William McRaven, commander of the US Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, has condemned President Donald Trump for revoking the security clearance of former CIA chief John Brennan and asked that his be withdrawn as well.
The decorated retired Navy admiral, in an open letter published in The Washington Post, defended Brennan as "one of the finest public servants I have ever known" and accused Trump of using "McCarthy-era tactics."
"Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John," McRaven said yesterday. "He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don't know him."
"Therefore, I would consider it an honour if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency," he said.
McRaven was the head of US Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014 and supervised the SEAL raid that killed bin Laden in ...

Bin Laden raid commander to Trump: revoke my security clearance too

PTI Automatic

Ghana today backed away from controversial plans to dissolve its graft-ridden football federation, as it reached a deal with FIFA to clean up football administration in the country.
Ghana's attorney general had taken steps towards dissolving the embattled Ghana Football Association (GFA) after an explosive documentary in June showed officials allegedly soliciting bribes worth millions of dollars.
FIFA countered that it would work with Ghana to tackle corruption but would not allow the GFA's hasty liquidation.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino met a senior delegation from Accra on Thursday with both sides agreeing to "establish a normalisation committee to replace the Executive Committee of the Ghana Football Association," a FIFA statement said.
The committee will be staffed by people with "integrity and competence," it added.
"Satisfied with the above measures, the Government of Ghana shall take steps to discontinue the process for the winding up of the Ghana Football Association," FIFA 

Ghana reaches deal with FIFA to avert dissolution of FA

Brash, belligerent and often painted as swimming's big, bad wolf, Chinese giant Sun Yang will be looking to savage his rivals at the Asian Games.
The triple Olympic champion is poised to swim the men's 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle in Jakarta -- and it would take an astonishing upset to deny him a gold medal sweep.
No shrinking violet, Sun triggered a diplomatic row at the 2014 Asian Games by slamming Japan's national anthem as "ugly" after being ambushed by Kosuke Hagino in the 200m free in Korea.
Sun was banned for three months in 2014 for taking trimetazidine, prescribed for a heart condition and which had only been included on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of illegal substances four months earlier.
Rival swimmers tore into Sun at the Rio Olympics in 2016, where Australian Mack Horton labelled him a "drug cheat" and Frenchwoman Camille Lacourt sniffed that Sun "pees purple".
Sun then escalated the war of words by accusing Horton of "dirty tactics" after losing his ...

Hot stuff: China swim king Sun eyes Asian sweep

World tennis chiefs today approved a radical Davis Cup revamp that will overhaul the 118-year-old competition, condensing the annual worldwide showpiece into an 18-team, week-long event.
The shake-up for the men's team tournament received 71.43 per cent support from about 120 delegates at the International Tennis Federation annual meeting in Orlando, well ahead of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
ITF president David Haggerty supported the revamp proposed by Kosmos, a group led by Barcelona football star Gerard Pique -- who flew in from Spain for the vote -- and backed by Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani, that has vowed USD 3 billion over 25 years to support the new event.
Haggerty called the reform plan "key to ensuring that the ITF and its member nations will guarantee a bright future for the sport."
Also backing the reconstituted event is US billionaire Larry Ellison, who hopes his Indian Wells tennis facility would host the 2021 edition of the finals after the ...

Major Davis Cup shake-up approved

A record 807 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest in May this year, officials confirmed today, capping a successful climbing season that also saw multiple other firsts.
Unusually good weather on the roof of the world allowed the staggering number of mountaineers to reach the 8,848-metre (20,029-foot) peak, including a double amputee from China.
Everest -- which straddles the border between Nepal and China -- saw 563 people summit from the south and 244 reach the top from the northern flank in Tibet, authorities on both sides confirmed.
The numbers smashed the previous record of 665 summits set in 2013, according to the Himalayan Database.
Two Nepali Sherpas broke their own world records for the most Everest summits by a man and a woman, reaching the top for a 22nd and ninth time respectively.
Australian Steve Plain became the fastest person to summit the highest mountain on each of the world's seven continents when he reached the peak of Everest on May 14, knocking nine days ..

