An Israeli Arab Knesset member of the conservative Islamic Raam party speaks during a vigil against violence in the Arab community in Basmat Tab’un, northern Israel. PHOTO: AFP
JERUSALEM (XINHUA) – Five people, all in a family, were killed in a shooting in an Arab town in northern Israel, the latest in a wave of violence sweeping through Arab communities across the country.
Israeli police said in a statement that five people were shot dead in a house in Basmat Tab’un, a Bedouin town in northern Israel. The victims were identified by Israel’s state-owned Kan TV as two teen brothers, a woman in her 40s and her 25-year-old son, and another male relative.
The woman’s husband, a 49-year-old man, was moderately injured and needed hospital care.
The shooter or shooters fled the scene, prompting searches by the Israeli security forces.
“A red line was crossed here,” police chief Yaakov Shabtai told reporters at the scene. “The police will do everything to find the killers,” he added.
Previous incidents of such shootings have often revolved around conflicts between organised crime syndicates.
At least 188 individuals from the Arab community in Israel have been killed in violence since the beginning of 2023, according to the Abraham Initiatives, a group advocating for equal rights for the Arab minority in Israel.
This number nearly doubles the count of victims during similar periods in previous years.
Arab leaders have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of neglecting the fight against crime in Arab society.
An Israeli Arab Knesset member of the conservative Islamic Raam party speaks during a vigil against violence in the Arab community in Basmat Tab’un, northern Israel. PHOTO: AFP
A truck driver delivers a package in Tokyo. PHOTO: THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN
TOKYO (XINHUA) – The Japanese government is planning to introduce measures to address severe labour shortages in the country’s transport and logistics industries, local media reported.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida yesterday told the press he will convene a ministerial meeting next week to discuss a package of measures to tackle the possible shortage of truck drivers, according to local media.
The plan was announced after Kishida’s visit to a logistics firm in Tokyo, national news agency Kyodo reported, as the introduction of overtime regulations on truck drivers is expected to cause a serious shortage of such workers.
The so-called “2024 problem” will limit overtime work for truck drivers to 960 hours a year starting in April next year as part of the working-style reforms.
Apart from incentives for the automation of cargo handling work and reduction of re-deliveries, the measures were also expected to promote the use of self-driving technology, according to the prime minister, who also reiterated intentions to better treatment for truck drivers.
In the meantime, Japan is running short of bus and taxi drivers as it struggles to find new employees as older drivers retire. The situation is predicted to get worse.
A lack of drivers is forcing bus operators nationwide to cut their number of regular routes, according to Japanese transport officials, who also predicted that the country will be short of over 30,000 bus drivers by the fiscal year of 2030.
In Japan’s taxi-driving sector, which is long dominated by an aging workforce, the number of drivers at the end of March logged a sharp drop of 20.4 per cent from four years ago, a separate survey conducted by the Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations showed.
A truck driver delivers a package in Tokyo. PHOTO: THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN
A trader conducts live sales via streaming at the Tanah Abang textile market in Jakarta, Indonesia. PHOTO: AP
JAKARTA (AP) – Chinese-owned app TikTok yesterday said it regretted the Indonesian government’s decision to ban e-commerce transactions on social media platforms and particularly the impact it would have on the millions of sellers who use TikTok Shop.
But TikTok Indonesia said in a statement it will respect the regulations and laws that apply in Indonesia and “will take a constructive path forward”.
“We deeply regret the government’s announcement, especially how it will impact the livelihoods of the six million sellers and nearly seven million affiliate creators who use TikTok Shop,” said the statement sent to the Associated Press yesterday.
Indonesia banned goods transactions on social media platforms such as TikTok in a bid to protect small businesses from e-commerce competition, accusing them of predatory pricing.
Indonesia’s Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan on Monday announced the decision after a meeting with President Joko Widodo. The ban ”is to prevent the domination of the algorithm and prevent the use of personal data in business interests”, Hasan told a news conference.
