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AFP

  • Malala turns 18, says world failing Syrian children

    As she became an adult, the teenager, who was shot by militants in her native Pakistan for campaigning for girls’ rights, opened a school for more than 200 Syrian girls living in refugee camps in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

    The Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School will offer education and skills training to girls aged 14 to 18.

    “I am honoured to mark my 18th birthday with the brave and inspiring girls of Syria,” Yousafzai said in a statement received in London.

    “I am here on behalf of the 28 million children who are kept from the classroom because of armed conflict.

    “Their courage and dedication to continue their schooling in difficult conditions inspires people around the world and it is our duty to stand by them.

    “On this day, I have a message for the leaders of this country, this region and the world: you are failing the Syrian people, especially Syria’s children. This is a heartbreaking tragedy — the world’s worst refugee crisis in decades.”

    Lebanon is hosting nearly 1.2 million registered Syrian refugees, though the total number in the country may be even higher.

    The influx has placed strains on Lebanon, which has just four million citizens.

    The Lebanese government has prevented the establishment of official refugee camps, giving rise to informal shanties known as “tented settlements” in rural areas.

    Malala was flown to Britain for treatment after the Pakistani Taliban tried to kill her in October 2012, and now lives permanently in Britain with her family.

  • Brazil baby born in toilet bowl

    According to a foreign news agency, Yara Bernardo Jaco, 20, said that she went to doctors in Cristalina, 80 miles (130 km) from the capital Brasilia in central Brazil, complaining of pain.

    However, a doctor noticed nothing unusual.

    Jaco went home and just hours later felt a need to go to the toilet — and the baby boy was born.

    It has been reported that the doctors have said that Jaco was eight months pregnant. The infant, who weighed five pounds (2.3 kilograms), is in good health.

  • England beat Australia in first Ashes Test

    Australia, set what would have been a new Ashes fourth-innings record winning total of 412, were bowled out for 242 after tea as England went 1-0 up in the five-match series with more than a day to spare.

    Stuart Broad led England’s attack with three for 39 as Ashes-holders Australia, who had been 97 for one, collapsed either side of lunch on the fourth day.

    England made 430, with Joe Root top-scoring with 134 after being dropped on nought, before dismissing Australia for 308 to establish a first-innings lead of 122.

    Their second innings 289 left Australia, who whitewashed England 5-0 on home soil during the last Ashes campaign in 2013/14, with a mammoth run chase.

    No side have made more in the fourth innings to win an Ashes Test than Australia’s 404 for three at Headingley back in 1948 when Arthur Morris scored 182 and Donald Bradman, widely regarded as cricket’s greatest batsman, an unbeaten 173.

    But the highest individual scores Australia, looking to win their first Ashes series in Britain in 14 years, managed on Saturday were No 8 Mitchell Johnson’s 77 and opener David Warner’s 52.

    Root, appropriately, ended the match when he caught Josh Hazlewood at long-off from the bowling of off-spinner Moeen Ali.

    The second Test at Lord’s starts on Thursday, with Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc struggling to be fit for that match after suffering an ankle injury in Cardiff.

     

    Brief scores

    England 430 (J Root 134, M Ali 77, G Ballance 61, B Stokes 52; M Starc 5-114, J Hazlewood 3-83) and 289 (I Bell 60, J Root 60; N Lyon 4-75)

    Australia 308 (C Rogers 95; J Anderson 3-43) and 242 (M Johnson 77, D Warner 52; S Broad 3-39, M Ali 3-59)

    Result: England won by 169 runs

    Series: England lead five-match series 1-0.

  • Iran lashes out as nuclear talks enter 14th day

    A Friday morning deadline to present the deal to the Congress appeared to have been missed, doubling the time for US lawmakers to review the accord — if it can be reached — to a potentially risky 60 days.

    “Unfortunately we have seen changes in the position and excessive demands… by several countries,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said late Thursday after praying at a Vienna mosque.

    Each of the nations in the group “have different positions which makes the task even harder,” Zarif, who again met US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday morning, told the Iranian television Al-Alam.

