Washington Consumer inflation in the United States cooled for an 11th straight month on an annual basis in May, the Labor Department said Tuesday, in an encouraging sign for policymakers.

The data comes as Federal Reserve officials are set to begin a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, with the figures expected to have a bearing on their interest rate decision at the end of the gathering.

While the US central bank has embarked on an aggressive campaign of rate hikes, lifting the benchmark lending rate 10 times in a row since early last year, it is widely anticipated to pause this week.

Government figures released Tuesday show that the consumer price index (CPI), a key gauge of inflation, jumped 4.0 percent from a year ago in May, in line with analyst expectations and down from a 4.9 percent rise in April.

This brings it to the lowest level in around two years, and less than half the peak rate of 9.1 percent in mid-2022.

But analysts caution that Fed policymakers are likely looking for a more sustained trend of cooling growth before they end their cycle of rate hikes.

On a monthly basis, CPI rose 0.1 percent in May, decelerating from 0.4 percent in April, the Labor Department said.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, consumer inflation was up 5.3 percent over the last 12 months.

The index for shelter was the largest contributor to the monthly all items increase, followed by an increase in the index for used cars and trucks, said the Labor Department in a statement.

Lingering worries

Oren Klachkin, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, told AFP: A months worth of data wont ease policymakers worries. They want to see clear trends that inflation is cooling and that the economy is slowing.

We havent had that so far, so theres a risk of more rate hikes in the second half of 2023, he added.

For now, halting further rate hikes will allow policymakers more time to assess the economic impact of existing increases, which come on top of recent pressures in the banking sector.

Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, added in a note that the figures reflect that underlying inflation remained elevated but showed improvement, and would unlikely change expectations of the Feds rate decision.

As for the future path of policy, incoming information on inflation, the labor market as well as considerations about credit conditions will determine whether the (Federal Open Market Committee) is done raising rates or if more tightening is needed, she said.

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Champagne France will bring home production of around 50 crucial medications for which it currently depends on imports, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday, hoping to battle shortages of items like antibiotics and paracetamol.

Of the initial slate of drugs with a clear dependence on imports from outside the EU, 25 will have their production re-shored or significantly increased in the coming weeks, Macron said during a visit to a pharmaceuticals factory in southern France.

The announcement comes after a March survey by pollsters BVA found 37 percent of people had already run into shortages at the pharmacy.

Up to 80 percent of familiar medications like antibiotics and painkillers used in France are produced abroad, especially in China.

Some of the drugs are still made in France, but at volumes that fail to match demand.

Over the winter, Europe faced shortages of key antibiotic amoxicillin and other medications as surging illnesses particularly among children have increased demand for the drugs.

Under Macrons plan, public money to the tune of 160 million euros ($173 million) will go to support eight of the new projects, including for amoxycillin produced by British pharma giant GSK in northwestern France as well as anaesthetics, painkillers and cancer drugs.

Companies would be able to apply for a share of a further 50 million euros in funding, Macron said.

The 50 drugs flagged by Macron are among a list of 450 drawn up by the health ministry for which we must absolutely secure our supply chains, either by completely re-shoring or diversifying (supply) and continuing to innovate, the president said.

Tuesdays pharma announcements mark the first step in a week dedicated to industrial projects, which Macron hopes will move public attention on from the battles over his widely-disliked pension reform.

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Kyiv Russian strikes early Tuesday on the hometown of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky killed ten people, as Moscow said it had captured Western armoured vehicles from Kyivs forces.

The strikes overnight hit multiple sites and smashed into a five-storey apartment building in the central city of Kryvyi Rig, leaving smoke billowing from the housing block strewn with debris.

Ten people have died. One is under rubble. Twenty-eight are injured and 12 of them are in the citys hospitals in medium, serious and very serious condition, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the citys military administration.

Rescue operations are ongoing, he added.

Zelensky said after the strikes that Russian forces were waging a war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.

He promised Ukrainians that those responsible would be held to account.

Terrorists will never be forgiven, and they will be held accountable for every missile they launch, he said in a statement on social media.

Air raid sirens earlier had sounded across Ukraine as the capital Kyiv and the northeast city of Kharkiv also came under missile and drone attacks.

Ukraines air force said Russia launched 14 cruise missiles and four Iranian-made drones overnight, with 10 missiles and one drone intercepted.

Trophies

In the morning, another missile was fired by Russian forces before being shot down by the Ukrainian air defences.

The fresh wave of attacks came shortly before Moscow claimed to have captured several German Leopard tanks and US Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.  

The defence ministry released footage showing Russian troops surveying the equipment supplied to Ukraine by Western countries.

Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. These are our trophies. Equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.

Servicemen of the Vostok group inspect enemy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles captured in battle.

Kyiv has appealed to its allies in the West to deliver a broad range of modern military equipment to help Ukrainian forces recapture large swathes of territory controlled by Russia.

The defence ministry said several of the captured vehicles had working engines, suggesting that battles they were involved in had been short and that Ukrainian troops had fled their offensive positions.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has asked Australia about the condition of dozens of retired F-18 fighter jets, the countrys ambassador told AFP on Tuesday, eyeing a potential weapons transfer that could significantly bolster Kyivs airpower.

Flooding toll rises

The strikes across Ukraine came shortly after Kyiv claime...

Nottingham Police arrested a man Tuesday after three people were found dead and a van tried to mow down three others in the central English city of Nottingham in incidents authorities believe are linked.

Nottinghams centre was cordoned off, with a heavy police presence, including some armed officers following the series of events that left residents shaken.

A 31-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak thanked emergency services who had dealt with the shocking incident.

My thoughts are with those injured, and the family and loved ones of those who have lost their lives, he added.

Police were called just after 4:00 am (0300 GMT) after two people were found dead in Ilkeston Road, which runs west out of the city centre.

The body of a man was also found just over a mile (1.6 kilometres) away on Magdala Road, about two miles away.

The three people hit by the van, in Milton Street, in the city centre, were being treated in hospital, a police statement added.

Sirens

Witness Lynn Haggitt said she saw a van hit two people at around 5:30 am (0430 GMT) near the citys Theatre Royal after the vehicle pulled up beside her on her way to work.

He looked in his mirror, saw a police car behind him, he then quickened up, there were two people he went straight into these two people, she told BBC news.

Another man, Glen Gretton, said he was woken up at around 5:00 am by the sound of a series of police cars passing his home.

I heard a police car go past. It was driving extremely quickly, followed by another one, another one, the 46-year-old delivery driver said.

They just kept coming so I knew something quite major was happening somewhere around the city centre, he said.

This is an horrific and tragic incident which has claimed the lives of three people, said Nottinghamshire Police Chief Constable Kate Meynell.

We believe these three incidents are all linked and we have a man in custody, she added.

The citys tram network was suspended while the investigation took place.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she was shocked and saddened by the deaths.

The citys three members of parliament Nadia Whittome, Lilian Greenwood and Alex Norris said they were shaken by the events and expressed their condolences to the families of the dead and injured.

