Michael Kors is buying the Italian fashion house Versace in a deal worth more than USD 2 billion, continuing its hard charge into the world of high-end fashion.
The deal Tuesday comes just 14 months after the New York handbag maker spent USD 1.35 billion adding to its portfolio Jimmy Choo, the shoemaker that rocketed to fame on the high heels of "Sex and the City." Like others in the fashion industry, Michael Kors Holdings Ltd is trying to fire up sales by cranking up the glamour.
Tapestry, once known as Coach, acquired Kate Spade last year. Like Coach, Michael Kors is changing its name as it seeks to reframe how people in perceive it.
Michael Kors remains the chief creative director at Kors, but the expanding company will be renamed Capri Holdings Ltd., with $8 billion in projected annual sales. Versace will be a key engine of growth, executives said in a conference call Tuesday.
Bringing in Versace adds a layer of glitter to the company, which sells handbags for less than USD 500. ..

Michael Kors ups the glamour, buys Versace for $2 billion

PTI Automatic

Thai police on Tuesday handed over around 100 kilograms of seized marijuana for medical research, as officials seek to produce pot-based medication.
Sophon Mekthon, chairman of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, said researchers chose high-quality marijuana from police to conduct medical research, selecting from batches of seized imported marijuana and taking some local strains of cannabis that police had recently confiscated. He said the marijuana varied in quality and type so researchers could observe which characteristics are most suitable for medicinal purposes.
"The Government Pharmaceutical Organization intends to use marijuana, which is a plant that grows well in Thailand, for medical research and to develop it into medical marijuana extract and other pharmaceutical products of standardized quality," Sophon said in a statement, adding that the organization hopes to make cannabis-based medicine available to a wide range of people to replace other types of medicine that .

Thai police hand over 100 kilos of marijuana for research

President Rodrigo Duterte's fiercest critic in Congress was arrested Tuesday after the president revoked his 2011 amnesty for a failed coup attempt and revived rebellion charges against him in an unprecedented legal move the senator called a blow to democracy.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV walked out of the Senate, where he has sought refuge for weeks, and was taken by police to their headquarters in Makati city, where his fingerprints and mugshot were taken. After being booked by police, Trillanes was escorted to a nearby court and posted bail, trailed by many journalists.
"Democracy lost today," Trillanes told reporters shortly before his arrest. "Darkness and evil prevailed in our country. Whatever happens in the future will be in the hands of the Filipino people." Known for outbursts against his critics, Duterte has long expressed anger against Trillanes, who has accused him of large-scale corruption, involvement in illegal drugs and extrajudicial killings in an anti-drug crackdown ...

Philippine president's fiercest critic arrested, posts bail

Egypt says archaeologists have discovered a "massive" ancient building in the town of Mit Rahina, 20 kilometres, or 12 miles, south of Cairo.
The Antiquities Ministry says Tuesday archaeologists also uncovered an attached building that includes a large Roman bath and a chamber likely for religious rituals.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the building is likely part of the residential block of the area, which was the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.
Memphis, founded around 3,100 BC, was home to Menes, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt.
Egypt hopes such discoveries will spur tourism, partially driven by antiquities sightseeing, which was hit hard by political turmoil following the 2011 uprising.

Archaeologists discover 'massive' ancient building in Egypt

A Thai court has convicted nine young Muslim men from southern Thailand of planning to set off a car bomb in the capital, in a case in which many of the defendants said they were tortured into making false confessions.
The Criminal Court in Bangkok on Tuesday found all nine guilty of belonging to an underground criminal group and sentenced each to four years' imprisonment. One was also found guilty of illegal possession of explosive devices, giving him a total of six years in prison. Five defendants were acquitted.
The case began when at least 50 Thai Muslims, mostly students at Bangkok's Ramkhamhaeng University, were rounded up in joint police-military sweeps on Oct. 10, 2016. They were released but 13 were rearrested the following month along with an additional suspect.

