Gamblers are revelling in Britain's knife-edge general election, betting record amounts of money on the race to take 10 Downing Street.
	And the flow of punters' money is showing the Conservatives winning the most seats, but Labour opposition leader Ed Miliband becoming prime minister after the May 7 vote.
	With the polls neck-and-neck since parliament was dissolved on March 30, many commentators have branded it a dull contest -- not so bookmakers, with the uncertainty triggering a betting bonanza.
	"We wouldn't call it a flat campaign at all: it's the biggest political betting event we've ever seen," said Graeme Sharpe, spokesman for bookmakers William Hill.
	Ladbrokes spokeswoman Jessica Bridge said USD 155 million could be wagered -- quadruple the amount placed on the last general election in 2010.
	Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party is battling it out with Miliband's Labour -- though neither is likely to win a majority of seats, meaning the election outcome is ...

Britons bet on Conservative win but Labour PM

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More than 100 people were arrested in New York at protests over alleged police brutality against African Americans, officials said today.
	Thousands gathered Wednesday night in New York to demonstrate over the death of Freddie Gray, who succumbed to serious spinal injuries after his arrest in Baltimore.
	Police in New York said the arrests were for various reasons.
	"We have more than one hundred people arrested. The reasons are varied, mostly disorderly conduct," a New York Police Department spokesman told AFP.
	Protesters gathered in Manhattan's Union Square yesterday, following calls on social media to demonstrate in solidarity with Baltimore, the site of daily demonstrations since Gray's death on April 19.
	Rallies also took place in Boston and the US capital Washington yesterday, as simmering anger over alleged police brutality against blacks and discrimination again bubble to the surface.
	Baltimore protests turned violent Monday, and officials there have called for calm in the .

More than 100 arrested at New York police protests

The mayor of Baltimore today said a nightly curfew will remain in place and will be assessed on a "daily basis" after riots and protests against alleged police brutality in the US city.
	Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said keeping the city safe remained her top priority, and that a 10:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew remained in effect until further notice.
	"I have made no decision about lifting the curfew. We re-evaluate on a daily basis," she told CNN.
	"We're going to make sure that we keep our young people safe. I don't want to lose another life out on the Baltimore streets because of the violence that has been erupting in our city."
	Chaos descended on the city on Monday night after a day of peaceful protest, with mobs torching cars, setting buildings ablaze and looting shops.
	Trouble began after a funeral was held for 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died of severe spinal injuries on April 19, a week after he was arrested by police.
	The city has been the site of daily demonstrations ...

Baltimore mayor keeps curfew in place

Mohammad Hafeez hit a career-best 224 as Pakistan took charge of the first Test against Bangladesh with an impressive batting marathon during the third day's play in Khulna today.
     The tourists batted the entire day to move from their overnight score of 227 for one to 537 for five by stumps, a lead of 205 runs over Bangladesh's first innings total of 332.
     Hafeez, who started the day on 137, surpassed his previous best of 197, made in Pakistan's previous Test against New Zealand in Sharjah last November.
     The 34-year-old all-rounder hit 23 boundaries and three sixes before being dismissed just before tea, gloving a sweep off Shuvagata Hom to Mohammad Mahmudullah at leg-slip.
     Hafeez, who had fallen in the 190s on two previous occasions, moved to 198 with a fluent straight-driven four off seamer Mohammad Shahid and then reached his double century with a sweep off Taijul Islam for two runs.
     Hafeez said he was relieved to overcome the poor form that had dogged him in 

Hafeez double-ton powers Pakistan in first Test

German police have arrested a married couple suspected of having planned an attack and have seized an assault rifle, ammunition and a pipe bomb in their home, media reported today.
	The Die Welt daily newspaper's online edition identified the couple arrested overnight in western Hesse state only as Halil and Senay D, saying they were believed to have links to Salafist and Islamic extremist groups.
	Authorities had noticed them last month when they purchased a large amount of hydrogen peroxide and methylated spirits that can be used to make explosives, giving a false name to the building supplies shop in the western city of Frankfurt, the report said.
	Local police confirmed to AFP they had arrested a man and a woman in the town of Oberursel near Frankfurt, Germany's financial capital, and that more locations were being searched, but did not provide further details.
	Die Welt said the couple had been under observation by a special police unit for several days.
	It said investigators ...

