Tim Southee led a New Zealand comeback with a triple strike, which included denying Ben Stokes a century, as England lost four wickets in the morning session on day two of the opening Test on Friday.
After resuming the day at 241 for four, England were 329 for eight at lunch in Mount Maunganui.
With the Bay Oval wicket starting to assist the bowlers, Southee was sitting on a hat-trick at one stage as New Zealand ripped through the middle order with the four wickets taken in 20 deliveries.
Stokes and overnight partner Ollie Pope had started the day confidently with Stokes progressing from his overnight 67 to 91, toying with the New Zealand attack as he constantly adjusted his stance and moved around on the crease to keep the bowlers from finding a regular line.
But as he entered the nineties, Stokes' attempt to charge at Southee was edged to Ross Taylor who took a stunning one-handed catch diving to his right.
The star England all-rounder had added 24 to his total since he was dropped .

England rocked as Southee strike leads New Zealand comeback

PTI Automatic

Openers David Warner and Joe Burns dominated the Pakistan attack despite a fiery debut from 16-year-old Naseem Shah to put Australia in a strong position at lunch on the second day in the first cricket Test on Friday.
Australia were 100 for no wickets at the break in reply to Pakistan's first innings total of 240 at the Gabba ground in Brisbane.
Warner, who endured a miserable Ashes tour of England earlier this year, was on 52 while Burns was not out 41.
The pair were largely untroubled throughout the session, scoring at just over four runs an over on a morning when the Pakistan bowlers could get neither swing nor spin.
Naseem looked like he belonged on the big stage with a bristling first spell in Test cricket.
But while he regularly reached speeds of over 145 kilometres (90 miles) per hour, the lack of movement meant Warner and Burns were able to play him with relative ease, although he smashed Burns on the elbow two balls before the lunch break.
Warner, who averaged just 9.5 on ...

Australia unmoved despite lightning start by Pakistan's Naseem, 16

China is seeking to "take over" Australia's political system with an "insidious" and systematic campaign of espionage and influence-peddling, Canberra's ex-spymaster said in an interview published Friday.
Duncan Lewis, who resigned in September after five years at the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), said China could target anyone in political office, with the impact potentially not known for years to come.
"Espionage and foreign interference is insidious. Its effects might not present for decades and by that time it's too late," Lewis was quoted as telling the Sydney Morning Herald in his first interview since leaving office.
"You wake up one day and find decisions made in our country that are not in the interests of our country," he said.
"Not only in politics but also in the community or in business. It takes over, basically, pulling the strings from offshore," he added in the interview with the newspaper's foreign editor.
Lewis singled out ...

China wants to 'take over' Australian politics: ex-spy chief

Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn will be permitted to speak to his wife for the first time in eight months, his family said, after a Tokyo court lifted a ban on contact between the pair.
Ghosn is on bail in Tokyo as he awaits trial on four charges of financial misconduct related to his time as chairman of the Japanese car giant he is widely credited with saving from the brink of bankruptcy.
The Tokyo District Court had banned Ghosn from contacting his wife Carole despite several petitions from the tycoon's legal team, who have described the measure as "cruel" and a "punishment." But the couple will be able to talk via videoconference for an hour, a spokesperson for the family said in a statement released late Thursday in Paris.
"After eight months without the slightest contact and seven requests to lift this ban, we have been informed that Mr Ghosn and his wife Carole will only be able to talk via a single videoconference call," said the statement.
The spokesperson added that the call .

Bailed Ghosn allowed to speak to wife

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Iranians on  Thursday to send photos and other information documenting repression amid ongoing protests, while vowing to sanction "abuses" by the Islamic republic.
Demonstrations erupted in sanctions-hit Iran last Friday, hours after the price of gasoline spiked by as much as 200 percent.
Unrest spread to scores of urban centers, during which protesters attacked police stations, torched petrol pumps and looted shops.
"I have asked the Iranian protestors to send us their videos, photos and information documenting the regime's crackdown on protestors," Pompeo tweeted.
"The US will expose and sanction the abuses," he added.
A near-total internet shutdown has made obtaining information on bloodshed difficult. Officials have confirmed five deaths, but Amnesty International has said the real death toll could be well over 100.
Earlier Thursday US President Donald Trump accused Iran of blocking the internet to cover up "death and tragedy."
"Iran has ...

