Arsenal announced the signing of Spain international Denis Suarez on loan for the rest of the season on Thursday's transfer deadline day.
Suarez will link up again with Arsenal boss Unai Emery, with whom he worked during a loan spell at Sevilla in the 2014-15 season.
The 25-year-old has played 71 games for Barcelona, scoring eight goals and once for Spain.
"We are very happy that Denis Suarez is joining us," Emery said on Arsenal's website. "He is a player we know well and I have worked with him at Sevilla.
"He brings us quality and options in many different attacking positions, so he'll be able to help the team."
The Spanish playmaker posted a picture of himself with Barcelona teammates on his personal Twitter account and said: "You're a group of amazing people! Thank you for everything, see you soon. Good luck and Forca Barca."
Arsenal are fourth in the Premier League after beating Cardiff 2-1 on Tuesday.

Arsenal sign Barcelona's Denis Suarez on loan

PTI Automatic

World athletics chief Sebastian Coe told AFP on Thursday that he expects a "full house" of countries to compete at this year's world championships in Qatar despite the ongoing Gulf blockade.
A swathe of countries in the Middle East and Africa have cut diplomatic and transport ties with the gas-rich state, claiming it supports terrorism -- a charge Doha denies.
But the IAAF president, speaking to AFP at the Sport Business Summit in Abu Dhabi, said he could "see no reason" why all countries wouldn't be present at the September-October championships.
"We have open dialogue with all those federations, and yes it's very important that we have a full house at our world championships. I see no reason why we shouldn't," said Coe.
He added: "I'm not going to maintain a running commentary on those conversations that have taken place and will continue to take place, but I'm pretty confident and optimistic that there is a recognition that the primacy of sport is very important."
The blockade in ..

Coe expects 'full house' at Qatar worlds despite Gulf crisis

The Italian economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2018, dragged down by slowing European growth and global trade tensions, plunging the country into a technical recession, official data showed Thursday.
The 0.2 per cent contraction - following a 0.1 per cent fall in the third quarter - will put pressure on the populist government in the eurozone's third largest economy, which took power in June on the back of big-spending electoral promises.
Italy is Europe's second largest manufacturer and is currently the only European Union member in recession, although growth in export powerhouse Germany also fell in 2018.
The Italian economy suffered a harsh recession in 2012-13 and has enjoyed only slow growth since then. Overall growth for full-year 2018 was just 0.8 per cent.  Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had anticipated the bad news on Wednesday during a business conference in Milan.
"Analysts tell us we'll likely still suffer a bit at the start of this year," he said, pointing 

Italy slides into recession after economy shrinks

A British paedophile who fled the UK before his 19-year jail sentence was handed down was arrested in Pakistan, officials said on Thursday.
Choudhry Ikhalaq Hussain, 41, of Pakistani origin, was sentenced in absentia in 2016 after being found guilty by a UK court of three counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of rape and one count of conspiracy to rape.
The conviction came on the heels of an investigation by the Greater Manchester Police force into the sexual exploitation of teenage girls in Rochdale.
The British High Commission in Islamabad said Hussain was arrested in a joint UK-Pakistan operation in the central city of Sangla on Saturday.
British authorities said they have been working closely with their Pakistani counterparts since 2017 to secure Hussain's arrest and extradition.
"The arrest... is a significant achievement, and another excellent example of UK-Pakistan cooperation in tackling international criminality," said British High Commissioner to Pakistan Thomas 

Fugitive British paedophile arrested in Pakistan

President Donald Trump on Wednesday touted the chances of success as US-China trade negotiations entered a second day, saying Beijing was eager to make a deal.
In a morning series of tweets, he also said a final deal would leave "NOTHING" unresolved but such a bargain could only be struck after he met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping "in the near future." The meetings are "going well," Trump said on Twitter.
"China does not want an increase in Tariffs and feels they will do much better if they make a deal. They are correct." The two sides have just a month remaining in a 90-day truce declared in December. Should the talks fail, US import duties on $200 billion in Chinese imports are due to more than double on March 2 -- something economists say could help knock the wind out of the global economy's sails.
But Washington's aggressive prosecution of the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei -- which federal prosecutors accused this week of industrial espionage, sanctions violations and ...

