Air raids today killed at least 11 civilians in a region of eastern Syria controlled by the jihadist Islamic State group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
	"At least 11 civilians -- among them four women and four children -- were killed in Syrian or Russian air raids on the Al-Boulil region that is controlled by the Islamic State group in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor," the Britain-based monitor said.
	The area is some 30 kilometres southeast of the provincial capital Deir Ezzor city, which has been largely under IS control since 2013.
	Syria's state news agency SANA reported that government aircraft destroyed "two sites containing weapons and military equipment of the Daesh (IS) terrorists" southeast of Deir Ezzor.
	IS has been trying to take the entire province, where part of the capital and the military airport are still under the control of government forces.
	Yesterday, the jihadist group said it had shot down a regime MiG warplane south of the provincial ...

Air raids kill 11 civilians in east Syria: monitor

PTI Automatic

Scoreboard at stumps on the second day
of the first Test between England and Pakistan at Lord's today:
	   Pakistan 1st Innings (overnight: 282-6)
	   Mohammad Hafeez c Bairstow b Woakes      40
	   Shan Masood c Bairstow b Woakes           7
	   Azhar Ali lbw b Ball                      7
	   Younis Khan c Ali b Broad                33
	   Misbah-ul-Haq b Broad                   114
	   Asad Shafiq c Bairstow b Woakes          73
	   Rahat Ali b Woakes                        0
	   Sarfraz Ahmed c Vince b Woakes           25
	   Wahab Riaz b Woakes                       0
	   Mohammad Amir c Root b Broad             12
	   Yasir Shah not out                       11
	   Extras (b4, lb10, w2, nb1)               17
	   Total (all out, 99.2 overs, 452 mins)   339
	   Fall of wickets: 1-38 (Masood), 2-51 (Hafeez), 3-77 (Azhar), 4-134 (Younis), 5-282 (Shafiq), 6-282 (Rahat), 7-310 (Sarfraz), 8-310 (Riaz), 9-316 (Misbah), 10-339 (Amir)
	   Bowling: Broad 27.2-9-71-3 (1w); Ball 19-5-51-1 ...

London Jul 15 (AFP) Scoreboard at stumps on the second day

Yasir Shah became the first leg-spinner in 20 years to take a five-wicket haul in a Test innings at Lord's to leave Pakistan well-placed at stumps on Friday's second day of their series opener with England.
	At the close, England were 253 for seven in reply to Pakistan's first innings 339 -- a deficit of 86 runs, with Chris Woakes 31 not out.
	Shah, in his first Test since serving a three-month drugs ban -- and his first outside of Asia and the United Arab Emirates -- ran through England's middle-order on the way to five for 64 in 25 overs.
	It was the first time any leg-spinner had taken five or more wickets in a Test innings at Lord's since his compatriot Mushtaq Ahmed's five for 57 in 1996.
	Earlier, England captain Alastair Cook made 81 and in the process surpassed India great Sunil Gavaskar as the highest run-scoring opening batsman in Test history.
	But, in sight of a century, he became Mohammad Amir's first Test wicket in six years when the left-arm quick, who twice had Cook ...

Yasir runs through England as Amir strikes at last

US inquiry: Evidence of Saudi govt involvement in 9/11

A Tunisian-born man zigzagged a truck through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing at least 84 and injuring dozens of children, an attack that plunged the country again into grief and anger.
	At least 10 children and teenagers were among the dead, mown down as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel ploughed his lorry through the festive crowd of thousands watching a fireworks display for France's national day.
	France's anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said the 31-year-old Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was "completely unknown" to the intelligence services but that the attack was "exactly in line with" calls from jihadist groups to kill.
	As France was left reeling from its third major attack within 18 months, President Francois Hollande warned that the toll could rise further, with more than 50 people fighting for their lives.
	The attack left a scene of carnage on Nice's famous Promenade des Anglais, with mangled bodies strewn over the palm tree-lined walkway.
	AFP ...

Tunisian kills 84 in Nice truck attack

A private funeral was held today in northern England for Jo Cox, the MP whose murder halted Britain's EU referendum campaign and sparked an outpouring of sympathy from around the world.
	Cox, 41, was shot and stabbed in the street in her Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen on June 16, exactly a week before the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, in which she campaigned for Britain to stay in the bloc.
	The campaign was suspended for three days in her honour.
	A local man, Thomas Mair, 52, has been charged with her murder.
	Hundreds of people lined the streets to pay their respects to Cox's funeral cortege as it passed through towns in her constituency today.
	Well-wishers applauded and many threw flowers in the path of the vehicles.
	The funeral was a private occasion for family and close friends.
	"Jo would ask us not to fight hate with hate but draw together to drain the swamp that extremism breeds in. Thinking of all victims of hatred today," her widower 

Family say final farewell to murdered British MP

Prime Minister Theresa May defended the UK's unity in Edinburgh today on her first visit as Britain's premier but said she was prepared to discuss options for Scotland's post-Brexit EU ties.
	Two days after taking office, May travelled north to try allay Scots' fears for their future in a country set to chart its own course outside the European Union (EU).
	While 52 per cent of voters across the UK voted to leave the EU, 62 per cent in Scotland opted for Britain to remain in the bloc, triggering calls for a second Scottish referendum on independence.
	May told Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon she had made Edinburgh her first port of call to show how "very important" Scotland was to her.
	"I want to get the best possible deal for the whole of the United Kingdom out of our negotiations for the UK leaving the EU," she said.
	Questioned about Sturgeon's threat to organise another plebiscite on leaving the UK, two years after Scots voted to remain part of the kingdom, the ...

