Arturo Vidal scored a controversial penalty deep into injury time as holders Chile snatched a dramatic 2-1 victory over Bolivia to keep their Copa America Centenario campaign alive here.
     Bayern Munich star Vidal struck from the spot in the 10th minute of time added on after a hugely debatable penalty was awarded against Bolivian defender Luis Gutierrez for handball by US referee Jair Marrufo.
     Television replays showed Gutierrez had his right arm behind his back to avoid conceding a handball but Alexis Sanchez's cross struck him on the shoulder and Marrufo pointed to the spot after the apparent intervention of the linesman.
     Bolivia's players surrounded the referee for angry protests but Marrufo's decision stood and it was left to Vidal to drive home the penalty.
     The result gives Chile hope of reaching the last eight following their opening defeat to Argentina in Group D.
     Earlier a stunning 61st minute free-kick from Kuwait-based playmaker Jhasmani Campos ...

Chile scrape Copa win after penalty shocker

PTI Automatic

Lionel Messi scored a magical hat-trick in 19 minutes as Argentina cruised into the Copa America Centenario quarter-finals with a 5-0 rout of Panama.
     Messi had been forced to delay his debut in the tournament after a slow recovery from a lower back injury, with Argentina coach Gerardo Martino surprisingly naming him amongst the substitutes once more.
     But Messi wasted no time in stamping his genius on the tournament after coming on in the 61st minute to replace Augusto Fernandez with Argentina leading the Group D game 1-0.
     An electrifying cameo from the Barcelona superstar began with his first goal of the tournament on 68 minutes, finishing with aplomb after Gonzalo Higuain's shot bounced off a Panamanian defender into his path.
     But there was no question of luck with his second, with Messi curling a wonderful free-kick into the top corner to bring the Soldier Field crowd to its feet in the 78th minute.
     With Panama's heads down, Messi then duly completed his ...

Magical Messi grabs hat-trick as Argentina romp into quarters

Eleven staff from a Bangkok elementary school were killed when their people carrier flipped over and caught on fire after a tyre burst, an official said today.
	The accident took place last evening on a motorway in Chonburi province as the teachers and other school staff travelled back to Bangkok from a seminar in Rayong province.
	"The van's tyre burst and it turned over before catching on fire," an official from Thailand's Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department told AFP.
	Photos published in local media showed the toppled vehicle engulfed in flames on the side of the road.
	The passengers were from a small private elementary school in eastern Bangkok.
	Four survived the accident with injuries, the disaster official said.
	A school employee told AFP the school's director was driving the vehicle and was among the injured.
	Despite relatively good infrastructure, Thailand has the second most dangerous roads in the world in terms of per capita deaths, according to data collected .

Thailand road accident kills 11 school staff

A California man was sentenced to 32 months in prison for conspiring to skirt US sanctions against Syria by sending tactical military equipment to jihadists in the war-torn country.
	Amin al-Baroudi, 50, a Syrian-born naturalized US citizen, pleaded guilty in January to purchasing tens of thousands of dollars' worth of tactical equipment, including night vision rifle scopes, speed loaders and bullet proof vests, destined for Ahrar al-Sham, an insurgent group fighting to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
	Ahrar al-Sham frequently fights alongside the Al-Nusra Front, Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate that has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, authorities said yesterday.
	According to court documents, Baroudi and his co-conspirators traveled with the military goods aboard commercial flights to Turkey and then smuggled them into Syria.
	Baroudi was accused of making two such trips in February and March 2013.

US man imprisoned for violating Syria sanctions

Forces loyal to Libya's unity government fought deadly street battles with the Islamic State group in Sirte, as they pressed an offensive to capture the jihadists' coastal bastion.
	Clashes raged yesterday around the Ouagadougou conference centre, a sprawling complex that once hosted international summits in the era of ousted dictator Moamer Kadhafi which is now used as an IS command centre.
	The loss of Sirte, Kadhafi's home town, would be a major blow to IS at a time when it is under mounting pressure in Syria and Iraq.
	From early in the day, forces aligned with the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) pounded IS positions around the complex with heavy artillery fire.
	Warplanes also carried out air strikes around the centre and other IS positions inside Sirte, according to social media accounts belonging to the anti-jihadist operation.
	Two GNA fighters were killed and eight wounded and taken to a Misrata hospital, further east, the government said.
	 An AFP correspondent 

Libya unity forces in street battles with IS in Sirte

A woman's remains were found in a well and two corpses were discovered in clandestine graves in a southern Mexico municipality where five other bodies were found recently, authorities said.
	   The pits with the two bodies were found in Chilapa late Thursday, said Roberto Alvarez Heredia, spokesman for Guerrero state's security coordination group.
	   They were located some 500 meters (yards) from a field where five bodies were unearthed from three clandestine graves between May 31 and June 6.
	   At the same location, authorities found the woman's remains in three plastic bags that were dumped in a 20-meter (65-foot) deep well, Alvarez said yesterday.
	   At least 16 people were reported missing in Chilapa in May of last year after an armed group of 300 people occupied the town for several days.
	   Chilapa lies in a mountain region where opium poppies are grown and drug cartels fight for control of heroin trafficking.

