Bungling Japanese officials sparked a nuclear scare after a violent, late-night earthquake by ticking the wrong box on a fax form -- inadvertently alerting authorities to a potential accident.
Employees of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata -- where the 6.4-magnitude quake struck -- faxed a message to local authorities seeking to allay any fears of damage.
But TEPCO workers accidentally ticked the wrong box on the form, mistakenly indicating there was an abnormality at the plant rather than there was no problem.
One official filled out the form, and it was checked by a colleague before being sent.
Many Japanese government departments and companies still rely on fax machines for communication.
TEPCO's Tokyo headquarters noticed the mistake, and a correction was published 17 minutes after the original release, the firm's Tokyo-based spokesman told AFP.  Kashiwazaki city mayor Masahiro Sakurai saw the incorrectly ...

Get your fax right: Bungling officials spark Japan nuclear scare

PTI Automatic

British leadership favourite Boris Johnson won the endorsement of a key Brexit-backing rival on Wednesday despite accusations he was softening his rhetoric on leaving the EU.
Ahead of another round of voting in parliament, former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab said Johnson was the "only candidate" to take Britain out of the European Union as planned on October 31.
On Tuesday Raab was eliminated from the contest to replace Theresa May as the leader of the ruling Conservative party and prime minister, leaving five candidates left.  One of them will be eliminated in another ballot of Conservative MPs later Wednesday, before further votes on Thursday to whittle the field down to a final pair.
Former foreign minister Johnson, a one-time mayor of London, is leading the pack after securing the support of 126 of 313 Tory MPs in Tuesday's ballot.
A figurehead of the 2016 referendum campaign for Brexit, he insists there must be no more delays to Britain's EU exit, after May postponed it ...

Boris Johnson wins key Brexit backing in Tory leadership race

The Royal Chapel at the Palace of Versailles, the final great building work undertaken in the reign of Louis XIV, is undergoing a painstaking restoration that is expected to be finished within 18 months.
The intricate work to clean and restore its extraordinary windows, statues and other features is being carried out under the strictest security measures to avoid any repeat of the fire that severely damaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in April.
The chapel was completed in 1710 after over a decade of work during the final years of the reign of Louis XIV, the so-called Sun King who ruled for 72 years and was famed for the splendour of his court.
The restoration includes the roof timbers, decorative lead work, the statues and stained glass windows.
Workers restore the stone sculptures in the walls using photographs to ensure complete fidelity to the original.
The restoration is literally under wraps, with the chapel surrounded by a protective canvas that conceals the restoration work ..

Versailles' Royal Chapel gets painstaking restoration

South Korea said Wednesday it was open to talks with Japan on the issue of wartime forced labour if local and Japanese firms set up a joint compensation fund for victims of the policy.
Relations between the two US allies have been increasingly strained by a series of rulings from South Korean courts ordering Japanese firms that used wartime forced labour to compensate victims.
Japan's government and the firms involved have rejected the rulings, with Tokyo saying the issue was settled when the two countries normalised relations.
Last month, Tokyo proposed the issue be put to arbitration under the terms of an agreement signed by the two countries in 1965, when ties were normalised.
The agreement calls for the two countries to set up an arbitration panel if they cannot resolve a dispute through diplomatic negotiations.
South Korea on Wednesday offered a counter-proposal that would see South Korean and Japanese firms -- including those involved in the court cases -- set up a voluntary ...

South Korea seeks joint fund with Japan firms to compensate war labourers

A Japanese tanker attacked in the Gulf of Oman last week was damaged by a limpet mine resembling Iranian mines, the US military in the Middle East said on Wednesday.
"The limpet mine that was used in the attack is distinguishable and it is also strikingly bearing a resemblance to Iranian mines that have already been publicly displayed in Iranian military parades," Commander Sean Kido of US Naval Forces Central Command said.
Kido told reporters in the UAE emirate of Fujairah that the US military has recovered biometric information of the assailants on the Japanese ship including "hand and finger prints." Two oil tankers were damaged in twin attacks close to the Iranian coast on June 13, just outside the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Japan tanker hit by mine resembling Iran's: US army

