U.S. worries Russian humanitarian operation in Syria may be ‘ruse’

U.S. worries Russian humanitarian operation in Syria may be ‘ruse’ The United States is trying to determine whether a Russian plan for a humanitarian operation in Syria is sincere, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday, adding that if it proves a « ruse » it could ruin cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

The 250,000 civilians trapped for weeks inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo have so far stayed away from « safe corridors » that Moscow and Damascus promised for those trying to escape the most important opposition stronghold in the country.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and its Russian allies declared a joint humanitarian operation for the besieged area on Thursday, bombarding it with leaflets telling fighters to surrender and civilians to leave.

U.S. officials have suggested the plan may be an attempt to depopulate the city so that the Syrian army can seize it. The Syrian opposition called it a euphemism for forced displacement of the inhabitants, which it said would be a war crime.

Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, has been divided since 2012 into government and rebel sectors. Retaking it would be the biggest victory for Assad in five years of fighting, and demonstrate the dramatic shift of fortunes in his favor since Moscow joined the war on his side last year.

This would also be an embarrassment for Kerry, who has led a diplomatic initiative with Moscow aiming to let the Cold War superpower foes cooperate against Islamist militants and restore a ceasefire for the wider civil war which collapsed in May.

Asked about the Russian operation, Kerry said Washington was still unsure of Moscow’s intent: « It has the risk, if it is a ruse, of completely breaking apart the level of cooperation. » « On the other hand, if we’re able to work it out today and have a complete understanding of what is happening and then agreement on the way forward, it could actually open up some possibilities, » he added, saying he had spoken with Moscow twice in the past 24 hours to try to clarify what Russian intentions.

The White House also voiced its doubts. « Given their record on this, we’re skeptical, to say the least, » White House spokesman Eric Schultz said at a news briefing.

TURNING POINT The fate of Aleppo in the coming weeks has the potential to be a turning point in a seemingly endless, multi-sided civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and drawn in most world and regional powers.

Pro-government forces with Russian backing have advanced in the three months since the ceasefire collapsed, and imposed a siege on the rebel-held sector of Aleppo since early July when they closed the main road out of the city.

The United Nations says food will run out within weeks for the people trapped inside, and has been trying to negotiate regular pauses in the fighting to allow humanitarian access.

So far, the safe zones have not been used. Syrian state television accused the rebels of preventing civilians from leaving, which rebels deny. A state TV reporter in Aleppo said reception centers with health and food supplies had been set up around Aleppo to receive civilians, but so far few had come through because rebel fighters were threatening them.

The main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) says it believes the aim is to cleanse the area so government forces can capture it.

« The world must not allow Russia to get away with disguising its assault on Aleppo with deceitful talk about humanitarian ‘corridors.’ Be clear – these ‘corridors’ are not for getting aid in, but driving people out. The brutal message to our people is – ‘leave or starve’, » HNC member Bassma Kodmani said.

Privately, U.S. officials fear the Russian proposal masks the real intent of its Syrian ally, to separate boys and men from the rest of the population, claim they are terrorists and either imprison or execute them, « as Assad and his father have done repeatedly at least since 1982, » said one official, discussing Washington’s analysis on condition of anonymity.

« Why would you evacuate a city that you wanted to send humanitarian aid to? » asked a second official.

Ghaith Yaqout al-Murjan, an activist in Aleppo, told Reuters civilians were avoiding the corridors as they were still unsafe: « There are people who want to leave because they can no longer bear the shelling by helicopters, jets, barrel bombs. … The rebels are not holding anyone if they want to leave. » « You are talking about the need to walk a kilometer in a battle where you are at risk of being hit from two sides. » The United Nations, which hopes to resume peace talks in August, has been circumspect since Russia announced the humanitarian operation, saying the proposal for safe corridors out could be helpful, but only if combined with humanitarian access for those who do not want to leave.

URGENT NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said there was « urgent need for improvement » in the plan, but that Moscow appeared to be open to suggestion.

Regular pauses for humanitarian access were necessary, he added, and the United Nations should be involved in managing any safe exit routes.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said safe corridors could only work if agreed by the warring parties, and there was no sign of any such agreement in Aleppo.

« The ICRC is not a big fan of humanitarian corridors, because it always runs the risk that there is the concept of safe areas, and everything outside those safe areas becomes an area of non-respect for international humanitarian law, » ICRC Middle East regional head Robert Mardini told reporters in Geneva.

Aid agencies say civilians have been unable to leave through the safe corridors because of fighting, and that the situation inside the besieged city is becoming increasingly perilous.

Save the Children quoted a doctor describing dire conditions of constant bombardment and mass casualties inside the city.

« Imagine the emergency room in any of the field hospitals doesn’t have more than five or six beds, and when responding to a massacre they receive up to 30-40 injured at the same time, » the doctor said in a statement released by the aid group.

At one bombing site, « a child less than 10 years old ran to me shouting ‘sir, please put my arm back’. His left arm was amputated and he held it with his right hand. He was begging me to put it back, and this is only one of so many tragedies that we see. » Separately, Save the Children said one of its maternity hospitals had been bombed by government forces in Idlib, another province where there has been fighting since a ceasefire collapsed in May.

Syrian maternity hospital supported by Save the Children bombed – charity A Syrian maternity hospital in a rebel-held area of Idlib province was extensively damaged on Friday after a direct hit, international charity Save the Children, which supports the hospital, said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in Syria’s five-year-old conflict, said air strikes hit the hospital and also a civil defence building.

The number of casualties is not yet known, a spokesman for Save the Children said.

The hospital in Kafer Takhareem, the only maternity facility for about 70 miles (110 km), works with around 1,300 women and children a month and delivered some 340 babies last month, the spokesman said. In another part of the northern Idlib countryside, air strikes on Friday killed at least five people and seriously injured more than 25, the Observatory said.

CIA chief Brennan not optimistic about Syria’s future as one countryCentral Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan said on Friday he was not optimistic about the future of Syria. »I don’t know whether or not Syria can be put back together again, » Brennan told the annual Aspen Security Forum. His comments were a rare public acknowledgement by a top U.S.official that Syria may not survive a five-year civil war in its current state.

‘Traitors’ Cemetery’ reserved for Turkey’s coup plotters Captain Mehmet Karabekir’s body was not washed before burial. Nobody recited prayers from the Koran before he was laid to rest in a hastily dug hole near an animal shelter, denied all Muslim rites.

He is among the dozens of Turkish soldiers accused of trying to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan and the government in a failed military coup this month, his fate a sign of the fury felt over a night of bloodletting that killed more than 240 people.

Karabekir lies with no tombstone next to three other two-metre deep holes prepared with a mechanical digger. He was the first to be buried in a plot of land of about a quarter of an acre sectioned off last weekend in a disused part of a construction site on the eastern outskirts of Istanbul.

Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas called it « The Traitors’ Cemetery » – established, he said, specifically for coup plotters in the military.

The government of Turkey – a predominantly Muslim country – has detained, removed or suspended tens of thousands of people in the civil service, military judiciary and elsewhere over their suspected links with perpetrators of the attempted putsch.

While the crackdown has drawn concern and criticism from Western capitals, rights groups and some domestic opponents of the government, most Turks have shown unity in their opposition to the coup attempt, with regular rallies of solidarity.

But, for many people, the retribution across the country has gone too far with the « Traitors’ Cemetery ».

There has been widespread criticism this week, not just from rights groups, but also from Turks who took to social media to express their opposition.

This reaction has led officials to distance themselves from the cemetery.

Even though Turkey’s religious authority has said it will not provide Islamic funeral services for coup soldiers, a spokesman told Reuters that top cleric Mehmet Gormez did not support the establishment of a burial ground for traitors, saying it was hurtful to the families of the dead.

On Thursday Mayor Topbas, who was among the local officials who came up with the idea, told broadcaster TGRT Haber that he had ordered the removal of its « Traitors’ Cemetery » signage – though it was unclear if the plot would continue to be used for the same purpose.

A spokesman for the mayor did not return repeated phone calls.

There is no suggestion that Erdogan or the central government had any link with the municipal decision to establish the Istanbul burial ground.

Local media reported that Karabekir’s family refused to claim his body, prompting the authorities to bury him in the makeshift grave on Monday. His sister-in-law, when contacted by Reuters, said the family did not want to make any comment and requested privacy.

« Nobody should go to God with such darkness, » said a resident in the Acibadem area of Istanbul, where officials and newspapers said Karabekir shot dead a local administrator as he and a group of soldiers tried to seize a building. She declined to give her name due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

POWER GRAB On July 15-16, rogue soldiers commandeered fighters jets, helicopters and tanks to close bridges and try to seize airports. They bombed parliament, police headquarters and other key buildings in their bid for power.

Erdogan blamed his ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic cleric, for orchestrating the attempted power grab and warned the perpetrators would pay a heavy price.

Gulen denies the accusations, but authorities have launched a crackdown on his vast network of followers, removing or suspending more than 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, teacher, diplomats and journalists.

Almost two thirds of Turks believe Gulen was behind the coup attempt, according to a phone poll of 1,496 people released on Tuesday. The Andy-Ar survey showed nearly 4 percent blamed the United States or foreign powers and about 2 percent blamed Erdogan.

