Islamic extremist suicide bombers killed at least 10 soldiers today in an explosion at a military camp in the southern port city of Kismayo, Somali security officials said.
	The bombers rammed their vehicle into the gates of a former university campus that is now a military camp where soldiers are being trained to fight the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, said Somali police official Ahmed Ali.
	At least 10 soldiers died in the attack, said a senior military official in Kismayo, Col Mohamed Hassan.
	The two militants in the attack were killed and two more suspected militants were arrested and are being interrogated by security officials, the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia said on Twitter.
	Somalia's militant insurgent group, al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
	Despite being forced out of many of their strongholds, the rebels are still able to launch lethal attacks in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere in Somalia.

10 killed as extremist bombers hit military camp in Somalia

PTI Automatic

The head of the UN Population Fund says the agency's "new mantra" is to keep girls in school until age 18 "in every nook and cranny of the world" as a key means of slowing population growth.
	The UN expects the world's population to reach 8.5 billion by 2030 and 9.7 billion by 2050.
	Agency chief Babatunde Osotimehin says women tend to have fewer children if their first one is born after they've turned 18. He said previously that one in three girls is married before age 18.
	Osotimehin told The Associated Press at a conference in Jordan on Friday that pushing for primary education is not enough.
	He says that "we must up our game" as UN members prepare to ratify ambitious development goals for 2030 next month.

UN official: Keep teen girls in school to curb population

Jurors at a civil trial focused on the market value of Michael Jordan's identity handed him a major win, ordering a grocery-store chain to pay him USD 8.9 million for invoking his name in a steak ad without his permission.
	The amount was close to the USD 10 million his attorneys said the one-time use of his name was worth and Jordan hugged his lawyers after the decision was read in a federal court in Chicago, where Jordan won six NBA titles with the Bulls.
	"I'm so used to playing on a different court," a visibly delighted Jordan told reporters outside the courthouse. "This shows I will protect my name to the fullest. ... It's my name and I worked hard for it ... And I'm not just going to let someone take it."
	Jordan added that the case "was never about money" and that he'll give the damages award to charities in Chicago. Stepping back into the courthouse, two jurors asked him for a photograph and he obliged by throwing his arms around them and smiling for a cellphone camera.
	A ...

Jury awards Michael Jordan big win, USD 8.9M for name's use

A gunman opened fire on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris, wounding two people before three American passengers subdued him, according to officials and one of the Americans involved.
	French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking in Arras in northern France where the suspect was detained yesterday, said one of the American passengers was hospitalised with serious wounds.
	Two of the Americans were in the military, according to their travelling companion and childhood friend Anthony Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University. He told The Associated Press that the injured American was Spencer Stone of the Sacramento area and the other was Alek Skarlatos of Roseburg, Oregon.
	"We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle," Sadler said from France, describing the drama. Then, they saw a gunman entering the train car with an automatic rifle, he said.
	"As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek 

France: 3 Americans subdue gunman on high-speed train

Typhoon Goni slightly weakened today as it lashed the northern Philippines with strong rain and wind that set off landslides and flooded low-lying villages, leaving at least seven people dead and two others missing, officials said.
	The government's weather agency said the typhoon was at sea about 125 kilometres east of northern Calayan Island on the northern tip of the archipelago and is not expected to make landfall. It is packing maximum sustained winds of 160 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 195 kph. The slow-moving typhoon is forecast to start blowing away from the country on Sunday, passing east of Taiwan and heading toward Okinawa, Japan, early next week.
	Among the dead were two brothers who died when a landslide buried a temporary shelter where they took cover in Bakun town in the mountain province of Benguet.
	Two other men were killed in separate landslides and a man was pinned to death by a fallen tree, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
	Benguet Gov Nestor ...

Typhoon Goni leaves 7 dead, 2 missing in Philippines

Police say a man has walked into a federal building in New York City and opened fire, wounding a security guard before shooting himself.
	The shooter is dead at the scene. The wounded officer has been taken to a hospital. His condition is unclear.
	The New York Police Department says it happened yesterday evening at a Manhattan building that houses an immigration court, a passport application centre and the Department of Labor.
	Police say the reason for the shooting is unclear.
	Police say the man walked through a side entrance of the building, pulled out a firearm and shot the private security guard. They say the guard had a weapon but it doesn't appear he was able to fire.

Police: Man shoots security guard, self at federal building

Yemen's president is proposing a 15-day cease-fire that would coincide with the withdrawal of Shiite rebel militias from all government institutions and military installations and all cities and provinces even the province they call home.
	President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's proposal, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, was given to the UN envoy for Yemen in Saudi Arabia's capital on Thursday, and Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was heading to Oman yesterday to meet with Houthi representatives to discuss it, according to a UN diplomat.
	Yemen's government has expressed support for a cease-fire in the past, but this might be its first formal proposal for one.
	The proposal, dated Thursday, calls for the Houthi rebels and allied troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to immediately implement a UN Security Council resolution which demands an end to violence and a swift return to UN-led peace talks.
	Hadi's proposal comes as pro-government troops, backed by a Saudi-led ...

