out of Australia's original squad in favour of the younger left-arm spinner Ashton Agar, triggering speculation of an imminent end to his career.
     O'Keefe will replace fast bowler Josh Hazlewood who has been ruled out of the series after picking an injury on the third day of the first Test in Dhaka On Tuesday.
     Hazlewood, who bowled just seven deliveries, will return home after the Test.
     "With Jackson Bird in the squad we are comfortable with our fast-bowling options for the second Test and have elected to add an additional spinner given the conditions we are likely to face in Chittagong," national selector Trevor Hohns said in a statement.
     O'Keefe impressed during this year's four-Test series in India, taking 19 wickets, including a match-winning 12-wicket haul in the first Test in Pune in February. Australia ..

Australia call up O'Keefe for second Bangladesh Test

British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives in Japan on an official visit today with an eye to soothing Brexit fears and pushing ahead on early free-trade talks with the world's number three economy.
	May is scheduled to sit down with Toyota's chairman during her three-day tour which starts in Osaka before moving to Tokyo where she meets with Emperor Akihito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited Britain this year.
	Britain formally told the EU in March it will withdraw from the 28-member bloc, stirring fears in Japan about what the move would mean for companies with significant business interests in the country.
	"We're going to ask for transparency and predictability so as to minimise the impact on (our) companies," a Japanese foreign ministry official in charge of European affairs said ahead of May's visit.
	More than 1,000 Japanese companies do business in Britain, employing some 140,000 local people with many using Britain as as a staging post to do business in Europe.
	Among .

Britain's May visits Japan with eye on Brexit fears

Donald Trump Jr, the US president's eldest son, will take questions from a congressional committee investigating possible collusion between the Republican's 2016 campaign team and Russia, officials have said.
	The Senate Judiciary Committee announced that the 39- year-old Trump Jr. Agreed to testify before investigators behind closed doors. No date was immediately given.
	The eldest Trump son also agreed to provide documents requested by the committee, its chairs Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Dianne Feinstein in a said in a joint statement.
	The president's son-in-law Jared Kushner gave information in a similar format in July, on his ties to Russia before and after the November 2016 election to the Intelligence Committees of the House of Representatives and Senate.
	Lawmakers involved in the investigation would have liked public testimony by Trump's son, son-in-law and other aides; they can be ordered to testify but were not.
	Trump Jr and Kushner, both very close to the ...

Trump Jr to testify in Russia probe: lawmakers

Rafael Nadal has conquered the French Open 10 times and battled career-threatening knee and wrist injuries, but his greatest challenge awaits him -- telling rowdy New Yorkers to be quiet.
     The world number one and two-time US Open champion took his first-round record at the season's concluding Grand Slam to 13-0 on Tuesday with a 7-6 (8/6) 6-2 6-2 win over Serbia's Dusan Lajovic.
     But with torrential rain lashing the Flushing Meadows site, the roof on the showpiece Arthur Ashe stadium was shut tight, creating a giant echo-chamber for the boisterous crowd of 24,000 beneath.
     "Being honest, it (the noise) is a little bit too much," said the 31-year-old Spaniard, whose Grand Slam collection of 15 titles includes the 2010 and 2013 US Open crowns.
     "The energy and support of the crowd is massive. I enjoy it and I have unforgettable memories from this tournament and this court, because the energy is different from in other places.
     "But at the same time, under the roof, .

Mission impossible? Nadal wants New Yorkers to be quiet

Rocked by Arsenal's humiliating 4-0 defeat at Liverpool, Arsene Wenger faces a series of damaging transfer window defections that threaten to derail his side's already chaotic season.
	With the transfer deadline looming at 2200 GMT on Thursday, Gunners boss Wenger finds himself mired in a mess of his own making as Alexis Sanchez and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain headline a host of Arsenal stars trying to flee the troubled club.
     Chile forward Sanchez is desperate to seal a move to Manchester City after rejecting Arsenal's offer of 300,000- per-week to extend a contract which is due to expire at the end of the season.
     Sanchez, who angered fans when he was pictured smirking on the Arsenal bench during the Liverpool rout, is reported to have asked to be excused from training with Chile this week while negotiations over his future heat up.
     City are said to have offered their England winger Raheem Sterling plus cash in a bid to convince Wenger to part ways with his prize asset.
    

