NATO said today that Turkey's membership of the military alliance is "not in question" following the failed coup in July as the organisation stressed its "very clear position" of continued support for Ankara.
	"Turkey's NATO membership is not in question," spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in a statement issued in response to "speculative press reports".
	"NATO counts on the continued contributions of Turkey and Turkey can count on the solidarity and support of NATO," Lungescu said.
	The statement comes the day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a highly-symbolic visit to Russia to mend fences, sparking speculation that Ankara's close ties with the West could be at risk.
	Turkey is the second largest military power in US-led NATO and is a crucial ally as the West faces unprecedented conflict and upheaval across the Middle East.
	Erdogan has sharply criticised the United States and the European Union for not doing more to show support in the aftermath of the bloody ...

NATO says Turkey membership 'not in question' after coup

PTI Automatic

Thousands of workers at South Africa's state-owned power utility Eskom today embarked on a strike over wage negotiations, defying a court order against the stoppage, a union said.
	About 15,000 workers in power stations across the country were said to be participating in the strike.
	"The employer obtained an interdict against the strike late last night, but our members decided to go ahead with the stoppage," said Livhuwani Mammburu, the spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
	"They believe their demands are valid," he said.
	The union is demanding a 10 per cent increase for the lowest paid workers, 8.5 per cent for the highest earners and a housing allowance worth 3,000 rand (USD 226).
	Eskom is offering a hike of between seven to nine per cent.
	The union accuses the utility of structuring wages according to race, with white employees said to be paid more than their black colleagues.
	"The NUM members are very disturbed and angry with the attitude of Eskom in ...

S African power plant workers embark on illegal strike

Two buses collided head-on in Peru, leaving 17 people dead and 29 injured, police said today.
	The cause of the crash on the Pan American Highway Tuesday night near the southern city of Ica is under investigation, Colonel Leandro Flores, chief of the highway police, told America TV.
	"It was a head on type of collision," he said.
	Among the dead were the two drivers and a Brazilian tourist on a bus traveling to Lima from the city of Cusco, police said.
	Highway fatalities are common occurrences in Peru, many of them in accidents involving the country's many private bus companies.
	In 2014, the last year for which official statistics are available, 2,798 people died in traffic accidents in the country.

17 killed in Peru bus collision

A Japanese woman and her former partner were acquitted today in a retrial for the alleged murder of the woman's 11-year-old daughter after the pair had spent about two decades in jail.
	They were released in October last year after a new trial was ordered due to serious questions about their guilt -- including the validity of their confessions -- in the arson murder for which they had been convicted.
	And on Wednesday the Osaka District Court formally found Keiko Aoki and Tatsuhiro Boku not guilty, a member of their support group told AFP.
	The couple had been found guilty of setting their house on fire by spraying gasoline in the garage -- a blaze that killed Aoki's daughter Megumi -- in an attempt to claim insurance money.
	In the ruling, the court said that confessions made by Aoki and Boku when under investigation were invalid, according to the supporter, who asked not to be named.
	Details of the acquital were included on the support group's website and were widely reported by ...

Japan court acquits pair of murder after two decades in jail

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier believes Donald Trump becoming US president would be a "frightening" prospect for the world, his spokeswoman said today.
	Steinmeier "is not neutral" on whether the Republican candidate is fit to occupy the Oval Office, the spokeswoman, Sawsan Chebli, told reporters.
	"He is of the opinion that it is frightening, if you follow Trump's remarks, what could become of this world if Trump actually became president," she said.
	"The foreign minister is calling attention to that and that is his right."
	Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman told the same news conference that she would stand by her policy of not commenting on the US election campaign.
	Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, had already compared Trump last week to a "hate preacher", saying he had much in common with "fear-mongers" in Germany's right-wing populist AfD party as well as advocates of Britain's exit from the EU.
	French President Francois Hollande said Trump makes "you want .

