The International Judo Federation (IJF) said Tuesday it had banned Iran from competition indefinitely over the country's refusal to face Israeli competitors.
The federation issued a provisional ban last month while investigating a report that Iran had ordered a judoka to lose deliberately at the world championships to avoid facing an Israeli competitor in the subsequent round.
"Following the events, which occurred during the last World Judo Championships Tokyo 2019, the final suspension of the Iran Judo Federation from all competitions... has been pronounced," the IJF said in a statement.
Iranian fighter Saeid Mollaei, defending his title at the Tokyo World Championships in August, had said he was ordered to throw his semi-final rather than risk facing an Israeli in the final of the -81kg class.
The Iranian, 27, lost the semi-final and then went on to lose his third-place fight.  Mollaei said he had been instructed to withdraw from the competition by the presidents of the Iran Judo ...

Judo federation bans Iran over refusal to face Israelis

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A Sri Lankan motorist risks jail for complaining on Facebook that he had been given a traffic ticket because he is Buddhist.
Amid a fierce debate on religious freedoms in the Indian Ocean nation, the motorist now faces court action for the traffic offence and the Facebook post in which he said he had been persecuted for placing a Buddha statue on his dashboard.
The post has been widely shared on social media, with many lambasting authorities over the case.
"They say Sri Lanka gives foremost place to Buddhism, but if you display a Buddha statue you are fined," one Facebook user said, using expletives against the authorities.
"Sri Lanka bans Buddha statues," said Facebook page "Bulto" which shared the driver's ticket and a picture of a Buddha statue. "The newest traffic offence, displaying idols." "The ticket was for not the Buddha statue, but for violating the Motor Traffic Act by having many floral garlands attached to his rear view," a senior police officer told AFP.
"Having anything 

Facebook post lands Sri Lanka motorist in hot water

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday likened the impeachment investigation against him to a "lynching," a racially charged word from the darkest days of America's slavery legacy.
There was an immediate backlash to Trump's tweet in which he claimed that impeachment was unfair and stripping him of his legal rights.
"All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here -- a lynching. But we will WIN!," Trump tweeted.
Kristen Clarke, president of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said she was "sickened to see Trump's gross misappropriation of this term today." Clarke said that 4,743 people were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, of which 3,446 were African Americans.
"Lynchings were crimes against humanity and an ugly part of our nation's history of racial violence," she said.
"It's beyond shameful to use the word 'lynching' to describe being held accountable for your actions," said Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro.
Trump is 

Trump claims impeachment is a 'lynching'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government was sharply divided Tuesday by defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer's surprise call for international troops to secure northeast Syria.
The initiative had provoked "a certain degree of irritation" among Germany's NATO allies, foreign minister Heiko Maas said.
Maas represents Merkel's junior, centre-left coalition partners the SPD, while Kramp-Karrenbauer is leader of the chancellor's conservative CDU party.
Turkey's military intervention in northeast Syria, as well as Russia's backing for the Damascus regime, mean "there are high hurdles for any internationalisation of the solution to the conflict," Maas said.
For now, Berlin "has engaged with efforts to resolve the conflict" with "diplomatic and humanitarian" means, he added.
There had been "no discussion" of an international mission to northeast Syria with Germany's allies, Maas said, recalling also the failure of a similar plan for northwestern Syrian region Aleppo in ...

Berlin divided over call for Syria peacekeeping force

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and the richest man in the world, announced Tuesday a partnership with three of the biggest names in aerospace to bid on a NASA contract for a Moon lander.
Bezos said his company was teaming up with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper on the proposal to build what they call a "Human Landing System" that will land two US astronauts on the lunar surface as part of the Artemis mission, planned in theory for 2024.
"This is the kind of thing that is so ambitious, it needs to be done with partners," said Bezos, who also owns Amazon, at the 70th International Astronautical Congress held this week in Washington.
"This is the only way to get back to the Moon fast." The lander will comprise three vehicles.
Blue Origin, as prime contractor, would provide the "descent element" vehicle based on its Blue Moon lunar lander that it announced in May.
Lockheed Martin is responsible for the reusable "ascent element" vehicle, and would lead crewed flight ...