The extensive purges that have followed have been internationally contentious. Erdogan’s critics fear he is using the events to crack down on all forms of dissent.

Rights group Amnesty International has said it had received credible evidence of detainees being subjected to beatings and torture, including rape, since the coup attempt – accusations roundly rejected by Turkish officials and the justice ministry.

The cemetery, guarded by private security guards and located inside the gated building site around 50 km (31 miles) east of Istanbul’s city centre, has won some approval from some Turks but has largely drawn criticism.

« This practice is not right and our president Gormez has expressed his disapproval of it to the relevant authorities, » the spokesman for the Religious Affairs Directorate said.

Following the criticism, Karabekir, buried on Monday, may be the only person put to rest there. »We have been told more people might be brought here but that hasn’t been the case, » said a security guard at the site.

Turkey’s Erdogan slams West for failure to show solidarity over coup attemptPresident Tayyip Erdogan condemned Western countries on Friday for failing to show solidarity with Turkey over the recent failed coup, saying those who worried over the fate of coup supporters instead of Turkish democracy could not be friends of Ankara.

Erdogan also rejected Western criticism of purges under way in Turkey’s military and other state institutions which saw more than 60,000 people detained, removed or suspended over suspected links with the coup attempt, suggesting some in the United States were on the side of the plotters.

« The attitude of many countries and their officials over the coup attempt in Turkey is shameful in the name of democracy, » Erdogan told hundreds of supporters at the presidential palace in the Turkish capital.

« Any country and any leader who does not worry about the life of Turkish people and our democracy as much as they worry about the fate of coupists are not our friends, » said Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and perhaps death on the night of the coup.

Turkey’s Western allies have condemned the coup in which Erdogan said 237 people were killed and more than 2,100 were wounded, but have been rattled by the scale of the crackdown in the aftermath. Images of detained soldiers with bruises and bandages have worried civil rights groups over mistreatment.

The purges have targeted supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of masterminding the July 15-16 failed coup, but Erdogan’s critics say he is using the measures to crack down on any dissent.

Erdogan also criticised the European Council and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to be a part of, for their failure to pay a visit to offer condolences, saying their criticism was ‘shameful’.

The Director of U.S. National Intelligence, James Clapper, said on Thursday the purges were harming the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq by sweeping away Turkish officers who had worked closely with the United States.

The head of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, said he believed some of the military figures whom the United States had worked with were in jail. Votel’s comments drew condemnation from Erdogan.

« Instead of thanking this country which repelled a coup attempt, you take the side of the coup plotters. The putschist is in your country already, » Erdogan said, referring to Gulen, who denied any involvement in the coup attempt.

In a statement released by the U.S. military on Friday, General Votel said any claims that he was involved in a failed coup attempt in Turkey were « unfortunate and completely inaccurate ».

White House spokesman Eric Schultz has also dismissed claims that Votel supported the coup plotters, and referred to U.S.

President Barack Obama’s comments from last week saying any reports that Washington had prior knowledge of the attempted overthrow were completely false.

Erdogan has blamed Gulen for masterminding the attempted coup and has called on Washington to extradite him. Turkish officials have suggested the U.S. can extradite him based on strong suspicion while President Obama last week insisted Turkey must first present evidence of Gulen’s alleged complicity in the failed coup.

MILITARY SHAKE-UP Late on Thursday Turkey announced a shake-up of its armed forces, NATO’s second largest, with the promotion of 99 colonels to the rank of general or admiral and the dishonourable discharge of nearly 1,700 military personnel over their alleged roles in the coup.

About 40 percent of all generals and admirals in the military have been dismissed since the coup.

Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik told broadcaster NTV on Friday that the shake-up in the military was not yet over, adding that military academies would now be a target of « cleansing ».

The purges have also hit government ministries, schools and universities, the police, civil service, media and business.

Seventeen journalists were formally arrested late on Friday over their alleged links with the coup plot while four others were released. Arrest warrants for dozens of others were issued earlier this week.

The number of public sector workers removed from their posts since the coup attempt now stands at more than 66,000, including some 43,000 people in education, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala said more than 18,000 people had been detained over the failed coup, and that 50,000 passports had been cancelled. The labour ministry said it was investigating 1,300 staff over their possible involvement.

Erdogan has claimed that Gulen harnessed his extensive network of schools, charities and businesses, built up in Turkey and abroad over decades, to create a secretive « parallel state » that aimed to take over the country.

Erdogan’s critics say he is using the purges to crack down indiscriminately on dissent and to tighten his grip on power.

With long land borders with Syria and Iraq, Turkey is a central part of the U.S.-led military operation against Islamic State. As home to millions of Syrian refugees, it is also the European Union’s partner in a deal reached last year to halt the biggest flow of migrants into Europe since World War Two.

Turkey hosts U.S. troops and warplanes at Incirlik Air Base, from which the United States flies sorties against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Those air operations were temporarily halted following the coup attempt.

Attempting to reassure the United States, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday that Turkey’s armed forces, « cleansed » of their Gulenist elements, would prove more « trustworthy … and effective » allies against Islamic State.

Nevertheless, there is a growing anti-U.S. mood in Turkey which is likely to harden further if Washington refuses to extradite Gulen.

Several hundred flag-waving protesters staged a peaceful protest march near the Incirlik base on Thursday, chanting « Allahu Akbar » (God is greatest) and « Damn the U.S.A », the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper reported. The protesters burned a U.S. flag.

« POWER POISONING » The crackdown on Gulenists pressed on unabated on Friday.

In the central city of Kayseri, a stronghold of Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party, police detained the chairman of furniture-to-cables conglomerate Boydak Holding and two company executives as part of the investigation into the « Gulenist Terror Group », Anadolu reported.

Prosecutors in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir issued orders to detain 200 police on Friday as part of the investigation targeting Gulenists, the Dogan news agency said.

In the Netherlands, a spokeswoman for the Gulenist community said supporters feared for their safety after dozens of death threats and acts of arson and vandalism in Dutch towns and cities in the past two weeks. Saniye Calkin said supporters in neighbouring Germany were reporting similar incidents.

Germany is home to Europe’s largest Turkish diaspora, while the Netherlands also has around half a million ethnic Turks.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, again maintained his innocence during an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper, saying he had himself suffered from previous coups in Turkey.

Asked why his once-warm ties with Erdogan and the AK Party had turned sour, Gulen said: « It appears that after staying in power for too long, (they) are suffering from power poisoning. » Gulen, whose Hizmet (Service) movement stresses the need to embrace scientific progress and inter-faith dialogue, said he still strongly backed Ankara’s bid to join the EU, saying this would buttress democracy and human rights in Turkey.

U.S. general denies involvement in Turkish coup attemptThe commander of U.S.Central Command, General Joseph Votel, on Friday rejected claims by Turkish officials that he supported a failed coup attempt earlier this month.

« Any reporting that I had anything to do with the recent unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey is unfortunate and completely inaccurate, » Votel said, according to the statement from U.S. Central Command.

Turkey has undertaken purges of its military and other state institutions following the failed coup, targeting the supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of masterminding the July 15-16 coup attempt.

Turkey’s Western allies condemned the coup attempt, in which at least 246 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured, but they have been rattled by the scale of the crackdown.

Votel issued his statement after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan condemned Votel’s earlier remarks that some military figures the United States had worked with were in jail as a result of the purge.

On Thursday, Votel said at a public forum that he was worried about « longer-term » impacts from the failed coup on counter-terrorism operations and the United States’ relationship with the Turkish military.

Those comments drew a condemnation on Friday from Erdogan.

« Instead of thanking this country which repelled a coup attempt, you take the side of the coup plotters. The putschist is in your country already, » Erdogan said, referring to Gulen, who has denied any involvement in the coup attempt.

Turkey’s cooperation in the fight against Islamic State is of paramount importance to Washington. It is a central part of the U.S.-led military operation against Islamic State, hosting U.S. troops and warplanes at Incirlik Air Base, from which the United States flies sorties against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Those air operations were temporarily halted following the coup attempt.

« Turkey has been an extraordinary and vital partner in the region for many years, » Votel said in his statement. « We appreciate Turkey’s continuing cooperation and look forward to our future partnership in the counter-ISIL fight, » he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Brazil nabs former Hezbollah member wanted for drug trafficking In a continued roundup of suspects who could have links to terrorism ahead of the Rio Olympics, Brazilian police said Friday they had arrested a Lebanese man who was a former member of the militant group Hezbollah and wanted for drug trafficking.

Fadi Hassan Nabha, 42, was arrested late Thursday at his home in Caieiras, a suburb of Sao Paulo, on orders from the Justice Ministry that has been seeking to expel him from Brazil, a spokesman for the military police said.

« We have been looking for him since May because he was wanted for drug traffic, not terrorism, » the spokesman Augusto Roque told Reuters.

Nabha, who has been on Interpol’s wanted list since 2013 for drug trafficking, told police he served in Hezbollah’s special forces for two years and had weapons and explosives training, Roque said. No weapons were found in his home, only false identity papers, Roque added.

