Pakistan has recalled 34-year-old middle-order batsman Fawad Alam for the first time in 10 years for the test series against Sri Lanka.
Chief selector and head coach Misbah-ul-Haq said Saturday that the lefthanded batsman was selected because of his recent prolific scoring in domestic cricket.
The series, which is part of ICC's World Test Championship, starts at Rawalpindi next Wednesday. Karachi will host the second test from Dec. 19-23.
Alam last played a test match against New Zealand at Dunedin in 2009, eight months after a terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team bus at Lahore that shut the doors of international cricket on Pakistan. Alam scored a century in his debut test against Sri Lanka in July 2009 and has scored over 12,222 runs in a 16-year first class career at a healthy average of 56.84.
Alam is one of the two changes Pakistan selectors have made from the 16-man squad that lost the two-test matches against Australia.
Alam has replaced Iftikhar Ahmed while leftarm fast ...

Pakistan recalls batsman Fawad Alam after 10 years

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Low-cost carrier Hong Kong Airlines was allowed to continue flying after the city's authorities decided Saturday not to punish it for delaying salary payments and ongoing financial problems.
The international finance hub has seen six months of protests which has dealt a massive blow to the tourism sector and airline operators.
"The Civil Aviation Department has been satisfied that Hong Kong Airlines is able to continue to operate properly and safely," a spokesman from the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department said on Saturday.
The city's Air Transport Licensing Authority (ATLA) said on the same day that the airline has met the conditions for raising and maintaining its cash level.
The authority added that it will continue to monitor the carrier's operation closely.
In late November, the carrier said its business was "severely affected" by the social unrest in the city and a sustained weak travel demand, which also impacted its payroll.
The licensing authority later required the airline .

Troubled Hong Kong Airlines allowed to keep operating

The most serious nationwide strike to hit France in years caused new weekend travel turmoil on Saturday, with unions warning the walkouts would last well into next week.
The challenge thrown to President Emmanuel Macron over his plans for radical pension reform has seen hundreds of thousands take to the streets and key transport services brought to a standstill.
The strikes, which began on Thursday, have recalled the winter of 1995, when three weeks of huge stoppages forced a social policy U-turn by the then-government.
Unions have vowed a second series of mass demonstrations nationwide on Tuesday after big rallies on Thursday and there is expected to be little easing of the transport freezes over the coming days.
The strikes could prove to be the biggest domestic challenge yet for Macron, who came to power in 2017 on the back of promises to radically reform France and has sought a prominent place on the international stage as Europe's number one statesman.
Macron was widely believed .

No let-up in French strikes as fresh turmoil hits weekend

Page after page, the names stack up: 629 girls and women from across Pakistan who were sold as brides to Chinese men and taken to China.
The list, obtained by The Associated Press, was compiled by Pakistani investigators determined to break up trafficking networks exploiting the country's poor and vulnerable.
The list gives the most concrete figure yet for the number of women caught up in the trafficking schemes since 2018.
But since the time it was put together in June, investigators' aggressive drive against the networks has largely ground to a halt. Officials with knowledge of the investigations say that is because of pressure from government officials fearful of hurting Pakistan's lucrative ties to Beijing.
The biggest case against traffickers has fallen apart. In October, a court in Faisalabad acquitted 31 Chinese nationals charged in connection with trafficking.
Several of the women who had initially been interviewed by police refused to testify because they were either ...

AP Exclusive: 629 Pakistani girls sold as brides to China

A drone dropped a bomb on the home of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr in the shrine city of Najaf early Saturday but he was not in the country, sources within his party told AFP.
Sadr has backed the anti-government rallies rocking Iraq, sending his supporters into the streets of the capital overnight to "protect protesters" after unidentified gunmen attacked a protest camp.

Armed drone targets home of Iraq cleric Sadr: party sources

Sultan Qaboos of Oman will head to Belgium on Saturday for a medical checkup, a royal court statement said.
Qaboos, 79, believed to be suffering from colon cancer, has rarely appeared in public since undergoing lengthy treatment in Germany in March 2015.
The statement said that the checkup will take "a limited period of time", but did not specify the duration or give details on his condition.
The sultan's ill health and repeated hospital spells in Germany have focused attention on the fact that he has no designated successor.
Qaboos, who has ruled the Gulf sultanate since 1970, is unmarried and has no children or brothers.
According to the constitution, the sultan must write a letter designating a successor from the ruling dynasty, to be opened in the event that his family cannot agree on his replacement within three days of his death.

