The United States soon will deploy F-22 Raptors in Europe, sending the stealth fighter jets to reassure NATO partners concerned about Russia's actions in Ukraine, a Pentagon official has said	.
	Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James did not offer specifics about where or when the single-seat jets would be deployed, citing operational security reasons. James also would not say how many of the planes would be deployed.
	The deployment comes at the request of commanders in the region, she said yesterday, adding that F-22 pilots will train with NATO partners.
	The F-22 was designed for air-to-air combat - attacking other warplanes - but also is capable of ground attacks.
	The US Air Force has about 180 F-22s, which became operational in 2005. They have been used in US-led coalition strikes on the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

US to deploy F-22 Raptor fighter jets in Europe

PTI Automatic

Manchester United are looking to complete the job over Club Brugge in their Champions League play-off second leg tomorrow while Italy's Lazio may have slightly more to do to secure a place in the group stages.
     The English Premier League giants have a two-goal lead to take to Belgium after a 3-1 win at Old Trafford last Tuesday, while Lazio have a slender 1-0 advantage for their second leg against Bayer Leverkusen in Germany.
	A 2-0 win for Brugge at the Jan Breydelstadion would be enough to take them through at United's expense (on the away goals rule), but United -- three-time winners of the Champions League -- are confident after Marouane Fellaini's late third goal in the first leg.
	"It (Fellaini's goal) makes a difference because 2-1 is a very difficult result," said United boss Louis Van Gaal after the victory last Tuesday.
	Brugge boss Michel Preud'homme, on the other hand, was less optimistic after conceding the third goal in Manchester.
	"This last goal was very bad for ..

Man Utd and Lazio aim for Champions League group stage

English driver Justin Wilson was declared dead yesterday after suffering a severe head injury during an IndyCar race in Pennsylvania, plunging the sport into mourning and triggering calls for a review of safety measures.
     Wilson, 37, had been in a coma since Sunday, when a large piece of debris from another racer's car struck his helmet on the final laps of the "Tricky Triangle" of Pocono Raceway in the penultimate race of the season.
	Friends and loved ones of the Sheffield-born racer had flown to be at his bedside at Lehigh Valley Health Network Cedar Crest Hospital in Allentown earlier yesterday before his death was announced.
     "This is a monumentally sad day for IndyCar and the motorsports community as a whole," said Mark Miles, chief executive of the parent company which runs IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
     "Justin's elite ability to drive a race car was matched by his unwavering kindness, character and humility -- which is what made him one of the most .

IndyCar driver Justin Wilson dead

Tokyo's benchmark index rebounded sharply this morning as a measure of calm returned to the market after five days of falls driven by fears Chinese growth is stalling.
	The Nikkei 225 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which plunged more than four per cent at the open, added 1.10 per cent, or 204.22 points, to sit at 18,744.90 by the break.
	The broader Topix index of all first-section shares jumped 1.46 per cent, or 21.66 points, to 1,502.53, also clawing back big losses.
	The Nikkei yesterday plunged more than four per cent to close at a six-month low.
	Tokyo investors pressed the sell button again after the opening bell today, but late morning bargain buying helped push stocks back into the black as other Asian markets also recovered.
	"Valuations have gotten quite cheap and technically speaking we've seen a very significant selloff," Toshihiko Matsuno, chief strategist at SMBC Friend Securities, told Bloomberg News.
	David McDonald, an investment strategist at Credit Suisse Group AG's ..

Tokyo shares jump back into the black after sharp losses

Hong Kong stocks fell 0.67 per cent in early trade today, continuing a rout in world equities markets that have been battered by mounting concerns over global growth.
	The benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped 142.86 points to 21,108.71 in opening deals.

Hong Kong stocks open 0.67% lower

England have rested Ashes-winning star batsman Joe Root from their squads for both the upcoming lone Twenty20 international and five one-day internationals agaisnt Australia announced yesterday.
     Root, the Ashes player of the series after his 460 runs played a central role in England's 3-2 win over the five Tests, has been a key player in all three international formats in recent times.
	But with England facing tough Test series away to Pakistan and South Africa later this year, England's selectors have decided to give the 24-year-old a break from international duty.
	Also omitted are senior bowlers James Anderson, currently out with a side strain, and Stuart Broad, whose stunning eight for 15 at his Trent Bridge home ground saw Australia skittled out for 60 in the third Ashes Test.
	Neither Anderson nor Broad have played a 50-over one-day international since this year's World Cup, which Australia won on home soil.
    	Test skipper Alastair Cook, dropped from England's squad ...