US says will sanction Iran 'abuses' against protesters

Gripped by nervous excitement, young Muslim singers from Thailand's conflict-plagued south gather for choir practice ahead of a performance of a lifetime -- for Pope Francis himself, who is in Bangkok as part of his whirlwind Asia tour.
Wearing headscarves and school uniforms, students assembled in a university auditorium to practice ballads specially written for the pontiff, who arrived in Bangkok Wednesday for a four-day visit.  But for some of the singers, the performance was about more than just hitting the right notes.
It offers a rare chance for them to show a different side of a region that often makes headlines for a conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, mostly Muslim and Buddhist followers.
"We're trying to say that we are not fundamentalists," said 15-year-old Furkon Tasa.
He is the student leader of the 31-member Attarkia Islamiah Institute choir from Narathiwat, one of three southernmost provinces where a conflict simmers as shadowy Malay-Muslim militants fight .

'Peace prayer': Muslim choir from restive Thai south to sing for pope

Tens of thousands of Colombians took to the streets of the capital Bogota on Thursday amid a general strike to protest the policies of President Ivan Duque's right-wing government.
There were reports of clashes and arrests as trade unions, students, opposition parties and the South American country's indigenous organisations challenged the full gamut of Duque's economic, social and security policies.
"It is an accumulation of situations that we hope to see reviewed after today, including a great national dialogue of conciliation," Robert Gomez, president of the main workers' union, told AFP.
The protest comes amid social upheaval across South America, as a wave of unrest over the past two months has battered governments in Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.
The popularity of Duque's right-wing government -- a key US ally -- has been on the wane since his election 18 months ago, as it deals with hosting 1.4 million refugees from neighbouring Venezuela's economic meltdown as well as the ...

General strike as thousands protest Colombia's government

The teenager who gunned down two classmates at a California school last week before shooting himself used a "kit gun" that is untraceable, authorities said Thursday.
In a tweet, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the so-called "ghost gun" used by Nathaniel Berhow was assembled from parts that do not have serial numbers.
He said kit guns -- also known as "80 percent guns" - are sold at gun shows or can be purchased online, allowing owners to skirt California's gun laws.
Ghost guns "are sold as a kit, and you can legally buy it, assemble the weapon yourself and you have a gun that is not registered and no one knows that you have it, it's very dangerous," Villanueva told ABC7.
The sheriff added in a statement that it was unclear who assembled the .45-caliber pistol used by Berhow last Thursday during his rampage at Saugus High School, a short commute from Los Angeles.
Two fellow students were killed and several others were injured before Berhow, who had turned 16 that day, ..

California school shooter used 'kit gun': Authorities

The United States on Thursday warned Pakistan that it faced long-term economic damage with little return if China keeps pursuing its giant infrastructure push.
The top US diplomat for South Asia said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor -- heralded as a game-changer by both Asian countries -- would profit only Beijing and said that the United States offered a better model.
"It's clear, or it needs to be clear, that CPEC is not about aid," said Alice Wells, the acting assistant secretary of state for South Asia.
She noted that the multibillion-dollar initiative was driven by non-concessionary loans, with Chinese companies sending their own labor and material.
"CPEC relies primarily on Chinese workers and supplies, even amid rising unemployment in Pakistan," Wells said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The corridor "is going to take a growing toll on the Pakistan economy, especially when the bulk of payments start to come due in the next four to six years," she ...

