Watch: Scotland Women lead Switzerland after early goal flurry – Live – BBC Sport

<!–

<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–

<!–

<!–

The Syrian government and its major ally Russia have signalled that an all-out offensive to retake the last rebel-held province in Syria is only a matter of time, raising fears over a major humanitarian crisis.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem following a closed-door meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the majority of Syria had been “freed of terrorists”, save for Idlib, a northeastern province bordering Turkey.

“What we need to do now is to wipe out those terrorist groups which persist, particularly within the de-escalation area of Idlib,” he said.

“It is unacceptable that those terrorists particularly al-Nusra Front are using the de-escalation area of Idlib to attack the Syrian army and to also attack through drones the Russian military bases in the area,” he added referring to Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is dominated by a rebel faction previously known as al-Nusra Front before renouncing its ties to al-Qaeda.

For his part, Muallem said the Syrian forces will “go all the way” in Idlib but added that the army will do everything possible to avoid civilian deaths.

Humanitarian concerns

Idlib is home to nearly three million people, up to half of whom are rebels and civilians transferred en masse from other areas such as Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta and Deraa after they fell to Syrian pro-government forces following heavy fighting.

The situation on the ground is further complicated by the direct presence of Turkey, which backs certain rebel groups in the area and operates as a guarantor power to ensure a “de-escalation zone” agreed upon with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s allies Russia and Iran at a meeting in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana.

In recent weeks, Turkish-backed opposition groups in Idlib have attempted to unify into a new coalition, with some 70,000 fighters pledging to fight against forces loyal to Assad. But HTS, the most dominant rebel force in Idlib in control of about 60 percent of the province, has not joined the coalition.

A major military operation in Idlib would pose a particularly threatening humanitarian situation because there is no opposition territory left in Syria where people could be evacuated to. Observers have previously warned as many as 2.5 million Syrians could try to flee to the closed Turkish border, creating a new refugee crisis.

“The question is how costly the assault on Idlib is going to be,” said Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow.

“It’s not a question of if it will happen, it is a question of when and the severity of it,” he added, noting that the Russian and Syrian governments believe that the seven-year war will largely be over if they capture Idlib.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Warnings and reconstruction

Speaking at the press conference, Lavrov called on the international community to join in the reconstruction process of Syria and “actively get down to work on modernising the infrastructure which has been devastated”.

“We can see that there is a very swift mobilisation of the international community taking place particularly with regards to the return of the refugees and the revival of socioeconomic assets and facilities to make sure the country gets back to working order,” he said.

“The Russians know that as the pre-eminent military force in Syria, some of the responsibility of rebuilding Syria falls on them,” Challands said, “but they don’t want to shoulder all the bill, so they’re encouraging as many foreign powers as they can to chip in essentially and get the country back on its feet.”

Muallem said Russia and Syria are united in their views regarding the next stage of rebuilding Syria.

“It’s natural to think about Syria to find a reconstruction programme and to find a role for our partners in Russia to play a key role and priority in this,” he said, adding that both countries are very near to “putting an end to terrorism” in the country.

Both ministers warned against any “act of aggression” from western countries, particularly from the United States, citing staged chemical attacks by “provocateurs” such as the Syrian civil defence group the White Helmets being used as a pretext for such assaults.

“This kind of provocation is being staged as to complicate the whole issue of combatting the terrorists in Idlib,” Lavrov said. “We have warned our western partners clearly that they should not engage in this kind of activity.

Muallem accused the US and its allies of preparing for “another aggression to save al-Nusra Front” and protract the Syrian conflict.

“We will practise our legitimate right in defending ourselves, but the consequences of the aggression will hit the political process definitely and everyone will be [affected],” he said.

Nature of offensive unknown

Turkey, which hosts some three million Syrian refugees, has already stated that it will not open its borders to accept further refugees in the event an assault takes place.

The Syrian government said that it will open “humanitarian corridors” for civilians to evacuate, but according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent Zeina Khodr, many of the residents do not trust the government and remain fearful of their fate.

“Many of these people are considered terrorists or are wanted by the state simply because they engaged in opposition activities,” Khodr said, reporting from Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. “Being a medic according to the Syrian government is terrorism.”

Earlier on Thursday, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura warned that a potential “perfect storm” is looming over Syria’s Idlib province, and expressed his willingness to “personally and physically” involve himself to ensure a corridor to evacuate civilians would be feasible. 

While it is not yet clear what kind of offensive the Syrian government will engage in Idlib, Khodr said that there are still “behind the scenes negotiations between the Russians and the Turks” on this matter.

“What we understand from some sources is that Turkey is trying through its contacts in Idlib to convince Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham to disband itself to prevent this all-out offensive,” she said.

