Twitter confirmed today a major hacking attack which has seen a number of high-profile accounts defaced by pro-Turkey supporters with a message condemning "Nazi Germany" and "Nazi Holland".
	"We are aware of an issue affecting a number of account holders this morning," a Twitter spokesperson said, adding the source of the attack had been tracked to a third party app whose permissions had been removed.

Twitter confirms hacking after pro-Turkey attacks

PTI Automatic

The ruler of Dubai today ordered three men accused of feeding a cat alive to two dogs and filming it to clean the city's zoo for three months.
	Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum ordered "those detained for torturing the cat to perform community service by cleaning the Dubai zoo for four hours a day for three months," a government statement said.
	It is not clear if the men will also face prosecution. A recently enacted law on animal cruelty stipulates punishment of up to a year in prison or a fine of up to 200,000 dirhams (USD 54,500).
	Emirati newspapers said a Gulf citizen and two Asians had been arrested over the video, which was widely shared on social media.
	The video showed a man offering the cat in an open cage to two Rottweilers, encouraging them to devour the terrified feline as punishment for its having eating birds.
	"You eat pigeons and chickens?" a man is heard saying to the cat, as it is being mauled by one of the dogs. "Eat the cat, eat it," he orders.
	A picture ..

Trio ordered to clean Dubai zoo over cat killing video

Turkey's red meat association has ordered a consignment of prize Dutch cattle to be sent back to the Netherlands, saying it no longer wants to farm the cows due to the diplomatic crisis between the countries.
	Bulent Tunc, the head of the Turkish Association of Red Meat Producers, told Turkish media that a symbolic consignment of 40 Holstein Friesian cattle was already being sent back to the Netherlands.
	"The Dutch Holstein cows have become very common in our country. But this breed is starting to cause serious problems," he told the Anadolu news agency.
	"In future we do not want animal products from Holland. The first batch of Holsteins have been loaded and we will send them back," he added.
	He said Turkey should start focusing on breeding its own cattle. "We have our own quality breeds," he said.
	Tunc later told the Hurriyet daily that a symbolic number of 40 cattle had been loaded for sending back to Holland from the Biga dairy production site in the western Canakkale ...

Turkey 'expels Dutch cows' amid diplomatic crisis

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today said that the "spirit of fascism" was running rampant in Europe as pro-Ankara hackers defaced top Twitter accounts in an escalating crisis.
	Turkey and the European Union are going through their most explosive crisis after key EU members The Netherlands and Germany blocked Turkish ministers from holding rallies to back constitutional changes expanding Erdogan's powers.
	Erdogan has repeatedly accused the two countries of behaving like "Nazis", comments that have left The Hague and Berlin aghast and prompted warnings from Brussels for the Turkish strongman to show moderation.
	EU chiefs today blasted his comments as "detached from reality" and incompatible with Turkey's ambitions to join the bloc.
	But far from stepping back, Erdogan today ratcheted up his rhetoric a further notch, comparing the treatment of non-Europeans in Europe to that of the Jews in World War II.
	"The spirit of fascism is running wild on the streets of Europe," Erdogan 

Erdogan says 'spirit of fascism' rampant in Europe

A top White House security official delivered a stiff warning to leakers of classified materials, calling them "enemies" of the United States.
	Thomas Bossert, President Donald Trump's assistant on homeland security and counterterrorism, said the administration would have "no tolerance" for anyone leaking materials from the inside for any reason.
	"We need to find the people who do it and hold them accountable, and be absolutely unwavering in doing so," he told a security conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
	"The people that have taken in the past things that they should not have taken, Snowden and others, are absolute enemies to our state. Period. They need to be caught, punished and treated as such."
	The warning came as the young Trump administration continues to reel from leaks of secret information to the media and to anti-secrecy groups like WikiLeaks.
	US media has published classified information on Russia's interference in the US ...