Yemen's president calls for cease-fire and rebel withdrawal

Iraq's top Shiite cleric urged the government today to press ahead with reforms and fighting corruption, but cautioned against doing so at the expense of the fight against the Islamic State group, which is tenaciously holding on to large swaths of Iraqi territory.
	In a sermon delivered by a representative, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged the government to continue the reforms and swiftly go after the "big thieves of public funds."
	Hours after the sermon in the holy city of Karbala, thousands rallied in Baghdad and a string of other cities to press demands for reforms, better services and an end to corruption. The rallies were the latest in a series of peaceful gatherings over the past month demanding change.
	Baghdad's rally attracted up to 10,000, many waving Iraqi flags and chanting the national anthem. The rallies in the southern city of Basra, in Karbala and Najaf, also south of the Iraqi capital, were smaller.
	In Baghdad, hundreds of army and police cordoned off the ...

Iraq's top cleric says 'battle' for reforms must continue

Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson will debut a "one-of-a-kind sonic experience" at the 53rd New York Film Festival.
	The director and his longtime collaborator, Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood, made the film during a trip to northwest India.
	"Junun" documents Greenwood recording an album at the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort with Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur.
	The 54-minute movie will premiere at the festival, which runs September 25 to October 11, the Film Society of Lincoln Center said today.

New Paul Thomas Anderson film set for New York Film Festival

A senior US military officer says preliminary tests show traces of the chemical agent sulfur mustard on mortars that Islamic State militants used to attack Kurdish forces in Iraq.
	US Brig Gen Kevin Killea, chief of staff for the military operations in Iraq and Syria, says the field testing is not conclusive, so final tests are underway to get the full make-up of the chemicals on the fragments.
	US officials have been looking into reports that Islamic State militants used the chemical weapon mustard gas in the August 11 attack in Makhmour. Similar reports surfaced in July.
	Killea told Pentagon reporters on Friday that Kurdish forces brought the mortar fragments to U.S. Forces for testing, so there may be questions about the chain of custody of the evidence.

US: Tests show mustard gas traces in Islamic State attack

Four new fires burned today within a disaster zone in China's Tianjin port where massive warehouse explosions more than a week ago killed at least 114 people and contaminated the area with toxic chemicals.
	The fires were spotted in a car parking lot and at three other locations within a 3-kilometre evacuated area, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
	It did not give more details, but the state-run Legal Evening News said firefighters put out the fire in the parking lot and that cleanup work in the disaster zone soon resumed.
	Technicians have detected levels of cyanide as much as 356 times the safe level within the evacuated zone, although no abnormal contamination was found outside the zone, according to state media reports.
	Workers in protective suits have started clearing wreckage, including charred car bodies and crumpled shipping containers, from the area of chemical warehouses that exploded August 12.
	Xinhua said excavating equipment was being used to clear the site, and ...

4 new fires erupt in China's Tianjin port disaster area

France has been grappling with how to reconcile religious beliefs with secular values when it comes to pork in school lunches. One lawmaker's solution: vegetarian meals.
	After banning Muslim headscarves in classrooms in 2004, France is now tackling what to put on the plates of observant Muslim and Jewish schoolchildren, who by tradition don't eat pork.
	The proposal by lawmaker Yves Jego to serve vegetarian meals as the mandatory option for pork has aroused unusual interest in a country where meat is regarded as part of the gastronomic tradition.
	The center-right politician is winning a wave of support with his plan to introduce a bill next month that would impose vegetarian meals in addition to classic menus helping young Muslims and Jews as well as vegetarians.
	"Can we force a Catholic child to eat meat on Good Friday because nothing else is proposed, or a Jew or a Muslim to eat pork?" Jego asked in an online petition. Within days it collected more than 72,000 signatures and has .

French lawmaker wants mandatory vegetarian menu at school

A century-old message in a bottle, possibly the oldest ever found, has finally reached its destination.
	Tossed into the North Sea sometime between 1904 and 1906, the bottle washed up on the beach on the German island of Amrum, and was found by a couple in April.
	Inside they found a postcard asking that it be sent to the Marine Biological Association of the UK, which they did.
	"We were very excited," Guy Baker, a spokesman for the group, said Friday. "We certainly weren't expecting to receive any more of the postcards."
	Baker said the bottle was one of some 1,000 released into the North Sea by researcher George Parker Bidder, who later became the association's president. The bottles were weighed down to float just above the sea bed, and used as part of a study into the movement of sea currents.
	Inside each bottle was a postcard promising a "one shilling reward" to anyone who returned it to the association, along with information about where and when they found the bottle.
	Most ...

UK marine researchers receive 'oldest message in a bottle'

Medical officials say heavy fighting in Yemen's southern city of Taiz has killed 48 civilians and wounded over 50 others.
	The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters, said that the first 23 civilians were killed by rebel shelling, which provoked Saudi airstrikes yesterday, killing the rest and demolishing five houses. Of those killed, at least 10 were children, they added.
	Yemen's fighting, which escalated in March, pits the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and troops loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which are backed by a Saudi-led coalition.
	The UN says health facilities in Yemen have reported more than 4,000 conflict-related deaths since March.

