Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is losing both his mind and his hair because of the "psychological turmoil" he faces in maximum-security prison, one of his lawyers said today.
	Jose Refugio Rodriguez said he found Guzman in a deteriorated state when he was allowed to visit the boss of the Sinaloa cartel recently for the first time in months.
	"I'm crazy... With the treatment I'm receiving. I feel very bad. A doctor came and told me I have anxiety," he quoted Guzman as telling him.
	He said his client had been subjected to "physical torture" and "psychological hell."
	Guzman is losing his once thick black hair and is "visibly bald," the lawyer told Radio Formula.
	He said his client was taking medication for high blood pressure and felt he had become dependent on the drugs.
	Guzman staged a spectacular jailbreak last year and was the world's most-wanted drug lord until his recapture in January in a colorful episode involving a US-Mexican soap opera actress and the Hollywood 

El Chapo going 'crazy' in jail: lawyer

PTI Automatic

Talks are underway on forming a new political party and coalition to challenge Malaysia's scandal-hit leader, the country's ex-premier said today.
	Prime Minister Najib Razak faces allegations that billions of dollars were plundered from a state-owned investment fund he founded.
	The accusations, which emerged last year, include the revelation that Najib received at least USD 681 million in deposits to his personal bank accounts in 2013.
	"We have agreed to this because we want to cooperate towards a common goal for a change of government for Malaysia," the country's former leader Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying by The Star after meeting with key opposition figures.
	"We discussed many things with him (Mahathir) and we agreed to move towards cooperation to have a coalition with all the opposition parties in Malaysia," Chua Tian Chang, vice-president of the opposition People's Justice Party, told AFP.
	Mahathir, who was the premier for 22 years, quit the ruling United Malays ...

New party, coalition to challenge Malaysia PM: ex-PM

Russia has conducted more than 50 air strikes since Tuesday against Islamic State (IS) jihadists near the Syrian city of Palmyra, the defence ministry in Moscow said.
	"The Russian air force has increased the intensity of its strikes against targets of the armed units of international terrorist organisations near the city of Palmyra," the ministry said in a statement today on its Facebook page.
	"Since July 12, Russian air force planes have conducted more than 50 strikes against Islamic State personnel and material in this area."
	Six Tupolev bombers flew out of an airbase in Russia this morning and conducted strikes east of Palmyra, near the cities of Arak and Sukhna, as well as in the Homs region, the statement said.
	The ministry said the strikes had destroyed "a command centre, a field camp for IS fighters, two oil processing plants and a large quantity of the enemy's personnel and military hardware."
	IS fighters were forced out of Palmyra by Syrian regime forces in March with ...

Russia conducts over 50 strikes on IS near Palmyra in 3 days

Israeli police have arrested three Jewish minors suspected of having torched a car in an Arab village in retaliation for a Palestinian attack last month, officials said today.
	The Shin Bet internal security agency said the youths were detained after a June 10 attack in the village of Yafia near the northern Israeli city of Nazareth.
	"Three Jewish minors have been arrested for having set on fire a vehicle in the village of Yafia... And for having sprayed graffiti calling for vengeance after the attack on the Sarona in Tel Aviv," it said in a statement.
	On June 8, two Palestinians shot dead four Israelis at the Sarona Market, a popular Tel Aviv nightspot.
	Israeli security officials have said the pair had drawn their inspiration from the Islamic State jihadist group.
	Shin Bet said the minors "were preparing an attack in response to attacks carried out recently by Palestinians. But after the Tel Aviv attack, they decided to act".
	Two of the suspects are residents of northern Israel .

Three Israeli minors arrested over anti-Arab attacks

A rare Roman mosaic has been uncovered in Cyprus during sewerage work on the eastern Mediterranean island, officials said today.
	Only part of the mosaic, measuring 19 metres long and seven metres wide, has been excavated in the southern coastal city of Larnaca and officials believe that more is still buried.
	"A preliminary estimation would suggest that scenes of the Labours of Hercules are depicted and that it is dated to the Roman Period," the antiquities department said in a statement.
	It said this is evidence that Ancient Kition -- on which modern Larnaca was built -- played an important role in establishing Roman culture in Cyprus.
	"However, up to this day Roman remains found in the city are very few. Therefore, the mosaic floor that came to light provides important evidence for the development of the city during the Roman Period."
	Cyprus was under the control of the Roman Empire from 31 BC until the 4th century AD.
	Transport Minister Marios Demetriades, who visited the site 