Oman's Qaboos heads to Belgium for medical checkup

Growing up in his father, the great Kirk Douglas' shadow, Hollywood veteran Michael Douglas says acting was not on his mind but he ended up in the profession on a whim.
Speaking at the HT Leadership Summit, where he was joined by wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, the 75-year-old actor said acting was a last minute career decision for him.
"I was a late bloomer in becoming an actor. It was not some passion I had. It was probably the rejection to my father and the fact he was gone a lot... So I was not one of those who always wanted to be an actor," Douglas said.
It was during college that the actor decided to venture into doing theatre, which he said was just a whim.
"I was in college and I was undeclared. I didn't had a major. This was in the 1960s and I guess you can call me a hippie. It was in the final year of that they said you have to declare a major. So I was like, 'Okay man! I'll do theatre.'
"So I was late and not good. My father came to all my college productions and the first time .

I was a late bloomer: Michael Douglas on his Hollywood career

Showrunner Chris Chibnall has said the first two episodes of the new season of "Doctor Who" will be an "action-packed, location-packed, rollercoaster" ride.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chibnall dubbed the two-part series opener, titled "Spyfall", as a massive event story that will push the boundary for sci-fi storytelling.
"We start with a two-part, two-hour massive event story. It is an absolute action-packed, location-packed, rollercoaster ride of a story. Probably one of our biggest stories ever in the history of the show. So, we're coming back with a bang, I think, is the shorthand phrase," the showrunner said.
"Spyfall", which will premiere on January 1, 2020, will mark the return of Jodie Whitaker as the titular time-travelling character.
The story finds MI6 turning to the Doctor and his friends for help after intelligence agents around the world are under attack from alien forces.
The episode will feature guest appearances by veteran British actors Stephen Fry ...

'Doctor Who' returning with a bang, says showrunner Chris Chibnall

Four miners trapped underground after a tremor caused a rockfall at a mine in northeast South Africa are feared to have been cut off from oxygen, their union said Saturday.
A fifth miner was rescued with serious injuries after the accident at the Tau Lekoa Mine in the town of Orkney on Friday, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said in a statement.
But the rescue team said they lost contact with the four underground miners at around 5:00 am (local time) on Saturday, sparking fears "they might not be in good health," said NUM president Joseph Montisetse.  "The last person we talked to said: 'We are suffocating please, bring us some oxygen'," he added.
The rescue team "now estimates that it will take three or four days to rescue the four mineworkers because of the massive rocks that continue to fall underground," said the NUM's statement.
Deadly accidents involving miners are common in South Africa, which has the deepest mines in the world.
Last year 81 people died in the country's 

Fears for miners trapped underground in SAfrica

Several police officers were among at least eight people killed in an attack on a bus in northeast Kenya believed to have been staged by the Somali Islamist Shebaab group, a presidential spokesperson said Saturday.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had been briefed on the "brutal" murders of eight people, including police, during the jihadist attack in Wajir county, the spokesperson said in a statement.
"We lost seven police officers in the bus attack," a senior police source told AFP.
"The total number of the people killed are 10. One was identified as a local doctor," the source said.
A police statement released Friday evening gave no casualty toll, just noting the bus, which linked the towns of Wajir and Mandera, came under attack about 17:30 local time (1430 GMT).
"Security forces are pursuing the killers," the state house spokesperson said, adding, "the government will not relent in its ruthless crackdown on criminal elements including suspected terrorists".
The area where the ...

Eight killed in Kenya bus attack

The loss of oxygen from the ocean due to climate change risks "dire effects" on sea life, fisheries and coastal communities, a global conservation body said Saturday.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said that around 700 sites had been identified globally with low oxygen levels -- up from only 45 in the 1960s.
In the same period, the group warned, the volume of anoxic waters -- areas totally devoid of oxygen -- have quadrupled.
The ocean absorbs around a quarter of all fossil fuel emissions, but as global energy demand continues to grow there are fears that the world's seas will eventually reach saturation point.
Oceans are expected on current trends to lose 3.0-4.0 per cent of their oxygen globally by 2100.
However, most of that loss is predicted to be in the upper 1,000 metres, that is the richest part of the ocean for biodiversity.
"With this report, the scale of damage climate change is wreaking upon the ocean comes into stark focus," said IUCN acting .

