All 12 boys and their coach who became trapped in a flooded Thai cave more than a fortnight ago have been rescued, the Navy SEALs announced today, completing an astonishing against-the-odds rescue mission that has captivated the world.
The Thai SEALs and elite foreign divers extracted the final batch of four boys, plus the 25-year-old coach, today afternoon via a perilous escape route that required them to squeeze through narrow, water-filled tunnels.
"All 12 'Wild Boars' and coach have been extracted from the cave," the SEALs said in a Facebook post.
"All are safe," they added, signing off with what has become their trademark "Hooyah" to celebrate the successful extractions of the other boys over the previous two days.
The 12 boys, aged from 11 to 16, and their coach, ventured into the Tham Luang cave in mountainous northern Thailand on June 23 after football practice and got caught deep inside when heavy rains caused flooding that trapped them on a muddy ledge.
They spent nine ...

All 12 boys and coach rescued from Thai cave

PTI Automatic

A second woman has accused the French movie mogul Luc Besson of sexual assault, according to reports, two months after a young actress alleged he had raped her.
The 49-year-old casting director told the French website Mediapart late yesterday that she was assaulted by the director "every time I took the lift with him", and that he also demanded sexual favours from her on set.
Two other women also said that Besson "behaved inappropriately" with them, with one actress claiming she had to escape from a casting in his Paris office on her hands and knees.
The director's lawyer Thierry Marembert has already denounced the rape allegation as "fantasist accusations".
Contacted by AFP today, his office said that he had nothing to add to his statement to Mediapart that Besson "categorically denies any type of inappropriate or reprehensible behaviour. Mr Besson is reserving his answers for the investigators so that his innocence can be shown".
Mediapart said that the casting director had written .

French film mogul Luc Besson hit by more sex assault claims

American hedge fund Elliott will take control of Italian giants AC Milan this week after the club's Chinese ownership missed a multi-million euro debt repayment, sources close to the matter confirmed to AFP today.
The source told AFP that Elliott began the legal process of taking control of the seven-time European Champions on Monday, and that a board meeting will be held before the end of the week in which a new board of directors will be nominated.
Next week, Milan will then hold a shareholders meeting in which the club's new structure will be outlined to investors.
The Chinese directors currently on the board will be replaced after owner Li Yonghong missed a Friday deadline to repay 32 million euros to Elliott.
Elliott lent Li just over 300 million euros at high interest rates to complete the long-winded 740 million-euro purchase of Milan from former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's investment firm Fininvest last year.
The deal was originally due to close at the end of ...

Hedge fund Elliott set to take control of AC Milan: source

At least two police officers were killed yesterday in Buea, a city in western Cameroon that has become the centre of a campaign for independence by English-speaking separatists, a local source said today.
A separate hospital source however said five police, as well as one civilian, had died.
The deaths mark a fresh escalation in violence between the security forces and armed separatists who want two English-speaking regions to become independent from the rest of the French-speaking country.

At least 2 police killed in flashpoint Cameroon city of Buea

Lighting up will soon get tougher in Singapore, with the government planning to roll out 300 high definition thermal cameras to catch and fine illegal smokers.
The city-state already has some of the world's strictest anti-tobacco laws and smoking is banned in most public places, with errant puffers handed a fine of up to Sg$1,000 (USD 740) if caught.
E-cigarettes are also banned outright. Authorities are now looking to roll out sophisticated thermal cameras that can detect when a person is holding a lit cigarette in a non-smoking area, according to a yesterday report by the Straits Times.
The newspaper said the cameras will be positioned around residential areas and other public places across Singapore, and will also have the ability to catch other illegal "unhygienic acts" such as spitting and littering.
Singapore first introduced anti-tobacco laws in the 1970s as part of a national effort to reduce smoking. It has since expanded the number of public places where lighting up is ...

