Shaking off his defeat in the Australian Open Roger Federer says he's "motivated and looking forward to the future" with a tilt at a ninth Wimbledon title uppermost in his mind.
After his last 16 loss to Greek young gun Stefanos Tsitsipas in Melbourne last month, the Swiss 20-time Grand Slam champion was quick to brush aside suggestions it was the beginning of the end.
In Geneva on Friday to launch the third edition of the Laver Cup, Federer mapped out his goals for the season with the hunger of a man carrying half his 37 years.
"Wimbledon obviously, also now Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami.
"I really would like to make a good season start, maybe that could launch the clay season and Wimbledon but I think Wimbledon yes, the US Open and after also the Laver Cup and the World Tour Finals at the end of the year."
He said his failure to defend his Australian Open title changed nothing and his aim was the same as always - to beat Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
"I continue my career...I'm ..

'Motivated' Federer targets ninth Wimbledon crown

PTI Automatic

The International Paralympic Committee said Friday it will reinstate Russia next month, lifting a suspension imposed more than two years ago over a doping scandal.
The IPC will lift the ban by March 15, providing the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) adhere to strict conditions.
"In August 2016 the IPC suspended the RPC because it was necessary and proportionate to the situation we faced and essential to ensure clean sport," IPC president Andrew Parsons said.
"Twenty-nine months later it is the IPC governing board's firm belief that keeping the RPC suspended is no longer necessary and proportionate to the situation we now face in Russia."
A year ago, the International Olympic Committee ended its ban on Russian athletes competing at future summer and winter Olympics, so the re-admittance of the Paralympic team is the latest step in Russia's gradual rehabilitation in the Olympic movement.
The IPC said in a statement the Russian Paralympic Committee had met the necessary criteria for ...

Paralympics lift Russia doping suspension

The Chinese businessman barred from Australia on suspicions he is part of a Communist Party influence campaign said he had been treated in a "grotesquely unfair manner" Friday and suggested his political donations could be returned.
The long-term Sydney resident had been a prominent donor to Australia's two major parties before being effectively banned from the country Wednesday.
In a statement Huang Xiangmo said the decision to cancel his residency visa was "based on unfounded speculations that are prejudiced and groundless."
Huang led one of a series of "reunification councils" that advocate in support of Chinese Communist Party policies.
Huang described the groups as being "local community organisations lawfully registered" without backing from foreign governments, and called on Australia's government to present evidence of wrongdoing.
Australian intelligence agencies believe the groups are fronts for influence campaigns designed to skew Australian politics.
China experts and ...

Connected Chinese billionaire hits back at Australia ban

Belgium's biggest carrier Brussels Airlines said it had cancelled all of its flights out of the Belgian capital on Wednesday due to a national strike.
Brussels Airlines is "eliminating its entire 222-flight schedule. The travel itineraries of more than 16,000 passengers are impacted," the Lufthansa subsidiary said in a statement on Friday.
Flights from German carrier TUI fly will also be diverted out of Belgium to airports in neighbouring France and the Netherlands, the company told the Belga news agency.
Unions warned De Morgen newspaper that all commercial flights may be forced out of Belgian airspace Wednesday if air traffic controllers joined the action.
Several Belgian unions are demanding salary hikes for all sectors of the economy, with the whole country expected to be at a standstill on Wednesday.
Brussels, home to NATO, will be hosting a defence ministers meeting that day, with officials from throughout the transatlantic military alliance converging on the city.

Strike forces Brussels Airlines to cancel flights Wednesday

Detained former Renault boss Carlos Ghosn is ready to repay a 50,000-euro (USD 57,000) bill for his wedding party at the Palace of Versailles which was waived under a sponsorship deal with the French car group, his lawyer said Friday.
Renault said Thursday that it would report the incident to prosecutors after learning that the famed chateau on the outskirts of Paris had waived its usual rental fee under a sponsorship deal signed in 2016.
Ghosn's lawyer in France, Jean-Yves Le Borgne, told AFP that the executive "stands ready" to repay the money, adding that his client was "not aware he owed it because he had not been billed".
"He thought it was free," Le Borgne added.
The waived bill could amount to the misuse of company resources, as well as tax evasion, if the benefit-in-kind was not declared to French authorities.
Ghosn's tenure as CEO has come under the microscope since his arrest last November in Japan on charges he under-reported millions of dollars in pay as head of Nissan, ...