Our city has been devastated by the deaths of three people this morning. Nottingham is a beautiful city, home to brilliant people from all backgrounds.

We are shaken by todays events but will meet them collectively as a community and heal together, they said in a joint statement on Twitter.

The post...

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, during his meeting on Tuesday with the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, affirmed Egypts constant support for Iraqs security and stability.

El-Sisi emphasized that Egypt is keen to strengthen and diversify the bilateral cooperation with Iraq in various fields such as politics, economy, trade, and culture, whether at the bilateral level or through the tripartite cooperation mechanism with Jordan.

The Egyptian President valued the depth and strength of the strategic relations between the two countries.

The Iraqi Prime Minister is visiting Egypt for the second time in about 100 days, where he heads a high-level delegation that includes 12 Iraqi ministers, in addition to several Iraqi businessmen, to meet with their Egyptian counterparts.

The Iraqi Ministry of Trade revealed that 10 agreements between Cairo and Baghdad have been completed and will be signed by the prime ministers of the two countries during Al-Sudanis visit to Egypt.

The agreements are in the fields of sports and youth, housing, construction, labor, and social affairs.

The meeting between the two leaders addressed the most important regional and international issues, according to a statement issued by the Prime Ministers Office.

El-Sisi and Al-Sudani emphasized the need to continue mutual cooperation to strengthen the partnership between Egypt and Iraq, INA added.  

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London A final Beatles record, created with the help of artificial intelligence, will be released later this year, Paul McCartney told the BBC in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

It was a demo that John (Lennon) had, and that we worked on, and we just finished it up, said McCartney, who turns 81 next week.

The Beatles Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr split in 1970, with each going on to have solo careers, but they never reunited.

Lennon was shot dead in New York in 1980 aged 40 while Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001, aged 58.

McCartney did not name the song that has been recorded but according to the BBC it is likely to be a 1978 Lennon composition called Now And Then.

The track one of several on a cassette that Lennon had recorded for McCartney a year before his death was given to him by Lennons widow Yoko Ono in 1994.

Two of the songs, Free As A Bird and Real Love, were cleaned up by the producer Jeff Lynne, and released in 1995 and 1996.

An attempt was made to do the same with Now And Then but the project was abandoned because of background noise on the demo.

McCartney, who has previously talked about wanting to finish the song, said AI had given him a new chance to do so.

Now and Then

Working with Peter Jackson, the film director behind the 2021 documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, AI was used to separate Lennons voice and a piano.

They tell the machine, Thats the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar,' he explained.

So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had (and) we were able to take Johns voice and get it pure through this AI.

Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.

McCartney performed a two-hour set at last years Glastonbury festival in England, playing Beatles classics to the 100,000-strong crowd.

The set included a virtual duet with Lennon of the song Ive Got a Feeling, from the Beatles last album Let It Be.

Last month, Sting warned that defending our human capital against AI would be a major battle for musicians in the coming years.

The use of AI in music is the subject of debate in the industry, with some denouncing copyright abuses and others praising its prowess.

McCartney said the use of the technology was kind of scary but exciting because its the future, adding: Well just have to see where that leads.

Exhibition

After the Beatles, the singer-songwriter went on to have hits with his band Wings, but a...

Dubai Salvage teams are close to starting the transfer of more than one million barrels of oil from a decaying tanker anchored off Yemen after two weeks of preparatory inspections, the United Nations said.

The FSO Safer, long used as a floating storage platform and now abandoned off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida, has not been serviced since the Arabian Peninsula country plunged into civil war more than eight years ago.

A team of experts last month started inspecting conditions aboard the vessel and kickstarted preparations for the operation intended to avert a major oil spill.

I think we are getting very close to the point where we can start the ship-to-ship transfer which will be the next and perhaps most important phase, David Gressly, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, told a news conference in The Hague on Monday.

We have a few steps to take care of in terms of insurance and other issues that we need to resolve before bringing in a replacement vessel, he said.

The operation will see private company SMIT Salvage pump the oil from the Safer to the Nautica, a super-tanker the United Nations purchased for the operation, then tow away the empty tanker.

After two weeks of inspection, our crew are convinced that the Safer is strong enough for such an operation, said Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the parent company of SMIT Salvage.

I think we are almost there. As far as we are concerned, we are ready to start the ship-to-ship transfer any day in the coming days.

Environmental threat

Berdowski was speaking on the same panel as Gressly ahead of the opening of the Yemen International Forum in The Hague on Monday.

Berdowski said the removal of the oil could take between one week and one month, depending on how easily it can be pumped.

The most important next step obviously is the arrival of the Nautica replacement vessel, he said.

Berdowski said some issues still needed to be resolved, including inspections to determine whether there is any oxygen inside the oil tanks which could result in an explosion if exposed to a spark.

His team would also need to embark on an underwater inspection of the Safers hull to make sure it is strong enough for a ship-to-ship transfer.

The Safer is carrying four times as much oil as that which spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the worlds worst ecological catastrophes.

A spill could cost up to $20 billion to clean up, to say nothing of the environmental and human toll, and the UN is negotiating with an insurance consortium to insure the operation.

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Seoul South Korea has charged a former Samsung executive accused of stealing company secrets worth hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a copycat chip factory in China, prosecutors told AFP on Tuesday.

Semiconductors have become a flashpoint issue between the United States and China, which are locked in a fierce battle over access to chip-making technology and supplies.

South Korean prosecutors said the 65-year-old former Samsung employee allegedly stole the companys factory blueprints and clean-room designs from 2018 and 2019.

The Suwon district prosecutors office said he unsuccessfully tried to set up a copycat production facility in the Chinese city of Xian where Samsung already has a chip factory.

The man, who has not been identified and is in detention pending trial, stole material that is classified by South Korea as a national core technology a category of tech that could potentially harm national security and the economy if disclosed overseas.

Prosecutors said he had been in custody for some time and was formally charged on Monday.

They described him as a top expert in semiconductor manufacturing, who had worked in the industry for decades.

South Korean authorities said the information allegedly targeted in the theft would have been worth at least 300 billion won ($236 million) to Samsung.

It is a serious crime that can have a tremendous negative impact on our economic security by shaking the foundation of the domestic semiconductor industry at a time when competition for chip production is intensifying every day, prosecutors said in a statement on Monday.

The semiconductor industry accounted for 16.5 percent of South Koreas total exports in 2022 and is a national security asset.

Six other people who worked with the executive have been charged over suspected involvement in the theft.

Samsung declined to comment when contacted by AFP on Tuesday.

Chip war

Samsung Electronics is one of the worlds largest producers of chips and smartphones, and its parent groups turnover is equivalent to about one-fifth of South Koreas GDP.

Like many of the worlds biggest chip makers, a large portion of its production is based in China.

Chips are the lifeblood of the modern global economy, and China the worlds second-largest economy relies on a steady supply of chips made by foreign firms for its huge electronics manufacturing industry.

The United States imposed a series of export controls last year to prevent China from acquiring the most advanced chips that could be used in cutting-edge weapons and frontier tech such as artificial intelligence.

The Netherlands and Japan followed this year with restrictions of their own, without naming China.