Thai court finds 9 Muslim men guilty in Bangkok bomb plot

Pope Francis acknowledged Tuesday that the sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church were driving people away and said the church must change its ways if it wants to keep future generations.
Francis referred directly to the crisis convulsing his papacy on the fourth and final day of his Baltic pilgrimage, which coincided with the release of a devastating new report into decades of sex abuse and cover-up in Germany.
Francis told a gathering of young people in Estonia, considered one of the least religious countries in the world, that he knew many young people felt the church had nothing to offer them and simply doesn't understand their problems today.
Those complaints recently poured into the Vatican via surveys commissioned ahead of a big meeting of bishops starting next week on how to better minister to young Catholics.
"We know - and you have told us - that many young people do not turn to us for anything because they don't feel we have anything meaningful to say to them," ...

Pope acknowledges abuse scandals driving people from church

Britain's Prince William is in Africa this week to discuss threats to conservation ahead of a London conference on the illegal wildlife trade.
The Duke of Cambridge was in Namibia on Tuesday and will visit Tanzania and Kenya. On Monday he met Namibian Vice President Nangolo Mbumba. The prince's weeklong trip ends Sunday.
Kensington Palace says Prince William is making the "private working trip" as president of the United for Wildlife group and patron of Tusk, another conservation organization.
The prince has campaigned against the killing of elephants, rhinos, pangolins and other species. He has also noted that poaching has a human toll when rangers are killed, communities lose the benefits of wildlife tourism and criminal networks flourish.  Britain hosts a meeting on the illegal wildlife trade on October 11-12.

Prince William visits Africa ahead of UK wildlife conference

An Iranian media outlet close to the country's hard-line Revolutionary Guard published a video Tuesday threatening the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with missile attacks, further raising regional tensions after a weekend militant attack on a military parade in Iran.
The video tweeted and later deleted by the semi-official Fars news agency comes as Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for the attack in the city of Ahvaz on Saturday that killed at least 25 people and wounded over 60.
The threat amplifies the unease felt across the greater Persian Gulf, which is seeing Iran's economy upended in the wake of America's withdrawal from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers and Saudi and Emirati forces bogged down in their yearslong war in Yemen.
The video shows file footage of previous ballistic missile attacks launched by the Guard, then a graphic of a sniper rifle scope homing in on Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and ...

Iran video threatens missile strikes on UAE, Saudi Arabia

A French investigative website has published photos of a former security aide of President Emmanuel Macron posing with a gun in a fun photo with a waitress during a campaign stop weeks ahead of the May 2017 election  without any known authorization to be armed.
Alexandre Benalla, 27, was identified in July in an online video as the man seen beating a protester during May Day protests, which triggered Macron's biggest crisis as president. Benalla was subsequently fired and he is facing preliminary charges for violence.
Late Monday, Mediapart published a photo of Benalla and two other security guards posing with a waitress. Benalla is seen holding a gun.
Benalla told the newspaper Le Monde in July that he wasn't armed during the presidential campaign.

Ex-Macron aide shows off with gun amid president's campaign

The Gaza Strip's economy is in "free fall," a report from the World Bank warned Tuesday, calling for urgent action by Israel and the international community to avoid "immediate collapse."
According to the report, Gaza's economy contracted by 6 percent in the first quarter of 2018. It said unemployment is now over 50 percent  and over 70 per cent among Gaza's youth.
The World Bank cited various factors, starting with Israel's decade-long blockade against the territory's militant Hamas rulers, for the precarious downturn. It also cited budget cuts by the rival Palestinian Authority and a reduction in international aid to the Palestinians, particularly from the United States.
"A combination of war, isolation, and internal rivalries has left Gaza in a crippling economic state and exacerbated the human distress," said Marina Wes, the World Bank's director for the region.
The report was released ahead of a high level meeting of the bank's Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, responsible for ...

World Bank report warns Gaza Strip economy is in 'free fall

Bill Cosby's sentencing hearing opened Monday with a debate over whether the 81-year-old comedian should be declared a "sexually violent predator"  a scarlet letter that would make him subject to mandatory lifetime counseling and community notification of his whereabouts.
Cosby, who faces up to 30 years in prison for drugging and molesting a Temple University women's basketball administrator in 2004, fought the prosecution's effort to classify him as a predator under state law.
Kristen Dudley, a Pennsylvania state board psychologist, testified that Cosby has an uncontrollable urge to violate young women and would probably commit another offense if given the chance. Dudley added that Cosby's assault of Andrea Constand fits a long pattern of predatory behavior by the former "Cosby Show" star.
Cosby often befriended women, then betrayed their trust by sedating them with drugs or alcohol and violating them for the "sole purpose of his sexual gratification," Dudley testified.
The defense ..