Singapore rolling out thermal cameras to nab illegal smokers

European Union President Donald Tusk delivered a blunt message to US President Donald Trump today on the eve of a NATO summit in Brussels, telling him to "appreciate your allies".
Trump has ramped up criticism of European defence spending in recent days, stressing how many EU members are failing to meet agreed targets for investments, which has raised fears the NATO summit could lead to another bust-up in the transatlantic alliance.
Speaking at a signing ceremony for a new EU-NATO cooperation agreement, Tusk used the opportunity to send a personal message to Trump, who is due to arrive in the Belgian capital later today.
"I would like to address president Trump directly who for a long time now has been criticising Europe almost daily," the former Polish prime minister said.
"The US doesn't have and won't have a better ally than the EU. We spend on defence much more than Russia and as much as China," he added. "Dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don't have that ...

EU's Tusk tells Trump: 'Appreciate your allies'

The Kremlin today said it hoped to see an improvement in ties with the UK after Boris Johnson resigned as Britain's foreign minister in disagreement over the country's Brexit strategy.
"We are waiting for things to clear up politically in Britain," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, suggesting Moscow was not too sad to see the minister go.
"Unfortunately his contribution to the development of bilateral ties with Russia was rather modest, to put it mildly," he remarked.
"And certainly sooner or later, we will wait for some sort of rational explanations or arguments over the recent situation in Salisbury and the situation that followed," he added, referring to two cases of nerve agent poisonings in southwest England.
Johnson had in December travelled to Moscow in an effort to mend ties after years of antagonism in the first official visit by a British foreign minister in five years.
But relations hit a new low in March after a former double agent from ...

Russia hopes for better UK ties after Johnson quits

Israel's president today raised alarm over a proposed law seen as opening the door to the establishment of Jewish-only communities in the country.
Reuven Rivlin's comments marked a rare intervention in politics by the country's president, whose role is mainly symbolic. He voiced his concerns in an open letter, pointing to a clause in proposed legislation defining Israel as the "national home of the Jewish people".
The so-called nation-state law, which the government hopes to have approved by the end of the month, could become part of the country's basic laws which serve as a de facto constitution.
The clause Rivlin criticised would allow the state to "authorise a community composed of people having the same faith and nationality to maintain the exclusive character of that community".
That was seen as allowing towns to exclude Arab citizens, who account for some 17.5 per cent of Israel's population, or even other Jewish communities.
Rivlin said the legislation "could harm the Jewish ...

Israeli president slams bill that could lead to Jewish-only communities

England's 1966 World Cup-winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks says he hopes if Gareth Southgate's team lift the trophy, the Football Association will look after the players better than they did his generation.
The 80-year-old told the Daily Telegraph newspaper he and his teammates have never felt they received proper recognition after beating West Germany 4-2 at Wembley.
England are two wins away from winning the trophy for just the second time in their history despite low expectations going into the tournament in Russia. They play Croatia in the semi-finals in Moscow on Wednesday.
"I hope if these guys succeed they feel more appreciated by the FA than we were," said Banks. "They should be. They will have deserved it.
"The FA have done nothing for us. I have been very disappointed with the FA and what they could have done for us." Banks was capped 73 times but his top-flight career was ended when he lost sight in his right eye following a car crash in October 1972.
His most famous save ...

Banks lambasts FA over treatment of 1966 World Cup winners

Maverick Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad failed a drug test conducted during a domestic tournament in April, the country's cricket authorities confirmed Tuesday, and could face a ban of up to four years.
The offence is the latest in a long litany of Pakistani players charged with doping, and is a severe blow to the 26-year-old's stuttering career.
The Pakistan Cricket Board will issue a formal charge sheet "later today" it said in a release, confirming reports in recent days that Shehzad had tested positive for a banned substance.
Shehzad lost his Test place following Pakistan's tour to the West Indies in mid-2017 and has not played a one day international since last October.
He was part of Pakistan's Twenty20 squad for the team's two international matches last month, managing scores of 14 and 24, but missed out on playing for the tri-series Twenty20 in Zimbabwe which ended Sunday.
Pakistan's cricketers have a history of failing tests for performance enhancing drugs.
Pace bowlers Shoaib 

