An eerie silence pervades the restaurants and shopping malls in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter, usually teeming with well-heeled urbanites, now standing empty since the killing of 20 hostages at a popular cafe.
	Five days after the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the Bangladeshi capital, many establishments remain closed, with shaken residents of Gulshan too afraid to venture out.
	"Our guest numbers have gone down dramatically so the management took the decision to keep it shut for a while," said Abdul Mazid, a guard at Meraki, a well-known restaurant in the neighborhood.
	The run-up to Eid celebrations that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan usually see shopping malls overflowing with crowds and millions of dollars changing hands in just a few days.
	But this year Gulshan DCC market, usually bustling with Eid shoppers ahead of the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar, stand deserted.
	The festivities, which start in earnest tomorrow, are likely to be subdued, with ...

Dhaka attack neighborhood falls silent ahead of Eid

PTI Automatic

The European Parliament today approved a new border guard force to tackle the migrant crisis which could intervene in front-line countries like Greece and Italy from September.
	The EU's 28 member states agreed to set up the force last month as a key part of the bloc's strategy for tackling the flow of the migrants along with a deal with Turkey sealed in March.
	MEPs meeting in Strasbourg, France, approved the new border force by 483 votes to 181 against, with 48 abstentions.
	"The legislation will enter into force this autumn," the European Parliament said in a statement.
	Brussels aims to have the force start operations in September and be fully operational by November, under a roadmap to restore the passport-free Schengen Zone after the travails of the migration crisis.
	Several countries have reintroduced border controls that were eliminated years ago as part of Schengen as the EU deals with a record flow of more than one million migrants and refugees since the start of ...

EU parliament backs new border force

Nepal is selling thousands of tonnes of rice donated by China and Bangladesh to help earthquake victims, an official said today, despite aid agencies warning that survivors remain at risk of food shortages.
	Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Himalayan nation in April 2015, destroying more than half a million homes and leaving thousands without food or shelter.
	Initial estimates by the World Food Programme (WFP) said that around 1.4 million people were in urgent need of emergency food supplies, prompting governments to spring into action to help the desperately poor country.
	According to the state-run Nepal Food Corporation (NFC), Dhaka and Beijing donated around 11,200 metric tonnes (11,020 tons) of rice, only 20 per cent of which was distributed by the government to quake victims.
	"The remaining rice has been sitting in our godown (warehouse) for 10 months and now that Bangladesh has donated even more rice to us, we don't have .

Nepal selling rice donated for quake victims

Federal civil rights investigators were called in today to probe the fatal police shooting of a black father of five in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the US city's mayor and police chief faced angry calls to resign.
	The death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge was captured on cell phone video, triggering protests in the city and outrage nationwide as the United States struggles to respond to alleged police brutality against black suspects.
	It came on the eve of a closely watched trial in Baltimore for an officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man whose spine broke last year while he was transported in a police van.
	Sterling was fatally shot in the early hours today after an anonymous caller told police they had been threatened by a man with a gun, according to a police statement.
	His family's lawyer said Sterling was merely selling CDs outside the Triple S store, with the permission of the shop's owner.
	In Baton Rouge, Louisiana ..

Civil rights investigators to probe Louisiana police shooting

Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed suit today against the media giant parent's chief Roger Ailes, saying he fired her for rejecting his sexual advances.
	The sexual harassment suit filed in New Jersey state court said Ailes terminated Carlson, a former Miss America who has been with Fox for more than a decade, as a retaliatory act.
	Ailes "unlawfully retaliated against Carlson and sabotaged her career because she refused his sexual advances and complained about severe and pervasive sexual harassment," the lawsuit alleges.
	Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox, where Ailes serves as chairman and chief executive, did not immediately reply to an AFP request for comment.
	According to the lawsuit, Ailes fired Carlson on June 23 after "ostracizing, marginalizing and shunning her" and making it clear that "these 'problems' would not have existed, and could be solved if she had a sexual relationship with him."
	Carlson, who won the Miss America pageant in 1989, joined Fox in 2005 after 

Fox News host Carlson files harassment suit after firing

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Rwanda today, a highly symbolic part of an "historic" African tour, boosting ties between two countries with a history marked by genocide.
	Netanyahu, welcomed at the airport by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, later visited the Kigali Memorial Centre, where more than 250,000 victims of the at least 800,000 victims of the 1994 genocide are buried in mass graves.
	"The Rwandan government felt a real affinity with Israel for obvious historic reasons," said Phil Clark, a Rwanda specialist at London's SOAS university.
	"Israel was seen as a small country in a very hostile neighborhood; a country with very few resources but which had recovered from its genocide very quickly and very impressively," Clark said. "So Israel was an obvious place for Rwanda to look to for inspiration."
	From a pragmatic point of view, Israel is seen by Rwanda as an alternative partner amid increasingly strained relations with traditional allies such as the ...