England rest Root for Australia T20 and ODIS

One of the charms of Test cricket is that a match scheduled to last five days allows for the possibility of a fightback, even if a team falls behind early on.
     It was a charm, however, completely lacking from the 2015 Ashes, which ended with England winning the five-match series 3-2 despite Australia's innings and 46-run win in the concluding Test at The Oval on Sunday.
     This Ashes equalled in length the shortest five-Test series of modern times of 18 days that took place when England played the West Indies in 2000.
	The fifth day wasn't needed in any of the matches, with the nearest thing to a 'close' contest, England's 169-run win in the series opener in Cardiff.
	Prior to the series both sides spoke about their intention to play aggressive cricket.
	It became such an ingrained mantra, it was almost as if the thought of playing out a maiden filled some batsmen with a sense of dread.
    	Australia rectified their approach at The Oval, where their opening boundary did not ...

Ashes to dashes as England and Australia fail Test exam

The US expects to accept between 5,000 and 8,000 Syrian refugees in 2016, officials have said.
	State Department spokesman John Kirby also said yesterday that 15,000 Syrian refugees have been referred to the US for resettlement by the UN refugee agency.
	In December, Washington had said it had received 9,000 referrals from the UN.
	It had also previously said it would admit between 1,000 to 2,000 Syrian refugees in fiscal year 2015, and increase that number by a few thousand in fiscal year 2016.
	The United States has been criticised for not taking more of the estimated four million refugees fleeing the civil war that began in 2011.
	Kirby argued that the US was a "leader" in terms of accepting refugees and contributing financially to resettlement efforts, but that this work was "not the metric of success here."
	"And so, what we're really committed to is helping to foster the kind of political transition inside Syria, so that it is a safe environment for Syrian people to return, ...

US to welcome 5,000 to 8,000 Syrian refugees in 2016

Nicaraguan officials and activists have called on the United States to cancel the execution in Texas later this week of Bernardo Tercero, the only Nicaraguan national on death row in the US.
	Tercero is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection tomorrow for killing high school English teacher Robert Berger while robbing a Houston dry cleaning business in 1997.
	The impending execution has sparked protests in Nicaragua, which abolished capital punishment in 1979, when the leftist Sandinista rebels came to power.
	"For us here in Nicaragua, where we don't have the death penalty and embrace a spirit of humanitarianism and solidarity, it seems pathetic to be on the verge of a Nicaraguan citizen's execution," said the country's ambassador yesterday to the Organization of American States, Denis Moncada.
	Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has been pleading for clemency for Tercero with US officials "at the highest level," including President Barack Obama, Moncada told Channel Two ...

Nicaragua pleads with US to call off execution

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that he was appalled by reports that Islamic State militants had demolished a temple in Syria's ancient Palmyra.
	IS fighters packed explosives in the Baal Shamin temple and blew up the shrine on Sunday, Syria's antiquities chief said.
	Ban also voiced outrage over the murder of Khaled al-Assaad, the retired chief archaeologist at Palmyra whose body was mutilated after he was beheaded on August 18.
	"These barbaric acts of terror join a long list of crimes committed over the past four years in Syria against its civilian population and heritage," Ban said in a statement yesterday.
	Palmyra is listed as a world heritage site by the UN cultural body UNESCO, and Ban recalled that destroying world cultural sites was a war crime.
	The UN chief called on world governments to "unite and act swiftly to put a stop to this terrorist activity.

UN chief appalled by 'barbaric' attacks in Palmyra

A group of wildfires blazing in the western US state of Washington have become the largest in the state's history, officials have said.
	The so-called Okanogan complex of wildfires in the north-central part of the state has already surpassed last year's record-breaking Carlton fires, US Forest Service fire spokesman Mike Ferris told AFP yesterday.
	The Okanogan fire had grown to more than 250,000 acres (104,000 hectares) yesterday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which said the blaze was only 10 percent contained.
	Three firefighters were killed battling a portion of the Okanogan fire last week and 1,250 people are currently helping quell the blaze.
	Statewide, 16 large wildfires have ravaged 600,000 acres, destroyed 200 homes and are threatening another 12,000 residences, according to a statement from Washington Governor Jay Inslee.
	That combined damage makes the current fires "certainly the most severe in terms of timing of multiple large fires ...