Record numbers summit Everest in 2018

European stocks rebounded today on news that Beijing and Washington will hold trade talks, while the Turkish lira rose after Qatar offered to invest $15 billion in Turkey.
Asian indices fell Wednesday on concerns over Turkey's crisis, but losses were capped by hopes of an end to the tit-for-tat trade war between China and the United States.
Frankfurt, London and Paris shares bounced higher, having shed more than 1.5 percent the previous day on Turkey fears and Chinese growth concerns.
"Investor risk sentiment has received a boost on two fronts," noted OANDA analyst Dean Popplewell.
"Reports that China has accepted a US invitation to trade talks in late August and news that Qatar has pledged to invest $15 billion in Turkey are helping market risk sentiment and pressuring the dollar."
Emerging market currencies staged a modest recovery after a tumultuous week for the Turkish lira, which plumbed record lows against the dollar.
The lira's plunge -- ongoing for weeks -- turned into a rout .

European stocks regain composure on US-China trade talk news

Turkey's finance minister Berat Albayrak will today seek to soothe the markets over the lira's dramatic fall in the wake of escalating tensions with the United States.
Some 3,000 investors from the United States, Europe and Asia registered to join a conference call with Albayrak at 1300 GMT, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Albayrak, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son-in-law, was appointed last month and faces a tough task in getting the economy in order.
He will be hoping to make a stronger impression than last Friday when he made a long-planned presentation on Turkey's growth strategy at the very moment the lira was in freefall.
"This is Albayrak's last chance to prove three things: that he understands what is happening, that he can react accordingly and that he has influence over Erdogan," a European diplomatic source said on condition of anonymity.
The Turkish currency is being pummelled as a result of a diplomatic standoff with its NATO ally the United States -- over 

Turkey seeks to soothe markets over tensions with US

Germany midfielder Toni Kroos says Mesut Ozil was 'out of order' to make accusations of racism within the German set up as he retired from international football last month.
"Basically Mesut is a long-serving national team player and deserved a better exit as a footballer," Kroos, 28, told German daily Bild.
"I have played with Mesut for many years and know that he is a nice guy. But the way he retired was out of order.
"The proportion of his statement which was fair and justified was unfortunately overshadowed by a much higher proportion of nonsense.
"I think he himself knows that racism does not exist within the national team and the DFB.
"On the contrary, we are always committed to diversity and integration.
"Mesut was a good example of that, like many of our team mates."
Ozil, 29, created a furore last month when he retired from international football in an explosive three-part statement in which he accused German FA (DFB) president Reinhard Grindel of racism.
"In the eyes of ...

Ozil's claims of racism in German camp are 'nonsense': Kroos

The new International Testing Agency will regain the "trust" of athletes and fans who lost faith in the fairness of sport after a series of doping scandals, the body's director-general told AFP.
The idea to create the ITA was conceived at the height of the Russian doping scandal that saw evidence emerge of egregious cheating orchestrated by Moscow during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Under intense pressure, the International Olympic Committee insisted the sporting world needed a fully independent testing agency that could back-stop federations and national anti-doping labs, which had proven vulnerable to manipulation.
The ITA started operating in Lausanne just over a month ago and it is, managing-director Benjamin Cohen said, already providing services to 30 federations and would strive to build its portfolio -- including testing responsibility for the next World Cup, if FIFA agrees.
"We are coming out of a rather complicated period, since the Sochi Olympics," Cohen told AFP at the ...

New drug testing agency aims to restore trust in sport

Students at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school began a new school year amid beefed up security six months after a mass shooting that claimed 17 lives and rekindled the US debate over guns.
"It's never going to be normal again," said Lauren Hogg, a 15-year-old survivor and co-author with her brother David of a book about the wave of student activism set off by the Parkland, Florida massacre.
"I can't help but constantly think about not only myself and my friends at my school, but constantly thinking about my friends at other schools who don't have as many safety precautions as we now do, and I worry about them," she told the ABC News podcast "Start Here" yesterday.
Reminders of the February 14 mass shooting - one of the deadliest in recent US history - are everywhere at the school in a suburban community north of Miami.
The banners that went up on the fence surrounding the school after the shooting are still there, along with their still timely message: "Be strong/Parkland .