“We even heard Lavrov tell the Syrian government ‘we are talking about the need to reconcile with some groups’ telling them in one way or another that there will not be a wide-scale attack.”

Russia pushing forward

According to Alexey Khlebnikov, an expert with the Russian International Affairs Council, creating another refugee crisis will be contrary to Russia’s main priorities and interests.

“This is why Russia is now trying to negotiate with Turkey to reach a compromise on the deal to minimise damage inflicted on the population in Idlib,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Now, Russia’s message to the West is to get on board and join in the reconstruction process and humanitarian aid [which] basically goes in line with that message of retaking Idlib and not creating another refugee flow.”

But Khodr said that Western countries are not prepared to join in the reconstruction, insisting first on a “meaningful, credible, political transition” to Syria.

“[The Russians] have sidelined the political transition which will involve the Syrian government sharing power with the opposition,” she said, noting that Russia is trying to cement Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s hold onto power.

The narrative for Russia and Syria is that they have won the war and now want to talk about rebuilding the country and returning the refugees, she said.

“They’ve appealed to the international community, particularly to the West, to give them money to rebuild the towns so that refugees will return and leave Europe but it seems they do not have the support as of yet,” Khodr said.

Image: Shutterstock / pathdoc

Think your political rants on Facebook or Twitter are persuasive enough to get other people to change their opinions? Don’t flatter yourself.

A recent study from the Pew Research Center reveals that exposure to opposing views on social media has not caused most Americans to change their own stance on issues in the past year. Just 14 percent of the 4,594 US adults surveyed between May 29 and June 11 said they have changed their views about a political or social issue in the past year due to something they saw on social media.

Image: Pew Research center

“Certain groups, particularly young men, are more likely than others to say they’ve modified their views because of social media,” according to Pew Research Assistant Kristen Bialik. “Around three-in-ten men ages 18 to 29 (29 percent) say their views on a political or social issue changed in the past year due to social media.”

Image: pew research center

More Democrats and liberal-leaning independents have re-thought their views because of social media posts this year than Republicans and conservative-leaning Independents have, Pew found.

“Although most people have not changed their views on a political or social issue in the past year because of social media, those who have also tend to place a high level of personal importance on social media as a tool for personal political engagement and activism,” Bialik wrote.

Meanwhile, Pew conducted a similar survey with slightly different wording in 2016 and found that 20 percent of social media users had modified their stance on a social or political issue because of something they saw on one of these services. That time, the research firm asked users if they had ever done so. The more recent survey focused on whether users had in the past year.

This article originally published at PCMag
here

Apple will almost certainly take the wraps off its latest iPhones on Sept. 12. The company has just sent invitations to members of the press for a media gathering at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California, on that date, one year to the day when Tim Cook took the Steve Jobs Theater stage to unleash the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models, along with the iPhone X that was not only the first iPhone to crack $1,000, but also the first to ditch the Home button. (The 8 and 8 Plus shipped soon after; the X didn’t reach buyers until November.)

The invite featured two main words: “Gather round.”

Speculation this time around is that Apple could unveil three new iPhones, including a relatively ginormous iPhone X Plus of sorts, which is expected to have a 6.5-inch screen, making it by far the largest handset Apple has ever introduced.

If true, one of my initial questions is this: With such a large screen, how much of a footprint will the overall device have to have? And just how much, of course, will it cost?

The current X has a 5.8-inch display that Apple has managed to squeeze into a relatively compact display given its size. Despite surpassing a four-digit price tag, the X has become Apple’s best-selling iPhone.

A second rumored new entry promises the same 5.8-inch size screen as the X, only with more robust specs. 

A third, 6.1-inch model could be categorized as more of a budget handset, at least budget by Apple’s standards. Translation: Cheaper, but not cheap.

The best guess here is that all of the new phones, like the X before them, will do away with the Home button, in favor of touch gestures and the Face ID facial recognition system that also debuted on the X.

We already know, of course, that the phones will feature iOS 12, the operating system at the core of the Apple’s phones and iPad tablets. Now in public beta, the software will add Screen Time digital addiction tools and parental controls, and Group FaceTime chats, among other features and tools. The new software also makes navigation slightly easier for models without a Home button compared to iOS 11, perhaps reducing the learning barrier for some users.

Apple’s September event is likely to go well beyond iPhones. Apple could showcase a slew of other products, including a fresh Apple Watch, second-generation (and water-resistant?) AirPods, and maybe several new Macs, perhaps even a long overdue makeover for its MacBook Air notebook.

