At least 10 people have been killed by xenophobic violence in South Africa this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Thursday, adding that one victim was a foreign national.
"There can be no excuse for the attacks on the homes and businesses of foreign nationals," Ramaphosa said in a speech aired on national television and radio.
"Equally, there is no justification for the looting and destruction of businesses owned by South Africans.

10 killed including one foreigner in SAfrica xenophobic violence: president

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US internet search engine Yahoo suffered a technical glitch Thursday, the company said, affecting thousands of users, especially email account holders in Britain.
"Most services are back online," Yahoo tweeted around 1530 GMT while attempting to fix the problem that was first flagged more than seven hours earlier.
"This is a technical issue that affected our services. We are sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we get everything back up and running," the company added.
According to outage alert service Downdetector, issues have occurred mainly across Europe, parts of the United States and in India.

Yahoo hit by technical glitch

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday vowed to tighten laws to fight rape and murder of women as the nation reels from high profile murders in recent days.
In an impromptu address thousands of protesters outside parliament, Ramaphosa admitted that it was time his government took emergency measures to deal with the scourge of rape and murder of women.
At least 137 sexual offences are committed per day, mainly against women, according to official figures.
Women Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said this week that more than 30 women were killed by their spouses last month alone.
"Enough is enough and we are going to act," said Ramaphosa, promising to announce later Thursday a raft of new measures his government will take.
"Men that kill and rape must stay in jail for life. The law must change that once you have raped and kill you get life, no bail!" Ramaphosa told the angry crowd.
Thousands of women protested for a second consecutive day in Cape Town at rallies prompted by 

S Africa's Ramaphosa vows to intensify war on rape, murder of women

Rafael Nadal, called a "lion" by his latest victim and "the greatest fighter ever" by his next opponent, stalks his 19th Grand Slam title in Friday's US Open semi-finals.
The 33-year-old Spaniard, forced to retire from last year's semi-finals with knee pain, is feeling healthy now and ready to pounce upon Italy's 24th-seeded Matteo Berrettini.
"He's serving huge, big forehands, moving well, and big confidence because he's having a great year, so let's see. I need to play my best," Nadal said of his first-time foe.
"Looks relaxed, looks he's ready to fight for important things."
At stake is a berth in Sunday's final at Arthur Ashe Stadium against a first-time Grand Slam finalist -- the winner between Russian fifth seed Daniil Medvedev and Bulgaria's 78th-ranked Grigor Dimitrov, who upset 20-time Slam champion Roger Federer in a five-set quarter-final thriller.
"I saw some matches of him here. He was playing unbelievable," Medvedev said. "We all know what he's capable of when he's ...

'Lion' Nadal roars into US Open semis chasing 19th Slam title

Energy from increasingly-competitive renewable sources such as wind and solar has quadrupled globally in just a decade, the United Nations said Thursday, but insatiable demand saw power sector emissions rise 10 per cent.
Worldwide investment in renewables since 2009 is on course to hit USD 2.6 trillion (2.35 trillion euros) by the end of the year, largely driven by "spectacular" falls in the price of solar panels, the UN's annual assessment of green energy trends said.
The world's renewable capacity -- power generated from solar, wind, geothermal and biomass -- rose from 414 gigawatts in 2009 to 1650 gigawatts this year, and renewables now account for 12.9 per cent of all electricity generated on Earth.
Solar accounted for the largest single share of the more than 2300 GW of additional power capacity installed globally in the past decade, outpacing fossil fuels such as coal and gas.
Yet despite the surge in carbon-free solar and wind, emissions from power have continued to rise, with .

Renewable energy surges as power emissions keep rising: UN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for more international pressure on Iran Thursday after it ended limits to its nuclear research and development in its latest response to US sanctions.
"This morning we were informed of another violation, more defiance, by Iran, this time in its striving to attain nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said before leaving for London, where he will meet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US Defence Secretary Mark Esper.
"This is not the time to hold talks with Iran; this is the time to increase the pressure on Iran."
Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.
President Hassan Rouhani's announcement on Wednesday came shortly after the United States hit Iran with further unilateral sanctions, the latest in a series of punitive measures including a crippling embargo on Iranian oil exports.
Iran and three European countries -- Britain, France and Germany -- have been engaged in talks to save a landmark 2015 nuclear accord that .

