Queens Park Rangers defender Rio Ferdinand has been charged with misconduct over a comment he made on Twitter, the Football Association announced yesterday.
     The FA did not identify the posting in question, but reports suggested it concerned a tweet in which Ferdinand had referred to the mother of another Twitter user as a "sket" -- a derogatory slang term for a promiscuous woman.
     "Queens Park Rangers defender Rio Ferdinand has been charged by The FA for misconduct in relation to a comment he made via social media," the FA said in a statement on its website.
     "It is alleged the comment posted on his Twitter account was abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper. It is further alleged that this breach is aggravated pursuant to FA Rule E3(2) as it included a reference to gender."
     Ferdinand, 35, has until October 21 to respond to the charge. A Twitter user provoked the tweet that appears to have landed Ferdinand in hot water by sending him a teasing ...

Ferdinand charged over Twitter comment

PTI Automatic

North and South Korea held their first high-level military talks for seven years today, the South's Yonhap news agency reported, following a series of recent incidents on their land and maritime borders.
	Yonhap said the talks between generals on both sides was held at the border truce village of Panmunjom.
	The South's defence ministry declined to comment on the report.
	According to Yonhap, the last time military officers of the rank of general met for discussions was in December 2007.
	In a rare incident on their heavily-fortified land border, the two Koreas exchanged heavy machine-gun fire last Friday after the North's military tried to shoot down some leaflet-laden balloons launched by South Korean anti-Pyongyang activists.
	There were no reported casualties.
	And, last Tuesday, North and South Korean naval patrol boats briefly exchanged warning fire near their disputed Yellow Sea border, which has been the site of numerous clashes in the past.
	Because the 1950-53 Korean ...

Two Koreas hold high-level military talks: report

Gonzalo strengthened to a "major hurricane" over the open Atlantic and was expected to continue gaining force, forecasters have said.
	Packing maximum sustained winds of 115 miles (185 kilometres) an hour, with gusts even stronger, Gonzalo surged to a Category Three on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said late yesterday.
	"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours and Gonzalo is expected to become a Category Four storm on Wednesday," the NHC said.
	The highest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale is five.
	The storm skirted the Caribbean and was moving over open ocean, some 770 miles (1,240 kilometres) south of Bermuda.
	It was expected to continue moving northwest at 13 miles (20 kilometres) per hour.
	No coastal warnings were in place, but forecasters cautioned Bermuda to closely monitor the storm's path.
	Three people were reported missing in the islands of St Martin and St Barthelemy after the storm passed, and French ...

Gonzalo becomes 'major hurricane' in Atlantic: US forecasters

DNA results show that 28 bodies found in a mass grave in southern Mexico are not those of a group of missing students, the country's attorney general has said.
	Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam also said that 14 more local police officers were detained in the case and accused of handing the 43 students over to the Guerreros Unidos gang.
	Authorities have found several clandestine graves outside the city of Iguala since the students disappeared after an attack by the gang-connected municipal police, raising fears about their fate.
	The first mass grave had five pits containing 28 charred bodies but authorities have not said how many were found in others last week. Another mass grave was found yesterday.
	"We have some (DNA) results for the first pits and I can tell you that they do not correspond to the DNA that relatives of these young men have given us," Murillo Karam told a news conference.
	Officials have detained 26 Iguala police officers in the case along with eight other ...

Missing Mexico students not among 28 in mass grave

Islamic State fighters today closed in on the Iraqi town of Amriyat al-Fallujah, one of the last still controlled by the government in the troubled western province of Anbar, its police chief said.
	"IS has come from three directions; we are almost besieged," Aref al-Janabi told AFP by telephone.
	"So far we are still standing," he said. "We have some support from tribal fighters, but if Amriyat falls, the battle will move to the gates of Baghdad and Karbala."
	Amriyat al-Fallujah lies around 35 kilometers west of Baghdad's limits, and IS fighters would have to capture a significant stretch of government-controlled land before reaching the capital.
	The town also lies between the IS bastion of Fallujah, further up the Euphrates River, and the contested area of Jurf al-Sakhr, which commands access to the holy Shiite city of Karbala.
	Government forces have suffered a string of bruising military setbacks in Anbar in recent weeks, prompting some officials to warn that the entire province 

