Footage of the remarkable Thailand rescue today showed members of the group trapped in a cave being stretchered to freedom whilst seemingly heavily sedated and wearing wetsuits and diving gear.
The footage, released on the Thai Navy SEALs Facebook page, shows a complex operation with numerous divers -- both foreign and Thai -- using pulleys, ropes and rubber piping to haul members of the football team to safety.

Thai Navy SEALs footage shows sedated group carried from cave

PTI Automatic

At least 11 people were killed after gunmen stormed an education department compound in eastern Afghanistan today, officials said, sparking an hours-long battle with security forces in the latest attack in the restive region.
Ten others, mostly employees, were wounded in the second attack in Jalalabad city in as many days, Nangarhar provincial governor spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said in a statement.
Many of the workers were trapped inside the building during the gun battle between security forces and militants, which has ended. Twenty staff members were rescued.
The 11 dead were all employees of the education department branch and included the director, Khogyani said.
At least two attackers were involved in the raid and both were killed.
The sound of gunfire followed by a "big explosion" that shattered windows alerted Qari Samiullah to the fact that an attack was under way near his shop.
"I left my shop and ran when I heard a second explosion," Samiullah told AFP. "Smoke came out of 

11 killed in attack on Afghan education office: officials

An Afghan man deported from Germany has been found dead in a hotel room in Kabul after committing suicide, officials said today.
The 23-year-old man, who has not been identified, was forcibly returned to the Afghan capital on July 4 along with 68 other failed Afghan asylum seekers.
He had been staying at a hotel used by the International Organisation for Migration as temporary accommodation for returnees while he waited to go to the western city of Herat.
His body was found on July 10. A police investigation into his death is under way, but an IOM official said the man had "apparently" committed suicide.
Afghanistan's refugees and repatriations ministry spokesman Hafiz Ahmad Miakhail confirmed one of the 69 deportees had killed himself while staying at a temporary shelter.
The IOM issued a statement calling for "assisted voluntary return and reintegration" instead of deportations.
"Forced returns carry the stigma of failure, can encourage unsafe re-migration, and increase risks and ...

Afghan deported from Germany commits suicide in Kabul hotel: Officials

Britain's moves towards exiting the European Union are already expected to create some 3,500 finance and banking jobs in Paris as leading players in the sector move their operations out of London, an industry group said today.
The figure "is much higher than the direct job transfers to other European financial capitals," Gerard Mestrallet, president of the lobby group Paris Europlace, said at the opening of the group's annual conference.
The US asset management giant Blackrock and the bank Citigroup are among the companies planning to move some activities to Paris, according to British media reports.
On top of an estimated 3,500 jobs seen as likely so far, the transfers could generate an additional 20,000 indirect jobs in the French capital, said Mestrallet.
He attributed the shifts to Paris to labour law overhauls and other measures taken by President Emmanuel Macron, a former Rothschild investment banker who is pushing to make France more attractive to foreign investors.
"We've made 

Brexit to create 3,500 finance jobs in Paris: Industry group

Thousands of Zimbabwean opposition supporters took to the streets of Harare today demanding fair elections following alleged irregularities in the electoral roll ahead of the July 30 vote.
The electoral register has long been a contentious feature of Zimbabwe's elections, fuelling accusations of vote rigging in previous polls.
A new voters' roll has been compiled for the upcoming polls, but the main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is alleging that the list is flawed. It also demanding transparency in the printing of ballot papers.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over from ousted long-time ruler Robert Mugabe in November, has promised to deliver free, fair and credible polls.
Thousands of supporters sporting the party's red berets, hats, caps and T-shirts with portrait of its young leader Nelson Chamisa, danced to music at the start of the march to the country's electoral commission.
Supporters flashed red cards -- used by football referees to expel players 

Zimbabwe opposition takes to streets in vote-rigging warning

Ugandan police fired live bullets and tear gas today to break up a crowd of demonstrators who had gathered to protest a controversial tax on the use of social media.
Since the beginning of the month access to media such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter, as well as dating sites Tinder and Grindr, have been blocked unless users pay a 200-shilling (USD 0.05, 0.04 euro) daily tax.
In a statement, President Yoweri Museveni justified the move saying many citizens did not pay their taxes as they were meant to, and should not "donate money to foreign companies through chatting or even lying" on social media.
Today's rally was led by singer and parliamentarian Bobi Wine -- real name Robert Kyagulanyi -- whose election last year was fuelled by social media.
Scores of protesters marched towards parliament, with the rally turning chaotic as a large group of market vendors and motorcycle taxi drivers faced off against police in anti-riot gear, with some lobbing stones at the officers.
"Teargas ...