Trump says US-China trade talks 'going well'

EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini called Thursday for the immediate release of journalists arrested in Venezuela as part of a crackdown by Caracas on foreign media.
"Our request is for them to be immediately released," Mogherini told reporters in Bucharest, where EU foreign ministers will discuss the Venezuela crisis.
Five foreign journalists, including two from France and one from Spain, have been held in Venezuela this week, and two more, from Chile, have been deported.
The arrests come with the oil-rich but economically wrecked South American state deep in political turmoil, with the self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido calling on the armed forces to abandon President Nicolas Maduro.
Ahead of the Bucharest meeting, Britain's foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said he would press his EU colleagues for new sanctions against what he called Venezuelan "kleptocrats" as a way to step up pressure on Maduro.
Guaido himself has called for more EU sanctions targeting the Maduro ...

EU's Mogherini urges release of journalists held in Venezuela

Facebook will bar foreign-based election advertisments in Thailand in the lead-up to March elections, the company said Thursday, after being pilloried for not controlling election interference on the platform.
Thailand's poll, set for March 24, is the first since a 2014 coup and will kick off a busy ballot season in Asia, with polls set for India and Indonesia in the coming months.  Facebook has come under fire in a wave of scandals, including fuelling hate speech in Myanmar and over the sharing of its users' data.
The platform was also used for Russian "fake news" influence campaigns during 2016 US presidential elections.
Facebook said in a newsroom post it would help "protect" the Thai vote by temporarily not allowing ads from "foreign entities which are of an electoral nature".
The new rules, which cover paid-for content, will take effect from mid-February and will apply to external ads with references to "politicians, parties, 'getting out the vote', and/or election suppression," .

Facebook to bar 'foreign' electoral ads for Thai poll

Japan captain Maya Yoshida has warned that problems on and off the pitch are embarrassing the Asian Cup as the Blue Samurai prepare to face Qatar in Friday's final.
The Southampton defender called on tournament organisers to deal swiftly with incidents of "stupidity" that, according to Yoshida, risk damaging the reputation of Asian football.
His plea came as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) confirmed to AFP that it had received a protest over the eligibility of two Qatari players from host country the United Arab Emirates and were investigating.
"I think the AFC should control stuff about penalties and suspensions," Yoshida said Thursday, noting also that Japan's tempestuous 3-0 semi-final victory over Iran had ended with rival players almost coming to blows.
"But I would mention that if (the tournament) is broadcast all over the world, you don't want to see any stupid things, especially after the game," he added.
"We are representing Asia under the hashtag #bringingasiatogether 

Japan's Yoshida blasts Asian Cup 'stupidity' before final

Asian Cup hosts the United Arab Emirates have lodged a protest over the eligibility of two Qatari players, the Asian Football Confederation said on Thursday.
The move comes a day before Qatar make their first ever final appearance against Japan, and two days after the Maroons trounced UAE 4-0 in a bitter semi-final that saw the home crowd pelt the victors with plastic bottles and shoes.
"The Asian Football Confederation has received a protest from the United Arab Emirates FA regarding the eligibility of two Qatar players," an AFC spokesperson told AFP.
"This protest will now be reviewed in line with the AFC regulations." Media reports said the players in question are striker Almoez Ali, who has scored a record-equalling eight goals at the tournament, and defender Bassam Al-Rawi.
Ali, 22, is of Sudanese descent, while 21-year-old Al-Rawi was born in Iraq.
According to the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Code, the penalty for fielding an ineligible player is forfeiting the match and a ...

UAE protests over Qatari players' eligibility at Asian Cup

Qatar's transformation from also-rans to Asian Cup finalists was meticulously planned and has been years in the making -- and has finally given Qataris some swagger as they prepare to host the World Cup.
The wealthy Gulf state has long projected its power through football, notably by winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup and by buying Paris Saint-Germain, the club of Neymar, the world's most expensive player.
What was missing was a respectable national team, but Qatar seem to have solved that problem after putting together a record-breaking run in hostile conditions in the United Arab Emirates.
Plastic bottles and even shoes rained down on the Qatari players as they thrashed the hosts 4-0 to reach their first Asian Cup final, keeping an unprecedented sixth clean sheet in the process.
The ongoing Gulf blockade of Qatar has sent tensions sky-high, and with Qataris largely barred from UAE the Maroons have been virtually bereft of fans. But despite this, they have cut a swathe ...