Hasan said the ban, which takes effect immediately, aims to “create a fair, healthy and beneficial electronic commerce ecosystem by prohibiting marketplaces and social media sellers from acting as producers and facilitating payment transactions on its electronic systems”, according to a statement released by the Trade Ministry on Wednesday.
A trader conducts live sales via streaming at the Tanah Abang textile market in Jakarta, Indonesia. PHOTO: AP
Marketplaces and sellers can only offer or promote goods and services, he added.
During an inspection to Southeast Asia’s largest wholesale market Tanah Abang in Jakarta last week, Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Teten Masduki said he found that sellers were experiencing a more than 50-per-cent loss of profits because they could not compete with imported products sold online at much lower prices.
Masduki said the platform has been involved in “predatory pricing”, which caused damages to local small- and medium-sized businesses. He said the new regulation “will justly regulate fair trade online and offline”.
Minister of Communication and Informatics Budi Arie emphasised that the regulation is intended for all social commerce platforms, not just TikTok Shop. It may also affect established, homegrown e-commerce companies like Tokopedia, Lazada and BliBli.
The move came after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew pledged at a forum it organised in Jakarta in June that it would invest billions of dollars in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years. He did not provide a detailed breakdown of the spending plan, but said it would invest in training, advertising and supporting small vendors looking to join its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop.
Southeast Asia, a region home to over 675 million people, is one of TikTok’s biggest markets in terms of user numbers, generating more than 325 million visitors to the app every month.
TikTok had 8,000 employees to facilitate USD4.4 billion of transactions across the region last year, up from USD600 million in 2021. But it still trailed far behind Shopee’s USD48 billion in regional merchandise sales in 2022, according to Singapore-based Momentum Works, a business development service.
In Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, TikTok has two million small vendors selling their wares on its platform.
Muhammad Zidan, a merchant who uses TikTok Shop to sell bicycles and accessories, urged the government not to leave behind millions of vendors who depend on income from e-commerce transactions.
“We have high exposure for our products by using TikTok Shop,” Zidan said.
“The government should find a win-win solution because we will also experience a lot of losses. The ban will have a huge impact on us,” he added.
ANKARA (XINHUA) – Turkiye’s electric car market is booming in 2023 amid surging gasoline prices and the growing popularity of the country’s first homegrown fully-electric car delivered early this year.
Some 22,900 electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold from January through August of this year, according to the data of the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association published on September 10.
Compared to the same period of last year this is a staggering increase of nearly 600 per cent as only 3,283 EVs were sold in 2022, said the association.
Turkiye’s annual inflation approached 60 per cent in August, pushing gasoline and diesel prices further upward, which helped create a bigger demand for EVs, especially for the high-income segments of the population, Istanbul-based automotive industry expert Emre Ozpeynirci told Xinhua.
In addition, it has become expensive to own a car in Turkiye with prices for imported cars almost doubling in 2021 largely due to growing inflation. Turkiye also has one of the world’s highest automobile tax.
Against this backdrop, Togg began delivering T10X, branded as a top sport utility car this April.
The company managed to deliver 3,400 units by August, of which 1,965 were delivered in that month, making it a bestselling national brand in the electric car segment.
The logo for OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, on a mobile phone. PHOTO: AP
NEW YORK (AFP) – The generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform ChatGPT can now fetch data directly from the Internet and gather up-to-date information in real-time, its creator OpenAI said yesterday, in a major milestone for the software.
Until now, ChatGPT’s responses to user queries were based on a vast database, which did not contain information from after August 2021.
“ChatGPT can now browse the Internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources,” OpenAI said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It is no longer limited to data before September 2021.”
It also said that the latest feature would allow sites to control how ChatGPT interacts with them.
OpenAI launched the update for its paying subscribers in June, but suspended it after users managed to bypass paywalls on Internet content.