England fast bowler Mark Wood said he had no regrets about persisting with short-pitched deliveries after hitting Afghanistan batsman Hashmatullah Shahidi with a bouncer.
Shahidi had made 24 when he took his eye off a 90 mile-per-hour (145 kilometres-per-hour) delivery from the Durham quick that thudded into the side of his helmet at Old Trafford on Tuesday and saw him hit the turf immediately after the impact.
But instead of retiring hurt, the 24-year-old donned a new helmet and carried on to top-score for Afghanistan, with 76 in a lopsided 150-run loss.
Wood, while concerned enough to check on Shahidi's condition, had no regrets about testing him and the other Afghanistan batsmen with more short-pitched deliveries.
"Well, I was concerned when I first hit him, obviously," said Wood.
"It was a bit of a bad blow and then it's out of my hands really. You have to let the medical staff do their thing. I checked he was all right himself, said 'are you OK?'. Then I was back in the game ...

England's Wood has no regrets over Afghanistan short stuff

Dutch prosecutors are to put four people on trial for murder next year over the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, in which 298 people were killed, relatives said on Wednesday.
The court case over the crash of the Malaysia Airlines plane will start in the Netherlands in March 2020, according to family members who were briefed ahead of an announcement by international investigators due about 1100 GMT.
The identities of the four people to be charged were not immediately available but a Ukrainian minister and reports said on Tuesday they included at least one senior Russian officer.
The airliner travelling between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur was torn apart in mid-air after being hit by a missile over territory in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists on July 17, 2014, investigators say.
"There is a court case on March 9 2020 against four people for murder," Silene Fredriksz, whose son and daughter-in-law were killed in the disaster, told reporters.
"I am happy that the ..

Dutch to put four on trial over MH17 crash

South Korea said Wednesday it will send 50,000 tonnes of rice to North Korea via the World Food Programme to help the country cope with a severe food shortage.
The isolated, impoverished North -- which is under several sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes -- has long struggled to feed itself and suffers chronic food shortages.
"The government cannot ignore the plight among North Korean people," said Seoul's unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations.
It will be the first time the South has provided food aid to the North since 2010, when it sent 5,000 tonnes of rice across the border.
It comes after a joint report last month by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and WFP that said about 10.1 million North Koreans -- 40 percent of the population -- were suffering from severe food shortages and that conditions could be exacerbated in the absence of aid.
The North's state media also reported in May that the country was ...

South Korea to send 50,000 tonnes of rice to North

German sportswear giant Adidas on Wednesday lost a legal battle to trademark its "three stripe" motif in the EU, as a court ruled the design was not distinctive enough to deserve protection.
The three parallel stripes seen adorning everything from running shoes to sports bags and the sleeves of t-shirts are "an ordinary figurative mark", the General Court of the European Union ruled.
The court, the EU's second highest tribunal, upheld a 2016 ruling by the bloc's intellectual property regulator cancelling the registration of the three-stripe design as a trademark following a challenge by a Belgian shoe company.
"The General Court of the EU confirms the invalidity of the Adidas EU trade mark which consists of three parallel stripes applied in any direction," the court said in a statement.
Adidas had not proved the motif had acquired a "distinctive character" throughout the 28 countries of the bloc that would qualify for legal protection, the court said.
"The mark is not a pattern mark ..

Adidas loses EU court battle over 'three stripe' design

US assets in Iraq have been targeted at least five times in as many days, officials said Wednesday, amid a tense standoff between Baghdad's key allies, Washingon and Tehran.
The attacks follow a series of operations against tankers in highly sensitive Gulf waters which the US has blamed on Iran, raising fears of a regional war.
In Baghdad, officials have voiced fears that a proxy conflict between the bitter enemies could play out in Iraq, where political and armed groups routinely accuse each other of being agents for foreign states.
On Wednesday at dawn, "a Katyusha rocket fell on an Iraqi drilling company in the Burjesiya area near Basra, wounding three people according to an initial assessment," Iraqi military command said in a statement.
Oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP that those wounded were all Iraqis.
Burjesiya is a complex near southern Iraq's main city, in a key oil-producing region hosting various Iraqi and foreign companies including US major Exxon Mobil.
The ...

