Ash spewing from an Indonesian volcano closed Bali airport again today just a day after it reopened, causing fresh travel chaos for weary holidaymakers stranded on the holiday island.
	Mount Raung on the main island of Java has been erupting for weeks, and on Thursday a cloud of drifting ash forced the closure of Bali airport during peak holiday season, and four others.
	The airport at Bali, a top international holiday destination that attracts millions of foreign tourists every year, reopened yesterday as the ash drifted away, allowing some passengers to board flights home and others to arrive.
	But today morning, the transport ministry announced wind had once again pushed the cloud over the resort island and that the airport was being closed again until at least 4:00 pm (local time).
	"We will continue to monitor developments and decide if the closure will be extended later," transport ministry spokesman JA Barata told AFP.
	Another airport on Java serving domestic routes was also ..

More travel chaos as volcano closes Bali airport again

PTI Automatic

Domestic flights were cancelled in South Korea today as Typhoon Chan-hom brought strong winds and heavy rainfall to southwestern provinces.
	The storm grounded 60 domestic flights linking Seoul with the southwestern coastal city of Yeosu and the southern resort island of Jeju, airport authorities said. International flights were not affected.
	A strong wind alert has been issued along South Korea's southern and western coastal areas, which received up to 197 millimetres (7.7 inches) of rain as of 11:00 am (0200 GMT).
	Weather authorities said the typhoon would be downgraded to a tropical storm when it reaches North Korea's Hwanghae province on Monday morning.
	Typhoon Chan-hom swiped eastern China on Saturday, paralysing transport links and devastating farmland as authorities evacuated more than a million people, the Chinese government and state media said.
	Five people in the Philippines were killed earlier in the week and more than 20 people injured in Japan on Friday.
	Taiwan was ..

Typhoon grounds domestic flights in S. Korea

Japan's top security diplomat could visit China as early as this week ahead of a possible visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to repair strained ties between the neighbours, local media said today.
	Shotaro Yachi, the head of the National Security Council, plans to visit Beijing for talks with Yang Jiechi, China's top diplomat who serves as state councillor, Japan's public broadcaster NHK and other media reported.
	Yachi is expected to lay the groundwork for a summit between Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping, following their meeting in April in Jakarta on the sidelines of international conferences, they said.
	Abe is considering travelling to China around the time of a September 3 ceremony in Beijing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Nikkei daily and the Mainichi Shimbun said.
	Ties between Beijing and Tokyo have warmed over the past year, but strains over territorial disputes and attitudes towards wartime history continue to divide Asia's top ...

Japanese envoy to visit China ahead of possible summit:reports

England captain Alastair Cook said his new-look team had proved they "could compete with Australia" after they wrapped up a convincing win in the first Ashes Test with more than a day to spare.
     Yesterday's 169-run success in Cardiff saw Cook's men go 1-0 up in the five-match series and was an ideal way for England to mark their first match under new Australian coach Trevor Bayliss.
     Australia, set what would have been a new Ashes fourth-innings record winning total of 412, were dismissed for 242 just over an hour after tea on the fourth day.
     England paceman Stuart Broad produced the latest of several decisive Ashes hauls in taking three for 39 on Saturday after man-of-the-match Joe Root had got the hosts going with 134 in a first-innings total of 430.
     Cook could scarcely have wished for a better all-round effort than the one England produced in Cardiff.
     "It's really important for this group of players to show that we can compete with Australia," Cook said.
     

Triumphant Cook has faith in England's future

Australia captain Michael Clarke said the way his side bounced back at the World Cup after their defeat by New Zealand should encourage them following a crushing loss in the first Ashes Test.
     England beat Australia by 169 runs with more than a day to spare in Cardiff yesterday to go 1-0 up in the five-match series.
     Australia, set a mammoth 412 for victory, were dismissed for 242 in their second innings just over an hour after tea on the fourth day at Sophia Gardens.
     England paceman Stuart Broad did the bulk of the damage with a haul of three for 39 in 14 overs after man-of-the-match Joe Root had laid the foundations for victory with 134 in the hosts' first innings 430.
     The last time Australia won an Ashes series after losing the first Test was on their 1997 tour of England.
     But Clarke's proof of how things could turn around came from a more personal and recent example.
     In February, Australia were beaten in the pool phase of the World Cup by New Zealand ...