The feature, dubbed “Browse with Bing”, is also reserved for paying subscribers of ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise services, but OpenAI said it would soon be available to all users.
OpenAI partner Microsoft already offers Bing Chat, an integration of GPT-4, the language model used to develop ChatGPT, with its Internet search engine, as does Google with its conversational robot Bard.
ChatGPT will provide direct sources alongside its responses, which will no longer be based on the single database the program’s publisher controls.
The logo for OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, on a mobile phone. PHOTO: AP
Newcastle United's Bruno Guimaraes and Manchester City's Oscar Bobb battle for the ball. PHOTO: AP
AFP – Manchester City crashed out of the League Cup with a 1-0 defeat at Newcastle yesterday as Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool booked their places in the last 16.
Alexander Isak scored the only goal at St James’ Park in a clash between two much-changed sides.
City won the treble of Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup last season, but any dream of surpassing that feat with an unprecedented quadruple was swiftly brought to an end.
Erling Haaland was left on the bench by City coach Pep Guardiola for the full 90 minutes and his presence was missed in a toothless display.
Eddie Howe also rang the changes from an 8-0 thrashing of Sheffield United at the weekend.
But it was not until the Newcastle boss introduced Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes at half-time that the hosts took control.
Isak had the simple task of slotting home at the far post after a burst from Joelinton opened up the City defence.
“A win like this can elevate us,” said Howe.
Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes and Manchester City’s Oscar Bobb battle for the ball. PHOTO: APLeicester’s goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk clears the ball. PHOTO: AP
“First-half we tried to rotate the squad and keep our players fresh. Second-half we were better for sure, but when you bring on players like Anthony Gordon and Bruno, they’re high level players,” Howe added.
Newcastle’s reward is a fourth-round trip to Manchester United in a repeat of last season’s final.
CHELSEA BOUNCE BACK
Chelsea prevented the crisis at Stamford Bridge deepening as Nicolas Jackson’s goal beat Brighton 1-0.
The Senegalese’s wastefulness in front of goal has been partly to blame for the Blues’ return of one win in their opening six Premier League games under Mauricio Pochettino.
But Jackson coolly slotted home from the impressive Cole Palmer’s pass on 50 minutes.
Chelsea will face Blackburn in the last 16.
Arsenal were also 1-0 winners at Brentford as Aaron Ramsdale responded to being controversially dropped by Mikel Arteta.
Reiss Nelson’s eighth-minute goal separated the sides despite a Brentford onslaught after the break.
Arteta has preferred David Raya to Ramsdale in goal for the past three games.
But the England international was needed for the Gunners to progress as he produced a brilliant stop to deny Yoane Wissa an equaliser.
Arsenal will travel to West Ham in the next round after the Hammers were 1-0 winners at third-tier Lincoln.
Liverpool trailed to Championship leaders Leicester after just three minutes before fighting back to win 3-1.
Kasey McAteer rounded off a rapid counter-attack to give the Foxes a flying start.
Klopp’s men laid seige to the visitors’ goal but were made to wait until after the break to draw level. The equaliser was made in the Netherlands as Ryan Gravenberch set up Cody Gakpo to find the far corner.
Klopp then turned to his bench to find a winner and found it through a stunning strike from Dominik Szoboszlai. The Hungarian captain took aim from outside the box and smashed the ball into the top corner 20 minutes from time.
“Dom was a surprise with how fast he has fitted in, it was pretty much from the first minute,” said Klopp on Szoboszlai’s fast start to his Liverpool career.
“Top-class player with a lot of quality. He never stops.”
Diogo Jota’s backheel in off the far post then made the tie safe.
Klopp’s men will travel to Bournemouth in round four.
Everton built on their first Premier League win of the season at Brentford on Saturday with an impressive 2-1 victory at Aston Villa.
The Toffees were thrashed 4-0 on their visit to Villa Park in the league last month, but goals from James Garner and Dominic Calvert-Lewin helped Sean Dyche’s men gain revenge.