Israel's Netanyahu visits Rwanda genocide memorial

Investment group Henderson Global Investors today became the fourth company to suspend trading in UK commercial property funds on a wave of redemptions triggered by the Brexit vote.
	"Despite a strong underlying portfolio, the decision was taken due to exceptional liquidity pressures on the funds, as a result of uncertainty following the EU Referendum and the recent suspension of other direct property funds," Henderson said in a statement.
	Britain last month voted in a referendum to exit the European Union, unleashing a financial shock that has sent the pound and property firms' share prices tumbling.
	Today's statement added that Henderson Global Investors had temporarily suspended trading in two UK property funds "to safeguard the interests of all investors".
	The move comes after M&G Investments, Aviva Investors and Standard Life Investments had all suspended funds since the start of the week following a surge in redemption requests against a backdrop of a tumbling share ...

Fourth company suspends UK property funds on Brexit

Roger Federer saved three match points to beat Marin Cilic 6-7 (4/7), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (11/9), 6-3 and reach a record-equalling 11th Wimbledon semi-final on Wednesday.
     The 34-year-old seven-time champion also claimed a new record for Grand Slam match wins of 307 as he made a 40th semi-final at the majors. His dramatic triumph was his 84th win at Wimbledon -- taking him level with Jimmy Connors -- and gave him a semi-final against Canada's Milos Raonic as he continues his pursuit of an 18th Grand Slam title and a record eighth All England Club crown.
     In a thrilling Centre Court confrontation, it was Federer's 10th career comeback from two sets down. It was a tie which saw him save three match points in a titanic fourth set as Federer became the oldest Wimbledon semi-finalist since 39-year-old Ken Rosewall in 1974.
     Federer fired 27 aces and 67 winners to avenge his semi-final loss to ninth seed Cilic in the semi-finals of the 2014 US Open.
     "Marin is such a wonderful ...

Comeback king Federer reaches 11th Wimbledon semi-final

Milos Raonic advanced to his second Wimbledon semi-final as the big-serving Canadian ended Sam Querrey's surprise run to the last eight with a 6-4, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 victory on Wednesday.
     Raonic is the first Canadian to make the last four at the All England Club more than once and the sixth seed plays seven-time champion Roger Federer or Croatian ninth seed Marin Cilic on Friday for a place in the final.
     The 25-year-old will hope it is third time lucky after losing his previous two Grand Slam semi-finals at Wimbledon in 2014 and in the Australian Open earlier this year.
     Now coached by former Wimbledon champion John McEnroe, Raonic blitzed Querrey who had knocked out Novak Djokovic in the third round.
     He hit 58 winners and served 13 aces and finally looks capable of fulfilling the potential that saw his ear-marked as a future star several years ago.
     "There were some momentum shifts there. I'm glad I was able to get back on the right path after he won the third," ...

Raonic powers into Wimbledon semi-finals

The United States placed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on its sanctions blacklist today, calling him directly responsible for a lengthy list of extreme human rights abuses in the country.
	"Under Kim Jong-Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," said Adam Szubin, Acting Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

US sanctions North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for rights abuses

Millions of Muslims today celebrated the festival at the end of the holy month of Ramzan, marked this year by a series of deadly jihadist attacks.
	The three-day Eid al-Fitr festival traditionally means family gatherings and the exchange of gifts and sweets after a month of fasting from dawn until dusk.
	But a wave of attacks in Muslim countries -- from Turkey and Bangladesh to Iraq and Saudi Arabia -- have made this year's Eid a sombre occasion.
	Tens of thousands of worshippers gathered for Eid prayers at Islam's second-holiest site, the Prophet's Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina, just two days after a suicide bombing that killed four security guards in a nearby carpark.
	Addressing the crowd, Sheikh Abdelbari al-Thabiti said the bombing was an "odious crime" carried out by "a group that no longer respects the rites of Allah or the sanctity of the Prophet's Mosque."
	In Baghdad, Eid was overshadowed by a massive suicide car bombing on Sunday that ripped through the Shiite-majority 