Eight bodies found in southern Mexico town

The United States has condemned Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, accusing it of bombing starving civilians just hours after they received a long-delayed UN aid shipment.
	Late on Thursday, the besieged rebel-held town of Daraya received its first United Nations food delivery since 2012, a lifeline for the suffering population.
	Shortly afterwards, according to a witness and human rights monitors, Assad's forces bombarded the town, dropping indiscriminate barrel bombs from helicopters as residents shared food.
	"The Syrian regime conducted multiple barrel bomb attacks on Daraya this morning," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday.
	"That came just hours after the UN convoy arrived," he told reporters.
	"Obviously such attacks are unacceptable in any circumstance but in this case they also hampered the delivery and distribution of badly needed assistance."
	Toner said the fact that Assad had allowed the convoy in to the town at all was "positive, but only a partial ...

US says Assad forces bombed town after aid delivered

Former leprosy sufferers testified today at a Vatican conference about the stigma linked to the disease which still persists in some societies, and about their attempts to fight exclusion.
	Although it has been eradicated almost globally through treatments developed in the 1980s, leprosy still affects 200,000 people a year, particularly in India, Indonesia and Brazil.
	And the stigma attached goes on long after sufferers have been cured.
	"At 14, I was diagnosed with leprosy. My parents loved me and to prevent me from being hurt or burned by others, they locked me in a small house," said Yuan Yahua, born into a poor farming family in China.
	Vagavathali Narsappa, an Indian who leads an association for former sufferers, was driven out by his parents, and he only reunited with his sister when she learned he and his children were healthy.
	Japanese Natsuko Tominaga, 80, stayed at a leper colony for 60 years despite being cured aged 18, so he could support fellow sufferers, who he ...

Leprosy sufferers step up fight against stigma at Vatican

Air pollution was fingered for the first time as a major contributor to death and disability caused by stroke, especially in developing nations, in a health review published today.
	Air pollution, both inside from cooking fires and outside from traffic fumes, ranked among the top ten causes of stroke, along with better known risks such as smoking, high blood pressure and obesity.
	An international research team analysed data from a swathe of other studies, reports and official statistics to create a mathematical model estimating stroke risk for 188 countries from 1990 to 2013.
	"A striking finding of our study is the unexpectedly high proportion of stroke burden attributable to environmental air pollution, especially in developing countries," said study co-author Valery Feigin of New Zealand's Auckland University of Technology.
	The authors said theirs was the first study to quantify the world's stroke burden in terms of healthy years lost due to people becoming sick, disabled, or ...

Study places air pollution among top 10 stroke risks

Preserving the right to seek and obtain an abortion will remain a key component of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, the presumptive Democratic nominee said today.
	Speaking to the political arm of the national reproductive health and advocacy organization Planned Parenthood, Clinton placed herself in stark contrast to her Republican rival Donald Trump, whom she portrayed as a sexist enemy of women's rights.
	"When Donald Trump says 'let's make America great again,' that is code for 'let's take America backward' -- back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all," Clinton said.
	"Back to the days when abortion was illegal, women had far fewer options and life for too many women and girls was limited."
	"Donald, those days are over," she said.
	Clinton spoke in a direct style that she has recently adopted to challenge billionaire Trump's often brusque manner, referring to the presumptive Republican nominee simply by his first name in an effort to diminish .

Clinton vows to prioritize abortion rights if elected

Keiko Fujimori today conceded defeat to former Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in Peru's photo-finish presidential election, ending five days of legal wrangling that had left the result up in the air.
	"In a democratic spirit, we accept these results," Fujimori said, flanked by members of her Popular Force party, who will have a majority in congress from late July.
	Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced and jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, had until now refused to give up even though political analysts, statisticians and some members of her own party said it would be impossible for the court challenges to put her on top.
	Kuczynski has forged ahead cautiously, sounding triumphant but stopping short of declaring victory.
	He called for unity in a country left torn by the election, in which he took 50.12 per cent to Fujimori's 49.88 per cent.
	"It's time to work together for the future of our country," Kuczynski said yesterday after the full -- but not yet final -- ...