Marine life under threat from plummeting oxygen levels

Iraqi officials have raised Friday's death toll to 25 protesters killed and over 130 wounded, after a bloody night of attacks by unknown gunmen that targeted anti-government demonstrators in the capital city.
The health and security officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The attack was among the deadliest since October 1, when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets calling for sweeping political reforms and the end of Iran's influence in Iraqi affairs.
Security forces regularly use live rounds and tear gas to disperse the demonstrations, leading to heavy casualties.
The gunfire continued until the early hours of Saturday morning.
The assailants first unleashed the deadly assault on Baghdad's Khilani Square and Sinak Bridge, driving through the areas that are the epicenter of the popular uprising.
Anti-government activists have sought to blame supporters of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, which have staged similar attacks against protester sit-ins in the ...

Iraqi officials raise death toll to 25 protesters killed

Qatar's foreign minister said on Friday there has been "some progress" in talks with Saudi Arabia on ending a bitter two-year-old rift between Doha and the kingdom and its allies.
A Saudi-led bloc also including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut all diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar in June 2017 over allegations it backs radical Islamists and seeks closer ties with Saudi arch rival Iran.
Doha vehemently denies the charges.
In the latest sign of a thaw between the two sides, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said there had been "some progress" in talks with Saudi Arabia, according to the Doha-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
"In recent weeks, we have moved from a stalemate to some progress where some talks took place between us and, specifically, Saudi," he said at the Mediterranean Dialogues forum in Rome.
"We hope these talks will lead to progress where we can see an end (to) the crisis." The Qatari minister said the talks took place under ...

Qatar FM says 'some progress' in mending Gulf rift

Iraqi protesters defiantly turned out on Saturday across the country's south and in the capital, where a dozen people were killed in an overnight attack by unidentified gunmen.
The assailants briefly ousted demonstrators from a building they had occupied for weeks in Baghdad, despite the presence of security forces nearby who did not intervene.
The panicked protesters rushed out into the street, sending out calls through social media for people to come to their main gathering place in Tahrir Square.
Before dawn on Saturday, hundreds had arrived.
"I came after the incident and there were tons of people in Tahrir and by Al-Sinek," a nearby bridge, one demonstrator told AFP, adding he was shocked by the lax security measures.
"The police were there but didn't even search me," he said.
Many of the new arrivals were suspected to be members of Saraya al-Salam (Peace Brigades), the paramilitary group headed by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Sadr has backed the protests, but many demonstrators ...

Iraq protesters turn out in defiance after Baghdad attack

Filmmaker George Miller is the latest Hollywood veteran to weigh in on Martin Scorsese's criticism of Marvel movies, saying cinema as a broad field has room for every kind of film.
In an interview with Deadline, the "Mad Max: Fury Road" helmer defended the existence of superhero and franchise cinema.
"I watch all of them. To be honest, in terms of this debate, cinema is cinema and it's a very broad church. The test, ultimately, is what it means to the audience.
"There's a great quote I saw that applies to all we do. It was from the Swahili storytellers. Each time they finished a story they would say, The story has been told. If it was bad, it was my fault because I am the storyteller. And if it was good, it belongs to everybody'," Miller said.
He said it is a "mistake" and "a kind of hubris" to dismiss a blockbuster film as "clever marketing".
"There's more happening there, and it's our obligation as storytellers to really try and understand it. To me, it's all cinema. I don't think ..

Cinema is cinema: George Miller on Marvel-Scorsese debate

Amna Nawaz, a Pakistani-American journalist, has become the first South Asian American scribe to be selected to moderate a US Presidential debate, media reports said on Saturday.
Nawaz, 40, works as a senior national correspondent for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) news programme News Hour and will co-moderate the sixth Democratic primary debate on December 19 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California along with PBS managing editor Judy Woodruff, the Dawn news reported.
"Amna Nawaz will co-moderate the presidential debate while PBS News Hour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff will lead the panel. The panel also includes POLITICO chief political correspondent Tim Alberta and PBS News Hour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor," the paper reported.
Nawaz, who was born in the US state of Virginia, joined PBS News Hour in April 2018. Prior to joining the News Hour, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at the ABC News, where she covered the 2016 US ...

