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 ...

Obama approves more aggressive Taliban fight

PTI Automatic

A Pakistani court has upheld the life sentence of a political activist from the country's semi-autonomous north, which observers say could see a "nationalist upsurge" in a region also claimed by India.
	Baba Jan, a left wing political activist from the Hunza Valley in Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan, was convicted by an anti-terrorism court for participating in political riots in 2011 and lost an appeal against his life sentence yesterday.
	Jan has vocally protested what he and supporters describe as political, constitutional and human rights violations in the region, organising rallies and demonstrations in protest.
	He contested local elections last year from prison, placing second in the polls.
	"The decision was aimed at barring Baba Jan from contesting elections but it will have a counter-productive impact," said political analyst Amir Hussain.
	"This decision will backfire and trigger extremist views like a nationalistic upsurge," he said.
	A simmering resentment has been ..

Pakistan court upholds life sentence for political activist

Scoreboard at tea on the second day
of the third Test between England and Sri Lanka at Lord's on Friday.
     England 1st Innings (overnight: 279-6)
     A. Cook lbw b Pradeep                    85
     A. Hales c Mathews b Herath              18
     N. Compton c Chandimal b Lakmal           1
     J. Root lbw b Lakmal                      3
     J. Vince b Pradeep                       10
     J. Bairstow not out                     167
     M. Ali c Mathews b Herath                25
     C. Woakes c and b Herath                 66
     S. Broad c Mendis b Lakmal               14
     S. Finn c Lakmal b Herath                 7
     J. Anderson c Chandimal b Eranga          4
     Extras (lb16)                            16
     Total (all out, 128.4 overs, 544 mins)  416
     Fall of wickets: 1-56 (Hales), 2-67 (Compton), 3-71 (Root), 4-84 (Vince), 5-164 (Cook), 6-227 (Ali), 7-371 (Woakes), 8-396 (Broad), 9-411 (Finn), 10-416 (Anderson)
     Bowling: Eranga 25.4-2-94-1; Lakmal ...

London, June 10 (AFP) Scoreboard at tea on the second day

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 keep wicket for England intensified when he dropped Dimuth Karunaratne on the second day of the third Test
     At tea, Sri Lanka were 62 without loss in reply to England's first innings 416, a deficit of 354 runs.
     Left-hander Karunaratne was 30 not out and Kaushal Silva 31 not out.
     But Karunaratne should have gone for 28 when he got an edge off all-rounder Chris Woakes only for Bairstow to drop the two-handed waist-high chance.
     Even allowing for the possibility that Bairstow was mentally and physically tired after his more than six-hour innings, and that the ball 'wobbled' a touch before reaching him, it was still an extraordinary miss by a Test keeper.
     It is not the first time this series that Bairstow has grassed a routine chance -- although Friday's miss was the most glaring.
     For all that 

Bairstow suffers highs and lows against Sri Lanka

Gunmen burst into a family's home in Mexico at dawn today, killing nine adults and two children, officials said.
	The attack took place in El Mirador, a mountain community in central Puebla state, a region that has been relatively spared from the drug violence plaguing other parts of Mexico.
	"We can confirm 11 deaths: five women, four men and two girls. Two other minors were badly wounded and taken to the hospital," said Vicente Lopez de la Vega, the mayor of the town of Coxcatlan, which oversees El Mirador.
	A Puebla state government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not autorized to speak publicly, confirmed the massacre.
	The Puebla state prosecutor's office is investigating whether the crime was related to organized crime or a family dispute.
	While drug violence is uncommon in Puebla, it has seen a spate of mob lynchings of crime suspects.

Mexico gunmen attack family, kill 11: officials

A Pakistani couple were murdered in Lahore today for marrying without their family's consent, according to officials, the second so-called "honour killing" in the South Asian nation this week.
	Muhammad Ashraf, 56, killed his daughter Saba and her husband Karamat Ali a day after the couple returned to Lahore's Kahna area to smooth over rocky relations with the family, who disapproved of the marriage, according to police.
	"18-year-old Saba had married Karamat Ali, who is 35, around a year and a half ago against the will of her family and returned to her home yesterday night to settle matters with father and other family members," Falak Sher, a local police official, told AFP.
	Ashraf, a security guard by profession, opened fire on his daughter and son-in-law after becoming infuriated during a heated conversation.
	"He also killed his neighbour Muhammad Akram for supporting his daughter's marriage," said Sher, adding that Ashraf and his son Safdar later surrendered to police and ...