Beaten Clarke seeks solace in World Cup example

Real Madrid's emblematic captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas is set to leave the club for FC Porto after 25 years during which he won everything in the game with the Spanish giants.
     "Real Madrid and FC Porto have agreed the transfer of Iker Casillas to the Portuguese club," Real Madrid said in a statement yesterday after three days of intense negotiations.
     At 34 years Casillas leaves a club with which he grew up, joining Real's youth academy aged nine in 1990 and winning 19 trophies during his 16 seasons as a professional.
     "One of the best goalkeepers in this club is not just leaving, today the greatest goalkeeper in the history of the club and in the history of Spanish football is moving on to a new stage in his footballing career," the statement said.
     Casillas had two years left on his contract, but the highly-anticipated transfer is seen as an historic turning point for the club who are reported to be trying to recruit Manchester United's 24-year-old Spanish ...

End of an era as Casillas leaves Real Madrid for Porto

South Korean troops fired warning shots at North Korean soldiers who intruded on the buffer zone marking their heavily armed border, Seoul said today, in the first such skirmish this year.
	The incident occurred this morning when 10 North Korean soldiers crossed the border of the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, which remain technically at war, the South's defence ministry said.
	But the brief intrusion near Cheorwon, northeast of Seoul, triggered no exchange of fire as North Korean soldiers retreated without firing back, it said.
	The demilitarised zone, or DMZ, despite its name, is one of the world's most heavily militarised frontiers, bristling with watchtowers and landmines.
	There have been a series of minor skirmishes, involving exchanges of fire, along the inter-Korean land and sea borders in recent years.
	But this is the first time in 2015 South Korean soldiers have fired warning shots at North Korean troops for intruding in the DMZ, a ministry official told ...

S Korea fires warning shots at North soldiers

A Boko Haram suicide bombing in a crowded market in Chad's capital has killed 15 people, just days after the militant group claimed a previous bombing in the city that left 38 people dead.
	The attack in N'Djamena, by a man disguised as a woman in a full-face veil, came after a botched bombing in the capital of Nigeria's Borno state, Maiduguri, which killed two pedestrians.
	Militant fighters on Friday night also raided the village of Ngamdu, some 100 kilometres from Maiduguri, killing 11, residents and a member of the civilian militia said.
	The attacks underlined the threat still posed by the Islamists in the region, despite the authorities' claims of recent military successes and with a new regional force set to deploy at the end of the month.
	Police director-general Taher Erda said the N'Djamena bomber detonated his explosives belt when he was stopped for security checks at the entrance to the market.
	Muslim-majority Chad banned the full-face veil, ramped up security measures ...

Boko Haram attacks kill 17 in Chad, Nigeria

Libyan political parties and members of civil society have initialled a UN-proposed peace accord in Morocco, despite the absence of a rival parliament not recognised by the international community.
	"This is a step, but it is really an important step along the path to peace," UN envoy Bernardino Leon said at a ceremony yesterday in the Moroccan resort of Skhirat marking the agreement.
	The deal was backed by members of Libya's internationally recognised parliament, based in the eastern port city of Tobruk, as well as representatives of political parties, municipalities and civil society groups.
	Libya has been plunged into chaos since the 2011 overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi, and now has two parliaments and governments vying for power.
	No representatives attended from the rival parliament in Tripoli -- controlled by Islamist militias since last year -- which has rejected a UN proposal to resolve Libya's political crisis by forming of a national unity government and holding new ..

Libya groups agree peace deal without Tripoli parliament

World powers talked deep into the night seeking to break a deadlock in marathon negotiations with Iran and strike a historic deal to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
	A new deadline for an agreement is looming tomorrow, and both sides are asking how much longer busy ministers can clear their schedules to hunker down in Vienna as they seek to end a 13-year standoff with the Islamic republic.
	"Everything is on the table. It's now time to decide," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius yesterday warned on the 15th day of the tortuous talks.
	Iran and the so-called P5+1 group, including Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, are seeking to curtail Tehran's ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for relief from painful sanctions.
	Three previous deadlines in this round of talks -- June 30, July 7 and July 9 -- have already been missed and officials at the negotiations said sanctions and an arms embargo remain key sticking points.
	"Ninety-eight percent ..