    The mooted deal with the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — is aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb by scaling down its atomic activities.

    In exchange, a painful web of sanctions — “the most indiscriminate imposed on any nation in human history,” Zarif wrote in the Financial Times this week — would be gradually lifted.

    On Thursday, following a meeting with his counterparts from France, Germany and Britain, Kerry said that he would not be rushed into a deal but at the same time that he would not negotiate “forever”.

    “If the tough decisions don’t get made, we are absolutely prepared to call an end to this process,” Kerry told reporters.

    Kerry stressed negotiators were focusing on the quality of the deal, which “has to be one that can withstand the test of time”.

    “It is not a test of a matter of days or weeks or months. It’s a test for decades,” he said.

    The current effort to alleviate international concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme — first revealed by dissidents in 2002 — began in  2013 after moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took power.

    In November that year Iran and the powers agreed an interim deal under which Tehran froze parts of its nuclear programme in exchange for minor sanctions relief.

    Two deadlines last year — in July and November — to turn this into a final accord were missed, but in April in Lausanne, Switzerland the parties managed to agree on the main outlines of a deal.

  • Can smoking drive you mad? Study suggests it might

    On Friday, research published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggested daily tobacco use, already known to cause cancer and stroke, may be also be a contributor to mental illness — not necessarily result of it.

    Analysing data from 61 studies conducted around the world between 1980 and 2014, a team found that 57 percent of people first diagnosed with psychosis were smokers.

    The studies contained data on nearly 15,000 smokers and 273,000 non-smokers, some of whom were diagnosed with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia.

    “People with first episodes of psychosis were three times more likely to be smokers,” said a statement from King’s College London’s Department of Psychosis Studies, which took part in the meta-analysis.

    “The researchers also found that daily smokers developed psychotic illness around a year earlier than non-smokers.”

    It has long been hypothesised that higher smoking rates among psychosis sufferers could be explained by people seeking relief from boredom or distress, or self-medicating against the symptoms or side-effects of antipsychotic medication.

    But if this were so, researchers would expect smoking rates to increase only after people had developed psychosis.

    “These findings call into question the self-medication hypothesis by suggesting that smoking may have a causal role in psychosis,” said the statement.

    The team stressed they had not conclusively proven that smoking causes psychosis, saying further research must be done.

    But the results did suggest that smoking “should be taken seriously as a possible risk factor for developing psychosis and not dismissed simply as a consequence of the illness,” they wrote.

    The researchers theorised that changes in the brain’s dopamine system may explain the association.

    Dopamine is a chemical messenger that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres.

    “Excess dopamine is the best biological explanation we have for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia,” said King’s College psychiatric professor Robin Murray.

    “It is possible that nicotine exposure, by increasing the release of dopamine, causes psychosis to develop.”

  • Pakistan seek ODI revival in Sri Lanka series

    Misbah-ul Haq’s tourists won the Tests 2-1 by chasing down a target of 377 for the loss of just three wickets after being 13-2 in the decisive final match in Pallekele on Tuesday.

    Pakistan achieved the sixth highest successful chase in history through a brilliant unbeaten 171 from Younis Khan, 125 from opener Shan Masood and 59 not out from Misbah.

    But none of these batsmen will be seen in action when the five-match one-day series opens in Dambulla — with Misbah having retired from limited-overs cricket and both Younis and Masood not selected.

    Top order batsman Azhar Ali will lead the ninth-ranked tourists who need a series win to keep their hopes alive of qualifying for the eight-nation Champions Trophy in England.

    “This is obviously a very important series for us and we will make sure we play well and win,” Azhar said. “Most of the players know what to expect in Sri Lanka. We are ready.”

    Pakistan have struggled in one-day cricket in recent months after being knocked out by eventual champions and hosts Australia in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Adelaide in March.

    Azhar’s men suffered a 3-0 embarrassment at the hands of Bangladesh in April, before beating lowly Zimbabwe 2-0 in their first home series since the 2009 militant attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore.