Uganda police fire teargas, bullets at social media tax protest

The boys rescued from a Thai cave were passed "sleeping" on stretchers through the treacherous pathways, a former Thai Navy SEAL who was the last diver to leave the Tham Luang complex told AFP today.
The details of the complex operation are among the first to emerge from a rescue effort to save 12 boys and their football coach that has been shrouded in secrecy since it began on Sunday and ended successfully three days later.
"Some of them were asleep, some of them were wiggling their fingers... (as if) groggy, but they were breathing," Commander Chaiyananta Peeranarong said, adding that doctors stationed along the dark corridors of the Tham Luang cave were constantly checking their condition and pulse.
"My job was to transfer them along," he said, adding the "boys were wrapped up in stretchers already when they were being transferred".
Thailand's junta chief told reporters yesterday that the group had been given a "minor tranquiliser" to help calm their nerves.
But he denied they were 

Thai boys were passed "sleeping" through cave: rescue diver

Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois said his team's defeat by France in the World Cup semi-finals on Tuesday was a "shame for football", criticising Didier Deschamps's side for a defensive style of play.
Centre-back Samuel Umtiti's 51st-minute header from a corner gave France a 1-0 win, as they defended deep to close it out and reach a third World Cup final.
"It was a frustrating match. France didn't play at all, they defended with 11 players within 40 metres of their goal," Chelsea goalkeeper Courtois told Belgian TV channel RTBF.
"They played on the counter-attack with (Kylian) Mbappe, who is very quick. That's their right. They know when an opponent plays very deep, that's where we have problems.
"The frustration is there because we didn't lose to a team who are better than us, we lost to a team who play nothing, just defend.
"Against Uruguay (in the quarter-finals) they scored with a free-kick and a goalkeeping error. Today, a corner. It's a shame for football that Belgium didn't .

Belgium's Courtois blasts France victory as 'shame for football'

A Turkish court today handed jail terms of up to 22 years to five top managers convicted of negligence over Turkey's worst ever mining disaster, which claimed hundreds of lives.
The accident in May 2014 killed 301 people when one of the pits of the Soma mine became engulfed by flames and carbon monoxide gas, trapping 800 miners working inside.
The tragedy sparked protests and raised new concerns about Turkey's dire industrial safety record. Relatives and the opposition denounced today's verdicts -- handed out on negligence rather than murder convictions -- as outrageously lenient after prosecutors had initially demanded terms of 301 times 25 years for all the main suspects.
After a trial lasting over three years, the court in the western Turkish town of Akhisar jailed the former CEO of the Soma mine, Can Gurkan, for 15 years, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
The mine's general manager Ramazan Dogru and technical manager Ismail Adali were handed prison sentences of 22 years and .

Turkey jails mine bosses over 2014 disaster that killed 301

German prosecutors today said a court had remanded in custody an alleged Iranian spy accused of plotting to bomb an Iranian opposition rally in Paris on June 30.
The suspect, a Vienna-based accredited Iranian diplomat whom opposition groups have named as Assadollah Assadi, 46, was one of several suspects detained in Germany, Belgium and France.
They had allegedly planned to bomb the rally by an exiled Iranian opposition group in Villepinte near Paris that was attended by several US politicians.
German prosecutors said today that a court had two days earlier remanded Assadi in custody on charges of foreign intelligence activities and conspiracy to murder. They added that these charges did "not preclude" Assadi's extradition requested by Belgium.
Assadi was believed to be a member of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which is tasked with the "observation and fight against opposition groups inside and outside Iran", the prosecutors' statement said.
They said Assadi had in ...