But the curb...

Johannesburg South Africa has never been touched by Islamist attacks. Its three-decade-old democracy is solid, and its financial system is respected.

Yet experts say the continents most industrialised nation is now a nerve centre for jihadist financing in Africa. 

South Africa is open hunting ground, Pretoria-based counter-terrorism expert Jasmine Opperman told AFP. 

Islamist financiers gather money in the country and transfer it into the hands of terrorism, she said, adding it was internationally recognised that we are now a hub. 

Its a stark indictment for a country that, apart from the odd alerts issued by the US embassy, hardly registers on the radar of extremist activities worldwide. 

Yet Oppermans assessment is widely shared by analysts across Africa, Europe and the United States. 

Red flags were first raised last year when the US government levied sanctions on several South Africans it accused of belonging to an Islamic State (IS) cell. 

The group facilitated the transfer of money to IS branches across Africa, according to Washington. 

It provided technical, financial, or material support to the terrorist group, the US treasury said in November.

Complacency

Some analysts have suggested that jihadist financing flourished because South African authorities grew complacent at the lack of visible Islamist activity.

I dont think South Africa realised it. It was the Americans who said, something not okay is going on in your country,' Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter-Extremism Project think-tank, told AFP.

The entire government is now put to task, he said.

One of the clearest signs something was amiss came in March this year when the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global illicit cash flow watchdog that aims to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing, placed South Africa on its grey list over gaps in monitoring and stemming illegal financial activities.

A cocktail of conditions, including a functional financial system, liberties, porous borders, corruption and criminality have made South Africa fertile ground for Islamists to raise funds, experts say.

A lot of the money comes from organised crime syndicates which raise funds through drugs and precious minerals trafficking as well as kidnapping for ransom. 

Extortion, with the use of fake Tinder profiles to lure victims, is also widespread. 

Organised crime is rife

Kidnapping cases doubled to 4,000 between July and September last year, compared to the previous quarter, police statistics show.

Organised crime itself is rife, in South Africa, said Opperman.

To avoid detection, the money is then transferred to Islamist cells...

Kyiv A Russian missile strike killed three people and wounded 32 in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday, authorities said, as air attacks were reported in Kyiv and other cities.

In Kryvyi Rih, the birthplace of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a five-storey building was destroyed, said the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region that includes the city.

According to initial reports, three of its residents died. 25 people were injured, Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram. There are still people under the rubble.

Lysak said three cruise missiles were shot down but others got through.

Air raid alerts were sounded across Ukraine as the capital Kyiv and the northeast city of Kharkiv also came under missile and drone attacks.

According to initial reports, the enemy used Kh-101/555 cruise missiles, the Kyiv city military administration said.

All enemy targets in the airspace around Kyiv were detected and successfully destroyed by the forces and means of air defence, it said, adding there was no immediate information on any casualties or damage.

The fresh wave of air attacks came after Ukraine claimed to have retaken several villages and made advances in its counter-offensive against Russian forces.

More terrorist missiles, Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people. Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded, Zelensky said on Twitter.

The rescue operation in Kryvyi Rih continues.

In Kharkiv, civilian infrastructure was hit in a drone attack, said the citys mayor Ihor Terekhov.

According to initial reports, a utility company in the Kyivskyi district, as well as a warehouse in Saltivskyi district got damaged. A fire broke out as a result of the explosion on the latter, he said.

Air alerts were also sounded in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast and the neighbouring Donetsk and Poltava regions.

Tough counter-offensive

The wave of overnight strikes comes a day after Zelensky said Ukraine was making small gains in a tough counter-offensive.

The fighting is tough, but we are moving forward, this is very important, Zelensky said Monday.

I thank our guys for every Ukrainian flag that is now returning to its rightful place in villages on the newly de-occupied territory, he said.

Ukraines defence minister Ganna Malyar said seven settlements were liberated referring to the villages of Lobkovo, Levadne and Novodarivka in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which houses Europes largest nuclear plant, now under Russian occupation.

Malyar said Ukrainian forces had also regained control of the village of Storozheve in the south of the Donetsk region, near three villages recap...

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi parliament passed the 198.9 trillion Iraqi dinar ($153 billion) budget for 2023 on Monday, which includes record expenditure on an increasing government salary bill and development projects aimed at improving services and rebuilding war-damaged infrastructure.

According to a statement provided by the Parliaments media office, the Iraqi Parliament voted on the proposed federal budget law for Iraq for fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025. Iraqs Parliament voted on Articles 50, 64, 65, 66, 67 and 68, in addition to a new article stipulating not to deal with any text, law or decision that contradicts the budget law.

The budget deficit is anticipated to be 64.36 trillion Iraqi dinars ($49.14 billion), a record high and more than quadruple the previous years deficit.

The Iraqi parliament approved a new article allocating 150 billion Iraqi dinars ($114.5 million) for the completion of Iraqi-Chinese projects.

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Milan Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who reshaped Italys political and cultural landscape while fending off multiple legal and sex scandals, has died aged 86, his spokesman confirmed to AFP Monday.

The billionaire media mogul was admitted to a Milan hospital on Friday for what aides said were pre-planned tests related to his leukemia.

His admission came just three weeks after he was discharged following a six-week stay at Milans San Raffaele hospital, during which time doctors revealed he had a rare type of blood cancer.

Berlusconi had suffered ill health for years, from heart surgery in 2016 to a 2020 hospitalisation for coronavirus. Despite being re-elected to the Senate last year, he was rarely seen in public.

But he remained the official head of his right-wing Forza Italia party, a junior and occasionally troublesome partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Melonis coalition government.

Berlusconi led Italy three times between 1994 and 2011, for a total of nine years, wooing voters with a promise of economic success only to be forced out as a debt crisis gripped his country.

But his influence extended well beyond politics, thanks to his extensive TV, newspaper and sporting interests, while his playboy antics kept him in the headlines even in his final years.

Silvio Berlusconi made history in this country, ex-prime minister Matteo Renzi said on Facebook.

Many loved him, many hated him: everyone today must recognize that his impact on political but also economic, sporting and television life was unprecedented, he said.

Berlusconi is survived by his 33-year-old girlfriend, Marta Fascina, two ex-wives and five children, some of whom help run his empire, recently estimated to be worth some seven billion dollars. 

While it is too soon for details of his funeral, Berlusconi built a Pharaoh-inspired marble mausoleum at his villa in Arcore, near Milan, to house his family and friends when they die.

Bunga bunga parties

Charismatic, clownish and with a fine grasp of what his audiences wanted, Berlusconi used his media interests to project an image of a strong, self-made man that voters could emulate a tactic later used by US president Donald Trump.

Berlusconi began his career as a real-estate magnate before investing in television channels which broke the mould in Italy, featuring shows particularly popular with housewives, later a pillar of his electorate.

He portrayed himself as both the messiah and a martyr and enjoyed widespread popularity, though detractors accused him of cronyism, corruption and pushing through laws to protect his own interests.

His fans admired his plain speaking, although many Italians were acutely embarrassed by his crude jokes and insults on the international stage, as well as his endless legal cases, which resulted in...