Rare Roman mosaic uncovered in Cyprus

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said today he would send ex-leader Fidel Ramos to China for talks after an international tribunal ruled against Beijing's claims to most of the disputed South China Sea.
	Duterte asked former president Ramos "go to China to start the talks" with Beijing after the UN-backed tribunal's ruling on the strategically vital waters, though he did not specify a timeframe.
	"War... Is not an option. So what is the other side? Peaceful talks. I cannot give you the wherewithals now," Duterte said at a college alumni meeting that was also attended by Ramos.
	"I have to consult many people, including president Ramos. I would like to respectfully ask him to go to China and start the talks."
	Duterte's remarks came after a UN-backed international tribunal on Tuesday ruled against China's claim to most of the South China Sea in what is widely seen as a diplomatic victory for the Philippines.
	However the decision has also raised tensions with China refusing to ...

Philippines to send envoy to China over sea row

Russia's FSB security service said today it had taken action against a group of recent graduates after they celebrated the end of their training by parading through the streets of Moscow in a procession of black Mercedes-Benz jeeps.
	The flashy celebration by trainees from the academy of the FSB, the KGB's post-Soviet successor, was captured in a slick video made by the would-be agents and posted online.
	The graduates' behaviour sparked indignation among both the public and senior intelligence officers who said it did not square with the requirements of a job characterised by secrecy.
	The FSB said in a statement that the incident would impact on the graduates' future careers, without giving more details.
	"Strict measures" were also taken against the academy's management, including "the demotion of a string of directors", the FSB said, adding that it would fire some of them.
	"The immodest, demonstrative behaviour linked to the rentals from a luxury car company sparked justified ...

Russian FSB graduates punished for flashy celebration

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq survived as top-order wickets fell around him on the first day of the first cricket Test against England at Lord's today.
	At tea, Pakistan were 158 for four with number five Misbah, who won the toss, 48 not out after all the top four had returned to the Pavilion.
	Asad Shafiq was unbeaten on 12 as Mohammad Amir, listed to come in at number eight, waited to make his return to Test cricket at Lord's -- the scene of his spot-fixing crime.
	Misbah won the toss on a sunny day, with the pitch at Lord's a notoriously good surface for batsmen.
	Jake Ball, given a debut in place of James Anderson after the selectors decided against risking England's all-time leading wicket-taker following a shoulder injury, appealed for leg before against Masood with his second delivery in Test cricket.
	Umpire Kumar Dharmasena said not out and and an unsuccessful England review confirmed the ball had pitched outside leg stump.
	Hafeez was lucky on 11 when an edge off Stuart ...

Misbah holds firm as Pakistan struggle

Scoreboard at tea on the first day
of the first cricket Test between England and Pakistan at Lord's today:
     Pakistan 1st Innings:
	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 not out                    48
	Asad Shafiq not out                      12
	Extras: (LB-9, W-2)                      11
	Total: (for 4 wkts in 52 overs)         158
     Fall of wickets: 1-38, 2-51, 3-77, 4-134
	Bowling: Broad 14-7-24-1; Ball 12-5-26-1; Woakes 12-5-33-2; Finn 12-2-52-0; Ali 2-0-14-0.

London, July 14 (AFP) Scoreboard at tea on the first day

US Secretary of State John Kerry called his new British counterpart Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson today as the anti-EU minister's appointment raised heckles in Europe.
	New Prime Minister Theresa May appointed the former London mayor head of British foreign policy in her first cabinet after Britain voted to quit the European Union.
	One of the leading figures in the Brexit campaign, Johnson was once seen as a possible prime minister himself, but failed to win the support of party colleagues.
	Washington was disappointed when Britain voted to leave the EU and Kerry has called for a careful exit process that does not damage Western unity or the world economy.
	But the United States is keen to preserve what remains of its vaunted "special relationship" with London, and Kerry was among the first foreign dignitaries to call Johnson.
	"The secretary and Foreign Secretary Johnson agreed that the US-UK special relationship is as essential as ever," State Department spokesman John Kirby ...

