England all-rounder Ben Stokes should be welcomed back into the Test team after being cleared of affray today, said former national captain Michael Vaughan.
Vaughan, who has forged a successful career as a pundit since retiring from the crease, said the 27-year-old New Zealand-born star had been punished enough over the 11 months since a late-night excursion in Bristol following a one-day win over the West Indies led to him being charged with affray.
A jury today unanimously decided in less than three hours that Stokes was not guilty as was his co-defendant Ryan Ali, who was knocked unconscious in the brawl.
However, Stokes and team-mate Alex Hales -- who was with him when the fracas occurred -- is likely to face a charge of disrepute by the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) which will be heard by the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) chaired by Tim O'Gorman, a former Derbyshire batsman and qualified solicitor.
"I think the fact he missed the whole of the Winter in Australia ...

Stokes has been punished enough, says Vaughan

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A Venezuelan general has been arrested over the alleged assassination attempt on President Nicolas Maduro, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said today.
National Guard Major General Alejandro Perez Gomez joined opposition politician Juan Requesens and colonel Pedro Javier Zambrano in appearing before a judge on Monday, Saab told a press conference.

Venezuelan general arrested over 'attack' on Maduro

A 23-year-old Nepalese World Cup labourer in Qatar died today while working on one of the venues for the 2022 tournament, officials in Doha announced in a statement.
An investigation has been launched after the man was killed "while working at the Al Wakrah Stadium project site", Qatar's World Cup organising body, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy said.
"His next of kin has been informed and the relevant Qatari and Nepali authorities have been notified," said the committee in a statement posted on its website.
"An investigation has been launched and further details about the incident will be released in due course."
It added that it "shares its deepest condolences with the family at this time".
No further details about the incident were given.
Al Wakrah is one of the eight venues proposed for the controversial Qatar World Cup in four years' time and was designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid.
Previously, another Nepalese labourer also died at Al Wakrah while ...

Qatar World Cup worker dies at 2022 stadium

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso announced today that he will retire from Formula One at the end of the season after his recent struggles with underachieving McLaren.
The 37-year-old Spaniard -- who has 32 Grand Prix wins to his credit in 17 seasons -- has become increasingly disenchanted with Formula One as the once all-powerful McLaren team have fallen way off the pace.
Alonso -- who in 2005 became the youngest ever Formula One world champion while driving for Renault before defending his title the following year -- has garnered 44 points this season and is ninth in the drivers' championship.
Alonso went on to drive for McLaren for a year in 2007 followed by a return to Renault and then four years at Ferrari, before beginning his second spell with McLaren in 2015.
"I have seen you (Formula One) changing, sometimes for good, others, in my opinion, for bad," said Alonso, who on three occasions finished runner-up in the drivers' championship while at Ferrari.
"And this year, ...

Alonso to retire from Formula One at end of season

Sri Lankan police today arrested a navy intelligence officer in connection with atrocities committed during the island's bloody civil war, including the assassination of a prominent Tamil politician.
Lieutenant commander Sampath Hettiarachchi was wanted in connection with the abduction and illegal detention of 11 young men between 2008 and 2009, police said, the final phase of the war between government forces and ethnic Tamil separatists.
The 11 men are believed to have been killed while being illegally held by the navy. Their bodies were never found.
The then-navy spokesman D K P Dissanayake is also a suspect in the case. He was arrested last year and is currently on bail.
"We have now arrested one of the most wanted men and we are very close to concluding the investigation," a police source said, adding that Hettiarachchi was also wanted in connection with the 2006 slaying of Tamil lawmaker Nadarajah Raviraj.
There have been persistent allegations that senior military personnel and 

Sri Lanka arrests intel officer over killings

Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said today that "around 30" have been killed after a motorway bridge collapsed in the northwestern port city of Genoa.
"Unfortunately there are around 30 dead and many injured in a serious condition," Salvini told reporters in the Sicilian city of Catania.
The collapse, which saw a vast stretch of the A10 freeway tumble on to railway lines in the northern port city, was the deadliest bridge failure in Italy for years, and the country's deputy transport minister warned the death toll could climb further.
Rescuers scouring through the wreckage, strewn among shrubland and train tracks, said there were "tens of victims", while images from the scene showed an entire carriageway plunged to the ground.
Cars and trucks were trapped in the rubble and nearby buildings damaged by vast chunks of concrete, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.
Italian media reported that 200 metres of the "Morandi" bridge had fallen away.
The Italian fire service ..