Netanyahu urges more pressure on Iran after latest nuclear move

Four candidates from three continents are in the running to lead the UN's nuclear watchdog, which is tasked with monitoring implementation of the faltering Iran nuclear deal.
Slovakia on Thursday put forward Marta Ziakova as the latest candidate for the position of director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is searching for a new chief following the death of Yukiya Amano in July.
The Slovakian foreign ministry pointed to 63-year-old Ziakova's "extensive expertise in nuclear issues".
She is currently head of the Slovak Nuclear Regulatory Authority and has also served in several diplomatic roles at the IAEA itself.
"In line with the efforts of late DG (director general) Amano who championed gender balance at the agency, we also think it's high time for a woman to lead the organisation," the ministry said in a statement.
Romanian diplomat Cornel Feruta, who was made acting director general after Amano's death, has also put himself forward, a diplomatic ...

Four candidates running to lead UN nuclear watchdog

US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad has returned to Qatar for further talks with the Taliban as he fine-tunes a deal on withdrawing troops, the State Department said Thursday.
"Ambassador Khalilzad has returned to Doha to continue talks," a State Department spokesperson said.
Khalilzad had earlier reached an agreement "in principle" with the Taliban that would lead to an end to America's longest war, a top goal for President Donald Trump.
The internationally recognised government in Kabul, with which the Taliban have refused to negotiate, voiced concern and sought clarifications, pointing to risks.
The Taliban have not relented on violence despite negotiating with the United States, killing at least 10 people including NATO troops in a bombing Thursday in Kabul.

US envoy returns to Doha for more Taliban talks: State Dept

Thailand plans to allocate more than USD 251 million for monarchy "security" in the 2020 budget, a hike of more than 13 per cent year-on-year, according to figures confirmed by a government spokesperson on Thursday.
The proposal, which still needs parliamentary approval, comes four months after 67-year-old King Maha Vajiralongkorn was crowned in an elaborate ceremony.
It is also the first budget under the staunchly pro-royalist administration of Prayut Chan-O-Cha, a former coup maker turned civilian premier after a disputed poll.
The funds for the palace were included in a proposal released by the budget bureau, which provided no detailed breakdown on how the money would be used and were labelled only "security fundamentals".
The cabinet agreed on the 2020 figures Tuesday, government spokesperson Narumon Pinyosinwat told AFP.
"Next there will be a drafting of the budget bill which will be proposed to the parliament around the end of this year," she said, adding that the numbers are ...

Thailand seeks USD 251 million for palace budget, a 13 per cent hike

Protestors on Thursday smashed the windows of the South African consulate in DR Congo's second largest city and attacked South African-owned stores, in reprisal for attacks on foreigners in Johannesburg, an AFP reporter saw.
A demonstration called by a campaign group outside the consulate in Lubumbashi, southeastern DR Congo, spiralled out of control and protestors smashed the building's windows.
They then attacked and looted a store owned by the South African retail group MRP before police intervened, injuring one or two protestors.
The campaign group Lucha tweeted its disapproval.
"You do not condemn violence by violence! We call on the police to stop the looters, without using excessive/legal force," it said.
Attacks broke out in and around Johannesburg this week, leaving seven dead and dozens of shops destroyed, mostly foreign-owned. More than 350 people have been arrested.
Foreign workers are often victims of anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa, where they compete against ...

S African consulate, shops attacked in DR Congo city

Sri Lanka's police Thursday issued an appeal to trace seven people thought to have survived the Easter bombings but who then went missing without speaking to investigators.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said investigators interviewed 81 survivors, but were keen to speak with another seven who left hospital without providing contact details.
"The CID (the Criminal Investigations Department) is very keen to speak with them and we are issuing an appeal to trace these people in connection with the attacks," Gunasekera told reporters in Colombo.
He did not say if they suspect them to have been involved with the April 21 suicide bombers who targeted three churches and three luxury hotels, killing at least 258 people and wounding nearly 500.
Gunasekera said police seized assets worth 6,000 million rupees ($34 million) from the Islamist extremist suicide bombers and their immediate family.
A total of 293 people remained in custody as investigations continued, he added.  President ...