US interests come under repeated fire in Iraq: officials

The revolver with which Vincent van Gogh is believed to have shot himself goes under the hammer at a Paris auction house on Wednesday.
Billed as "the most famous weapon in the history of art", the 7mm Lefaucheux revolver is expected to fetch up to 60,000 euros ($67,000).
The troubled Dutch painter died in July 1890 and experts believe he shot himself with the revolver in field near Auvers-sur-Oise, a village north of Paris where he spent the last few months of his life.
Discovered by a farmer in 1965 in the same field, the gun has previously been exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
While Art Auction, which is selling the gun, says there is no way of being absolutely certain it is the fatal weapon, tests showed it has been in the ground for 75 years, which would fit.
The Dutch artist had borrowed the gun from the owner of the village inn where he was staying.
He died 36 hours later after staggering back wounded to the auberge in the dark.
The bullet extracted from Van Gogh's 

Gun 'that ended Van Gogh's life' goes under hammer

Southeast Asian leaders must use an upcoming summit to hold unvarnished talks on Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya, rights groups urged Wednesday, after a report by the bloc was pilloried for whitewashing the persecution of the Muslim minority.
The report, commissioned by ASEAN and leaked to AFP earlier this month, gives a glowing assessment of Myanmar's repatriation efforts so far for Rohingya driven into neighbouring Bangladesh.
Myanmar's military launched a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya in August 2017, causing some 740,000 to flood into Bangladesh with widespread accounts of rape, mass killings and the razing of their villages.
A repatriation deal with Bangladesh has stalled, with virtually no Rohingya choosing to return to Myanmar due to security fears and the government's refusal to grant them citizenship or basic rights.
In spite of this, the report from ASEAN's "Emergency Response and Assessment Team" predicted voluntary returns would be complete in two years.
It also ...

ASEAN leaders told to get serious on Rohingya issue

Dutch prosecutors are to charge four people with murder over the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, with a trial due early next year, relatives of the victims said Wednesday.
"There is a court case on March 9 2020 against four people for murder," Silene Fredriksz, whose son and daughter-in-law were killed in the disaster, told reporters after family members were briefed on the charges.

Dutch to put four on trial for murder over MH17: relatives

A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen intercepted a Huthi rebel drone targeting the kingdom, a spokesman said Wednesday, calling it another violation of an already fragile ceasefire in a key Red Sea province.
The unmanned drone was shot down in Yemeni airspace after the Iran-aligned rebels launched it from Hodeida province, coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said in comments carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Maliki did not report any casualties, but said the operation was a breach of the Hodeida ceasefire deal reached in Sweden last December between the rebels and Yemen's Saudi-backed government.
The deal has already been marred by reported violations on both sides as UN-led peace efforts falter in Hodeida, the main entry point for the bulk of Yemen's imports and humanitarian aid.
The rebels denied carrying out Wednesday's attack. Huthi-run Al-Masirah TV quoted a spokesman as saying "no such operation has been conducted in the past 12 hours".
Persistent coalition bombing .

Saudi-led coalition intercepts new Yemeni rebel drone

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres should launch an international criminal investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October, an independent rights expert said Wednesday.
In a fresh report on the killing, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard urged Guterres to "initiate a follow-up criminal investigation into the killing of Mr. Khashoggi to build-up strong files on each of the alleged perpetrators and identify mechanisms for formal accountability, such as an ad hoc or hybrid tribunal.

UN chief should launch international probe over Khashoggi murder: rights expert

There is "credible evidence" linking Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October, a report by an independent United Nations rights expert said Wednesday.
In her report, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard said she had "determined that there is credible evidence, warranting further investigation of high-level Saudi Officials' individual liability, including the Crown Prince's.