Students begin school year at Florida school, six months after massacre

Qatar has promised to make a USD 15 billion direct investment in Turkey, badly hit by a currency crisis amid a widening diplomatic standoff with the United States, officials said.
"Qatar has pledged USD 15 billion of direct investments in Turkey," presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on Twitter yesterday.
"Turkish-Qatari relations are based on solid foundations of true friendship and solidarity," he said.
The announcement came after Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani held lunchtime talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan thanked the emir and the people of Qatar for "standing by Turkey," the official Anadolu news agency reported.
He said relations with Qatar, which he described as a "friendly and brotherly country," would be boosted in many areas.
Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogan's son-in-law, and his Qatari counterpart Ali Sharif Al-Emadi were present at the talks in the capital Ankara.
Turkey has been rocked in recent days by .

Qatar promises $15 bn investment in Turkey: presidency

A Malaysian judge will today deliver a key ruling in the trial of two women accused of the assassination of the half-brother of North Korea's leader, with their families optimistic they will be cleared.
The court will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to support a murder charge against Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, who allegedly killed Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport.
If there is, the trial will continue with the court hearing the women's defence. But if not, the judge could acquit the women or amend the charge to something less serious than murder, which carries a mandatory death sentence in Malaysia.
Their families insist they did not carry out the Cold War-style hit that shocked the world, and were hopeful they would be acquitted.
Huong "could never be a killer as she had always been a charming, hard-working girl", Doan Van Thanh, the Vietnamese suspect's father, told AFP.
The women are accused of killing Kim Jong Nam - the estranged ...

Malaysia court to deliver key ruling in Kim Jong Nam murder trial

A cholera epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 127 people since February, while a further 22 have died in Niger, officials have said.
"A total of 2,100 patients are currently being treated and since February we have registered 125 deaths," said Hippolyte Mutombo Mbwebwe, health minister in the eastern Kasai region.
Ten more cases, including two deaths, were confirmed in neighbouring central Kasai, he said yesterday.
In the DRC's violence-wracked North Kivu province, 41 people have also died in the country's latest Ebola outbreak, its 10th since 1976.
Meanwhile, in Niger the United Nations said yesterday that 22 people had died from cholera in the Maradi region, close to Nigeria.
It said 1,351 cases had been registered including the 22 fatalities.

Cholera kills scores in DR Congo, Niger

Three Russian journalists killed in Central Africa last month as they reported on Russian mercenaries there were targeted in an ambush, a media organisation that was backing them said today.
The claim contradicts the version of events put forward by the Kremlin, which said initial evidence suggested the journalists were killed after resisting robbers.
The men -- reporter Orkhan Dzhemal, director Alexander Rastorguyev and cameraman Kirill Radchenko -- were killed on July 30 shortly after arriving in the war-torn country to report on a private army known as Wagner Group.
"The version of a simple theft as the criminals' main motive is contradicted by many factors," said the MBK media organisation, owned by exiled former oligarch and Kremlin foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
"The criminals were waiting...for the very car carrying Dzhemal, Rastorguyev and Radchenko," the organisation said in a statement on its website, after sending investigators to the region.
MBK said it "does not exclude the ...

Russian journalists shot in Central Africa targeted in ambush: Media org

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been re-elected for a five-year term after winning 67.17 per cent of the vote in a runoff, the government announced today.
Opposition challenger and former finance minister Soumaila Cisse, who also ran against Keita in 2013, won 32.83 per cent on Sunday, Local Government Minister Mohamed Ag Erlaf said on national television, giving provisional figures.
Turnout was low, at 34.5%.
Violence, low public enthusiasm and accusations of fraud marred the vote. Cisse, 68, on Monday said he would reject the results.
Keita, 73, will take office on September 4, with hopes he can strengthen a 2015 peace accord between the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels.
Mali, a landlocked nation home to at least 20 ethnic groups where the majority of people live on less than USD 2 (1.76 euros) a day, has battled jihadist attacks and intercommunal violence for years.
Islamist attacks have spread from the north to the centre and south of the ..