Pakistan's Shehzad faces ban on failed drug test

Three more people were rescued from a flooded Thai cave today, officials said, bringing to 11 the number saved and raising hopes all members of the young football team who became trapped 18 days ago would survive.
Two more were still inside the cave but authorities were confident of getting them out by this evening through a claustrophobic network of tunnels that in some places were completely filled with water.
"(They) will be extracted today," rescue chief Narongsak Osottanakorn told reporters this morning.
The hoped-for final chapter in an ordeal that has gripped the world came after elite foreign divers and Thai Navy SEALs escorted eight members of the "Wild Boars" football team out of the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand on Sunday and Monday.
Then this afternoon multiple sources involved in the operation said three more had been escorted out. However it was not clear if the 25-year-old coach was among them or if he remained inside.
The 12 boys, aged from 11 to 16, and their ..

11 out of Thai cave, hopes rise all will survive

A suicide attacker blew himself up near an Afghan security forces vehicle today, killing at least 12 people, mostly civilians, officials said, in the latest deadly violence to rock the country.
The explosion in the eastern city of Jalalabad also left at least five people wounded and set a nearby petrol station alight, the provincial governor's spokesman Attaullah Khogyani told AFP.
Some of the victims were brought to hospital with severe burns, health director Najibullah Kamawal said, confirming the casualty toll.
"I saw a big ball of fire that threw people away. The people were burning," Esmatullah, who witnessed the incident, told AFP.
Tolo News posted a video online purportedly showing several burned-out vehicles and gutted shops at the scene of the attack.
The Islamic State group claimed the attack via its Amaq propaganda agency -- the latest carried out by the extremists in restive Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan.
IS has claimed a series of high-casualty suicide bomb ..

12 killed in suicide attack on Afghan security forces: Officials

An eleventh person was rescued from a Thai cave this evening, a navy source and a provincial official told AFP, as the dramatic bid to free 12 youth footballers and their coach inched towards a successful end.
"The eleventh is out," a navy source told AFP, requesting anonymity, but not confirming if the person was a boy or the 25-year-old coach.
A provincial Chiang Rai official added "the eleventh was taken to a field hospital.

Eleventh person brought from Thai cave: navy, official sources

An Israeli organisation announced plans today to launch the country's first spacecraft to the moon in December, with hopes of burnishing Israel's reputation as a small nation with otherworldly high-tech ambitions.
The unmanned spacecraft, shaped like a pod and weighing some 585 kilogrammes (1,300 pounds) at launch, will land on the moon on February 13, 2019 if all goes according to plan, organisers SpaceIL told journalists.
It will be launched via a rocket from American entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX firm and its mission will include research on the moon's magnetic field.
Its first task however will be to plant an Israeli flag on the moon, organisers said.
The project began as part of the Google Lunar XPrize, which offered USD 30 million (25 million euros) in prizes to encourage scientists and entrepreneurs to come up with relatively low-cost moon missions.
An Israeli team that later became known as SpaceIL decided to join the fray and eventually partnered with state-owned Israel ...

Israel plans first lunar space mission in December

More than two dozen pro-government fighters were killed in northwestern Syria overnight in a joint attack by rebel and Islamist forces, a monitor said today.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the surprise offensive late Monday targeted a pair of villages and observation points in the coastal province and regime stronghold of Latakia, near the Turkish border.
"At least 27 regime forces and allied fighters, including eight officers, were killed in fierce clashes and shelling in the village of Al-Ateira," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. "They took Al-Ateira and kicked out regime forces from several observation points after killing or wounding them."
Another 40 government loyalists were wounded and six rebels were killed, he said.
The death toll made the attack the bloodiest opposition assault on the area in three years, according to the Observatory.
Al-Ateira lies about two kilometres (just over a mile) south of the Turkish border. The Britain-based Observatory said ..