Tokyo Artificial intelligence tools will revolutionise education like calculators did, but will not supplant learning, ChatGPTs founder Sam Altman told students in Tokyo on Monday, defending the new technology.

Probably take-home essays are never going to be quite the same again, the OpenAI chief said in remarks at Keio University.

We have a new tool in education. Sort of like a calculator for words, he said. And the way we teach people is going to have to change and the way we evaluate students is going to have to change.

ChatGPT has captured the worlds imagination with its capacity to generate human-like conversations, writing and translations in seconds.

But it has raised concern across many sectors, including in education, where some worry students will abuse the tool or turn to it rather than producing original work.

Altman was in the Japanese capital as part of a world tour where he is meeting business and political leaders to discuss possibilities and regulations for AI.

He has regularly urged politicians to draft regulations for AI, warning if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.

The tools we have are still extremely primitive relative to tools we are going to have in a couple of years, he said Monday, again urging safety measures and regulation.

He said he felt positive about new regulatory frameworks for AI after meeting world leaders, without offering details, but reiterated his fears.

We will feel super responsible, no matter how it goes wrong, he said.

He also repeated previous attempts to calm fears that AI could make many existing jobs obsolete, though he conceded that some jobs will go away.

I dont think it is going to quite have the employment impact that people expect, he added, insisting that new classes of jobs will emerge.

Almost all of the predictions are wrong, he said.

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Hong Kong Investors traded cautiously Monday as they awaited key US inflation data and the Federal Reserves interest rate decision later this week.

Stocks globally have enjoyed a broadly strong run-up this month on hopes the US central bank will decide against an eleventh successive hike at the end of the meeting on Wednesday.

Positive readings on jobs in the past few weeks indicating the economy remained healthy but gave the Fed room to stand pat in June have added to the broadly upbeat mood.

However, with the policy board split on the best way forward for fighting still-too-high inflation, there remains a certain amount of uncertainty on trading floors.

The decision comes a day after the release of consumer price inflation data, which could play a major role in officials thinking.

For now, the forecast is for the Fed to hold this month but announce another hike in July.

With inflation still well over double the target rate for all central banks can the US Federal Reserve really afford the luxury of a pause, or are they right to be careful given the deflation coming out of China, said CMC Markets Michael Hewson.

Growth is already slowing in China post covid, and in Europe, Germany and the EU are already in a technical recession, while the UK probably isnt too far behind.

Policy announcements from the central banks of Japan, China and the eurozone are also due this week, after Canada and Australia unveiled small increases last week.

Meanwhile, concern about Chinas sluggish recovery and signs of further weakness in Europe continued to weigh on sentiment.

After a positive but light lead from Wall Street with the S&P 500 extending its bull market run Asian traders battled to build on last weeks advances.

Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta and Taipei rose but Shanghai, Seoul, Bangkok and Wellington dipped.

London, Paris and Frankfurt opened on the front foot.

Recession worries

Solita Marcelli, of UBS Global Wealth Management, warned against thinking the latest gains for equities could be the beginning of a rally.

While many investors believe that passing this milestone puts markets in bull territory, it remains possible that we are seeing a bear market rally a period of strong gains that occurs in the middle of a bear market, she said.

Until markets reach a new all-time high, its impossible to know whether the bear market trough the ultimate low of the market cycle is behind us.

And Mike Riddell, of Allianz Global Investors, said that while the US economy appeared to still be holding up, there was a possibility of a nasty recession before the years end owing to numerous rate hikes.

Our base case is for a m...

Frankfurt German courts will from Monday begin examining a series of claims over adverse effects suffered after coronavirus vaccinations, more than two years after one of the worlds fastest and most extensive innoculation campaigns.

In the face of a deadly pandemic that emerged in early 2020, which prompted border closures and lockdowns that trapped millions of people in their homes, the arrival of Covid vaccines had been widely hailed as a life-saver. 

But the jabs, which had been developed at breakneck speed and granted early approval for usage, are now the focus of legal claims in several countries including France and Britain as the plaintiffs say the vaccines damaged their health. 

In Germany, a court in Hamburg will be the first to hear a case brought against homegrown vaccine manufacturer BioNTech, which, together with US giant Pfizer, produced the first mRNA vaccine Comirnaty.

The claimant reported suffering effects including pain in the upper body, swelling of the extremities, exhaustion, fatigue and sleeping disorders after taking the jab, the court said.

She is seeking 150,000 euros ($162,000) in damages and recognition that the defendant is bound to provide material damages, the court added.

Her lawyer Thomas Ulbrich, who is also representing another 250 people in similar cases, said his clients were all healthy before suffering from symptoms, allegedly following their jabs.

He believes that the medical files he has on hand offer a link between the vaccines and the symptoms experienced by his clients.

Rocky and long road

BioNTechs mRNA vaccine, a scientific breakthrough, had been granted conditional marketing authorisation as early as December 21, 2020, by the EU regulatory authority EMA.

Similar authorisation for Moderna, another mRNA vaccine maker, swiftly followed.

With fears of catching the disease running high, the vaccines were  pre-ordered by governments even during their development phases, and deployment swiftly followed once regulatory authorities gave their approval.

But the new generation of inoculations also sparked a wave of vaccine sceptics questioning the safety of the jabs.

Out of 192 million jabs given in Germany, the countrys medecines regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, said 338,857 suspected cases of side effects were reported, including 54,879 severe reactions.

Among the worst cases, the symptoms are very different, they vary from stroke to thrombosis to cardiac diseases, said another German lawyer, Joachim Caesar-Preller, who represents 140 clients making similar claims.

He is seeking up to one million euros in damages per case plus interest but concedes that a rocky and long road lies ahead in the legal battles. 

Not an isolated case&#821...

Berlin NATO will begin the largest air force deployment exercise in Europe in the alliances history on Monday in a display of unity toward partners and potential threats such as Russia.

The German-led Air Defender 23 will run until June 23 and include some 250 military aircraft from 25 NATO and partner countries including Japan and Sweden, which is bidding to join the alliance.

Up to 10,000 people will participate in the drills intended to boost interoperability and preparedness to protect against drones and cruise missiles in the case of an attack on cities, airports or sea ports within NATO territory.

Presenting the plans last week, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the German Luftwaffe said Air Defender was conceived in 2018 in part as a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine four years before, though he said it was not targeted at anyone. 

He said that while NATO would defend every centimetre of its territory, the exercise would not send any flights, for example, in the direction of Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave bordering alliance member states Poland and Lithuania. 

We are a defensive alliance and that is how this exercise is planned, he said.

US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann said the drill would show beyond a shadow of a doubt the agility and the swiftness of our allied force and was intended to send a message to countries including Russia.

I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance, and that includes Mr Putin, she told reporters, referring to the Russian president.

By synchronising together, we multiply our force.

Russias war on Ukraine has galvanised the Western military alliance set up almost 75 years ago to face off against the Soviet Union.

Finland and Sweden, which long kept an official veneer of neutrality to avoid conflict with Moscow, both sought membership in NATO after Russias February 2022 invasion. 