A World Cup, and a team to match? Qatar get it right on the pitch

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Thursday he believed sanctions against Venezuelan "kleptocrats" could be a way to pressure President Nicolas Maduro to call new elections.
He said he would raise the issue later in the day with his European Union counterparts at a meeting in Bucharest, Romania.
"We are not considering sanctions against the whole country because there is a humanitarian situation and we wouldn't want to make the situation even worse," Hunt said in a statement.
"But targeted sanctions against the kleptocrats who have enriched themselves on the back of the rest of the population who are very poor, that is something I think can be effective."
Hunt said he had spoken to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Wednesday.
"Mr Guaido was very clear -- he wanted us to put pressure on Nicolas Maduro, because they need change," he said.
He added: "What I want us to do is to put every pressure on Maduro and I'm urging EU foreign ministers to do exactly the same when I 

UK backs 'targeted' sanctions on Venezuelan 'kleptocrats'

Microsoft said Wednesday it swung to profit in the past quarter on gains in cloud computing and business services, but shares took a hit on disappointing revenue growth.
The US tech giant said profit was USD 8.4 billion in the fiscal second quarter to December 31, compared with a loss in the same period a year ago on funds set aside for one-time charges, Revenues in the period rose 12 per cent to USD 32.5 billion, Microsoft said in results a shade below most market forecasts, prompting a drop of some 3.5 per cent in after-hours trade.
Chief executive Satya Nadella said Microsoft continues to see gains from its cloud services after having shifted away from many of its consumer offerings.
"Our strong commercial cloud results reflect our deep and growing partnerships with leading companies in every industry including retail, financial services and healthcare," Nadella said.
"We are delivering differentiated value across the cloud and edge as we work to earn customer trust every day."
The 

Microsoft delivers robust profit, but shares take a hit

Two Chinese activists who spent more than four months trapped in limbo at a Taiwanese airport have been temporarily allowed to stay on the island, officials said Thursday.
Liu Xinglian, 64, and Yan Kefen, 44, spent 125 days marooned in the transit area of Taoyuan airport after they arrived from Bangkok in September last year.
The pair ran from China because of their political activism and were granted refugee status by the UN in Thailand.
But they fled once more after receiving repeated visits from police in Thailand, a country that has a track record of deporting dissidents back to China and does not recognise asylum claims.
The two men have pending refugee applications in Canada and were hoping Taiwan would allow them to stay while those claims were processed.
Immigration officials refused to grant them entry because they did not have a valid visa. But the democratically elected government in Taiwan was also wary of deporting them, leaving them trapped.
On Thursday Taiwan's Mainland 

Dissidents trapped inside Taiwan airport allowed in after 125 days

The death toll from the sinking of two boats carrying migrants to Yemen from Djibouti rose to 52 on Thursday, the UN migration agency said, appealing to regional leaders to take action to stop such tragedies.
Rescuers working in Djibouti's northeastern Obock region continued to recover bodies on the Horn of Africa nation's coast following the capsiSing of the two boats earlier this week.
The sinking of the vessels, which survivors say were mostly carrying Ethiopians, is the latest tragedy to occur on the risky route used by African migrants seeking work in the Middle East.
"No human being deserves such plight. It is up to actors and leaders working across the region to prevent such tragedies which take innocent lives," Lalini Veerassamy, chief of mission for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Djibouti, told AFP.
The figure of 52 is up from a previous toll of 43 on Wednesday.  Veerassamy also revised downwards the number of survivors to 15 from 16, citing an error in 

Death toll at 52 after migrant boats sink off Djibouti

Japanese authorities are investigating how a substance that appears to be uranium came to be offered for sale on an online auction site, a nuclear official said Thursday.
Police are trying to confirm whether the product is radioactive, he said, with local media reporting investigators are questioning "a number of people" suspected of involvement in the sale and purchase of the substance.
An initial test of the confiscated powder found it to be radioactive, Kyodo News said.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority received a report about a year ago about what was being billed as "uranium" on a popular auction site operated by Yahoo! Japan.  "We were asked, 'Is it OK? How is it possible?' We immediately called Yahoo!, which then took down the product," an atomic agency official told AFP.
The case was referred to police as the law requires special permits for transferring the ownership of uranium and other radioactive materials, he said.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the ...

Japan police probe 'uranium' on online auction site

Moscow and Washington have made "no progress" in talks on saving a key arms control treaty, a Russian diplomat said on Thursday, with the United States expected to begin withdrawal this weekend.
Russian and US officials had met on the sidelines of a meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in Beijing to discuss the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) - a source of raging tensions between Moscow and Washington.
"Unfortunately, there is no progress," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said after talks with  Andrea Thompson, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
The United States has warned that it will begin a six-month withdrawal process from the treaty on February 2 unless Russia destroys its 9M729 ground-based missile system, which it says breaches the Cold War-era agreement.
Ryabkov called the US position "rather tough, ultimatum-like" and "destructive," state news agency RIA Novosti ...