Brazil does not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

While Nabha was not arrested on suspicion of terrorism, he was picked up a week before the Olympic Games open in Rio amid heightened security measures and concerns about Islamist extremist-inspired violence following attacks in European cities.

Brazilian authorities have particularly stepped up arrests and monitoring of anyone suspected of links to the Islamic State militant group as opposed to Hezbollah, a separate organization whose support comes from a different geographic region and a different branch of Islam.

« The government is on full alert and there have been preventive arrests of suspect elements, » Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer told foreign reporters on Friday.

Temer said no terrorist group has been discovered operating in Brazil but there was concern « a madman might do something. » On July 21, Brazil arrested 10 people suspected of belonging to a poorly organized group that supports Islamic State and had begun discussing terrorist acts during the Olympic Games. It has subsequently detained two more suspects in that case.

On Wednesday, police arrested a man, Chaer Kalaoun, in the state of Rio on allegations of posting apologies for Islamic State after monitoring his online activity.

Kalaoun’s lawyer denied he had any ties to terrorist groups and said police had also detained him before Brazil hosted the World Cup in 2014 on charges of illegal possession of firearms.South America’s first Olympics kicks off Aug. 5 with some 500,000 visitors expected to travel to Brazil. Authorities are on high alert following attacks in France and Germany in recent weeks.

Libya government, oil guards reach deal to reopen portsLibya’s U.N.-backed government has signed a deal with an armed brigade controlling the major Ras Lanuf and Es Sider oil ports to end a blockade and restart exports from the terminals shut down since December 2014.

Reopening the ports would be a huge step for the North African state, which since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi has slipped into chaos that has cut its oil output to less than a quarter of pre-2011 levels of 1.6 million barrels per day.

No specific date was set for restarting exports, but swift resumption would be hampered by technical damage from militant attacks and by opposition from the state-run National Oil Corporation, which objected to paying cash to reopen the ports.

Libyan Presidential Council deputy Mousa Alkouni signed the agreement late on Thursday with Ibrahim al-Jathran, commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guards, one of Libya’s many armed brigades that has controlled the terminals.

« I think the resumption depends now on technical part …

and I think also it will happen from within a week to two weeks, but not more, » Alkouni told Reuters by telephone.

He said the agreement included paying an unspecified amount in salaries to Jathran’s forces. He said they had not been paid wages for 26 months. Their role is protecting the oil ports, though critics have said they used it to extort money from Tripoli.

In a statement issued later on Friday, Alkouni said there was « absolutely no truth to rumours that the resumption of oil exports was the result of extortion or deals ».

Rival governments and a complex network of armed groups who once fought against Gaddafi and have quasi official status are vying for power and control of the country’s oil wealth, closing down pipelines and battling over export terminals.

Ali Hassi, a spokesman for Jathran’s PFG brigade, said no date had been decided for reopening the ports because that would depend on the National Oil Corporation. But he confirmed an agreement had been signed between the council and Jathran.

Jathran’s brigades led blockades of the ports starting in 2013, saying he was trying to prevent corruption in oil sales, though others disputed his motives. He has also called for more autonomy for his eastern region.

Opening Ras Lanuf and Es Sider would add a potential 600,000 barrels per day of capacity to Libya’s crude exports, though experts estimate damage from fighting and the long stoppage must be repaired before shipments are at full capacity again.

The NOC has said damage from recent attacks by Islamic State, which expanded in the country’s chaos, meant the ports would struggle to get beyond 100,000 bpd in the near term.

Beyond technical problems, NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla has also objected to any deal with Jathran, saying it was a mistake to reward the brigade commander by paying to end his blockade of the oil ports.

Sanalla said a deal including payments would encourage other groups to disrupt oil operations in the hope of a similar payout. The NOC has also threatened to withdraw its recognition of the Presidential Council.

Eurasia Group analyst Riccardo Fabiani said the agreement was likely to stick, unlike previous attempts to reopen the ports, because both sides had an interest in making it work.

Facing resistance from hardliners and protests over living conditions, the presidential council needs oil revenues to improve services and economic stability as a way of bolstering its legitimacy. Jathran is also increasingly politically isolated and has decided to side with the council.

« Despite recent attempts by the Tripoli-based NOC to undermine the agreement, the unity government decided to prioritize the reopening of the ports, » Fabiani said. « This deal will give the Tripoli authorities much-needed revenues and is a relatively easy political victory. »

Libyan forces battle Islamic State snipers for streets of Sirte Libyan forces made a fresh push on Friday to capture ground from Islamic State militants besieged in the centre of their former North African stronghold of Sirte.

Nearly three months into a campaign to recapture the city, brigades mainly composed of fighters from nearby Misrata are waging sporadic street battles in residential areas where militants use snipers, mines and concealed explosives to defend their positions.

The brigades advanced rapidly on Sirte after launching a counter-attack against Islamic State in early May, but their progress has slowed as they close in on the city centre.

Losing Sirte would be a major blow for Islamic State, which established total control over the coastal city last year and expanded its presence along about 250 km (150 miles) of sparsely populated land on either side.

The brigades fighting Islamic State are aligned with Libya’s U.N.-backed government, which arrived in the capital, Tripoli, in March. Western powers hope to unite rival factions that set up competing parliaments and administrations in the east and west of Libya in 2014 as their armed supporters fought for power.

But as the new government tries to impose its authority on a country still in turmoil, it has struggled to provide rapid financial and logistical support to the brigades in Sirte.

Friday’s fighting was focused on the « Dollar » neighbourhood, about 1.5 km southwest of the middle of the city.

« We are trying to take the whole of ‘Dollar’ – we control about 40 percent so far, » said fighter Mohamed Faraj Zourab.

« It’s slow progress because of the land mines, booby traps and snipers. » At least five brigade members were killed and 28 wounded in the fighting, medical officials at a nearby field hospital said.

Nearly all Sirte’s residents have left the city, and shots and artillery fire ring out amid emptied buildings now used by both sides for cover.

« We are trying to force them out house by house, » said another fighter, Mohamed Sbah. « We advanced by about five houses this morning. We saw the snipers making holes in the wall so they could move from one building to another. » Islamic State still holds several strategic sites in central Sirte, including the university, the main hospital, and the Ouagadougou conference hall, where fighters believe they have stocked large quantities of ammunition and provisions.

More than 300 of the fighters have died and more than 1,500 have been wounded since the campaign began. After heavy fighting, the brigades tend to hold back for several days, partly because of a lack of capacity to treat the wounded.

« Before, most of the injuries were from car bombs; now it’s snipers, » said field hospital doctor Marwan al-Mabrouk. « They are direct hits to the head or the heart, and only a minority survive. »

U.N. extends South Sudan mission, U.S. reports renewed violenceThe United Nations Security Council extended a peacekeeping mission in South Sudan on Friday until Aug. 12 as the United States warned that it had received « disturbing reports » of renewed violence in the south of the country.

The mandate for the U.N. mission was due to expire on Sunday, so the 15-member council unanimously renewed it for a brief period while they consider imposing an arms embargo on the world’s newest state and sending in more troops.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the council before the vote that the recent violence in Juba was « horrifying but sadly not unexpected » because the country’s leaders are unable to work together for their people.

« We have just received very disturbing reports of significant violence in the Equatorias (southern states) in South Sudan and all of us need to be on alert this weekend because events could spiral rapidly out of control yet again, » Power said.

« Let us not be fooled that time is on our side, it is not, » she said.

South Sudan descended into civil war after President Salva Kiir fired Riek Machar as vice president in 2013. The pair agreed a peace deal in August but implementation has been slow.

Heavy fighting involving tanks and helicopters erupted in South Sudan’s capital Juba for several days this month between troops loyal to Kiir and those backing Machar. At least 272 people were killed before the leaders ordered a ceasefire.

Reacting to the violence in Juba, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the Security Council to fortify the peacekeeping mission. He also urged an arms embargo and sanctions for leaders and commanders blocking implementation of an August peace deal.

U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in the country since it gained independence from Sudan in 2011. There are currently some 13,500 troops and police on the ground.

African leaders have called for the U.N. Security Council to authorize the deployment of a regional protection force to separate South Sudan’s warring parties.

Machar, who was reappointed vice president this year, left Juba after the fighting and said he would only return after international troops are deployed as a buffer force to separate his forces from Kiir’s. Kiir has now replaced Machar with General Taban Deng Gai, a former chief opposition negotiator who broke ranks with Machar.

French church attacker from troubled childhood to altar killer Adel Kermiche was an attention-seeking child whose behavioural problems frequently led him to a psychiatric hospital and later a specialist school. He died a coldblooded killer who slit the throat of an elderly French priest in the name of Islamic State.

The son of a working class Franco-Algerian family living just outside the Normandy city of Rouen, the teenager flipped between model student and aggressor as a youngster. He blipped on the radar of security services in early 2015, when he made his first failed bid to reach Syria.

Kermiche burst into a church on the outskirts of Rouen during morning mass on Tuesday with another teenage Islamic militant and killed the 85-year-old father at the altar, chanting in Arabic, before they were both shot dead by police.

