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 ..

Serena not ready for final curtain

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Garbine Muguruza said that fixing her mindset and getting rid of all the unnecessary emotions were key to her winning her first Grand Slam title at the French Open on Saturday.
     On the face of it her matchup with top seed and defending champion Serena Williams was an experience mismatch.
     The 34-year-old American had played 26 Grand Slam finals and won 21 of them. The Spaniard, 12 years her junior, was playing in just her second having lost last year's Wimbledon final to Williams.
     Plenty of reasons then for Muguruza, who has suffered from nerves in the past to get stressed out. But French coach Sam Sumyk has been working on her mental approach and that was what she kept firmly in the back of her mind in Paris.
     "I have been saying during the whole week to be less emotional. To believe more that I'm here because I deserve my place here. I earned it," she said.
     "You know, I played well. I earned to be here in the final. I think just to don't think about other ...

Don't think just play approach key for Muguruza

The prime minister of Libya's UN-backed unity government has ruled out an international military intervention to fight the Islamic State group, which has had a growing presence in the country since 2014.
	Some 25 nations including the United States and Russia agreed last month to help Libya arm itself against the jihadists, but Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj told French newspaper Journal du Dimanche he would not allow foreign troops on the ground.
	"It's true that we need help from the international community in our fight against terrorism and it's true that this is something we have already received," he said in the interview, published today.
	"But we are not talking about international intervention," Sarraj said, adding that the presence of foreign ground troops would be "contrary to our principles".
	"Rather we need satellite images, intelligence, technical help... Not bombardments," he said.
	The Government of National Accord (GNA), established in Tripoli more than two months ...

Libya PM rules out international military intervention

Thousands of supporters have celebrated Congolese leader Joseph Kabila's birthday with a rally in Kinshasa, at which a party supremo floated the idea of holding a referendum to extend the president's rule.
	The suggestion is likely to fuel opposition suspicion that Kabila, in power since his father's assassination in 2001, is preparing to remain in office beyond his two-term limit which ends in December.
	In a show of support for Kabila, some 5,000 people marched through the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a carnival-like atmosphere before gathering at a stadium to mark the leader's 45th birthday, an AFP reporter saw yesterday.
	"Happy birthday, comrade president, founder of the party," read a giant banner next to a portrait of Kabila.
	Political unrest has plagued DR Congo for months over fears that Kabila will postpone elections due to be held late this year.
	His supporters have said they want the polls to be delayed for at least two years because of logistical and ..

Kinshasa rally in support of Kabila draws thousands

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Mongolia today, the latest senior US official to make the trip to the mineral-rich country neighboured by Russia and China.
	Kerry will stop in the capital Ulan Bator for several hours, where he is scheduled to meet with President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, launch a new USAID programme and attend a festival of horse-racing and Mongolian wrestling.
	"I think the label that attaches itself pretty naturally to Mongolia is 'plucky democracy'," a senior State Department official said ahead of Kerry's visit.
	Mongolia is "in a very, very tough neighbourhood", the official added, noting the country depends on Russia for three-quarters of its oil and China for about 90 percent of their trade.
	"So it's not an easy place to operate," the official said, adding "Mongolia is a terrific partner to the United States and a good friend".
	Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and US Vice President Joe Biden are among other top officials to have visited the .

US Secretary of State Kerry visits 'plucky' Mongolia

The rain-swollen River Seine in Paris has begun to recede after reaching its highest level in three decades, easing fears after floods sent the Louvre and other riverside museums scrambling to protect their treasures.
	From a peak of 6.10 metres in the early hours yesterday, the river began to subside, falling to 5.99 metres at 5 pm (local time), the environment ministry's Vigicrues flood watch website said.
	The record for the Seine is 8.62 metres, reached in 1910.
	"We're now in the stabilisation phase," said Bruno Janet, Vigicrues' head of modelling.
	Across Europe, 18 people have been killed in floods that trapped people in their homes, felled trees and power lines, cut off roads and rail lines and forced rescuers to navigate swamped streets in lifeboats.
	Eleven died in the Germany states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, four in France, two in Romania and one in Belgium, according to an AFP compilation of official tolls and news stories.
	As the Seine's levels gradually ...

