US Secretary of State John Kerry today urged Iraq's political factions to unite against the jihadists who have already overrun several cities and are pushing towards Baghdad.
	"Make no mistake: this needs to be real wake-up call for all of Iraq's political leaders. Now's the time for Iraq's leaders to come together and to show unity," Kerry said on a visit to London.
	"Political division fuelled by ethnic or sectarian differences simply cannot be allowed to steal from the Iraqi people what so many have given so much for over the course of these last years," he said.
	Iraq was facing a "brutal enemy" that poses a threat to US interests, as well as those of its allies in Europe and the Middle East, Kerry said.
	He said that given the gravity of the situation, he would anticipate "timely decisions" from US President Barack Obama in tackling the challenge.
	"We are laser-focused on dealing with the crisis ahead," the top US diplomat said.
	He said the fight was on for a "pluralistic, ...

Kerry calls for Iraqi political unity against jihadists

PTI Automatic

French banking giant BNP Paribas, under threat of a mega-fine from US regulators, was warned repeatedly that transactions it was conducting ran the risk of violating US sanctions, the daily Le Monde said today.
	"From 2006 ... BNP Paribas received several warnings against such transactions from the United States and large US law firms," the French newspaper said without citing its sources.
	BNP Paribas is in talks with US regulators to settle the dispute, with some US media saying the fine could exceed USD 10 billion and that the French bank could also temporarily lose its US banking licence.
	The bank is accused of breaking sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba between 2002 and 2009 by carrying out dollar transactions with them.
	Le Monde said a US Treasury official visited BNP Paribas' headquarters in September 2006 to warn its executives in a closed door meeting against dealings with Iran.
	"The warning was clear," said Le Monde, that the bank should act with the greatest possible 

BNP Paribas warned of US legal risks: report

Top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called today for Iraqis to take up arms against "terrorists" who have overrun swathes of the country in a major offensive.
	"Citizens who are able to bear arms and fight terrorists, defending their country and their people and their holy places, should volunteer and join the security forces to achieve this holy purpose," his representative announced on his behalf during today prayers in the city of Karbala.
	"He who sacrifices for the cause of defending his country and his family and his honour will be a martyr," he added.
	The elderly Sistani, who rarely appears in public, is highly influential in the Shiite Muslim world and is adored by millions.
	An offensive launched by the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its allies late Monday has overrun all of one province and chunks of three more.
	Security forces have so far failed to halt the drive, with some fleeing after throwing away their uniforms and abandoning their ...

Take up arms against Iraq 'terrorists': top Shiite cleric

Hosts Brazil's controversial 3-1 win over Croatia in the opening game of the World Cup generated massive Twitter traffic with more than 12.2million tweets, the social network site told AFP.
     According to Twitter -- who have 255million users around the world -- tweeters from more than 150 countries participated in the exchanges.
     Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura featured in many posts following his decision to award a penalty despite there being no evident contact between Brazil striker Fred and Croatian centreback Dejan Lovren.
     It isn't the first time that a Croatia game at a World Cup finals has attracted the wrong type of headlines for the referee.
     Englishman Graham Poll managed to book Croat Josip Simunic three times in their group game at the 2006 finals with Australia before finally sending him off.
     Poll, nevertheless, took to Twitter to express his opinion of Nishimura's decision.
     "Very soft penalty. People say big teams get the big decisions. That's 

Brazil 3, Croatia 1, Twitter 12 million in World Cup opener

The UN's human rights chief today condemned reports of summary executions and extrajudicial killings in Iraq amid fears of mounting abuses by jihadists as they advance across the north of the country.
	"The High Commissioner Navi Pillay is expressing extreme alarm at the dramatic deterioration of the situation in Iraq," Rupert Colville, her spokesman, told reporters in Geneva.
	The rights chief was especially concerned by verified reports of "summary executions and extrajudicial killings and the massive displacement of an additional half a million people" by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), he added.
	In the past week, the fighters from the Islamist group have overrun a succession of major towns and cities and were today closing in on Baghdad.
	According to the UN mission in Iraq, "the number of people killed in recent days may run into the hundreds and the number of wounded is said to be approaching one thousand," Colville said.
	Pillay "will be warning 

UN rights chief alarmed by Iraq extrajudicial killings

A wealthy pro-Kiev leader in restive eastern Ukraine proposed today erecting a high-voltage fence along the Russian border to keep out separatist fighters and avert further Kremlin "aggression".
	Dnipropetrovsk Governor Igor Kolomoyskiy - a tycoon worth an estimated USD 2.4 billion and a renowned critic of Russia President Vladimir Putin - submitted the plan to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for formal approval, his deputy said.
	The proposed 1,900-kilometre electrified metal fence could be built in six months and its USD 135-million cost financed by a local charity, Gennadiy Korban told local news agencies.
	"This project's objective is to prevent people from breaking in from a country that is waging aggression against Ukraine," Korban said.
	Korban said the electrified fence would be topped by barbed wire and surrounded by deep trenches that are further fortified by remote control and anti-personnel mines.
	The entire region would be protected by motorised divisions of the ...

