More than 100 people are believed to have been killed when the Saudi-led coalition fighting Huthi rebels launched an air strike on a detention centre in Yemen, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday.
"We estimate over 100 people were killed," Franz Rauchenstein, head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, told AFP after he travelled to the city of Dhamar where the air strikes hit.
He said at least 40 survivors were being treated for their injuries in hospitals in the city, which lies south of the capital Sanaa.
The Saudi-led military coalition said earlier that it launched air strikes against a Huthi military target that "stores drones and missiles".
However, the Huthi television channel Al-Masirah said that "dozens were killed and injured" in seven air strikes that hit a building the rebels used as a prison.
The ICRC has sent medical teams and hundreds of body bags to Dhamar, saying that it had visited detainees at the location before.
"As we speak, the teams are ...

More than 100 believed killed in Yemen air strike: ICRC

PTI Automatic

Long a pioneer in drone technology, Israel today sees its superiority challenged by Iran and its ally Hezbollah which are also developing military UAVs.
The past week has illustrated the complex and shifting dynamics.
On August 24, Israel struck what it said was an attempt to stop an Iranian force from launching a cross-border drone attack from a Syrian village.
A day later, two drones which Lebanon said were Israeli crashed in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut, an area dominated by Israel's longtime foe Hezbollah.
The Lebanese army later fired at a number of Israeli drones.
On Saturday, Hezollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed that Israel "must pay a price" for the alleged August 25 strike.
On Sunday, Iran unveiled what it said was a new reconnaissance and attack drone with a range of more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
Meanwhile in Iraq, Israel has been accused of being behind several attacks and drone sightings against a paramilitary group. Israel has not ...

On Israel's borders, drone rivalries play out

A minute's silence was held to honour the late French racing driver Anthoine Hubert before Sunday's scheduled Formula Three race at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Hubert, 22, was killed in a crash during Saturday's Formula Two race at the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
A minute's silence will also be held before the start of the Formula One Grand Prix race later Sunday.
Hubert's family stood holding his racing helmet at the front of a large group of racing team members and others during the brief reflective ceremony.
The scheduled F2 race was cancelled.
Other special tributes to the Renault-backed driver are being organised by fans through messages on social media.
These include a round of applause to honour Hubert on lap 19 of the Grand Prix race, marking a memory of his racing number.
The official minute of silence is set to be observed at 1453 local time (1253 GMT), said officials.
The race is due to begin at 1510.
An official schedule said a video tribute to the Frenchman is to be 

A minute's silence in tribute to Formula Two crash victim Hubert

Afghan security forces appeared to have cleared Kunduz of Taliban fighters Sunday, a day after insurgents tried to repeat a 2015 takeover of the northern Afghanistan city.
Fighting also broke out Sunday in Pul-e Khumri, the capital of neighbouring Baghlan province, but officials said the situation was "under control".
The Taliban launched a multi-fronted attack on Kunduz early Saturday, but were eventually repelled after heavy fighting that included US air support.
The fighting comes as US and insurgent negotiators were seeking an agreement in Doha that would see thousands of American troops leave Afghanistan in return for security guarantees.
Kunduz had been "completely cleared" of Taliban fighters by Sunday afternoon, the interior ministry said in a statement, noting that 56 "terrorists" had been killed.
The ministry said 20 Afghan security forces had been killed along with five civilians. Another 85 civilians were wounded, officials said.
In one incident, a suicide bomber blew ...

Afghan forces secure Kunduz after Taliban attack: Officials

Iranian judo star Saeid Mollaei, who claimed he was ordered to deliberately lose a world championship fight, could compete under a refugee flag at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, officials said Sunday.
International Judo Federation (IJF) president Marius Vizer has thrown his support behind former world champion Mollaei, who reportedly complained he had been instructed by Iranian authorities to throw a match in Tokyo last week to avoid facing Israeli Sagi Muki.
"It is our mission to protect our athletes -- that's clear," Vizer told AFP.
"We will do our best that he will compete in the Olympic Games. Later we will see in which team -- there are different options, but one of them will be applied for the Olympics."
Vizer was quoted by local media as saying that Mollaei had told him pressure was being exerted on his family in Iran, prompting him to lose to Belgium's Matthias Casse in the semi-finals of the men's 81-kilo class.
The 27-year-old Tehran native subsequently fled to Berlin where he is .