Fires in US state of Washington largest in its history

Oil prices sank today, with the US crude benchmark finishing below USD 40 a barrel for the first time in six years on worries about China's weakening economy after an equities sell-off.
	US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for October delivery dropped USD 2.21 to USD 38.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its first below-USD 40 close since February 2009.
	Brent North Sea crude for October, the international benchmark, plummeted USD 2.80 to USD 42.69 a barrel in London, its lowest level since March 2009.
	"The petroleum markets are extending last week's decline along with global equity markets today as worries over slowing Chinese economic growth intensified," said Tim Evans, energy markets strategist at Ciri Futures.
	Financial markets endured one of their worst days since the 2008 financial crisis, starting with a rout in Asian bourses on mounting fears that China's slowing economy will drag down the global economy with it. European and US stocks joined the sharp .

US oil finishes below USD 40 for first time since 2009

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today applauded an agreement between North and South Korea to defuse a military standoff, saying momentum from the deal could help manage other problems on the divided peninsula.
	The agreement, announced today, followed a rare artillery exchange over the Korean border last week in which North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un order his frontline troops onto war-footing.
	"I warmly welcome the news of an agreement reached between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea today," Ban said in a statement.
	He voiced hope that the agreement to hold regular talks "will serve as a mechanism to effectively manage any problems that may arise on the Korean peninsula."
	In the agreement, the North expressed regret over landmine blasts that had maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South agreed to conditionally halt broadcasts of propaganda over the border -- the two main triggers of last week's standoff.
	Ban, who served as South Korean ...

UN chief welcomes deal to defuse Korea standoff

A Hamas military court in the Gaza Strip today sentenced a Palestinian to death for allegedly providing information to Israel said to have led to Palestinians being killed, judicial sources said.
	The 28-year-old man was identified only by the initials N.A. And no other details on the accusations against him were provided by Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Palestinian territory which has seen three wars with Israel in six years.
	According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 157 people have been sentenced to death in the occupied territories since the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994.
	Thirty-two have been executed, including 30 in the Gaza Strip.
	All execution orders must in theory be approved by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas before they can be carried out, but Hamas no longer recognises his legitimacy.
	In Gaza, beyond death sentences handed out by courts, Hamas has also carried out summary executions for collaborating with Israel, sometimes in 

Palestinian sentenced to death for giving info to Israel

Iran-backed rebels in Yemen fired rockets into a residential district of Taez, killing 14 civilians, mostly women and children, officials said today, as battles raged for control of the key city.
	The bodies of those killed, including seven women and four children, were taken overnight to the morgue at a public hospital in Taez, said the medical officials.
	Several other civilians were wounded and hospitalised.
	The Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies had fired Katyusha rockets on Sunday targeting the district in central Taez, according to medics and residents.
	Viewed as the key to controlling the capital Sanaa, Taez has been the scene of deadly fighting between the rebels and loyalists of Yemen's exiled government.
	Battles in the city, southwest of Sanaa, have intensified in recent weeks as loyalists pressed an offensive in which they have so far recaptured five southern provinces.
	Pro-government forces claim to control "75 per cent" of the city, including the presidential palace 

Rebel rockets kill 14 civilians in Yemen city: medics

Sepp Blatter defended FIFA's battered reputation today as the outgoing president insisted he is clean and there is no systemic corruption at world football's governing body.
	Blatter will officially step down in February amid two criminal investigations into the allegations of bribery and corruption at FIFA.
	Seven FIFA officials, including the now suspended vice president and executive committee member, Jeffrey Webb, were among 14 people accused by the US justice department in May of taking bribes of more than USD 150 million (129 million euros).
	The bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, controversially awarded by FIFA to Russia and Qatar respectively, are also being probed by authorities in the United States and Switzerland.
	Blatter, who has been FIFA president since 1998, was elected for a fifth term in May, but then shocked football by standing down as the corruption scandal intensified.
	But the 79-year-old Swiss remains adamant he has done nothing wrong, claiming FIFA had ...

