Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala died of "head and trunk injuries", an inquest in England heard Monday as it began to examine his death in a plane crash in the sea.
Sala, 28, had signed for English Premier League side Cardiff City and was flying to his new team from his old club Nantes in France when his plane went missing over the Channel on January 21.
The wreckage was located on the seabed. The striker's body was recovered but pilot David Ibbotson is still missing. The plane remains under the sea.
In a brief hearing in Bournemouth on the south coast, an inquest into Sala's death was opened, and adjourned until November 6 pending further inquiries.
The post-mortem presented at the hearing gave Sala's cause of death as "head and trunk injuries".
Sala was formally identified by fingerprints.
In English law, inquests are held to examine sudden or unexplained deaths.
They set out to determine the identity of the deceased, the place and time of death as well as how the deceased came by 

Footballer Sala killed by head, trunk injuries: inquest

PTI Automatic

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday denied Washington was "covering up" the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and promised further action.
"America is not covering up for a murder," Pompeo told reporters in Budapest when asked about criticism by a senior Democrat.
The remarks came after US President Donald Trump missed a deadline set by Congress to reply by Friday on whether Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of the Washington Post contributor.
Pompeo said that Trump's administration was "working diligently" on its investigation.
"The president has been very clear -- couldn't be more clear -- as we get additional information, we will continue to hold all of those responsible accountable," he said.
Khashoggi, who lived in the United States, was strangled to death and dismembered in October after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to take care of paperwork for his marriage, according to officials.
Trump said nothing on ...

Pompeo says US 'not covering up' Khashoggi murder

Moldova's President Igor Dodon on Monday announced that two Moldovan pilots taken hostage by the Taliban in 2015 have been freed and flown out of Afghanistan for treatment.
Helicopter crew members Ion Buruiana and Mihail Crihan were freed from captivity on Saturday and flown to a Moscow hospital, Dodon told a briefing.
"Their condition is fairly good," he said. "It was a secret operation, nobody knew about it, including their relatives."
He said that freeing the pilots was only possible "with the help of Russian leadership."
The Mi-17 helicopter, with a crew of three and 18 passengers, was providing airlift support for the Afghan army when it was hit on November 24, 2015. The company operating the aircraft at the time said that the passengers were Afghan army personnel.
Moldovan crew captain Oleg Groza died in a firefight when the helicopter made a forced landing in Taliban-controlled territory.
The Afghan defence ministry said at the time two Afghans were also killed, while the rest .

Two Moldovan pilot hostages freed from Afghanistan: Govt

Ukrainian prosecutors said Monday they had charged a high-ranking regional official with organising a deadly acid attack on a prominent anti-corruption activist that prompted widespread outrage.
Kateryna Gandzyuk, an adviser to the mayor of the southern city of Kherson was an outspoken critic of corruption in law enforcement agencies.
She was attacked in July and had about a litre of acid poured on her.
The 33-year-old died in November after months of treatment, including more than 10 operations.
Her murder sparked shock and uproar with activists accusing the authorities of failing to complete the investigation or identify the mastermind.
On Monday, less than two months before Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a president, General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko pointed the finger at the head of the regional council in the southern region of Kherson, Vladyslav Manger.
"It was he who ordered and partially organised this crime by financing it," Lutsenko told a news conference.
According to .

Senior Ukraine official charged over deadly acid attack

A Russian court on Monday jailed two members of the Islamic State group for 15 years for planning attacks on a mall and public transport in Moscow, news agencies reported.
Bakhtiyor Makhmudov and Zafarkhon Rakhmatov from Muslim-majority Tajikistan will serve their sentences in a "strict regime camp", a court statement said.
Russia's FSB security service arrested the duo in December 2017, accusing them of planning suicide bombings over the New Year and during a forthcoming presidential election campaign.
The pair pleaded guilty, the RIA Novosti news agency said.
Almost 2,900 Russian jihadists, mainly from Muslim-majority republics in the south of the federation, have fought in Iraq and Syria, according the FSB.
Several thousand others from ex-Soviet Central Asian countries are also believed to have fought in conflicts there.
In 2017, Russia was hit by several terrorist attacks, the most serious of which left 15 dead and many injured in the metro of second city Saint Petersburg.