Germany holds Iran 'spy' on bomb plot charges

Schooled as a monk and now hailed a hero, football coach Ekkapol Chantawong is one of several stateless members of the "Wild Boars", a team whose survival after days trapped in a flooded Thai cave fixated a country that does not recognise them as citizens.
Coach Ek, the 25-year-old who was among the last to emerge from the cave yesterday, has been lauded for keeping the the young footballers -- aged 11-16 -- calm as starvation loomed in the dark.
He was the only adult with the boys when they entered the cave on June 23 until they were found nine days later by British divers on a muddy bank deep inside the cave complex.
As he awaited his turn to undertake the dangerous exit from the Tham Luang complex, Thais on the outside celebrated him as a modest, devout and duty-bound member of the Mae Sai community.
"From all the parents, please take care of all the children. Don't blame yourself," said a letter to him from the boys' relatives released July 7.
In reply he scrawled a note ...

Coach Ek the unlikely stateless hero of Thai cave drama

The cremated remains of the executed guru of the Japanese doomsday cult behind a deadly 1995 sarin gas attack will be scattered at sea to avoid creating a pilgrimage site for his followers, media today reported.
The lawyer representing the youngest daughter of Shoko Asahara, the charismatic leader of the Aum Shinrikyo sect, announced the plan a day after she agreed to collect his ashes.
The plan comes amid reports of a battle between other members of Ashara's family, including his wife, for his remains. His wife and several other children remain in an Aum successor cult. Asahara's youngest daughter, whose name has not been made public, is the only one of his children to break with it.
"(Asahara's) ashes bear grave importance to his followers," said lawyer Taro Takimoto, according to Kyodo News.
Takimoto and the daughter have agreed that it is best to scatter Asahara's remains in the Pacific Ocean to avoid creating any "holy land" for his followers, he said.
The lawyer also urged the ..

Ashes of Japan sarin attack cult guru to be scattered at sea

Twenty-six people were killed in two days of violence blamed on cattle thieves in northern Nigeria, the National Emergency Management Agency said today.
Bandits on motorcycles attacked several villages on both sides of the border between Sokoto and Zamfara states on Monday and Tuesday, shooting residents, burning homes and stealing cows.
"At the moment, 26 dead bodies have been recovered from the attacks," NEMA spokesman Suleiman Kadir told AFP. "The toll may rise with the latest attack from yesterday (Tuesday)."
Two of the affected villages were in the Rabah district of Sokoto, he said, adding that more than 1,000 people had been made homeless and travelled to the town of Gandi.
Kidnapping and cattle rustling gangs operate just over the state border, he added. The violence was "not unconnected", he said.
Sokoto state police spokeswoman Cordelia Nwawe said: "Three communities in Zamfara and two villages close to Rabah were completely burnt." Full details were "sketchy", she ...

Suspected cattle thieves 'kill 26' in NW Nigeria

Chancellor Angela Merkel today said Germany makes "independent decisions", firing back at US President Donald Trump after he accused Berlin of being a "captive" of Russia.
"I myself have also experienced a part of Germany being occupied by the Soviet Union," Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, said as she arrived at a tense NATO summit.
"I am very glad that we are united today in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany and that we can therefore also make our own independent policies and make our own independent decisions.

Merkel fires back at Trump: Germany makes 'independent decisions'

Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox today increased its takeover offer for Sky, valuing the pan-European TV group at 24.5 billion pounds and trumping Comcast's rival bid.
21st Century Fox's improved approach is for the 61 per cent of Sky it does not own. New York-listed 21CF raised its offer to 14 pounds for each outstanding share, up substantially on a previous tilt that was pitched at 10.75 pounds.
Following the announcement, Sky's share price was down 1.4 per cent at 14.81 pounds, though above the improved offer with analysts betting on an extension to the bidding war.
"Fox coming back in for Sky isn't a surprise in itself, but the fact the offer is slightly behind what some had anticipated brings another twist," said George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
"In fact, there's every chance it might entice another counter from Comcast. That might explain why the shares still trade above the latest offer price." Fox's new bid values the whole of Sky at 24.5 billion pounds ..

