A mouthwatering duel between Barcelona superstars Lionel Messi and Neymar is looming over the Copa America as the three-week football extravaganza starts in Chile

Neymar, Messi eye duel as Copa kicks off

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FIFA has handed over computer data to Swiss police investigating the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes and suspended bidding for the 2026 tournament as it remained at the centre of a football corruption storm.
     Brazilian legend Zico, meanwhile, became the first person to officially declare himself a candidate to take over football's scandal-tainted world governing body from Sepp Blatter.
	FIFA said that computer data from its Zurich headquarters had been handed to Swiss prosecutors.
     Swiss authorities are investigating the 2010 FIFA vote that awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.
	"FIFA today provided, as planned, data requested by the attorney general," said a spokesman for the global body.
    	The BBC claimed that documents were seized from the offices of Blatter, FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke and chief financial officer Markus Kattner. Swiss prosecutors refused to reveal the identity of the individuals involved.
	FIFA has been thrown ...

Computer data seized at FIFA HQ

Jurgen Klinsmann's USA shocked Germany with a 2-1 victory in a friendly as the Stars and Stripes followed up their win over the Netherlands by beating the world champions.
     Bobby Wood, who plays for Germany's third division side Erzgebirge Aue, scored the winner just before the final whistle to seal the Americans' deserved victory.
     It capped a dream few days for the 22-year-old who also hit the winner when the USA fought back to stun the Netherlands 4-3 in Amsterdam last Friday.
     Again the USA fought back from a goal down to cap a strong display as Germany suffered their third defeat since winning the World Cup last year.
    	"That was a fun little game with a good end for us," beamed Klinsmann, who has coached the USA since 2011 and steered Germany to third at the 2006 World Cup.
    	"My players are very happy and the way things developed in the second half, the victory was well deserved.
     "This success will give American football even more attention."
	The defeat .

Klinsmann's USA stun world champions Germany

Former Brazil star Zico confirmed he will stand in the election to succeed Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA, although he admitted he may struggle to find enough support.
     "I would like to confirm the decision to be a candidate," the 62-year-old told a news conference yesterday.
     "I feel I am capable. For sure, certain rules need to change."
    	Blatter has already announced he will stand down from the job after the organisation he has headed since 1998 was engulfed in a series of corruption allegations.
	Zico, who has experience of the game at managerial level having notably coached Japan, said he believed the game had to undergo wide-ranging reforms.
	But he added he believed it was right that Blatter be allowed to stay in place prior to a vote on a successor due by year's end.
	"This will allow him to make an orderly handover," Zico told reporters in Rio.
	Zico, nicknamed the "white Pele" during a playing career which never yielded a World Cup triumph, joked that ...

Brazil legend Zico to stand for FIFA presidency

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on today that Greece and EU heavyweights Germany and France had agreed that last-ditch bailout talks must reach a "viable solution" as negotiations broke-up without a deal.
	"The European leaders realised that we must offer a viable solution and the chance for Greece to return to growth," Tsipras said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit in Brussels.
	This solution "must bring sustainable debt, and a perspective that will provide security and stability not only to Greece, but also to Europe," he added.
	A German spokesman also struck a positive note, saying that the talks between the three leaders agreed on the need for accelerated negotiations between Greece and the EU-IMF creditors overseeing its bailout.
	"They agreed that the discussion between the Greek government and the institutions must be intensified," the spokesman said in a short ...

Tsipras says Merkel, Hollande agreed need for viable solution

Prosecutors in two US states are investigating whether major music labels have colluded to prevent competition in the booming area of music streaming, officials said today.
	The probe -- which an official said has turned up no evidence of wrongdoing -- comes as tech giant Apple entered the streaming battle with the launch of an updated service to compete with Spotify and other providers of unlimited, on-demand music.
	A spokesman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said that an investigation was underway into music streaming, "an industry in which competition has recently led to new and different ways for consumers to listen to music."
	"To preserve these benefits, it's important to ensure that the market continues to develop free from collusion and other anti-competitive practices," said the spokesman, Matt Mittenthal.
	A lawyer for Universal Music Group -- the largest of the three major label conglomerates -- said in a letter that the investigation centered on whether ...