Germany arrests Salafist couple suspected of planning attack

An arsonist who injured more than 30 people by setting fire to a bus in the Chinese city of Hangzhou was executed today, authorities said.
	The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court, which sentenced Bao Laixu to death in February, said in a statement that the punishment was carried out today morning.
	Bao poured paint thinner onto the floor of a bus he was riding in the eastern city last July, then ignited the liquid, the court said previously.
	He pleaded guilty at trial and explained his motivation as wanting to take "revenge on society" and commit suicide because he had tuberculosis, the official Xinhua news agency reported today.
	Bao himself was burned and attended his trial on a gurney after his feet were amputated because of the injuries, state media have said.
	Social tensions have mounted in China in recent years against a backdrop of a widening income gap and abuses of public power, with disputes even over trifling issues sometimes triggering serious incidents.
	In 2013, 11 ..

China executes man who injured more than 30 in bus fire

Israel has returned 15 fishing boats it seized in recent years off the Gaza Strip, the army said, months after it fought a devastating conflict in the blockaded coastal territory.
	Palestinian fishermen said it was the first time Israel had given vessels back, and demanded the return of dozens more.
	"The naval branch (navy) returned to Gaza 15 fishing boats which deviated from the Strip's permitted fishing zone and were seized over the years," an Israel Defence Forces statement said late yesterday.
	The tiny vessels were dragged back to shore by a boat from the Gaza fishermen's union, an AFP photographer said.
	Israel, which has imposed an eight-year blockade on Gaza, bans fishing beyond six nautical miles (11 kilometres) off the coast, and regularly fires at boats that exceed that limit.
	Fishermen say they are often fired upon before they reach the edge of the permitted zone.
	Fishing union chief Nizar Ayyash told AFP the return of 15 boats was welcome but demanded that Israel hand 

Israel returns 15 confiscated Gaza fishing boats

French group Dassault Aviation is poised to sign a lucrative deal with Qatar for 36 of its Rafale fighter jets, sources close to the negotiations said today, the third foreign order this year.
	The deal, which will be signed in the coming days, includes a firm order for 24 jets with an option on 12 other planes, said the sources, who wished to remain anonymous.
	Having struggled for years to sell any of its Rafale jets abroad, Dassault has recently scored several multi-billion-euro, high-profile contracts with Egypt, India, and now Qatar.
	Earlier this year, Egypt bought 24 Rafales in a 5.2-billion-euro (USD 5.8-billion) deal negotiated in just three months, prompting hopes in Paris that the agreement would act as a catalyst to unblock hoped-for sales to other countries.
	Sure enough, India followed suit and this month announced the order of 36 Rafale jets during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to France.
	Dassault is also involved in talks with the United Arab Emirates, and ...

France's Dassault poised to sign deal with Qatar on 36 jets

Munich will open a museum on the former site of the Nazi party headquarters today, in a long overdue reckoning with the German city's status as the "home of the movement".
	The inauguration coincides with the 70th anniversary of the "liberation" of Munich by US troops at the end of World War II, and of Adolf Hitler's suicide the same day in a Berlin bunker.
	Ageing American veterans and Holocaust survivors will join political leaders for a solemn ceremony at the new museum, a modern white cube built among a few surviving neo-classical buildings in what was the Nazis' organisational nerve centre.
	Museum director Winfried Nerdinger admitted that it had taken Munich too long to face up to its toxic legacy as the birthplace of Hitler's party, a fact long shrouded in shameful silence.
	"Munich had a harder time with this than all the other cities in Germany because it is also more tainted than any other city," said Nerdinger, the son of a local resistance member.
	"This is where it all ...

Long-delayed Nazi museum to open in 'home of the movement'

A Saudi-led coalition pressed on with air strikes today against Shiite rebels in south Yemen where fierce clashes raged between the insurgents and southern pro-government fighters, sources said.
	Warplanes hit Huthi rebel positions in the main southern city of Aden, in the districts of Khor Maksar and Dar Saad, helping pro-government forces to retake positions, sources among the southern fighters said.
	Eight people were killed in overnight clashes in Aden, including five pro-government fighters and three civilians, according to the city's health chief Al-Khader Laswar.
	He said 44 others were wounded. Details of losses on the rebel side were not available.
	Shiite Huthi fighters backed by troops loyal to former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh had made advances in Aden, which is now defended by local militia dubbed "popular resistance" units that have sided with forces loyal to embattled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
	Saudi Arabia assembled a multi-country coalition last month that ..