USA TODAY will be on the scene in Cupertino to cover all of Apple’s product announcements.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2LGIf4v

USA TODAY Sports
Published 11:20 a.m. ET Aug. 30, 2018 | Updated 12:48 p.m. ET Aug. 30, 2018

Europa League: Burnley face Olympiakos after Carabao Cup third-round draw – Live – BBC Sport

<!–

<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–
<!–

<!–

<!–

<!–

Tehran, Iran – A large sign looms over the entrance to Dr Sapir Hospital, Iran’s only Jewish medical facility located on a busy street in downtown Tehran.

“Love your neighbour as yourself,” it reads in Persian, echoing a command found in the Jewish religious text, Torah.

“From the beginning, there was a very important regulation in this hospital: We cannot ask about the religion of the patient. Here, we only ask about the pain of the patient,” Dr Siamak Morsadegh, the hospital director, explained. 

“We want to do our best for all the Iranian people,” added the middle-aged surgeon.

For 76 years, the Dr Sapir Hospital has been a fixture in Tehran’s Oudlajan neighbourhood, once a Jewish quarter just blocks from the capital’s centuries-old Grand Bazaar and Iran’s parliament.

Most of the Jewish residents in the area have since left, but the hospital has remained open, sustained by funds from the Tehran Jewish Committee. It continues to operate as a charity hospital serving mostly low-income patients from the predominantly Muslim neighbourhood.

Currently, 98 percent of the patients and 95 percent of the staff at Dr Sapir Hospital are non-Jewish.

Over the years, the hospital has weathered some of the most turbulent episodes of Iran’s history, such as the 1979 revolution, during which its medical staff treated protesters and hid them from the Shah’s feared secret police, the Savak.

But now, with the return of the US sanctions in the wake of Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Morsadegh and his hospital staff are facing the dilemma of how to take care of their most vulnerable patients.

Just like other hospitals across Iran, Dr Sapir Hospital’s access to imported medications for life-threatening conditions has turned precarious.

Although medicines from abroad are not covered in the first round of US sanctions that was announced earlier in August, the impact is the same as bank payments from Iran for these drugs are now blocked. As a result, disruption could have life-and-death consequences on ailing Iranians.

At the same time, the value of the currency, rial, has also plummeted against the US dollar, due to the economic uncertainty brought about by sanctions. That has driven inflation higher, forcing Iranians to spend more to afford treatment.

A second round of punitive measures against Iran’s energy sector are expected in November.

The US said those steps are necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear ambition, and to curb its influence in the Middle East. It has vowed to continue the pressure, until Iran decides to give in to its US demands – a prospect that Tehran has so far  rejected.

‘Punishing ordinary Iranians’

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had referred to the US moves as part of a “psychological war against Iran”.

According to a Tehran Times report, 40 percent of Iran’s pharmaceutical raw materials and five percent of its medicines are imported.

An article in the Independent recently reported about the shortage of chemotherapy drugs for cancer patients, following the reimposition of sanctions.

For Morsadegh, there is no doubt that the sanctions imposed by US President Donald Trump, a property tycoon and former reality TV star, are meant to punish ordinary Iranians.

“I am sure that Trump does not know what shame is, because he is doing his best to deprive the sick children in Iran from the treatment of their malignancy,” he said.

“A man, whose best activity is owning a casino, cannot understand the condition of a family with a sick child,” he added, surrounded by an Iranian flag and a portrait of Moses and Aaron – prophets in Abrahamic religions – inside his office at Dr Sapir Hospital.

Aside from his hospital duties, Morsadegh – who could be mistaken for the iconic American television character Tony Soprano, with his large build and baritone voice – is also a member of the Iranian parliament, the only Jewish among the 290 legislators.

Since 2008, he has represented the more than 25,000 Iranian Jews before the national assembly, also known as the Majlis.

Balancing both roles has a number of challenges, Morsadegh acknowledged.

“But we have a saying, ‘God loves the foolish and the surgeon’. And course God loves a foolish surgeon such as me. So he makes it work for me,” he said, clutching his prayer beads with his left hand.

Turning more sombre on the issue of US sanctions, and the animosity between Tehran and Washington, the doctor said Iranian Jews stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Islamic Republic’s policy.

“We are not a different group from other Iranian people. We are part of the Iranian nation,” he said, adding that there is no contradiction between being an Iranian and Jewish. 

“Any decision that is made by the Iranian nation, about its national interest, about its border and about its relationship with other people is accepted by Iranian Jews,” Morsadegh added.

Iran’s deep-rooted Jewish ties

Younes Hamami Lalehzar, a senior rabbi at Abrishami Synagogue, one of the more than 50 Jewish house of worships in Tehran, said it might come as a surprise to many but Jewish ties to Iran go back as far as 2,700 years ago.

