Kusal Perera carried Sri Lanka to a sensational one-wicket win on the fourth day of the first Test against South Africa at Kingsmead on Saturday as he hit a career-best 153 not out.
Perera and Vishwa Fernando put on an unbeaten 78 in a last-wicket partnership to secure only Sri Lanka's second win in 14 Test matches in South Africa.
Victory seemed unlikely when the ninth wicket fell with the total on 226, with the tourists chasing a target of 304.
But the left-handed Perera successfully farmed the strike, with South African captain Faf du Plessis persisting with wide-spread fields for the in-form batsman, while Fernando only had to face 27 balls during a 96-ball partnership.
Perera was on 86 when the ninth wicket fell but managed to keep most of the strike and to hit some telling blows in an innings of 200 balls which included 12 fours and five sixes.
"It was a superman effort," said Du Plessis.
"He (Perera) deserves all the accolades."
- Low previous average ...

Perera takes Sri Lanka to sensational win in South Africa

PTI Automatic

Junior foreign ministers from Britain and Russia met in Germany on Saturday in the highest-level contact between the two countries since an alleged nerve agent attack in Britain last March froze diplomatic relations.
Britain's Minister for Europe Alan Duncan held talks with Russia's First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, according to the foreign office in London.
"Alan underlined that we have deep differences, and the Russian state would need to choose a different path and act as a responsible international partner before there can be a change in our current relationship with Russia," it said in a statement.
The meeting is the first between ministers from the two countries following the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury on March 4 which Britain has blamed on Moscow.
The attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, which Britain said was done using a Soviet era nerve agent Novichok, plunged relations 

UK and Russia hold first talks in over a year

Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused "Pakistan's security forces" of supporting the perpetrators of a suicide bombing that killed 27 troops on Wednesday, in remarks state TV aired Saturday hours before their funeral was held.
"Pakistan's government, who has housed these anti-revolutionaries and threats to Islam, knows where they are and they are supported by Pakistan's security forces," said Revolutionary Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, referring to jihadist group Jaish al-Adl ("Army of Justice").
"If (the Pakistan government) does not punish them, we will retaliate against this anti-revolutionary force, and whatever Pakistan sees will be the consequence of its support for them," he warned.
His comments came ahead of a planned two-day visit to Pakistan -- due to begin on Sunday -- by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Iran's regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia.
The general made the remarks in Isfahan City on Friday evening during a farewell ceremony held for those ...

Iran says Pakistan backs suicide bombers, ahead of victims' funeral

Rescuers in Zimbabwe on Saturday pulled eight illegal miners alive from a flooded gold mine where officials believe up to 70 have been trapped for three days, state television said.
"Eight miners have been rescued following the Kadoma mine disaster where suspected scores of miners lost their lives this week," Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said.
The rescued received medical attention on site and "are in a stable condition and have been ferried to hospital," it said.
Television footage showed some of the men, in wet and muddied clothes, being carried - without stretchers - to a makeshift clinic.
One was seen in a clip posted on Twitter telling journalists that the water rose to neck level, forcing them to stand for days until it receded.
On Friday the government said that between 60-70 "artisanal" miners were trapped in two shafts.
It launched an appeal for USD 200,000 to be used "to pump out water, feeding the bereaved families and the (rescue) teams on the ground, transportation ..

Eight rescued from flooded Zimbabwe gold mine

Jihadist fighters defending the last dreg of the Islamic State group's "caliphate" Saturday were holed up in half a square kilometre in a village of eastern Syria.
US President Donald Trump said the fall of the IS proto-state would be announced Saturday, but a top Syrian commander said his forces had slowed down their advance to protect civilians.
The jihadists declared a "caliphate" in large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, but have since lost all of it but the tiny patch in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq.
"IS is besieged in a neighbourhood that is estimated to be 700 metres (yards) long and 700 metres wide" in the village of Baghouz, said Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Jia Furat.
"Baghouz is within our firing range but we are moving cautiously considering there are civilians still trapped there as human shields," said Furat, the overall commander for the operation.
"In a very short time, not longer than a few days, we will officially announce the end .