« He was a loner. He was a troubled soul, he was all alone in his head, » said a neighbour of the Kermiche family house in a leafy Rouen suburb where the 19-year-old was forced to live under a court surveillance order. « All he would talk about was Syria. » A judicial source said Kermiche received regular psycho-therapy and medication between the ages of six and 13, at which point he was sent to school for pupils with behavioural problems.

What role Kermiche’s troubled background played in his conversion to a killer is not clear. Kermiche’s radicalisation, however, was swift.

His mother told Swiss newspaper La Tribune de Geneve last year that Kermiche became « bewitched » by hardline Islamic ideology after militants attacked the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in January, 2015. Two months later, he made his first attempt to reach Syria to wage jihad.

Investigators are digging into the relationship between Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Nabir Petitjean, who lived in a French alpine town 700 km (440 miles) away from Kermiche, and how the two communicated before staging their attack.

Kermiche frequently communicated with scores of followers on Telegram, a private communication channel whose encrypted message system makes tracking chatter difficult for intelligence agencies.

« SPREAD CARNAGE » In audio posts obtained by L’Express magazine and whose content was confirmed to Reuters by a police source, Kermiche told about 200 followers that going to Syria was no longer an option because of border controls, and urged them to launch attacks on French soil instead.

« You get a knife, go to a church, spread carnage, boom. You cut off two or three heads and you’re done, » he said.

Just hours before the attack, he posted another message saying « Download what’s coming next and share it widely!!!! ». He last logged onto the app at 9:46 a.m. from inside the Saint-Etienne church, but he failed to post any video of the killing.

The attack has raised questions over how security services can clamp down on the proliferation of online videos urging disillusioned Muslims to take up arms for Islamic State (IS) and other groups, as well as channels of communication on social media.

A Telegram spokesman said its public content was moderated on a 24/7 basis and « as a result IS channels usually go down within less than a day, mostly within hours. » But he said Telegram, like other encrypted messengers, did not have access to closed chats and communities and could not moderate their content.

In November, Telegram said it had identified and blocked 78 Islamic State-related broadcast channels in 12 languages on its site.

Conservative politicians have been scathing of President Francois Hollande’s security record, branding him soft on suspected militants. Kermiche himself was supposedly under close surveillance and wore an electronic tag.

Friends said he would routinely try to indoctrinate them.

« Each time we said something to him he would come back at us with a verse from the Koran, » said 18-year-old Redwan, a school friend of Kermiche. « He would tell us we had to fight for our Muslim brothers, that France was a country of infidels. » He tried reaching Syria twice. The first time, he was intercepted in Germany in March, 2015, using his brother’s identity card after his family reported him missing.

Sent back to France, he was charged with terrorism offences but released on bail ahead of a trial. He was banned from leaving his local area, but two months later he slipped away and was detained in Turkey, this time travelling on his cousin’s ID card.

France held Kermiche in detention until March this year when a judge ruled him fit for release under strict supervision, despite the protests of prosecutors. Forced to surrender his passport and fitted with an electronic tag, Kermiche was restricted to leaving his parents’ home for a few hours a day.

REVENGE Court documents first published by Le Monde and confirmed to Reuters by a judicial source showed he told the judge he regretted his attempts to leave for Syria.

« I’m a Muslim who believes in mercy, in doing good, I’m not an extremist, » he told the judge. « I want to get back my life, see my friends, get married. » Marc Trevidic – a former anti-terrorism judge who placed Kermiche under investigation but was not involved in the decision to release him – said in a interview with L’Express that he had struck him as determined and arrogant.

« His case is typical of these individuals desperate to go, but that justice manages to keep here. So they get their revenge by doing jihad in France, » he was quoted as saying.

In his quiet neighbourhood of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, local people said he was still openly discussing ways to escape again.

« My son bumped into him in March at a bus stop. He told him he had been pushed back from Turkey but would try again, he was being manipulated, » Sebastien, the father of Kermiche’s former school friend told Reuters at the local grocer.

« As a kid, he always needed to show off. He was hyperactive, very nervous, he created trouble to get attention, » he said.

Local residents said Kermiche did not come from a dysfunctional family, with a mother who taught in a local high school and a sister who trained as a doctor, adding that the wider Muslim community was well integrated in the area.

At the local mosque, Mohammed Karabila, head of the regional Muslim council, pointed at a small wall separating the mosque from Saint-Etienne’s second church as a demonstration of the harmony between the town’s religious communities. Kermiche, he said, was unknown at the mosque.

« We would have liked him to come to the mosque, » Karabila said. « But today, these kids’ mosque is Google, it’s the Internet. »

France church attackers ‘smiled’ and spoke of Koran One of the jihadists who murdered an elderly French priest smiled as he carried out the attack, and nuns who witnessed the grisly murder said the killers spoke about the Koran.

The two nuns who were in the church when Father Jacques Hamel was killed, his throat slit on the altar, said the men appeared aggressive and nervous during the attack at the Eglise Saint-Etienne in Normandy on July 26.

Then, one of the attackers seemed pleased.

« I got a smile from the second (man). Not a smile of triumph, but a soft smile, that of someone who is happy, » nun Sister Huguette Peron told Catholic newspaper La Vie on Friday.

Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, both 19, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and both were killed by police in the shock attack.

The men stormed the 17th-century stone church during mass in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, taking several hostages before killing the priest and seriously wounding another captive.

One nun fled the scene and alerted the police, leaving Sister Huguette and Sister Helene Decaux, both in their 80s, in the church with the jihadists.

At one point, Sister Helene got tired and asked to sit down.

« I asked for my my cane, he gave it to me, » she said.

Then the men started talking about religion, asking the nun if she was familiar with the Koran.

« Yes, I respect it like I respect the Bible, I’ve read several suras. And those that hit me in particular are the suras about peace, » Sister Helene responded.

One of the attackers replied: « Peace, it’s what we want… as long as there are bombs on Syria, we will continue our attacks. And they will happen every day. When you stop, we will stop. »

Neighbours and acquaintances said Kermiche was « obsessed » with going to Syria, where an international coalition including France is carrying out air strikes against the IS jihadist group.

« Are you afraid to die? » one of the attackers asked.

The nun said no, then he said: « Why? »

« I believe in God, and I know I will be happy » Sister Helene said, as she quietly prayed to herself.

Then they started talking about God.

« Jesus cannot be God and a man. It is you who are wrong, » one of the men said.

« Maybe, but too bad, » Sister Huguette replied.At that moment, she prepared for her own death, not knowing what was coming next. »Thinking I was going to die, I offered my life to God » she added.

Paris attacks ‘accomplices’ charged in France French authorities filed terror charges on Friday against two suspected members of the same Islamic State cell that massacred 130 people in Paris last November, a judicial source said.

The 29-year-old Algerian Adel Haddadi and the 35-year-old Pakistani Mohamad Usman were charged with « criminal conspiracy with terrorists », the source said of the men turned over earlier Friday by Austrian authorities.

Investigators believe they travelled to the Greek island of Leros on October 3 on the same boat full of refugees as two men who took part in the November 13 attacks.

Those two, thought to be Iraqis, blew themselves up outside the Stade de France stadium, one of a series of brazen assaults by around 10 people around the French capital.

But Haddadi and Usman were held up, detained by Greek authorities for 25 days because they had fake Syrian passports.

Once let go, they followed the main migrant trail and made it to Salzburg in western Austria at the end of November — after the Paris attacks.

Austrian police commandos then arrested them in December at a migrant centre a few hours after French authorities informed them the men could be in the country.

Austrian police said on Friday « that during the entire journey and until their arrest the men remained in constant contact with the terror group ‘Islamic State’. »

After his arrest, Haddadi told investigators that he wanted to go to France to « carry out a mission, » according to a statement seen by AFP.

A source close to the investigation said that Haddadi « was meant to take part in the Paris killings with his travelling companions. »

After France filed a European arrest warrant, a court in Salzburg approved at the beginning of July the transfer of the two men to France.

Usman is reportedly thought to be a bomb maker for Pakistani extremist organisations including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

India holds LeT, allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda, responsible for attacks in 2008 in Mumbai that killed 166 people.

Usman unsuccessfully appealed against his transfer from Austria, saying he would not get a fair trial in France and that he feared for his safety.

Salzburg prosecutors added Friday that two more men, a Moroccan and an Algerian arrested eight days after the others, remained in custody. In December prosecutors had said that the men, aged 25 and 40 at the time, were being held « because of indications of close contact » with the two now transferred to France.

Iran’s global banking problems deepen with rise of Trump, Brexit Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the rise of U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump have paralysed efforts by Western governments to encourage already highly reluctant international banks to do business with Iran.

Uncertainty is frustrating Tehran’s push for foreign investment to revive its struggling economy: over Britain’s political and economic future, over whether Trump – who wants to scrap a nuclear deal with Iran – will get into the White House, and over whether banks will fall foul of U.S. sanctions if they process transactions with the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s failure to get full access to the global financial system a year after it signed the nuclear deal with world powers has intensified domestic political infighting. It has also turned up the heat on President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist facing re-election next year, who has gambled on attracting foreign investment to help raise voters’ living standards.

Under the deal, international financial sanctions on Iran were officially lifted in January this year and yet it has secured banking ties with only a limited number of smaller foreign institutions.