US states probe music labels for streaming collusion

A Texas cop filmed pulling a gun at a pool party attended mainly by black teens acted out of stress rather than racism, his lawyer said today.
	Corporal Eric Casebolt's lawyer said he resigned from the McKinney police force yesterday in hopes of easing tensions after the video went viral.
	The case came at a time of heightened racial tensions following a series of incidents involving questionable use of sometimes lethal police force in black communities across the United States.
	The footage -- which has been seen 11 million times on YouTube -- shows Casebolt, who is white, pinning a bikini-clad black girl to the ground and placing his knees on her back in the incident in the Dallas suburb.
	He is also seen pulling out his gun when two young black men approach the distraught girl, who was screaming for help and asking for someone to call her mother.
	"He was not targeting minorities," attorney Jane Bishkin said at a press conference. "In fact, he also detained a white female who you ..

No racism behind Texas cop who pulled gun at party: lawyer

Popular over-the-counter antacids for treating heartburn, like Prilosec, are linked to a 20 percent higher risk of heart attack, researchers said today.
	The study in the journal PLOS ONE was based on a large data-mining study of nearly three million health records, and was carried out by scientists at Stanford University.
	The study looked at drugs like Prilosec, Nexium and Prevacid, which are part of a class of drugs known as proton-pump inhibitors, or PPIs, and are among the world's most widely prescribed drugs, generating some USD 14 billion in annual sales.
	About 20 million Americans, or one in every 14 people, use PPIs such as Prilosec (omeprazole) for heartburn, acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease, according to the study.
	Until now, they were largely considered to be safe unless taken with the blood thinner Plavix (clopidogrel).
	While the study did not prove that antacids cause heart attacks -- only that there is an apparent link -- researchers believe the problem 

Study links heartburn drugs to higher heart attack risk

Negotiators today tiptoed through a problem-laden draft for a UN climate pact amid deepening concern over a December deadline to seal the deal.
	Just one day is left in a key round of talks intended to propel 195 countries towards an historic accord in Paris just over six months from now.
	But after 10 days' haggling, observers said almost nothing has been done to demine a text stuffed with political explosives.
	"There has been too much time spent fiddling around with the unimportant details of the text," Christian Aid's Mohamed Adow said.
	"Negotiators have acted like schoolchildren colouring in their homework timetable and not getting around to any actual homework."
	The goal is a post-2020 agreement that will reduce the threat of climate change for future generations.
	It would limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels, fending off crippling droughts, floods, storms and rising seas.
	But the draft agreement, ...

Worries grow as climate talks leave issues unaddressed

Thirty-one people were taken to hospital in New York today when two buses collided in the busy Lincoln Tunnel, officials said.
	None of the injured were critically injured, a spokesman for the New York Fire Department told AFP.
	The accident happened at around 9:30 am when a New Jersey transit bus rear-ended a private bus carrying Canadian students in the tunnel, one of the busiest roads linking Manhattan and New Jersey.
	The New York Fire Department said 31 patients were transported to local hospitals and that there were no critical injuries.
	A pregnant woman stuck in backed up traffic reportedly went into labor and was also taken to hospital.

Bus collision in New York, 31 taken to hospital

World powers urged Libya's warring factions at a meeting in Berlin to wrap up peace talks quickly, calling the current round of negotiations a "last chance" for progress.
	Twenty-three Libyan envoys joined diplomats from the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in the German capital and other Western nations at a meeting announced Tuesday by Bernardino Leon, chief of the UN Support Mission in Libya.
	The governments and the EU issued a statement calling on "all Libyan parties to overcome the remaining obstacles to an agreement, to create a conducive environment for a lasting and inclusive solution to the current conflicts, to immediately cease all hostilities and to prevent all actions that may disturb the political process."
	Libya descended into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with heavily armed former rebels carving out fiefdoms across the country.
	Germany's top diplomat, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who hosted ...