Blue Origin, US aerospace giants team up for lunar landing contract

One of the suspected killers of two UN experts who were probing mass graves in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017 has died while in custody, his lawyer said Tuesday.
"Jose Tshibuabua died at dawn this Tuesday in Kananga General Hospital, where he was admitted for emergency care" in the chief town of Kasai-Central province, lawyer Tresor Kabangue told AFP.
Tshibuabua was the third prime suspect in the murders of UN specialists Zaida Catalan and Michael Sharp to die in detention while on trial for two years before the military court in Kananga.
"Jose Tshibuabua was seriously ill. He could not even stand up to appear" at the court hearings, a source in the prison service told AFP.
The UN team of Catalan and Sharp, a Swedish woman of Chilean origin and an American man, has been investigating mass graves dug in a conflict between Congolese security forces and the local Kamwina Nsapu (Black Ant) rebellion in Kasai provinces.
When the two were murdered in March 2017, Tshibuabua was serving 

Third suspect in murder of UN pair dies in DR Congo custody

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned MPs Tuesday if they vote against the timetable to push his EU divorce deal through parliament this week he will abandon the legislation and try to hold a snap election.
"The bill will have to be pulled... and we will have to go forward to a general election," Johnson told lawmakers in a raucous debate hours ahead of the crunch vote.

UK PM says will abandon Brexit bill if MPs vote against timetable

The European Commission said Tuesday that its Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will head a new team to guide future relations with Britain after it leaves the EU.
Britain is due to leave the union on October 31, but will remain in a transitional relationship for at least 14 months while Brussels and London negotiate a trade deal.
Barnier's "Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom" will be a merger of his team that negotiated the withdrawal agreement and the EU's "Brexit preparedness" team.
"Today's decision takes effect on 16 November 2019 - regardless of developments in the UK," the Commission said, with uncertainty hanging round Prime Minister Boris Johnson's bid to take Britain out of the EU at the end of the month.
Barnier was appointed Brexit negotiator by the outgoing head of the commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and will be retained by the next president, Ursula von der Leyen, when she takes office.

EU sets up team under Barnier for post-Brexit UK ties

Taiwan said Tuesday it had asked Hong Kong for help in collecting a murder suspect who has agreed to return to the island to face trial for killing his girlfriend in a case which inadvertently triggered massive democracy protests.
The surprise announcement came just hours after Taipei had said it was Hong Kong's responsibility to put him on trial.
Chan Tong-kai, 20, is wanted in Taiwan for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend during a holiday the two Hong Kongers took there in February last year.
He fled back to Hong Kong where Taiwanese police were unable to apprehend him because there is no extradition agreement between the two territories.
The case triggered an ill-fated proposal by Hong Kong's pro-Beijing government to ram through a sweeping extradition bill which would have allowed the city to extradite suspects to any territory, including the authoritarian mainland.
The announcement from Taipei came after Taiwan's government had earlier insisted it would not accept Chan ...

Taiwan seeks Hong Kong help on murder suspect who triggered protests

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday it was too early to know if an accord to end Turkey's assault in Syria would succeed, ahead of a deadline for Kurdish fighters to leave border areas.
"Some progress has certainly been made," Pompeo said at the Heritage Foundation in Washington hours before the 1900 GMT deadline for formerly US-allied Kurdish fighters to pull out.
But he added: "It is a complicated story, to be sure. The success of the outcome there is not yet fully determined."
Turkey launched an assault against the Kurdish YPG militia after President Donald Trump told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a telephone call that he would pull out US troops who had served as a buffer between the two sides.
Under heavy criticism, Trump slapped sanctions on Turkey and sent Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence to Ankara, where they reached a deal Thursday under which the YPG would pull out of a "safe zone" within five days.
"We think now we are in a better place" ...