Trump becoming US president 'frightening': German FM

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has appealed a Stockholm district court's decision to maintain a European arrest warrant against him over a 2010 rape allegation, his lawyer said today.
	"We have appealed the decision to keep him remanded in custody in absentia," Tomas Olsson told AFP. The paperwork was submitted to the Svea Court of Appeal on Tuesday.
	Swedish prosecutors issued the arrest warrant because they want to question Assange about the rape allegation, which he denies.
	The 45-year-old Australian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June 2012 after exhausting all his legal options in Britain against extradition to Sweden.
	Assange's lawyer urged Sweden to respect a non-binding legal opinion by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which on February 5 ruled that his confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy amounted to arbitrary detention by Sweden and Britain.
	"That is part of the basis for the appeal. The other is that the prosecution has made no effort .

Assange appeals European arrest warrant

Police in southwest France arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with the jihadist killing of a priest in a Normandy church last month, judicial sources said today.
	The man arrested on Monday in the Toulouse area is the second to be held in connection with the murder of 85-year-old Jacques Hamel, whose throat was slit in front of worshippers while he was celebrating mass in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on July 26.
	A police source said he had been in contact with the cleric's killers, Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
	The pair, both aged 19, were shot dead by police after a hostage drama in which a worshipper was seriously wounded.
	The grisly attack -- the first committed in the name of IS against a church in the West -- came less than two weeks after a Tunisian ploughed a 19-tonne truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the Riviera city of Nice, killing 85 people and wounding more than 300.
	A cousin ..

Second man arrested over French priest's murder

A fire tore through the maternity ward of one of Baghdad's largest hospitals today, killing at least 12 premature babies, medical and security officials said.
	Jassem Lateef al-Karkh, from the Baghdad health directorate, told reporters only seven babies could be saved and were taken to another ward in the Iraqi capital.
	Health ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Rudeini told AFP the blaze at the Yarmuk hospital in west Baghdad was started by an electrical fault just after midnight (2100 GMT Tuesday).
	"Twenty-nine women patients who were in the same ward were evacuated to other hospitals," he said.
	Security services sealed off the area as forensic teams searched the gutted ward and angry relatives massed outside, waiting for information from the authorities.
	Charred incubators could be seen outside one of the entrances to the hospital, access to which was strictly controlled by the police.
	The grief of the bereaved parents and relatives was compounded by the fact that the babies' young ...

12 newborns dead in Baghdad hospital blaze

Sri Lanka appointed its most successful pace bowler Chaminda Vaas as a coaching consultant today, tasking him with identifying youngsters who can ease the team's reliance on spin.
     Aravinda de Silva, chairman of the board's cricket committee, said Sri Lanka may enjoy a fine record on their own spin-friendly pitches but must develop teams to get results on a variety of surfaces.
     "We have to develop teams to win outside the country... not just on turning wickets, but to win in Australia on those fast wickets," he told reporters.
     De Silva was speaking ahead of the third and final Test against Australia, a series which Sri Lanka have already won thanks in large part to spinners Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera.
     Sri Lanka's fast bowlers have played only minor roles in the team's comprehensive victories in the first two Tests.
     Their pace attack also struggled on the recent tour of England when Sri Lanka failed to win any of their nine international in all formats.
 

Vaas to identify Sri Lanka fast bowling talent

Survivors of the Khmer Rouge hit out at Pokemon Go players today after they flocked to one of the regime's notorious prisons -- now a museum to Cambodia's brutal genocide -- to catch digital monsters.
	The mobile app was made available in Cambodia on Saturday alongside a host of other Southeast Asian nations, with fans flocking to well known landmarks in recent days.
	But the game -- which encourages users to hit the pavements in search of the virtual creatures -- has sparked anger after players appeared at Tuol Sleng prison, where up to 15,000 people were sent to their deaths during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule.
	"It is an insulting act to the souls of the victims who died there," Bou Meng, 76, one of a handful survivors from Tuol Sleng, told AFP.
	"It is a place of suffering. It is not appropriate to play the game there," he said, calling for the museum to be excluded from the game's maps.
	Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which researches the Khmer ..