World powers urge Libyans to seize 'last chance' for peace

A current and two former corrections officers have been charged in connection with the beating death of an inmate at New York's notorious Rikers Island jail in 2012, prosecutors said today.
	It is the latest development relating to what prosecutors have called "a pervasive and deep-seated culture of violence" at what is one of the largest municipal jails in the United States.
	Ronald Spear, 52, died in the early hours of December 19, 2012 after being repeatedly kicked in the head while lying face down and restrained, on the floor of a medical wing of the prison.
	He had been seriously ill with kidney disease and was assaulted after getting into an expletive-fueled row with then corrections officer Brian Coll about seeing a doctor, court papers said.
	Coll, 45, who is no longer a Rikers guard, and current corrections officer Byron Taylor, 31, were arrested by the FBI Wednesday in connection with the death and covering up the assault.
	The most serious charges against Coll -- ...

Three guards charged over New York inmate death

Oil prices rose further today as official data showed a much bigger than expected drop in US crude inventories, while OPEC said demand would pick up.
	US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in July won 62 cents to USD 60.76 a barrel compared with yesterday's close.
	Brent North Sea crude for July gained 41 cents to stand at USD 65.29 in late London deals.
	Oil prices had surged more than two dollars yesterday on expectations that the US inventory data would reveal a drop, leading traders to bank profits when the fall greatly exceeded forecasts.
	The Department of Energy said commercial stockpiles of US crude slumped by 6.8 million barrels last week to 470.6 million. Analysts' consensus forecast had been for a drop of 1.45 million, according to Bloomberg.
	A drop in US stockpiles is seen as an indicator of healthy demand in the world's top crude consumer, supporting global prices.
	Dealers expect that a drawdown of the United States' burgeoning reserves during the ...

Oil prices rise as US inventories fall

A computer worm designed to gather foreign intelligence and widely linked to Israel was used to spy on negotiations with Iran on curtailing its nuclear program, security researchers said today.
	A report by the Russian-based security firm Kaspersky Lab said it discovered the malware dubbed Duqu lurking in its own internal networks and linked the effort to intelligence gathering on the 2014-15 talks with Tehran.
	Duqu, which was believed to have been eradicated in 2012, is a sophisticated spy tool similar to the Stuxnet virus.
	"The Duqu threat actor went dark in 2012 and was believed to have stopped working on this project -- until now," Kaspersky said in a blog post.
	"Our technical analysis indicates the new round of attacks include an updated version of the infamous 2011 Duqu malware, sometimes referred to as the stepbrother of Stuxnet."
	The Stuxnet computer virus, believed to have been developed by the United States or Israel in order to contain threats from Iran, dates back at ..

Computer worm enabled spying on Iran talks: researchers

The US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State group needs to target the jihadists' command centres, but this is easier said than done, French army chief Denis Mercier said today.
	He compared operations in Iraq, where French warplanes are carrying out air strikes, and Syria, where the US is bombing jihadist positions, to the 2011 international intervention in Libya.
	"In Libya we went after (Libyan leader Moamer) Kadhafi's centres of gravity... It was by attacking these centres that we managed to topple Kadhafi, not by firing at 150 pick-up trucks a day. Otherwise we would still be there," Mercier told journalists.
	"It is exactly the same problem in Iraq today. We are shooting at the frontline but behind that we need to concentrate on the centres of gravity."
	He said the difficulty was that these command centres were mostly based in Syria.
	France has ruled out joining air strikes against IS in Syria until a credible political transition has taken place in .

French army chief says strikes need to hit IS command centres

The guards at Buckingham Palace played a rendition of "Happy Birthday" today as Queen Elizabeth II's husband Prince Philip turned 94.
	The gruff patriarch, the longest-serving consort in British history, spent the day privately at the couple's London residence, where his wife, 89, received representatives from the Royal Gurkha Rifles army regiment.
	Yesterday, the couple attended a pageant marking 200 years since Nepalese Gurkha soldiers began serving in the British armed forces.
	They were joined for the occasion by their eldest son, the heir to the throne Prince Charles, and the Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.
	During the daily Changing the Guard ceremony on the palace forecourt Wednesday, the Band of the Grenadier Guards played a rendition of "Happy Birthday".
	Gun salutes were fired at the Tower of London and in the city's Green Park to mark the occasion.
	Prince Philip has gradually wound down his official engagements since turning 90. However, June is always a busy ...