'Decision time' nears in Iran nuclear talks

There's a near-perfect heart shape on Pluto's rusty red surface. The dwarf planet is dotted with bright points which may be ice caps, and a mysterious dark shape nicknamed "The Whale."
	Scientists are seeing all this for the first time as a piano-sized NASA spacecraft, called New Horizons, hurtles toward the distant celestial body on its way toward a historic flyby on July 14.
	"We're at the 'man in the moon' stage of viewing Pluto," said John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
	"It's easy to imagine you're seeing familiar shapes in this bizarre collection of light and dark features. However, it's too early to know what these features really are."
	But scientists expect those mysteries to be solved in coming days as the spacecraft closes in on Pluto, once considered the farthest planet in the solar system before it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
	That same year, the New Horizons mission launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a journey of ..

NASA craft discovers heart shape on Pluto as flyby nears

A senior leader of an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group that has been blamed for a spate of violence in Tunisia was among five militants killed by security forces in a recent raid, an official said.
	"The DNA test just confirmed that Mourad Gharsalli was shot dead yesterday (Friday)," presidential spokesman Moez Sinaoui wrote in a post on his Twitter account.
	The interior ministry had previously said that five "terrorists" were gunned down on Friday in the central region of Gafsa.
	Gharsalli, a 32-year-old Tunisian, was one of the leaders of the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigades, the country's main jihadist group and one the authorities have accused of being behind several recent attacks.
	Authorities have blamed the group for a series of attacks, including the March massacre at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis that killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman. The Islamic State group has claimed that attack.
	Tunisia has seen a surge in radical Islam since veteran president Zine El Abidine Ben ..

Senior leader of Tunisian Qaeda-linked group killed: official

The Islamic State jihadist group has released new footage of its June 2014 massacre of hundreds of mostly Shiite military recruits in Tikrit.
	The highest estimates put at 1,700 the number of cadets IS gunmen captured at the Speicher military base near Tikrit and executed at various locations, mostly in the city's former presidential palace complex.
	The 22-minute video posted on jihadist forums, which included both new and previously released footage, shows hundreds of executions, providing further evidence of the scope of the atrocity.
	Some of the victims are shown pleading for their lives, attempting to explain they had only just joined the security forces.
	The grisly footage shows executions on an industrial scale, with victims falling out of dump trucks and later lying side by side in shallow mass graves before being shot dead one by one.
	The killing went on into the night and the video shows an excavator being used to move piles of bodies.
	Around 600 bodies have been exhumed 

IS releases new footage of 2014 Tikrit massacre

Eurozone finance ministers have suspended last-ditch talks on Greece's bailout, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem has said, describing the negotiations as "very difficult" but making progress.
	The ministers will meet again at 0900 GMT today, just hours before for a summit of all 28 European Union leaders that is meant to be the final deadline for a deal to prevent Greece crashing out of the euro single currency.
	"We have had an in-depth discussion of the Greek proposals, the issue of credibility and trust was discussed and also of course financial issues involved, but we haven't concluded our discussions," Dijsselbloem told reporters after some nine hours of tough talks.
	"It is still very difficult but work is still in progress," he said.
	Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb was more upbeat, despite reports that Finland's parliament has decided it will not allow the government to accept any new bailout deal for Greece.
	"We are making good progress," he said as he left the ..

Eurogroup suspends 'very difficult' Greece talks until today

Finland's parliament has decided it will not accept any new bailout deal for Greece, media reports said, piling on pressure as eurozone finance ministers were locked in tortuous talks to stop the debt-laden country from crashing out of the euro.
	Lawmakers' decision to push for a so-called "Grexit" came after the eurosceptic Finns Party, the second-largest in parliament, threatened to bring down the government if it backed another rescue deal for Greece, public broadcaster Yle reported yesterday citing sources close to the talks.
	In Finland, it is the country's "Grand Committee" -- made up of 25 of parliament's 200 MPs -- which gives the government a mandate to negotiate on an aid agreement for Greece.
	Members of the committee met for talks in Helsinki on yesterday afternoon to decide their position, YLE reported.
	The Finnish parliament declined to comment on the media report.
	Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb, attending the Greek crisis talks in Brussels, meanwhile tweeted 

Finnish parliament in favour of 'Grexit': report

Ash rained down from the so-called "Volcano of Fire" in western Mexico and people living in its shadow were evacuated after it spectacularly erupted.
	The volcano spewed a four-kilometre (2.5-mile) column of ash and molten rock overnight Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate more than 80 people from nearby communities yesterday.
	The volcano in Colima state has been active since Thursday but its eruptions intensified late Friday and ash covered at least seven communities, according to federal authorities.
	"This is the strongest activity since 2005," civil protection official Luis Felipe Puente told local radio.
	One village at the foot of the mountain, Yerbabuena, was smothered in up to five centimetres (nearly two inches) of ash, authorities said, and rain also tumbled down, adding to the misery.
	Experts expect activity at the volcano to calm down in the coming days.
	But authorities are taking no chances, setting up a perimeter to seal off the area five kilometres from the ...