Pompeo says too early to judge Syria success

Norwegian police said they arrested an armed man who stole an ambulance Tuesday and ran down pedestrians in Oslo, including at least one baby, as the motive was not immediately known.
Police said they were searching for a second suspect -- a woman described as having fair skin and wearing a black jacket, around 1.65cm (5 feet 4 inches) and "who appears to be under the influence" -- who was thought to be involved in the incident.
"We have taken control of an ambulance that was stolen by an armed man," Oslo police said on Twitter.
"Shots were fired to arrest the suspect, he is not seriously injured," they added.
"A woman with a pram and an elderly couple were run over or had to throw themselves out of the way" of the stolen vehicle, police added in another Twitter post.
Norwegian news agency NTB said two seven-month-old twins were in the pram, one of whom was lightly injured and being treated in hospital while the status of the other was not immediately known.
Television images showed a 

Norwegian police arrest gunman after ambulance rampage

The death toll from violent street protests in Chile has risen by three to 15, the government said Tuesday.
Eleven of the fatalities were in the Santiago region and caused by looting and arson, mainly targeting shopping centers, Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Ubilla told a news conference.
Three of the deaths outside the capital were from gunshots, he said.
The violence erupted Friday and was initially triggered by an increase in metro fares.
But it has mushroomed into a broader outcry against social economic woes including a big gap between rich and poor in a country that had been considered one of the most stable in Latin America.

Death toll in Chile protests rises by three to 15

When mass anti-government protests engulfed Lebanon, a taboo was broken as strongholds of the Shiite Hezbollah movement saw rare demonstrations criticising the party and revered leader Hassan Nasrallah.
On live TV and in protest sites, citizens accused the party of providing political cover for a corrupt government that they say has robbed people of their livelihoods.
This shattered the myth of absolute acquiesence among Hezbollah's popular base, baffling even those who hail from the movement's strongholds.
"No one ever expected that in any of these areas in south Lebanon we would hear a single word against Nasrallah," or Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri, said Sara, a 32-year-old activist who participated in protests in the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
"It's unbelievable," the activist added, asking to use a pseudonym due to security concerns.
The popular Iran-backed movement is a major political player that took 13 seats in the country's May 2018 parliamentary elections and secured ...

Lebanon's Hezbollah under rare street pressure

Turkey has named a banker convicted of sanctions busting in the US as the new chief executive of the Istanbul stock exchange, the finance minister has said.
The appointment of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the former deputy director general of Halkbank, comes almost a week after US federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against the Turkish state-run bank.
Halkbank is accused of participating in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to evade economic sanctions on Iran.
Atilla was found guilty by a New York court in January 2018 of plotting to help Tehran evade American sanctions on Iranian oil proceeds.
He was released from prison in July 2019.
"After returning to his family and country following his wrongful conviction, Hakan Atilla's period of relaxation has come to an end," Finance Minister Berat Albayrak -- also President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son-in-law -- said on Monday.
"He will start work as the new Istanbul Stock Exchange managing director. I wish him and the stock exchange good luck," ...

Turkey names US-convicted banker to head Istanbul stock exchange

Thailand edged closer Tuesday to banning glyphosate and two other controversial pesticides despite protests from farmers in a multi-billion-dollar agriculture industry aiming to be the "kitchen of the world".
Agriculture employs 40 per cent of Thailand's population and the Southeast Asian country is one of the world's leading rice and sugar exporters.
It is also one of the biggest consumers of pesticides being banned or phased out in other parts of the globe because of links to a variety of illnesses.
Thailand's National Hazardous Substances Committee voted to ban glyphosate and chemicals paraquat and chlorpyrifos, officials said.
"The ban will be effective on December 1," committee chair Panuwat Triangjulsri, of the Ministry of Industry, told reporters.
Paraquat, a herbicide which the US Centers for Disease Control calls "highly poisonous", has been banned in Europe since 2007.
Studies have linked the pesticide chlorpyrifos to developmental delays in children, while critics say the ..

