- The Philippines' president elect Rodrigo Duterte urged the public to join his anti-crime crackdown, offering people huge bounties for killing drug dealers.
	His announcement late yesterday came as other officials began paying bounties for slain suspected criminals in an apparent attempt to ride on Duterte's success.
	Duterte won the presidential election last month, running on a platform of a ruthless anti-crime campaign.
	After previously saying he would unleash the military and police on criminals, Duterte said the public could go after them as well.
	"If they are there in your neighbourhood, feel free to call us, the police or do it yourself if you have the gun. You have my support," he told his cheering followers.
	"If he fights and fights to the death, you can kill him," he said, adding: "I will give you a medal."
	He stressed that drug addicts could not be rehabilitated and warned, "if you are involved in drugs, I will kill you. You son of a whore, I will really kill ...

Philippines' Duterte urges public to kill criminals

PTI Automatic

Some say they have lost a father figure. One classmate mourned the loss of a "prophet." In front of Muhammad Ali's modest family home in Louisville, friends and fans paid tribute to "The Greatest."
     Flowers, photos and letters were piled up at 3302 Grand Avenue in Louisville, the Kentucky city at the crossroads of the US Midwest and the deep South where Ali was raised and first started boxing.
     The small house -- freshly painted pink -- is now a museum honoring the heavyweight champ, who died on Friday at age 74.
     Fans and residents said Ali's epic victories in the ring were only one side of the man who transcended the world of sports.
	"Boxing, man, that wasn't his mission: he's so much bigger than this," Sonny Fishback, a song writer and music producer who went to school with Ali, told AFP.
	At that time, Ali was still known as Cassius Clay, and he was leaner than in his heavyweight prime.
	He was raised in the Baptist faith, and reading scripture was important. He and ..

In Louisville, fans mourn the 'prophet' Ali

Turkish authorities have sunk an A300 Airbus jet off a resort on the Aegean Sea with the aim of boosting diving tourism in the region, reports said today.
	The giant plane was put to the bottom of the sea yesterday afternoon off the popular resort of Kusadasi in Aydin province, the Dogan and Cihan news agencies reported.
	The sinking of the giant plane -- with a wingspan of 44 metres and a length of 54 metres -- is aimed at promoting artificial reef diving which is hugely popular with experienced divers.
	Once sunken, the plane acts like a reef, becoming a magnet for underwater flora and fauna.
	The 36-year-old aircraft had been bought by Aydin municipality from a private aviation firm for 270,000 Turkish lira (USD 93,000).
	Turkey is looking for new ways to promote its key tourism industry, which is expected to suffer a battering this year due to the security situation after a string of deadly attacks.
	Hundreds of people watched the two-and-a-half hour sinking on nearby boats, ...

Turkey sinks Airbus jet to boost dive tourism

The swollen Seine receded today, but between flood damages, strikes and terror fears, France was firmly stuck in the doldrums just five days before the Euro football tournament.
     Thick grey clouds hung over Paris as the muddy Seine slowly inched back from a three-decade high that saw it burst its banks in places, forcing the Louvre and Orsay museums to shut their doors to evacuate priceless works.
     But while crowds thronged to photograph the river -- Paris's star attraction this weekend -- residents in nearby towns picked through their devastated homes, with insurers estimating damages of at least 600 million euros ($681 million).
     Several towns remained on alert after the floods left four people dead in the Paris region this week, and over 11,000 homes were without electricity. In Paris several metro stations remained shut as a precaution.
     Ground down by a series of attacks last year, months of often violent anti-government protests, and transport chaos due to ...

French floods, strikes cast pall over Euro 2016

A woman was fatally mauled by a huge shark - described by witnesses as larger than their boat - near the western Australian city of Perth today.
	The attack on the woman off the northern Perth suburb of Mindarie comes just two days after a surfer died after having his leg bitten off by a shark along the same coastline.
	Western Australia state police said the woman - reported to be a 60-year-old diver - had "significant injuries that are consistent with a shark attack".
	Police Inspector Danny Mulligan added that three fishermen who tried to help the woman and her partner described the shark as being longer than their 5.3-metre boat.
	He said the woman's diving partner felt "something go past him" when he was in the water.
	"When he surfaced he saw a commotion in the water and then another boat arrived to pull him out of the water, and then it was noticed that the lady had suffered some severe and fatal injuries," Mulligan said according to the Australian Broadcasting ...