Ukraine tycoon offers to build Russian border fence

Afghan police and soldiers searched almost every car on the roads of Kabul and other cities today in an attempt to thwart Taliban suicide attackers on the eve of presidential elections.
	The insurgents have threatened to target polling stations tomorrow when voters will choose between ex-foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani.
	The second-round vote tomorrow comes as US-led NATO troops withdraw after more than a decade of fighting the Taliban, who were ousted from power in 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda militants behind the 9/11 attacks.
	Afghan officials are desperate to repeat the success of the first-round vote in April, when the insurgents failed to launch a single high-profile attack as long lines of voters turned up across the country to cast their ballots.
	"We hope our security measures will be even better than the last election," General Sher Mohammad Karimi, the army's chief of staff, told reporters in Kabul.
	"We have very good planning ...

Afghan forces target Taliban threat on election eve

The Iraqi government bolstered Baghdad's defences today as jihadists pushed towards the capital and President Barack Obama said he was exploring all options to save Iraq's security forces from collapse.
	   Washington said US companies were evacuating hundreds of staff from a major air base north of Baghdad as the militants battled security forces just 80 kilometres from city limits.
	   With militants closing in on the capital, forces from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region took control of a swathe of territory they have sought to rule for decades against the objections of successive governments in Baghdad.
	   Obama said Iraq was going to need "more help from the United States and from the international community" to strengthen security forces that Washington spent billions of dollars in training and equipping before withdrawing its own troops in 2011.
	   "Our national security team is looking at all the options... I don't rule out anything," he said.
	   The interior ministry said ..

Iraq bolsters defences as militants move nearer Baghdad

A lightning advance by jihadists across northern Iraq has rekindled concern on oil markets, but the IEA cautioned today that supplies from leading exporter Iraq may not be at immediate risk.
	In the past week militants have swept across northern Iraq and were closing in on the capital Baghdad, sparking fears that OPEC's number two producer could be hit and sending oil prices to their highest levels of the year.
	"Concerning as the latest events in Iraq may be, they might not for now, if the conflict does not spread further, put additional Iraqi oil supplies immediately at risk," the Paris-based International Energy Agency said on a cautionary note in its monthly oil market report.
	It pointed out that Iraq's relatively small output from the north of the country has been off the market since March due to violence while output from the south has been on the rise and production has hit a 30-year high.
	However, the IEA, the energy monitoring and policy arm of the OECD group of advanced ..

IEA says Iraq oil supplies not at risk if fighting contained

Pope Francis launched a sweeping attack on the world's economic system in an interview released today, saying it discards the young, puts money ahead of people and survives on the profits of war.
	The 77-year-old leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said some countries had a youth unemployment rate of more than 50 percent, with many millions in Europe seeking work in vain.
	"It's madness," the pope said in an interview with the Barcelona-based Vanguardia daily's Vatican correspondent Henrique Cymerman.
	"We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures, a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done," Francis said.
	"But since we cannot wage the Third World War, we make regional wars. And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms. And with that the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies -- the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money -- are obviously cleaned ...

Pope says global economy discards young

Malaysian courts have charged four, including a father and his son, over the gang-rape of two teenage girls, police said today, in a case that has sparked outrage in the Muslim-majority country.
	The four, including two minors, were all charged on Wednesday with committing rape "in front of others" at their village in the northern state of Kelantan, said Lai Yong Heng, the state's director of crime investigation.
	The girls, aged 15 and 17, were raped in an abandoned hut on May 20 after being lured there.
	Initial reports said 38 men took turns to violate them, but police later dismissed this, saying fewer men were involved but some raped the girls more than once.
	Most of them were believed to have been on drugs, police said.
	"So far we are still hunting for seven suspects who are still at large," Lai told AFP, adding that nine others arrested over the case had been released without charges.
	Rape charges carry a penalty of up to 30 years in prison.
	The two adults charged both ...