Thailand to ban glyphosate and other high-profile pesticides

A Bangladeshi court sentenced a senior opposition figure to five years in jail Tuesday for evading taxes on the sale of a car he imported when his party was last in office.
The opposition in the South Asian country has long complained that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League party -- which tightened its grip on power following elections last year -- is seeking to muzzle dissent.
Harunur Rashid, who has emerged as a prominent voice in parliament, was found guilty of evading taxes on Monday after he sold a car he had bought duty-free in 2005 when his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was in government.
He was sentenced to five years in jail and fined five million taka (USD 59,000) by a court in Dhaka "for selling the duty-free car illegally, depriving taxes to the government", court inspector Ashikur Rahman told AFP.
The owner of a private television channel who bought the car was also sentenced to two years in jail.
There was no immediate comment from the BNP, the ...

Bangladesh jails key opposition lawmaker for graft

The final of an Asian club tournament has been moved from Pyongyang to Shanghai, football officials said Tuesday, a week after North and South Korea played out a surreal World Cup qualifier in an empty stadium.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said it had been "compelled" to shift the November 2 AFC Cup match between North Korea's 4.25 SC and Al Ahed from Lebanon to a "neutral venue" due to logistical and other issues.
Its statement did not mention the inter-Korean showdown in Pyongyang but said that commercial partners had warned of challenges in broadcasting the highly anticipated final of Asia's second-tier continental competition.
Last week's match -- a historic encounter between two countries still technically at war -- took place with no live broadcast and no foreign media in attendance, and with FIFA president Gianni Infantino one of just a handful of spectators.
Infantino said he was "disappointed" after attending the match and "surprised" by the absence of fans and lack 

Asian football final moved from N Korea after blacked-out match

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, suffering from "unbearable pain" in his spine after a motorcycle accident, is cutting short a trip to Japan, his spokesman said Tuesday.
The 74-year-old hurt his hip in the crash last week, with his health already the subject of intense speculation following his disclosure earlier this month that he is suffering from a disease that causes one of his eyelids to droop.
A statement from the leader's spokesman Salvador Panelo said Duterte would leave Japan sooner than planned, having attended the enthronement ceremony of Emperor Naruhito with the aid of a cane.
"The palace announces that the president will cut short his trip to Japan due to unbearable pain in his spinal column near the pelvic bone," Panelo said.
Duterte later described his predicament in a short video clip posted on Facebook by Senator Christopher Go, a former chief aide who accompanied him on the trip.
"If you ride motorbikes you will experience a crash once or twice in your life. ...

Philippines' Duterte cuts short Japan trip in 'unbearable pain'

The death toll from week-long anti-government protests that erupted in Baghdad and other cities at the start of the month totalled 157, an official inquiry found on Tuesday.
The capital accounted for 111 of the dead, nearly all of whom were protesters, the inquiry found.
Around 70 percent of the deaths were caused by bullet wounds "to the head or chest", according to the findings, published as Iraq braces for fresh protests on Friday.

157 dead in Iraq protests: new official toll

US Defence Secretary Mark Esper discussed "strategic cooperation" with Saudi King Salman Tuesday, shortly after Washington ordered thousands of soldiers to the kingdom as tensions fester with Iran.
The meeting in Riyadh, where Esper arrived late Monday after an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, also took in defence issues and the current situation in the region, the official SPA news agency said.
On October 11, the Pentagon said it was deploying new US troops to Saudi Arabia after Riyadh asked for reinforcements following a mid-September drone and missile attack on Saudi oil plants, which Washington blames on Iran.
Esper has said that two fighter squadrons and additional missile defence batteries were being sent to Saudi Arabia, bringing to about 3,000 the total number of troops deployed to the kingdom since last month.
The September 14 attack knocked out two major facilities of state oil giant Aramco in Abqaiq and Khurais, roughly halving Saudi Arabia's oil production.
Washington ...

AFP

AFP

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