Dying days of caliphate in Syria as IS fighters trapped

A French ski club mourned Saturday the deaths of three racers killed in a road accident in the Alps that seriously injured two others.
The car that six youngsters from the Briancon Serre-Chevalier club were travelling in collided with a delivery lorry around 5:00 am (local time) in Saint-Chaffrey, near Briancon, the public prosecutor in nearby Gap said.
The prosecutor said the lorry driver, who tested negative for drink and drugs, was slightly hurt and treated for shock, adding a police investigation had been opened.
The driver of the car, aged 19, died along with another 19-year-old and a fellow passenger aged 18.
A 17-year-old was airlifted in critical condition to hospital in Grenoble, another aged 20 was operated on in Briancon and the remaining passenger, also 20, suffered minor injuries, the prosecutor and rescue services said.
The group had been returning from celebrating one of their number's 20th birthday.
The prosecutor said the cause of the accident was not clear and that ..

Three French ski racers killed in Alps car crash GAP

Some 102 Bangladeshi meth dealers have surrendered to authorities at a pre-scheduled ceremony in a coastal town, officials said Saturday, as a Philippines-style anti-narcotics crackdown sows fear among kingpins.
Bangladesh last year launched a "war" on drugs following a proliferation of illegal substances in the South Asian nation of 165 million people, mostly of cheap methamphetamine pills known as "yaba".
Police said 24 yaba "godfathers", as well as lieutenants and peddlers, surrendered to the country's home minister in Teknaf town -- the key gateway for smuggling yaba into the country from Myanmar, where the pills are manufactured by the millions.
The dealers also surrendered 350,000 vanilla-scented, small red yaba pills - whose name comes from a Thai word meaning "crazy medicine" -- and 30 illegal firearms.
The country's police chief Mohammad Javed Patwary said authorities would advocate for lesser prison sentences for those who had surrendered, and would "assist" them in ...

Drug 'godfathers' surrender to Bangladesh police

Egypt's army said Saturday seven suspected jihadists were "eliminated" and 15 soldiers killed or wounded in an attack in the Sinai Peninsula, where troops are fighting the Islamic State group.
Security forces responded to the attack on a checkpoint in restive North Sinai with an "exchange of fire", army spokesman Tamer el-Refai said in a statement.
"An officer and 14 non-commissioned soldiers were killed or wounded," he added, without giving a precise number for the dead.
Medical sources in North Sinai told AFP that 11 soldiers were killed in the attack.
Security forces would continue to pursue "the terrorist elements to eliminate them", El-Refai added.
Egypt often announces that jihadists have been killed in military operations, but statements that security forces have suffered significant losses are very rare.
Since the army's overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed in attacks by extremist groups.
Civilians have 

Egypt army: 7 Sinai jihadists killed, 15 soldiers dead or wounded

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday labelled as "frightening" tough US trade rhetoric planning to declare European car imports a national security threat.
"If these cars... suddenly spell a threat to US national security, than that is frightening to us," she said.
Merkel pointed out that the biggest car plant of German luxury brand BMW was not in Bavaria but in South Carolina, from where it exports vehicles to China.
"All I can say is it would be good if we could resume proper talks with one another," she said at the Munich Security Conference.
"Then we will find a solution."
A US Commerce Department report has concluded that auto imports threaten national security, setting the stage for possible tariffs by the White House, two people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The investigation, ordered by President Donald Trump in May, is "positive" with respect to the central question of whether the imports "impair" US national security, said a European auto industry ...

Merkel says US calling European cars a threat is 'frightening'

Mao Zedong's former secretary Li Rui, a bold critic of China's ruling Communist Party who spent a lifetime near the centre of elite politics, died Saturday at the age of 101, his family said.
Li was admitted to a Beijing hospital for a pulmonary infection last year and died of organ failure in Beijing, his daughter said in an email to AFP.
Li earned a position alongside China's paramount leader in the mid-1950s, focusing on industrial development.
But then he spoke up on the failures of Mao's Great Leap Forward policy - which intended to boost China's economic output but instead unleashed havoc and famine across the country.
The Communist Party expelled Li and during the Cultural Revolution he was imprisoned for eight years in the infamous Qincheng prison near Beijing.
He was rehabilitated in 1979 when moderates took power and eventually rose to take a key position in the party's powerful Organization Department before he was again forced out of office in 1984.
Later he became an ...