White House official calls leakers 'enemies to the state'

Staff at a Bangladeshi company set up by microfinance pioneer Mohammad Yunus are suing the Nobel laureate over millions of dollars in allegedly unpaid dues, their lawyer said today.
	They say Grameen Telecom (GT), which holds a roughly one-third stake in Bangladesh's largest mobile-phone operator, had a legal obligation to share profits with its employees.
	The cases filed by 10 former and current employees name Grameen Telecom and its chairman Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize after the success of his Grameen Bank in reducing poverty.
	Lawyer Jafrul Hasan Sharif told AFP that GT reported profits of USD 260 million in the past decade but failed to pay staff their share.
	"Under labour laws, Grameen Telecom must share five percent of its net profits with its employees and the government," he said.
	"Its total due from 2006-2015 is 1.08 billion taka (USD 13.4 million) of which 80 percent should be paid equally to the the company's former and current employees," he ...

Bangladesh Nobel laureate sued over 'unpaid arrears'

At least 14 children were among 20 people killed in an air strike in Syria's northwestern Idlib province at dawn today, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
	The monitor said the strikes were believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes on the provincial capital Idlib city, which is controlled by jihadists and their Islamist allies.
	The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.

14 children among dead in air strike in Syria's Idlib: monitor

A German court today sentenced members of a neo-Nazi group to up to five years in prison for forming a "terror organisation" that planned to attack a home for asylum seekers.
	The four - three men and a 24-year-old woman identified as Denise Vanessa G - were arrested in May 2015, two days before they planned to strike at the migrant shelter in the eastern state of Saxony.
	Known as the "Old School Society", their choice of weapon was modified "pyrotechnic explosives, particularly in the form of fire and nail bombs", which they were planning to hurl into a refugee home, the prosecutor had said.
	The group had therefore "accepted that people could be killed," chief prosecutor Joern Hauschild had told the court.
	The ringleader Andreas H, 58, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison while his second-in-command Marcus W, 41, got five years.
	The group's "spokesman" Olaf G, 31, was given three years while the only woman obtained three years and 10 months.
	The sentences were ...

German court jails neo-Nazis over refugee attack plans

Businessmen from China agreed to buy USD 1.7 billion in Philippine products this year, the Chinese embassy said today, in a one-off arrangement reflecting warming ties under firebrand President Rodrigo Duterte.
	Since coming to power last year Duterte has sought greater trade as well as billions of dollars in investment and aid from the world's second largest economy, as the Philippines seeks to modernise its crumbling infrastructure.
	Under the agreement signed by businessmen from both countries, China will import Philippine goods such as fruits, fisheries, chemicals and mineral products, the Chinese embassy said in a statement.
	These will be new imports and on top of existing Philippine shipments to China, the embassy added.
	The accord is one of the results of Duterte's landmark visit to China in October, the statement said.
	On his visit, Duterte declared he was distancing himself from the Philippines' longtime ally the United States and seeking closer ties with Beijing.
	To that 

China agrees to buy USD 1.7 bn in Philippine products

Italian police detained dozens of politicians and businessmen around Naples today in a swoop that revealed the local mafia has gotten its tentacles into archaeology and the crematorium business.
	Arrest warrants for 69 suspects were issued in an operation codenamed "the Queen" after the surname of Guglielmo La Regina, a construction company owner and the suspected linchpin of a network that fixed 18 major public contracts.
	The suspects face charges of corruption and tender-rigging in favour of the so-called Casalesi cartel, a notorious branch of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra.
	The investigation was described as a "judicial earthquake" by the newspaper La Repubblica, with ten local authorities affected across an area spanning Naples and the nearby city of Caserta.
	The contracts being investigated include those for the construction of the Mostra d'Oltremare, a new conference centre in Naples, as well as a second university for the city and a new archaeological museum near the site 

Naples mafia enters construction side of crematorium business

Swedish prosecutors said today they have received a translation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's interrogation four months after he was questioned on a rape allegation.
	The 45-year-old founder of the secret-spilling website has been at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012, having taken refuge to avoid being sent to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation.
	He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States over his website's leaking of diplomatic cables and other classified documents.
	The Australian was questioned at the embassy on November 14 and 15 on the rape allegation which dates back to August 2010. Assange has denied the accusation brought by a Swedish woman.
	The Swedish prosecutor's office said in a statement that a report, prepared by Ecuadoran prosecutors, on the interrogation, was translated and is "now almost finished."
	They declined to reveal  the next legal steps to be taken in the case.
	In early January, Ecuadoran authorities submitted the 400 to ..

