Roger Federer has been seeded second ahead of great rival Rafael Nadal for Wimbledon despite trailing the Spaniard in the world rankings.
Nadal complained earlier this week that Wimbledon's unique formula for seeding that combines ranking points with form in grass-court competitions was disrespectful.
World number one and defending champion Novak Djokovic is the top seed.
Eighteen-time Grand Slam winner Nadal, ranked number two in the world, is therefore guaranteed to be in the same half of the draw as either Federer or Djokovic.
"Obviously it would be better to be two than three but if they think I have to be three I will accept three and fight to win the matches I have to win," Nadal told Spanish television channel Movistar on Monday.
"The only thing that doesn't seem right about this issue is that it is only Wimbledon that does it. If they all did it, it would seem more correct.
"It's not only about my particular case. There have been many occasions when players have played well ...

Federer seeded ahead of Nadal for Wimbledon

PTI Automatic

Canada will continue to command a NATO mission in Iraq for a second year until November 2020, Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan announced Wednesday.
Brigadier-General Jennie Carignan, who will soon be promoted to the rank of major-general, is to take over the command this fall of some 580 NATO troops including 250 from Canada, and others from non-NATO partners such as Australia, Sweden and Finland.
She has previously deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Golan Heights, and Afghanistan.
The non-combat, advisory and training mission looks to bolster Iraq's military and security capabilities, including in areas of medical aid, armoured vehicle maintenance, countering improvised explosive devices and civil-military planning.
NATO's advisory activities are centered in Baghdad, while training is carried out at Iraqi military schools in the Baghdad area, Taji and Besmaya.
The hope, outgoing commander Canadian Major General Dany Fortin said this month, is to make Iraq's military self-sustainable ..

Canada's command of NATO mission in Iraq extended to late 2020

Heading in to the G20 summit, Facebook is on notice from powerful regulators including the Fed chief that its plans for a global cryptocurrency face piercing scrutiny.
The Libra coin is endorsed by a heavyweight consortium of companies, and could see Facebook leverage its two billion-plus users to bring virtual money out of the shadows and into the mainstream.
But Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, addressing the launch for the first time on Tuesday, added his considerable voice to warnings heard already from regulators in Europe and from US lawmakers.
"We're looking at it very carefully," Powell told an event sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
"Given the possible scale of it, I think that our expectations from a consumer protection standpoint, from a regulatory standpoint, are going to be very, very high," he said.
Facebook promises the new currency, launching next year, will slash transaction costs and bring more services to people without access to ...

Facebook's cryptocurrency faces pre-G20 examination

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday adopted a host of reforms to streamline the troubled process of hosting and awarding the Olympic Games in a bid to avoid having "too many losers".
IOC president Thomas Bach used that phrase in the run-up to the awarding of the 2024 Games, for which Paris won the right, with Los Angeles handed the 2028 Games at the same time.
IOC members meeting in Lausanne voted to delete the Olympic charter's ruling that host cities are determined seven years before the event to offer a more flexible timetable.
Future hosts will also not be limited to a sole location, instead relying if needs be on "multiple cities, regions and/or countries", according to Australian John Coates, who heads up the working group behind the reforms.
Additionally, the IOC will ditch its current evaluation commission, replacing it with two dedicated Summer and Winter Olympic Commissions, comprising 10 and eight members respectively.
Potential bid cities will also be ...

IOC reforms Olympic host city race

A soldier travelling with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's advance team for the G20 summit in Japan has been arrested in Spain after 39 kilogrammes (86 pounds) of cocaine were found in his luggage, Spanish police said Wednesday.
He was arrested on Tuesday after the Brazilian military plane he was travelling in made a stopover in Seville in southwestern Spain on its way to Japan, said a spokeswoman for Spain's Guardia Civil police force.
"His suitcase contained only drugs," she added.
A court ordered Wednesday that the soldier, accused of drug trafficking, be held in preventative detention.
Bolsonaro, who has promised a tough stance on gangs which profit from drug trafficking, confirmed the arrest on Twitter on Tuesday, saying he had ordered Brazil's defence ministry to cooperate with Spanish police.
"If the soldier is found to have committed a crime, he will be tried and convicted according to the law," he added.
The summit of the Group of 20 major economies, the so-called G20, ...