Italy interior minister says around 30 dead in bridge collapse

A South African author of a new book exposing an alleged paedophile ring involving top-ranking apartheid-era cabinet members has been found dead in an apparent suicide case, police said today.
Mark Minnie, 58, was found last night at a friend's farm in Eastern Cape province with a gun shot wound to his head just weeks after the book, The Lost Boys of Bird Island, was published.
"We did find a suicide note," police spokeswoman Priscilla Naidu, told AFP on the phone from the southern city of Port Elizabeth. "A firearm was found lying next to him."
Police said no foul play was suspected but that an investigation had been launched.
Minnie, a former police officer who was working as a teacher in China, had been in South Africa for the launch of the book he co-authored with investigative journalist Chris Steyn.
The book, published early this month, chronicles allegations that former defence minister Magnus Malan was part of a paedophile network that operated during white-minority rule in ...

Author of apartheid paedophile expose found dead in S.Africa

Israel will reopen its only goods crossing with the Gaza Strip tomorrow if calm is maintained, after having prevented most deliveries since July 9 over border tensions, the defence ministry said today.
"Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman this afternoon held a situation assessment" with security chiefs, his office said in a statement.
"In the meeting it was decided that if the quiet which has been maintained on the Gaza border continues until tomorrow morning, Kerem Shalom crossing will open tomorrow at 9:00 am (0600 GMT) and the fishing zone will be expanded back to nine miles from the beach."
Kerem Shalom has been closed to most goods since July 9.
Fuel has intermittently been banned during that time, including since August 2, though food and medicine has been allowed.
Last month, Israel also reduced the limits of the fishing zone it allows fishermen off the blockaded Gaza Strip to three nautical miles offshore.
Gaza border protests and clashes broke out on March 30 and have led to ..

Israel to reopen Gaza goods crossing Wednesday if calm maintained

An Afghan asylum-seeker was arrested after launching a drunken and frenzied knife attack in the sleepy southwestern French town of Perigueux, injuring four people including one seriously, police said today.
The incident began last evening with the 19-year-old man, who was known to have psychological problems according to local authorities, lashing out at cars outside his home.
The head of the ambulance service for the area, Jean-Jacques Girard, told the regional Sud-Ouest daily that he was seen "kicking and banging a first vehicle with his feet and fists, then a second" and also "rounding on female motorists".
Two paramedics who witnessed the incident tried to calm the man down but after disappearing inside his home he returned with a knife and attacked them, leaving them with injuries to the head and neck.
He then turned on two brothers aged 64 and 68 living next door, leaving one with a perforated lung and the other with stab wounds to the back.
The man was eventually overpowered by 

Four injured, one seriously, in French knife rampage

Two US military Osprey aircraft made separate emergency landings at airports on Japanese islands today, with no injuries or damage reported, local media said.
One of the two MV-22 Ospreys landed at Amami Airport in southwestern Kagoshima prefecture in the afternoon, according to the Kyodo and Jiji news agencies.
The tilt-rotor aircraft left the Japanese airport two hours later, interrupting some commercial flights, public broadcaster NHK said.
The other Osprey made an emergency landing further south at the US Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Friday afternoon, Kyodo said, quoting government sources.
There were no reports of injuries or damage following the two incidents.
Immediate confirmation of the news reports was not available.
The Osprey, a hybrid helicopter-turboprop with a chequered safety record, has two engines positioned on fixed wingtips that allow it to land and take off vertically. It can travel much faster than a helicopter.
Several accidents involving US military aircraft in ..

Two US Ospreys make emergency landings in Japan

Tesla's board of directors today said it formed a special committee to consider chief executive Elon Musk's proposal to take the electric auto giant private.
Musk disclosed yesterday that he had been in talks with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other potential investors on a plan that would delist Tesla from the stock market.
By going private, Tesla could operate without requirements for financial reports and other pressures of a publicly traded firm.
But it could also lose visibility and limit its ability to raise capital.
A statement today from Tesla's board said the special committee "has the full power and authority of the board of directors to take any and all actions on behalf of the board of directors as it deems necessary to evaluate and negotiate a potential going private transaction and alternatives to any transaction proposed by Mr. Musk."
It added that no transaction would be consummated without the approval of the special committee.
"No assurances can be given ..