Judo boss offers Olympic lifeline to asylum-seeking Iranian Mollaei

More than a dozen flights were cancelled Sunday as thousands of pro-democracy activists blocked routes to Hong Kong's airport, a day after protesters and police fought pitched battles in some of the worst violence seen in the city since unrest began three months ago.
At least 16 flights were cancelled, the airport's website said, with the departure hall packed with a backlog of passengers who had struggled to make it to the terminals.
Earlier, operators of the Airport Express train suspended services after the station was besieged, while black-clad protesters - hiding from CCTV cameras under umbrellas - built barricades at the bus terminus and attempted to stop traffic on the main road leading to the facility.
Stranded travellers were forced to abandon their lifts and drag their luggage along the airport road.
Sunday's action is the latest in three months of increasingly violent protests sparked initially by opposition to a proposed law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland 

Flights cancelled after Hong Kong protesters target airport

Seven people were killed when an air-ambulance plane crashed into a resort area near the Philippine capital on Sunday, sparking a fierce blaze and sending terrified locals fleeing, authorities said.
Seven bodies have been found and it is believed all eight people aboard the light aircraft died in the disaster in Calamba City, local emergency official Jeffrey Rodriguez told AFP.
Footage on social media showed the chaotic scene as an ambulance drove towards a building that was engulfed in flames and witnesses shouted for help in the street.
"No one will survive this crash. We assume that all confirmed passengers of this plane are dead," said Rodriguez, confirming seven bodies had been discovered in the smoking ruins.
Police said two people were injured in the crash and rushed to hospital, but have not reported any fatalities from those who were in the resort area when the plane went down.
Philippine aviation authorities said six passengers and two pilots were aboard the craft when it ...

Seven killed in Philippine air-ambulance crash: authorities

Seven people were killed when a air-ambulance plane crashed into a resort area near the Philippine capital on Sunday, sparking a fierce blaze and sending terrified locals fleeing, authorities said.
Seven bodies have been found and it is believed all eight people aboard the light aircraft died in the crash in Calamba City, local emergency official Jeffrey Rodriguez told AFP.

Seven killed in Philippine light aircraft crash: Authorities

Iran on Sunday unveiled a jet-propelled drone it said is capable of finding and attacking targets far from the country's borders with precision.
Dubbed the "Kian", the unmanned aerial vehicle was designed, produced and tested by experts of the air defence force within about a year, said the head of the force, Brigadier General Alireza Sabahifard.
The drone comes in two models capable of "surveillance and reconnaissance missions and continuous flight for precision missions", state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.
"This drone can undertake any drone missions we entrust it with... it can fly more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) and find its target with precision," he said.
The newly launched UAV can carry different munitions and can climb to an altitude of 5,000 metres (15,000 feet), according to state television.
"This unmanned aircraft is capable of hitting targets far from the country's borders and undertaking air defence from the enemy's territory," said Sabahifard.
The ...

Iran unveils new reconnaissance and attack drone

Neymar is to stay at Paris Saint-Germain after seeing his desire to transfer back to Barcelona fail, according to press reports Sunday.
"Se queda," Spanish for he's staying, read the L'Equipe headline on its front page with a photo of the Brazilian.
"Faces with the impossiblity of completing his transfer to Barcelona, Neymar had informed his entourage he has decided to end the season at PSG," the daily said.
Spanish sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo carried similar news, which comes just ahead of the transfer market deadlines in France and Spain on Monday.
"Neymar's entourage admit it: it's finished," it said.
Neymar, 27, became the world's most expensive player when PSG paid 222 million euros (USD 264 million at the time) for his transfer from Barcelona two years ago.
A scorer of 51 goals in 58 appearances in his two seasons in the French capital, Neymar has not featured at all for his current club this season amid the uncertainty surrounding his future.
He trained with PSG on ...

Neymar to stay at PSG: reports

Myanmar said its military was conducting a rare court martial following a probe into alleged mass graves in crisis-hit Rakhine state, two years after a bloody crackdown drove some 740,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.
In February 2018, an Associated Press report alleged at least five mass graves of Rohingya in Rakhine's Gu Dar Pyin village -- a claim denied by the government, which said the bodies were those of "terrorists".
But the military's official website said Saturday that an investigation had found "weakness in following instructions" in Gu Dar Pyin, and that a court martial would "proceed in accordance with the procedures of Military Justice".
Military spokesman Zaw Min Tun confirmed the probe Sunday, and said the report of mass graves "is just an allegation".
But "detailed information cannot be released yet", he told AFP.
The report described grisly violence at the hands of soldiers and Buddhist vigilantes, who allegedly attacked villagers with guns, knives, rocket launchers and .