Pokemon players anger Khmer Rouge prison survivors

Three people were killed and around a thousand forced to flee overnight as fires engulfed the Portuguese island of Madeira, rescuers said today, as the flames reached the capital Funchal.
	The three victims died in their homes close to Funchal's historic centre while local media reported that two others were seriously injured by the raging inferno that has gripped Madeira, a popular tourist destination in the eastern Atlantic.
	A vast ball of smoke was seen above Funchal on Tuesday with the evening sky turned orange by the flames, prompting locals to photograph the scene from surrounding hills.
	Fires began in the hills around Funchal on Monday night with the situation worsening dramatically on Tuesday evening as strong winds fanned the flames, spreading the blaze to other parts of the city.
	Some evacuees have been forced to sleep in military bases since the blaze started, said Rubina Leal, the head of Madeira's Civil Protection office.
	Others have been moved to a football stadium ..

3 killed as fires ravage Madeira

Five Turkish soldiers were killed today in an attack blamed on Kurdish militants in the restive southeast of the country, a local security source said.
	Eight other soldiers were wounded after a homemade bomb exploded while a military convoy was passing in Uludere, close to the Iraqi border, the source said.
	The bombing was blamed on militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) with whom the Turkish military has renewed fighting since the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in July last year.
	The Turkish army's hierarchy has been badly hit in the purge since the July 15 failed coup during which a rogue military faction tried to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power.
	Nearly half of all generals have been imprisoned or dismissed, raising concerns about the coordination of the fight against Kurdish rebels.
	More than 600 Turkish security force members have been killed by the PKK since the collapse of a ceasefire last year, according to a toll given by state-run Anadolu news 

Five Turkish soldiers killed in PKK attack

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere is preparing to unveil a slew of new anti-terror measures, reports said today, after two attacks in July claimed by the Islamic State group.
	The new measures to be announced tomorrow include speeding up the expulsion process for asylum seekers convicted of crimes, Bild daily reported, quoting anonymous security sources.
	The minister is also planning to introduce "threat to public security" as a new reason for deporting migrants.
	Doctors will also have their confidentiality obligations lifted in special cases that would allow them to inform authorities should their patient be a potential threat to the population, added Bild.
	The tougher stance comes after the two attacks by migrants in the southern state of Bavaria -- an axe rampage on a train in Wuerzburg and a suicide bombing in Ansbach.
	In Wuerzburg, the 17-year-old attacker was shot dead by police after injuring five people. In Ansbach 15 people were injured after a failed Syrian .

Berlin to toughen anti-terror measures after attacks: reports

At least 11 premature babies were killed today in a fire that tore through one of Baghdad's largest maternity hospitals, medical and security sources said.
	Health ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Rudeini told AFP the blaze at the Yarmouk hospital in west Baghdad was started by an electrical fault.
	He added that 29 other infants in Yarmouk "were evacuated to other hospitals in the capital."
	An official at Iraq's interior ministry confirmed the death toll from the fire, adding that three other babies were being treated for smoke inhalation.
	Many of Baghdad's public hospitals are considered of poor quality, pushing a number of Iraqis to seek private healthcare.

11 newborns dead in Baghdad hospital blaze

Thousands of leaked reports detailing allegations of sexual assault, child abuse and self-harm in Australian immigration facilities on Nauru were published today, prompting rights groups to renew calls for refugees to be resettled elsewhere.
	Under Canberra's current policy, asylum-seekers arriving by boat are sent to the remote Pacific island of Nauru or Papua New Guinea's Manus Island even if they are refugees.
	While the flow of asylum boats to Australia has dried up, some 442 people remain on tiny Nauru and almost double that on Manus, refusing to return home and denied resettlement in Australia.
	More than 2,000 incident reports leaked to The Guardian Australia include allegations of asylum-seekers, including children, on Nauru facing assaults, sexual abuse and mental distress.
	The reports allege such incidents as guards threatening a boy with death and only allowing a young woman a longer shower in return for sexual favours.
	Mental stress caused by prolonged detention was ...