Keita re-elected Mali president with landslide

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad begins a visit to China Friday, seeking to renegotiate or even cancel major Beijing-backed projects signed under the country's scandal-plagued, former regime.
The 93-year-old leader, who returned for a second stint as premier following a shock election win in May, has railed against a series of deals struck with Chinese state-owned companies by the administration of toppled leader Najib Razak.
His government has suspended China-backed projects worth more than $22 billion, including a major rail link, and Mahathir has pledged to raise the issue of what he views as unfair terms related to some of the deals on his five-day trip.
During his nine-year rule, Najib was accused of cutting quick deals with Beijing in return for help paying off debts linked to a massive financial scandal that ultimately helped bring down his long-ruling coalition.
"We're looking at the agreements entered into by the previous government," Mahathir told a press conference 

Malaysian PM heading to China with mega-projects in focus

Walmart reported much higher second-quarter sales and robust growth in its e-commerce businesses today, even as it reported a loss on one-time costs associated with selling a Walmart Brazil stake.
The world's biggest retailer scored its most robust jump in more than 10 years in US comparable store sales, sending shares sharply higher. But it reported an $861 million loss following pre-tax costs of $4.8 billion on the Brazil sales.

Walmart reports Q2 loss, but higher sales; shares rise

Ajla Nizic did not know what cancer was when she was diagnosed with it at age four.
"But I knew that I lost my hair," said the Bosnian leukaemia survivor who is now 19 years old.
Now a medical student, Nizic is leading a campaign to give other sick children a luxury her parents could not afford: wigs.
Bosnia, one of Europe's poorest countries, has no domestic wigmaking industry.
The nearest available source has been neighbouring Croatia, where wigs cost up to 2,000 euros (USD 2,300) -- more than four times the average monthly salary in Bosnia.
"As trivial as it might seem at first while a person is battling such an aggressive disease, hair loss is often a huge psychological burden, particularly for girls who do not dare to go out without hair," said Nizic, who now has long brown tresses.
Her campaign -- "My Hair, Your Hair" -- is encouraging Bosnians to donate their locks to a new wigmaking workshop that opened in Sarajevo in October.
There, volunteers are weaving wigs specifically ...

'My Hair, Your Hair': Bosnians weave wigs for kids with cancer

Bulgaria has decided to renovate more than 200 bridges in the wake of the deadly collapse of a bridge in the Italian city of Genoa, according to government information published today.
A total of 211 bridges -- most of which were built between 35 and 40 years ago -- are in a bad state, the regional development minister told a government meeting, according to minutes published today.
Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said all must be renovated and strengthened.  "Whether financed through loans to be paid back through tolls or whether we pay with the budget, I want them all to renovated at the same time," he told the meeting held on Wednesday.
Bulgaria, the poorest country in the EU, has been receiving financial aid from Europe for decades to modernise its infrastructure.
The country is nearly four times the size of Belgium but has only 777 kilometres of motorway, much of which is in a bad state of repair.
The motorway bridge in the Italian city of Genoa collapsed Tuesday during a heavy ...

Bulgaria to renovate bridges after Italy disaster

Uber has disclosed that its quarterly loss jumped despite taking in more money, as it invested in scooters and other "big bets."
The San Francisco-based smartphone ride star reported it lost $891 million on net revenue of $2.8 billion, while overall bookings rose to $12 billion.
"We had another great quarter, continuing to grow at an impressive rate for a business of our scale," said Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi.
He added that Uber is investing in "big bets" including restaurant take-away delivery service Uber Eats and "environmentally friendly modes of transport" like Express Pool, e-bikes and scooters.
The company is also devoting resources to what it sees as high-potential markets in India and the Middle East, according to Khosrowshahi.
Uber has made a practice of disclosing its earnings, despite not being required to since it is a private company.
It said in May that its revenue revved up in the first quarter of this year and that its value climbed to $62 billion in a ...

Uber quarterly loss jumps as it invests in 'big bets'

Chinese relatives of those who disappeared on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 today asked to meet the country's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad when he visits China this week.
The plane disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people -- mostly from China -- on board, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Amid a heavy police presence, about a dozen relatives gathered outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing where they handed over a letter addressed to the Malaysian government.
"We ask that Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, or other representatives (of the Malaysian government) meet with Chinese relatives of those on board MH370 during the official visit," the letter read.
Mahathir, who became Malaysia's premier for a second time after a shock election victory in May, will arrive in China Friday for a five-day visit, including a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday.
Other requests include resuming the search, a monthly meeting with airline and Malaysian officials, as 

AFP

AFP

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