Woman killed by shark 'bigger than boat' in Australia

Two people died and 46 others were injured today after a bus carrying mostly foreigners rammed into a broken down truck in southern Spain, police said.
	The bus carrying 55 people, mainly Moroccans, collided with the truck at around 3am (0100 GMT) near the town of Montoro in Cordoba province, a local police spokesman said.
	The driver and another Spaniard were killed while four others were seriously injured. Another 42 passengers suffered light injuries.
	The majority of the passengers were foreigners, including 31 Moroccans, two Singaporeans and one national each from Mauritania, Ecuador, the United States, Romania, the Ivory Coast and Colombia.
	The bus was travelling from the port of Algeciras to Madrid.
	The two drivers of the truck were standing at the side of the highway during the accident and were not hurt.
	Thirteen students were killed and dozens more injured in Spain in March when the driver of their coach lost control and crashed into an oncoming car in the northeastern ...

Two dead, 46 injured in Spain bus crash: police

Tehran today dismissed its renewed blacklisting by Washington as a state sponsor of terrorism charging that it was US allies including Riyadh that were the real culprits.
	The Iranian foreign ministry noted its role in neighbouring Iraq supporting the government against the Islamic State jihadist group independently of a US-led coalition as well as its backing for the Syrian regime against jihadists and other rebels, some of them backed by Saudi Arabia.
	Washington "turns a blind eye to the broad political and financial support by Saudi Arabia and its other allies to this ominous phenomenon in the world," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari told the official IRNA news agency.
	"While US allies in the region in various ways support Daesh (IS) and other terrorist groups, the Islamic Republic of Iran is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism in Iraq and Syria."
	Ansari said Washington's support for Israel despite its decades-old occupation of the Palestinian ...

Iran says US ally Saudi the real 'terrorism sponsor'

Taliban gunmen stormed a court complex in a city south of Kabul today, killing at least seven people in the insurgents' third so-called "revenge" attack for last month's execution of Taliban-linked prisoners.
	The attack in Pul-i-Alam, capital of volatile Logar province, also left 23 prosecutors wounded as they were meeting to decide the fate of six newly arrested Taliban militants.
	The head of the court was among those killed in the attack, which comes as the Taliban step up their annual spring offensive after naming a new leader late last month.
	"Three gunmen entered the court building and started shooting people at close range," Salim Saleh, the provincial governor's spokesman, told AFP.
	"Seven people were killed including Mohammad Akram Nejat, the newly appointed head of the court."
	Hasib Stanakzai, a member of Logar's provincial council, confirmed the death toll.
	The Taliban said the attack was in retaliation for the execution of six Taliban-linked inmates in early May, part 

Seven killed as Taliban gunmen raid Afghan courthouse

A German right-wing populist politician has attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel as a "dictator" who is trying to "replace the German people" with migrants, a newspaper reported today.
	Alexander Gauland, of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told a rally outside Berlin that Merkel's liberal asylum policy was radically transforming the face of the country, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said.
	He called Merkel a "chancellor-dictator" to applause from the crowd and said Germany's mainstream parties were pursuing a policy of "human flooding", an "attempt to gradually replace the German people with a population coming from all parts of the earth".
	The remarks could later be seen in a video posted on YouTube from the rally in the town of Elsterwerda Thursday.
	Gauland, 75, is seen twice reading from a sign held by a member of the crowd: "Today we are tolerant and tomorrow foreign in our own country," a far-right slogan used by the neo-Nazi NPD party.
	The .

German right-wing leader blasts 'dictator' Merkel

A car registration plate bearing just the number one fetched USD 4.9 million at auction in the United Arab Emirates, press reports said today.
	The winning bidder, Emirati businessman Arif Ahmed al-Zarouni, told Gulf News: "My ambition is always to be number one."
	His bid was 18 times the reserve price but is not the highest sum that has been paid for a collector's registration plate in the UAE.
	In 2008, USD 14.2 million was paid at auction for the number one plate of the richest of the UAE's seven emirates, Abu Dhabi.
	Zarouni's plate is for Sharjah, the third-richest emirate.
	Sixty sought-after plates were up for sale at yesterday's auction. The most popular numbers were 12, 22, 50, 100, 333, 777, 1000, 2016, 2020 and 99999. The auction made a total of USD 13.6 million.

Emirati businessman pays $4.9 mn to be 'number one' motorist

North Korea hit back at the United States today for labelling it a money-laundering state, describing it as a "nonsensical" effort that only disclosed the flaws of existing sanctions pushed by Washington.
	The US on Wednesday branded Pyongyang a "global money laundering concern", aiming to lock the impoverished by nuclear-armed country out of the world financial system.
	The move would prevent both direct and indirect North Korean financial activities within the US banking network, ensuring that any third-party deals involving significant sums of US dollar or other currencies cannot transit the US.
	But the North's National Coordination Committee for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism slammed the US action as "another illegal act of infringing upon the sovereignty and vital rights" of the country.
	"The US is loudly calling on the neighbouring countries to increase pressure upon the DPRK... But the DPRK dismisses this as a nonsensical talk," it said in a ...

