Israeli warplanes hit the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers Hamas on Saturday after cross-border mortar fire by Palestinian militants, the Israeli army said.
Fighter aircraft hit "Hamas terror targets in the northern Gaza Strip," an army statement said.
"Among the targets were weapon storage facilities and an underground infrastructure used by the Hamas terror organisation," the English-language statement said.
There were no reports of casualties.
The strikes followed successive rounds of cross-border fire from Gaza on Friday and the launch of balloons fitted with incendiary devices into southern Israel.
Israel retaliated to Friday's first volley with tank fire on what an army statement called a "Hamas military post" in southern Gaza.
The latest uptick of violence came after US President Donald Trump enraged Palestinians with a controversial peace plan which would allow Israel to annex swathes of territory in the occupied West Bank.
But it has so far been  on nothing like the scale of ...

Israeli warplanes hit Hamas in Gaza after border fire

PTI Automatic

Macau is usually bustling with gamblers during China's Lunar New Year holiday but the flood of tourists has been reduced to a trickle this year as fears grow over a coronavirus that has killed almost 260 people.
The number of visitors to the world's largest casino hub has plunged nearly 80 percent in the past week, transforming the city into a shadow of its former self.
As the only place in China that allows gambling, the former Portuguese colony is normally a huge draw for people from other parts of the vast country.
But on the sixth day of the holiday, only several dozen people were seen at the usually teeming ruins of the 17th-century St Paul's church -- a tourist hotspot.
Most wore surgical masks as a preventative measure against the novel coronavirus, which has infected almost 12,000 people across the nation.
"Everyone is wearing a mask. It is not convenient to take pictures -- we dare not remove the masks," 23-year-old Wei I Ting, a tourist from Taiwan, told AFP.
Shotah Zhang, ..

China virus silences Macau's bustling casinos

Apple announced on Saturday the closure of its stores, corporate offices and contact centres in mainland China until February 9 due to the new coronavirus epidemic.
The company said in a statement that it had made the decision "out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts".

Apple closes China stores until Feb 9 due to virus

A leading Tanzanian politician who launched a crackdown on homosexuality has been banned from visiting the United States, the US State Department said.
In a statement dated Friday, the US said the sanctions on Paul Christian Makonda, the Regional Commissioner of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's economic capital, come amid Washington's growing concerns about basic freedoms in the East African nation.
"These actions against Paul Christian Makonda underscore our concern with human rights violations and abuses in Tanzania," the statement read.
Both Makonda and his wife, Mary Felix Massenge, are now barred from visiting the US.
"The Department of State is publicly designating Paul Christian Makonda... due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights, which include the flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons," the statement read.
"He has also been implicated in oppression of the political opposition, crackdowns on freedom of expression and association, ..

Tanzanian politican barred from US for rights 'violations'

Pakistan Saturday recalled all-rounder Faheem Ashraf and off-spinner Bilal Asif for the first Test against Bangladesh starting in Rawalpindi next week.
Ashraf, 26, showed a lot of promise in his debut Test against Ireland in 2018 when he scored 83 but then faced injury problems and was discarded after the South Africa tour in January last year.
Bilal, 34, played the last of his five Tests against New Zealand in December 2018 and was not selected last year.
Senior batsman Azhar Ali will lead the team.
Head coach and chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq said Ashraf did well in the domestic tournament final two months ago.
"We have this option of playing a pace bowling allrounder against Bangladesh and Ashraf took five wickets in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy final so we have selected him," said Misbah.
The first Test starts in Rawalpindi from February 7.
Bangladesh had agreed to tour Pakistan in three phases and after playing three Twenty20 internationals returned home earlier this week.
They will ...

Pakistan recall Ashraf, Bilal for Bangladesh Test

The Australian government on Saturday said it would bar non-citizens arriving from mainland China from entering the country under new measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said only "Australian citizens, Australian residents, dependents, legal guardians or spouses" would be permitted into the country from mainland China from Saturday.
"The arrangements are being put in place through our border authorities to ensure that that can be actioned," he added.
Border control authorities would be able to "step up" processes in the next 24 hours to screen those who had departed or transited through China, Morrison said.
"We're in fact operating with an abundance of caution in these circumstances. So Australians can go about their daily lives with confidence," Morrison told reporters.
"We're acting here in advance of many countries in terms of when similar types of arrangements are being put in place." The requirement of people arriving in ...