Four charged over gang-rape of two teens in Malaysia

Ukraine's interior minister today said that federal forces had inflicted "high casualties" on separatist rebels led by a Chechen commander in the southeastern port of Mariupol.
	Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the "active phase" of the offensive began at dawn and was still raging three hours later.
	He said that two Ukrainian soldiers from the part- volunteer National Guard force were wounded in the fighting.
	"The terrorists from the Donetsk People's Republic are being headed by a criminal boss known as 'The Chechen,'" Avakov wrote in a Facebook post.
	He said the National Guard unit had destroyed a combat patrol vehicle and several rebel sniper positions.
	"The area where the operation is being conducted in central Mariupol has been sealed off," he wrote.
	Rebels who seized about a dozen towns and cities in the industrial region of Donetsk and the neighbouring province of Lugansk in early April have proclaimed independence from Kiev and are seeking to join Kremlin ...

Ukraine inflicts 'high casualties' on rebels

Iraqi forces clashed with militants advancing on the city of Baquba, just 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, today as an offensive spearheaded by jihadists drew closer to the capital.
	Security forces were battling insurgents on the outskirts of Muqdadiyah, 35 kilometres northeast of Baquba, police and army officers said.
	Baquba is the capital of Diyala province, whose mixed Arab and Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite, population has made it a byword for violence ever since the US-led invasion of 2003.
	The militants have already captured two provincial capitals this week -- Tikrit in Salaheddin province and second city Mosul in Nineveh.
	Diyala deputy governor Furat al-Tamimi said Kurdish security forces were in control of the Saadiyah and Jalawla districts of the province after the Iraqi army withdrew.
	Commanders had said late yesterday that the two areas were in the hands of Sunni Arab militants.
	The lightning advance launched by the militants in Mosul late on Monday has allowed Iraqi Kurds 

Iraq forces battle militants north of Baghdad

Seven miners were killed and two others are missing after a gas explosion ripped through an underground coal mine in eastern Ukraine, authorities said today.
	The blast happened before dawn yesterday at a depth of 300 metres located in the eastern city of Kirovsk, the State Emergency Service said in a statement.
	Officials said they were continuing their search for the two missing men.
	Accidents are a regular feature at Ukrainian mines, most of which are located in the country's industrial eastern region, where pro-Russian rebels now control over a dozen towns and cities.
	Many of them are underfunded and poorly equipped, and safety violations are rife.
	In the worst accident of its kind in the country's post-Soviet history, more than 100 miners were killed in an explosion in 2007 at the Zasyadko mine, one of the three biggest in Ukraine.

Seven killed in Ukraine mine blast

More than 50 people were injured when a Hong Kong ferry crashed into a seawall off the coast of the gambling enclave of Macau today, officials said, the latest accident to hit the cities' busy waterways.
	The crash happened when the Macau-bound ferry -- reported to be a jetfoil boat -- was approaching the port at around 9.30 am (0130 GMT) and hit a concrete breakwater, a spokesman for Macau's marine department said.
	The authorities earlier said around 20 people were injured but later put the figure at 57.
	"The vessel was carrying a total of 220 passengers and 13 crew members. Fifty-seven passengers have suffered minor injuries, including two Koreans and one Japanese," a spokeswoman for Shun Tak, which operates the ferry services, said in a statement.
	Passenger ferries regularly cover the hour-long distance between Hong Kong and Macau.
	Local broadcaster RTHK said the ferry involved was a jetfoil and the cause of accident was yet to be determined.
	It is the third accident on the ...

More than 50 injured in Hong Kong ferry crash

Bangladesh has accused anti-corruption investigators from the International Cricket Council of allowing a match in a scandal-plagued Twenty20 tournament to go ahead even though it knew it was fixed.
     A report from a special tribunal set up by the Bangladesh board said the ICC's Anti Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) was aware beforehand that a match in the Bangladesh Premier League was going to be fixed but decided to keep organisers in the dark rather than alert them.
     "The evidence is clear that the fixed match between DG (Dhaka Gladiators) and CK (Chittagong Kings) played in Chittagong on the 2 February 2013 was played with the consent of ACSU," the tribunal's report said.
     "It is obvious that the focus of ACSU was on gathering evidence and not on prevention of (the) fixed match," the report added.
     The report, a copy of which has been obtained by AFP, was handed to the ICC on June 8. The tribunal, headed by a retired judge, was set up by the board last September .