Top US envoy Kerry calls new British colleague Johnson

French President Francois Hollande threatened today to sack Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, who has hinted at a bid for the presidency, unless he respects the "solidarity" of the government.
	"In a government, there cannot be any personal initiatives and even less presidential ones," Hollande said in a TV interview to mark the Bastille Day national holiday.
	"Respecting these rules means staying in the government. Not respecting them means leaving."
	Political observers and even his Socialist Party colleagues are asking how long Macron can stay in the cabinet after he strongly hinted at a presidential bid in a speech this week.
	The 38-year-old former investment banker stopped just short of throwing his hat into the ring for next May's election.
	But his pledge on Tuesday to lead his En marche! (On the move) political movement "to 2017 and to victory" left little doubt about his intentions.
	Hollande himself has said he will decide by the end of the year whether to stand for ...

Hollande warns ambitious minister: 'respect rules' or leave

An Italian train station manager admitted partial responsibility for a head-on collision that killed 23 people but insisted he was not the only one to blame, as investigators today probed possible institutional negligence or corruption.
	The crash happened Tuesday on a single-track stretch of railway run by station managers who communicate directly with train drivers, a system Italian authorities described as outdated and "risky".
	"I'm the one who sent the train on its way," Vito Piccarreta, head of Andria station in the Puglia region in southern Italy, told journalists.
	"There was some confusion, the trains were late. But I'm not the only one at fault."
	Hundreds of mourners held a silent, candle-lit procession through the town to the station late yesterday, after relatives of victims spent the day at a hospital morgue, providing identification details to help doctors put names to the mangled dead.
	One of the four-carriage trains was supposed to have waited at Andria to let ...

Station manager 'not only one to blame' for deadly Italy crash

The UN's cultural agency today added Libya's five World Heritage sites to its danger list, saying armed militias posed a grave danger to the archaeological treasures.
	The sites named by UNESCO include the Old City of Ghadames, often referred to as "the pearl of the desert" and the archaeological site of Cyrene, one of the principal cities in the Hellenic world.
	The rock-art sites of Tadrart Acacus on the border with Algeria that feature thousands of cave paintings dating back as far back as 12,000 BC to 100 AD are also listed.
	The other two are the coastal archaeological sites of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, a Mediterranean trading post that was once part of the brief Numidian Kingdom of Massinissa before it was taken over the by Romans.
	"The committee noted the high level of instability affecting the country and the fact that armed groups are present on these sites or in their immediate surroundings," UNESCO said at the 40th meeting of its World Heritage Committee in Istanbul.
	"It 

UNESCO puts five Libya sites on heritage-in-danger list

Air strikes killed at least 12 civilians including children in two rebel-held neighbourhoods of Syria's Aleppo city today, a monitoring group said.
	Nine people were killed in the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood, and another three in the district of Salhin in the east of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
	The Britain-based group said it was unclear whether the strikes were carried out by warplanes of the Syrian government or its ally Russia.
	Video obtained by AFP of the aftermath of the attack in Salhin showed smoke billowing from the front of a multi-storey building shorn of its facade by the strikes.
	The charred skeleton of a car, its windows blown out, sat in front of the building.
	Civil defence workers battled a fire sparked by the attack, while civilians with ladders retrieved belongings from the ruins.
	"Total destruction," said resident Jomaa Hassan, gesturing to a smoking building behind him.
	"These are civilians: a taxi driver, a municipal worker. ...

'Air strikes kill 12 in rebel-held areas of Syria's Aleppo'

It was another slow and quiet summer session today in Ukraine's parliament -- until someone set off a drone inside the chamber, causing a ruckus.
	Footage of the small propellor-driven device lifting off from behind someone's desk was published on the website of Ukraine's 112 rolling news channel.
	The network reported that as several deputies stood up to applaud the stunt, parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy rebuked the unidentified mischief-maker and called for a brief recess to restore order.
	"This has never happened before," the channel quoted Parubiy as saying. "Some deputies are behaving like rascals."
	Lawmakers are moving through a raft of draft laws designed to attack waste and corruption so that Ukraine can meet standards demanded by its Western allies and big lenders such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
	But infighting has stalled many bills' passage and lawmakers frequently end their days without passing measures of any particular significance.
	The reason why the 

Drone disrupts Ukraine's parliament session

Scoreboard at lunch on the first
day of the first cricket Test between England and Pakistan at Lord's today:
     Pakistan 1st Innings:
	Mohammad Hafeez c Bairstow b Woakes      40
	Shan Masood c Bairstow b Woakes           7
	Azhar Ali not out                         7
	Younis Khan not out                      18
	Extras: (LB-2, W-2)                       4
	Total: (for 2 wkts in 26 overs)          76
     Fall of wickets: 1-38, 2-51
	Bowling: Broad 7-3-11-0; Ball 6-2-22-0; Woakes 6-2-18-2; Finn 7-2-23-0.