Swedish prosecutors receive translation of Assange questioning

Raging battles on Myanmar's border with China have claimed dozens more lives, military and official sources said today, as the mounting death toll landed a fresh blow to the government's faltering peace process.
	Fighting broke out between troops and ethnic minority rebels in the Chinese-speaking Kokang border region in northeastern Shan State this month when insurgents dressed in police uniforms launched a surprise raid on security forces.
	Thousands of people have since fled to China to escape the ensuing gun battles, artillery strikes and fires, leaving Laukkai deserted.
	Military sources said 28 civilians and police have been killed, while the commander in chief's office has reported at least 46 insurgents have also died.
	Troops "found the bodies of 17 enemies and seized 27 weapons" between March 6-14, it said in a statement.
	Three more rebels were killed today during an army offensive in which "some military officers and other (lower) rank soldiers were killed and injured," it .

Dozens killed in fresh clashes on Myanmar's China border

A London court today reduced the conviction of a British soldier found guilty of killing an injured Taliban fighter to manslaughter from murder, in a high-profile case that has divided the country.
	Alexander Blackman is currently in jail for shooting the fighter at close range in Afghanistan's Helmand Province on September 15, 2011, after the Afghan was seriously injured by fire from an Apache helicopter.
	"There you are. Shuffle off this mortal coil... It's nothing you wouldn't do to us," Blackman was heard saying, paraphrasing Shakespeare "Hamlet", in footage captured by a camera on a soldier's helmet.
	"Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention," he said to his fellow Royal Marines, a reference to international laws governing the treatment of prisoners of war.
	Blackman was convicted by a court martial in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison with a 10-year minimum.
	The sentence was later reduced to eight years to take into account the fact ...

UK soldier wins appeal of Taliban war crime conviction

Hackers supporting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today defaced Twitter accounts of top individuals and institutions with Nazi jibes, as the EU hit back at Ankara's behaviour in an escalating crisis.
	Turkey and the European Union are going through their most explosive crisis after key EU members The Netherlands and Germany blocked Turkish ministers from holding rallies to back constitutional changes expanding Erdogan's powers.
	Erdogan has repeatedly accused the two countries of behaving like "Nazis", comments that have left The Hague and Berlin aghast.
	EU chiefs today blasted his comments as "detached from reality" and incompatible with Turkey's ambitions to join the bloc.
	The strong reaction from Brussels came as The Netherlands was voting in an election where Prime Minister Mark Rutte is facing a strong challenge from far-right populist Geert Wilders.
	Analysts believe Erdogan is exploiting the crisis to the full to bring out nationalist votes and ensure victory in the ..

Pro-Erdogan hackers in Twitter attack as EU blasts Turkey

NATO must retain Turkey as a member despite soaring tensions over Ankara's campaign for a controversial referendum, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said today.
	Beyond Turkey's strategic importance, von der Leyen warned that rupturing ties could give the democratic Turkish opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the sense the West was leaving it in the lurch.
	"Turkey is not making it easy for us within NATO. But no one should believe that a Turkey outside NATO would listen better to us or would be easier to deal with than a Turkey in NATO," she told AFP.
	Von der Leyen, who has served as Chancellor Angela Merkel's defence chief since 2013, said that NATO provided a platform for the West to "discuss - sometimes heatedly - our convictions about democracy and open society".
	She warned that allowing the current tensions with Ankara to lead to a permanent rupture would have a negative impact on Turkish society.
	"We must not abandon the many Turks who don't want an ...

Germany warns against NATO break with Turkey

Nearly 100,000 people have poured out of west Mosul in less than three weeks as Iraqi forces fought to retake the area from jihadists, the International Organisation for Migration said today.
	Iraqi security forces launched a major push last month to recapture west Mosul, which is the most populated urban area still held by the Islamic State group, with an estimated 750,000 residents when the battle began.
	Iraqi special forces units and police have made steady progress in the area, forcing IS out of a series of neighbourhoods and retaking important sites such as the airport, Mosul museum, train station and provincial government headquarters.
	But the battle for west Mosul - which is smaller but more densely populated than the eastern side which Iraqi forces recaptured earlier this year - has pushed a flood of people to flee their homes.
	Between February 25 and March 15, more than 97,000 people have been displaced from west Mosul, the IOM said on its official Twitter account.
	It ...