Pakistani couple murdered by family in 'honour killing'

Israel today temporarily barred Palestinians from entering the country, a step criticised by the UN but which officials said was because of a shooting which killed four people in Tel Aviv.
	An army spokeswoman told AFP that crossings to Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be closed for Palestinians in all but "medical and humanitarian cases".
	She said the closure would remain in force until midnight on Sunday.
	The measures came during the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when tens of thousands of Palestinians visit the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem to pray.
	A spokeswoman for COGAT, the defence ministry unit which manages civilian affairs in the occupied West Bank, said about 10,000 Palestinians were allowed to visit Al-Aqsa despite the ban.
	The worshippers had to return home after Friday prayers, the spokeswoman said.
	Palestinian men between 12 and 35 were not allowed to enter the mosque, with those between 35 and 45 needing permission and those 

Israel bars Palestinians after Tel Aviv attack

Israel's decision to bar Palestinians from entering its territory following the Tel Aviv attack could raise tensions and lead to more violence, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned today.
	"The decision by the Israeli authorities today to revoke tens of thousands of entry permits could stoke tensions which could lead to a risk of escalation," said Ayrault.
	"We must be careful about anything that could stoke tensions," Ayrault told reporters at UN headquarters.
	The foreign minister made the remarks after the Israeli army announced it was temporarily barring Palestinians from entering Israel, stepping up tough restrictions announced after Palestinian gunmen shot dead four Israelis in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
	Crossings to Israel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were closed for all Palestinians except those seeking urgent medical care and other humanitarian cases.
	France has condemned the attack in a popular Tel Aviv nightspot that also wounded five people and was the ..

France warns of escalation risk after Israel bars Palestinians

Scoreboard at the close of
England's first innings on the second day of the third Test against Sri Lanka at Lord's today:
     England 1st Innings (overnight: 279-6)
     A Cook lbw b Pradeep                    85
     A Hales c Mathews b Herath              18
     N Compton c Chandimal b Lakmal           1
     J Root lbw b Lakmal                      3
     J Vince b Pradeep                       10
     J Bairstow not out                     167
     M Ali c Mathews b Herath                25
     C Woakes c and b Herath                 66
     S Broad c Mendis b Lakmal               14
     S Finn c Lakmal b Herath                 7
     J Anderson c Chandimal b Eranga          4
     Extras (lb16)                           16
     Total (all out, 128.4 overs)            416
     Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-67, 3-71, 4-84, 5-164, 6-227, 7-371, 8-396, 9-411, 10-416
     Bowling: Eranga 25.4-2-94-1; Lakmal 27-2-90-3; Pradeep 27-4-104-2; Mathews 13-5-31-0; Herath 36-8-81-4.

London, June 10 (AFP) Scoreboard at the close of

Pakistan has awarded a USD 395 million 4G licence to Norwegian telecom giant Telenor, as it seeks to capitalise on a booming domestic mobile market some two years since broadband Internet arrived in the country.
	In 2014, Pakistan auctioned its first 4G broadband licence to China's Zong for USD 210 million, along with 3G licenses to Zong, the UAE's Warid, and Pakistan's domestic Mobilink. The total raised in the auction was USD 1.2 billion.
	In the first quarter of 2015 smartphone shipments to the country soared by 123 per cent, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority's annual report, one of the fastest growth rates in the developing world.
	Since then broadband use has exploded, with the number of users growing to around 29 million from a mere 1.9 million - a higher percentage than India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
	Pakistan's state-run Telecom Authority (PTA) had auctioned the license to local and international telecom companies, with Telenor winning the bid.
	"The licence .

Pakistan grants 4G licence to Norway's Telenor for USD 395m

Greece's top shipping lobby today warned that EU scrutiny of their tax concessions would open a "Pandora's box" of revelations concerning other states, with harmful consequences all around.
	"If we enter a full investigation and consultation begins... On what happens in European shipping, it would open a Pandora's box, not for Greece but for other countries," Theodore Veniamis, head of the Greek union of shipowners, told a news conference.
	Back in 2012, the European Commission asked Greece to clarify the workings of its tax system for the shipping industry, and European transport commissioner Violeta Bulc told reporters today it would likely become a full investigation.
	"Tonnage tax is crucial to keep the EU flag competitive internationally," said Bulc.
	The commission wanted to ensure "proper application of guidelines" and to "limit it to genuine shipping business", she said.
	Brussels suspects the current taxation system, which grants favourable treatment to shipowners, is being ..