Football: I'm clean and FIFA isn't corrupt says Blatter

Microsoft said today its Cortana virtual assistant software was available to users of Android mobile devices.
	Cortana is Microsoft's answer to Apple's Siri and Google Now, which respond to voice commands on mobile devices.
	The launch is part of an effort by Microsoft to expand its mobile presence despite a weak showing for its Windows Phone devices.
	"The Cortana app can do most of the things Cortana does on your PC or on a Windows phone," Microsoft's Susan Hendrich said in a blog post.
	"With the app, you can manage your hectic lifestyle by setting and getting reminders, searching the web on-the-go, tracking important information such as flight details as well as starting and completing tasks across all of your devices."
	A beta version of Cortana is being made available as of today to US users of Android devices, and "we are planning to roll it out to other markets," Hendrich said.
	Microsoft said in May it was working on the Android version as well as another for Apple ...

Microsoft's Cortana assistant launched on Android

Greek stocks plunged more than 10 per cent today, succumbing to a Chinese-led rout on global markets and domestic political uncertainty ahead of likely elections next month.
	The ATHEX exchange closed with a 10.54-per cent loss, falling to 568.38 points -- a three-year low. About a half hour before the close, it was down 11.3 perc ent.
	Politics have dampened market sentiment as a new eurosceptic party set up by rebels from the ruling Syriza party was given a three-day mandate to form a government following the resignation of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras last week.
	The Greek banking index fell over 22 per cent and the top four banks lost between 21.7 and 26.5 per cent, near the maximum allowed daily drop of 30 per cent.
	Over a dozen blue chip stocks including construction firms, telecoms giant OTE and main electricity provider PPC, suffered two-digit drops.
	Six months of confrontational talks between Greece and its EU-IMF creditors before a bailout deal was reached on July 13 ...

Greek stocks plunge more than 10 per cent

The Swiss justice ministry will rule next month on the extradition requests filed by the United States against six FIFA officials who have been accused of corruption, a spokesman said today.
	Swiss police detained seven executives from world football's governing body in Zurich in May, as part of a massive probe into graft at FIFA launched by the US justice department.
	Jeffrey Webb, a native of the Cayman Islands and an ex-FIFA vice president, agreed to face charges in the US and was extradited last month.
	"The decisions (against the remaining six) are expected in September," Folco Galli, spokesman for the Switzerland's Federal Office of Justice, told AFP.
	The ruling with respect to one of the accused -- the former head of the Nicaraguan Football Federation, Julio Rocha -- stands apart, as Rocha has agreed to be extradited to his home country, where he also faces charges of using his office to solicit bribes.
	But, the Swiss authorities will take no action until US officials agree ..

Switzerland says will rule on FIFA extraditions next month

North and South Korea today wrapped up marathon talks aimed at defusing a crisis that pushed the two rivals to the brink of armed conflict.
	There was no immediate official word on the outcome, but the South's Yonhap news agency said both sides had reached agreement, with the North voicing "regret" for recent provocations, and the South conditionally undertaking to halt loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts into North Korea.
	The presidential Blue House in Seoul said the South's lead negotiator, National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-Jin, would announce the formal result of the talks at 2:00 am (1700 GMT).
	The negotiations were aimed at ending a dangerous military stand-off which triggered a rare artillery exchange over the border last week, after which North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un ordered his frontline troops onto a war-footing.
	The talks in the border truce village of Panmunjom had begun early Saturday evening, shortly after the passing of a North Korean deadline for Seoul to halt ...

North, South Korea end marathon crisis talks

Apple is still seeing "strong growth" in China despite fears about an economic slowdown which have sparked a global market rout, chief executive Tim Cook said today.
	Cook responded to a query from CNBC about the sharp drop in Apple shares amid the market upheaval in China and around the world.
	"As you know, we don't give mid-quarter updates and we rarely comment on moves in Apple stock. But I know your question is on the minds of many investors," Cook wrote to CNBC's Jim Cramer in an email released by the cable channel.
	Cook noted that he gets updates daily on Apple activity in China "including this morning, and I can tell you that we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August."
	He said that "growth in iPhone activations has actually accelerated over the past few weeks, and we have had the best performance of the year for the App Store in China during the last two weeks."
	Cook added: "Obviously I can't predict the future, but our .

AFP

AFP

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