Fighting in Yemen's south kills 48 civilians

Guinness World Records has formally recognized a 112-year-old Japanese as the world's oldest man.
	Yasutaro Koide, who lives in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, received the formal designation on Friday as family and city dignitaries applauded.
	Koide was born on March 13, 1903, and worked as a tailor when he was younger. He became the world's oldest man with the death of Sakari Momoi of Tokyo in July at age 112.
	He said his secret to a long life is not to overdo, or drink or smoke. His favorite food is bread.
	Koide still can read the newspaper without glasses.

Guinness recognizes 112-year-old Japanese as oldest man

Greece's president today asked opposition leaders to try to form a new government, a day after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and called an early election next month to deal with a governing party rebellion over Greece's third bailout deal.
	But the opposition has little chance of uniting and forming a government so quickly, meaning that after more than five years of a worsening financial crisis, Greece is headed for its fifth national election in six years. Although Tsipras is widely tipped to win the election again, if he fails to secure an outright majority he would have to seek a complex coalition that could hamper his ability to govern.
	Hardline lawmakers in Tsipras' radical left Syriza party announced today they were splitting from him and the party and forming their own movement, which becomes the third largest group in Parliament.
	Outgoing government officials say the likeliest election date is Sept. 20, just eight months after Tsipras' election on promises to fight .

Greece: Syriza hardliners split from PM Tsipras' party

Greece's president launched the process today of asking opposition leaders to form a new government, a day after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and called an early election next month to deal with a governing party rebellion over Greece's third bailout deal.
	The opposition has little chance of uniting and forming a government so quickly, meaning that after more than five years of a worsening financial crisis, Greece is headed for its fifth national election in six years. Although Tsipras is widely tipped to win the election again, if he fails to secure an outright majority he would have to seek a complex coalition that could hamper his ability to govern.
	Outgoing government officials say the likeliest election date is September 20, just eight months after Tsipras' election on promises to fight creditor-demanded spending cuts and tax hikes, terms he later agreed to in order to secure Greece a third bailout as its economy was on the brink of collapse.
	President Prokopis ...

Greece's Tsipras bets on early polls to boost reform mandate

Japan's finance minister, Taro Aso, says recent moves by China to allow its currency to depreciate are a concern and could pose problems for Tokyo.
	The Nikkei newspaper and other local media quoted Aso as saying that China is a big factor behind the recent decline in share prices in Japan, where the share benchmark fell 3 percent to 19,435.83 today.
	Japan's own currency, the yen, has fallen by over 60 percent against the U.S. Dollar since hitting a peak of 75.35 yen to the dollar in October 2011. It was trading near 123 yen per dollar today.
	The yen's depreciation was hastened by massive monetary easing since 2013 by the Bank of Japan, which is buying trillions of yen in assets each month, seeking to spur growth.

Japan's finance minister warns China on currency moves

Military officials say a blast at a military facility in the southern Philippines has killed a soldier and wounded another.
	Capt. Jo-ann Petinglay, an army spokeswoman, said Friday that an initial assessment shows the explosion was from a 40 mm round fired from a grenade launcher which landed beside the guard post of a special forces battalion headquarters in southern Cotabato City.
	Authorities are still determining the identities of the suspects and a motive behind the last evening blast.
	Cotabato is a trading hub 545 miles (880km) south of Manila. It has been hit previously by bombings blamed on Muslim rebels and extortion gangs.

Blast kills soldier, injures another in southern Philippines

FIFA has met with some World Cup sponsors in a meeting they demanded after a corruption crisis rocked football's governing body.
     Little detail was revealed after the closed-door session yesterday, shrouded in secrecy at FIFA headquarters and attended by Adidas, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Visa.
     "No further comment will be made on the internal discussions between the parties," FIFA said in a terse, three-paragraph statement.
     Still, FIFA said it had "reaffirmed its commitment to transparency, reform, and collaboration with its valued partners."
     The five sponsors issued a joint statement of just two paragraphs.
     "FIFA provided the sponsors with updates on several topics," it noted. "During this meeting, we reiterated our expectations for robust reform, and we will continue to engage with FIFA."
     Gazprom and Hyundai were absent without a reason given by FIFA or the sponsors. No mention was made yesterday of appointing two sponsor representatives ...

FIFA, WCup sponsors talk in secret over corruption crisis

North Korea today declared a "a quasi-state of war in frontline areas" facing the rival South and said it was ready for military operations after tensions jumped a day earlier with shells fired across the world's most heavily armed border.
	The North has declared states of war before, but the North Korea's official Central News Agency reported that leader Kim Jong Un had convened an emergency meeting of the central military commission of its ruling party and had ordered that "troops to be fully ready for any military operations at any time from 5 pm today."
	The KCNA report said that "military commanders were urgently dispatched for operations to attack South Korean psychological warfare facilities if the South doesn't stop operating them."
	Such threats from the North are common, but these come after South Korea fired dozens of shells yesterday at North Korea after the North lobbed several rounds across the border and threatened to take further action unless Seoul ends its ...

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