Soldier in Brazil's G20 delegation arrested in Spain with cocaine

Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet in Japan this week, their first meeting after last year's spy scandal, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
The meeting in the western Japanese city of Osaka on Friday will take place after Putin said this month it was time to "turn the page" on the countries' difficult relationship after the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury last year.
The Kremlin said the two sides will identify "possible steps to normalise political dialogue."
May's office declined to confirm the meeting.
The two leaders previously met for formal talks on the sidelines of a G20 summit in China in 2016.
The 2018 poisoning of the ex-double agent, which the UK has blamed on Russia, led to dozens of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and a breakdown in already fragile ties between Moscow and London.
"Global issues related to national interests in the economic and social spheres and global security are more ...

Putin, May to meet at G20 after spy scandal: Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US leader Donald Trump will discuss arms control and Iran and Syria crises on the sidelines of this week's G20 summit in Japan, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
Putin is also set to have talks with outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told journalists.
Putin and Trump will meet in Japan's western city of Osaka on Friday.
"As far as the subject of discussions is concerned, a lot depends on the leaders," Ushakov told reporters, adding that they are also likely to touch upon "strategic stability" and Ukraine.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss arms control including New START, a key nuclear weapons agreement that caps the number of nuclear warheads.
Putin said this month that Washington showed no genuine interest in conducting talks on extending the agreement and said Russia was prepared to drop the pact.
The Russian ...

Putin, Trump to discuss Iran, arms at G20: Kremlin

Sri Lanka will stick with the yellow shirts they wore in their victory against England as a World Cup lucky charm after getting approval from the International Cricket Council.
Dimuth Karunaratne's side revived their flagging campaign by upsetting the hosts at Headingley to blow the race for the semi-finals wide open.
Sri Lanka, whose first-choice shirts are predominantly dark blue, will wear their alternative yellow kit in the team's remaining three group games.
"We approved Sri Lanka's request to carry on wearing yellow as the colour," an International Cricket Council spokesman told AFP.
"Every team chose an alternate colour prior to the start of the tournament."
The 1996 champions next play South Africa, who cannot reach the semi-finals, on Friday in the first of their final three league matches in the 10-team competition, with games against the West Indies and India to follow.
Defending champions Australia have already qualified for the last four, with India and New Zealand also ..

Sri Lanka to carry on wearing 'lucky' yellow World Cup shirts

A badly stubbed-out cigarette or an electrical fault could have started the devastating fire that ripped through Notre-Dame cathedral in April, Paris prosecutors said Wednesday, ruling out any criminal intent.
French investigators were examining many hypotheses "including a malfunctioning of the electrical system or a fire which started with a badly stubbed-out cigarette", said a statement, indicating there was no evidence to back up any theory of "a criminal origin" to the fire.

Cigarette, electric fault among possible causes of Notre-Dame fire: prosecutors

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that China needs a trade deal with the United States because its economy is so weakened by US tariffs.
"China's economy is going down the tubes -- they want to make a deal," Trump said in an interview with Fox Business News hours before he took off for a G20 summit in Japan, where he will meet with President Xi Jinping.
Trump has hit USD 200 billion of Chinese imports with levies and has threatened to impose them on an additional USD 300 billion if Beijing does not agree to US demands for protection of intellectual property and other reforms to a trading system that Trump says gives China huge unfair advantages.
The two sides said they were close to a deal before talks broke down in May.
Trump noted that some companies are leaving China for Vietnam to avoid the US import tariffs, but he complained that Vietnam was "even worse than China" when it comes to unfair trading practices.  Vietnam is the "single worst abuser," he said.

Trump: China needs trade deal as economy 'going down the tubes'

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he hopes the US does not go to war with Iran but if it did, America's use of force would be overwhelming.
In an interview on Fox Business News, Trump was asked if America is going to go to war with Iran.
"Well, I hope we don't but we're in a very strong position if something should happen. We're in a very strong position. It wouldn't last very long, I can tell you that. And I'm not talking boots on the ground," Trump said amid acute tensions between the two countries.
In the current crisis with Iran, exacerbated by its downing of an unmanned US spy drone last week, Trump has at turns sounded tough or conciliatory -- talking up US military might and saying all options are on the table, or offering Tehran talks on renegotiating the multi-party nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from last year.
That step is widely seen as the genesis of steadily declining relations between the two countries over the past year.