Under NATOs Article Five, an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.

Great power competition

The exercise will include operational and tactical-level training, primarily in Germany, but also in the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit pilots based at the Schleswig-Jagel airfield in northern Germany on Friday.

General Michael Loh, director of the US Air National Guard, said NATOs duties were at an inflection point.

A great deal has changed on the strategic landscape throughout the world, especially here in Europe, he said.

The exercise will focus on supplementing the permanent United Sta...

Stockholm The nuclear arsenals of several countries, especially China, grew last year and other atomic powers continued to modernise theirs as geopolitical tensions rise, researchers said Monday.

We are approaching, or maybe have already reached, the end of a long period of the number of nuclear weapons worldwide declining, Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told AFP.

The total amount of nuclear warheads among the nine nuclear powers Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States was down to 12,512 at the outset of 2023, from 12,710 at the start of 2022, according to SIPRI.

Of those, 9,576 were in military stockpiles for potential use, 86 more than a year earlier.

SIPRI distinguishes between countries stockpiles available for use and their total inventory which includes older ones scheduled to be dismantled.

The stockpile is the usable nuclear warheads, and those numbers are beginning to tick up, Smith said, while noting that numbers are still far from the over 70,000 seen during the 1980s.

The bulk of the increase was from China, which increased its stockpile from 350 to 410 warheads.

India, Pakistan and North Korea also upped their stockpiles and Russias grew to a smaller extent, from 4,477 to 4,489, while the remaining nuclear powers maintained the size of their arsenal.

Russia and the United States together still have almost 90 percent of all nuclear weapons.

The big picture is weve had over 30 years of the number of nuclear warheads coming down, and we see that process coming to an end now, Smith said.

China stepping up

Researchers at SIPRI also noted that diplomatic efforts on nuclear arms control and disarmament had suffered setbacks following Russias invasion of Ukraine.

For instance, the United States suspended its bilateral strategic stability dialogue with Russia in the wake of the invasion.

In February, Moscow announced it was it was suspending participation in the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START).

SIPRI noted in a statement that it was the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty limiting Russian and US strategic nuclear forces.

At the same time, Smith said the increase in stockpiles could not be explained by the war in Ukraine as it takes a longer time to develop new warheads and that the bulk of the increase was among countries not directly affected.

China has also invested heavily in all parts of its military as its economy and influence have grown.

What were seeing is China stepping up as a world power, that is the reality of our time, Smith said.

Zurich UBS is poised to complete on Monday its takeover of Credit Suisse, but integrating the former rival is a Herculean task that clients, employees and Swiss political leaders will closely watch.

The coming months are likely to be bumpy, warned UBS chief Sergio Ermotti on Friday, adding the integration will come with waves of difficult decisions, particularly regarding employment. 

The countrys leading bank UBS was forced into a marriage to prevent its rival from going under, but it hasnt waited for Monday to start preparing to absorb Credit Suisse.

But from Monday onward, UBS can start to be proactive, Andreas Venditti, a financial analyst for Vontobel, told AFP, if the timetable stands. 

UBS has been preparing since mid-March and already has an idea of what it wants to keep, close or sell but so far they are limited in what they could do until the merger was sealed, Venditti said. 

The merger of Switzerlands two biggest banks will be complex both technically and politically, resulting in a megabank unlike the Swiss have ever seen a size that has political leaders worried. 

Thousands of jobs could be lost due to duplication. 

But according to Thomas Jordan, chairman of the Swiss National Bank, there wasnt another solution. 

Of course, its a pity there is only one (big bank) left. But I am sure that if the takeover by UBS hadnt succeeded, there would have been an international financial crisis, he said Sunday in an interview with the weekly Sonntagszeitung.

Talent retention

Credit Suisse risked collapse when its share prices plunged more than 30 percent during trading on March 15, after three US regional lenders folded. 

The Swiss government, the central bank and financial regulators stepped in and strongarmed UBS into a $3.25 billion takeover announced on March 19.

The deal includes guarantees for UBS in case there are any nasty surprises in the Credit Suisse cupboards.

UBS and the Swiss government signed the guarantee contract on Friday, which can reach up to nine billion Swiss francs ($9.85 billion), if the losses exceed five billion francs.

Many questions surrounding the merger remain unanswered, but Venditti said the picture should be clearer after second-quarter financial results emerge. 

UBS has pushed the publication date back by more than a month to August 31.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Swissquote Bank, said talent retention would be one of the biggest challenges, as staff departures multiply in the face of downsizing fears.

From the political standpoint, the financial regulators FINMA should make sure to protect competition, which could necessitate an eventual spin-off of certain business units, Ozkardeskaya told AFP.

...

Hong Kong Asian investors traded cautiously Monday as they awaited key US inflation data and the Federal Reserves interest rate decision later this week.

Markets globally have enjoyed a broadly strong run-up this month on hopes the US central bank will decide against an eleventh successive hike at the end of the meeting on Wednesday.

Positive readings on jobs in the past few weeks indicating the economy remained healthy but gave the Fed room to stand pat in June have added to the broadly upbeat mood.

However, with the policy board split on the best way forward for fighting still-too-high inflation, there remains a certain amount of uncertainty on trading floors.

The decision comes a day after the release of consumer price inflation data, which could play a major role in officials thinking.

For now, the forecast is for the Fed to hold this month but announce another hike in July.

Policy announcements from the central banks of Japan, China and the eurozone are also due this week, after Canada and Australia unveiled small increases last week.

Meanwhile, concern about Chinas sluggish recovery and signs of further weakness in Europe continued to weigh on sentiment.

After a positive but light lead from Wall Street with the S&P 500 extending its bull market run Asian traders struggled on Monday to build on last weeks advances.

Tokyo, Singapore and Taipei all rose but Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Jakarta and Wellington were in the red.

Solita Marcelli, of UBS Global Wealth Management, warned against thinking the latest gains for equities could be the beginning of a rally.

While many investors believe that passing this milestone puts markets in bull territory, it remains possible that we are seeing a bear market rally a period of strong gains that occurs in the middle of a bear market, she said.

Until markets reach a new all-time high, its impossible to know whether the bear market trough the ultimate low of the market cycle is behind us.

And Mike Riddell, of Allianz Global Investors, said that while the US economy appeared to still be holding up, there was a possibility of a nasty recession before the years end owing to numerous rate hikes.

Our base case is for a moderate-to-deep recession and potentially crises as the unprecedented pace of global policy tightening seen over the last year starts to really bite.

Worries about a possible recession as well as Chinas weakness and the impact that could have on demand weighed on oil prices Monday, extending Fridays losses of more than one percent for both contracts.

The drop came even after Saudi Arabias surprise decision last weekend to cut output by a million barrels a day next mo...

Washington The voice on the phone seemed frighteningly real an American mother heard her daughter sobbing before a man took over and demanded a ransom. But the girl was an AI clone and the abduction was fake.

The biggest peril of Artificial Intelligence, experts say, is its ability to demolish the boundaries between reality and fiction, handing cybercriminals a cheap and effective technology to propagate disinformation.