Tesla board forms committee to consider going private

At least 22 people were killed today when a giant motorway bridge collapsed in Genoa, with several more feared dead in what Italy's transport minister described as an "immense tragedy".
The collapse, which saw a vast stretch of the A10 freeway tumble on to railway lines in the northern port city, was the deadliest bridge failure in Italy for years, and the country's deputy transport minister warned the death toll could climb further.
"Unfortunately I can confirm that 22 are dead, and it's a number that's likely to rise," Edoardo Rixi told Italian television.
Rescuers scouring through the wreckage, strewn among shrubland and train tracks, said there were "tens of victims", while images from the scene showed an entire carriageway plunged to the ground.
Cars and trucks were trapped in the rubble and nearby buildings damaged by vast chunks of concrete, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.
Italian media reported that 200 metres of the "Morandi" bridge had fallen away.
The Italian 

22 dead in Italy motorway bridge collapse 'tragedy'

Forty-one people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo, health authorities said on Tuesday, adding that doctors were using a novel drug to treat patients.
Out of 57 recorded cases till yesterday, 41 were fatal, the Congolese Health Ministry and UN's World Health Organization (WHO) said. Fourteen of the deaths had been confirmed by lab tests, the ministry said.
Last Friday, the ministry put the tally at 37 deaths, either confirmed or suspected.
The outbreak is the country's 10th since 1976, when the disease was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near the Ebola River, a tributary of the Congo.
Its epicentre is Mangina in the region of Beni, in the strife-torn eastern province of North Kivu.
For the first time since the outbreak was announced on August 1, one fatality was recorded outside of North Kivu -- in the neighbouring province of Ituri, the ministry's directorate for disease control said.
It added that doctors in Beni had started to use a ...

Ebola death toll in DR Congo at 41; new drug in use

A security watchdog today said for the first time it had spotted Russian-made weapons in rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine, despite the Kremlin insisting it has not provided arms in the conflict.
The statement from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a rare independent confirmation that sophisticated Russian-produced arms are involved in the fight between the Ukrainian army and separatists.
In a statement to AFP, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine said that on July 28, it had "spotted four distinct electronic warfare systems ... in areas not controlled by the government."
The mission said one of its drones had seen the Leer-3, Krasukha-2, Bylina, and Repellent-1 systems some 64 kilometres (40 miles) south-west of the rebels' stronghold Lugansk.
The systems -- designed to jam mobile communication and disable radar guided missiles -- started being produced only a few years ago and are made in Russia.
The OSCE report did not explicitly name ...

Russian-made arms in rebel-held east Ukraine: Watchdog

Two Malaysian women have been sentenced to caning after they admitted having sex in contravention of strict Islamic laws, an official said today, sparking outrage from rights groups.
Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community have increasingly faced pressure in the Muslim-majority country in recent years, with officials frequently accused of targeting them.
The women, aged 22 and 32, were arrested in April by Islamic enforcement officers after they were found in a car in a public square in northern Terengganu state, one of the most conservative areas of the country.
They were brought before an Islamic court on Sunday and admitted to breaking a sharia law that forbids sexual relations between women.
They were sentenced to six strokes of the cane each and fined 3,300 ringgit (USD 800), Mohamad Khasmizan Abdullah, a prosecutor with the Terengganu religious department told AFP.
"This is a serious case. The prosecutors urged the court to impose the maximum ...

Malaysian women to be caned for lesbian sex

Twenty-two people were killed and 18 injured  when an inter-country bus crashed outside Ecuador's capital Quito, emergency services said today.
Venezuelans and Colombians were among the dead, officials said.
The bus crashed into another vehicle some 30 kilometers (20 miles) east of Quito, the ECU911 office said.
The embassies of the foreign victims have been notified, the emergency service said.
On Sunday, 12 people were killed and 30 injured when a bus carrying fans of Barcelona S.C., Ecuador's most popular football club, ran off the highway and flipped.
Traffic accidents are among the leading causes of death in Ecuador.
According to the watchdog group Justicia Vial, on average seven people are killed and some 80 people injured each day in traffic accidents.
And 96 percent of those accidents are due to human error, usually the driver's fault, according to the group's figures.