One senior Iranian official said Tehran was examining alternatives. « Iran will continue to work with small banks, institutions as long as major European banks are reluctant to return to Iran, » said the official.

« Our estimation is that this uncertainty will continue for a few years. We are in talks with many countries, mainly China, Russia and African countries to widen our banking cooperation aimed at resolving existing banking, financial problems. » U.S. banks are still forbidden to do business with Iran under domestic sanctions that remain in force. European lenders also face major problems, notably rules prohibiting transactions with Iran in dollars – the world’s main business currency – from being processed through the U.S. financial system.

Banks remain nervous following a string of heavy U.S.

penalties, including a $9 billion fine on France’s BNP Paribas in 2014, largely for violating U.S. financial sanctions.

WATCH AND SEE Britain says it remains committed to tackling the banks’ concerns, while the U.S. Treasury says it won’t stand in the way of legitimate business with the country.

However, Iranian officials and foreign bankers believe the British political upheaval after last month’s referendum has distracted governments in London and other European capitals, while the possibility that the shock will send the British economy into recession has deepened banks’ caution yet further.

« Fear over Brexit’s financial consequences have made Britain and other European countries more careful over their interaction with Iran. Most of them have adopted the policy of watch and see, » another senior Iranian official told Reuters.

« The British banks and authorities have a very big problem to deal with and since the vote, they have been less eager about Iran and I can even say almost not interested. Of course, we believe we can still work with British banks and have told them so. » European banks have generally cited the U.S. elections as a political risk, while avoiding detailed comment on how a victory for the Republican nominee Trump might affect their business.

However, another Iranian official, who also declined to be identified, said the election and Trump’s promise to tear up the Iran nuclear deal if he wins was complicating Tehran’s efforts.

« Major European banks are worried about its outcome. An official from a German bank told us recently that they could not risk getting involved in Iran especially when Trump was a candidate, » the official said.

EXTREME NERVOUSNESS Many large banks also fear breaking the remaining U.S.

restrictions on Iran, including on dealing with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – a military force that has extensive business interests including through front companies.

« Banks appear to be increasingly reluctant to do business now with Iran, » said a sanctions manager at a UK-based bank.

« It’s the unidentifiable IRGC links – there is extreme nervousness about that whole issue from a reputational risk perspective. » In June, FATF, a global group of government anti-money-laundering agencies, decided to keep Iran on its blacklist of high-risk countries. FATF did welcome Iranian promises to improve and called for a one-year suspension of some restrictions, but this did little to ease the banks’ fears.

It’s hard to quantify how much financing Iran has received since the sanctions were lifted but the sums are small by international standards.

« The first signs of a real economic improvement will not be seen before 2019, assuming everything goes smoothly, » another Iranian official said. « This issue is crippling the economy, blocks the government’s economic plans and that is why the government is pushing hard in many ways to resolve this issue. » Hardliners in Iran are blaming Rouhani’s faction for the failure of the deal to deliver a swift improvement in living standards, at a time when prices for oil exports are low and the promised foreign investment has yet to arrive.

« The government has to fight on two fronts: at home and abroad. Rivals of the president do their utmost to weaken him, by criticising the shortcomings and the slow pace of economic improvement, » a separate official close to Rouhani said.

The search for alternatives is on. The top adviser to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been to Russia several times since the nuclear deal, while Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has also visited African countries in recent days, with Iran expressing willingness to boost economic cooperation.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Iran in January, discussing trade opportunities. That same month a top Iranian central bank official said the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China wanted to open branches in Iran.

FEAR FACTOR A failure to revive the economy may boost the hardliners who are much more hostile to the West than Rouhani’s faction. But any pressure from Western governments on the banks to play ball seems to have achieved little.

The Royal Bank of Scotland declined to comment, but Lloyds Bank said it was mindful that « Iran remains a higher risk country with which to do business ».

Standard Chartered said it will not « undertake any new transactions involving Iran or any party in Iran ». HSBC reiterated it had no intention of doing any new business involving the country.

A source close to Barclays said a significant number of U.S. citizens held senior roles at the bank and it also offered banking services through its U.S. operations. Iran also presented a higher money laundering and terrorist financing risk, so the bank continued to restrict business activity with the country, the source said.

Americans at Barclays include chief executive Jes Staley.

A senior manager with a German bank confirmed the lack of interest despite the German government’s views.

« Berlin is not amused that German banks are so reserved in doing business with Iran, » the manager said. « If there is no progress in Iran, there is a risk that the Iranian government comes under pressure and that the hardliners get the upper hand.

Iranian hardliners have argued for a long time that you can’t do a deal with the West. » KEEPING BELOW THE PARAPET A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman said Treasury officials were not going to stand in the way of permissible business activities with Iran. They had travelled worldwide to provide guidance to governments, companies, and financial institutions, she noted.

On July 12, Britain’s Foreign Office said a meeting between Iran’s central bank, the U.S. Treasury, British officials and international banks in London had been postponed.

The resignation of prime minister David Cameron following the Brexit vote and a cabinet reshuffle by his successor Theresa May, who took office on July 13, has complicated matters.

« The new government has bigger priorities related to Brexit and the impetus to push the banking issue is likely to take more of a back seat now. Iran relations will also be affected by officials moving to other offices due to Brexit, » a Western source said.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said it was in both countries’ interests that legitimate business was supported. « Some challenges remain, but we are committed to working through them with international partners, Iran, and the banking community, » she said.

A British trade visit to Iran scheduled for May was postponed. Banking sources said this was partly due to bankers’ reluctance to join it.

A British official said the new government was keen for the visit to go ahead this year.

But the UK sanctions manager was sceptical: « I would be hugely surprised if any of the UK banks would go. I do not think any of the banks want to stick their head above the parapet. »

Clinton gets down to campaign business with U.S. Rust Belt trip Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took her newly energized White House bid on the road on Friday for a tour of crucial « Rust Belt » states Pennsylvania and Ohio, but the campaign’s focus was clouded by a newly disclosed cyber attack.

Reuters on Friday reported that the computer network used by Clinton’s campaign, which is based in Brooklyn, had been hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, citing people familiar with the matter.

The campaign said a data program maintained by the Democratic National Committee and used by the campaign and other entities was accessed as part of a cyber attack on the DNC. The Clinton campaign said outside experts had found no evidence that its internal systems had been compromised.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives had also been breached, the second such incident after last weekend’s leak of DNC emails.

Revelations from the DNC emails gave the Democratic convention a rocky start, threatening a bid to reunify the party after a bitter primary campaign.

Even so, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday showed Clinton leading Republican rival Donald Trump by 6 percentage points.

Nearly 41 percent of likely voters favor Clinton, 35 percent favor Trump, and 25 percent picked « other, » according to the new July 25-29 online poll of 1,043 likely voters, which overlapped with the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

After a speech Thursday night in which she became the first woman to accept a major party’s presidential nomination, Clinton launched a three-day bus tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania, which like other Rust Belt states have been hit by the decline in U.S.manufacturing.

Clinton and her vice presidential running mate, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, on Friday attended a rally at Philadelphia’s Temple University, toured a factory in Hatfield and ended the day in Harrisburg. They will continue onto Ohio on Saturday and Sunday.

Clinton is likely to face a tough challenge in such states from Trump, a New York businessman who is trying to win white working-class voters with rhetoric blasting free trade and illegal immigration.

Clinton and Kaine are using the Rust Belt tour to highlight manufacturing successes and discuss how they plan to boost wages for the middle class. In the process they aim to contrast their vision for the country with the one offered by Trump.

« If you’re looking for a kind of pessimistic, downbeat vision of America, we’re not your folks, » Clinton said in Hatfield. « We do not buy into that dark, divisive, image that was presented at the Republican convention last week. » Opinion polls show a potentially tight race in Ohio and Pennsylvania, both of which President Barack Obama won in the 2012 election.

« The differences are stark, » Kaine said in Harrisburg.

Clinton and Trump are essentially tied in Ohio, where the Republicans held their convention last week, according to an average of polls by RealClearPolitics. Clinton has a lead of 4.4 percentage points in Pennsylvania, the website’s average of recent polls showed.

Ohio and to a lesser extent Pennsylvania are among a handful of competitive states traditionally viewed as decisive in presidential elections, because they do not lean heavily Democratic or Republican.

TV VIEWERSHIP LOWER FOR CLINTON In her speech on Thursday, Clinton, 68, a former first lady and U.S. senator, promised to make the United States a country that works for everyone if she is elected.

« We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against. But we are not afraid, » she said. Clinton portrayed Trump as a threat to the country, saying, « A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons. » Trump, 70, sent out a flurry of comments on Twitter on Friday morning lambasting media coverage of the speech as « a joke, » calling the address « very long and very boring » and accusing Clinton of wanting to shut down « coal mines, steel plants and any other remaining manufacturing. » He campaigned in another swing state, Colorado, on Friday and was scheduled to visit Ohio next week.

The U.S. television audience for Clinton’s acceptance speech was smaller than the viewership of Trump’s address a week earlier, according to ratings data released on Friday.

An estimated 29.8 million people watched Clinton across 10 broadcast and cable networks, Nielsen data showed. Trump drew 32.2 million viewers in his July 21 address at the Republican National Convention.