Abuse rife in Australian immigration centre: leaked reports

James Anderson may now be ranked as the world's top bowler but the England great was happy to acknowledge how watching India's Zaheer Khan had helped him reach the summit ahead of the fourth Test against Pakistan at The Oval.
     Conventional or reverse swing where a ball deviates late in flight is one of the most difficult types of bowling to face, particularly if the bowler is capable, as Anderson is, of deliveries in excess of 80mph.
     Batsmen can get some idea of what to expect if they can see which is the shiny side of the ball, as this will offer a clue as to whether the swing will be away from or towards their stumps.
     However, that becomes a far tougher task if the bowler is capable of keeping the ball hidden from view until the moment of delivery.
     It was a skill left-arm paceman Zaheer demonstrated to good effect during India's 1-0 success in the three-match Pataudi Trophy Test campaign in England in 2007 and Anderson, who was on the opposite side, took note.
    

Anderson can't hide his debt to India's Zaheer

Oil prices extended losses in Asia today after industry data showed a rise in US crude stockpiles, supporting oversupply concerns.
	The American Petroleum Institute said overnight yesterday that crude supply had increased by around 2.1 million barrels last week.
	Investors are now waiting for official data on US commercial crude stockpiles for the week ending August 5 due later today, which will give further indication of demand in the world's top oil consumer.
	"The API figures have added pressure on prices, which are likely to continue to fluctuate until we see official figures from the US Department of Energy later tonight," said IG Markets strategist Bernard Aw.
	At about 1115 IST, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for September was down five cents to USD 42.72 while Brent crude for October was unchanged at USD 44.98 a barrel.
	Oil prices have been fluctuating since entering a "bear" market last week, falling more than 20 per cent and closing below USD 40 a barrel for the first 

Oil down in Asia on oversupply woes

The United States has approved the possible sale of up to 153 tanks, hundreds of machine guns and various other military gear in a deal worth USD 1.15 billion, the Pentagon said today.
	The State Department has made a determination approving a possible foreign military Sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.

US approves $1.15 bn tank, weapons sale to Saudi: Pentagon

Prominent Sudanese rebel groups said today they have signed a roadmap brokered by African Union mediators to end deadly conflicts in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions.
	Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced over the years in the three regions as ethnic minority groups rebelled against President Omar al-Bashir's Arab-dominated government.
	When Khartoum representatives signed the roadmap at a previous round of talks in March in Addis Ababa, prominent rebel groups refused to do so.
	But yesterday three of these groups -- the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA-Minnawi) -- signed it in the Ethiopian capital.
	Another faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, the SLA-AW, has yet to come on board.
	"The top priority is to stop the wars and deliver humanitarian aid to people affected," Sudan Call, a Sudanese group comprising rebel ...

Sudan rebel groups sign AU-brokered peace roadmap

New Zealand's seamers struck three vital blows on the fourth evening to keep the tourists on track for victory in the second Test against Zimbabwe at Queens Sports Club on Tuesday.
	   After Neil Wagner had removed Chamu Chibhabha 40 minutes before the close of play, Trent Boult and Tim Southee grabbed two wickets in the final three balls of the day to send Zimbabwe to stumps on 58 for three in pursuit of an improbable 387 for victory.
	   After bowling Zimbabwe out for 362 in their first innings to a earn a 220-run lead, New Zealand opted against enforcing the follow-on and instead spent the afternoon building a formidable target.
	   With Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor putting on an unbroken stand of 140 in the space of 30 overs, Williamson was able to declare on 166 for two and allow his bowlers 26 overs at the Zimbabwean batsmen during the evening session.
	   Although openers Chibhabha and Tino Mawoyo made a promising start in reaching 45 without loss, three dismissals before ...

Late double strike keeps New Zealand on course

Saudi-led coalition warplanes have resumed air strikes on Yemen's capital for the first time in three months, killing 14 people today and shutting the airport after UN-brokered talks were suspended.
	The coalition intervened in March last year after Shiite Huthi rebels and allied forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh overran Sanaa the previous September.
	They later tightened their grip on power and forced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to flee in February 2015.
	Hadi is now based in Riyadh, as are members of his internationally recognised government who travel between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's temporary capital Aden in the south.
	Coalition spokesman General Ahmed Assiri confirmed that the air strikes against the rebels had restarted and led to the closure of Sanaa airport, saying warplanes hit military targets "around" the city.
	Medics there told AFP that 14 people were killed in coalition strikes which residents said hit a food factory in central Sanaa.
	Factory ...

AFP

AFP

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