Saudi-led warplanes pound rebels in south Yemen

In a rare display of political unity, South and North Korea today both condemned Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for failing to apologise during a US visit for the wartime use of sexual slaves.
	Their respective foreign ministries each issued statements criticising Abe for distorting history, with Pyongyang comparing the Japanese leader to "psychopaths" and "hooligans".
	In a landmark address to a joint session of the US Congress, Abe expressed his "deep remorse" over Japan's actions towards neighbouring Asian nations during World War II.
	But he stopped short of a full apology demanded by countries such as China and South Korea, especially over the forced recruitment of so-called "comfort women"  to serve Japanese soldiers in military brothels.
	"It is very regrettable that Japanese Prime Minister Abe's speech at the US Congress ... Lacked a sincere apology," the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement.
	It argued that Abe had missed a golden chance for Japan to foster a 

Rival Koreas united in anger at lack of Abe apology

Nigerian troops have rescued about 160 more hostages from Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest stronghold in northeast Nigeria, the country's army said today.
	"We are still trying to compute the actual number of those rescued. But tentatively there are about 60 women of various ages and around 100 children," said army spokesman Sani Usman.
	Usman told AFP one woman was killed in the fighting and eight other rescued hostages were injured. A soldier was also killed and four others wounded.
	The latest rescue comes after the military said on Tuesday it had found 200 girls and 93 women kidnapped by the militants and held in the forest.
	Usman has said the former hostages did not include the 219 girls snatched from their school on April 14 last year but Nigeria's defence headquarters said it was too early to tell.
	The mass kidnapping from Chibok, in Borno state, prompted global outrage and forced President Goodluck Jonathan to accept international help in the search operation for the missing ...

About 160 more hostages rescued from Boko Haram: Nigerian army

Climbing will resume on Mount Everest by next week after an earthquake-triggered avalanche that left 18 people dead on the world's highest peak, a Nepalese government official said today.
	Saturday's avalanche that ripped through base camp also destroyed ladders through the treacherous Khumbu icefall higher up the mountain, raising doubts about the future of this year's climbing season.
	But tourism department chief Tulsi Gautam advised climbers against abandoning their expeditions, saying repairs were under way so that the spring season could continue for another few weeks.
	"The ladders will be repaired in the next two to three days and climbing will continue, there is no reason for anyone to quit their expedition," Gautam told AFP.
	He also played down concerns of further quakes and aftershocks.
	"There is no scientific reason to expect another quake... and we feel the ground is stable enough for climbing despite aftershocks," he said.
	Some 800 climbers were on the mountain when ..

Climbing to resume on Mount Everest by next week: official

The Sun newspaper today urged readers to vote for the Conservative party of British Prime Minister David Cameron in next week's election but its Scottish edition backed rival nationalists.
	In a front page that riffed on the arrival of the royal baby, Britain's biggest-selling paper put "It's a Tory" as its headline above an image of Cameron swaddled in a blanket.
	"It's the Tories. The Tories who rebuilt the economy wrecked by Labour -- and transformed lives. The Tories who alone are committed to an EU referendum," the front page read.
	It went on: "The Tories who alone can prevent a nightmarish Labour Government, propped up by the saboteurs of the SNP."
	In a contrast that was widely mocked on social media, the Scottish edition instead endorsed the pro-independence Scottish National Party.
	"We believe the Nats will fight harder for Scotland's interests at Westminster, offering a new hope for our country," the front page of the Scottish Sun read.
	The eye-catching front page showed .

The Sun endorses Cameron but Scottish edition backs SNP

A British grandmother on death row in Indonesia for smuggling drugs has condemned the "senseless, brutal" execution of two Australians, and reportedly fears she could be next in line for the firing squad.
	Australian drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad yesterday, along with five other foreigners and one Indonesian, despite a storm of international criticism and pleas from relatives.
	Briton Lindsay Sandiford, who was in the same jail as the Australians on the resort island of Bali after being sentenced to death in 2013, said the pair were "reformed men - good men who transformed the lives of people around them".
	"Their senseless, brutal deaths leave the world a poorer place," she said in a statement given to AFP today via her lawyer Craig Tuck.
	The BBC quoted the lawyer as saying that Sandiford fears she could be next in line to be executed, as Indonesian President Joko Widodo mounts a campaign against what he says is a national emergency .

Briton on Indonesia death row fears execution soon

A mentally ill Brazilian executed in Indonesia this week was delusional and oblivious to his fate until the final moments before he faced a firing squad, his lawyer and priest said today.
	Convicted drug trafficker Rodrigo Gularte, 42, was executed along with six other foreigners yesterday despite his family's pleas that he was a paranoid schizophrenic.
	"He had a delusional mind," Gularte's lawyer Ricky Gunawan told AFP, saying the Brazilian failed to appreciate the reality when he was given 72 hours' notice of his execution.
	"When we said your death sentence will be implemented, he said, 'What death sentence? I will not be sentenced to death.'
	"I'm not sure whether he really 100 per cent understood he would be executed," he said, adding that Gularte was adamant that the water on their prison island was poisoned.
	The lawyer said he tried to ask Gularte about his final requests, but the Brazilian responded with amusement.
	"He was just laughing. 'Is it just like Aladdin, when we ...

