A Belgian terror cell with links to the Paris and Brussels attacks had acquired bomb-making chemicals before it was smashed by police last year, a judge said today at the opening of the trial of the cell's members.
	Seven men who went on trial today in a Brussels court were arrested after a deadly raid in the Belgian town of Verviers in January 2015 which exposed an alleged plot to kill police officers.
	Nine suspects who are still at large are being tried in their absence.
	The presiding judge, Pierre Hendrickx, said the police who raided the Verviers hideout discovered weapons, munitions and chemical products that could have been used to make four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of TATP.
	TATP is the highly volatile homemade explosives that Islamic State jihadists used in both the November 13 Paris attacks and the March 22 Brussels bombings.
	Hendrickx listed the chemicals as five litres (1.3 gallons) of bleach, 15 litres of acetone and 12 litres of hydrogen peroxide. He said police also ...

Belgian jihadist plotters 'had bomb chemicals'

PTI Automatic

Canadian mining company Lucara Diamond today announced the sale of a huge 813 carat diamond for a record USD 63 million (55 million euros), ahead of the sale of an even bigger one.
	The sale of the massive "Constellation" diamond was "the highest price ever achieved for a rough diamond, breaking all records," CEO William Lamb said in a statement.
	The name of the buyer for the diamond, discovered in Botswana, was not divulged, nor the conditions of the sale overseen by Nemesis International.
	The record is unlikely to last very long. Lucara is preparing to auction an even larger 1,109 carat diamond at Sotheby's in London on June 29.
	Lucara shares had soared by 8.58 percent by mid-afternoon on the Stockholm market. The key shareholder in the Canadian company is the Swedish Lundin family.

Massive uncut diamond fetches 'record USD 63 million'

A feminist author hit back today at Pakistan for censoring her article on Muslim women and sex, saying the ban exposed the depth of gender discrimination in the deeply conservative Islamic country.
	Egyptian-American Mona Eltahawy, an award-winning journalist who is a vocal public speaker on women's rights, penned a opinion column entitled "Sex Talk for Muslim Women" that ran in Friday's edition of the International New York Times.
	The article was available online in Pakistan, but the newspaper version, published by the local Express Tribune, featured a blank spot in the opinion pages where Eltahawy's article had been.
	Eltahawy told AFP that the decision to ban her article exposes that authorities think a woman "who claims ownership over her body is dangerous... And must be silenced".
	"You can't afford to publish such controversial articles about Islam," a senior source at the Express Tribune told AFP on condition of anonymity when asked about Eltahawy's article.
	In the piece, ...

Writer slams Pakistan for censoring her article on sex, Muslim

Internet giant Baidu, China's equivalent of Google, must change how it displays search results, regulators said today, following an outcry over the death of a student whose family used it to seek a cancer cure.
	The ruling by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) calls into question the business model of Baidu, which is quoted on the Nasdaq exchange in New York and has a market capitalisation of more than USD 60 billion, even after it fell heavily in the wake of the scandal.
	Wei Zexi, 21, had already been diagnosed with a terminal soft tissue disease when his relatives used the search engine to find an experimental immunotherapy treatment at a Beijing hospital run by the armed police force.
	Before he died, Wei denounced the firm online as "evil" and warned other cancer patients "not to be cheated" in comments that went viral, drawing an onslaught of criticism against Baidu.
	"Baidu's mechanism for ranking paid results depends too heavily on price paid and does not clearly ...

Chinese search giant's model 'misleading': regulator

At least 81 people including firefighters suffered minor injuries today when a fire spread quickly through a commercial area in downtown Cairo, Egyptian officials said.
	The fire erupted overnight in a small hotel in the Al-Mosky neighbourhood, not far from the Al-Azhar mosque, and moved rapidly to four nearby buildings, police told AFP.
	The buildings included warehouses containing plastic materials which helped the fire to spread.
	The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
	By midday it had been brought under control, Cairo fire chief Gamal Halawa said, adding that 16 firefighters and police had suffered from smoke inhalation.
	Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said a total of 81 people had received minor injuries, with an ambulance official saying most had suffered from smoke inhalation or bruises, not from burns.