In a new breed of scams that has rattled US authorities, fraudsters are using strikingly convincing AI voice cloning tools widely available online to steal from people by impersonating family members.

Help me, mom, please help me, Jennifer DeStefano, an Arizona-based mother, heard a voice saying on the other end of the line.

DeStefano was 100 percent convinced it was her 15-year-old daughter in deep distress while away on a skiing trip.

It was never a question of who is this? It was completely her voice it was the way she would have cried, DeStefano told a local television station in April.

I never doubted for one second it was her.

The scammer who took over the call, which came from a number unfamiliar to DeStefano, demanded up to $1 million. 

The AI-powered ruse was over within minutes when DeStefano established contact with her daughter. But the terrifying case, now under police investigation, underscored the potential for cybercriminals to misuse AI clones.

Grandparent scam

AI voice cloning, now almost indistinguishable from human speech, allows threat actors like scammers to extract information and funds from victims more effectively, Wasim Khaled, chief executive of Blackbird.AI, told AFP.

A simple internet search yields a wide array of apps, many available for free, to create AI voices with a small sample sometimes only a few seconds of a persons real voice that can be easily stolen from content posted online.

With a small audio sample, an AI voice clone can be used to leave voicemails and voice texts. It can even be used as a live voice changer on phone calls, Khaled said.

Scammers can employ different accents, genders, or even mimic the speech patterns of loved ones. [The technology] allows for the creation of convincing deep fakes.

In a global survey of 7,000 people from nine countries, including the United States, one in four people said they had experienced an AI voice cloning scam or knew someone who had.

Seventy percent of the respondents said they were not confident they could tell the difference between a cloned voice and the real thing, said the survey, published last month by the US-based McAfee Labs.

American officials have warned of a rise in what is popularly known as the grandparent scam - where...

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi army announced on Sunday that two officers were killed and three soldiers were wounded in an armed attack targeting an army checkpoint in Kirkuk governorate in northern Iraq.

The Iraqi army mentioned in a statement that ISIS terrorists carried out the attack to respond to the painful strikes and qualitative operations carried out by the Iraqi armed forces, which inflicted heavy losses on ISIS terrorists as many leaders of the terrorist group were killed.

The statement elaborated that ISIS terrorists, using light weapons, attacked an army checkpoint in Kirkuk governorate at 10 p.m. on Saturday.

An Iraqi lieutenant colonel and a first lieutenant were killed, and three soldiers were wounded, according to the statement.

The Deputy Commander of the Joint Operations, Qais Al-Muhammadawi, arrived in Kirkuk to check the health conditions of the wounded, and a joint investigation committee arrived in the governorate to investigate how the attack took place, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) mentioned.

Security leaders in Iraq held a meeting to discuss details about the incident and collect information to help them find the terrorists involved in the attack, INA added.

Iraq announced in late 2017 the liberation of all its territories from the grip of ISIS, but the authorities are constantly launching security operations to pursue remnants of the terrorist group that carry out attacks from time to time in the country.

The Global Coalition against Daesh (ISIS) reported last April a decline in attacks in Iraq and Syria during the first quarter of 2023, when terrorists were still active despite their defeat.

The commander of the Combined Joint Task Force, Army Major General Matthew McFarlane, explained last April that ISIS attacks in Iraq declined by 68 percent from the beginning of 2023 until the first week of April compared to the same period last year.

The post 2 Iraqi officers killed, 3 soldiers wounded in armed attack in Kirkuk appeared first on Iraqi News.

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A senior official at the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Iraq agreed to pay about $2.76 billion in gas and electricity debts to Iran after obtaining an exemption from sanctions from the United States, Reuters reported.

The source added that the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Hussein, obtained the exemption during a meeting with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on the sidelines of the ministerial meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last Thursday, according to Reuters.

Iraq depends on imports from Iran for much of its gas needs, but the sanctions imposed by the United States on Iranian oil and gas exports impeded Iraqi payment of Iranian imports, causing huge debts to accumulate and leading Iran to repeatedly cut gas flows to Iraq.

The spokesperson of the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Al-Sahaf, said in a brief statement that Hussein made progress in the financial dues between Iraq and Iran during his conversation with his American counterpart in Riyadh.

The head of the Iranian-Iraqi Chamber of Commerce, Yahya Al-e Eshaq, said that part of the released money is allocated to the costs of Iranian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, while the other part is allocated to the purchase of basic commodities, Iranian news agencies mentioned.

The source in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry added that the payments would be sent through the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) and confirmed that these payments would be used for the costs of Iranian pilgrims and Irans food imports.

The post Iraq to pay $2.7 billion of its debt to Iran appeared first on Iraqi News.

Abidjan More than four years ago, African countries gave the ceremonial push to a deal to scrap internal trade barriers a historic scheme that would create a continent-wide single market worth trillions of dollars.

But African business leaders say cross-border trade remains entangled in customs duties, administrative hurdles and varying national regulations.

Costs and delays are hampering African corporations fighting to compete with low-cost rivals, they say.

Each country has its own laws its very complex, Jeremy Awori, head of Ecobank, a bank that operates in 30 countries, said at a business conference in Abidjan this week.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was signed in 2019 by 54 out of the African Union (AU)s 55 states, who together accounted for GDP last year of $3 trillion.

It formally began operations on January 1, 2021 with the goal of achieving 90 percent cuts in tariffs within five to 10 years.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says this would unlock a real increase of 10 percent in per-capita GDP and a 50-percent rise in intra-African commerce.

To give one example of the potential gains, an AU study in 2014 found that sending a vehicle from Japan to Ivory Coast was three times cheaper than sending the same vehicle from Ivory Coast to Ethiopia.

But AfCFTA faces an uphill task.

Its secretary-general, South African trade expert Wamkele Mene, told the Africa CEO Forum that fragmentation in the continents market had worsened in the past decades.

Every African activity has been negatively impacted by this fragmentation, he said. 

He gave the example of a company that had subsidiaries in Rwanda and neighbouring eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The subsidiaries are separated by just 20 kilometres (12 miles) but have to use a bank in New York for transferring money.

Costly barriers

Customs duties, which for many countries account for a huge chunk of government income, can sometimes exceed 50 percent.

Non-tariff barriers such as lengthy waits at borders or filling out forms are other major, but hidden, costs for corporations.

The problems are having an impact on African companies competing with developing-country counterparts facing lower or even zero hurdles.

Around 350 African companies today have turnover of more than a billion dollars, a fall of six percent since 2015, compared to 210 in Latin America and 170 in India, tallies that have risen by almost a third over the same period.

By 2050, 40 percent of the (worlds) population will be African. We have to help our future champions find their place in global value chains, said Ivorian Prime Minister Patrick Achi. 

Infra-African trade has to develop it only accounts for 20 percent of trade volume to...

Hezreh At a rubbish dump in northwest Syria, Mohammed Behlal rummages for plastic to be sold to recyclers and transformed into floor rugs and other items in the impoverished rebel enclave.