Myanmar says holding court martial after Rohingya atrocities probe

Soon, Jamal's voice will no longer ring out over the mountain slopes he's roamed for years with his herd in northern Cyprus.
To feed the concrete demands of hotels, holiday homes and road-building, quarries are eating away at the mountains where his goats graze.  "I will have to leave because I don't have a future here," said the 55-year-old herder and lover of poetry.
From Cyprus to New Zealand, Lebanon and beyond, environmentalists worry about the proliferation of quarries in a world ever more greedy for concrete.
Between 40 billion and 50 billion tonnes a year of sand and gravel are extracted around the world from mountains, rivers, coastlines and marine environments, the majority for construction, according to UN environment agency figures.
Concrete consumption has tripled over the past 20 years and with the global population expected to grow by two billion by 2050, demand can only go up, the UN says.
But the extraction process often comes with deforestation, air pollution and ...

Hunger for concrete eats away at mountains

Hundreds of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists blocked some routes to the city's airport Sunday as the financial hub began cleaning up after another night of violent protests marked by fires, tear gas and police beatings.
Operators of the Airport Express train said it had suspended services on Sunday afternoon, while black-clad protesters -- hiding from CCTV cameras under umbrellas -- built barricades at the airport bus station and attempted to stop traffic on the main road leading to terminals.
Flights had so far not been disrupted, and riot police were deployed inside the terminals.
The airport is covered by an injunction banning protesters from entering -- imposed after a shutdown in August which ended in ugly clashes.  But protesters have routinely ignored legal moves to bans their rallies and actions -- since the anti-government movement sprang to life three months ago.
The protests were sparked by an attempt by Hong Kong's Beijing-backed government to pass a now-shelved ...

Hong Kong protesters target airport as city mops up

Afghan security forces have cleared Kunduz of Taliban fighters, an official said Sunday, one day after insurgents assaulted the northern Afghanistan city.
The multi-fronted attack Saturday saw Taliban fighters try to overwhelm Kunduz from several directions in a bid to capture the strategically important city near the Tajik border.
After heavy fighting that included US air support, interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told AFP on Sunday that the city was free of Taliban.
"Kunduz city has been cleared, Taliban pushed back from areas they had taken," Rahimi said.
"The situation is back to normal in the city.
But Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid disputed the claim, saying insurgents were holding onto their positions.
The "enemy's propaganda about expelling mujahideen or killing them is untrue," he told journalists.
The attack occurred even as US and insurgent negotiators were seeking an agreement in Doha that would see thousands of American troops leave Afghanistan in return for 

Afghan forces secure Kunduz after Taliban attack: Official

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday asked Poland's forgiveness for history's bloodiest conflict during a ceremony in the Polish city of Wielun, where the first World War II bombs fell 80 years ago.
"I bow before the victims of the attack on Wielun. I bow before the Polish victims of German tyranny. And I ask your forgiveness," Steinmeier said in both German and Polish.
Poland suffered some of the worst horrors of World War II: nearly six million Poles died in the conflict that killed more than 50 million people overall.
That figure includes the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, half of them Polish.
"It was Germans who committed these crimes against humanity in Poland. Anyone calling them things of the past, or claiming that the vile rule of terror of the National Socialists in Europe was a mere footnote of German history, is passing judgement on him or herself," Steinmeier added in the presence of his Polish counterpart.
The line appeared to be a clear ...

Germany asks Polish forgiveness 80 years after WWII outbreak

The number of fires in Brazil's Amazon basin is still on the rise, even though the government has banned burning, officials have said.
In the first 48 hours since the ban was issued, satellite data from the National Space Research Institute (INPE) showed 3,859 new outbreaks of fire, of which some 2,000 were concentrated in the Amazon region.
From January to the end of August, 51.9 percent of Brazil's recorded 88,816 fires were in the rainforest, according to the INPE, a number experts call a dramatic, direct consequence of farmers' widespread deforestation.
Brazil's Amazon region is in its dry season, but experts note that 2019 has been wetter than previous years -- they also stress that there are no natural fires in the Amazon.
The no-burn decree may have been too little too late, and more of a political than practical gesture, some analysts say.
Deforestation has surged this year as agencies tasked with monitoring illegal activities were weakened by right-wing President Jair ...