IS jihadists close in on town west of Baghdad

US Secretary of State John Kerry today said that Russian troops were withdrawing from Ukraine, one of several key steps needed for Western sanctions to be lifted against Moscow.
	"There are four to five principal requirements with respect to lifting the sanctions: release of hostages, release of all prisoners, is one; the withdrawal of the forces troops and equipment is another," Kerry said after a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Paris.
	"And at this point... Many of them are happening now, the troops are pulling back, the heavy equipment still has to be pulled back and the border is yet to be properly monitored and secured."
	Lavrov tried to impress on Kerry his view that tough Western sanctions on Russia were eroding hopes of an economic recovery in Europe and straining Washington's own ties with Brussels.
	"We do not know who is losing out more in economic terms: Russia or the European Union," Lavrov said shortly before flying to Paris.
	Russian President ...

Kerry says Russian troops withdrawing from Ukraine

US Secretary of State John Kerry today said that he and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov have agreed to step up intelligence sharing over the Islamic State (IS) group.
	"I suggested to Foreign Minister Lavrov that we intensify intelligence cooperation with respect to ISIL and other counter-terrorism challenges of the region and we agreed to do so," Kerry said using an alternative name for the IS jihadists.
	He said that during a three-hour-and-15-minute meeting in Paris, the two top diplomats had discussed "whether Russia could do more to support Iraqi security forces" fighting IS.
	The hardline group has seized large swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria.
	"The foreign minister indeed acknowledged their preparedness to help with respect to arms, weapons, they are doing that now, they already have provided some, and also potentially with the training and advising aspects," said Kerry.
	He said he and Lavrov recognised "that ISIL has absolutely no place in the 21st ...

US, Russia to step up intel sharing on IS militants: Kerry

Sri Lanka's military today announced it would return unspecified quantities of gold jewellery recovered from a battle site dating to the crushing of separatist Tamil Tiger rebels more than five years ago.
	Security forces have identified 2,377 "legitimate claimants" and 25 of them were handed back their gold ornaments by President Mahinda Rajapakse, who visited the island's northern province at the weekend, the military said in a statement.
	It asked residents in the island's battle-scarred region to lodge claims with the military and said pawning receipts issued by the Tamil Tigers would also be accepted as proof of ownership.
	At the height of their power, the Tigers operated a banking system where they accepted jewellery as security and granted loans to civilians.
	The military says they found the gold abandoned in the conflict area.
	Where owners could not be found, the valuables would be handed over to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the military said.
	"In order to expedite the ..

Sri Lankan military to return Tamil civilians' gold

UN chief Ban Ki-moon demanded an independent probe into the deadly shelling of a school during the Gaza conflict and expressed shock at the extent of devastation during a visit today to the Palestinian enclave.
	Two days after donor states pledged USD 5.4 billion to rebuild the Gaza Strip, Ban toured some of the areas worst hit during the July-August conflict between Israel and the territory's Hamas rulers.
	"No amount of (UN) Security Council sessions, reports or briefings could have prepared me for what I witnessed today," he said after being driven through the ruins of Gaza City's Shejaiya district and the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp.
	The secretary general was speaking at a UN school in Jabaliya, where on July 30 tank shells slammed into two classrooms, killing at least 14 people sheltering there.
	"The shelling of the United Nations school is absolutely unacceptable. These actions must be fully and independently investigated," he said.
	Relatives of the dead held up posters ...

UN's Ban urges probe into Gaza school shelling

An Iraqi MP and prominent militia leader was one of at least 21 people killed today in a suicide bombing immediately claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
	Ahmed al-Khafaji, a commander in the Shiite Badr militia, was killed in the attack in the Kadhimiyah area of Baghdad, a fellow lawmaker and a medical official said.
	The bombing, which wounded at least another 51 people, was the third in the Shiite district of Kadhimiyah in four days.
	In a statement posted online, the Islamic State group (IS) said that a suicide bomber it identified as Abu Aisha al-Samarraie had carried out the attack and that Khafaji was the target.
	A Shiite MP said that Khafaji was killed in the attack.
	"We have confirmed that he was killed, although it is not yet entirely clear whether he was the target of the attack," the MP told AFP.
	A medical official also said Khafaji was among the 21 people killed in the explosion.
	Khafaji was a member of the main Shiite bloc in parliament, the State of Law ...