Economic issues will be crucial as the White House campaign enters its final three-month stretch. The U.S. economy grew by only 1.2 percent in the second quarter, far less than expected, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

During the Rust Belt trip, Clinton will detail her pledge to raise wages and create jobs by unveiling a major infrastructure package within the first 100 days of her presidency, and encouraging companies to invest in workers.

The start of the Democratic convention was overshadowed by the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who quit over leaked emails showing party officials favored Clinton over her primary rival Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator of Vermont.

Cyber security experts and U.S. officials said on Monday there was evidence that Russia engineered the release of the emails in order to influence the election. The Kremlin has denied the accusations.

Yet another hack came to light on Thursday, when four people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a cyber attack against the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which raises money for Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives. The DCCC confirmed on Friday that it had been the target of a cyber security incident.

Trump to Clinton ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy’U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he was taking the gloves off in his battle against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House after taking a scorching from speakers at the Democratic National Convention.

Trump wrapped up a five-day, seven-state campaign swing in Colorado on Friday, where for a fifth straight day his supporters chanted « lock her up » whenever he brought up Clinton’s name.

Trump supporters say Clinton deserves to be prosecuted for her handling of U.S. foreign policy as President Barack Obama’s first-term secretary of state and for her use of a private email server while in that office.

All week Trump has sought to tamp down the chants by stressing that his main goal is to simply beat Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

But as the crowd chanted the slogan in Colorado Springs, Trump finally relented.

« I’m starting to agree with you, frankly, » he said. « No more Mr. Nice Guy. » Trump was a punching bag at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, which wrapped up Thursday night, as speaker after speaker – including some Republicans – said he lacked the temperament to be president. Clinton herself said in her acceptance speech that the election represented a « moment of reckoning » for the country.

Later in his stump speech, Trump criticized Clinton sharply, but got sidetracked by a couple of disputes from last year as he tried to rebut a Clinton campaign ad.

That ad uses video clip from Trump’s attack on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in protest of her questioning of him at a debate of Republican presidential contenders last August when he said afterward that blood was « coming out of her eyes, coming out of her wherever. » « I was talking about her nose, » Trump said in Colorado Springs. « I wanted to get back on the issue of taxes » at the debate.

Trump also brought up the case of disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, whom Trump seemed to mock publicly in video used by the Clinton ad.Trump said he was depicting the reporter groveling to him. »I didn’t know he was disabled. I didn’t know it at all. I had no idea, » he said.

POLL-Clinton leads Trump by 6 points after Democratic confab Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a 6- percentage-point lead over Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll with new wording that was released on Friday, the day after she formally accepted her party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 election.

Nearly 41 percent of likely voters favor Clinton, 35 percent favor Trump, and 25 percent picked « Other, » according to the new July 25-29 online poll of 1,043 likely voters, which overlapped with the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

The poll has a credibility interval of 4 percentage points.

The presidential tracking poll reflects a slight change of wording from previous surveys, replacing the « Neither/Other » option given to respondents with just « Other. » An internal review had found the word « Neither » has, at times, siphoned support away from one or the other candidate.

Former Secretary of State Clinton delivered an upbeat keynote address at the Democratic convention on Thursday night, as she became the first woman to accept the presidential nomination from a major party.

In the biggest speech of her more than 25-year-old career in the public eye, Clinton, 68, cast herself as a steady leader at a « moment of reckoning » for the country, and contrasted her character with what she described as Trump’s dangerous and volatile temperament.

Trump, a 70-year-old New York businessman and former reality TV show host who has never held political office, responded in a Twitter post late on Thursday that « Hillary’s vision is a borderless world where working people have no power, no jobs, no safety. » Both candidates were on the campaign trail on Friday, kicking off what is expected to be a hotly contested general election battle.

A separate Reuters/Ipsos survey that provided respondents with the option to choose from Clinton, Trump, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, has Clinton and Trump tied at 37 percentage points. Of the alternative party candidates, Johnson came in third with 5 percentage points, followed by Stein at 1 percentage point, according to the July 25-29 survey of 1,426 likely voters, which has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points.

Obama to showcase TPP after trade deal demonized in campaign During a visit from Singapore’s prime minister on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will extol the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and commit to getting the deal done, a top White House official said on Friday, even though Obama’s fellow Democrats panned it at their convention this week.

Obama wants the U.S. Congress to approve the 12-nation trade deal, which he sees as a central part of his economic and foreign policy legacy, before he leaves the White House on Jan.

20.

Free trade deals have been blamed for U.S. manufacturing plant closures, job losses and stagnant wages. Obama has cast the TPP as righting the wrongs of past trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. Both countries also are part of the TPP.

Both Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump oppose the TPP, and it has become a hot-button issue in the campaign to replace Obama.

Congressional leaders have been pessimistic about the odds of ratifying the deal either during the short session in September, or during the brief « lame duck » session after the Nov. 8 election.

When Obama rolls out the red carpet for Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, one of the main goals will be « lifting up the benefits » of the TPP, said Daniel Kritenbrink, top Asia policy adviser at the White House National Security Council.

« I predict he will also once again say to the prime minister that he’s committed to getting TPP done and doing so before the end of his term, » Kritenbrink told reporters on Friday.

« TPP is going to be great for the American economy, for American workers and American companies, » Kritenbrink said, noting Singapore, a signatory to the deal, strongly supports it.

Trump has argued vociferously against multinational trade deals like TPP, saying he would prefer instead to have deals with specific countries one on one. On Thursday night at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Trump said TPP should be rejected.

« I like trade where the United States makes a lot of money, » he said.

Trump has been critical of Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state, and her vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine, for shifting their positions to oppose the trade deal.

Signs protesting the deal were prominent during the Democratic convention, which wrapped up on Thursday.

Kaine, a Democratic senator who had praised the TPP deal until he joined Clinton’s ticket, told CNN on Friday that he was concerned the deal gives corporations the power to challenge trade practices, but not unions or environmental groups.

« The deal is going to come up for a vote and I can’t vote for it with these secret courts that are open to the companies only, » Kaine said in the interview.

Obama is « acutely aware » of the difficult election year politics for the TPP but that will not stop him from forging ahead, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters on Friday. « The president absolutely believes this deal should pass this year, » Schultz said.

Russia has motive, capability and form for U.S. email hack The Kremlin says it had zero involvement in the hacking of Democratic Party emails while U.S.officials say the hack originated in Russia. We may never know who is right, but one thing is for sure – Russia had motive, capability and form.

Seen through Kremlin eyes, Moscow would only be doing what it feels the United States has been doing to it for years anyway – interfering in a geopolitical rival’s domestic politics in an attempt to destabilise and shape events.

President Vladimir Putin said in February he had seen specific intelligence suggesting Russia’s foreign enemies – code for Washington – were preparing to meddle in Russian parliamentary elections later this year.

And in 2011, Putin accused the U.S. State Department and Hillary Clinton, its then head, of stirring up street protests against his rule.

« We need to head off any external attempts to interfere in the elections, in our domestic political life, » Putin, who is facing re-election in 2018, told officers from Russia’s FSB security service in February.

« You know that certain kinds of (political) technologies exist and have already been used in many countries. » That was shorthand for Ukraine, Libya, Egypt and Syria, which Putin thinks Washington irresponsibly destabilised. People who have studied him for years say he believes the United States is trying to foment the same kind of unrest to oust him.

His credo, set out when talking about Islamic State last year, is to strike first « if a fight is inevitable » and, as Russia has shown in its reaction to what it sees as NATO’s aggressive build-up near its borders, to respond in kind.

« Clearly the Kremlin feels it should and can insert itself into domestic politics in other countries in much the same way it believes the United States and Europe insert themselves into Russian politics, » Samuel Greene, the director of the Russia Institute at London’s King’s College, told Reuters.

« In their view it is fair play. They have seen the West involving itself in politics in Ukraine and other former parts of the Soviet space and feel they should be able to pretty much do the same thing. » He said such disruptive behaviour was driven by a calculation: to stir up trouble in other countries so they have less bandwidth to focus on Russia.

Mark Galeotti, senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, said he believed another motive for the hack – if Russia was behind it – would be to portray U.S. democracy as venal and chaotic and so take the sting out of Western accusations that Russian elections are corrupt.

Kremlin-backed media has tilted its coverage in favour of Trump over Clinton, and Putin has praised the Republican candidate as « very talented ». But Greene said he thought what would matter most to Moscow would simply be to destabilise and to ensure that whoever won on Nov. 8 emerged as a weak figure.

Navigating a grinding economic crisis caused by low oil prices, and at odds with the United States over both Syria and Ukraine, Putin is under pressure.

He needs the West to lift the sanctions it imposed on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, which have cut off access to Western credit markets and technology imports.

Above all, though, he wants to make sure that external forces do not derail his own push for continued dominance in a political landscape where the liberal opposition is almost completely absent from TV screens and parliament.

RED WEB Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, said earlier this year there had been a spike in the number of cyber attacks on Russian government bodies and critical infrastructure by foreign intelligence services.