At least 81 injured in downtown Cairo fire

An Emirati court today ordered a self-proclaimed local leader of the Islamic State group jailed for life for plotting a series of attacks, media reported.
	The court in Abu Dhabi convicted Emirati Mohammed al-Hashemi, 34, of plotting attacks on the city's Formula 1 circuit and its branch of Swedish furniture chain Ikea, as well as planning to assassinate an unspecified Emirati leader, daily The National reported.
	Hashemi's wife, also an Emirati, was executed in July for the jihadist-inspired December 2014 murder of an American school teacher in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall, one month after her husband's arrest.
	The National quoted a witness as telling the court that Hashemi had "appointed himself" an "emir" of the jihadist group and had also, according to prosecution documents, donated some 80,000 dirhams (USD 21,800) to Al-Qaeda.
	With his wife, he had "planned terrorist attacks in the country in retaliation for the UAE's stance against ISIL," the newspaper quoted prosecutors as ...

UAE jails self-proclaimed local IS leader for life: report

Andy Murray and Amelie Mauresmo announced today that they had mutually agreed to end the Frenchwoman's two-year stint as coach of the two-time major champion.
     Under Mauresmo's tutelage, Briton Murray won seven titles, including his first two on clay, and reached the final of the Australian Open in 2015 and 2016.
     "Working with Andy over the last two years has been a fantastic experience for me," said Mauresmo in a joint statement with Murray on her Facebook page.
     "I've thoroughly enjoyed being part of the great team of people he has around him. Dedicating enough time along with the travel has been a challenge for me. I wish him and team well and I hope he goes on to win many more titles."
     Mauresmo, who is a former world number one and also a two-time Grand Slam champion, took over as Murray's coach in June 2014, after the player and Czech Ivan Lendl decided to part ways.
     She took some time off last summer whilst pregnant with her son, with Swede Jonas Bjorkman .

Mauresmo and Murray announce coaching split

North Korea's secretive ruling party briefly opened up to the world's media today, as a confident-looking Kim Jong-Un took centre stage at its rare top-level gathering.
	Foreign journalists invited to cover the Workers' Party congress - the first for 36 years - had previously got no closer than 200 metres from the April 25 Palace, where some 3,400 delegates began meeting last Friday.
	Today some of the 130 reporters invited to North Korea specifically to cover the event actually made it into the meeting, albeit for just five minutes.
	The media invitation was not unique - journalists were allowed into the last congress in 1980, before Kim was born - but still rare for a nation which opens up only selectively.
	The spectacle inside the palace was gripping political theatre.
	Thousands of serious-looking men - plus the occasional woman - in sober suits, along with servicemen weighed down by chests-full of medals, occupied row after row of red seats in the cavernous hall.
	As music ...

Secretive N Korean party opens up - for five minutes

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today expressed hope a deal set to grant Turks visa-free travel to the EU's passport-free Schengen area would help accelerate Turkey's long-running membership bid to join the bloc.
	"I hope that the visa exemption... Will constitute a positive step in fulfilling the promises made and speed up the accession process," Erdogan said in a statement, reaffirming EU membership as a "strategic goal" for Ankara.
	Erdogan's message, marking Europe Day, came after he warned Brussels Friday that Turkey would not modify an anti-terror law for the sake of the deal with the bloc on visa-free travel.
	Turkey struck a deal with the EU in March to curb the flow of migrants into Europe in exchange for a range of incentives, including easing visa requirements for Turks.
	Turkey is obliged to complete the remaining five out of 72 criteria for its citizens to be allowed to travel visa-free to the Schengen area.
	According to the plan, Turks will benefit from the new travel ...

Erdogan wants visa-free travel to hasten Turkey EU membership

Saudi Binladin Group, which has laid off tens of thousands of employees because of financial difficulties, said it has begun paying delayed wages to its remaining staff.
	"We managed to finalise the payment for about 10,000 employees," Yaseen Alattas, the firm's chief communications officer, told AFP.
	He added that the measure was made in coordination with Saudi Arabia's labour ministry, and "we will do the same for the remaining batches" of workers when cash is flowing "from our clients", which means the government.
	Sources in March told AFP that delayed receipts from the government, whose oil revenues have dropped significantly over the past two years, have left employees of the kingdom's construction giants struggling while they wait for salaries.
	Saudi Binladin Group was also suspended by the government from new public contracts after a deadly crane accident in Mecca last September.
	Staff at another Saudi construction giant, Saudi Oger Ltd, have also complained of unpaid ...