France floods ease as Seine recedes

West Africa should "think harder" about developing a new anti-terror force, a top regional official said today, as Niger announced the latest deaths among its troops battling Boko Haram jihadists.
	Over the past year West Africa has suffered terror attacks on nations previously untouched by jihadists, as well as confronting an Islamist insurgency that began in northeast Nigeria but has spread to several neighbouring countries.
	That meant greater intelligence sharing and military co-operation is required, said the incoming head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) commission, which implements policy decisions agreed by its 15 members.
	"The multiplication of terrorist hotbeds in our region compels us to share information on their activities, to communicate, co-ordinate and harmonise our efforts," said Benin's Marcel Alain de Souza at an ECOWAS summit in Dakar.
	"This naturally makes us think harder about the creation of a regional intervention force against ...

West Africa anti-terror force tops summit agenda

A public funeral procession and memorial service for boxing legend Muhammad Ali will take place in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky on Friday, a family spokesman said today.
	Former US president Bill Clinton, comedian Billy Crystal and sports journalist Bryant Gumbel will offer eulogies for Ali, who died yesterday at age 74 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
	A small family funeral will precede the public service on Thursday, spokesman Bob Gunnell told reporters in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Ali public funeral on Friday in Louisville: spokesman

Bahraini security forces today captured 11 inmates who broke out of jail, leaving six others still on the run a day after their escape, the interior ministry said.
	The ministry said a total of 17 prisoners had broken out of Al-Hadd jail near the dry dock on the island of Muharraq, east of the capital Manama, late on Friday.
	Apart from 11 escapees, five accomplices were also arrested, it said, and a search was still under way for six other inmates aged 20 and 21.
	There was no immediate word on whether the prisoners were common criminals or political activists jailed in a sweeping five-year-old crackdown on dissent among the kingdom's Shiite majority.
	Bahrain's Akhbar Al-Khaleej newspaper had said earlier that around 20 prisoners escaped.
	"They managed to seize a bus and get away after assaulting warders and police and wounding several of them," the paper said.
	Police set up roadblocks on the causeways linking Muharraq to Bahrain's main island, where Manama is located, the paper ..

Bahrain jailbreak sparks manhunt

The United States today warned its citizens in South Africa of possibly imminent terror attacks by Islamic extremists in the country's major cities.
	"The US government has received information that terrorist groups are planning to carry out near-term attacks against places where US citizens congregate in South Africa, such as upscale shopping areas and malls in Johannesburg and Cape Town," the local embassy said on its website.
	The warning came against the background of the Islamic State group's "public call for its adherents to carry out terrorist attacks globally during the upcoming month of Ramadan," the embassy said.
	South Africa's foreign affairs ministry played down the threat.
	"The state security agency and other security agencies in this country are very much capable of keeping South Africa safe and everybody in this country, including Americans," spokesman Clayson Monyela was quoted as saying by local media.
	"The last time they did this, towards the end of last year, ...

US warns of terror attacks in South Africa

Ali public funeral on Friday in Louisville: spokesman.

Tens of thousands of people marched across downtown Warsaw today protesting against government policies they believe threaten democracy, as the country marked the 27th anniversary of its first taste of electoral freedom.
	Former presidents Bronislaw Komorowski and Aleksander Kwasniewski led the crowd -- of around 50,000 people according to city or 10,000 according to police -- as they chanted "Freedom! Equality! Democracy!" and waved EU and Polish flags.
	"I'm against this government. I didn't vote for it. I believe they're breaking laws," said Dorota Leszkowicz, a 61-year-old retired psychologist who turned up dressed in the EU member state's red and white colours.
	Poles also massed in several other cities to mark the semi-free elections on June 4, 1989 -- Poland's first dose of democracy that heralded the peaceful demise of communist rule.
	The rallies were organised by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD), a movement that sprung up in opposition to the policies adopted 