Ghosn ready to repay cost of Versailles wedding: lawyer

Liverpool posted a world record-breaking ?106 million ($137 million) net profit last year even after spending ?190 million on new players, according to financial results announced on Friday.
The club's profit before tax was ?125 million -- up from ?40 million -- with the club benefiting from increased revenue both on and off the pitch from a run to the Champions League final in Kiev, where they were beaten by Real Madrid.
Turnover increased by ?90 million to ?455 million in the 12 months to May 31 last year, with media revenue, commercial revenue and matchday revenue all up.
The previous record was set by Leicester (?80 million after tax) in 2016/2017, the season after they won the Premier League, when they reached the Champions League quarter-finals.
Liverpool still trail the two Manchester clubs in revenue terms. United declared their results for the 12 months to the end of last June in September, with revenues of ?590 million.
Jurgen Klopp's side are level on points with Manchester 

Liverpool post ?106 million world record net profit

ArcelorMittal said Friday it had evacuated a community of 200 people living near a reservoir of mining waste in Brazil as a precautionary measure following a disaster in the country that has claimed more than 150 lives.
The world's largest steel firm said that "after very careful consideration" it had taken the decision to put in practice an evacuation plan related to its dormant Serra Azul tailing dam in Brazil's southeastern Minas Gerais state.
A community of 200 people living nearby was evacuated "as a precautionary measure".
On January 25, a tailings dam broke apart in Minas Gerais state at an iron ore mine operated by Vale, unleashing an avalanche of muddy mining waste on a cafeteria and main administrative area located blow.
Authorities said 157 people have been confirmed dead and 182 are still missing.
The evacuation decision was taken together with local authorities as a precautionary measure while further tests are conducted even though the community is located five ...

ArcelorMittal evacuates Brazilian community near dam

Suspected jihadists have killed seven men and abducted four women in northern Mozambique in the latest violence to hit the Cabo Delgado region, local sources said Friday.
The bodies, which were cut into pieces, were left in Piqueue village, a local traditional leader told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"People were surprised while sleeping in the forest," he said, indicating that the residents had fled the village for fear of being attacked.
The attackers also kidnapped four women, he said.
Mozambican police declined to comment, but a local army commander confirmed the attack.
"We urge people to stay in villages where they have protection from the police and the military," he said.
Since October 2017, nearly 200 civilians, troops and police have died in a wave of violence in Cabo Delgado, a gas-rich northern region which borders Tanzania, with President Filipe Nyusi sending in troops to "neutralise" the Islamist threat.
This week, several hundred military personnel from 15 ..

Suspected jihadists kill 7 in north Mozambique

Armed men have killed five civilians and attacked a military position in the eastern DR Congo city of Beni, the army's regional spokesman told AFP Friday.
The attackers raided the city's southern district of Rwangoma overnight, said spokesman Major Mak Hazukay.
"We pushed them back, we are continuing to hunt them," he said, adding that the group had yet to be identified.
Local resident Kizito Bin Hangi said that the assailants had wielded machetes and guns and that residents, outraged by the killings, demonstrated afterwards.
More than a hundred armed groups, both local and foreign, are active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Hundreds of civilians have died in the
Beni area alone in the last five years.
Newly-elected President Felix Tshisekedi promised while on the campaign trail to restore security to the troubled region.

Five killed in eastern DR Congo city: army

The death toll from the collapse of an apartment building in Istanbul has climbed to 14, a Turkish government minister said Friday.
The eight-storey block in the Kartal district on the Asian side of the city collapsed on Wednesday but the cause is not yet clear.
"So far 14 of our fellow citizens have been lost and another 14 people have been brought out of the rubble alive," Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told a news conference.
The official toll had previously stood at 10 people dead and 13 injured.  Media reports said three of the eight floors had been illegally built -- a relatively common practice in the  metropolis of some 15 million people.
Anadolu news agency said 43 people were registered as living in the building.
The collapse fanned criticism of a government amnesty granted last year to people accused of illegal building -- a measure announced ahead of municipal elections this March.
A four-storey structure in Istanbul crumbled last year following violent thunderstorms. In 