US war against Iran would 'not last very long:' Trump

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Vietnam was the "single worst abuser" on trade with the United States, worse even than China.
Asked about the movement of companies from China to Vietnam to avoid US tariffs, Trump called it an "interesting" situation and said the US was in discussions with Hanoi.
"A lot of companies are moving to Vietnam, but Vietnam takes advantage of us even worse than China," he said in an interview with Fox Business News.
"It's almost the single worst abuser of everybody.

Trump says Vietnam worse than China on trade

A top UN agency on Wednesday demanded justice for a freelance Pakistani journalist who was murdered earlier this month, as activists warned of a shrinking space for dissent and threats to freedom of speech.
Muhammad Bilal Khan, a social media activist, blogger and freelancer with tens of thousands of followers across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, was stabbed to death in Islamabad on June 16.
The motive for the killing is not known, but Bilal cast a wide net with his criticism, with the powerful military, politicians, sportsmen, religious figures and even fellow journalists coming in for their share.
Local police said on the day of his death he received a phone call from an unidentified person, who took him to a nearby forest and killed him.
"I condemn the killing of Muhammad Bilal Khan," UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said in a statement, calling for "authorities investigating this crime to bring its perpetrators to trial".
The statement came after an earlier condemnation by the New ...

UN condemns murder of Pakistani journalist

The United States on Wednesday formally protested over the arrest in Russia of former US marine Paul Whelan, who has been jailed on charges of espionage since December.
The US embassy in Moscow has asked that allegations of mistreatment in pre-trial detention be investigated and Whelan's safety guaranteed, according to spokeswoman Andrea Kalan.
"We have protested to the (foreign ministry) Paul Whelan's mistreatment while in custody," Kalan wrote on Twitter.
"Welfare of US citizens abroad is our highest priority," she added.
The Russian ministry responded via its own Twitter account, suggesting the US instead comment on the rights of incarcerated Russian citizens on its territory.
The US note of protest comes a few days after Whelan's latest appeal of arrest conditions was rejected.
Whelan, who was arrested in December after allegedly receiving state secrets, maintains that he has been framed and that he took a USB drive from an acquaintance thinking it contained vacation ...

US protests to Russia over arrest conditions of alleged spy

Switzerland on Wednesday banned aerospace firm Pilatus from further operating in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after finding the Swiss company gave "logistical support" to the armed forces of both countries.
The Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement that the conduct of Pilatus in Saudi Arabia and UAE was "incompatible with the federal government's foreign policy objectives," without specifying further.
The Saudi and UAE air forces have formed key parts of the Arab coalition that has bombed Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen since 2015, a campaign that has partly triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
The Saudi-led campaign suffered a blow last week when Britain temporarily suspended approving new arms export licenses to Riyadh that might be used in Yemen.
In 2017, Pilatus signed a five-year maintenance contract on a fleet of 55 jets it sold to the Saudi military, while the UAE has bought 25 jets from the company used to train pilots.
The ..

Swiss ban aerospace firm Pilatus from operating in Saudi, UAE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted Wednesday that she might have to drop her choice for the next leader of the European Commission in a spirit of compromise.
Reporting to the German parliament on a failed effort last week to name a new top team to reform the bloc in the coming years, Merkel said a fresh summit on Sunday could again prove fractious.
"Only those put forward by the European Council for the election of the European Commission president can stand and I don't decide on this recommendation alone," she said.
Merkel said she hoped the process would still "respect" the Spitzenkandidat or lead candidate principle under which the party that performed best in European elections would get first dibs for top jobs.
"But whether that will succeed I cannot say," she said.
"Things are very complicated so we need to keep looking for a solution."
As usual, the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) -- the political movement backed by Merkel -- came out on top in last month's ...