Thousands attend Polish pro-democracy rally

Mohamed Abdelaziz, leader of the Western Sahara independence movement Polisario Front who died of lung cancer this week, was buried on Saturday in the disputed territory.
	The 68-year-old Abdelaziz, who died on Tuesday, spent more than 40 years fighting for independence for the territory, and was buried in part of the Western Sahara not controlled by Morocco.
	A detachment of Polisario fighters presented arms to their former leader whose coffin was draped with the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which the movement proclaimed in 1976.
	Abdelaziz had been secretary general of the group for most of its decades-long struggle to win independence for the former Spanish colony, but succumbed to a "long illness" on Tuesday.
	On Friday, his body was displayed in a camp for Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf, 1,800 kilometres (1,120 miles) southwest of the Algerian capital Algiers, to allow delegations and dignitaries to pay homage.
	Algeria is the Polisario Front's main backer, and ...

W Sahara independence leader Abdelaziz buried

George Foreman no longer wonders why a devastating defeat at the hands of Muhammad Ali in the fabled Rumble in the Jungle of 1974 proved the catalyst for an enduring friendship.
	"Everybody falls in love with him, you can't help it," Foreman told CNN a day after the three-time heavyweight world champion Ali died in Arizona after battling Parkinson's disease for decades.
	Foreman and Ali are forever linked by that clash in Kinshasa, where Ali knocked out the previously unbeaten Foreman in the eighth round to regain the crown he hadn't held since being banned from boxing in 1967 for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War.
	Amid the tributes pouring in for Ali's principled stand, Foreman noted that 40 years ago, Ali's stance had made him a pariah.
	"Everybody turned on him," Foreman said. "I was doing an interview in Miami, Florida. He came into the gym and they turned the cameras off."
	The Supreme Court's reversal of Ali's draft evasion conviction gave him a second chance "and he was the 

Foreman recalls charismatic foe, and friend, Ali

Nigeria has in the past year recovered USD 580 million stolen from government coffers, the information minister said today, part of a fight against corruption instigated by President Muhammadu Buhari.
	Buhari, who marks one year in office on Sunday, has embarked on a widespread anti-corruption campaign although his critics accuse him of a political witch hunt.
	Dozens of politicians, former military top brass and other officials are currently on trial for corruption and money laundering running into hundreds of millions of dollars.
	Information Minister Lai Mohammed said in a statement that most of the recovered money was in foreign currency.
	The statement did not disclose the identities of most of the individuals, companies or groups from whom funds and items were recovered or seized.
	Mohammed said that Nigeria was still awaiting the return of hundreds of millions more, allegedly stashed in Britain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
	Nigeria has in recent 

Nigeria recovers USD 580 million in stolen funds

British boxer Amir Khan paid tribute to legendary fighter Muhammad Ali today, calling him the "people's champion" and saying Ali's life outside the ring had inspired him to help those in need.
     The WBC Silver welterweight title holder, currently in Pakistan to open a boxing academy and carry out charity work in the country's drought-hit south, said Ali's larger-than-life personality had earned him millions of fans around the globe.
     "I was always looking up to him. A great fighter, a guy who wasn't only just a fighter but also a great personality outside the boxing world as well," the 29-year-old told AFP.
	"He would say 'I'm gonna knock him out in the fourth round, and he used to do it in the fourth round. That's what I used to love about Muhammad Ali.'"
	Khan added that Ali's fighting style, which combined the speed and agility of a lightweight with the power of a heavyweight, had made him a unique fighter.
	"If you looked at the way he used to fight he was very very ...