Turkey building collapse death toll hits 14

Five people were killed in a fire at a camp for those displaced by Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria, an eyewitness and a humanitarian source said on Friday.
The blaze broke out on Thursday at the camp housing some 7,500 internally displaced persons in the garrison town of Monguno, in Borno state.
The displaced people were preparing breakfast when the fire broke out, gutting makeshift tents.
"Five people were killed in the fire -- three children and two women," an aid worker with a humanitarian agency in the town told AFP.
"The fire started from the kitchen around 11:30 am (1030 GMT) and spread all over the camp," added the worker, who did not want to be identified.
Witness Adam Sheriff said firefighters tried in vain to put out the inferno which gutted the camp in 40 minutes.
Monguno is some 140 kilometres northeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, and houses tens of thousands of displaced people in sprawling camps.
Most of them had fled their homes in northern Borno and 

Five killed in fire at camp for Boko Haram displaced

John Dingell, an imposing and outspoken Democrat who became a powerful figure in Washington over the course of a record 59 years in Congress, has died at the age of 92.
The death of former House member Dingell, who retired in 2015, was announced by his wife Debbie Dingell, who succeeded him in their district in the car-making region of Michigan.
In recent years, in retirement, he was known for stinging criticism of President Donald Trump.
Dingell was scathing, for instance, towards the end of last month's partial government shutdown prompted by Trump's dispute with Democrat lawmakers over his proposed border wall.
"Crooks like Trump will steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke. There's no bar too low," he wrote on Twitter on January 24.
Dingell was an imposing figure. He stood 6-foot-3 (1.9 metres), weighed 200 pounds and had a booming voice.
He was a long-serving committee chairman who helped shape US legislation on everything from energy and health care to telecommunications ..

Long-serving US lawmaker John Dingell dead at 92

The Red Cross called Friday for a total ban on nuclear weapons, warning of the growing risk that such arms could again be used with devastating effect.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched a global campaign to raise awareness about the rising nuclear threat facing the world.
In a joint statement, they said some nuclear-armed states were straying from their "long-standing nuclear disarmament obligations" and were "upgrading their arsenals, developing new kinds of nuclear weapons and making them easier to use."
The notonukes.org campaign comes after the United States and Russia ripped up a key arms control treaty, with US President Donald Trump announcing last week that Washington was beginning a process to withdraw from the Cold War-era agreement in six months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly followed suit, saying Moscow was leaving the treaty and would begin work on new ...

Red Cross warns of 'growing' risk of nuclear weapons, urges ban

The special US envoy for North Korea returned to Seoul on Friday after talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang to set up the agenda for the second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Stephen Biegun's three-day trip was expected to have explored a wide range of denuclearisation issues in preparation for the much-anticipated summit in Vietnam on February 27 and 28.
Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base Friday evening, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP.
It is not yet known whether Biegun met with Kim, with North Korean media silent on his visit.
He is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday.
Attention will be on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps towards denuclearisation.
Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with ...

US envoy back from North Korea after talks on Trump-Kim summit

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck at sea off the southern Philippine coast late Friday, though there were no early reports of damage and the local seismology office said it expected none.
The US Geological Survey and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the quake struck at 7:55 pm (1155 GMT), its epicentre about 41 kilometres (25 miles) east of the town of General Luna on Mindanao island.
It had a relatively shallow depth, measured at 24 kilometres by the US agency -- and 19 kilometres by the local quake monitors -- but the latter said in an advisory that it was not expected to have caused damage.
The Philippines is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from quake-prone Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

5.9 magnitude quake off southern Philippines

All medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be made from metal collected by recycling electronic waste, games organisers said on Friday.
Tokyo's organising committee in 2017 launched a project to collect assorted electronic waste -- including old smartphones and laptops -- from the public to collect metal for the medals.
Recycled metal has also been collected from local Japanese businesses and industry.
In a statement issued on Friday, organisers said the collection was expected to reach its goal and will end in late March.
By November last year, municipal authorities had already collected 47,488 tonnes of discarded devices, with the public handing in another five million used phones to a local network provider.
Organisers had set a target of 2,700 kgs (about 5,950 pounds) of bronze, 30.3 kgs (67 pounds) of gold and 4,100 kg (about 9,040 pounds) of silver.
They hit the target for bronze last June, and by October had more than 90 percent of the gold and 85 percent of the silver.
"It is 