Saudi Binladin Group says delayed wages paid to 10,000 staff

A deputy speaker of France's parliament, Denis Baupin, resigned his post today over sexual harassment allegations, some dating back more than 15 years, which he vehemently denies.
	Baupin, formerly of the ecologist EELV party, who is married to Housing Minister Emmanuelle Cosse, denies all the allegations made by four women from the party and will sue them for defamation, his lawyer said.
	Parliament speaker Claude Bartolone had summoned Baupin, who is one of the parliament's six deputy speakers, earlier today and "asked him to resign as deputy speaker," the National Assembly said in a statement.
	The four women made the accusations against Baupin to French media.
	One accuser, Sandrine Rousseau, told the Mediapart website and France Inter radio that Baupin made an aggressive pass at her in October 2011 during a party meeting near Paris.
	"At one point I wanted to take a break," she said. "Denis Baupin appeared in the corridor outside... He pinned me against the wall with his chest ...

French deputy speaker quits in sexual harassment scandal

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann quit today, bowing to intense pressure two weeks after the opposition anti-immigration far-right dealt his coalition a historic blow in the first round of presidential elections.
	The centre-left Faymann, 56, chancellor since 2008, said in a statement that he no longer had "strong backing" in his party, the Social Democrats (SPOe).
	"As a result of this insufficient support I am drawing the consequences and resign my functions as party leader and chancellor, effective today," he said.
	The SPOe and its coalition partner since 2008, the centre-right People's Party (OeVP), have dominated Austrian politics since World War II but their support has been sliding in recent years.
	At the last general election, in 2013, they only just scratched together a majority, and polls suggest doing so again at the next scheduled vote in 2018 will be difficult.
	Mirroring similar trends across Europe, the two main parties have been bleeding support to fringe groups, in 

Austrian chancellor quits after far-right triumph

Ukraine's pro-Russian rebels today commemorated the former Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany by parading tanks and other heavy weapons banned under a fragile truce.
	The eastern insurgents' de facto capital of Donetsk saw more than 10,000 people swarm along the main street of the shattered industrial hub to remember the victims of what Russia calls The Great Patriotic War.
	The industrial hub - home to nearly one million before the revolt against the pro-Western leadership in Kiev erupted two years ago - was awash in the orange and black ribbons adopted as a symbol of patriotism in Russia.
	"I promise that we will win. We will persevere and win," Donetsk separatist chief Aleksander Zakharchenko declared after modern tanks and Russian-made Grad multiple-rocket launcher systems rumbled past a seated group of decorated war veterans.
	One Katyusha rocket launcher used during World War II was engraved with a sign reading "For Stalin" - the Soviet dictator who has gained hero status .

Ukraine rebels parade banned weapons on Victory Day

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Monday announced a new pre-season North v South tournament in the United Arab Emirates featuring selected players from the County Championship.
	The first three-match series will take place in Abu Dhabi next March, with two more series to take place over the following two years.
	In a novel element, the Professional Cricketers' Association's (PCA) Most Valuable Player ranking system will be used to select five members on each team, drawn from counties in England's north and south.
	"This is a good opportunity for England, domestic players and the game," ECB managing director Andrew Strauss told a press conference in London.
	"Finding the best players outside the current England set-up, playing them against each other in overseas conditions and placing them in an England environment will help us see if they're ready for international cricket.
	"As a player you always like to see how you rank. It gives you recognition and here it comes with ..

England announce North v South series

An unprecedented exhibition of bizarre and nightmarish works by Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch has drawn record crowds, organisers said today, half a millennium after they were painted.
	"Hieronymus Bosch - Visions of Genius" wrapped up yesterday in the southern Dutch town of Den Bosch with more than 421,000 people visiting over the last three months.
	"It was easily the best visited exhibition in the almost 180-year history of the Noordbrabants Museum," the museum said in a statement.
	A feature-length film about the event is set to screen next year in more than 2,000 cinemas in 42 countries across the world.
	Seventeen of the artist's surviving 24 paintings and 19 of his 20 drawings were gathered in a major coup for the tiny museum in the town where Bosch lived.
	"Never before had so many works of Hieronymus Bosch come back to 'his' city, Den Bosch, the place where the paintings were created more than 500 years ago," the museum said.
	The exhibition's opening kicked off a year of ...