    New faces in both teams

    Pakistan have called up left-arm fast bowler Mohammad Irfan, the tallest international cricketer ever at seven feet one inch (2.16 metres), who has recovered from a hip injury suffered during the World Cup.

    But pace spearhead Wahab Riaz is still sidelined with a hand injury sustained during the Test series, while spinning allrounder Haris Sohail has an injured knee.

    The touring squad includes two new batsmen in Mukhtar Ahmed, 22, and Bilal Asif, 29, while batsman-wicketkeeper Umar Akmal and seamer Junaid Khan were not selected.

    Sri Lanka, playing their first one-day series since the retirement of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara from the shorter format after the World Cup, are also rebuilding for the future.

    The hosts, who were also World Cup quarter-finalists, have included two new allrounders, Milinda Siriwardana and Sachith Pathirana, both of whom bowl left-arm spin.

    Sri Lanka’s 15-man squad, led by Test captain Angelo Mathews, includes just six players who took part in the preceding Test series.

    The rivals will get their first taste of the new one-day regulations which have no batting powerplay, no compulsory close-in catchers in the opening 10 overs, and allow five fielders outside the circle — instead of four — in the final 10 overs.

    The series starts with a day match in Dambulla, followed by day-night games in Pallekele (July 15), Colombo (July 19, 22) and Hambantota (July 26).

    Pakistan (squad): Azhar Ali (captain), Mukhtar Ahmed, Ahmed Shezad, Mohammad Hafeez, Asad Shafiq, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam, Sarfraz Ahmed, Yasir Shah, Bilal Asif, Immad Wasim, Anwar Ali, Mohammad Irfan, Ehsan Adil and Rahat Ali.

    Sri Lanka (squad): Angelo Mathews (captain), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kusal Perera, Upul Tharanga, Lahiru Thirimanne, Dinesh Chandimal, Milinda Siriwardana, Ashan Priyanjan, Nuwan Pradeep, Thisara Perera, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Sachithra Senanayake, Seekuge Prasanna and Sachith Pathirana.

  • 23 dead in Bangladesh charity handout stampede: police

    The stampede in the northern city of Mymensingh erupted when crowds of people tried to force their way into a factory compound through a small gate after massing outside before dawn, according to local police chiefs.

    Television footage from the site showed scenes of utter devastation, with hundreds of torn and blood-spattered sandals abandoned at the gate of the factory, which produces chewing tobacco.

    “We have so far recovered 23 bodies. Most of the dead are poor and emaciated women,” Mymensingh police chief Moinul Haque told AFP, putting the number of injured at four.

    Kamrul Islam, the senior officer at a police station near the factory, said the death toll was likely to rise further while local media said scores of people had also been injured.

    “Some people had taken the bodies of their relatives before police arrived at the scene,” Islam said.

    The owner of the factory and six other people have been arrested for failing to ensure public safety, Islam added.

    Police said up to 1,500 people had massed outside the factory at around 4:45 after the owners had announced they would distribute free clothes to poor people in accordance with Islamic ritual.

    Rich Bangladeshis often distribute free clothes to poor people during the Muslim holy month of Ramazan, which began on June 19.

    But the handouts have sparked several deadly stampedes over the years.

    Around 40 people were killed in a similar stampede at a garment factory in the northern city Tangail in 2002.

    Factory safety has been a major issue in Bangladesh since the collapse of a clothing manufacturing complex in April 2013 that left more than 1,100 people dead, making it one of the worst industrial accidents in history.

  • US Army to cut 40,000 soldiers: official

    Under the cost-cutting plan, the Army will be down to 450,000 soldiers at the end of the 2017 budget year, even though in 2013 it argued in budgetary documents that going below 450,000 troops might mean it could not win a war, USA Today said.

    By comparison, the Army swelled to 570,000 men and women during the peak of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the newspaper said.

    Some 17,000 civilians working for the Army will also be laid off, the official told AFP, confirming the USA Today report.

    The paper quoted a document it had obtained and said the cuts are being made to save money.