In rebel-held Syria, recycling is rarely an environmental impulse but rather a grim lifeline for needy residents looking for work or items they otherwise could not afford.

Braving the stench, insects and risk of disease, 39-year-old Behlal hacks through the rubbish pile with a scythe and his bare hands.

He and two of his six children earn a living sifting through the refuse in Idlib provinces village of Hezreh, earning $7 to $10 a week each.

Its tiring but what can we do, we have to put up with this hard labour, said Behlal, who was displaced from neighbouring Aleppo province during Syrias civil war.

Thank God, at least we have work with the trash, he added.

Behlal was shot in the leg during fighting and has had trouble finding employment.

Hunched over to collect pieces of plastic or metal, he throws everything into a bag to sell to a nearby scrap facility.

Syrias conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, and around half of the countrys pre-war population has been forced from their homes since fighting broke out in 2011.

More than four million people, most of them dependent on aid, live in areas controlled by jihadists and Turkish-backed groups in Syrias north and northwest.

In a large scrapyard next to agricultural fields, workers sort plastic junk loosely into piles according to colour.

They then cut it up and crush it into small pieces that are washed and melted into plastic pellets.

Plastic thread

Farhan Sleiman, 29, is among those who handle the material brought in from the landfill.

We buy plastic from roaming trash-picker trucks and children, said Sleiman, originally from Homs province.

He expressed fear of the risk of contracting cholera or chronic illnesses from working with the rubbish.

Elsewhere in northern Idlib province, workers at a factory making mats and rugs churn out brightly coloured plastic thread while large weaving machines click and clack.

Factory owner Khaled Rashu, 34, says rug-making is a family tradition.

We have more than 30 employees at the factory, he boasted as a significant feat in a region where many are jobless.

Large mats featuring geometric designs, some made with striking red or purple plastic thread, emerge from the weaving machines and are stacked into piles.

Shop owner Mohammed al-Qassem, 30, is among those selling the mats, which he says are a hit in an area where many people are displaced and live in basic tents or makeshift dwellings.

The mats made from recycled plastic cost between $5 and $15, while traditional Persian-style r...

Cairo Egypt has announced that as of Saturday it requires all citizens of neighbouring Sudan, engulfed in bloody conflict since mid-April, to obtain a visa before they can cross the border.

Since fighting broke out between two rival generals vying for control in Sudan, some 200,000 Sudanese nationals have entered Egypt, most of them through land crossings, Cairo said.

Egyptian authorities had so far exempted Sudanese women of all ages, children under 16 and anyone over 50 from having to obtain a visa prior to arrival at a point of entry.

Cairos foreign ministry issued a statement on Saturday announcing the new regulations, justifying the move as a crackdown on illegal activities including fraud.

The authorities introduced visa procedures aimed at regulating the entry of the brotherly Sudanese (people) into Egypt after more than 50 days of crisis in their country, the statement said.

It said that the new requirements were not designed to prevent or limit the entry of Sudanese nationals, but rather to stop illegal activities by individuals and groups on the Sudanese side of the border, who forged entry visas for profit.

Sudan has been rocked by nearly two months of intense battles between the regular army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by Burhans former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Upwards of 1,800 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Aid agencies and international organisations say the actual toll may be much higher.

The United Nations International Organization for Migration said nearly two million Sudanese people have been displaced, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Egypt has welcomed more than 200,000 Sudanese citizens since the start of the crisis adding to the approximately five million Sudanese citizens who were already present in the country before the war, the foreign ministry statement said.

Sudanese media and some social media users have reported over the past two days orders issued by Egyptian authorities at two border crossings with Sudan, according to which entry into Egypt is allowed only after obtaining a visa, for all age groups and genders.

Egypts foreign ministry stressed in its statement that its consulates in Sudan have been provided with the necessary electronic devices to carry out these regulations in a precise, rapid and safe manner, ensuring the orderly entry of Sudanese citizens.

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Paris Iga Swiatek battled past Karolina Muchova 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 to win her third French Open title on Saturday and become the first woman to successfully defend the Roland Garros title since 2007.

The 22-year-old Swiatek is just the third woman in the Open era to win each of her first four Grand Slam finals, the Pole adding to her 2020 and 2022 titles in Paris and last years US Open triumph. 

Monica Seles and Naomi Osaka are the only other players to accomplish the feat.

Swiatek, the world number one from Poland, is also the youngest woman to claim back-to-back French Open titles since Monica Seles in the early 1990s. 

Justine Henin was the last woman to win successive Roland Garros crowns when she captured her third in a row and fourth in total 16 years ago.

Swiateks latest coronation caps another dominant two weeks on the clay in Paris, where her record stands at 28 wins and two losses in five visits.

Muchova, at 43 in the world, was the fourth lowest ranked woman to reach the French Open final, her first championship match at a major.

Swiatek, then just 19, was ranked 54 when she lifted her first trophy three years after Jelena Ostapenkos shock triumph. Muchovas compatriot Renata Tomanova was runner-up in 1976.

However, the unseeded Czech had won all five matches in her career against players in the top three four of them at Grand Slams having stunned Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals.

On guard against an underdog with a habit of taking those down at the top, Swiatek quickly applied pressure on the 26-year-old Muchova.

A miscued forehand from Muchova gave the Pole two break points in the second game which she took with minimal fuss.

The top seed consolidated with a quick hold before Muchova got on the board in game four, drawing loud roars from the Court Philippe Chatrier crowd.

Muchova carved out a break opportunity to get back on serve but Swiatek snuffed it out in a protracted fifth game pumping her fist in relief as she surged 4-1 up.

Swiatek saw another break point come and go the following game, but her disappointment was brief as she easily won the next two games to wrap up the opening set.

Back and forth

Muchova had outfoxed her rivals with her cunning variety throughout the tournament, but Swiatek had clearly done her homework since the Czech won their only other meeting in Prague in 2019.

A loose service game allowed Swiatek to pull 3-0 in front in the second set, but Muchova refused to roll over, displaying the grit and resolve she used to rally from match point down against Sabalenka in the previous round.

A crunching forehand down the line retrieved the break before Muchova levelled at three games each.

Swiatek slowed Muchovas momentum as the pair traded holds before the reigning champion showed her first real sign...

Kyiv Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that counteroffensive action was underway as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Kyiv and accused Russia over flooding from the breached Kakhovka dam.

Counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine: at which stage I will not talk in detail, Zelensky said at a joint press conference in Kyiv with Trudeau.

Zelensky commented after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyivs long-expected counteroffensive was already failing.

Russia has reported thwarting Ukrainian attacks in the east and south that some observers have interpreted as the start of a large-scale counteroffensive.

Its interesting what Putin said about our counteroffensive. It is important that Russia always feels this: that they do not have long left, in my opinion, Zelensky said.

He added that he was in daily touch with military commanders including armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny and everyone is positive now tell that to Putin!

Trudeau, 51, and Zelensky, 45, hugged each other and used each others first names as the Canadian leader made his second unannounced visit to Kyiv since full-scale war broke out in February last year.  