Iraqi MP killed in suicide bombing claimed by IS

The European Union moved on Tuesday to ban Sri Lanka from selling its seafood to the massive EU market in a bid to stop illegal fishing by the second biggest exporter to the bloc. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, meanwhile proposed to scrap a ban on fish from Belize and lifted a threat to bar seafood from Panama, Fiji, Togo and Vanuatu."The other side of the coin today is Sri Lanka," Maria Damanaki, commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, told reporters."We tried to work with them, but they were not cooperative. I can say the contrary happened," Damanaki said."Sri Lanka is now authorising huge vessels to fish in the Indian Ocean without marine GPS. That means that control is impossible," she said.

Sri Lanka faces EU fish export ban

Agencies

Hurricane Gonzalo gained greater strength as it moved over the open Atlantic today, leaving several people missing in the Caribbean, forecasters said.
	Packing maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers an hour, with gusts even stronger, Gonzalo was right at the top edge of Category Two on the Saffir-Simpson scale and was expected to become a "major hurricane" later in the day, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.
	The storm skirted the Caribbean and was moving over open ocean, some 625 kilometers east of Grand Turk Island.
	But three people were reported missing in the islands of St Martin and St Barthelemy after the storm passed, and French authorities expressed concern about four other people they were trying to contact.
	The missing were a man who fell off his boat in St Martin and two others who were trying to get back to their boat in St Barthelemy.
	St Martin is divided between French and Dutch halves, while St Barthelemy is a French possession.
	As the storm moved ...

Three missing as Gonzalo strengthens over Atlantic

Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters clashed with police late today as they tried to occupy a main road and tunnel, with several demonstrators saying they were pepper sprayed.
	Dozens of police with helmets and riot shields tried to push back hundreds of protesters at one end of the tunnel, television footage showed.
	One or two were hit with batons, the South China Morning Post reported. Protesters speaking to AFP after the police had dispersed also said they had been pepper sprayed.
	Protesters told AFP that they had decided to take the highway after police earlier cleared another occupied main road without warning.
	"We planned to take this road in retaliation," said Jeff Wong, 30.
	"The government refuses to talk to us so we will keep occupying the roads until we get a real dialogue."
	As police dropped back, the protesters began to move metal barricades inside the tunnel, blocking it to traffic.
	The road, which runs east-west outside the government complex, had not been occupied ..

Police and protesters battle for control of Hong Kong roads

A British man has been jailed for eight years and six months after police caught him trying to dispose of a heroin stash during a high-speed chase, only for it to blow back into his face.
	Tabraiz Hussain, 34, was driving a car through Middlesbrough, north east England, carrying around one kilo of heroin in a McDonald's paper bag when police began to follow him, the Daily Telegraph reported today.
	After giving chase, police finally caught up with Hussain, who was covered in the drug after he tried unsuccessfully to throw the heroin out of the car window.
	Officers used a vacuum cleaner to retrieve the drug, with a street value of around 97,000 pounds (USD 154,000, 122,000 euros), which had also been partly scattered over the road.
	Hussain admitted possession of a class A drug with intent to supply and dangerous driving. Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, sitting at Teesside Crown Court, sentenced him to eight years and six months in prison.

An ill wind sends heroin dealer to prison

Russian President Vladimir Putin today praised growing economic ties with "natural ally" Beijing as he hosted Chinese premier Li Keqiang for high-profile talks.
	Li's three-day visit to Russia comes as the Kremlin is locked in a battle of wills with the West over Ukraine and is seeking to ramp up cooperation with Asia and Latin America.
	"We are natural partners, natural allies, we are neighbours," Putin told Li during talks at the Kremlin.
	"We are setting large-scale, absolutely realistic goals for ourselves and no doubt this will serve our peoples well," he added.
	The Chinese prime minister for his part praised the "inexhaustible" potential for cooperation between China, the world's largest energy consumer, and Russia, one of the largest energy suppliers.
	"We are witnessing a growing tendency of the development of our cooperation in all spheres," Li said.
	Li and Putin spoke after Russian and Chinese officials yesterday signed dozens of deals ranging from energy to banking to ...