Psychologist: Cosby a predator with uncontrollable urges

At least five people are dead and searches continue for others after a 5-foot wall of floodwater crashed through the streets of a town in western Mexico, state officials said Monday.
The interior secretary of Michoacan state told the Milenio television network that five bodies have been found so far. Pascual Sigala said emergency personnel were still working to find nine people reported as missing.
Earlier, a state official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said the dead include two children.
Unusually heavy rainfall swelled the Cutio River and sent a wave of water into the town of Periban on Sunday.
Michoacan Gov. Silvano Aureoles said "searches are underway for the people who are still missing." Soldiers searched huge piles of debris left in the streets.
The muddy surge was so strong it carried away vehicles and trees.  Periban is located in a forested, mountain zone known for its avocado groves.

5 dead, 9 missing in floods in western Mexico

World leaders looked to Nelson Mandela's legacy of championing peace, human rights and global cooperation but acknowledged the world is far from achieving his ideals as the UN General Assembly's annual top-level meeting began Monday.
At a peace summit honouring the late South African leader, nations from around the world adopted a declaration recommitting to goals of building a peaceful, inclusive and fair world and "to revive the values for which Nelson Mandela stood" by emphasising human dignity.
At the same time, they worried that the idea of taking multinational action to solve major problems is facing increasing doubt.
"As leaders of this time, you have moral imperative and the ability to bring the death and destructions we witness on a daily basis to an end," Mandela's widow, Graca Machel, told the heads of state and U.N. officials. She implored them to take on "ego-driven" decision-makers, political dogma, greed and the arms industry.
"Humankind will hold you accountable should 

Leaders honor Mandela at UN; his widow calls them to act

Britain's main opposition party took a step at its annual conference toward backing a new referendum on Brexit  but stopped short of saying the vote should include an option not to leave the European Union at all.
Delegates at the Labour Party conference in the northwestern English city of Liverpool will debate a motion Tuesday saying that if Parliament rejects the government's Brexit deal, "Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote."
The motion, whose wording was argued over during a five-hour meeting late Sunday, does not specify that a new referendum should include an option to remain in the EU, as many party members want.
Most of the party's half-million members voted in 2016 to remain in the EU. But many of its 257 lawmakers represent areas that supported leaving, so Brexit poses an electoral dilemma for the left-of-center party.
With the U.K. and the EU now at an impasse in divorce talks, and just six months to go until ...

UK's Labour opposition says it might back new Brexit vote

When foreign officials visit the CIA, they sometimes leave with a fine bottle of Kentucky bourbon, newly confirmed CIA Director Gina Haspel said Monday in her first public event in which the former undercover intelligence officer disclosed a few personal details of her life and outlined her priorities for the agency.
Returning to her alma mater at the University of Louisville, Haspel delved into some of the United States' toughest challenges around the world. The spy agency's first female director also lifted the veil behind her life, discussing her affection for Johnny Cash songs, her reading preferences when not poring through CIA briefing books and her most memorable celebrity encounter.
That would be Queen Elizabeth, and yes, the queen knew she was a CIA operative.
"The queen is extremely well-briefed," Haspel told the audience.  The 61-year-old native Ashland, Kentucky, also revealed that she promotes one of the bluegrass state's most famous products  bourbon  when meeting ...

CIA director: Agency keenly focused on nation state rivals

Confronting the dangers of North Korea's nuclear threat, President Donald Trump arrived at the United Nations on Monday striking a far less ominous tone than a year ago, announcing he likely will hold a second summit with Kim Jong Un "quite soon."
Twelve months after Trump stood at the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly and derided Kim as "Rocket Man," the push to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula is a work in progress, although fears of war have given way to dreams of rapprochement.
The president's bellicose denunciations of Pyongyang have largely given way to hopeful notes.
"It was a different world," Trump said Monday of his one-time moniker for the North Korean leader. "That was a dangerous time. This is one year later, a much different time."
He added that preparations are underway by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a second presidential meeting with Kim "quite soon."
Trump arrived at the UN on Monday morning for a meeting on the global drug trade, ahead of a sit-down with ..