Britain's Prince Philip turns 94 with musical salute

At least 13 people were killed when a rockslide crushed a public transport van in Peru, and more bodies may still be found under the debris, rescuers said today.
	Two people survived the rockslide Monday along a remote stretch of highway northeast of the capital Lima.
	But after more than 30 hours clearing rocks and earth from the van, rescue workers have given up hope of finding more survivors, said fire chief Carlos Paredes.
	"There are no more survivors. We have to recover the bodies, that's what we're working on now," he told radio station RPP from the scene, between the towns of Huaura and Churin.
	Four passengers who were rescued from the wreckage later died in hospital of their injuries.
	Many of those traveling in the van worked in the mines that dot the region.
	Authorities do not know how many people were in the vehicle, but estimate there were about 15. Other victims may still be buried under the rocks, they said.

At least 13 killed as Peru rockslide crushes van

Three female suicide bombers died in the flashpoint Nigerian state of Borno when the explosives strapped to their bodies detonated, police said today, adding no one else was killed.
	State Police Commissioner Aderemi Opadokun said the bombers died yesterday on their way to the state capital Maiduguri, which has been hit multiple times by Boko Haram suicide attacks.
	"All three suicide bombers were killed and there were no other casualties," he said.
	It is unclear whether Boko Haram was behind the attempted attack but the militant group has previously used female suicide bombers and homemade explosives in its bloody six-year insurgency.
	News of the deaths came as Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari, who has made stopping the group's insurgency a top priority, prepares to meet his regional counterparts on the issue.
	Heads of state from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin are due in the capital Abuja tomorrow to discuss plans for an enhanced multinational force to take on the ...

Three female suicide bombers die in NE Nigeria: police

Vladimir Putin took his case against international sanctions to Italy today, claiming they would cost Italian companies a billion euros and insisting he was committed to a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis.
	Speaking two days after the G7 threatened tougher measures against Moscow, the Russian President told a press conference many agreed contracts had been stalled by the sanctions and may have to be torn up.
	"Italian companies missed out on a billion euros," he said. "They could have given their enterprises work, created jobs. That didn't happen because of the sanctions."
	Putin also said he was convinced sanctions would not be sustained indefinitely. "I count on the fact that... Sooner or later, we will get away from the restrictions that we are encountering today."
	He also took a swipe at the G7 group  -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- describing it as "not an organisation, just a club."
	Renzi, one of the club members, struck a ...

Putin makes anti-sanctions case in Italy

Pro-Tibet protesters tried to disrupt a presentation in Lausanne today for Beijing's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
	Around ten protesters, some of them Tibetan, stood outside brandishing Tibetan flags and crying "No more bloody games. Stop Beijing 2022," and "Free Tibet".
	Two tried to enter the hall of the hotel holding a Tibetan flag before police intercepted them.
	Another was able to enter the room where delegates were presenting models for locations for the 2022 games, before also being arrested.
	Beijing and Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, are the only two candidates for the 2022 Olympic Games, and have this week been presenting their cases to the International Olympic Committee and the press.
	Pro-Tibet activists claim Chinese authorities have repressed Tibet's local religion and culture and pillaged its natural resources.

Pro-Tibet activists try to disrupt Chinese Olympic bid pitch

Tunisia's navy today rescued 356 migrants including a two-month-old baby girl off the country's southeastern coast near Ben Guerdane, the Red Crescent said.
	Red Crescent official Ammar Lamloum told AFP that the group of migrants, mainly Africans, had been trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa when they were rescued.
	"They are now at the port in Ben Guerdane," he said.
	Tunisian and Italian authorities have been at the forefront of rescue efforts for a flood of mainly African migrants fleeing Libya and bound for Europe on unseaworthy boats that run into trouble.
	Four of the rescued migrants including a pregnant woman were being treated in hospital, Lamloum said, adding that 38 women and seven children had been on the boat.
	He said the migrants, who as well as sub-Saharan Africans included Syrians, Moroccans, Malians, Egyptians and Pakistanis, had left Libya aboard the makeshift vessel but it had broken down off the Tunisian coast.
	"We don't for the moment know where we ..

AFP

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