May defends UK unity in Scotland visit

The top diplomats of Russia and the United States today joined forces to pay tribute to the victims of the Nice attacks but remained divided on how to deal with the war in Syria.
	Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took a break from their talks to visit the French embassy in Moscow to sign a book of condolences, before returning to their  discussions.
	A Russian delegation official told reporters that a planned news conference had been postponed for at least two hours while the two sides separated to confer privately.
	After observing a minute's silence for the victims ahead of the talks, Kerry stressed the urgency of closer cooperation in Syria after the Kremlin said today a US proposal for direct military cooperation in the war-torn country had not been addressed in earlier talks with President Vladimir Putin.
	"Nowhere is there a greater hotbed and incubator for these terrorists than in Syria," Kerry said.
	"And I think people all over the world are ...

US and Russia unite over Nice, divided on Syria

French presidential contender Alain Juppe said today the truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice could have been avoided if "all measures" had been taken, as questions mounted over failings by intelligence services.
	While France's political class rallied together after attacks in November 2015 that killed 130 people in Paris and on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in January 2015, criticism of the Socialist government began hours after yesterday's carnage in the French Riviera city.
	"I am not an investigator. (But) if all measures had been taken, the tragedy last night would not have happened," Juppe, a former right-wing prime minister, told RTL radio.
	"Of course more must be done and done better. A start would be the intelligence services," the mayor of Bordeaux added.
	A French parliamentary inquiry last week criticised numerous failings by the intelligence services over both sets of terror attacks in Paris last year.
	Yesterday, witnesses said a truck drove 

Ex-French PM says Nice attack was preventable

The truck attack which killed 84 people at a Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice is exactly in line with jihadist calls to action, a French anti-terror prosecutor said today.
	Francois Molins, who is leading the investigation into the massacre in Nice, said what had happened was "exactly in line with the constant calls to kill" which jihadi terror groups make in videos and elsewhere.

'France attack in line with jihadist calls to action'

A special UN court set up to try the killers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri today convicted a Beirut-based newspaper and its editor of contempt for publishing information about confidential witnesses in the case.
	"I find both the accused guilty," said Special Tribunal for Lebanon judge Nicola Lettieri referring to Al Akhbar newspaper and its editor in chief Ibrahim al-Amin, adding that another hearing would be held on Monday.

Lebanese paper, editor guilty of contempt: Hariri tribunal

US investment bank Goldman Sachs said today that its hiring of former European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso was not related to Britain's decision to exit the European Union.
	A day after French President Francois Hollande labeled Barroso's new job as "morally unacceptable" because he would be advising the bank on Brexit issues, Goldman stressed that the recruitment was done prior to the June 23 British referendum.
	"That decision had nothing to do with the outcome of the Brexit vote," the bank said in a statement.
	"Indeed, we began our discussions at a time when the prevailing view was that the Remain campaign would succeed, an outcome we would have preferred and publicly supported."
	Since Goldman announced on July 8 that Barroso would be non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International, the former Portuguese prime minister has come under withering criticism.
	Barroso headed the executive arm of the 28-nation EU from 2004 to 2014. European politicians say that his inside 

Goldman Sachs says Barroso hire not related to Brexit

Brazil's interim president will hold an emergency meeting with cabinet ministers today to bolster security for next month's Olympics, officials said after a suspected terrorist attack in the French city of Nice.
	"We think we will have to intensify the security monitoring system. We will have to increase the number of checkpoints and controls," Defense Minister Raul Jungmann told TV station Globo. He said interim president Michel Temer would huddle with ministers today afternoon in response to the Nice attack, which killed at least 84 people.

Brazil to boost Olympics security after Nice attack: officials

The UN tourism chief today urged holiday makers to express solidarity with France by visiting the country to defy "terrorists" after a truck attack in Nice killed at least 84.
	The World Tourism Organisation's Secretary-General Taleb Refai made the call after the deadly Bastille Day assault that left dozens dead, including children, and injured scores of others.
	"This is the time to go visit France," Refai told reporters in Sri Lanka after attending a tourism conference in the island's former war zone of Passikudah.
	He described yesterday's outrage as a "global disease" and said there was no place on earth that was immune from attack.
	"This is something that we need to keep vigilant about. It is not the time to shun people. We cannot punish the victims and reward the aggressors by not travelling to places affected, because that is exactly what these terrorists want us to do," he said.
	Despite a string of violent incidents against tourists in Turkey, Bangladesh, France, Belgium and 

Visit France to defy 'terrorists': UN tourism boss

European Union foreign ministers will discuss the fight against terrorism at talks in Brussels on Monday after the deadly Bastille Day lorry attack in Nice, the EU said.
	"Upon request of France, EU ministers to add fight against terrorism on their agenda on Monday," the European Council of leaders from the 28 EU countries said today.
	France's embassy to the EU confirmed on Twitter that it had made the request.
	The EU is increasingly worried about the threat posed by the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.
	The attack by a Tunisian-born man in Nice in which 84 people were killed is the latest in a series of terror strikes in Europe in recent years, especially in France and Belgium.
	The EU foreign ministers will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry for breakfast on Monday before holding talks among themselves on issues including Syria and Libya.
	The talks will also be the first in Brussels for new British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who supported Britain leaving the EU in .