Merkel ready to compromise on EU Commission chief

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that his country remains unbowed by pressure exerted by the United States and its "insults" against the Islamic republic.
"The Iranian nation seeks dignity, independence and progress; that's why pressures by cruel enemies do not affect Iranians," Khamenei said in a speech to a crowd in Tehran.
"The graceful Iranian nation has been accused and insulted by the world's most vicious regime, the US, which is a source of wars, conflicts and plunder," he said, quoted by his office.
"The Iranian nation won't give up over such insults," said Khamenei.
Tehran and Washington have engaged in an escalating war of words following Iran's shooting down of a US drone last week.
Pressure mounted this week with US President Donald Trump announcing sanctions on Khamenei and other top Iranian officials.
The new measures are the latest against Tehran since Trump last year pulled out of a landmark nuclear accord between Iran and world powers.

Iran unbowed by US 'insults', says supreme leader Khamenei

An order for mobile phone users in Thailand's restive south to submit a photo of themselves for facial recognition purposes is causing uproar from opponents who see it as further curtailing the rights of the Muslim-majority population.
But an army spokesman on Wednesday defended the move, saying the facial identification scheme is needed to root out insurgents deploying mobile phone-detonated home-made bombs.
Thailand's three southernmost states -- Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat -- have since 2004 been rife with conflict between Malay-Muslim rebels and the Buddhist-majority Thai state, which annexed the region around a century ago.
The tit-for-tat violence has claimed around 7,000 lives, mostly civilians of both faiths, and security forces have detained individuals suspected of being separatist rebels without warrants in the past.
Now telecoms companies are requiring all users of the region's 1.5 million mobile numbers to submit a photo of themselves for facial recognition purposes ...

Thailand orders phone users in Muslim-majority south to submit photos

A French consumer rights group said Wednesday that it has launched a class action lawsuit against US tech giant Google for violating the EU's strict data privacy laws.
The UFC-Que Choisir group said in a statement that the goal of its class action is to "end the insidious exploitation of users' personal data, particularly those using Android devices with a Google account, and compensate them for up to 1,000 euros (USD 1,135)".
"This compensation claim is a first in France as well as Europe," UFC-Que Choisir president Alain Bazot told AFP.
"If the judge rules in favour, there are potentially 28 million Android users in France that could be entitled to compensation," he added.
So far 200 people have joined the class action, said Bazot.
Google said it had not yet received details concerning the case and declined to comment for time being.
The class action comes after the internet behemoth suffered two recent blows in France.
In January, France's CNIL data watchdog slapped Google with a ..

French consumer group launches class action against Google

Former Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang saw his misconduct conviction quashed by the city's top court on Wednesday, the final twist to one of the financial hub's most high-profile corruption cases.
Tsang was jailed in 2017 after being found guilty of failing to disclose his plans to lease a luxury flat from a major investor in a broadcaster, which was later granted a licence from the government while he was leader.
The 74-year-old, who held the leadership post of chief executive for seven years from 2005, was the most senior city official ever to be convicted in a criminal trial and the highest-ranking one to be put behind bars.
But on Wednesday he was exonerated by the Court of Final Appeal which quashed his misconduct in public office conviction, ending a seven-year legal ordeal.
Tsang, who was released from jail in January on health grounds, was not present in court for Wednesday's verdict.
The unanimous decision overturned two lower court rulings which found that his failure to make .

Ex-Hong Kong leader Tsang cleared of misconduct conviction

France wants the G20 to issue a statement committing to strong action on climate change and considers the issue a "red line", President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday ahead of the summit.
Macron was speaking in Tokyo on a visit ahead of this week's Group of 20 meeting, where climate change will be among several contentious issues on the table, along with trade and tensions with Iran.
The French leader held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday, reaffirming an alliance that has been tested in recent months after the arrest of auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn.
Ghosn, a French citizen, once headed an auto alliance of Japan's Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors and France's Renault, and his arrest has laid bare tensions in the partnership.
The G20 is expected to be dominated by the ongoing trade war between China and the United States, as well as concerns that spiralling tensions between Washington and Tehran could lead to war.
But climate change will also be a ...

AFP

AFP

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