Bangladesh says ICC let fixed matches go ahead

Japanese football fans hung their heads in shame today after referee Yuichi Nishimura's controversial performance in the World Cup opener helped Brazil to a 3-1 win over Croatia, further clouding FIFA's showpiece tournament.
     Social media in Japan lit up after the official's decision to give a soft penalty to Brazil which changed the balance of the closely fought match. Several posts showed mocked-up photos of Nishimura wearing a Brazil jersey.
     "There's a lot of Nishimura bashing but quite right," tweeted @shinokc. "That was not a penalty. Feel so sorry for Croatia."
     Echoing the sentiments of Croatia's furious coach Niko Kovac, who claimed Nishimura had been out of his depth, @sanadamasayuki2 commented: "It's a tough job for us dithering Japanese."
     Anticipating further backlash, @tonbuhin tweeted: "Oh dear, if Brazil win the World Cup the whole world will say Nishimura was the MVP (most valuable player)."
     The 42-year-old Nishimura also disallowed a Croatian ...

Japan fans shamed after ref aids Brazil in opener

World Cup venue Cuiaba's road network is undergoing a facelift of Hollywood proportions.
     The charming provincial venue for today's clash between Chile and Australia may be the smallest of all the 2014 World Cup cities, but it can proudly put in a claim to have the mother of all roadworks.
     Fans emerging from the Green City's airport this week were greeted by tarmac chaos -- an asphalt lunar landscape, but unlike the Moon, without the nice view of Earth.
     A multitude of man-made craters -- a health hazard for any caipirinha-guzzling supporter -- mounds of sand, cement mixers, and heavily-laden trucks with claxons blaring, made life trying for the average hire car.
     The terrain was more suited to a 4x4, or better still a Sherman tank.
     "It's a mess," taxi-driver Eduardo, a cuiabano, happily conceded.
     "But once it's finished, it'll make life easier for us."
     Like the city, Cuiaba's brand new stadium, the Arena Pantanal, has endured its own frustrations, and .

Cuiaba under construction as Cup comes to town

Furious Croatia defender Dejan Lovren branded the penalty awarded against him during Brazil's 3-1 win in the World Cup opener a "scandal", questioning the referee's right to be officiating at the showpiece event.
     Unfancied Croatia took a shock lead when Marcelo put the ball into his own net early in the Group A match before Neymar levelled in front of a jubilant crowd in the Corinthians Arena.
     But the European side were holding their own in the second half until Japanese ref Yuichi Nishimura pointed to the spot after Fred backed into Lovren and fell.
     "I think this referee didn't deserve to be here," said the Southampton player. "I don't know for what he deserved to be here. It's really disappointing for us because I think we were playing a good game against a big team, Brazil.
     "Two billion people I think saw that it was not a penalty. I didn't touch him."
     "We're really disappointed but what can you do against 12 players? You can't do anything," he added.
     .

Croatia defender hits out at penalty 'scandal'

Colombia and Greece clash tomorrow in Group C plagued by fears over where their World Cup goals will come from.
     The South Americans were rocked when talismanic striker Radamel Falcao lost his battle to be fit for the finals after suffering a serious knee injury playing for French club Monaco in January.
     Immediately, Jose Pekerman's team lost a man who has scored 20 goals in 51 internationals since his debut in 2007.
     The 28-year-old was his country's top scorer in the qualifying campaign as his nine goals helped Colombia make the finals for the first time since 1998.
     In the absence of Falcao, Teofilo Gutierrez, who plays his club football at River Plate in Argentina, is expected to carry his team's goal-scoring burden starting against the Greeks.
     Gutierrez, 29, has scored 12 goals in 30 internationals and will be supported by Victor Ibardo, the Cagliari winger, or Porto's Jackson Martinez.
     Colombia, whose best World Cup run was a last-16 appearance in ...

Colombia, Greece plagued by striker setbacks

Cloying humidity and a parched pitch will add to the sense of danger when England and Italy launch their World Cup campaigns in the steamy Amazon jungle city of Manaus tomorrow.
     With South American champions Uruguay also lurking in Group D, along with Costa Rica, both Roy Hodgson's England and Cesare Prandelli's Italy approach the game knowing they can scarcely afford to lose if they are to reach the last 16.
     The rainforest humidity, which hovers at around 80 percent, is likely to weigh heavily on the tempo of the game and the two sides must also get to grips with a desiccated playing surface at the purpose-built Amazonia Arena.
     Head groundsman Carlos Botella has admitted that the pitch is in "bad shape" and emergency work was required on Thursday to cover up its dry brown patches with green dye.
     The teams last met in the quarter-finals of the 2012 European Championship in Kiev, when Italy prevailed on penalties after a 0-0 draw that they largely dominated.
     ...

AFP

AFP

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