Former Mao Zedong secretary and party critic dies at 101

Every Sunday, close to a statue of Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, a group of Indian ex-pats take over a patch of land in Uruguay's capital Montevideo for a game of cricket.
Tucked in between the Rio de la Plata estuary and the long promenade known as the "rambla" that stretches from one side of Montevideo to the other, Avijit Mukherjee prepares to bat, watched eagerly by his Uruguayan girlfriend.
"I played in my country but with a lot more infrastructure," said the 28-year-old Mukherjee, whose girlfriend Veronica is the main reason he has stayed in Uruguay.
"There are stadiums and many places to play in India, whereas here we only have one." Although cricket was first played in Montevideo by British expat workers even before the foundation of the independent republic in 1828, its practice died out in the 1980s.
But following an influx of Indian immigrants to Uruguay at the turn of the century, cricket steadily returned to Montevideo.
First there were one-off matches. Then, ..

Uruguay's Indian cricketers searching for a permanent home

India will ask the UN's top court Monday to order Pakistan to take an alleged Indian spy off death row, in a case that could stoke fresh tensions after a deadly attack in Kashmir.
Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav was arrested in the restive southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan in March 2016 on charges of espionage and sentenced to death by a military court.
The International Court of Justice urgently ordered Pakistan in 2017 to stay the execution of Jadhav, pending hearings on the broader Indian case that take place this week in The Hague.
The rare foray into the international courts for the nuclear-armed rivals could be another flashpoint after Thursday's suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 41 troops.
New Delhi's lawyers will present their arguments on Monday to the court, which was set up after World War II to resolve international disputes, followed by Pakistan's on Tuesday.
Jadhav, a former Indian navy officer, was accused of working for the Indian ...

India, Pakistan in UN court for death row 'spy' case

The parents of a British woman who died in an alleged assassination attempt on a Russian double agent criticised Saturday the UK government for settling the ex-spy in the English city Salisbury.
Stan and Caroline Sturgess, whose daughter Dawn died after coming into contact with a nerve agent allegedly used in last year's poisoning of Sergei Skripal, said they believed British authorities were withholding details of the incident.
"If anyone, I blame the government for putting Skripal in Salisbury," Stan Sturgess told The Guardian newspaper in the family's first interview since her death last July.
"I want justice from our own government. What are they hiding? I don't think they have given us all the facts."
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found on March 4 slumped unconscious on a park bench in the centre of the quiet cathedral city Salisbury in southwest England.
Britain and Western allies have accused Russia of carrying out the poisoning using a Soviet-era nerve agent called ...

Parents of Novichok victim ask why UK settled ex-spy in Salisbury

China must be involved in international disarmament efforts, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday, amid rising concern about Beijing's missile arsenal and the suspension of a key US-Russia arms treaty.
"Disarmament is something that concerns us all and where we would of course be glad if such talks were held not just between the United States, Europe and Russia but also with China," said Merkel.
The United States began pulling out of a landmark Cold War missile control agreement with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, this month in response to Moscow's deployment of the 9M729 missile, prompting Russia to announce its own withdrawal.
While pointing the finger at each other, both Washington and Moscow have also voiced concern that the INF -- a bilateral treaty between the US and Russia -- does nothing to constrain rapidly growing military power China.
According to a new report by the Institute for Strategic Studies, up to 95 per cent of China's arsenal .

Disarmament efforts must include China as well as US, Russia: Merkel

Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused "Pakistan's security forces" of supporting the perpetrators of a suicide bombing that killed 27 troops on Wednesday, in remarks state TV aired Saturday.
"Pakistan's government, who has housed these anti-revolutionaries and threats to Islam, knows where they are and they are supported by Pakistan's security forces," said Revolutionary Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, referring to jihadist group Jaish al-Adl ("Army of Justice").
"If (the Pakistan government) does not punish them, we will retaliate against this anti-revolutionary force, and whatever Pakistan sees will be the consequence of its support for them," he warned.
The general made the remarks in Isfahan City on Friday evening during a farewell ceremony held for those killed. Funerals are expected to follow on Saturday.
Jaish al-Adl was formed in 2012 as a successor to the Sunni extremist group Jundallah (Soldiers of God), which waged a deadly insurgency for a decade before it was ..