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard. PHOTO: AP
AP – Damian Lillard was once asked to pick a player he’d want as a teammate, and Giannis Antetokounmpo was his answer.
It’s about to happen.
Lillard was traded by Portland to play alongside Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee on Wednesday, a deal that ends his 11-year run with the Trail Blazers and a three-month saga surrounding his wish to be moved elsewhere in hopes of winning an NBA title.
The seven-time All-Star – a player so elite that he was selected to the NBA’s 75th anniversary team – goes from the Trail Blazers to the Bucks in a three-team deal that sends Jrue Holiday from the Bucks to Portland, Deandre Ayton from Phoenix to Portland and Jusuf Nurkic from the Blazers to the Suns.
The trade was finalised on Wednesday after NBA attorneys, as is always the case with trades, reviewed and approved the deal.
“The casuals won’t be addressed but the trailblazers fans and city of Portland that I love truly will be… and they will be addressed truthfully. Stay tuned,” Lillard wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Excited for my next chapter!”
It became known on July 1 that Lillard asked the Trail Blazers for a trade, which he was long speculated to be considering given his desire to play for a contender and Portland not seeming to have much of a chance with its current roster.
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard. PHOTO: APPortland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard drives against Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo. PHOTO: AP
He wanted to go to Miami and made that clear. Portland decided not to accommodate that request, and instead, it’s the Bucks who now have an incredibly strong 1-2 punch of Lillard and Antetokounmpo heading into the new season.
“Damian Lillard is an elite player in our league and someone we’ve long been fans of,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst said. “These opportunities are rare and hard to measure and execute.”
Lillard was asked on Twitter in May 2022 to pick one current player he’d want to help him reach the playoffs. He gave a one-word answer: “Giannis.”
Also included in the deal: Nassir Little, Keon Johnson and Grayson Allen are headed to Phoenix, and Toumani Camara goes to Portland.
The trade continues the Bucks’ dramatic offseason makeover in response to their surprising first-round playoff loss to Miami.
They followed that by firing coach Mike Budenholzer and replacing him with Adrian Griffin, who spent the last five seasons as a Toronto Raptors assistant.
Now they’ve traded away the two-time All-Star Holiday to acquire Lillard, a seven-time All-NBA selection.
The acquisition of Lillard comes after Antetokounmpo, a two-time MVP, told The New York Times over the summer that he wanted to see how committed the Bucks are toward winning another championship before deciding whether to sign a long-term deal to stay.
Antetokounmpo’s contract runs through the 2024-25 season, with a player option for 2025-26.
BARCELONA (AFP) – Police in Spain yesterday searched the headquarters of the country’s football referee committee as part of a probe into payments made by La Liga giants Barcelona to a firm owned by a former official of the body.
Prosecutors suspect the club paid millions of euros to the company of former vice-president of Spanish football’s refereeing committee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018 to try to influence referee decisions.
The Barcelona court investigating the case yesterday ordered the search of the headquarters “as part of the investigation into the suspect payments made by the Catalan club” to Negreira, the regional court oversight body said in a statement.
The Guardia Civil police force, which was carrying out the search of the committee located in the headquarters of Spain’s football federation in Las Rozas on the outskirts of Madrid, did not expect to make any arrests as part of the operation.
Spanish prosecutors in March charged Barcelona as well as two of the club’s former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, and Negreira and his son, Javier Enriquex Negreira, with corruption over the affair.
They allege Barca paid a total of more than EUR7.3 million to Negreira, former vice president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish football federation between 1994 and 2018.
The investigation began after Spain’s tax authorities identified irregularities in tax payments made between 2016 and 2018 by the company Dasnil 95 – owned by Negreira.
Dasnil 95 reportedly received payments from Barcelona between those years.