US warns Pakistan of risks from China infrastructure push

President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Iran of blocking the internet to cover up "death and tragedy" while the powerful Revolutionary Guards suggested that a wave of street protests is now over.
Trump's intervention on Twitter further raised the temperature over the turmoil in Iran, which is already reeling from US-led economic and diplomatic pressure.
"Iran has become so unstable that the regime has shut down their entire Internet System so that the Great Iranian people cannot talk about the tremendous violence taking place within the country," Trump tweeted.
"They want ZERO transparency, thinking the world will not find out the death and tragedy that the Iranian Regime is causing!" he wrote.
Demonstrations erupted in sanctions-hit Iran last Friday, hours after the price of gasoline was raised by as much as 200 percent.
Unrest spread to scores of urban centers, during which police stations were attacked, petrol pumps torched and shops looted.
A near total internet shutdown has ...

Trump rebukes 'unstable' Iran over internet shutdown

The number of soldiers killed in clashes with jihadists in eastern Mali earlier this week rose to 43 on Thursday, security sources said.
Mali and Niger forces were carrying out a joint operation on Monday when a patrol was attacked by "terrorists" near the northeastern town of Tabankort.
The death toll was earlier put at 30 soldiers and 17 jihadist fighters but revised upwards after the discovery Thursday of the bodies of 13 soldiers.
The bodies were "found by a Malian army patrol" in two separate locations, the source said.
Monday's action was another heavy loss for the army, which lost a hundred soldiers in two jihadist attacks in a month in the autumn.
Northern Mali fell into the hands of jihadists in 2012 before the militants were forced out by a French-led military intervention.
Since then, however, the border regions of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have become the scene of repeated clashes with jihadist fighters.
Mali's army has been struggling to contain the Islamist insurgency 

Number of soldiers killed in Mali clash rises to 43

President Donald Trump went beyond anything done by disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon in withholding military aid from Ukraine to demand dirt on a potential 2020 rival, the Democratic chair of the House impeachment panel alleged Thursday.
"What we've seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters," House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said in a reference to the Watergate scandal.
"What we're talking about here is the withholding of recognition (for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy) in that White House meeting, the withholding of military aid to an ally at war," Schiff said.
"This is beyond anything Nixon did."
Trump is threatened with impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for pushing Zelensky to investigate Democrat Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump conduct 'beyond anything Nixon did': House impeachment chair

The top White House spokeswoman on Thursday accused Democrats running the impeachment probe into Donald Trump of a "sick" and "rabid" desire to take down the president.
"The Democrats are clearly being motivated by a sick hatred for President Trump and their rabid desire to overturn the 2016 election," Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement as impeachment hearings continued in Congress.
"The American people deserve better."
Trump is being investigated for allegedly withholding US military aid to Ukraine in a bid to pressure Kiev into opening an embarrassing corruption probe against one of the Democratic frontrunners seeking to challenge for the presidency in 2020.
Trump says he did nothing wrong. The Democratic-led House of Representatives is expected to impeach him in the coming weeks, which would lead to a trial in the Republican-dominated Senate on his possible removal from office.

White House accuses Democrats of 'rabid desire' to oust Trump

Nearly 3,800 people were killed or injured around the world last year by improvised mines used by armed groups, marking the highest number of such casualties on record, campaigners said Thursday.
Monitors of compliance with the Mine Ban Treaty said that government use of landmines has all but halted, but warned that surging numbers of casualties linked to armed groups' use of improvised devices was marring the overall success of the 20-year disarmament charter.
After the treaty took effect in 1999, the annual number of casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war steadily dropped, falling from nearly 10,000 to under 3,500 in 2013.
Stephen Goose, head of the arms division at Human Rights Watch and a contributor to the Monitor, pointed out that the treaty "has created a strong stigma against the weapons that affects even those who have not joined".
The treaty, which currently counts 164 state parties, has helped halt virtually all use of mines by governments, including those .

Record number of IED casualties last year: monitor

US President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Iran's government of shutting down internet access to cover up "death and tragedy" amid a wave of street protests.
"Iran has become so unstable that the regime has shut down their entire Internet System so that the Great Iranian people cannot talk about the tremendous violence taking place within the country," Trump tweeted.
"They want ZERO transparency, thinking the world will not find out the death and tragedy that the Iranian Regime is causing!" he wrote.

