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AFP

  • US police officer 'ambushed' in Missouri

    The officer, 39, was struck in the torso but was saved by his bullet-proof vest, St Louis police chief Sam Dotson said.

    “What we have is a sergeant of the St Louis police department, working in full uniform, who was ambushed, who was targeted,” Dotson said.

    The attack comes nearly a year after the police shooting of unarmed black man Michael Brown in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson led to inflamed racial tensions across the region.

    In December, two officers were shot and killed in New York by a man who said he wanted to kill police because he was angry about the deaths of Brown and another man, Eric Garner, who died after being put in a chokehold as he was arrested for selling cigarettes.

    In Tuesday’s shooting, the off-duty officer — who is black — was sitting in his own car shortly before 5:00 am while working an approved second job as a security guard in a posh neighborhood filled with shops and restaurants.

    A car pulled up in front of him and a young black man with a bandana over his face out got out and started shooting.

    The officer — a 16-year veteran — returned fire from his car and believes he may have hit the assailant, Dotson said.

    Three other black men were in the vehicle, which sped away after the officer got out of his car.

    A lone protester holding a sign reading “How Does It Feel?” went to the scene of the shooting and stood with his back to the yellow police tape.

    “How does it feel to be met with same aggression you inflict on certain communities daily?” Dhoruba Shakur, 25, told the St Louis Post Dispatch.

    The officer — who was able to chase after the gunman but lost him in a parking garage — was treated in hospital for minor injuries and released Tuesday morning.

  • Pope jokes he doesn't 'do drugs'

    The 78-year-old pontiff delivered about two dozen speeches and said several masses during a weeklong trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay.

    “You would like to say that I take drugs!” he said in jest, speaking in the plane flying him back to Rome from Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital.

    “Mate is what helps me,” he said, referring to a traditional caffeine-infused beverage popular in the pope’s native land Argentina.

    “I have never tried coca. That should be made clear,” he said, smilingly after Bolivian authorities said they did not exclude him chewing coca leaves to deal with the altitude in La Paz, perched 3,600 metres (11,800 feet) above sea level.

    Coca is native to western South America and is known throughout the world for its psychoactive alkaloid cocaine. Chewing the leaves or drinking coca tea does not produce the intense high people experience with cocaine.

    The pope’s visit, his ninth trip abroad, has been notable for a number of historical pronouncements.

    The pontiff decried the scourge of corruption as the “gangrene of a people,” railed against ideologies, called for an end to poverty and lamented today’s consumerist society.

  • Thief struck by misfortune returns loot 20 years on

    The 2,000-year-old sling stones, which were taken from the ancient city of Gamla on the Golan Heights, were left last week in a bag in the courtyard of the Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures in Israel’s southern city of Beersheba, said the IAA.

    “These are two Roman ballista balls from Gamla, from a residential quarter at the foot of the summit,” the thief wrote in a note distributed by the Authority.

    “I stole them in July 1995, and since then they have brought me nothing but trouble. Please, do not steal antiquities!” said the note written in Hebrew.

    The thief did not detail the nature of his or her misfortune.

    The Antiquities Authority said nearly 2,000 such stones were found in Gamla. They were used by the Romans against the Jews attempting to prevent the conquest of the hilltop city.

    This was not the first plundered antiquity to be returned, said the Authority, noting that a Tel Aviv resident had held an ancient coffin in his bedroom before realising its “morbid nature”.

  • 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.