'EU foreign ministers to discuss terrorism after Nice attack'

A total of 738 men and boys remain missing after they were detained by militias backing the Iraqi government offensive to retake Fallujah from Islamic State jihadists, a UN envoy said today.
	Jan Kubis told the Security Council that the UN mission in Iraq had received credible reports of torture, killings and disappearances by the militias and Iraqi security forces during the Fallujah offensive.
	Iraqi forces seized control of Fallujah, a longtime jihadist bastion, in late June, a month after a vast operation was launched.
	UN officials have determined that 95 men remain unaccounted for after they were detained by the Shia militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) on May 25 in the Al Sejar area of northeast Fallujah, Kubis said.
	An additional 643 men and boys remain missing after they were picked up by PMF-affiliated forces on June 5 while leaving Saqlawiyah, north of Fallujah, he added.
	Kubis said Iraqi authorities must take swift action to identify the whereabouts of 

More than 700 Iraqi men and boys missing from Fallujah:UN

The United States and the European Union said they were forging ahead with trade talks today despite the shock setback of Brexit and rising opposition to the deal in France and Germany.
	Negotiators met this week in Brussels for the 14th round of negotiations on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that would create the world's largest free trade area.
	US chief negotiator Dan Mullaney said that Britain's decision to split from the EU raised questions around the deal as Britain represents 25 percent of US exports to the EU.
	"The economic and strategic rationales remain strong, but at the same time a withdrawal of the UK from the EU market would affect the value of the EU market," Mullaney said in Brussels.
	"The UK is also our largest market globally for services," he added, referring in large part to the huge presence by US firms in the UK's City of London financial hub.
	The EU's chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero agreed.
	"The decision by the ...

Brexit doubts won't slow US-EU trade talks: negotiators

A sub-sea gas pipeline planned to link Finland and Estonia moved closer to reality today as the European Commission promised to fund the project to ease the region's dependence on Russian gas.
	"The allocated grants will cover, among others, the construction of the Balticconnector, the first bi-directional sub-sea gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland," the EU commission said in a statement.
	The EU support for the project amounts to 75 percent or 187.5 million euros of the needed 250 million euros (USD 209 million of USD 278 million).
	The pipeline, planned to be in use by 2020, is meant to link Finland to the European gas market while also reducing Finland's dependence on gas imports from its powerful neighbour Russia, currently its only gas supplier.
	"This is a historic day for Finland's energy markets and I give my full support to the Balticconnector Ltd to carry the project through," Finland's Minister of Economic Affairs Olli Rehn said in a statement.
	The Commission said ...

New gas pipeline to link Estonia, Finland granted funding

The World Bank announced today it had  barred four companies, including a former unit of Daewoo, from future contracts after finding serious misconduct in projects around the world.
	The development lender said its investigations found fraud and corruption related to projects in Mongolia, Vietnam, Peru and Kenya that involved the companies.
	Daewoo Information Systems, a former branch of the sprawling South Korean conglomerate Daewoo, was debarred for engaging in "corrupt misconduct" to win a Bank-financed contract in Mongolia.
	The company is frozen out of World Bank projects for two and a half years.
	The other three companies were put on the black list for submitting false information in bidding for contracts: Thang Loi Group, over a Vietnam project; Consorcio Ocongate, for a Peru project; and Minimix Agencies, related to a project in Kenya. They were debarred from two to four years.
	"The outcome of our investigations during this last quarter speaks to the sustained commitment of .

World Bank bars four companies from projects

The man who rammed a truck into a crowd at a Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, killing 84, was "totally unknown" to intelligence services, a top French prosecutor said today.
	 Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was "totally unknown to intelligence services... And was never flagged for signs of radicalisation," said anti-terror prosecutor Francois Molins.
	Molins, who is leading the investigation into the massacre in Nice, also said the attack was "exactly in line with the constant calls to kill" which jihadi terror groups regularly make.
	Authorities said Tunisian-born Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, zigzagged a truck through the crowd in the French Riviera city killing at least 10 children and teenager, and injuring 202 people.
	French President Francois Hollande has said the attack was of an "undeniable terrorist nature".

'France truck attack suspect unknown to intelligence services'

The ex-wife of the man believed to have ploughed a truck into a crowd of revellers in Nice, killing 84 people, was held for questioning today, a police source said.
	Investigators are seeking to establish the motives of the suspect, 31-year-old Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, but are also looking for possible accomplices.

AFP

AFP

Page 1574 - Afp