It is believed that the Jewish heroine, Esther, and her uncle Mordechai are buried in the western Iranian city of Hamedan. According to Jewish biblical text, Esther was married to the Persian king, Xerxes.

In more contemporary history, Iran also welcomed Jews, who were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. And during Germany Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s rampage of Europe, Polish Jews sough refuge in Iran.

But there have also been periods of unrest, such as the forced conversion of Jews to Islam during the Safavid and Qajar era, and the migration of thousands of Iranian Jews to the US following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  

“Jewish lives in Iran are connected to other Iranian lives, they are not separated,” said Lalehzar, who is also an internal medicine specialist at Dr Sapir Hospital.

Lalehzar said Iranian Jews “share the sorrow” and experience of the whole country with the return of US sanctions.

‘We are united’

Khodad Asna Ashahri, a Muslim man who as the manager at Dr Sapir Hospital is Morsadegh’s most trusted deputy, said that throughout his five-decade-long career at the facility, Jewish and non-Jewish staff have worked side-by-side to serve patients “regardless of their religion, colour or origin”. 

During the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the hospital allotted at least 30 percent of its capacity to treat wounded soldiers, he said. At that time, many Iranian Jews fought and died in the war.   

 

Amid the reinstatement of sanctions against Iran and its consequence on the country’s healthcare, Ashahri said Iran “won’t submit to humiliation” by the US. 

“Muslims and Jews, we are all united. Even if our situation gets worse and worse, we won’t surrender to Trump’s demands,” said Ashahri, calling on the Us president to “stop these warmongering measures”.

Since his decision in May to withdraw the US from the landmark nuclear deal, Trump has said he is willing to speak to Iran’s leadership without preconditions – even though, his comments were instantly walked back by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who listed several steep demands for such a summit to take place.

Meanwhile Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the country’s most important political decisions, has ruled out negotiations with the Trump administration – a stance that Morsadegh backed.

“I must be crazy to again have a dialogue with a man, when he does not want to keep his promise,” he said. “We cannot tolerate this, and we cannot accept this.” 

No matter what Iran’s political and economic prospect would be, Morsadegh vowed to continue doing his “first passion” as a doctor “to decrease the suffering of the people” in Iran.

“Going to the parliament for me is a duty for my country and for the Iranian Jews. My work in this hospital is my duty as a human being.”

Image: lili sams/mashable

New iPhones are coming in September, and now we know exactly when.

Apple sent out invitations to press on Thursday for a special event on Sept. 12 at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, CA. Like clockwork, the company will likely announce this year’s new iPhones at the event as well as new Apple Watches and new iPads.

The event will kick off at 10 a.m. PT

The invitation doesn’t provide much a hint for what to expect. There’s only an outline of what appears to be Apple Park as seen from above in copper (could it be hinting at a new copper-colored iPhone?) and “Gather round” below it.

Apple is expected to announce three new iPhones this year: a 6.1-inch entry-level “iPhone 9,” an updated 5.8-inch iPhone X, and a 6.5-inch “iPhone X Plus.”

The 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch iPhones will come with OLED displays and likely a new and faster A12 processor and improved dual cameras.

The 6.1-inch entry-level iPhone, however, is rumored to look like the iPhone X, sporting an all-screen display and notch for Face ID, but the screen is said to be LCD and not OLED. This iPhone is also expected to only have a single rear camera. 

Rumors also suggest this new iPhone will not come with 3D Touch. Analysts predict it’ll cost somewhere between $700-800 and come in a variety of new colors.

New Apple Watches

Besides the new iPhones, Apple might also use the event to announce new Series 4 Apple Watches. Previous reports claim Apple will increase the display on both the 38mm and 42mm smartwatches without increasing the watch case itself. The new Apple Watches might also have improved heart rate detection.

New iPad Pros

New iPads could also make an appearance. The iPad Pro is due for an update and rumors say Apple will replace the 10.5-inch tablet with an 11-inch model. This new iPad Pro and the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro will reportedly have slimmed down bezels, but no notch.

AirPower at last

Oh, and Apple will probably finally ship the AirPower wireless charger a year after it was announced.

New MacBook?

Lastly, it’s also possible Apple will announce a new 13-inch MacBook Air replacement during the same event. Reports say it’ll resemble the current 12-inch MacBook which hasn’t been updated in two years and have a Retina display with thinner bezels.

This story is developing…

Channing Tatum, Gina Rodriguez, Common, James Corden, Yara Shahidi, Zendaya, and LeBron James star in the upcoming animated film Smallfoot — in which one Yeti sets out to discover whether humans really exist.

The animated movie opens Sept. 28.