Nearly 100,000 Iraqis flee battle for west Mosul

Two bomb blasts hit Damascus today including a suicide attack at a central courthouse that left at least 25 dead, as Syria's war entered its seventh year with the regime now claiming the upper hand.
	There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings, the second wave of deadly attacks in the capital in less than a week after twin bombings killed 74 on Saturday.
	But they came with the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime increasingly divided and dispirited after a series of battlefield setbacks.
	Negotiations to end the conflict have meanwhile made little progress, with rebels this week declining to attend negotiations in Kazakhstan.
	Today's first attack saw a suicide bomber rush inside the building and blow himself up when police tried to prevent him from entering the courthouse in the centre of Damascus, state media reported.
	Citing a police source, state news agency SANA put the initial death toll at 25 and said there were many wounded.
	An AFP ...

Bombs rock Damascus as war enters seventh year

Pakistan today recalled opener Ahmed Shehzad and Kamran Akmal in separate squads for the four-match Twenty20 and three-match one-day series in the West Indies starting later this month.
     Both batsmen earned their recalls on the back of solid performances in the recently held Pakistan Super League (PSL) where they played for opposing sides in the final.
     The limited overs squads will be led by Sarfraz Ahmed, who will also keep wicket, with the first Twenty20 in Barbados on March 26. The remaining three matches will be played in Port of Spain on March 30, April 1 and 2.
     The one-day matches are scheduled for April 7, 9 and 11 -- all in Guyana.
     Shehzad was dropped from the Twenty20 and one-day squad after former head coach Waqar Younis described him as "undisciplined" following Pakistan's World Twenty20 failure in India last year.
     But he has since shown good domestic form, scoring 653 and 286 in two one-day tournaments.
     The 35-year-old Akmal last played for ...

Pakistan recalls Shahzad, Kamran in limited-overs squads

Scores at stumps on the opening day
of the second Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo on Wednesday.
     Sri Lanka 1st innings
     D. Karunaratne c Mehedi b Mustafizur 7
     U. Tharanga c Soumya b Mehedi 11
     K. Mendis st Mushfiqur b Mehedi 5
     D. Chandimal not out 86
     A. Gunaratne lbw b Roy 13
     D. De Silva b Taijul 34
     N. Dickwella b Shakib 34
     D. Perera c Soumya b Mustafizur 9
     R. Herath not out 18
     Extras (n1, lb12, w6, nb 2) 21
     Total (seven wickets, 83.1 overs) 238
     Fall of wickets: 1-13 (Karunaratne), 2-24 (Mendis), 3-35 (Tharanga), 4-70 (Gunaratne), 5-136 ( de Silva), 6-180 ( Dickwella), 7-195 (Perera)
     Bowling: Mustafizur 15-5-32-2 (w5), Roy 15-2-47-1 (nb2, w1), Mehedi 15-2-58-2, Taijul 14-2-34-1, Shakib 20.1-3-43-1, Mosaddek 4-0-11-0.

Colombo, Mar 15 (AFP) Scores at stumps on the opening day

Adam Voges announced his retirement from Australian first-class cricket today, departing the domestic game as the oldest player to score a Test century on debut.
     The middle-order batsman played 20 Tests, 31 one-dayers and seven Twenty20s for his country in an international career spanning 10 years with a batting average above 45 across all forms of the game.
     Failing to catch the eye of selectors this year led the West Australian captain to announce his retirement at the end of the current Sheffield Shield season, although he still plans to play the T20 Big Bash League and for English county Middlesex.
     "It's something I've been wrestling with and considering for a while but I feel now is the right time," said the 37-year-old.
     "This season has been particularly physically and mentally tough, after being left out of the Test team and no longer having the carrot of international cricket to strive for.
     "After 15 years of first-class cricket, my mind and body have ..

AFP

AFP

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