Fujimori concedes defeat in Peru presidential vote

The Scottish Episcopal Church today became the first Anglican Church branch in Britain to take a step towards allowing gay marriage in church.
	A gathering of church leaders in Edinburgh voted that a change to remove from its laws the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman should be sent for discussion to the church's seven dioceses.
	The proposed reform would also introduce a "conscience clause" for those ministers who do not want to officiate a same-sex marriage, which has been legal in civil ceremonies in Scotland since 2014.
	The changes would then be put to another synod vote in 2017.
	The vote at the Scottish Episcopal Church synod passed with support from five out of seven bishops, 69 per cent of the clergy and 80 per cent of the laity, according to the online journal Christian Today.
	In January, the Anglican church yesterday said it had suspended the US Episcopal Church for three years after it approved ceremonies for same-sex marriages.
	The issue has long 

Scottish church takes first step to gay marriage

Scoreboard at stumps on the second day of the third Test between England and Sri Lanka at Lord's today:
	   Sri Lanka 1st Innings
	   D. Karunaratne c Bairstow b Finn         50
	   K. Silva not out                         79
	   K. Mendis not out                        25
	   Extras (lb8)                              8
	   Total (1 wkt, 49 overs, 212 mins)       162
	   To bat: D Chandimal, A Mathews, L Thirimanne, K Perera, R Herath, S Lakmal, S Eranga, N Pradeep
	   Fall of wickets: 1-108 (Karunaratne)
	   Bowling: Anderson 11-2-35-0; Broad 10-1-45-0; Finn 10-1-31-1; Woakes 10-2-20-0; Ali 8-1-23-0;
	   Match position: Sri Lanka are 254 runs behind with nine first-innings wickets standing.

Cricket: England v Sri Lanka 3rd Test scoreboard

A Brazilian competitive shooter was fighting for her life today after being shot in the head during an attempted robbery in Rio de Janeiro, underlining a crime wave sweeping the city two months before the Olympics.
	Anna Paula Cotta, 27, a member of Brazil's navy who had tried out for the Olympic team but didn't get a spot, was shot yesterday as she drove her car in northern Rio.
	The city is experiencing a surge in violent crime and robberies ahead of the Olympics, which open on August 5.
	In another incident, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Rio, Cardinal Orani Tempesta, reported on his website that he had been forced to take shelter behind his car today when a gun battle broke out during a police operation in a favela near a major central highway.
	A photograph showed him taking cover, along with other motorists, at the side of the road. On two occasions in 2014 and 2015 Tempesta survived armed hold-ups in which religious items like a crucifix were stolen.
	Cotta's shooting ...

Brazilian athlete shot in head in Rio

Jonny Bairstow continued a brilliant year of run-scoring with a Test-best 167 not out against Sri Lanka at Lord's today.
	But the debate about whether Bairstow should continue to keep wicket for England intensified when he dropped a routine catch to reprieve Dimuth Karunaratne on the second day of the third Test.
	At stumps, Sri Lanka were 162 for one in reply to England's first innings 416, a deficit of 254 runs.
	Kaushal Silva was 79 not out and Kusal Mendis unbeaten on 25 after left-handed opener Karunaratne made exactly 50.
	Considering the start of this series saw Sri Lanka become the first side since 1958 to be dismissed for under 120 in three successive Test innings, this was a fine effort, albeit a placid pitch and lack of swing meant conditions at the "home of cricket' favoured batsmen on Friday.
	There had been signs of recovery in their last innings, where Sri Lanka made 475 in a nine-wicket defeat in the second Test, giving England an unassailable 2-0 lead in this ...

Cricket: Bairstow highs and lows as Sri Lanka hit back

Thousands of people today cheered and threw roses in the streets of Muhammad Ali's hometown Louisville as they bade farewell to the boxing legend and civil rights hero known as "The Greatest."
     A mass funeral procession, a private burial and public memorial service will wrap up two days of tributes to the three-time heavyweight world champion, who died last week at 74 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
     For more than two hours, the funeral procession moved slowly through the city of 600,000 in the southern US state of Kentucky where Ali was born at a time of racial segregation.
     The cortege passed by sites that were important to "The Champ": his childhood home, the Ali Center, the Center for African American Heritage -- which focuses on the lives of blacks in Kentucky -- and along Muhammad Ali Boulevard before arriving at the Cave Hill Cemetery for a hero's burial.
     Fans were in a festive mood -- taking photos, cheering, applauding and chanting Ali's name in 