N Korea slams US for money launderer label

A US naval officer was arrested today for alleged drink-driving on Okinawa, Japanese police said, where military personnel are already under curfew after a suspected rape and murder by a base employee.
	Naval officer Aimee Mejia, 21, was arrested shortly after midnight today on suspicion of drink-driving, an Okinawa police spokesman said.
	She had been driving the wrong way down a street, hitting an oncoming vehicle and bouncing off to collide with another, leaving a local woman with a cracked breastbone, the spokesman added.
	"She was arrested right on the spot for driving while intoxicated," he told AFP.
	Public anger against the heavy US military presence on Okinawa was rekindled last month with the arrest a former US Marine, then a base employee, in connection with the death of a 20-year-old woman.
	The arrest led to a month-long night-time curfew on US forces stationed on the island, as part of a "period of unity and mourning" over the killing.
	Today's arrest is expected to ...

US officer arrested in Japan's Okinawa for drink-driving

US Secretary of State John Kerry today warned Beijing against setting up an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the disputed South China Sea during a visit to Mongolia.
	Washington would consider the establishment of such a zone - which would require civilian aircraft to identify themselves to military controllers - "a provocative and destabilising act," Kerry told reporters in Ulan Bator.
	The remarks came on the eve of a US-China dialogue in Beijing and after a Hong Kong newspaper cited Chinese army sources as saying Beijing was mulling such a zone, similar to one Beijing established over the East China Sea in 2013.
	China claims nearly all of the strategically vital sea despite competing claims by several Southeast Asian neighbours, and has pressed its claims by rapidly building artificial islands suitable for military use.
	Washington has responded by sending warships close to Chinese claimed reefs, angering Beijing.
	Further US actions in the region "will give Beijing a ..

Kerry warns on South China Sea during Mongolia visit

A woman's body was found off the western Australian city of Perth with "significant injuries consistent with a shark attack", police said today, just two days after a surfer died after being mauled along the same coastline.
	Western Australia police said they found the body on a boat ramp in Mindarie, after the woman was reportedly sighted injured in the water off the northern Perth suburb today morning.
	"The deceased person has significant injuries that are consistent with a shark attack, however the cause of the injuries are yet to be confirmed," WA Police said in a statement, adding that inquiries were continuing.
	No further details were released.
	Surf Life Saving WA tweeted earlier today that a shark was sighted one kilometre (0.62 miles) offshore from Mindarie Beach.
	The suspected attack came two days after Ben Gerring - a surfer who lost a leg in a mauling off Falcon Beach some 115 kilometres south of Mindarie on Tuesday - died in hospital.
	The 29-year-old was with a group .

Second suspected shark attack death in Australia

A controversial refereeing decision spared Brazil's blushes at the Copa America Centenario on Saturday as the five-time world champions opened their campaign with a goalless draw against Ecuador.
     Ecuador looked to have taken a sensational lead at the Pasadena Rose Bowl midway through the second half when Brazil goalkeeper Alisson fumbled a cross from Miller Bolanos into his own net as he stooped to gather at the near post.
     But as Ecuador's bench and players celebrated, the match officials whistled for a goal kick, after ruling that the ball had gone out of play shortly before Bolanos crossed into the six-yard box.
     Replays of the incident appeared to suggest the ball was fractionally still in play and that Brazil had been saved from a losing start to Group B by an officiating error.
     Brazil's players left the field to scattered boos from the 53,158 crowd at the Rose Bowl, scene of the South American giants' 1994 World Cup final triumph.
     "I saw it 25 times on ...

Brazil held, Peru down Haiti

Boxer Amir Khan has denied betraying his British upbringing after being criticised for saying he would represent Pakistan at the Rio Games, insisting he only wanted to boost the sport in his parents' country of birth.
     But the Bolton-born fighter also admitted he would not be willing to face an accompanying two-year ban from the World Boxing Council that would jeopardise his professional career, making an Olympic appearance unlikely.
     Speaking to AFP in an exclusive interview in Islamabad, where he launched his first boxing academy on Saturday, Khan said he was a "proud British fighter" who had represented his country at the Athens Games and would therefore not want to deprive fellow Brits of a ticket to Rio De Janeiro.
     "I'm not doing it because I'm not happy being British. I'm a proud British fighter, but it's the way people took it out of context and calling me a traitor -- I meant it in a way that I'd rather give someone else an opportunity instead because Pakistan has 