Australia to refuse entry to non-citizens arriving from China

China has flown two planeloads of its citizens back home to Hubei, the locked-down province at the centre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak where they were greeted by authorities in full-body protective suits.
A Xiamen Airlines charter flight from Bangkok touched down late Friday in the provincial capital Wuhan, where the infection is believed to have originated in a market that sold wild animals.
Health authorities in white, full-body protective gear stood by the cabin door as the plane's 73 passengers disembarked, smiling through face masks and waving to news photographers.
A second Xiamen flight landed soon afterwards carrying Hubei residents from Kota Kinabalu, a popular coastal tourist destination in Malaysia.
China's foreign ministry said earlier on Friday that the country would bring Wuhan residents back from overseas "as soon as possible" due to "the practical difficulties that Chinese citizens from Hubei, especially Wuhan, have faced overseas".
The move came after a more ...

China flies citizens home to virus-hit Wuhan

LeBron James spoke for everyone as the Los Angeles Lakers honoured the memory of franchise icon Kobe Bryant on Friday, delivering the simple message: "Not forgotten."
It was a night of ceremony and tears at Staples Center as the Lakers hosted the Portland Trail Blazers in their first NBA game since a helicopter crash claimed the lives of Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others on Sunday.
In the darkened arena, a purple-tinged spotlight picked out the two jerseys bearing Bryant's numbers of 8 and 24 hanging in the rafters.
Bouquets of red roses held open two courtside seats in honor of Bryant and Gianna, while yellow roses sculpted the numbers of 8 and 24 in massive arrangements on the court.
As Usher sang "Amazing Grace," a hush fell over the crowd.
Los Angeles Philharmonic cellist Ben Hong then played as a video montage of Bryant interviews, interspersed with on-court moments and intimate family pictures, was played on the massive scoreboard.
After a 24.2-second ...

'Not forgotten' - grieving Lakers honour Bryant

"King" Novak Djokovic has won all seven Australian Open finals he has contested, he is on a 12-match winning streak and will become world number one if successful in the Melbourne Park decider on Sunday.
Against those overwhelming odds, few are giving Dominic Thiem much of a chance to wrench the title from his iron grip and clinch a maiden Grand Slam.
But the Austrian, remarkably, is the one with the recent edge.
Djokovic is 6-4 in their career head-to-heads, but Thiem has won four of the last five.
Three of those were on his favoured clay, but he also came from a set down to beat the Serb on hardcourts at the ATP Finals in November.
Djokovic is the first to admit that the slick 26-year-old has successfully refined his game over the past 12 months to compete on all surfaces.
And he acknowledges it is just a matter of time before Thiem wins a Slam.
"I don't think he's really anymore 'next generation'. He's been around for many years. Now already he's an established top-five, top-10 ...

Can he topple 'king' Novak? Thiem looks for chinks in Djokovic's armour

The United Kingdom sent its fellow Security Council members an amended draft resolution on Libya Friday, calling for the withdrawal of mercenaries from the country, according to the text, seen by AFP.
The draft expresses the Council's "concern over the growing involvement of mercenaries in Libya," despite commitments made on January 19 at an international summit in Berlin, including "ceasing all support for and withdrawing all armed mercenary personnel."
The text also urged all member states "not to intervene in the conflict or take measures that exacerbate the conflict."
According to diplomats, Russia strongly opposes any mention of mercenaries in the text. No date has yet been set for a vote on the resolution.
Libya has been mired in chaos since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with two rival administrations vying for power.
The conflict deepened last year when military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who controls much of the south and east of ...

Amended UN draft resolution calls for withdrawal of mercenaries in Libya

French President Emmanuel Macron will pay his first visit to Poland on Monday in a bid to mend ties strained over Warsaw's controversial judicial reforms and its position on EU climate goals.
Controversial judicial reforms have put Poland's right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) government on a collision course with Brussels over rule of law violations.
At the same time, an agreement by EU leaders in December to try to make the bloc carbon neutral by 2050 was immediately undermined by Poland's refusal to implement the aim.
Macron's office said the trip, his first abroad this year, was aimed at "clarifying the French position on many European issues, opening up new areas of cooperation with a major EU partner and stressing the need to protect European democratic values."
Up to now, relations have been cool at best.
Macron in 2018 himself accused Poland's PiS government and Hungary's populist Premier Viktor Orban of "lying to their people" about the European Union's powers to ...