Muslims mark end of a Ramzan marred by deadly attacks

German investigators have searched Ryanair offices at six airports across the country, including Berlin and Cologne, as part of an investigation into possible tax evasion, prosecutors said today.
	State prosecutors and customs officials also searched several pilots' homes as part of the raids on Tuesday, Hans Peter Gandner, senior prosecutor in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, told AFP.
	The searches were part of an investigation into two British temp agencies that supply self-employed pilots to Ryanair and not directed against the airline itself, Gandner said.
	The temp agencies stand accused of tax evasion and withholding salaries, while several pilots are suspected of being complicit in the scheme and of fraud against the social security system.
	Ryanair "has met the German tax authorities and agreed to support them in their inquiries into a few contractor pilots," airline spokesman Robin Kiely said.

Germany searches Ryanair offices over suspected tax fraud

Four Iranian border guards were killed today in a clash with armed rebels near the Pakistani border, Iranian media reported.
	The fighting occurred in the Rask region in the southwestern Sistan-Balochistan province, Iranian media said without giving further details.
	Last month, state television reported the death of a police officer and five "terrorists", said to be members of the Jaish al-Adl jihadist group, in the nearby Khash region.
	Jaish al-Adl is thought to be behind a number of attacks in Sistan-Balochistan in recent years, and Tehran accuses it of ties to Pakistan-based Al Qaeda cells.
	Ninety percent of Iran's population is Shiite, but the country has significant Sunni populations in its restive border regions, notably Kurdistan in the northeast, and Sistan-Balochistan and Khuzistan in the southwest.
	There has been a recent uptick in violence in Iranian Kurdistan, with local media reporting the death of 33 rebels and six members of security forces since mid-June.

4 Iran border guards killed in clash on Pakistan frontier

Israel today relaunched the bidding process to build 42 new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank where a Palestinian stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli last week, an NGO said.
	Israeli media have previously reported that the government had approved relaunching the tender for the homes in Kiryat Arba in the wake of the attack, though the move has not been officially confirmed.
	Settlement watchdog Peace Now said the housing ministry reissued the tender today, after a previous attempt in 2013 for 84 units had failed to draw bidders.
	The ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
	Some Israelis have called for a harsh response to a series of Palestinian attacks in recent days, including in Kiryat Arba last Thursday when 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel was fatally stabbed in her bedroom.
	At the same time, Israel has been strongly criticised internationally over settlement expansion, with a key report from the diplomatic Quartet last week 

Israel relaunches bids for West Bank settler homes after

Belgium has handed over to France two men believed to have helped a key suspect in the November 13 Paris attacks flee to Brussels, Belgian federal prosecutors said today.
	Mohamed Amri and Ali Oulkadi are suspected of helping Salah Abdeslam in the crucial hours after massacre, which left 130 dead and hundreds wounded.
	The pair allegedly worked with Hamza Attou, who has already been extradited.
	"Within the framework of the Paris attacks of November 2015, Mohammed A. And Ali O. Have been surrendered to the French authorities today," a statement said, referring to the men only by their initials.
	Amri and Attou are suspected of accompanying Abdeslam back to Brussels, getting him past three police checks in France before crossing the border into Belgium.
	Oulkadi is thought to have then driven Abdeslam across Brussels on November 14, the last place the top suspect was traced before his capture in the Belgian capital four months later.
	Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the 10-man ..

Belgium hands over two Paris attacks suspects to France

A fire that tore through a nursing home killed six people and injured another 28 in Taiwan today.
	Television footage showed elderly people being evacuated from the facility, some in clothes blackened by smoke.
	Bodies were found in the private nursing facility on the eighth floor of a ten-storey building in Xindian, New Taipei City, while rescuers rushed 31 people to hospital.
	"Three bodies were found in a room where the deadly fire likely started," an official at the city government's fire department told AFP.
	"As they were all charred, they could not be immediately identified," she said.
	A further three people were later pronounced dead, while 17 were found to be suffering from serious injuries, the fire department said.
	All of the identified dead were female, aged 79, 87 and 95 separately, it said.
	The fire broke out around 7:00 am (2300 GMT yesterday) and was extinguished in around 30 minutes, but the evacuation process was made more difficult by the fact that most elderly ..