'Proud British fighter' Khan wants success for Pakistan, too

Brazil showed touches of magic but a lack of killer instinct as they were held to a 0-0 draw by Ecuador in their Copa America Group B opener on Saturday.
     Despite seeing their team force chance after chance the Selecao traveling support had to settle for a single point as the eight-time champions lost momentum in the second half at Pasadena's Rose Bowl.
     The game began at an intense tempo with a flurry of chances at either end in front of a disappointing crowd of 53,158 which filled just over half of the stadium, the venue of Brazil's 1994 World Cup final victory over Italy.
     Both teams had been prepared for intense heat but southern California's searing daytime temperatures had cooled by kick-off to a merciful 78 degrees fahrenheit (26 degrees celsius).
     Brazil were without several first choice players, most notably their talismanic captain Neymar, and they were clearly missing the Barcelona forward's bite.
     The most clear-cut opportunities fell at either end of ..

Brazil held by Ecuador in Copa America opener

Mick Schumacher, the 17-year-old son of stricken Formula One legend Michael Schumacher, claimed two wins in one day on Saturday in the German Formula 4 championships.
     "Of course, you can't wish for more than winning twice in two races and I'm obviously delighted," said Schumacher Jnr.
     Schumacher Jnr's success behind the wheel comes as his father, a seven-time world F1 champion, continues his rehabilitation at home from head injuries suffered in a skiing accident in December 2013.
     "The speed was there, the car was good, everything is okay," the teenager told broadcaster Sport1 at the Lausitzring, near Dresden.
     After claiming victory in the early afternoon's first race following a mass pile-up involving 11 cars on the first lap, Schumacher managed a second victory in the evening race.
     In the drivers' championships, Schumacher's double means he has closed the gap to just 11 points behind the leader, 20-year-old Joey Mawson of Australia, who finished sixth and ...

Schumacher Jnr wins twice in one day

Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro will test injuries as the Wimbledon run-up period begins on Monday at the Stuttgart Open grass event.
     The former clay week switched surfaces a year ago in an edition won by Rafael Nadal. Though the Spaniard is out of action with a wrist injury and was not entered, his absence will be more than made up by the arrival of Federer.
     The 34-year-old Swiss was due to practise Sunday on the courts laid a year ago by Wimbledon specialists and given the unofficial seal of approval in 2015 after John McEnroe had a hit on them during dedication ceremonies at the Weissenhof Club.
     Federer wisely skipped what was the wettest and coldest French Open in decades to let back pain subside, with tournament organisers saying he has trained in Switzerland and is arriving fit.
     Del Potro won Stuttgart in 2008 -- the first of his 18 career trophies -- when it was played on clay; he has chosen the venue for his first match in five weeks since losing in 

Federer, Del Potro to test injuries on Stuttgart grass

Two-times South American champions Paraguay were held to a goalless draw by Costa Rica in sultry conditions at the Citrus Bowl on Saturday in Copa America Centenario Group A.
     Costa Rica ended the game with 10 men after defender Kendall Waston was sent off in injury time for a wild challenge on Nelson Valdez.
     The result leaves Colombia who beat the United States in Friday's opener, alone at the top of the group with three points.
     Waston will be suspended for Costa Rica's game on Tuesday in Chicago against the United States.
     The intense heat and humidity, with the temperature at kick-off around 92 degrees fahrenheit (33 degrees celsius) was blamed by both teams for what was, in the end, a disappointing spectacle in front of a disappointingly small crowd of 14,334.
     Paraguay coach Ramon Diaz said it was "crazy" to have scheduled the match to be played at 5pm local (Eastern) time.
     "The needs of players need to be taken into account they are the ones who put on 

Costa Rica see red in draw with Paraguay

Serena Williams is closing in on her 35th birthday and has just suffered back-to-back Grand Slam final losses for the first time, but the American superstar is not ready to be dethroned any time soon.
     Williams's latest attempt to equal Steffi Graf's Open era record of 22 Grand Slam titles was thwarted on Saturday by Garbine Muguruza in the French Open final.
     Back in January, Angelique Kerber pulled off a similar shock to snatch the American's Australian Open title while in New York last September, Williams's hopes of a calendar Grand Slam were upended by Italian journeywoman Roberta Vinci in the semi-finals.
     So Williams's Grand Slam haul has stalled at 21, but she will still start as favourite to win a seventh Wimbledon when the third major of the year gets underway in three weeks.
     "The only thing I can do is just keep trying," said Williams, who was attempting to win a fourth French Open after 2002, 2013 and 2015.
     "In Australia, Ann Kerber made 16 errors in ..

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