And Putin, speaking in February, complained about what he said were more than 24 million attacks in the past year.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the FSB and co-author of Red Web, a book about the Kremlin’s sprawling surveillance machine, told Reuters he thought if Russia had hacked the Democratic Party it would have been to send a signal that it could do the same and wanted U.S. intelligence services to desist.

« This could have been an attempt to deter the United States (from hacking and meddling), to try to shake the U.S.

establishment, and to try to weaken Clinton, » said Soldatov.

« It’s pure politics, it’s not about military secrets. » In Moscow, Trump, who has spoken of his desire for better relations with Russia and praised Putin, is seen as far more likely to cut a sanctions deal with Russia, while Clinton is regarded as a hawk on Russia.

« Everyone in Moscow believes that with Clinton in the White House it would be absolutely impossible to get the sanctions lifted, » said Soldatov.

Trump has already raised hackles in Ukraine by saying he would be willing to consider lifting sanctions.

CAPABILITY Experts say the Russian state, via the FSB, has a well developed offensive hacking capability. It has previously been accused of deploying that capability in Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine. Russian military intelligence, GRU, is known to have similar capabilities, Soldatov said.

There are also other non-state hacker groups which experts say sometimes collaborate with the security services, motivated by patriotism or money.

Galeotti said Russia’s capacity to mount cyber attacks had increased over the past two years. Previously, Moscow would force amateur hackers into its service, he said, but lately « what we are seeing is much more of a push towards creating professional in-house capacity ».

In this case, however, Soldatov said he thought it more likely that amateur hackers would have been responsible for the U.S. hack rather than the FSB or GRU who, if involved at all, would have played only a very minor role. One reason for reaching that conclusion was how sloppily and hastily prepared the cover-up of the hack looked, he said.

Oil rout erodes 2nd-qtr profits for U.S. majors Exxon, Chevron Chevron Corp posted its worst quarterly loss since 2001 on Friday and Exxon Mobil Corp reported a 59 percent slide in profit, as the long crude price rout and tumbling refining income inflicted pain across the energy sector.

The weak results from two of the world’s largest oil producers come as the energy industry is at a crossroads, trying to survive in an era of low prices, which many analysts see as the new status quo, while funding expensive growth projects crucial for long-term survival.

« It’s a challenging environment for the integrated » oil producers, said Brian Youngberg, an energy analyst with Edward Jones. « The key is to manage the cash flow as best they can and continue to execute on projects, which they do appear to be doing. » Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, shocked Wall Street as its quarterly profit missed expectations, sending its shares down as much as 4.5 percent on Friday.

Its profit from producing oil and gas fell about 85 percent to $294 million. In the United States, where Exxon is the largest natural gas producer and a major oil producer, the company lost money.

Exxon executives defended their business model, saying they have the financial flexibility to do many things, including large acquisitions, while maintaining their dividend. The company did cut most of its share buyback program earlier this year.

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the company’s vaunted « AAA » credit rating to « AA+ » earlier this year, as dividends and capital expenditures were exceeding cash flow.

This month Exxon said it would pay more than $2.5 billion in stock for InterOil Corp, expanding its push into the Asian liquefied natural gas market.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S.-based oil producer, reported its largest quarterly loss in 15 years, with Chief Executive Officer John Watson acknowledging the company is in the midst of an « ongoing adjustment to a lower oil price world. » The company lost $1.47 billion in the quarter, compared with a net profit of $571 million in the year-ago period.

Still, Chevron’s results beat expectations, with analysts confident in the company’s ability to cut costs as it brings several large projects online in the next few years.

The results from both companies came after disappointing results from European peers Shell and BP earlier this week.

‘RESOLUTE’ ON DIVIDENDS The weak results could force the companies to reconsider their long-held policies of maintaining and growing their quarterly dividends, especially after ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Corp and others cut their payouts earlier this year.

So far during this two-year downturn Exxon and Chevron have held their dividends as sacrosanct, while curbing stock repurchases.

Chevron Chief Financial Officer Pat Yarrington sidestepped questions about a potential dividend increase later this year on the company’s quarterly conference call, saying only the board of directors « fully understands the value of a dividend increase. » Jeff Woodbury, Exxon’s head of investor relations, said on a call with investors that the company was « resolute in our commitment to pay a reliable and growing dividend. » After providing bumper profits early in the downturn as cheap crude slashed their costs, refiners saw the income erode this quarter on fuel oversupply. The refining industry has been hammered of late by growing fuel inventories and weak demand, denting its profitability.

The oversupply has led to so-called run cuts, in which refiners trim the amount of crude they process. Exxon processed 4 percent less crude in the quarter than a year ago and produced less gasoline.

« Once the product tanks are full, as they are now, and you even have floating product storage in places like New York harbor, then you know that the situation is bad. You have to cut runs, » said Oystein Berentsen, managing director for crude oil trading firm Strong Petroleum in Singapore. Exxon shares dropped 1.8 percent to $88.57 while Chevron eased 0.3 percent to $102.06.

Inventory reduction curbs U.S. economic growth; rebound expected U.S. economic growth unexpectedly remained tepid in the second quarter as inventories fell for the first time in nearly five years and business investment weakened further, offsetting robust consumer spending.

Gross domestic product increased at a 1.2 percent annual rate after rising by a downwardly revised 0.8 percent pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Friday. In addition, the GDP growth estimate for the fourth quarter was cut by five-tenths of a percentage point to a 0.9 percent rate.

The three straight quarters of growth rates around 1 percent suggest a significant loss of momentum that puts the economy at the risk of stalling, but economists expect an acceleration in the second half against the backdrop of strong consumption.

Though the inventory drawdown weighed on GDP growth, that is likely to provide a boost to output in the coming quarters as businesses order merchandise to restock depleted warehouses.

« The U.S. economy just went through a meaningful inventory correction cycle, » said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Research in New York.

« In the past, those developments have even led to recessions, but given that potential growth is slower these days and that other headwinds occurred at the same time, one may actually be tempted to highlight the economy’s resilience. » Excluding inventories, GDP growth rose at a 2.4 percent rate and domestic demand increased at a 2.7 percent pace.

Economists had forecast the economy growing at a 2.6 percent rate in the second quarter after a previously reported 1.1 percent expansion pace in the January-March quarter.

Economists believe other drags to growth during past quarters, including lower oil prices and a strong dollar, are fading. While growth is expected to rebound in the second half, expansion for 2016 will probably fall short of 2 percent.

The weak GDP report is unlikely to have an impact on the interest rate outlook, with the Federal Reserve focused on the labor market and persistently low inflation. The U.S. central bank said on Wednesday that near-term risks to the economic outlook had « diminished. » « We think they are unlikely to set monetary policy according to wild swings in inventory, but rather labor market dynamics and final demand, although the doves will cite these numbers as a reason for more ‘wait and see’, » said Paul Mortimer-Lee, chief North America economist at BNP Paribas in New York.

The GDP report and poor earnings from oil majors Exxon and Chevron briefly weighed on U.S. stocks, which later rose after online retailer Amazon.com gave an upbeat forecast for the current quarter.

The dollar fell against a basket of currencies, while prices for U.S. government bonds rose.

ROBUST CONSUMER SPENDING Consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 4.2 percent rate — the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2014 and accounting for almost all the rise in GDP growth in the second quarter.

Although that rate of growth is probably unsustainable, a tightening labor market, rising house prices and still higher savings should underpin spending for the rest of 2016.

In the second quarter, income at the disposal of households after adjusting for inflation increased at a $13.92 billion rate from $13.81 billion early in the year.

A separate report from the Labor Department on Friday showed labor costs increasing at a steady 0.6 percent rate in the second quarter, matching the prior quarter’s rise.

Business inventories fell $8.1 billion in the second quarter, the first drop since the third quarter of 2011, after increasing $40.7 billion in the first quarter.

Inventories sliced off 1.16 percentage points from GDP growth, the largest drag in more than two years. It was the fifth straight quarter that inventories weighed on output.

The inventory drawdown was almost across the board, with big declines in farm, manufacturing and wholesale stocks. Some economists said the inventory drop probably reflected a more accurate accounting by the government for oil and gas industry stocks during the period when prices were plunging.

« Our read is that the unwinding of the energy boom has produced a larger drag than had been previously reported, » said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. « The slide in U.S. energy output has generated a lot of noise in the GDP figures. » Business spending on equipment contracted for a third consecutive quarter, the longest stretch since the 2007-2009 recession, though the pace of decline slowed. Business spending on equipment fell at a 3.5 percent rate after declining at a 9.5 percent pace in the first quarter.

Investment in nonresidential structures, which include oil and gas wells, declined at a 7.9 percent pace in the second quarter after rising at a 0.1 percent rate in the prior period.

Business spending has been hurt by the cheap oil, which has squeezed profits in the energy sector, forcing companies to cut capital spending budgets. Prospects for business spending are not encouraging.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, on Friday reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit. Chevron, the second-largest U.S.-based oil producer, posted a second-quarter loss on Friday, its largest since 2001.

Outside the oil sector, economists say uncertainty over global demand and the upcoming U.S. presidential election are also making companies cautious about spending. Investment in residential construction and spending by the government fell, but economists expect a rebound. Despite the lingering effects of the dollar’s rally and weak global demand, trade contributed two-tenths of a percentage point to GDP growth.