France's Macron sets sights on mending ties with Poland

Athletics coach Alberto Salazar, already banned four years for a range of doping offenses, was given a temporary suspension by the US Center for SafeSport on Friday, US media reported.
USA Today was among the outlets reporting that Salazar had been suspended for unspecified allegations of misconduct.
The move comes almost three months after former teenage athletics star Mary Cain said that she was "emotionally and physically abused" while training under Salazar with the Nike Oregon Project.
Cain, a high school prodigy who was tipped for middle-distance greatness, said in an op-ed in the New York Times in November that she was pressured into losing so much weight her menstrual cycle stopped, leading to five broken bones because of osteoporosis.
She said she suffered suicidal thoughts and began cutting herself as a result of the methods employed by Salazar and the Oregon Project staff.
It was not immediately clear if Cain's allegations led to the temporary suspension by SafeSport, which 

Salazar temporarily suspended by US SafeSport center

A scientific expedition to the Galapagos Islands has discovered a tortoise with a "strong" genetic link to a presumed-extinct subspecies made famous by the popular Lonesome George, national park officials said Friday.
George, the last known member of the Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii Pinta tortoise species, died in 2012 in captivity aged over 100 after refusing to provide any offspring.
The Galapagos National Parks (PNG) said the expedition had discovered a young, female specimen deemed "a high-importance find because it has a strong genetic component of the species 'Chelonoidis abingdonii.'"
She "could be a direct descendant of a pure individual, which could still be alive somewhere," the park said.
Park rangers and scientists from PNG and the Galapagos Conservancy found an additional 29 tortoises -- 11 males and 18 females -- that share part of their genetic makeup with the Chelonoidis niger Floreana subspecies, also thought to be extinct.
Researchers chose Wolf Volcano for their ...

Relative of extinct tortoise located in Galapagos

China's virus outbreak has forced the country's first badminton tournament of the 2020 world tour season to be postponed, organisers said Saturday.
The six-day China Masters was due to start on February 25 at Lingshui, in China's southern Hainan island.
But organisers "considered all necessary health, safety and logistical risks and... believe it is sensible to postpone the tournament at this time, said a statement from the Badminton World Federation.
Several players had already withdrawn from the competition, the BWF added.  The virus that first appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has resulted in 259 deaths and spread to more than two dozen other countries.
Beijing has taken extreme steps to stop the spread of the virus, including effectively quarantining more than 50 million people in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province.
Wuhan is scheduled to host the region's flagship badminton tour event, the Asia Championships, in April.
The BWF said it was too early to "make any final 

China Masters badminton postponed over virus outbreak

J B Holmes shot a blistering six-under 65 on Friday to seize a one-shot lead over first-round leader Wyndham Clark at the halfway stage of the USPGA Tour's Phoenix Open.
Holmes posted six birdies, one eagle and two bogeys to emerge with a 13-under total 129 at the TPC Scottsdale Stadium course in the Arizona desert.
"Hit it really good in the middle of the round," said Holmes, who won at Scottsdale in 2006 and 2008 for the first two of his five Tour titles.
"Didn't hit it quite as good toward the end, but putted really well and was able to make some birdies." Holmes is still looking for his first win since his final-round collapse at the British Open six months ago when he closed with an 87.
His last win came at the 2019 Genesis Open last February.
Holmes teed off on the 10th and it wasn't long before he got his putter going. He birdied three holes in a four hole stretch beginning at No. 13 then eagled the par-four 17 with a nice approach and a six foot putt to grab a share of the ...

American Holmes holds halfway lead at Phoenix Open

The Los Angeles Lakers faced a daunting emotional task on Friday as they returned to NBA action while honoring the memory of franchise icon Kobe Bryant.
The Lakers were hosting the Portland Trail Blazers at Staples Center arena in their first game since Bryant -- who won five NBA titles in a 20-year Lakers career -- died in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Bryant's 13-year-old daughter Gianna and two of her Mamba Academy basketball teammates were also among the nine people killed.
"It feels like the game is secondary," Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts admitted Friday morning as his team warmed up at Staples Center.
"Tonight's about Kobe Bryant." The Trail Blazers said Carmelo Anthony didn't travel with the team for personal reasons.
Anthony and Bryant became close when they played together on gold medal-winning US Olympic teams in 2008 and 2012 Anthony saying earlier this week that their friendship "was deeper than basketball."
Anthony played in Portland's game on Sunday, hours after ...