Trump at UN: 2nd summit with North Korea likely 'quite soon'

Archaeologists in Portugal say they have discovered off Lisbon a 400-year-old shipwreck they describe as the most important underwater find in the country for two decades.
The municipal council of Cascais, a town near Lisbon, said Monday the Portuguese ship was involved in the hugely lucrative spice trade between Portugal and India. Pepper corns, cowry shells used in the slave trade and bronze artillery pieces litter the wreck site.
The council said in a statement the wreck was found last month during dredging at the mouth of the River Tagus, on Portugal's Atlantic coast.
Preliminary excavations have also found porcelain dating from the period of China's Wanli Emperor in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The find came during an offshore mapping project compiling an inventory of wrecks.

400-year-old shipwreck found off Portugal coast

FIFA spent USD 11.7 million in less than three years on private jets, including luxury sight-seeing trips for a top official, a newly published legal document shows.
Jerome Valcke, then the FIFA secretary general, was urged in a 2013 internal memo to find "more cost efficient alternatives whenever possible," according to the Court of Arbitration for Sport's verdict explaining why his appeal against a 10-year ban was dismissed.
Excessive use of private jets and ordering business class travel for his son was a factor in Valcke being banned from soccer by the FIFA ethics committee after he was fired in 2016. His appeal was dismissed by sport's highest court in July.
Valcke's interventions to help place a World Cup contract worth an initial USD 709,000 linked to his son's business interests were also detailed.
The CAS verdict noted Valcke broke FIFA rules four times by flying unnecessarily by private jet or with more than one guest, and without repaying the extra cost.
The flights ...

Private jets, favors to son detailed in FIFA official's case

Charles K. Kao, who shared a 2009 Nobel Prize in physics for pioneering work in optical fiber technology that helped to lay the foundation for modern telecommunications, has died. He was 84.
Kao, a former vice chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, died Sunday in hospice care, according to the Hong Kong government and news reports. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease but no cause of death was announced.
Kao was a researcher at ITT Corp. when in 1966 he and a colleague published a paper that showed pure glass fibers could be used for communication. That technology, along with developments in lasers, gave rise to a new industry.
Kao's work "made the internet possible," The South China Morning Post newspaper said in an editorial.
Charles Kuen Kao was born Nov. 4, 1933, in Shanghai, according to a biography released by the Nobel Foundation. His mother wrote poetry and his father was an American-educated judge.
The family left in 1948 for Hong Kong, where Kao finished high ...

Charles Kao, Nobel-winning optical fiber pioneer, dies at 84

President Donald Trump says a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is likely to take place "quite soon."
Speaking at the United Nations, Trump says the relationship with the country whose leader he branded last year as "Little Rocket Man" is much improved.
He said Monday: "It was a different world. That was a dangerous time. This is one year later, a much different time."
Trump says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (pahm-PAY'-oh) is working out the details for the second Trump-Kim meeting.
Kim requested a second meeting with Trump in a letter this month, and Trump says, "we will be doing that."
Trump is set to meet with South Korea's Moon Jae-in later Monday to discuss North Korea and trade details. Moon is expected to convey to Trump a personal message from Kim delivered at their inter-Korean talks last week.
President Trump is at the United Nations for his second general assembly meeting with world leaders since taking office and has participated in a counter-narcotics ..

Trump says 2nd North Korea summit 'quite soon'

A statue of Nelson Mandela has been unveiled at the United Nations to honour the 100th anniversary of the late South African leader's birth.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the dedication Monday that Mandela "embodied the highest values of the United Nations  peace, forgiveness, compassion and human dignity." A peace summit is scheduled later Monday in Mandela's honour as the UN General Assembly's annual meeting of world leaders begins.
Mandela was welcomed at the UN in 1990. He had been imprisoned for 27 years under South Africa's white minority government.
Four years later, he became the country's first black president in its first multi-racial elections.
General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces says she hopes the sculpture will remind member nations "that our differences are to be celebrated.

AP

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