Moscow and Beijing 'natural allies' Putin tells China

US-led aircraft hammered Islamic State jihadists with 21 bombing raids near Kobane amid signs the strikes had "slowed" the group's advance on the Syrian border town, the American military said.
	   In one of the heaviest bombardments so far against the Sunni jihadists encircling Kobane yesterday and today, coalition air strikes "destroyed" two IS staging locations, a building, a truck, two vehicles, three compounds and damaged several other targets, it said.
	A separate air raid in eastern Syria struck a small oil refinery, it said.
	"Indications are that air strikes have slowed ISIL advances" around Kobane, US Central Command, which is overseeing the air campaign, said in a statement.
	"However, the security situation on the ground there remains fluid, with ISIL attempting to gain territory and Kurdish militia continuing to hold out," it said, using another acronym for the Islamic State group.
	The air strikes are designed to "interdict" IS reinforcements and resupply efforts as well 

21 air raids slow IS advance near Kobane: US military

Norway today voted to extend military service to women, saying the step was meant to expand the talent pool for its armed forces.
	"We wish to extend military service to all in order to attract the most motivated and competent (recruits)," Minister of Defence Ine Eriksen Soereide told news channel TV2 after parliament adopted amendments to two laws paving the way for the change.
	Most European countries have abolished conscription in favour of a professional army, but Norway has instead said it wants to ensure its military is more competent and diverse by making it "gender neutral".
	The new policy will come into effect in 2016, bringing the Nato country, which operates a weak form of mandatory military service, more in line with Israel than other European nations.
	But the change, first proposed by the previous centre-left government, is unlikely to affect more than a small fraction of young Norwegians.
	Some 8,000 people - including some 1,000 women, all volunteers - are currently ..

Norway extends military conscription to women

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said today he and his wife were donating USD 25 million to help US efforts to contain the deadly Ebola epidemic.
	"The Ebola epidemic is at a critical turning point. It has infected 8,400 people so far, but it is spreading very quickly and projections suggest it could infect one million people or more over the next several months if not addressed," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.
	"We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn't spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio."
	He said he and his wife Priscilla were donating the funds to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation.
	"We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome," Zuckerberg said.
	"Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work. These people are on the ground setting ..

Zuckerberg donates USD 25 million to Ebola fight

Britain's biggest retailer Tesco said today that it has suspended three more executives after the troubled supermarket chain revealed last month that it had massively overstated its half-year profits forecast.
	The group has now suspended a total of eight executives since chief executive Dave Lewis launched an inquiry into the accounting error.
	"We have asked three employees to step aside to facilitate the investigation into the potential overstatement of profits in UK food for the first half of the year," a Tesco spokesperson told AFP.
	"We will provide an update on the investigation with our interim results on 23 October."
	Earlier this month, Britain's financial regulator the Financial Conduct Authority began a separate probe into the matter.
	The London-listed supermarket giant is co-operating fully with the FCA and other relevant authorities.
	Tesco stunned investors on September 22 when it revealed that its profit for the six months to August 23 was overstated by an estimated ..

Tesco suspends three more executives amid probe

The Dutch public prosecutor today said that motorbike gang members who have reportedly joined Kurds battling the Islamic State group in Iraq are not necessarily committing any crime.
	"Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it's no longer forbidden," public prosecutor spokesman Wim de Bruin told AFP.
	"You just can't join a fight against the Netherlands," he told AFP after reports emerged that Dutch bikers from the No Surrender gang were fighting IS insurgents alongside Kurds in northern Iraq.
	The head of No Surrender, Klaas Otto, told state broadcaster NOS that three members who traveled to near Mosul in northern Iraq were from Dutch cities Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda.
	A photograph on a Dutch-Kurdish Twitter account shows a tattooed Dutchman called Ron in military garb, holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle while sat with a Kurdish comrade.
	Video footage apparently from a Kurdish broadcaster shows an armed European man with Kurdish fighters saying in Dutch: .

Netherlands says OK for biker gangs to fight Islamic State

Barcelona superstar Neymar thumped four goals past Japan in a spectacular solo performance as Brazil hammered the Asian champions 4-0, here today.
     The 22-year-old Barcelona forward was a class apart at Singapore's national stadium as he scored all of Brazil's goals and nearly provided more in front of a sell-out crowd.
     Neymar underlined his star billing as he moved to 40 goals in just 58 games for Brazil and gave new coach Dunga a fourth straight win with no goals conceded.
     The victory also rounded off a successful Asian mini-tour for this year's World Cup hosts after Saturday's convincing 2-0 win over arch-rivals Argentina in Beijing.
     Neymar looked dangerous from the off. In an ominous start, he had a penalty shout waved away and grazed the side-netting with a free-kick.
     He duly put Brazil ahead on 18 minutes when he ran on to Diego Tardelli's penetrating through-ball, scampered around goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima and finished with aplomb.
     Neymar pierced ...

AFP

AFP

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