Muhammad Ali cheered in Louisville as world says goodbye

Sweden's left-wing government struck a deal with the opposition today to continue nuclear power for the foreseeable future, backtracking on its pledge to phase out atomic energy.
	The government coalition, made up of the Social Democrats and the Greens, had agreed in October 2014 to freeze nuclear energy development, while the opposition has been in favour of building new reactors.
	The deal is aimed at securing long-term energy supplies to households and industry, the government said.
	Sweden has for years struggled to find viable alternative energy sources to replace its nuclear power, with renewable energies not yet able to fully meet the country's needs.
	"Sweden shall have a robust electricity system with a high level of secure supply, low environmental impact and energy at competitive prices," the agreement said.
	Today's agreement paves the way for the construction of new reactors to replace the country's ageing ones at the end of their lifespans.
	"We have, in this way, ...

In turnaround, Sweden agrees to continue nuclear power

Out of the half million tourists expected at the Rio Olympics just one is expected to catch Zika, Brazil's health minister said today.
	However pregnant women should still keep away out of precaution, he said.
	Facing international concern over Zika less than two months ahead of the Olympics, Health Minister Ricardo Barros told journalists that chances of catching the mosquito-carried virus in Rio de Janeiro will be almost zero.
	"The statistical forecast is that out of the 500,000 foreigners coming to the Games in Rio, less than one tourist will be infected," he said.
	Barros said the figure was extrapolated from studies into the spread of dengue -- a disease transmitted by the same mosquito -- during Brazil's hosting of the football World Cup in 2014, when three out of 1.4 million tourists were infected.
	Despite Brazil's reassurances, there is mounting international worry about Zika, which has spread rapidly across much of Latin America. In most cases the symptoms are similar to a .

Only one Olympic tourist likely to catch Zika: Brazil

Russia's lower house of parliament today voted to dismiss the only lawmaker who opposed Moscow's annexation of Crimea over his extended absence from the legislative body.
	Ilya Ponomaryov, a regular at opposition meetings who has lived in the United States since 2014, has been accused of complicity in the embezzlement of USD 750,000 from the Skolkovo Foundation, a high-tech project the Kremlin had hoped would be its answer to Silicon Valley.
	The opposition has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
	Today, 413 lawmkers voted in favor of stripping Ponomaryov of his seat in the legislature. Only three State Duma deputies voted against the proposal, opposition lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov wrote on his Facebook page.
	Flamboyant lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who heads a nationalist party, in parliament accused Ponomaryov of spreading "nasty anti-Russian propaganda," TASS news agency reported.
	A Russian court last year had ordered Ponomaryov's arrest in absentia over the alleged ...

Russia MP who opposed Crimea annexation booted from Parliament

Torrential rains which caused flooding in France recently bore the unmistakable fingerprint of climate change, according to research to be submitted to a scientific journal next week.
	Global warming, especially in the last 50 years, had almost doubled the likelihood of the kind of three-day downpour that burst the banks of the Seine and Loire rivers, they calculated.
	At the very least, the probability of such an extreme rainfall event had increased by more than 40 percent.
	"We found that we could tie global warming directly to the recent rainstorms in France that triggered so much flooding and destruction," Robert Vautard, a senior scientist with France's Laboratory for Climate and Environment Sciences, said in a statement.
	The Seine hit its highest water mark in three decades, while overflowing tributaries forced evacuations and left tens of thousands of people without power in nearby towns.
	In southern Germany, heavy rains also caused flash flooding that swept away houses and ..

Climate change implicated in France floods: study

President Barack Obama has ordered the US military to take on the resurgent Taliban more directly -- in tandem with Afghan allies, ratcheting up a 15-year conflict that he had vowed to end.
	"US forces will more proactively support Afghan conventional forces," a senior administration official told AFP.
	The official, who asked not to be named, sketched plans to provide more close air support and to accompany Afghan forces on the battlefield.
	"This does not mean a blanket order to target the Taliban," the official cautioned.
	Obama came to office in 2008, promising to end one of America's longest and most grueling wars.
	The first US troops arrived in Afghanistan 15 years ago, after the Taliban government refused to turn over 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
	More than 2,000 US personnel have died in the ensuing war.
	There are still 9,800 US troops in the country, down from a peak of around 100,000 in March 2011.
	US forces are mainly confined to ministries or bases. Only special ...

AFP

AFP

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