    It will affect virtually every Army post domestically and abroad, USA Today said

    The defense official told AFP that the Army plans to announce the cuts soon, with USA Today adding that the matter would be addressed this week.

    Across-the-board government budget cuts are due to kick in in October and if Congress does not avert these the Army will have to lay off another 30,000 soldiers on top of the 40,000, according to the document quoted by USA Today.

    It comes just a day after President Barack Obama said that the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group would step up its campaign in Syria, while cautioning a long battle remained.

    Brigades stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska will be among those downsized, USA Today said.

    Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, told the paper that the cutdown “makes no strategic sense.”

    More than a year after IS fighters overran much of Iraq and Syria, the United States and its allies are struggling to turn the tide against the extremists in an air campaign known as Operation Inherent Resolve.

    The Pentagon last month said it was sending 450 additional US troops to act as advisers to help Iraqi forces seize back control of the western city of Ramadi from jihadist fighters.

    Speaking to reporters after a briefing at the Pentagon on Monday, Obama warned the war “will not be quick. This is a long-term campaign.”

    He added that more needed to be done to train government forces and Sunni tribal fighters in Iraq, as well as moderate Syrian rebels.

  • Pakistan hockey coach blames govt for Olympic failure

    Pakistan finished a poor eighth in the World Hockey League semi-finals in Antwerp on Saturday, a tournament which served as qualifying for the Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The team needed to finish in the top five to have any chance of qualifying.

    It will be the first time in Pakistan’s 67-year history that they will not feature in the field hockey event at the Summer Games, a failure which prompted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to set up a committee to investigate.

    Coach Shahnaz Shaikh said the government had not funded the team properly.

    “As a head coach I take the responsibility but I had been asking the federation, the ministry and the government for funds — without funds we were not able to prepare properly,” Shaikh told reporters on the team’s return at Islamabad airport.

    “We need to pour money in hockey to lift the structure and give financial support to the players who don’t even have a contract.”

    Shaikh said players had to live with an allowance of just $20 a day in Belgium.

    Pakistan, three-time Olympic and four-time world champions, have rapidly slumped in the sport. They finished a poor 12th and last in the 2010 World Cup held in India.

    Pakistan also failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and were seventh in the 2012 Olympics in London.

     

  • Mayweather stripped of WBO welterweight belt

    Mayweather had failed to meet the deadline last Friday for paying the $200,000 sanctioning fee required by the WBO after he took the belt from Pacquiao on May 2 in Las Vegas in the richest fight of all time, earning a reported $220 million in the process.

    WBO rules require boxers to pay 3 percent of their purse to fight for a world title up to a maximum of $200,000.

    The rules also prohibit WBO champions to hold any belts in any other weight divisions. Mayweather is currently also the WBC and WBA champion at junior middleweight (154lb), as well as at welterweight (147lb).

    A statement on the Puerto Rico-based sanctioning body’s website confirmed that Mayweather, regarded as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, was no longer the WBO champion.

    “Mr. Mayweather, Jr. failed to pay the $200,000.000 fee required of him as a participant of a WBO World Championship Contest,” said the statement.

    “Despite affording Mr. Mayweather Jr. the courtesy of an extension to advise us of his position within the WBO Welterweight Division and to vacate the two 154-pound world titles he holds, the WBO World Championship Committee received no response from him or his legal representatives on this matter.

    “The WBO World Championship Committee is allowed no other alternative but to cease to recognize Mr. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. as the WBO Welterweight Champion of the World and vacate his title.”

    After Mayweather (48-0, 26 KOs) defeated Pacquiao to unify three of the four major welterweight world titles, he had declared that would vacate all his titles in order to give younger fighters the chance to win belts.

    “I don’t know if it will be Monday or maybe a couple weeks,” Mayweather said at the post-fight news conference.

    “I’ll talk to my team and see what we need to do. Other fighters need a chance.”

    American Timothy Bradley, who defeated countryman Jessie Vargas for the WBO interim welterweight belt on June 27, is now expected to be formally elevated to full champion status by the WBO.  – AFP