'Credible evidence' linking Saudi crown prince to Khashoggi murder: UN expert

An 83-year-old woman was in a serious condition in a British hospital on Wednesday after being hit by a motorbike in the convoy carrying Prince William and his wife Kate.
The royal couple were travelling from their central London home to Windsor, west of the capital, on Monday when a police outrider collided with the pensioner.
Kensington Palace said they were "deeply concerned and saddened" and had contacted the woman, identified as "Irene".
"Their Royal Highnesses have sent their very best wishes to Irene and her family and will stay in touch throughout every stage of her recovery," the palace said.
The couple were reported to have sent flowers to the woman, who is in a serious but stable condition, with The Sun tabloid reporting she sustained a broken pelvis.
A witness told the paper the "bike hit her and she spun round, off her feet and fell badly on the floor".
"The officer (driving) was devastated. But he was going on the wrong side of the road." The Independent Office for ...

Kate and William's police convoy hits UK pensioner

Russia and China on Tuesday blocked an American initiative that aimed to halt fuel deliveries to North Korea, which Washington accuses of exceeding its annual ceiling for 2019, diplomatic sources said.
Moscow and Beijing said more time was needed to study the US request, which was backed by 25 UN members including Japan, France and Germany, according to the sources.
A week ago, the United States, in a report, accused North Korea of breaching the United Nations-imposed ceiling on fuel imports by carrying out dozens of ship-to-ship transfers.
The cap on fuel imports is among a series of tough sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council in response to North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear tests.
The United States insists that "maximum pressure" from the sanctions must remain on North Korea until it agrees to dismantle its weapons program.
Washington had asked that a United Nations sanctions committee rule that the annual cap of 500,000 barrels had been exceeded and order all ...

Russia, China, block US effort to halt North Korea fuel deliveries

China's global Belt and Road Initiative could boost economies and reduce poverty rates in dozens of developing countries, but risks environmental damage, debt and corruption if improvements aren't made, the World Bank said Wednesday.
President Xi Jinping's signature foreign policy aims to reinvent the ancient Silk Road to connect Asia to Europe and Africa through massive investments in maritime, road and rail projects -- with hundreds of billions of dollars in financing from Chinese banks.
Critics, however, say the six-year-old BRI is a plan to boost Beijing's global influence, riddled with opaque deals favouring Chinese companies, and will saddle nations with debt and environmental damage.
The World Bank's "Belt and Road Economics" report said the project has "the potential to substantially improve trade, foreign investment, and living conditions", but only if China and corridor countries make policy reforms to improve transparency, expand trade and mitigate against environmental and 

Reforms and transparency needed for Belt and Road success: World Bank

Superstar striker Sam Kerr was hailed as a national treasure and the greatest of all time Wednesday after becoming the first Australian to score a hat-trick at a World Cup.
The 25-year-old banged in four goals as Australia smashed Jamaica 4-1 on Tuesday to reach the last 16.
Kerr -- the all-time leading scorer in the US National Women's Soccer League -- had remarkably not found the net in her previous two World Cup appearance in 2011 and 2015.
But she opened her account against Italy in the opening game and is now the tournament's joint top scorer with five alongside the USA's Alex Morgan after a striking performance that left Jamaica coach Hue Menzies in awe.
"I told her after the match that it's good to sit back and watch her play -- I'd pay to watch her," he said.
Her performance brought high praise back home from Australian footballers, commentators and fans.
"It was the best individual performance of her Matildas career, and probably the greatest one-off show by any Australian ...

Australia's Kerr hailed as 'GOAT' after four-goal World Cup romp

Egypt accused the United Nations on Wednesday of seeking to "politicise" the death of the country's first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi by calling for an "independent inquiry".
Foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said he condemned "in the strongest terms" the call by the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, for an independent investigation into Morsi's death during a court hearing on Monday.
Hafez said it was a "deliberate attempt to politicise a case of natural death." Colville called Tuesday for a probe into whether the conditions Morsi faced during his nearly six years in custody had contributed to his death.
"Any sudden death in custody must be followed by a prompt, impartial, thorough and transparent investigation carried out by an independent body to clarify the cause of death," he said.  "Concerns have been raised regarding the conditions of Mr. Morsi's detention, including access to adequate medical care, as well as ...

AFP

AFP

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