Amir Khan says Muhammad Ali inspired his charity work

Russian-backed Syrian troops pushed into the Islamic State group's bastion province Raqa today, threatening to catch the jihadists in a pincer movement as US-backed Kurdish-led fighters advance from the north.
	The lightning advance from the southwest with Russian air support brought the army to within dozens of kilometres (miles) of the Euphrates Valley town of Tabqa, site of the country's biggest dam, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said.
	The dam, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) upstream from the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital Raqa city, is also the target of the Washington-backed offensive which Kurdish-led fighters launched late last month.
	It was the first time that government troops had entered Raqa province since they were ousted by IS in August 2014.
	Regular army troops were backed by militia newly trained by the regime's ally Russia, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
	He said the twin offensives which threaten to cut off IS-held Raqa from ...

Syria army thrusts into IS bastion as Kurds advance from north

Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen urged China to give its people more rights and "heal past wounds and pain" on the 27th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown today.
	Her remarks came after the island's first ever Tiananmen commemoration in parliament on Friday, as lawmakers urged the government to address human rights issues in its dealings with China.
	Ties with China have rapidly cooled since Tsai won the presidency in January, with Beijing highly distrustful of her traditionally independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
	Although Taiwan has been self-ruling since a split with the mainland in 1949 after a civil war, China still sees it as part of its territory.
	In her first comments on Tiananmen as Taiwan's leader, Tsai said China must be open about the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing, which by some estimates left more than 1,000 dead.
	The protests are branded a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" by Chinese authorities and many on the ..

Taiwan's Tsai urges China to heal Tiananmen pain

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned today Turkey would never accept charges the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against Armenians in World War I, saying the accusations were being used as "blackmail" against Ankara.
	In his most bitter reaction yet to the vote by the German parliament Thursday to recognise the killings from 1915 as genocide, Erdogan threatened to leave Europe "to its own worries" if such disputes were not resolved.
	"The issue here is not the Armenians.... The Armenian issue is used all over the world as a convenient blackmail against Turkey and has even started to be used as a stick," he said in a televised speech.
	"I am addressing the whole world. You may like it, you may not. Our attitude on the Armenian issue is clear from the beginning. We will never accept the accusations of genocide."
	He said that during World War I, what remained of the Ottoman Empire was "under siege from all sides" and "of course a number of measures were taken to restore order in ...

Turkey will never accept genocide 'blackmail': Erdogan

Thirty-two troops have been killed in a clash with Boko Haram fighters on Niger's border with Nigeria, Niger's defence ministry said today, one of deadliest tolls inflicted by the jihadists.
	In neighbouring Nigeria, the army meanwhile said it had killed 19 Boko Haram militants in separate fighting in northeast Borno state, while two soldiers suffered gunshot wounds.
	In the Niger fighting, "hundreds of assailants" attacked a military post in the Niger town of Bosso on Friday evening, the defence ministry said in a statement that gave a "provisional toll" of 30 Nigerien and two Nigerian soldiers killed and 67 wounded.
	"On the enemy's side, several dead and injured were taken away," the ministry said.
	"Boko Haram elements effectively took control of the town temporarily, but now they were dislodged," a security source said.
	Local resident and former MP Elhaj Aboubacar said: "They drove up at twilight, shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Great), they fired a lot of shots and torched many ..

32 troops killed in Niger clash with Boko Haram

A court in Turkey has sentenced a Turkish man to 108 years in jail for sexually assaulting at least eight Syrian children at a flagship refugee camp, reports said today.
	The 29-year-old man, identified only as Erdal E, worked as a cleaner at the tented refugee camp in Nizip in the southern Gaziantep province near the Syrian border.
	He was found guilty of sexually abusing eight children in the camp's toilets in exchange for payments of between 1.5 and five Turkish lira (USD 0.50-USD 1.70/0.45-1.50 euros), the Dogan news agency said.
	His defence had asked for his acquittal, saying an earlier confession to police had been made under duress.
	But the judges at the court in the southern city of Nizip rejected the arguments, sentencing him late yesterday to 108 years in jail. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 289 years.
	The camp, which is home to some 10,800 refugees, has been visited by international dignitaries and is adjacent to the Nizip container camp for Syrian refugees ...

AFP

AFP

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