Tokyo strikes gold, silver and bronze with e-waste Olympic medals

The International Paralympic Committee said Friday it will conditionally readmit Russia by March this year, lifting a suspension imposed over a doping scandal.
A Kremlin spokesman responded by saying Russia was delighted.
"We are absolutely thrilled for our Paralympic athletes," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
"(Russia's President Vladimir) Putin has always shown them full and unconditional support.
"We hope the constructive and transparent work will allow the Russian sports authorities to turn the page in their relations with international bodies."
The IPC say the ban will be lifted by 15 March 2019, providing the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) adhere to a strict criteria.
"In August 2016 the IPC suspended the RPC because it was necessary and proportionate to the situation we faced and essential to ensure clean sport," IPC president Andrew Parsons said in a statement.
"Twenty-nine months later it is the IPC governing board's firm belief that keeping the RPC suspended is no .

Paralympics lift Russia suspension to Kremlin 'delight'

The family of Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala said Friday they could now begin mourning after his body was formally identified following its recovery from a crashed plane in the Channel.
"We can now begin to mourn our son and our brother," the Argentinian player's family said in a statement, also thanking everyone involved in the effort to locate the submerged wreckage off Guernsey.
"We would like to thank you for all of your signs of affection and support in the most painful time of our life," the family said.
"To see everyone doing everything possible to join us in the search has been a precious help to us."
The family said their thoughts were also with the family of the 59-year-old pilot of the plane, David Ibbotson, whose body has not yet been found, saying "we hope the authorities do everything possible to find him".
Sala had returned to France to say goodbye to his teammates at Ligue 1 club Nantes and was flying to Wales on January 21 to join up with his new club following 

'We can now mourn': footballer Sala's family after body identified

Fire swept through a training facility for Brazil's most popular football club Flamengo Friday, killing at least 10 people, authorities said.
The pre-dawn blaze in Rio de Janeiro hit a building that housed youth-category players aged 14 to 17, firefighters said.
In addition to the deaths, three people were injured in the fire.  The cause was not immediately known.
Globo TV broadcast aerial footage of the fire, which it said had been brought under control after it burned for two hours.
The fire broke out at 5 am in the Vargem Grande district of Rio in a modern facility where the top-flight professional Flamengo squad also trains, the news website G1 said.
The dead were six players and four team staff, the channel Sportv said.  The main team had been due to practice at the same facility later in the morning.
Youth league teams also train at the facility, known as Ninho do Urubu.  Flamengo is the most popular club in football-crazed Brazil.
Distraught relatives rushed to the facility ...

Fire in Brazil kills at least 10 in Flamengo youth football facility

Instagram has announced a clampdown on images of self-injury after a British teen who went online to read about suicide took her own life.
The Facebook-owned picture sharing platform's announcement followed a Thursday meeting between its global chief Adam Mosseri and British Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
British teen Molly Russell took her own life in her bedroom in 2017. The 14-year-old's social media history revealed that she followed accounts about depression and suicide.
The case sparked a vigorous debate in Britain about parental control and state regulation of children's social media use.
"It is encouraging to see that decisive steps are now being taken to try to protect children from disturbing content on Instagram," said Molly's father Ian Russell.
"It is now time for other social media platforms to take action." Molly's parents did not directly blame Instagram for the loss of their daughter.  But they cited the easy access to such posts as a contributing factor, to which ...

Instagram curbs self-harm posts after teen suicide

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that Europe "cannot be trusted", a week after the EU launched a trade mechanism to bypass US sanctions on Tehran.
"These days there's talk of the Europeans and their proposals. My advice is that they shouldn't be trusted, just like the Americans," he said at a meeting with air force officials, his website reported.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't have relations with them. This is about trust," he added.
Britain, France and Germany last week launched a special payment mechanism called INSTEX to help save the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
It would allow Tehran to keep trading with EU companies in spite of US sanctions renewed after Washington quit the accord last year.  Tehran has cautiously welcomed INSTEX as a "first step", but US officials said the new entity would not have any impact on efforts to exert economic pressure on Iran.
Khamenei also accused Europe of hypocrisy over human rights, criticising France's .

AFP

AFP

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