Evacuations as Mexico's 'Volcano of Fire' erupts

Iran's supreme leader today again denounced what he called the "arrogance" of arch-foe the United States, and said the battle against it would continue, his English-language Twitter account showed.
	Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the "US is perfect instance of Arrogance. Prepare yourselves for more fight against Arrogance."
	According to his account, he had been meeting university students and was asked about fighting against arrogance and if there would be an end to it.
	He added that "fighting the Arrogance is a Revolutionary principle" and that if it did not exist "we were not followers of Holy #Quran".
	Khamenei spoke as negotiators from Iran and major world powers were deadlocked in Vienna talks on efforts to reach a deal that would curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran's Khamenei denounces 'arrogant' US

A British boyband singer collapsed with heat exhaustion during a flight while wearing 12 layers of clothing in a bid to beat the excess luggage fee, he said today.
	James McElvar, 19, from the Scottish group Rewind, was about to board an easyJet flight from London Stansted to Glasgow on Wednesday when he was told he had one carry-on bag too many.
	Staff said he was allowed to take only one bag on board, so would have to pay USD 70 excess charge or bin his second bag.
	With his band mates already aboard and just minutes to spare, he made a foolhardy snap decision, emptying his rucksack and donning the entire contents.
	McElvar was wearing six T-shirts, four jumpers, two jackets, one pair of shorts, three pairs of jeans, two pairs of jogging bottoms and two hats.
	"There was a lot of clothes. It was very difficult to walk onto the plane. I managed to sit in the seat for a minute or two. But I just couldn't take the heat," he said on the band's Twitter feed.
	Barely able to move, he ...

Boyband singer collapses wearing 12 layers on flight

Bosnia's presidency today strongly condemned a stone-throwing attack by an angry mob that forced Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to flee a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.
	The tripartite presidency "condemns in the strongest terms and voices a deep regret over today's attack," a statement said.
	Praising the Serbian premier's attendance at the commemoration of the massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims males, the presidency called for a swift probe to identify the perpetrators of the attack.
	Vucic came to Srebrenica in the "spirit of reconciliation and intending to pay respect to the victims," the presidency said, adding that it apologised to "all foreign delegations" over the incident.
	The view was echoed by the main Bosnian Muslim SDA party.
	"Those who provoked today's incident did not just attack Vucic, they also desecrated the religious burial (of the victims) and embarrassed Bosnian Muslims," it said in a statement quoted by FENA news .

Bosnian presidency 'strongly condemns' Srebrenica anniversary

Germany has drawn up plans for a temporary five-year Greek exit from the euro if it fails to improve its bailout proposals, a European source told AFP today as eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels.
	"It's an internal paper, it was not distributed today (at the eurozone meeting). There were two options: an improvement of the proposals, or temporary 'Grexit'," said the source, who had seen the paper.
	Hardline Germany is leading a chorus of scepticism as eurozone finance ministers study leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's new reform plan for a third rescue package worth more than USD 89 billion.
	The European source was commenting on a report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper that said the plans appeared in a one-page German finance ministry "position paper" which was handed to other member states.
	The new Greek proposals for a third bailout "lack areas of important reforms," which is why they cannot serve as the basis for a new three-year bailout .

Germany mulling five-year 'temporary Grexit' plan

More than 10,000 fish died in temporary holding tanks in Brazil during construction of what is being touted as the world's largest freshwater aquarium, local media reported.
	Prosecutors in Campo Grande, the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state, are probing who is at fault after the local government and the company that dealt with the fish blamed each other.
	Billed as "the biggest freshwater aquarium in the world" by the former governor of the state, work on the USD 53-million facility was supposed to have finished at the end of last year but has been delayed, the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported today.
	Since November, the fish had been in quarantine with a firm called Anambi, which won a contract to care for the animals.
	Some of the fish were imported from Africa, Asia and Oceania. An Anambi document from May states that 80 per cent of the fish died from a temperature drop as winter approached in the southern hemisphere country.
	"The transfer of fish was planned between ...

AFP

AFP

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