Sri Lanka looks for Easter attack survivors to help probe

Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria on Thursday handed over three siblings linked with the Islamic State group to Nigeria, the first such repatriation to the African country, an official said.
"Three children... were handed over to representatives of the Nigerian government," said Fanar Kaeet, a Kurdish foreign affairs official.
The siblings are a girl and two boys -- all between five and ten years old --  who had lost both parents, Kaeet told AFP.
A representative of Nigeria's government said his country is also looking into other cases.
"We have asked the foreign relations department at the Kurdish administration for a list of Nigerians and Africans" under their custody, Musa Habib Marika said.
"As for Nigerian (IS) fighters, the Nigerian government will look into this," Marika said in response to a question as to whether his country had any plans to repatriate combatants.
The Kurds have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, and in March expelled the extremists ...

Syria Kurds hand over three IS-linked children to Nigeria

Top-ranked defending champion Novak Djokovic said "life goes on" after a shoulder injury forced him to quit Sunday's clash with Stan Wawrinka in the last 16 of the US Open.
Wawrinka, the 23rd seed and 2016 champion, led Djokovic 6-4, 7-5, 2-1 when the Serb quit with a nagging left shoulder problem that had troubled him since the start of the tournament.
"The pain was constant for weeks now. Some days higher, some days with less intensity and obviously taking different stuff to kill the pain instantly," Djokovic said.
"Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. You just know when you know, I guess, when you feel like you're not able to hit the shot anymore." Djokovic refused to expand on the nature of his injury, which had caused him considerable pain during a second-round win over Juan Ignacio Londero.
"I retired and I told you it's left shoulder. I have nothing more to talk about," he said.
"I don't want to talk about my injuries. I said that in the past. I'm sticking to ...

Djokovic says 'life goes on' as injury wrecks US Open defense

Improved safety standards in motor racing will be pursued relentlessly and research into better protection for drivers will never stop, according to the sport's ruling body.
International Motoring Federation (FIA) race director Michael Masi said an investigation into the crash on Saturday that killed Formula Two driver Anthoine Hubert had already begun.
"Safety is ever evolving," said Masi, who took over his role following the sudden death earlier this year of long-time FIA official Charlie Whiting.
"Once different technologies become available, different materials become available -- safety is an ever-evolving process. For me, it is something that will never end.
"I've said it before and I'll repeat it. Safety is one of the core pillars of the FIA, part of why it exists. That is something that just won't stop.
"We'll continue to research and look at things and improve them as best we can." Frenchman Hubert's death left the sport shocked and close friend Charles Leclerc dedicated his .

Grand Prix death triggers safety probe -- motor sport chief

Most Asian markets fell on Monday as fresh Chinese and US tariffs on goods worth hundreds of billions of dollars kicked in, though Donald Trump reiterated that the two sides were still due to hold talks this month.
Hong Kong was weighed down by another weekend of violence, fuelling worries about possible Chinese intervention in the financial hub, while the unrest has also hit property firms and Macau's casinos.
Washington's latest levies on imports from China took effect on Sunday and were followed by Beijing's retaliation.
The measures are the latest in the long-running trade war between the world's top two economies, which has rattled markets and hit growth across the globe.
Still, Trump said negotiators would meet this month to discuss the issue. "We are talking to China, the meeting is still on," he told reporters.
However, analysts warned there was unlikely to be any end in the near term.
"After a rough August traders should buckle up for more volatility in September," said Neil .

Asian markets mostly down as China-US tariffs kick in

A local extremist group linked to Al-Qaeda was responsible for the murder of three prominent Maldivians, including a journalist missing for more than five years, an independent commission in the Indian Ocean island republic has found.
The Presidential Commission on Investigation of Murders and Enforced Disappearances said Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, a reporter with the independent Minivan News website, was abducted on August 8, 2014 and murdered at sea.
Husnu Al-Suood, the president of the commission which was recently established by the Maldives government, told reporters in the capital Male late Sunday that the reporter popularly known as Rilwan received death threats from the group operating under the name Bilad-al-Sham on Facebook.
Al-Suood said the group was also responsible for the assassination of a moderate legislator in 2012 and liberal blogger Yameen Rasheed in 2017, and the attempted murder of another liberal blogger in 2012.
Rilwan's disappearance sparked international concern, .