Rebel attack in northwest Syria kills 27 regime fighters: Monitor

South Korea approved a rare screening of North Korean movies at a local film festival today, as a diplomatic thaw gains pace following two landmark summits between their leaders.
The two countries technically remain in conflict after the 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty, and all cross-border civilian contact -- including trips, letters, or emails -- are banned unless endorsed by both governments.
But officials have allowed three North Korean feature films and six short movies to be screened at the annual Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival on Seoul's outskirts from July 12, organisers said.
The North's films include the 2016 drama hit "The Story of Our Home", about three orphaned siblings trying to stay together, and "Comrade Kim Goes Flying", a 2012 romantic comedy about a miner pursuing her dream to become an acrobat.
The latter -- a joint production between Britain, Belgium and the North -- was earlier screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and 

S Korea approves rare screening of N Korea films

A tenth boy from the "Wild Boars" football team was rescued from a Thai cave today, three officials told AFP, leaving two more boys and their coach to be freed from the underground complex that has trapped them for over two weeks.
"The 10th is at the cave entrance on the way to the field hospital," a navy official told AFP requesting anonymity.
A local government official confirmed the rescue while a police source, who also did not want to be named, said "the ninth and tenth were about 20 minutes apart.

Tenth boy rescued from Thai cave: official, navy sources

Thai rescuers brought a ninth boy out from the Tham Luang cave this afternoon, police and navy sources said, after 18 days trapped underground.
"The ninth boy is out," the police source told AFP, requesting anonymity, while a Thai navy source confirmed the boy "has been transferred from the cave entrance to the field hospital.

Ninth boy rescued from Thai cave: police, navy sources

A foreign diver involved in the mission to save 12 boys and their football coach from a flooded Thai cave has hailed the children as "incredibly strong", and described their treacherous escape journey as unprecedented.
"They are getting forced to do something that no kid has ever done before. It is not in any way normal for kids to go cave diving at age 11," Ivan Karadzic, who runs a diving business in Thailand, told the BBC in an interview that was published online today.
"They are diving in something considered (an) extremely hazardous environment in zero visibility, the only light that is in there is the torch light we bring our self."
The boys, aged from 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach, ventured into the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand on June 23 after football practice and became trapped when heavy rains flooded the cave.
Two British divers found them nine days later huddled on a muddy ledge in pitch darkness more than four kilometres inside the cave ...

Diver hails 'incredibly strong' Thai cave boys

After warning that Britain had "no clue" over its Brexit plans, Airbus's boss has welcomed new proposals for the divorce and urged the EU to give them a fair hearing.
The pan-European aviation giant employs nearly 15,000 people in Britain for the production of aircraft wings, and had warned its investment was at risk from a disorderly exit.
But after a day of high political drama in London, Airbus chief executive Tom Enders late yesterday welcomed the compromise plan outlined by Prime Minister Theresa May, which seeks to maintain Britain's close trading ties with the European Union.
May's government appears now to be "going in the right direction", Enders told the German Chamber of Commerce in London, according to a tweet by Airbus.
"We are not shy to request that Brussels & our other home countries are similarly pragmatic & fair," he said.
On Friday, during a company presentation in London, Enders had repeated the company's stark concerns about what might happen if Britain ...

Airbus chief urges EU support for UK's Brexit offer

Australian researchers have uncovered the world's oldest biological colour in the Sahara desert, in a find they said today helped explain why complex life forms only recently emerged on earth.
The pink pigments were produced by simple microscopic organisms called cyanobacteria more than 1.1 billion years ago, some 500 million years older than previous colour pigment discoveries.
That makes the samples around "fifteen times older" than the Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur species, according to senior Australian National University researcher Jochen Brocks.
Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old and researchers said the latest find shed light on why more sophisticated plant and animal life only came into existence 600 million years ago.
Previous research argued that low oxygen levels in the atmosphere held back the evolution of complicated life forms, but the discovery of cyanobacteria at such an early date suggests that the organisms crowded out more plentiful food sources such as ...

AFP

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