Bosch paintings draw record crowds, 500 years on

The politically charged trial began today of an Israeli soldier accused of shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground.
	The head of the military court's three-judge panel read out the manslaughter indictment to Elor Azaria, who was clad in his uniform and surrounded by family in the cramped courtroom, an AFP journalist said.
	The 19-year-old soldier also faces charges of conduct unbecoming before the court in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv.
	He stated his military ID number and said "I do" when asked if he understood the charges.
	Azaria, who also holds French citizenship, shot dead the 21-year-old Palestinian on March 24 in the city of Hebron, in the south of the occupied West Bank.
	In a video that was widely circulated following the incident, the Palestinian Abdul Fatah al-Sharif is shown lying on the ground along with another man after being shot and wounded. He had minutes earlier allegedly stabbed and moderately wounded a soldier, according to the ...

Trial opens for Israeli soldier who shot wounded Palestinian

Michel Platini quit as the head of European football today after a sports tribunal rejected his final appeal against his ban from football over a suspect USD 2.0 million payment he received from FIFA.
     The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), where Platini filed an appeal against his ban in February, reduced his suspension from six years to four, saying the penalty initially imposed by FIFA's ethics committee was "too severe."
     But the court said it was "not convinced" that the USD 2.0 million (1.8 million euros) payment Platini received from FIFA in 2011 was legitimate.
     The payment was ordered by FIFA's disgraced ex-president Sepp Blatter, who was also brought down over the infamous transaction.
     The pair are the highest-profile casualties in an unprecedented set of corruption scandals within world football, which has seen dozens of long-serving FIFA executives arrested and charged with corruption.
     Platini, once the front-runner to succeed Blatter at FIFA and ..

Platini loses appeal, quits UEFA presidency

France will create centres in each region of the country to de-radicalise people or prevent them becoming involved in jihadist groups, the prime minister said today as he laid out new anti-terror measures.
	"The fight against jihadism is without doubt the big challenge of our generation," Manuel Valls said, flanked by the interior and justice ministers.
	The plan, which will cost an additional 40 million euros (USD 45.5 million) by 2018 on top of the current funding, aims to double existing efforts to try to help people already in jihadist networks or those likely to join such groups.
	Valls said the first de-radicalisation centre could be set up by this summer.
	The measures are a response to the deaths of 147 people in jihadist attacks in France last year.
	Jihadist gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper and a Jewish supermarket in January 2015, killing 17 people, and then 130 people were killed in coordinated attacks on the capital claimed by the ...

France to create regional 'de-radicalisation' centres: PM

Kim Jong-Un becomes North Korea ruling party chairman.

Russia today staged a grandiose military parade through Moscow's Red Square as part of nationwide celebrations to mark 71 years since the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
	Some 10,000 troops, tanks and nuclear missile systems swept across Red Square's cobblestones in front of President Vladimir Putin, senior officials and a handful of war veterans.
	Putin addressed the troops, congratulating them on a holiday that traditionally unites Russians across political divides.
	The Kremlin strongman also took the opportunity to call for the international community to unite in the fight against global terrorism.
	"We must overcome this evil, and Russia is open to uniting forces with other states, it is ready to work on the creation of a modern, non-aligned international security system," Putin said.
	The parade on Red Square also saw military aircraft, including Su-35 fighter jets Russia uses in its bombing campaign in war-torn Syria, swoop over Moscow in a resounding .

Russia marks WWII victory anniversary with military parade

Chinese state-run media today played down North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's pledge not to use nuclear weapons unless his country's sovereignty is threatened, saying that his pursuit of atomic arms remained dangerous.
	Beijing is Pyongyang's main diplomatic protector and source of trade and aid, but relations between them have become increasingly strained by the North's nuclear ambitions, and Kim has yet to visit his neighbour.
	The North's first ruling party congress in nearly 40 years formally endorsed Kim's policy of expanding the country's nuclear arsenal, after he said it would not use the weapons unless attacked, and would work for global denuclearisation.
	But the international community and the United Nations have long demanded an end to the North's nuclear and missile programmes.
	Kim's declaration "was made from the perspective that North Korea is now a nuclear state", China's Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist party, said in an editorial.
	As ...

AFP

AFP

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