Brazil's Amazon basin fires keep surging

Union Berlin pulled off perhaps the biggest victory in their turbulent history, defeating Borussia Dortmund 3-1 at the Stadion An der Alten Foersterei.
Dortmund came into the match heavily favoured to win and reclaim their place on top of the table but struggled to match Berlin's enthusiasm in sweltering conditions in the German capital on Saturday.
Union were 1-0 in the 22nd minute, with Marius Buelter scoring the side's first ever top-flight goal at home.
Buelter latched onto a Berlin corner which had been struck low and fast, hammering the ball into the bottom right of the net.
The goal stung Dortmund into action, who equalised just two minutes later through Paco Alcacer.
Dortmund coasted through the remainder of the first half, dominating possession and territory as they went in search of what seemed like an inevitable second.
It was Union who would score next, however, with Buelter grabbing a second by pouncing on a desperate clearance from Dortmund keeper Roman Buerki.
Sebastian 

Union Berlin upset Dortmund for first-ever Bundesliga win

Swansea edged Leeds 1-0 in their top-of-the-table Championship clash to go two points clear in their best start to a league campaign in 40 years.
Wayne Routledge scored a minute from time in a match Leeds dominated at Elland Road but their weakness from last season came back to haunt them as they failed to take their chances on Saturday.
Routledge struck after the hosts had failed to clear a corner several times to maintain manager Steve Cooper's dream start to his spell, despite selling several key players in the close season.
Cooper, who coached the England Under-17 team to World Cup glory in 2017, appears to be rewarding the bold move by the board to hire him to replace Graham Potter after he left for Brighton.
"It is the perfect result, a clean sheet away from home and scoring one," said Cooper.
"It is a good return. I'm not going to be too reserved, but there are 40 games left.
"I feel like we have played 30 already! Of course, it is a good start, encouraging. A good tally so ...

Swansea go top of Championship with late win over Leeds

Russian fifth seed Daniil Medvedev was fined USD 9,000 (8,187 euros) by the US Open after his unsportsmanlike remarks and obscene gesture in a Friday night triumph.
Medvedev defeated Spain's Feliciano Lopez to reach the fourth round of the year's last Grand Slam tournament at Flushing Meadows.
He was issued a code violation early in the match for tossing a towel.
As he later walked to his chair, Medvedev lifted his middle finger to the side of his head away from the view of the chair umpire but not from stadium cameras, which showed the image on the stadium video screen.
While he was not issued a violation, the umpire only having seen the image on replay, Medvedev drew boos from the crowd the remainder of the night.
He later said the hostile atmosphere inspired him to victory.  Medvedev was fined USD 5,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct and USD 4,000 for his obscene gesture.
"It was tough. I was in the heat of the moment and started losing the momentum. I don't really remember but I paid 

Medvedev fined USD 9,000 by the US Open for gesture, actions

Washington moved ahead Sunday with new tariffs on Chinese imports as it stepped up a high-pressure campaign aimed at coercing Beijing to sign a new trade deal even amid fears of a further slowing of US and world growth.
The additional 15 per cent tariffs, affecting a portion of the USD 300 billion in goods from the Asian giant that so far has been spared, took effect at 04H01 GMT, according to the US Trade Representative's office.
President Donald Trump on Friday ruled out any further postponement. "They're on," he told reporters.
The new tariffs will target a range of products, from foodstuffs (ketchup, butchered meat, pork sausage, fruits, vegetables, milk, cheese) to sports equipment (golf clubs, surf boards, bicycles), to musical instruments, sportswear and furniture, according to an official list.
Economists at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics estimate USD 112 billion in goods will be affected.
The trade war touched off by Trump more than a year 

Trump moves ahead with new tariffs on Chinese products

Kalidou Koulibaly handed Juventus a dramatic win with a last-gasp own goal that consigned Napoli to a painful 4-3 Serie A defeat after his side had battled back from three goals down to level the scores.
The Senegal international shanked in Paulo Dybala's free-kick under no pressure in the second minute of stoppage time to hand Juve the three points in Turin on Saturday and put Maurizio Sarri's side top with a maximum six points, leaving Napoli with nothing to show for their Herculean efforts.
"It was a rollercoaster. We lost control of the game and got distracted, so they managed to equalise, but fortunately in the end we still won," said Gonzalo Higuain, who spun Koulibaly before slamming home Juve's superb second.
"It is a very important victory. We have a lot to improve, but we gave our all on the pitch and were eventually rewarded."
Koulibaly's blunder undid all of Napoli's good work in fighting back from the dead with less than half-an-hour left, with goals from Danilo just 20 ..

AFP

AFP

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