Russia says 'no progress' on nuclear treaty ahead of deadline

Britain may need to delay Brexit to pass legislation to implement the split with the European Union, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Thursday.
As the March 29 withdrawal date looms, the government is still trying to convince MPs to support a version of the divorce deal it has agreed with the bloc.
Even if it is passed, legislation putting the treaty into effect would then have to go through both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
"If we ended up approving a deal in the days before March 29 then we might need some extra time to pass critical legislation," Hunt told BBC radio.
"But if we are able to make progress sooner then that might not be necessary. We can't know at this stage exactly which of those scenarios would happen." The government is considering extending parliamentary hours and cancelling the February holiday of MPs to allow more time to debate Brexit legislation.
But there are still eight laws needed to prepare for Brexit, not just on the deal but also ...

UK says may have to delay Brexit to pass necessary laws

A jury awarded Republican Senator Rand Paul more than USD 580,000 Wednesday over an attack by a neighbour that left him with broken ribs and fluid in his lungs, US media reported.
Rene Boucher, who assaulted the junior senator from Kentucky in 2017, will owe USD 375,000 in punitive damages, USD 200,000 for pain and suffering and USD 7,834 for medical expenses, according to local media reports.
"This lawsuit wasn't about me. It was about all of us and what we find acceptable as a society. We need to send a clear message that violence is not the answer - anytime, anywhere," Paul wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
"We can hold different views, whether it's politics, religion or day to day matters," but it is "never ok to turn those disagreements into violent, aggressive anger.
I hope that's the message from today," he tweeted.
Boucher was arrested in 2017 after Kentucky State Police responded to a reported assault at Paul's Warren County home.
The suspect's attorney Matt Baker issued a ...

US Senator Rand Paul awarded $580,000 for neighbour's attack

The world's biggest shipbuilder, South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries, has reached a deal to acquire a majority stake in ailing number two Daewoo from the government, Seoul said Thursday.
The world's top three shipbuilders are South Korean -- Samsung Heavy ranks third -- but the industry has been hammered in recent years by overcapacity and plunging ship prices.
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has struggled in particular and has repeatedly been bailed out by the government to avoid collapse, at a total cost of several billion dollars.
Hyundai Heavy itself announced net losses of 633 billion won (USD 569 million) for 2018 on Thursday, blaming higher steel costs and lower demand.
But the state-funded Korea Development Bank (KDB), which owns 55.7 per cent of Daewoo, said Hyundai had agreed to take over its stake.
Rather than paying cash, the shipbuilder will split itself in two and issue KDB shares in a new holding company that will own Daewoo and most of Hyundai Heavy's ...

World's top two shipbuilders in deal to merge: Seoul

Australia skipper Tim Paine warned Thursday there was no room for complacency after sticking with the same side for the second Test against Sri Lanka as the one that thrashed them in Brisbane.
The home team routed the visitors by an innings and 40 runs under lights at the Gabba and Paine pointed to their recent experience against India, where Australia won a Test in Perth only to be comprehensively beaten in Melbourne.
"We touched on how we had a great win in Perth against India. I thought we turned up pretty poorly and really flat in Melbourne and started that Test match pretty ordinarily," Paine said.
"And then you get a good side like India in front of you and we couldn't reel them back in.
"It's just been making sure our attitude to this Test is spot on and we're leaving nothing to chance."
On the back of the Brisbane thumping, Australia have opted to make no changes for the second Test in Canberra starting Friday against a Sri Lankan team struggling with injuries and off-field ...

No room for complacency, Australia skipper warns

Thailand's biggest shopping mall owner, the Central Group, will pour USD 200 million into the Singapore ride-hailing and food delivery firm Grab, the companies said Thursday, as they look to reel in customers now buying everything from food to holidays online.
The investment means Central, which is also a major hotelier and supermarket chain whose business interests stretch into Europe, will acquire a non-controlling stake in Grab's Thai entity.
Tos Chirathivat, CEO of Central Group and scion of the kingdom's second richest family with a fortune estimated by Forbes of USD 21 billion, said the big buy-in will give his company's stores and hotels access to customers wherever they are.
"It (Grab) has built a new platform which consists of food delivery, payment and other services," he said.
"So we can link with it. They can sell or buy products at our malls and get them delivered home."
He did not reveal how much of Grab's Thai unit he bought with the USD 200 million.
Grab is a market ...

AFP

AFP

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