Barcelona said Dasnil 95 was paid to advise the club on refereeing matters but the prosecutors suspect the money could have been used to corrupt game officials.
Maria Sakkari of Greece hits a return at the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament in Tokyo, Japan. PHOTO: AFP
AFP – World number six Maria Sakkari and number 10 Caroline Garcia moved into the quarter-finals of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo yesterday.
Greece’s Sakkari recorded a 6-3, 6-1 win over Japan’s Misaki Doi, who had announced her retirement after the tournament.
The 28-year-old will face France’s Garcia today, who also won in straight sets over Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina, ranked 28, 6-4, 6-3.
“It was emotional for Misaki today, but for my side I thought I was playing good,” Sakkari said.
“I’m excited for tomorrow. It’s going to be a great match.”
Sakkari ended her four-year wait for a second WTA title at the Guadalajara Open last week, where she beat Garcia in the semi-finals enroute to lifting the trophy.
Maria Sakkari of Greece hits a return at the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament in Tokyo, Japan. PHOTO: AFP
She had come up empty in six finals since her breakthrough victory in Rabat in 2019.
That included the Guadalajara final last year, when she lost to American Jessica Pegula, and a loss to US Open champion Coco Gauff in the final of the Washington Open this year.
In Tokyo, players had a tough day as the temperature hit 33 degrees Celsius, with 29-year-old Garcia saying “the condition is quite extreme here. Very hot and humid”.
“So I’m very, very pleased” with the win, the 29-year-old said.
In the next round, “I want to try to play my game, to be aggressive… to do the most wins I can,” she added.
Today, four-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek will face Veronika Kudermetova, while world number four Pegula will play Daria Kasatkina.
Australian Open finalist Elena Rybakina has withdrawn, citing health reasons.
Lionel Messi watches from the stands. PHOTO: AP & AFP
FORT LAUDERDALE (AFP) – The Houston Dynamo defeated Inter Miami 2-1 to win the US Open Cup on Wednesday with an injured Lionel Messi watching from the stands at DRV PNK Stadium.
Without Messi and his former Barcelona team-mate Jordi Alba, Miami struggled to compete with an enterprising Houston.
Miami co-owner David Beckham, who watched the game with his former Real Madrid team-mate Zinedine Zidane, had hoped for another night of celebration after the team’s Leagues Cup triumph last month.
But Miami lacked intensity and ideas as they were given the runaround by Ben Olsen’s impressive Houston team.
No clear explanation has been given for Messi’s injury with references to “muscle fatigue” followed by talk from coach Gerardo Martino of “scars” from an old injury.
“He will certainly play before the league is over,” he added.
Martino meanwhile said Miami’s season was finally starting to catch up with them.
Lionel Messi watches from the stands. PHOTO: AP & AFPInter Miami midfielder Sergio Busquets collides with Houston Dynamo midfielder Héctor Herrera. PHOTO: AP & AFP
“I thought it was a very exhausted team,” he said.
“The reality is that we were going to feel the consequences of so many games.”
With no Messi to worry about, Houston were on top from the outset. Houston grabbed the lead in the 24th minute with a perfect counter-attack ending with Brazilian Artur feeding the overlapping Griffin Dorsey who blasted in at the near post.
Houston were utterly dominant, passing the ball with a swiftness that left Miami chasing shadows and it wasn’t long before they had doubled their advantage.
Colombian winger Quinones cut into the box from the left flank and Miami right-back DeAndre Yedlin’s desperate lunge brought him crashing to the ground.
French forward Amine Bassi made no mistake from the spot to make it 2-0.
Martino made two changes at the break, bringing on Venezuelan striker Josef Martinez and Ecuadorean midfielder Dixon Arroyo.
Martinez gave Miami some late hope with a left-foot strike in stoppage time after latching on to a ball from Argentine Facundo Farias.
But it was too little, too late from Miami and Houston deservedly won their second US Open Cup to add to their triumph in 2018.