Russia jails IS pair for 15 years over planned attacks

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator said Monday British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn's plan to revive European divorce talks was "interesting", but he was awaiting new ideas from London.
Michel Barnier was due to meet Britain's third Brexit minister, the newly appointed Stephen Barclay, later in the day, hoping to hear how Prime Minister Theresa May plans to win support for an agreement for Britain's withdrawal from the European bloc.
"Something has to move on the British side," Barnier told reporters in Luxembourg after talks with the Grand Duchy's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.
"We're waiting for clarity and movement from the United Kingdom." Last month, the British parliament rejected the Brexit deal that May's government and Barnier's team had negotiated over 18 months to prevent Britain crashing out of the EU on March 29 without a follow-on plan.
Now, May is seeking concessions from sceptical EU leaders while trying to woo more British MPs into backing a tweaked accord, but she ...

Barnier says Corbyn's Brexit offer 'interesting'

President Donald Trump takes his politically explosive push for walling off the Mexican border to the frontier city of El Paso on Monday, four days before a deadline for Congress to meet his demands.
The president's campaign-style rally in El Paso will give Trump the kind of populist platform he loves.
According to Trump, illegal immigrants pose a national security risk to the United States and can only be stopped by dramatic extensions of current barriers.
It's an argument he backs up with lurid warnings about rapists and people traffickers extending far into the American heartland -- a message that critics describe as blatantly xenophobic and based on heavily manipulated data.
Trump chose El Paso as a historic crossing point where, he says, walls have eradicated an out-of-control influx of criminals from Mexico and made the city a model for what could happen elsewhere on the border.
But there'll be a counter-message a short distance from where Trump speaks when rising Democratic ...

Trump takes border campaign to El Paso

Four people died when gunmen raided a hospital and burnt it to the ground in western Cameroon where anglophone separatists have been fighting troops, witnesses and a local official said Monday.
The incident occurred in Kumba, a town which serves as the commercial hub for the anglophone region and which has been badly hit by the violence between separatists and Cameroon troops that began in October 2017.
"Attackers killed four people and burnt down the hospital," said an administrative official in the Kumba region, confirming information from a witness.
It was not immediately clear whether the victims were shot or died in the fire, nor whether they were patients at the facility.
Another local source said it appeared separatists were behind the attack.
The incident occurred on National Youth Day, the anniversary of the 1961 referendum which saw Cameroon's western English-speaking areas joined onto the francophone areas which had just won independence from France.
Kumba lies about 70 ...

4 killed as hospital torched in Cameroon's anglophone west

London Zoo on Monday denied it was responsible for the death of an endangered Sumatran tiger mauled by a potential mate brought in as part of a breeding programme.
Staff were left "entirely distraught" by the death of the tigress, called Melati, the zoo's manager said Monday, rejecting suggestions they had not waited long enough before allowing the animals into the same enclosure.
Zoo staff held Melati, 10, and Asim, 7, in adjacent enclosures for 10 days before allowing them on Friday to try and breed as part of a Europe-wide programme to help boost the numbers of the endangered animal.
"Several people from outside the zoo have remarked that 10 days seems fast to introduce tigers to each other," Kathryn England, chief operating officer of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), told staff in a letter published on her blog.
"It's not -- it's wildly variable and depends entirely on careful observation of their behaviour.
"Conversely, it can be risky to leave tigers showing an interest ..

London Zoo not to blame for death of Sumatran tiger: Manager

World stock markets rallied Monday as US and Chinese officials in Beijing geared up for crunch trade talks aimed at averting fresh tariff escalations that have triggered fears of a global economic slowdown.
European equities shrugged off last week's losses to chase Asia higher and Wall Street followed their lead as a new round of high-stakes talks gets under way to resolve the festering trade row.
US negotiators met with their Chinese counterparts for preliminary discussions in Beijing on Monday, buoying hopes of deal.
"European stocks have rallied... as traders are hopeful about the next round of trade talks between the US and China," said CMC Markets analyst David Madden.
"Given that both sides are still far apart, there is no guarantee that the discussions will be successful, and dealers' optimism might be wishful thinking."
London's benchmark FTSE 100 rose after an announcement that UK economic growth has slowed weighed on the pound, lifting stocks in multinationals that have ...

Global stocks rise as US-China trade talks loom

Ashley Young has signed a new one-year contract with Manchester United, the Premier League club announced on Monday.
The versatile Young, 33, had only a few months left on his existing deal but had stated his desire to stay at Old Trafford.
The England international joined United in 2011 from Aston Villa and has made 227 appearances for the club, scoring 17 goals and winning a clutch of trophies including the Premier League and Europa League.
He has established himself as a key member of the United squad and has made 25 appearances this season, scoring once.
Last year Young, whose contract will keep him at Old Trafford until the end of the 2019/20 season, helped England reach the semi-finals of the World Cup, and he has been capped 39 times.