Fox raises Sky bid in battle with Comcast

A 150-year-old guillotine with "a few dents on the blade" will go under the hammer in Paris today.
The 10-foot (three-metre) tall instrument of execution which was used to dispatch criminals in France until 1977 is in working order. But the Drouot auction house insisted that the model was built as a replica and has never been used to behead anyone.
The sale of guillotines has been highly controversial in France where the death penalty was only abolished in 1981, with the French auction watchdog already objecting to the auction.
"They should not be selling this guillotine," a spokesman told the Parisien newspaper. "Objects like the clothes of people who were deported to the (Nazi death) camps and instruments of torture are sensitive."
That did not, however, stop another going for 220,000 euros (USD 234,000) in the same saleroom in 2011 when US pop star Lady Gaga was reportedly among the bidders. Nor does the watchdog have the power to stop the proceedings because the guillotine is part 

Sale of guillotine divides France

A 45-year-old British man who was exposed to a high dose of the nerve agent Novichok is no longer in critical condition, the hospital treating him said today.
"He is no longer in a critical condition," Lorna Wilkinson, director of nursing at Salisbury District Hospital in southwest England, said in a statement.

Novichok patient no longer critical: UK hospital

It's 7:30 am at Rome's Rebibbia prison as inmates pile into a minibus headed for a day of freedom -- and a taste of life after incarceration.
Some of the many green spaces in the Italian capital are now in the hands of prisoners under a new scheme that drafts them in to maintain or spruce up gardens and parks.
The initiative, a joint project of the city and justice ministry, aims to smooth prisoners' reintegration into society once they have served their terms.
"Who knows, maybe one day one of us will do this as a job, to stay on the outside rather than ending up back in prison," says Umberto, one of the younger members of the group.
"At first, people were keen because it was an outing, but now it's good because we come home feeling exhausted but invigorated," adds the 30-something inmate as he prunes a hedge at the Elsa Morante cultural centre in the south of the city.
Supervising the prisoner-gardeners, Claudio Iacobelli jokes: "If they escape, I won't chase them." But, he says: ...

Rome's green-fingered inmates plant seeds for future

As a university student, Luna Atmowijoyo prayed five times a day, refused to shake hands with men who weren't relatives and was "more fundamentalist" than her pious Muslim parents.
But a decade later, Atmowijoyo has turned her back on Islam and is among a small number of atheists in Indonesia who live in fear of jail or violent reprisals from religious hardliners.
Leading a double life -- devout Muslim on the outside, non-believer on the inside -- is often the only choice for atheists in the world's biggest Muslim majority country.
Atmowijoyo, who lives with her parents, still wears an Islamic headscarf to escape the wrath of an abusive father who knows nothing of his daughter's change of heart, which started when she was told to avoid friendships with non-Muslims.
"A lot of simple things started to bother me," said the 30-year-old, who asked AFP not to use her real name. "Like I couldn't say Merry Christmas or Happy Waisak to people of other religions," she added, referring to a ...

Living a double life: Indonesia's atheists fear jail or worse

They may not make it to the World Cup final, but the schoolboy team rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand have been hailed as "heroes" by top footballers and clubs after their dramatic ordeal.
Paul Pogba, Manchester United and Barcelona were among the masses around the world to breathe a sigh of relief as the Wild Boars team finally emerged after more than two weeks trapped underground.
In a sign of how their plight had gripped players at the ongoing World Cup in Russia, Paul Pogba dedicated France's semi-final win against Belgium to the youngsters.
"This victory goes to the heroes of the day, well done boys, you are so strong," the Manchester United midfielder tweeted after Tuesday's 1-0 win.
England defender Kyle Walker, ahead of today's semi-final against Croatia, also welcomed the news and offered to send them football shirts.
"Amazing news that all of the Thai kids are out of the cave safely! I'd like to send out shirts to them! Is there anyone who can help with an address?" he 

They're coming home: football world hails Thai cave 'heroes'

US President Donald Trump will hold a one-on-one meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the NATO summit on today, the White House said.
The encounter comes after Trump launched a furious attack on Germany at the start of the alliance gathering, bitterly criticising Berlin for not spending enough on defence and accusing it of being a "captive" to Russia for energy.

AFP

AFP

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