Six killed, 28 hurt in Taiwan nursing home fire

The United States and ex-Soviet Georgia signed a bilateral security agreement today for strengthening the small republic's defences amid heightened fears of Russian aggression.
	Secretary of State John Kerry and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili inked the Memorandum on Deepening the Defence and Security Relationship between the United States and Georgia at a ceremony in Tbilisi.
	Kerry is on a two-day visit to Georgia and Ukraine ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw to reassure the alliance's eastern friends they will not be abandoned to face Moscow alone.
	"Our partnership is resolute and it is unwavering," Kerry said at a press conference.
	"The Georgian people have chosen, and want a Euro-Atlantic future and the United States supports that goal."
	Pro-Western Tbilisi fought a brief war against Moscow in 2008. Russian troops now occupy the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
	The tiny Caucasus country has already received military assistance from the US .

US and Georgia sign 'defence partnership'

Danish offshore wind farm operator Dong Energy is to build two offshore wind farms off the Dutch coast where it has pledged to produce the world's cheapest offshore wind energy.
	The projects would be built for 72.70 euros per megawatt- hour, significantly below the group's 2020 target of bringing costs below 100 euros per megawatt-hour over the life of a project.
	"This demonstrates the great potential of offshore wind," Samuel Leupold, Dong's head of wind power, said in a statement.
	The Borssele 1 and 2 wind farms would be build 22 kilometres off the Dutch province of Zeeland and would be completed by mid-2020, according to the country's Ministry of Economic Affairs.
	"One million households will be provided with electricity generated by the 700 megawatt wind farm off the coast of Borssele," the Dutch government, which will subsidise the project for the first 15 years, said in a statement.
	Including the cost of grid connections, experts estimated the price for the projects would ..

Dong Energy to build world's cheapest offshore wind farms

US Secretary of State John Kerry began a two-day visit to Georgia and Ukraine today to reassure NATO's eastern friends they will not be abandoned to face Russia alone.
	Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko will attend the Atlantic alliance's summit in Warsaw on Friday, but as partners not as full members.
	With large chunks of both countries already occupied by Russian forces, there is no prospect of either former Soviet republic joining NATO's mutual defence pact soon.
	Washington, however, is keen not to cede any more ground to President Vladimir Putin's newly assertive Russia, and Kerry's visit to Kiev and Tbilisi is more than a symbol.
	US and Georgian officials will sign a bilateral security agreement aimed at strengthening the small republic's defences, a senior State Department official said.
	"These are important members of the alliance, partners whose security means a lot to the United States," she said.
	"Their security interests and ...

US reassures NATO hopefuls Georgia and Ukraine

A court in Spain today sentenced Barcelona striker Lionel Messi and his father to 21 months in jail for tax fraud and slapped them with a fine of 3.7 million euros (USD 4.1 million).
     But these prison sentences are likely to be suspended as is common in Spain for first offences for non-violent crimes carrying a sentence of less than two years.

Barcelona's Messi sentenced to 21 months for tax fraud

Thousands of revellers wearing red and white sprayed each other with red wine in Pamplona's main square today for the start of Spain's famed San Fermin bull-running festival.
	   The nine-day fiesta got underway at midday to cries of "Viva San Fermin!" at city hall, followed seconds later by the firing of a firecracker known as the "chupinazo".
	   Masses of merrymakers, many wearing traditional white outfits trimmed with red neckerchiefs and cummerbunds, danced and sprayed each other with cheap wine as red and white confetti rained down on them.
	   The crowds passed large yellow and black inflatable balls over their heads as scores looked down from packed apartment balconies.
	   For the first time this year the person who launched the "chupinazo" and set off the bedlam was chosen by a popular vote organised by city hall from a list of six candidates.
	   The winner was 85-year-old Jesus Ilundain Zaragueta.
	   The festival in honour of the patron saint of Spain's northern Navarra ..

AFP

AFP

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