Ashley Young signs new Man Utd deal

Afghan spin-bowling teenage sensation Mujeeb Ur Rahman will play for English county Middlesex in their T20 campaign next season, the club announced on Monday.
The 17-year-old -- who has taken 54 international wickets in all formats since making his debut aged 16 -- will hope to make the same impact his compatriot Rashid Khan did at Sussex last year.
Khan took 17 wickets at an average of 14.35 to play a major role in Sussex reaching the knockout stages for the first time since 2015 -- although he was unable to play in the latter rounds due to international duty.
Rahman has enjoyed a successful Big Bash campaign with Brisbane Heat, picking up 12 wickets and returning best figures of three for 16.
"Middlesex Cricket is today delighted to announce the signing of Mujeeb Ur Rahman for this season's Blast campaign," the county said in a statement.
"The 17-year-old spinner becomes head coach Stuart Law's first signing of the summer and will be available for the entire Blast campaign.
"He will 

Middlesex sign Afghan teen Rahman for T20 Blast

The driver of an armoured cash delivery van disappeared outside Paris early on Monday along with an estimated one million euros, police sources told AFP.
The 28-year-old man had stopped in front of a Western Union office at around 6:00 am (0500 GMT) in Aubervilliers, a suburb just north of the capital, and stayed behind the wheel as two of his colleagues went inside.
"When they came back out, the van and the driver were gone," one of the sources said.
The van was found soon afterwards a few blocks away with its doors wide open, but the driver and the bags of cash, worth some USD 1.13 million, were nowhere to be found.
The two other employees had not been injured, the source said.
Loomis, the armoured van company, did not return calls seeking comment.
An inquiry has been opened by France's anti-gang squad.
The last major such heist was in November 2009 when Toni Musulin fled in the armoured van he was driving with at least 11.5 million euros in cash collected from a Bank of France ...

Armoured van driver disappears in France with one million euros

The energy minister of the United Arab Emirates said Monday supply and demand in the oil market should balance out in the first quarter of 2019, following weeks of output cuts.
"My expectation is that we will see the balance during the first quarter unless something happens," Suheil al-Mazrouei told the three-day World Government Summit in Dubai.
"We are removing enough oil to correct the market," Mazrouei said.
OPEC cartel countries and other major oil producers in January began implementing a deal to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day to shore up sagging prices.
Based on provisional figures of production levels in January, most oil producing nations were complying to the cuts, Mazrouei said.
The oil market, however, remains highly volatile and prices hover just above USD 60 a barrel after recovering from as low as USD 50 a barrel.
That figure remains far below the USD 85 a barrel oil hit in early October before beginning to slide.
Mazrouei said producers were "doing our best" 

UAE expects oil market to balance in first quarter

Syrian fighters backed by artillery fire from a US-led coalition battled a fierce jihadist fightback Monday as they pushed to retake a last morsel of territory from the Islamic State group.
Mushrooming black clouds rose over the embattled jihadist holdout in eastern Syria, as missiles and a warplane streaked through the sky.
More than four years after the extremists declared a "caliphate" across large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, several offensives have whittled that proto-state down to a tiny holdout.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday announced the final push to expel hundreds of diehard jihadists from that patch on the Iraq border.
"IS launched a counterattack on our forces and we are now responding with rockets, air strikes and direct clashes," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali told AFP Monday.  He said there were "dozens of SDF hostages held by IS" inside their last foothold, but denied reports of executions.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a ...

US-backed Syrian forces battle to take last IS pocket

Britain and Bulgaria are investigating a third suspect in the Salisbury chemical attack who has also been linked to a 2015 poisoning in Bulgaria, the British ambassador to Sofia said Monday.
Britain's ambassador Emma Hopkins made the comments after talks with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov.
"We are continuing a close partnership together with a joint team looking into the factual underpinning of these allegations," Hopkins said at a televised news conference.
A report published last week by the investigative website Bellingcat identified a hitherto unknown third suspect in last year's attack in the English city of Salisbury on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
Both had to be hospitalised after being exposed to the highly toxic nerve agent Novichok in an attack the British government says was "almost certainly" approved by the Russian state.
According to Bellingcat, the third suspect is a Russian military intelligence ...