Trump says Iran internet shutdown trying to hide 'death and tragedy

A defiant Benjamin Netanyahu rejected all allegations of graft Thursday, vowing to stay on as leader in Israel despite being indicted on a series of corruption charges.
Netanyahu denounced what he called the "false" and "politically motivated" allegations, hours after being charged by the attorney general with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
"What is going on here is an attempt to stage a coup against the prime minister," Netanyahu said.
"The object of the investigations was to oust the right wing from government."
In a 15-minute speech, Netanyahu railed against his political rivals and state institutions, accusing the police and judiciary of bias.  The veteran politician argued that it was time for an "investigation of the investigators".
He vowed to continue as prime minister despite potential court dates and intense political pressure.
"I will continue to lead this country, according to the letter of the law," he said.
"I will not allow lies to win.

Defiant Netanyahu rejects graft indictment, vows to stay

Embattled office sharing startup WeWork said Thursday it will lay off 2,400 employees worldwide as the company struggles to reorganise amid mounting losses.
The news comes in the wake of the company's failed attempt to launch an initial public offering.
The dismissed workers "will receive severance, continued benefits, and other forms of assistance to aid in their career transition," a spokesperson said in a statement.
The company told shareholders earlier this month it had lost almost USD 1.3 billion in the third quarter, more than twice the losses recorded in the same period a year earlier.
The painful layoffs underscore the decline of what had previously been one of America's most celebrated startups that left a mammoth footprint in the commercial real estate of major world capitals.
As investors questioned the company's value, WeWork in September scrapped plans for its Wall Street debut, forced out chief executive Adam Neumann and was bailed out by Japan's SoftBank Group.
Neumann .

WeWork to lay off 2,400 workers worldwide

A former top White House Russia expert testified Thursday that the "fictional narrative" embraced by President Donald Trump that Ukraine meddled in the US elections was fabricated by Russia to wreak havoc in US politics.
Former National Security Council official Fiona Hill, on the fifth day of House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings, appealed to Republican lawmakers to "not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clear advance Russia's interests."
The unfounded theory that Ukraine -- not Russia -- meddled in the 2016 elections lies at the heart of Trump's alleged bid to improperly pressure Kiev to open investigations into his Democratic opponents.
Trump asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to open investigations into former Democratic vice president Joe Biden -- Trump's possible opponent in the 2020 presidential election -- and into the 2016 meddling story.
Democrats pursuing Trump's impeachment allege he froze aid to Ukraine and held up a 

Russia pushed 'fictions' Trump pursued against Ukraine: impeachment witness

Israel's attorney general indicted Benjamin Netanyahu on a range of corruption charges Thursday, the justice ministry announced, potentially spelling an end to the prime minister's decades-long political career.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit "decided to file charges against the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for offences of receiving a bribe, fraud, and breach of trust," a ministry statement said.
Netanyahu, who strongly denies all the charges, becomes the first Israeli prime minister to be indicted while in office.  Rightwinger Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009, is Israel's longest-serving prime minister and dominates the country's political scene.
The indictment comes as Israel faces a potential third election in a year, with neither Netanyahu nor his main rival able to form a government after deadlocked elections in September.
Netanyahu is not legally required to resign until he is convicted and all appeals are exhausted, but political pressure is likely to be ...

Israel's Netanyahu indicted over corruption

Sixteen people have been found sealed inside a trailer on a ferry bound for the Irish port of Rosslare, shipping operator Stena Line said on Thursday.
The discovery draws renewed attention to the issue of illegal immigration and human trafficking in western Europe, after 39 Vietnamese were found dead in a trailer in Britain last month.
And on Tuesday, the crew of a cargo ferry run by DFDS Seaways found 25 migrants in a refrigerated container on a boat sailing to Britain and forced the vessel to return to port.
The 16 individuals in the latest discovery were found aboard a Wednesday night sailing of the Stena Horizon ship from Cherbourg in northern France.
"One of our employees during a routine inspection discovered 16 people in a sealed trailer on the vehicle deck," Stena Line chief communications officer Ian Hampton said in a statement.
"All the individuals are reported to be in good health and have been moved to a private passenger lounge on the ship." The ship was due to arrive in .

AFP

AFP

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