Mentally ill Brazilian was 'not aware' of imminent execution

Mohammad Hafeez was 10 runs away from a maiden double-century as Pakistan easily surpassed Bangladesh's first innings total of 332 on the third day of the first Test in Khulna today.
     Hafeez was unbeaten on 190 as Pakistan moved to 333 for two by lunch at the Sheikh Abu Naser stadium and set to build a huge lead with eight wickets in hand.
     Hafeez has so far hit 19 boundaries and three sixes as he closed in on his career-best score of 197, made in Pakistan's previous Test against New Zealand in Sharjah last November.
     Azhar Ali was the lone batsman dismissed in the morning session after Pakistan resumed at 227-1.
     Having taken his overnight score of 65 to 83, Azhar was bowled by Shuvagata Hom to end a 227-run partnership for the second wicket with Hafeez.
     Younis Khan kept Hafeez company at lunch on 31, the pair having added 56 for the third wicket.
     Bangladesh took the field without captain and wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim, who had injured a finger while ...

Hafeez nears double-ton as Pakistan take lead

World number one Rory McIlroy and Masters champion Jordan Spieth opened their WGC-Match Play Championship campaigns with easy wins Wednesday on a day of upsets at the new-look USD 9.25 million event.
     Northern Irish star McIlroy carded just one birdie and 13 pars but was too good for Jason Dufner, winning 5&4 at San Francisco's picturesque Harding Park course.
     "I think from tee to green I played really solid. Didn't really hole anything," said McIlroy.
     "I made birdie on the first hole and then made 13 pars after that. Jason didn't have his best day but this is Match Play -- you just need to beat the guy in front of you and I was able to do that today."
     In-form Spieth, fresh from a scintillating start-to-finish victory at Augusta, had little difficulty in putting away Finland's Mikko Ilonen 4&2.
     Spieth said he had benefited after spending time working on his swing last week.
     "It was a solid round, one bogey and I think seven birdies. I would ...

McIlroy, Spieth off mark at WGC-Match Play

Boxing promoter Bob Arum, who is showing no signs of slowing down at age 83, says he will continue to make blockbuster fights until they "put me in a box."
     "My problem is when you get to be an age that I am you are afraid to stop because you wonder how long you are going to last," said Arum.
     "If you just put your head down and keep going you figure to last longer than if you just quit. I will do it until they put me in a box or I can't do it anymore."
     The often bombastic Arum has handled some of the biggest names in the sport, including Muhammad Ali, Marvin Hagler, George Foreman and Oscar De La Hoya.
     His latest protege is Filipino icon and eight division champion Manny Pacquiao, who is gearing up to face Floyd Mayweather on Saturday.
     Both fighters are expected to make well over USD 100 million from the welterweight unification bout with 60 percent of the purse going to Mayweather and Pacquiao collecting the other 40 percent.
     The blockbuster bout could ...

Promoter Bob Arum still going strong at 83

There is something old and something new for newly-wed Andy Murray when the world number three launches his clay-court season at Munich's ATP tournament on Thursday.
     Having been given a bye into the second round as top seed, Murray will face Germany's Mischa Zverev in his opening singles match to start his build-up to the French Open.
     The Scot warmed up with a doubles win on Wednesday with Dutch partner Jean-Julien Rojer to oust third seeds Raven Klaasen and Lukas Rosol 7-5, 6-2 in 69 minutes.
     Murray is a big name at a low ranking tournament and has made the most of his first few days in the Bavarian capital.
     He went to the Allianz Arena to watch Bayern Munich's penalty shoot-out defeat to Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday in the German Cup semi-finals and has met world champion boxer Arthur Abraham.
     Murray has enjoyed a strong start to 2015, reaching at least the quarter-finals in all five tournaments so far and was runner-up to Novak Djokovic at the Australian ...

Something old, new for newly-wed Murray in Munich

Floyd Mayweather insisted that his blockbuster fight against Manny Pacquiao is about boxing and business, not angels and demons, as the rivals went eyeball-to-eyeball at their final pre-fight press conference.
     Pacquiao goes into Saturday's bout that has the boxing world buzzing trailing a mantle of humanitarian deeds.
     The two-term congressman tipped as a future Philippines president has left womanizing and gambling ways behind him and while he stands to make some USD 100 million for his night's work on Saturday, the devout Christian says he hopes the intense focus on the fight will be a stage for the glorification of God.
     "I want to inspire," Pacquiao said.
     But Mayweather won't be playing the devil, despite a history that includes two months in jail in 2012 for an assault on an ex-girlfriend in front of two of their children.
     "I am a realist," said Mayweather, the 38-year-old American who has parlayed a perfect 47-0 ring record into a reign as the highest paid 

AFP

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