'No wrong emotions' as Lakers prepare to honor Bryant

On a hot summer's day in southern Uruguay, Graciela Martinez weighs her plastic waste before dropping it in a designated container by the beach.
In return, she'll receive some virtual money on her phone that she can use for discounts on purchases at restaurants or partnered shops.
It's part of a pilot environmental project called "Plasticoin" aimed at encouraging plastic recycling in the South American country.
"Our mission is to take care of the beach," said Juan Rivero, 34, a telecommunications technician who launched the fledgling project alongside 32-year-old industrial designer Nicole Wyaux.
Their test area is a popular seaside resort called Piriapolis.
Participants register online and then deposit their plastic waste at one of three collection points.
The minimum deposit is two pounds (one kilogram), for which participants are rewarded with 100-400 Plasticoins, depending on the type of waste: 100 for household waste, 200 for beach waste and 400 for microplastics of less than a ..

Uruguayan project uses virtual money to encourage plastic recycling

Cycling chiefs said Friday that from 2021 they will hand responsibility for anti-doping to the International Testing Agency (ITA), a non-profit body created with support of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Since 2008, the International Cycling Union (UCI) has worked with the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) on drugs issues.
The conditions of the transfer will be formalised in a contract to be ratified at the next meeting of the UCI steering committee from June 10 to 12, said a spokesman.
"The UCI has been one of the leading federations in the domain of anti-doping for a long time," said UCI president David Lappartient.
"The collaboration with the ITA will enable us to be stronger than ever in this sector and to thus bolster our defence of clean riders and the credibility of our competitions and all of our sport's stakeholders."
Friday's developments come in the wake of the 'Aderlass' scandal which erupted last year.
Professional cyclists suspended as a result of the ...

Cycling chiefs to switch anti-doping to new body in 2021

Yemen's Huthi rebels are in possession of new weapons similar to those produced in Iran, according to a UN report obtained by AFP on Friday, in potential violation of a UN arms embargo.
The crisis in Yemen pits the Iranian-backed Huthi rebels against government forces supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.
Some of the new weapons, which the rebels have possessed since 2019, "have technical characteristics similar to arms manufactured in the Islamic Republic of Iran," said the report, which was compiled by a panel of UN experts tasked with monitoring the embargo.
The panel didn't say whether the weapons were delivered to the Huthis directly by the Iranian government, which has repeatedly denied sending them arms.
"In addition to the previously known weapon systems, they used a new type of Delta-design uncrewed aerial vehicle and a new model of land attack cruise missile," the document said.
The weapons, as well as commercially available parts constituting some of the weapons, ...

Yemen's Huthi rebels in possession of new arms: UN report

A man died of carbon monoxide poisoning after a supermarket was torched in Chile's capital Friday, and another succumbed to injuries sustained in clashes with police, bringing the death toll in a new wave of unrest to four.
Protests that flared up in October -- initially over a rise in metro fares -- had appeared to have calmed down during the summer holidays in Chile.
But there has been a spike in violent protests this week.
A mob looted and then set fire to the supermarket in southern Santiago in the early hours of Friday.
When firefighters arrived they found a dead man aged 30 to 40 and two other people suffering from signs of asphyxiation.
He died from "asphyxiation by inhaling carbon monoxide," police chief Carolina Nunez told local media.
Another man died Friday, two days after being shot in the head during a protest near a police station in southern Santiago.
On Wednesday a young man died after being hit by a hijacked bus and a football fan was killed on Tuesday after he was ...

Fourth death as protests grow in Chile

Manchester United's late swoop for Nigerian international striker Odion Ighalo was the most striking move of a quiet transfer deadline day for Premier League clubs on Friday.
United looked set to miss out on cover for the injured Marcus Rashford when interest in Josh King was rebuffed by Bournemouth, but Ighalo, 30, will join on loan for the rest of the season from Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua.
The Red Devils were also responsible for the biggest move of the window with the signing of Portuguese international midfielder Bruno Fernandes for an initial 55 million euros (?47 million, $61 million) that could rise to 80 million euros in add-ons.
However, deals were difficult to do for even some of the world's richest clubs as Chelsea and Tottenham were frustrated in their search for a striker.
Total spending for the month by English clubs was marginally up from last season's ?180 million ($234 million), but well short of the record ?430-million outlay in 2018.
The mid-season window is ...

AFP

AFP

Page 168 - Afp