Canada, which hosts a large Ukrainian diaspora, has been one of Kyivs key allies since the Russian invasion.

It has provided Ukraine with significant military aid, trained more than 36,000 soldiers and adopted sanctions against Moscow.

Direct consequence

Trudeau denounced Russias role in the destruction of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday.

The flooding from the breached dam has forced thousands to flee their homes and sparked fears of humanitarian and environmental disasters.

Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the dam, while Moscow says Kyiv fired on it.

Pledging 10 million Canadian dollars (US $7.5 million) in new funding for flood relief, Trudeau said the dams destruction was the direct consequence of Russias invasion.

There is absolutely no doubt in our minds that the destruction of the dam was a direct consequence of Russias decision to invade a peaceful neighbour, Trudeau said.

He added he was certain that Moscow would be held accountable for its actions in Ukraine.

Russias war in Ukraine has devastated infrastructure, has destroyed families and taken lives and is causing economic, food, energy shortages around the world. Russia is responsible and will be held to account.

Pilot training  

The Canadian leader said he would provide 500 million Canadian dollars in new funding for military assistance to Ukraine.

He also pledged Canada would be part of the multinational efforts to train Ukra...

Houston With oil tankers docking from Mexico and Russia in recent days, Cuba could see its severe fuel shortage ease for the near future.

Since the end of March, endless lines of cars queuing for gasoline have been a common site on the Communist Party-ruled island, and service stations have created WhatsApp groups to organize customers.

Cuba, under US embargo, is going through its worst economic crisis in three decades. It only produces a third of the fuel it needs each day, while residents navigate blackouts and food shortages.

According to shipping tracker Vessel Finder, Mexican tanker Bicentenario, with an estimated cargo of 265,000 barrels of oil, arrived at the port of Havana on Tuesday. The ship was anchored at the Nico Lopez refinery in the capital, AFP confirmed.

At the end of May, Cameroonian-flagged supertanker Limo, en route from Russia, arrived at the port of Matanzas with some 800,000 barrels.

Vicente de la O Levy, minister of energy and mines, had in recent weeks declared there will be a recovery from fuel shortages, and a decrease in uncomfortable queues.

With a processing capacity of 22,000 barrels per day at the Havana refinery, the capital could be supplied for up to three weeks, said Jorge Pinon, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Energy and Environmental Program at the University of Texas.

Looking for partners

Tuesdays arrival of the Bicentenario is the third such shipment this year, said Pinon. State-owned Petroleos Mexicanos did not respond to a request for comment.

Mexico, led by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is pursuing a policy of both pushing for an end to US sanctions on Cuba while also maintaining a dialogue with Washington and cordial hemispheric relations, said Arturo Lopez-Levy, a visiting professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Relations between Moscow and Havana, meanwhile, have intensified in recent months, with an uptick in bilateral projects and visits between senior officials.

But it can be difficult for Cuba to pay for the oil. Sometimes, countries ship the oil on credit, or in exchange for Cuban doctors coming to work in the country shipping the oil.

Cuba does not have money and I doubt that it will pay for that oil, said Pinon. I assume that Mexico, instead of paying in cash for the shipment of Cuban doctors, is doing it with oil, as Venezuela does.

Chevron vs. Cuba

Cuba has faced a multitude of fuel difficulties recently, including a fire at its main fuel storage center in Matanzas, and a drop in shipments from Venezuela, a regional ally.

Even with shipments from allies, the country often runs a deficit of at least 20,000 barrels a day, said Pinon.

The decision by Washington earlier this year to authorize US oil producer Chevron to expand productio...

Paris Japans Tokito Oda defeated top-ranked Alfie Hewett of Britain 6-1, 6-4 in the French Open wheelchair final to become the sports youngest Grand Slam champion on Saturday.

The 17-year-old is also guaranteed to become the youngest ever world number one in the discipline.

I was really happy to get the two dreams on the one day for the youngest player to be No. 1 in world and to win a Grand Slam title; so two dreams come true today. Its happiest day of my life, said Oda.

His win on Saturday avenged his defeat to seven-time major winner Hewett at the Australian Open in January.

It was first time for me on the Philippe Chatrier court. There were so many people in the crowd. Somebody say, Come on, Tokito, and somebody say, Allez, Tokito. I was really happy to hear that word.

The new world rankings will be released on Monday.

Yui Kamiji was unable to make it a Japanese double as she was defeated 6-2, 6-0 by Diede De Groot who collected her fourth womens title in Paris and 18th Grand Slam trophy.

De Groot of the Netherlands also won in Paris in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

The post Japans Oda, 17, becomes youngest Grand Slam wheelchair champion appeared first on Iraqi News.

Paris Novak Djokovic on Sunday faces Casper Ruud in his seventh final at Roland Garros.

AFP Sport looks back at his previous six championship matches at the tournament, a run which has yielded two wins and four defeats.

2012: lost to Rafael Nadal (ESP) 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5

In a final pushed into a third week for only the second time because of rain on the Sunday, Nadal, playing in his 16th Grand Slam final, took his Paris record to a staggering 52 wins against just one loss.

Victory, which was achieved on a Djokovic double fault, allowed him to break the tie for six French Opens he shared with Bjorn Borg.

For five-time major winner Djokovic, the Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open champion, it was the end of his dream of emulating Don Budge (1938) and Rod Laver (1962 and 1969) by holding all the Grand Slams at once.

He was left to regret his unforced error count of 53 which undermined his challenge.

2014: lost to Rafael Nadal (ESP) 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4

Nadal clinched his ninth French Open and 14th career Grand Slam title, becoming the first man to win five Roland Garros crowns in succession.

Every moment was crucial, all the points were so hard, said Nadal.

Djokovic dominated the early stages of the final, the pairs 42nd meeting, seemingly immune to the sweltering 30-degree heat on Philippe Chatrier court.

But Nadal, playing in his 20th Grand Slam final to Djokovics 13th, grew stronger as the final wore on as he ended a four-match losing streak against his old rival.

The 3hr 31min duel ended on a sour note when Djokovic double-faulted on match point, shaken by a shout from the crowd.

2015: lost to Stan Wawrinka (SUI) 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4

Djokovic saw his dreams of becoming just the eighth man to claim a career Grand Slam shattered again despite being the overwhelming favourite to beat Wawrinka, just as he had done in 17 of 20 previous clashes.

Im proud of the fight that I put into this match. It wasnt to be, said Djokovic whose Grand Slam tally at that stage remained at five Australian Opens, two Wimbledon titles and a single triumph at the US Open.

Djokovic was in tears on the presentation podium as the 15,000-capacity crowd inside Court Philippe Chatrier afforded him a lengthy standing ovation.

It gives me even more motivation to come back and keep on trying.

2016: defeated Andy Murray (GBR) 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4

Djokovic captured a first French Open and a 12th career major, joining Don Budge in 1938 and Rod Laver, in 1962 and 1969, as the only players to simultaneously possess the French Open, Australian Open, US Open and Wimbledon trophies.

But he did it the hard way as the final reached a tense conclusion, being broken in the eighth game of the fourth set as he served...