Bus accident in Ecuador kills 22

A section of a giant motorway bridge collapsed today in Genoa, injuring several people in what Italy's transport minister said was an "immense tragedy."
Some Italian media, citing sources within the interior ministry, said that at least 11 people had died, though it was not immediately possible to confirm this figure.
Rescuers scouring through the wreckage after part of a viaduct of the A10 freeway collapsed said there were "tens of victims", while images from the scene showed an entire carriageway plunged on to railway lines below.
Cars and trucks were trapped in the rubble and nearby buildings damaged.
Italian media reported that 200 metres (650 feet) of the "Morandi" bridge had fallen away.
The Italian fire service said that the viaduct, located in an industrial area in the west of the city, collapsed at around noon (1000 GMT).
"I'm following with the utmost apprehension what is happening in Genoa and what looks like it could be an immense tragedy," transport and infrastructure ...

'Immense tragedy' as Italy motorway bridge collapses

A Burundian activist has been jailed for five years accused of preparing reports on human rights abuses for a banned organisation, militant and legal sources said today.
Nestor Nibitanga, who was convicted and sentenced yesterday, "long ran our office in Gitega" in central Burundi, said Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa, the exiled president of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODEH).
This association was the main rights movement in the country until the regime shut it down after a political crisis erupted in 2015.
"He was sentenced on Monday morning by the Mukaza high court (in the capital Bujumbura) to five years of penal servitude for having continued to submit reports on human rights once APRODEH had been struck off by the government," Mbonimpa told AFP.
Nibitanga's lawyer, Fabien Segatwa, confirmed the sentence to AFP, but stressed that his client had for three years been working with the Burundian National Network of human rights organsations, ...

Burundi rights activist handed five-year term

Italy's transport and infrastructure minister said today that he fears the collapse of a bridge in Genoa could be an "immense tragedy" as local media report 11 dead.
"I'm following with the utmost apprehension what is happening in Genoa and what looks like it could be an immense tragedy," Danilo Toninelli said on Twitter.

Italy minister fears 'immense tragedy' after Genoa bridge collapse

Retired Brazilian striker Ronaldo left a clinic in Ibiza today following a four-night stay for treatment for a flu infection.
"He left this morning at 10:30am, not wanting to depart from the side where the press were waiting," said a spokesman for the clinic in the centre of Ibiza.
A spokesman for the former player confirmed his departure in an email message.
Ronaldo said Sunday he was being treated for a severe bout of flu infection after being taken to hospital Friday.
Local newspaper Diario de Ibiza said the former Real Madrid star had been treated in intensive care for pneumonia at the city's public hospital before being transferred to the clinic.
The 41-year-old, who was named FIFA's world player of the year three times prior to his retirement from football in 2011, is a regular visitor to Ibiza, where he owns a house.
He won his first cap for Brazil as a 17-year-old and went on to score 62 goals in 97 international appearances, including both goals when Brazil beat Germany 2-0 ..

Former Brazil striker Ronaldo leaves Ibiza clinic

England cricketer Ben Stokes was found not guilty of affray by a jury in less than three hours of deliberations today following a trial at Bristol Crown Court.
The 27-year-old -- whose co-defendant Ryan Ali was also found not guilty -- had been charged following a brawl hours after England played the West Indies in a one-day international in Bristol, southwest England, in September last year.
At the start of the trial the prosecution tried to amend the indictment and charge Stokes with two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm but this was rejected by the judge.
And half way through the trial Stokes's legal team attempted to have the case against him dropped but this was also refused by the judge.
New Zealand-born Stokes said in his testimony last Friday he had a "significant memory blackout" but he was "absolutely not" an angry man who had lost all control.
Stokes said he intervened because 28-year-old Ali and his friend Ryan Hale -- who had been acquitted earlier in the ..

AFP

AFP

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