Under-fire Wenger faces testing end to transfer window

Kezia Dugdale has quit as leader of Britain's centre-left Labour party in Scotland, saying that the party needed a "new leader with fresh energy, drive and a new mandate."
	"I choose to stand down because I believe it is best for me and best for Scottish Labour, at a time when we can be positive and optimistic about our future," she wrote in a letter to party chair Linda Stewart.
	Dugdale, who held the top job for two years, will remain an MP in the Sottish parliament.
	She came to power in 2015 after replacing Jim Murphy, who stepped down after his party lost all but one of their 41 seats to the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), in the general election.
	The party gained six seats back in the recent general election, but is struggling to replicate the success of Labour's leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn south of the border.
	"A marker of success for me was to leave as leader with the party in better shape than I found it and I have done that," she said yesterday.
	"But with 

Scottish Labour party leader quits

A black-and-white number plate with the single digit "4" has sold at a Sydney auction for a record-breaking near USD 2.0 million, reportedly to a Chinese-Australian sex toy entrepreneur.
	The sale shattered pre-sale estimates of up to Aus$1.5 million, with the auction hammer coming down at Aus$2.45 million -- more than twice the average cost of a Sydney home.
	"Just nine of these New South Wales number plates were ever issued, making them ultra-collectible and irreplaceable," said Shannons auction manager Christophe Boribon.
	"Their unique status and desirability is never going to change.
	"The opportunity to acquire such a plate is exceptionally rare, as most single-digit plates remain in family hands, are usually passed down through generations and rarely, if ever, come onto the open market."
	The auction house refused to reveal who the buyer was, but the Sydney Morning Herald said it was Chinese-Australian billionaire Peter Tseng, who made his fortune in sex toys.
	It said he ...

Australian number plate sells for nearly $2 million

Japanese teen Naomi Osaka first conquered her shaky nerves and then crushed defending champion Angelique Kerber 6-3 6-1 Tuesday to reach the second round of the US Open.
	The 19-year-old daughter of a Haitian father and Japanese mother captured her first victory over a top-10 opponent by dispatching the German sixth seed, but first she had to fight off bad memories.
	A year ago on the same Arthur Ashe Stadium court, Osaka squandered a 5-1 lead in the final set and lost to American Madison Keys 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7/3) in a third-round match.
	"When I stepped on the court and I heard all the people and I saw how big the stadium was, I got a little bit freaked out, but I tried to hold it in," Osaka said.
	"I never played a defending champion and also, I was playing on Ashe again, which wasn't really the best memory for me."
	   Osaka dominated former world number one Kerber, but as the match creeped closer to conclusion, a nagging thought popped up -- "I really hope I don't do what I did ...

Japan's Osaka overcomes nerves, ousts defending champ

Luis Suarez could yet line up against Barcelona team-mate Lionel Messi on Thursday as South America's battle for 2018 World Cup places resumes with Argentina's trip to Uruguay the pick of the fixtures.
     With leaders Brazil already locking up their place at next year's tournament, attention turns to the tussle for the three remaining automatic berths on offer in the marathon 10- team qualifying tournament.
     Colombia are second in the standings on 24 points while Uruguay and Chile occupy the other two automatic spots on 23 points.
     It means that fifth-placed Argentina have little margin for error as they head to Montevideo's Estadio Centenario for the latest instalment of their historic rivalry with the Uruguayans.
     Argentina have spluttered their way through the qualifiers so far, notching only six wins in 14 games, but have shown signs of life under new coach Jorge Sampaoli.
	Sampaoli, who masterminded Chile's victory at the 2015 Copa America, took control of the ...

Argentina, Uruguay collide in South America qualifiers

Six Chinese nationals and a Papua New Guinean have been detained after trying to reach Australia by boat, with two of them charged with people-smuggling, officials said today.
	The men were intercepted in the Torres Strait in Australia's north.
	The Sydney Morning Herald said they set foot last week on Saibai island, which would make it the first successful boat to reach Australian shores in nearly three years. Authorities in the country refused to confirm the group made landfall.
	Only Monday the government trumpeted its success in preventing any migrants from arriving by boat in more than 1,000 days.
	"Recently the Australian Border Force located and detained six Chinese nationals who were attempting to illegally enter Australia," a department of immigration and border protection spokesman said.
	"The operation demonstrates the effectiveness of the strong presence of Australian law enforcement in the Torres Strait region."
	It said five of them had been returned to China while two, .

Chinese held after trying to reach Australia by boat

Mexican authorities have said they rescued 133 Central American migrants, including 34 children, from a house where they were apparently locked up and abandoned while being trafficked to the United States.
	The undocumented migrants, who came from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, were locked up in "overcrowded conditions" in a house in a remote area in the southeastern state of Tabasco, the attorney general's office said in a statement.
	Authorities found them after receiving an anonymous tip, it said yesterday.
	Two people were arrested on kidnapping charges. The migrants were handed over to immigration authorities.
	Hundreds of thousands of migrants cross Mexico each year seeking to reach the United States.
	Central Americans who make the trip are often fleeing brutal gang violence in their home countries. The trend reached crisis levels in 2014, when some 69,000 unaccompanied children flooded the US-Mexican border.
	They often travel in perilous conditions, prey to human ...