Iran general says Pakistan backs group behind suicide bomb

A rejuvenated Martin Guptill wound back the clock with his second century in as many games as a clinical New Zealand clinched their one-day series against Bangladesh in Christchurch Saturday.
The long-serving opener, who had a disappointing recent series against India, rated his 118 as a more satisfying knock than the unbeaten 117 when he returned to form in the first match against Bangladesh.
"There was a lot of flow and rhythm in that one," he said after New Zealand comfortably knocked off their 227-run target for the loss of two wickets and with 13.5 overs to spare.
"It felt like I got back to where I was a couple of years ago."
Guptill cut, drove and pulled the Bangladesh attack apart as New Zealand cruised to victory and went 2-0 up in the three-match series.
With the World Cup looming, New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson was pleased to see his side had taken lessons from the 4-1 drubbing inflicted by India.
"It was what we were wanting," he said.
"That was a really tough series .

Guptill runs flow sweeps New Zealand past Bangladesh

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not "turn back" on a deal with Moscow to buy Russian S-400 missile defence systems in comments published on Saturday.
Turkey's push to buy the systems has raised questions among NATO allies over their compatibility with alliance equipment as well as concerns over the burgeoning relationship between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We agreed a deal with Russia on the S-400, so for us to turn back from the deal is out of the question. This is a done deal," Erdogan said, quoted by CNN Turk broadcaster.
The United States in December approved the sale of USD 3.5 billion in missiles to Turkey, which followed Washington anger over Turkey's intention to buy Russian systems.
Turkey was "open" to buying US Patriot missiles, Erdogan told Turkish journalists on board his plane from the southern Russian city of Sochi after a three-way summit on Syria with his Russian and Iranian counterparts.
"But this sale must serve the interests of .

Erdogan says won't go back on S-400 deal with Russia

Thai Princess Ubolratana's unprecedented attempt to become the country's next prime minister was abruptly nixed Saturday after her party agreed to comply with a command from the king opposing the plan.
Beijing: China on Saturday "firmly opposed" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that it has never recognised the sensitive border state and the Indian leadership should refrain from any action that may "complicate the boundary question".
Washington: US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet for a second much-anticipated summit in Hanoi, as preparations kick into high gear for the peace talks.

Digest for international stories for week Feb 9 - Feb 15, 2019

Pope Francis has defrocked a former cardinal in a first for the Catholic church over accusations American Theodore McCarrick sexually abused a teenager 50 years ago, a Vatican statement said Saturday.
McCarrick, 88, who resigned from the Vatican's College of Cardinals in July, is the first cardinal ever to be defrocked for sex abuse.
He was found guilty in January by a Vatican court for sexually abusing a teenager, a decision confirmed by the pope in February, with no further recourse, according to the statement.
The announcement marks a spectacular fall from grace for the previously influential cardinal and comes ahead of a Vatican conference from February 21-24 bringing together bishops from around the world to discuss protecting children within the Church Sex abuse scandals around the globe, and most recently in the United States and Chile, have shaken the church, with Pope Francis promising a policy of "zero tolerance" even for high-ranking church members.
McCarrick, former ...

Vatican defrocks former US cardinal for sex abuse of minor

"Large numbers" of civilians remain inside the last Islamic State group enclave in Syria prompting a fresh delay in a final advance, Kurdish-led forces said on Saturday.
"There are still civilians inside in large numbers," US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman Adnan Afrin told AFP on the day President Donald Trump said he expected to announce the end of the jihadists' "caliphate".
"We weren't expecting this number, otherwise we wouldn't have resumed the campaign four days ago. This is why it's been delayed," Afrin said.
A second SDF spokesman told AFP that the diehard jihadists remained in control of the tiny enclave around the village of Baghouz on the north bank of the Euphrates river.
"The pocket inside Baghouz is still controlled by the IS group," spokesman Mustefa Bali told AFP.
"There are still civilians inside Baghouz and we are working on getting them out." Neither spokesman would comment on the timeline set by Trump for a US announcement that the "caliphate" had been ..

Civilians prompt delay in assault on last IS enclave: Kurd-led forces

Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused "Pakistan's security forces" of supporting the perpetrators of a suicide bombing that killed 27 troops on Wednesday, in remarks state TV aired Saturday.
"Pakistan's government, who has housed these anti-revolutionaries and threats to Islam, knows where they are and they are supported by Pakistan's security forces," said Revolutionary Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, referring to jihadist group Jaish al-Adl ("Army of justice").

AFP

AFP

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