Tax scrutiny will open 'Pandora's box' in EU: Greek shipowners

An Israeli police officer inadvertently invited a Palestinian gunman into his home after the Tel Aviv shooting thinking he was a civilian fleeing the scene of the attack, media reported today.
	Two Palestinians opened fire on Israelis in a popular Tel Aviv market at random on Wednesday, killing four people and injuring at least five others.
	Hundreds of civilians fled the scene when the attack started, including the off-duty police officer, his wife and in-laws who were out having ice cream, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported.
	"We started to run towards the house, in order to be in a safe place and for my husband to take his handgun," the police officer's wife, identified only by her first name Ofri, told the newspaper.
	"We got into the building and opened the apartment door and then we saw that another person had joined us. We asked him who he was and he didn't speak, just asked for 'water, water'," she said.
	Ofri said the man was wearing a tight fitting black suit and ...

Israel policeman 'invited gunman into home by mistake'

Garfield Sobers, arguably cricket's greatest all-rounder, led a special tribute to Muhammad Ali at Lord's today that coincided with the boxing legend's funeral.
     The two sporting icons met at Lord's back in 1966 when Sobers was a member of the West Indies side playing England in a Test match at "the home of cricket" and heavyweight star Ali was in London for his second fight with Britain's Henry Cooper.
     During the lunch interval of today's second day play in the third Test between England and Sri Lanka, black and white photographs of Ali meeting Sobers in the Lord's dressing room were displayed on the ground's giant screens.
     Sobers, 79, then rang a bell in the Lord's pavilion five minutes before the start of the second session of play as a tribute.
     Thousands of people from near and far were expected to line the streets of Ali's hometown Louisville on Friday to say goodbye to him.
     Ali, who died aged 74 last week after decades suffering with Parkinson's disease, .

Sobers leads Lord's tribute to Ali

Want to end extreme poverty? Technology hyper-billionaire Bill Gates says the answer is chickens. And that's not the name of new Microsoft software.
	Gates, the founder of the world's largest software company, says the best thing to improve the lives of the world's poorest is not computers or the Internet but raising a few roosters and hens.
	"It's pretty clear to me that just about anyone who's living in extreme poverty is better off if they have chickens," he said this week on his website GatesNotes.Com.
	The world's richest person, who made his USD 75 billion fortune pushing for a Microsoft computer in every home, said his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has just partnered with the global development group Heifer International to donate some 100,000 chickens to families in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than USD 2 a day.
	The goal, he said, is to get 30 per cent of the rural families in the region to raise improved breeds of vaccinated chickens, compared with the current ...

Bill Gates: Chickens, not computers, can solve poverty

Russia's central bank cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point today, the first reduction in nearly a year after the ruble recovered thanks to a bounce in oil and fading inflation fears.
	"The Bank of Russia Board of Directors decided to reduce the key rate from 11.00 to 10.50 per cent," the bank said in a statement.
	"The Board of Directors notes the positive trends of more stable inflation, decreased inflation expectations and inflation risks against the backdrop of imminent growth recovery in the economy."
	Russia is desperate to breathe life into its energy-driven economy, which is mired in a recession caused mainly by the drop in oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine.
	The ruble has risen some 25 per cent since January as the price of oil has nearly doubled after hitting its lowest point in over a decade.
	Inflation has now also steadied at around 7.3 per cent, according to the central bank, its lowest level since 2014.
	The bank ..

Russia cuts key rate for first time in over 10 months

The Israeli army's decision to block Palestinians from entering Israel following a deadly attack in Tel Aviv may amount to collective punishment, the UN said today, criticising the move.
	After Palestinian gunmen shot dead four people in the coastal city, the Israeli army said crossings to Israel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be closed in all but "medical and humanitarian cases".
	United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein condemned the attack but was also "deeply concerned" by Israel's response, his office said in a statement.
	The Jewish state's reaction "includes measures that may amount to prohibited collective punishment and will only increase the sense of injustice and frustration felt by Palestinians in this very tense time," the statement said.
	Israel's mission to the UN in Geneva accused the rights chief of rushing "to defend the terrorists."
	It called on Zeid's office to "take another look at the current situation in the Middle East, so it may ...