133 trafficked migrants rescued in Mexico

The UN Security Council has denounced North Korea's latest missile test unanimously demanding that Pyongyang halt the program after a rocket was fired over Japan into the Pacific.
	The 15-nation body maintained its unity yesterday after Kim Jong-Un's latest provocation, with China and Russia agreeing to sign up to a statement condemning his isolated regime's action.
	But the US-drafted statement, while noting that the test contravened several previous Security Council resolutions, will not immediately lead to new or tightened measures against Pyongyang.
	Still, diplomatic sources told AFP that the speed with which the members had reacted underlined their determination to remain united.
	"The Security Council stresses that these DPRK actions are not just a threat to the region, but to all UN member states," said the statement, issued after closed-door talks at UN headquarters.
	"The Security Council expresses its grave concern that the DPRK is, by conducting such a launch over Japan as 

UN Council unanimously condemns North Korea missile test

Nuclear-armed North Korea today said that it had fired a missile over Japan the previous day, the first time it has ever acknowledged doing so.
	The launch represented a major escalation by Pyongyang in the face of tensions over its weapons programmes, which have seen it threaten to send a salvo of missiles towards the US territory of Guam and prompted President Donald Trump to warn of "fire and fury".
	Shortly before the North Korean statement, Trump said that "all options" were on the table, reviving his implied threat of pre-emptive US military action just days after congratulating himself that North Korea's Kim Jong-Un appeared to be "starting to respect" him by holding off on missile firings.
	The launch of the Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile was supervised by leader Kim Jong-Un, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
	It "crossed the sky above Oshima peninsula of Hokkaido and Cape Erimo of Japan along the preset flight track and accurately hit the preset target .

North Korea says fired missile over Japan

The US Justice Department charged three more bodyguards of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for assaulting protestors in Washington in May in a brawl that marred an official White House visit.
	In a fresh indictment, a total of 19 members of Erdogan's security detail were identified from detailed video footage of the May 16 daylight attack on Kurdish and Armenian protesters outside the residence of Turkey's ambassador, following a meeting between Erdogan and President Donald Trump.
	Videos show the Erdogan guards viciously beating and kicking protestors on the ground in the leafy "Embassy Row" section of downtown Washington.
	The three names added to the case were Turkish security officials Muhsin Kose, Yusuf Ayar, and Harrettin Eren.
	A total of 21 counts of assault and hate crimes based on the victims' ethnicity were leveled against the group by Washington, DC district attorney Channing Phillips.
	The indictment accused the group of "conspiracy... To: (1) assault and kick ...

Three more Erdogan guards indicted over Washington melee

Visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan has said he hopes that a recent ceasefire in southern Syria will spread to other parts of the country to lead to a negotiated peace.
	The kingdom shares a border of more than 370 kilometers (230 miles) with Syria, where over 330,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since its conflict broke out in 2011.
	A ceasefire brokered by Jordan, Russia and the United States in the southern Syrian provinces of Daraa, Quneitra and Suweida has largely held since it entered into force July 9.
	"In Syria, we hope that the ceasefire in the southwest will be replicated elsewhere in the country, easing the way for a political solution that guarantees the country's territorial integrity and ends the bloodshed," King Abdullah II told a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday.
	At the end of the monarch's two-day state visit to Canada, Trudeau announced Can$45.3 million ($36.2 million US) to help support Syrian refugees .

Jordan king hopes for bigger Syria ceasefire

North Korea today said that it had fired a missile over Japan the previous day, the first time it has ever acknowledged doing so.
	The Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile, whose launch was supervised by leader Kim Jong-Un, "crossed the sky above Oshima peninsula of Hokkaido and Cape Erimo of Japan along the preset flight track and accurately hit the preset target waters in northern Pacific", the official KCNA news agency reported.

North Korea says fired missile over Japan Tuesday

Boko Haram jihadists have kidnapped nine people in two separate attacks in which one person was killed and two injured in Nigeria's volatile northeast, vigilantes have said.
	Five members of a family were kidnapped along a highway, 50 kilometres (30 miles) outside the city of Maiduguri as they waited for their car to be fixed on Tuesday, they said yesterday.
	"Five members of a family were abducted today near the town of Dikwa by Boko Haram terrorists," Babakura Kolo, a member of a militia fighting Boko Haram told AFP.
	"The hostages included a woman, her three young daughters and sister," he said.
	Another militia member Ibrahim Liman gave a similar account, saying the victims were heading to Maiduguri under a military escort when their car broke down and was forced to stop.
	"While the driver of the vehicle was trying to fix the car, Boko Haram terrorists appeared from the bush and seized them," Liman said.
	He said the driver however managed to escape.
	The 83-kilometre ...

Boko Haram kidnaps nine in Nigeria: Vigilantes

Kenya's Supreme Court judges completed today their hearing of an opposition challenge to the August 8 poll and said a ruling will be delivered on Friday.
	Opposition leader Raila Odinga argued the presidential poll was rigged and took his case to the court, challenging the election commission's declaration of President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election with 54 percent of the vote.
	After hearing closing arguments from lawyers representing the National Super Alliance (NASA) opposition coalition, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and Kenyatta, Chief Justice David Maraga said, "That brings us to the end of the hearing. We will deliver judgement on Friday."
	Odinga alleges that hacking and fraud delivered victory to Kenyatta and believes it is the third time in a row that he has been cheated of a rightful win.
	The disputed election in 2007 led to politically- motivated ethnic violence in which over 1,100 people died. In 2013 Odinga took his dispute to the courts, and .

AFP

AFP

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