London, July 14 (AFP) Scoreboard at lunch on the first

England's Chris Woakes took two wickets in quick succession as Pakistan's Mohammad Amir waited to make his return to Test cricket at Lord's -- the scene of his spot-fixing crime.
     Pakistan were 76 for two at two at lunch on the first day of the first Test today, with Woakes having taken two wickets for 18 runs in six overs.
     Azhar Ali was seven not out and Younis Khan, looking in good touch, 18 not out after Woakes had removed openers Shan Masood and Mohammad Hafeez.
	Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq won the toss on a sunny day, with the pitch at Lord's a notoriously good surface for batsmen.
	Stuart Broad started the match with a maiden that saw him beat Hafeez on the outside edge.
	Broad's Nottinghamshire colleague Jake Ball, given a debut in place of James Anderson after the selectors decided against risking England's all-time leading wicket-taker following a shoulder injury, opened the bowling from the Pavilion End.
	Ball's second delivery saw him appeal for leg before ...

Woakes double rocks Pakistan

Singapore's stock exchange suffered a major technical breakdown today, leaving investors unable to trade for half a day.
	Trading stopped at 11:38 am (0338 GMT) due to a technical error, Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) said on its website.
	"The SGX securities market was put in adjust phase at 1138 hours due to duplicate trade confirmation messages being generated," it said.
	SGX promised to reopen in the afternoon but later said it was closing the exchange for the rest of the day.
	SGX last suffered major trading disruptions in 2014.
	On November 5, 2014, trading halted for over two hours due to a power failure. Less than a month later, market opening was delayed by more than three hours because of a software glitch.
	Singapore's central bank rebuked the exchange, which last year said it would spend Sg$20 million (USD 15 million) to upgrade its technical infrastructure.

Singapore bourse shut by technical problems

A heavily-armed Ugandan military convoy crossed into South Sudan today to evacuate citizens trapped in the capital Juba as fears persist that recent days of intense fighting might reignite despite a ceasefire.
	The United Nations has warned of tension and the possibility of fresh fighting in Juba, where a ceasefire has held since late Monday.
	A convoy of around 50 trucks escorted by machine gun- mounted armoured vehicles crossed the Ugandan border at Nimule to open up a secure corridor for fleeing civilians on the 200 kilometre Juba-Nimule road.
	"We plan to go to Juba to extract 3,000 Ugandans stranded by fighting, but that number may grow as we will evacuate anyone who wants to leave," said Uganda's army chief Brigadier Leopold Kyanda.
	Kyanda said the mission would likely last "two to three days" but an intelligence officer told AFP some Ugandan troops may remain in Juba.
	"Why not? We have the capacity to support the government of South Sudan and we were there before," said the ..

Fears of further fighting even as S Sudan ceasefire holds

European Parliament chief Martin Schulz today slammed British Prime Minister Theresa May's new cabinet, saying it was based on solving internal party splits rather than the national interest.
	"The United Kingdom has to break this dangerously vicious cycle which has direct impacts on the rest of Europe," Schulz said in a statement.

UK cabinet risks 'dangerously vicious cycle' for Europe:Schulz

Kuwait has set a minimum wage for its hundreds of thousands of mostly Asian domestic staff, the first country in the Gulf to do so, local media reported today.
	A decree issued by Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khaled Al-Sabah set the minimum wage at 60 dinars (USD 200) a month and also granted domestic staff a raft of other rights, Al-Anbaa newspaper reported.
	Kuwait is the first country in the Gulf to regulate the work conditions of domestic staff and Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have urged others to follow suit to tackle widespread abuses.
	The decree, which implements landmark legislation adopted by parliament last year, also requires employers to pay overtime for any extra hours worked.
	It grants domestic workers the right to a weekly day off, 30 days of annual paid leave, a 12-hour working day with rest, and an end-of-service benefit of one month a year at the end of contract.
	The estimated 600,000 maids in Kuwait are among at least 2.4 million working across 

AFP

AFP

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