UN criticises Israel over 'collective punishment'

At least 30 people, including serving soldiers and an opposition MP, have been detained on suspicion of plotting to overthrow Uganda's government, the army said today.
	"We and the police are investigating the matter," army spokesman Colonel Paddy Ankunda told AFP, saying the group was suspected of planning an armed uprising against President Yoweri Museveni, himself a former rebel who seized power 30 years ago.
	Ankunda said the detainees were "linked to a rebel group" that he declined to name.
	He said most of those arrested were soldiers, adding that at least one lawmaker and another opposition politician had been arrested.
	The only detainee named by the spokesman was Michael Kabaziguruka, an MP from the main opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party whose leader Kizza Besigye is in custody on treason charges.
	Besigye, who cried foul after coming second to Museveni in February's presidential election, was arrested last month for holding a mock swearing-in ceremony.
	He ..

Thirty held in Uganda over 'coup plot': army

Iraq's elite counterterrorism service moved to within three kilometres of central Fallujah today and consolidated positions in the south of the city, the operation's commander said.
	Speaking to AFP from the edge of the city's Shuhada neighbourhood, Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi said the operation to retake one of the Islamic State group's most emblematic bastions was progressing well.
	"Daesh (IS) wanted the battle to take place outside the city but we have moved in, and retaken all this area in eight days," he said, standing on rooftop overlooking Fallujah's southern neighbourhoods.
	"Our troops are here," he said pointing on his tablet computer to spots along one of the main streets in southern Fallujah. "That's 3.1 kilometres (less than two miles) from the main official building in the centre."
	"We'll be there, in the very centre, in days. Days, not weeks," he said.
	Plumes of smoke and dust rose up in Fallujah's low and grey skyline as special forces carried out ...

Iraq special forces 3km from Fallujah centre

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned today that if Britain voted to leave the European Union, it wouldn't have access to the single market like non-members Norway and Switzerland do.
	"That won't work," the veteran minister told Germany's Der Spiegel weekly, which tomorrow plans to publish a German-English edition at home and in Britain with "Please don't go!" on the cover.'
	"That would require the country to follow the rules of a club which right now it wants to leave."
	If a majority of Britons opt for a Brexit in the June 23 referendum, it will shut the nation out of the single market with its free movement of people, goods and services, Schaeuble said.
	"In is in. Out is out," he told Der Spiegel, Germany's top selling weekly news magazine.
	The polls are on a knife's edge ahead of the referendum on whether Britain should stay in or leave the 28-country bloc.
	Schaeuble warned that a Brexit could spark contagion in the EU, according to excerpts of the interview due ..

Brexit would shut UK out of single market: Schaeuble

World athletics governing body IAAF announced today that it was provisionally suspending its deputy director Nick Davies over charges that he contrived to conceal news of positive Russian drugs tests in 2013.
     Davies, a close aide to IAAF chief Sebastian Coe, his wife Jane Boulter-Davies and medical manager Pierre-Yves Garnier have all been sidelined for 180 days from June 10.
     "There is no greater priority for the IAAF right now than to get to the truth of the allegations that have been made against the sport. These particular facts were made public in December 2015 and relate to allegations of a breach of the IAAF Code of Ethics," an IAAF statement said.
     "The IAAF welcomes these investigations by the Ethics Board and investigator Sir Anthony Hooper and thanks them for the difficult and hard work they continue to undertake on behalf of the sport and the organisation."
     The statement added that each of the persons provisionally suspended "enjoys the presumption of ...

Top IAAF official Davies suspended

Scoreboard at lunch on the second
day of the third Test between England and Sri Lanka at Lord's today:
     England 1st Innings (overnight: 279-6)
     A Cook lbw b Pradeep                 85
     A Hales c Mathews b Herath           18
     N Compton c Chandimal b Lakmal        1
     J Root lbw b Lakmal                   3
     J Vince b Pradeep                    10
     J Bairstow batting                  156
     M Ali c Mathews b Herath             25
     C Woakes c and b Herath              66
     S Broad batting                       5
     Extras (lb15)                        15
     Total (7 wkts, 119 overs)           384
     Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-67, 3-71, 4-84, 5-164, 6-227, 7-371
     Bowling: Eranga 25-2-89-0; Lakmal 23-2-77-2; Pradeep 27-4-104-2; Mathews 13-5-31-0; Herath 31-6-68-3.

AFP

AFP

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