Pakistani-American journalist Amna Nawaz selected to moderate US presidential debate

Mumbai terror attack mastermind and chief of the banned JuD Hafiz Saeed could not be indicted by Lahore's anti-terrorism court for terror financing charges as the authorities strangely failed to produce the other co-accused at the high profile hearing on Saturday.
The development came a day after India said it was aware that the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack was "roaming freely" and enjoying "Pakistan's hospitality".
Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in New Delhi on Friday that India had shared all the evidence with Pakistan and it was Islamabad's responsibility "to take action" against the perpetrators of the attack.
The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) here has now fixed December 11 as date for framing the charges against the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other co-accused Malik Zafar Iqbal.
"Case against Hafiz Saeed and others under the FIR 30/19 Counter Terrorism Department of Punjab police was fixed for framing of charges in connection with ...

Hafiz Saeed gets brief breather in terror financing trial, next hearing on Dec 11

Rats are much more social than previously believed, according to a study which suggests they can use their fellow rodents as danger antennas, by being sensitive to the emotions of the rats around them.
The researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience put two rats face to face, and then startled one of them -- the demonstrator -- with a brief electrical stimulation of the paws.
The study, published in the journal PLOS Biology, noted that the bystander rat suddenly looked scared on witnessing its electrically stimulated neighbour jump.
"The bystander catches the fear of the demonstrator," explained study co-author Rune Bruls.
According to Bruls, the reaction of the bystander also influences how the stimulated rat feels about the shock.
The researchers said bystanders that were less scared reduced the fear in their demonstrators.
"Fear just jumps from one rat to another. That way a rat can prepare for danger before they even see it," Bruls said.
The researchers tried ...

Rats more social than previously believed: Study

British actor Stephen Graham has joined the cast of "Venom 2".
The 46-year-old actor is best known for featuring in films such as "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, "Rocketman", "Public Enemies" and most recently "The Irishman".
According to Deadline, his role has been kept under wraps as of now.
Andy Serkis is directing the sequel which will see Tom Hardy return as the titular anti-hero.
The follow-up will also feature returning cast members Michelle Williams (Anne Weying) and Woody Harrelson (Cletus Kasady) as well as Naomi Harris.
The first film, "Venom", followed Hardy as Eddie Brock, a journalist who becomes host to the alien entity known as Venom.
In the sequel, Venom will go up against Harrelson's Kasady aka Carnage. Kelly Marcel is writing the script.
Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal and Hutch Parker are producing the film.

Tom Hardy's 'Venom 2' adds actor Stephen Graham

HBO has given a series order to its upcoming drama about the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
The yet-untitled project hails from Adam McKay, the critically-acclaimed director of movies such as "Vice" and "The Big Short", according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The hour-long drama will chronicle the professional and personal lives of the 1980s-era Lakers.
It is based based on Jeff Pearlman's non-fiction book "Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s". Max Borenstein has penned the script.
McKay has directed and executive produced the pilot episode of the series.
It will feature Jason Clarke as Laker legend Jerry West, the team's general manager for much of the '80s; John C. Reilly as team owner Jerry Buss; Quincy Isaiah as Earvin "Magic" Johnson; and former UC-Berkeley basketball player Solomon Hughes as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Kevin Messick, Borenstein and Jim Hecht, who co-wrote the story, will also executive produce the show alongside Jason 

HBO hands out series order to drama about 1980's LA Lakers

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio will be presenting the SAG Life Achievement Award to veteran actor Robert De Niro.
The actor will present the honour to the 76-year-old veteran during the annual award ceremony which will be held on January 19 next year, the organisers announced in a statement.
The two stars have shared the screen space in films such as "This Boy's Life" (1993) and "Marvin's Room" (1996). They are frequent collaborators of veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
DiCaprio, 45, most recently featured in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood", alongside Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.
De Niro's latest is the Scorsese-directed crime epic "The Irishman". The film, also featuring Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, recently debuted on Netflix.

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