No clean bill of health for EU banks in stress test Banks from Italy, Ireland, Spain and Austria fared worst in the latest European Union stress test, which the region’s banking watchdog said on Friday showed there was still work to do in order to boost credit to the bloc’s economy.

Eight years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers sparked a global banking meltdown, many of Europe’s banks are still saddled with billions of euros in poorly performing loans, crimping their ability to lend and putting off investors.

« While a number of individual banks have clearly fared badly, the overall finding of the European Banking Authority – that Europe’s banks are resilient to another crisis – is heartening, » Anthony Kruizinga at PwC said.

Italy’s Monte dei Paschi, Austria’s Raiffeisen , Spain’s Banco Popular and two of Ireland’s main banks came out with the worst results in the EBA’s test of 51 European Union (EU) lenders.

« Whilst we recognise the extensive capital raising done so far, this is not a clean bill of health, » EBA Chairman Andrea Enria said in a statement. « There remains work to do. » Italy’s largest lender, UniCredit, was also among those banks which fared badly, and it said it will work with supervisors to see if it should take further measures.

Germany’s biggest banks, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, were also among the 12 weakest banks in the test, along with British rival Barclays.

Monte dei Paschi, Italy’s third largest lender, had been scrambling to pull together a rescue plan and win approval for it from the European Central Bank ahead of the test results.

The Italian bank confirmed less than an hour before the results that it had finalised a plan to sell off its entire portfolio of non-performing loans and had assembled a consortium of banks to back a 5 billion euro capital increase.

The EBA looked at how banks could withstand a three-year theoretical economic shock which ended with the Italian lender, the world’s oldest, having a core equity capital ratio of minus 2.44 percent.

This was the third stress test in the EU since taxpayers had to bail out lenders in the 2007-09 financial crisis, with no pass or fail mark this time round. The test involved scenarios including EU economic output 7.1 percent below the baseline over the next three years and a 20 percent drop in interest income.

« Based on these results European banks do have deeper loss absorbing capacity than previously, but concerns clearly remain around profitability and the appetite of equity investors to invest in bank stocks, » said Steven Hall of KPMG.

Analysts have informally set a basic pass mark of 5.5 percent, the threshold set in the last round of tests in 2014, and a weak result could raise question marks over dividend payments.

MORE RESILIENT Like Monte dei Paschi, Allied Irish Banks was also below the 5.5 percent level at 4.31 percent, but said it has undergone fundamental restructuring and is now sustainably profitable.

Markets will also look at how many banks were able to maintain a core ratio of capital to risk-weighted assets of 7 percent. This is a typical level for triggering the writedown of bonds issued by banks to replenish capital.

Spain’s Banco Popular, Bank of Ireland and Austria’s Raiffeisen all ended the test below this level at 6.62 percent, 6.15 percent, and 6.12 percent, respectively.

« We are aware of our capital situation and have been implementing for some time appropriate measures to strengthen our capital base, » Raiffeisen CEO Walter Rothensteiner said.

Popular earlier said that it had fired its chief executive Francisco Gomez after its profit was nearly wiped out in the second quarter. It said the EBA tests had not included the 2.5 billion euro share issue it completed in May to clean up toxic retail assets.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank both scored core ratios of below 8 percent, although Deutsche said it was on track to reach at least 12.5 percent by the end of 2018.

Of the banks tested, 37 are based in the euro zone and supervised by the ECB, which said the results reflected progress in repairing balance sheets.

« The banking sector today is more resilient and can much better absorb economic shocks than two years ago, » said Daniele Nouy, who heads supervision at the ECB.

At the start of the test, the banks had an aggregate core ratio of 12.6 percent, with all capital requirements factored in. However, this fell to 9.2 percent by the end of the test, a drop of 340 basis points, equivalent to 226 billion euros of capital.

For the first time, the EU test included the impact of conduct risks such as fines and settlements. EBA said the total hit from conduct costs was 71 billion euros. The largest impact was from credit or losses on loans, totalling nearly 350 billion euros across all the banks tested.

Unaware of rights, exploited migrant and trafficked workers suffer in silence -research Migrant workers in the textile, mining and construction sectors face exploitation and health risks linked to their work and living conditions but ignorance about their rights makes it hard for governments to protect them, researchers said on Friday.

A study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said migrants faced gruelling hours and risky conditions, and were forced to handle machinery, chemicals and other dangerous materials without proper training.

The 71 migrants interviewed, including 18 victims of trafficking, in Peru, Argentina and Kazakhstan did not understand the health risks they were facing such as mercury poisoning or tuberculosis, the study jointly published by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said.

Migrant and trafficked workers had little information about their rights even in countries with laws to protect them from exploitation, IOM said as it urged governments to provide migrants with information on their rights and better training for law enforcement officers.

« One of the key aspects for the lack of trust in law enforcement is that migrants (often) don’t know the law, » IOM official Vanessa Vaca told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.

« They fear being deported if they go to a doctor or are found sitting on the street, even though that isn’t true. » Vaca said there had been progress on legislation to prevent human trafficking for forced labour, but more needed to be done to make migrants and victims of human trafficking aware of their rights.

Most victims of human trafficking were recruited for work in dangerous conditions by family or community networks, the study said. And prospective migrants had little information about their future working conditions before travelling.

« … our study showed that people who were identified as trafficked worked longer hours, experienced more violence, had less freedom of movement, and were more likely to be deceived by recruiters, » said Rosilyne Borland, co-author of the research.

« But the research also shows that the larger population of migrant workers lived and worked in similar conditions, with similar health risks and consequences, even if not identified as trafficked, » Borland said in a statement. There are an estimated 150 million migrant workers around the world, according to the International Labour Organization, which puts the number of people trapped in forced labour at around 21 million.

For Rio’s sports-mad population, it’s Olympics every day Rio de Janeiro’s residents, or Cariocas, don’t need the Olympics to prove their city is the center of the sporting world — they know that the second they step outside.

Winter or summer — well, there isn’t too much difference in tropical paradise — crowds of locals get up at dawn for a jog.

That might be true in many cities. What’s different here is that Cariocas also rise for rowing, paddleboarding, group swimming in the Atlantic, climbing on Sugarloaf Mountain, surfing, skateboarding, football, volleyball — the list goes on.

And then after work, out they all come again.

Every evening, Copacabana, Ipanema and Barra beaches fill with people in bathing suits, bikinis and Lycra athletic gear.

Even at two or three in the morning, it’s common to see employees from hotels and restaurants playing beach football by floodlight at the end of their long shifts.

It’s the healthy, even sometimes fanatically healthy, side of a country where obesity is a serious problem, with more than 52 percent considered overweight nationwide.

– Sports addicts –

« We’re addicted to sport. We have classes from Monday to Thursday and if we can, we go Friday too. And Saturday. And Sunday, » said Manuela Jifoni, a 34-year-old foot volleyball player waiting for her companions to show up on Flamengo beach.

Leonardo Ghisoni, a Hawaiian outrigger canoe champion and instructor, said « there’s no better city than Rio » for swimming sports, given the average annual temperature of 24 Celsius.

« I have students of all ages. At six in the morning, older women come and in the afternoon, it’s the adolescents, » Ghisoni, 44, said.

Ghisoni leads classes paddling out into the beautiful, but badly polluted Guanabara Bay, where Olympic sailing and windsurfing events will take place, and further out into the Atlantic to visit the coastal Cagarras islands off Ipanema.

The 49-foot (15-meter) canoe takes six people at a time and although the sport only arrived 15 years ago in Brazil, the boat’s Polynesian design is ancient.

Marcus Vinicius Freire, sports director at the Brazilian Olympic Committee, which oversees the 465-strong team at the Summer Games, told AFP that Rio is a sports capital for three basic reasons.

« First, it’s the geography: it’s green, there’s water, mountains, flat areas, so you have options. Secondly, there’s the temperature, and thirdly there’s the Carioca spirit, » he said.

That spirit is partly the easygoing Carioca way, but it also includes the love of living outdoors, where the beach becomes an extension of the living room and swimming is feasible 365 days a year.

« There’s also a big cult of the body. But it’s also the cult of health, it’s a mix, » said canoe instructor Ricardo Moreira, 42, who has competed at a high level and also likes to cycle, run and go to the gym every week.

– Having fun –

Victor Melo, coordinator at the Sports History Laboratory at Rio Federal University, said there’s another big element: the love of having fun.

« There’s a cult of having a good time » and Rio has the public space to let that happen, Melo said.

« Having fun is the Carioca’s strong point and before or after work, he’s trying to find ways to do that. »

That’s why in addition to the team sports, Cariocas take seriously the after-games tradition of having a cold beer.

« Always after football, you have beer — it’s as important as the football, » Melo said.

Adriana Behar, a silver medal-winning Olympic beach volleyball player in the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Games, said Rio is « fabulous. »

« There are mountains, paths, beaches, lagoons. The temperature gets people up and they can stay outside late into the night, » Behar said.

« Cariocas go to the beach to sunbathe, but it’s also to play sport and to have fun with friends and family. To play. »

(World news summary compiled by Maghreb news staff)