Britain investigates new Skripal suspect with Bulgaria

A British departure from the European Union without a deal could put 600,000 jobs around the world at risk, with Germany the hardest hit, a study published Monday found.
Researchers at the IWH institute in Halle, eastern Germany, examined what would happen if UK imports from the remaining EU fell 25 per cent after Brexit.
They reckoned that some 103,000 jobs would be under threat in Europe's largest economy Germany and 50,000 in France.
Being affected by Brexit would not necessarily mean workers were laid off, the economists noted.
"Given the lack of skilled labour in many advanced economies, firms could also try to keep staff on by cutting hours or opening new markets," they said.
It is so far uncertain whether Britain will strike a deal with the EU before its legally-binding exit date of March 29, after a huge majority of lawmakers last month voted down Prime Minister Theresa May's painstakingly-negotiated accord with Brussels.
A "hard" departure without a deal would see tariffs ...

No-deal Brexit 'could cost 600,000 jobs worldwide': study

Refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi will not be sent back to Bahrain after Thailand dropped extradition proceedings against him at the Gulf state's request, a prosecutor said Monday, ending a two-month detention ordeal that stirred global outcry.
Araibi, 25, a former Bahraini national youth team player, was granted refugee status in Australia after fleeing charges in the oil-rich kingdom connected to Arab Spring protests.
But he was stopped at Bangkok's main airport at Bahrain's request on November 27 as he arrived in Thailand for his honeymoon.
He has been detained since in a Bangkok prison pending a court ruling on the extradition request from Bahrain -- a move the footballer had pleaded against saying he fears torture if returned.
Monday brought a stunning about-turn from the Bahraini government, which withdrew the extradition request, said Chatchom Akapin, director-general of the International Affairs Department at the prosecutor's office.
"We have been informed that Bahrain wants 

Refugee footballer held in Thailand spared extradition to Bahrain

US negotiators met with their Chinese counterparts in Beijing Monday for a new round of high-stakes trade talks, hoping to reach a deal before the March 1 deadline set by Donald Trump as the IMF warned of a possible global economic "storm".
Preliminary discussions had been expected to start on Monday, according to the White House, before US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin step in for the main event on Thursday and Friday.
In December, Washington suspended for three months its plan to increase tariffs on USD 200 billion worth of Chinese imports -- to 25 per cent from the current 10 per cent -- to allow time for negotiators to work out a trade spat that has triggered fears of a global economic slowdown.
Deputy trade representative Jeffrey Gerrish was due to lead the US delegation in preparatory meetings to begin on Monday, the White House had said.
The talks will include officials from the agriculture, energy and commerce departments.
Gerrish 

US team in Beijing for trade talks after IMF 'storm' warning

China accused the United States of trying to "stir up trouble" on Monday by sending two US guided-missile destroyers near disputed South China Sea islands.
The two warships sailed near the Beijing-claimed Spratly Islands earlier Monday as part of what Washington calls "freedom of navigation operations", Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily press briefing.
The US is "determined to stir up trouble in the South China Sea, create tension and undermine peace", Hua said.
She urged the US to cease the "provocative actions".
The sail-bys -- conducted by USS Spruance and USS Preble -- occurred as both sides started crucial trade talks in Beijing this week, seeking to avoid an all-out trade war between the world's two biggest economies.
Beijing asserts nearly all of the South China Sea as its territorial waters, while Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts.
The US and its allies periodically send planes and warships near South China Sea ..

China says US aims to 'stir up trouble' with naval sail-by

The odds appear to be stacked against Sri Lanka in a two-Test series against South Africa, which starts at Kingsmead on Wednesday, but the tourists can take heart from their previous record in Durban.
The away team head into the series following heavy defeats in New Zealand and Australia, and having unceremoniously dumped captain Dinesh Chandimal.
Sri Lanka have lost 11 of 13 Test matches in South Africa. The exceptions occurred at Kingsmead in the only two Tests Sri Lanka have played at the ground.
In 2000/01 a rain-hit match was drawn -- with South Africa in a strong position -- and in 2011/12 Rangana Herath spun Sri Lanka to their only win in South Africa.
The hosts have been beaten in six of their eight Test matches at Kingsmead since the start of the 2008/09 season, against a single win. By contrast, at other home venues they have won 32 of their 44 Tests, with only six defeats.
Pitches in Durban have tended to negate outright pace, while offering help to spin bowlers. Herath ...

AFP

AFP

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