Missing Maldives journalist killed by Islamic radicals: report

Kenyan authorities said Monday they have recovered the bodies of six of seven members of a tour group who were killed in a flash flood at the Hell's Gate national park.
"Six bodies of the flash flood victims have been recovered, leaving one tourist missing," the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on Twitter.
The KWS manages the park, the location of the 2003 film "Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life".
It said the search and rescue operation was continuing and the authorities have sought to contact the next of kin.
Six tourists - five Kenyans and a foreigner -- and their local guide were swept away in the flash flood as they were visiting the park on Sunday, part of a group of 13.
Two survivors from the group alerted park rangers who sent out a search party.
The deep gorges of the Hell's Gate park are often lashed by heavy rains. In 2012, seven young Kenyans drowned at the same spot in the Ol Jorowa gorge in the south of the park.
The tour guides have "been trained to detect storm water ...

Six bodies recovered after flash flood in Kenya national park

A South Korean lawmaker provoked outrage Monday when he berated a female economics professor nominated as the country's antitrust chief for not "fulfilling her duty to the nation" by having a child.
Despite its economic advances, South Korean society remains highly patriarchal and is facing a demographic crisis with women increasingly reluctant to have babies for reasons ranging from the expense of child-rearing to career setbacks.
The government has spent billions of dollars since 2005 to try to boost the birth rate - one of the world's lowest - by providing child subsidies and expanding daycare services, without success.
Jeong Kab-yoon, a five-time lawmaker from the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party, sparked an outcry when he scolded Joh Sung-wook, an unmarried academic who is in her mid-50s, for not having children.
"I'm aware that you are still single and the biggest problem in South Korea is that (women) are not giving birth," Jeong said at Joh's confirmation hearing to 

S Korea lawmaker grills official nominee for not giving birth

Berlin zoo said Monday its resident panda Meng Meng had delivered twins, as it voiced delight at the first such births in the country.
"Meng Meng became a mom - twice! We are so happy, we are speechless," the zoo said on Twitter, also posting a video of the new mother guiding one of her pink babies to feed.
The births are particularly rare as it is notoriously hard to breed pandas.
The panda delivered its first cub on Saturday evening. About an hour later, a second baby was born.
"Meng Meng and her two cubs coped well with the birth and are all in good health," zoo director Andreas Knieriem said.
At birth, the pink cubs, with their fine white down and disproportionately long tails, bear little resemblance to the adult black and white bears.
Their genders have not been determined, the zoo said, although the two cubs weighed in at 136 and 186 grams.  On loan from China, Meng Meng and male panda Jiao Qing arrived in Berlin in June 2017 to great fanfare.
Famed for its "panda diplomacy", ..

Berlin zoo delights in rare birth of panda twins

Japan will launch a special police unit equipped with submachine guns and helicopters to patrol disputed isles in the East China Sea -- a source of tension between Tokyo and Beijing, according to police and media.
The deployment near the tiny islands known as the "Senkakus" in Japanese and the "Diaoyu" in Chinese could take place early next year, public broadcaster NHK reported on Monday.
The National Police Agency said it had put in a budget request for an additional 159 officers to head off "illegal landings on remote islands by armed groups".
NHK said it was the first time police had stepped up patrols near the disputed islands.
However, extra jets from the Japan Coastguard were deployed in 2018 to patrol the islands, where a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine was spotted earlier last year.
The uninhabited islets are at the centre of a festering row between Tokyo and Beijing, which is also involved in a widening dispute with several Southeast Asian countries over islands in the ...

Japan 'to set up police unit' for disputed islands

Eight warships, four aircraft and more than a thousand personnel from the US and ten Southeast Asian countries will join maritime drills kicking off Monday, as part of a joint exercise extending into the flashpoint South China Sea.
The first Asean-US Maritime Exercise (AUMX) between the regional bloc and Washington lasts for five days, starting at the Sattahip Naval Base in Thailand and ending in Singapore.
The drills come at a time of stepped-up US engagement in the region and tensions between Beijing and Southeast Asian nations over the South China Sea, parts of which are claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Co-led by the US and Royal Thai navies, the exercises will stretch into "international waters in Southeast Asia, including the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea" before concluding in Singapore, according to a statement from the US embassy in Bangkok.
"AUMX builds greater maritime security on the strength of ASEAN, the strength of our navy-to-navy bonds, ..

AFP

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