Russian, Belarusian swimmers free to compete under own flag

Tens of thousands of excited fans gathered at a landmark Tokyo stadium Friday to watch K-pop megastars BTS, in concert outside South Korea for the first time on their new world tour.

The seven-member group -- widely regarded as the world's biggest boy band -- took to the stage together for the first time last month following a years-long hiatus prompted by mandatory military service.

The tour coincides with the release of their latest studio album "ARIRANG".

Last week's spectacular concert in Goyang, about 16 kilometres from the South Korean capital Seoul, marked the start of a tour that will span 85 shows across 34 cities worldwide.

"I waited so long," Miki Satani, 50, clutching a ticket for the concert, told AFP.

BTS "give me lots of energy and cheer me up", said Satani, who discovered BTS six years ago.

"When I have various kinds of hardships in life, I can receive cheer by listening to their music... I feel they are like vitamin supplements for my life."

Fans who Friday surrounded Tokyo Dome -- which can accommodate up to 55,000 people -- included many without tickets, who came just for the atmosphere.

Ticketless Russian tourist Viktoria Diatlova, 27, expressed love for the boy band, saying their music "has such a beautiful message".

Noa Iwaasa, 22, a hairdresser in Tokyo, said: "BTS is part of my life, as I've been listening to them since I was a student."

The two concerts are on Friday and Saturday. 

cg-kh/fox

An Italian court has cleared mafia bestseller "Gomorrah" author and journalist Roberto Saviano of defamation charges brought by far-right deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, his lawyer said Friday.

Saviano was acquitted Thursday over a 2018 social media post in which he called Salvini the "minister of the criminal underworld".

Saviano had said Salvini ignored mafia wars taking place in Calabria, southern Italy, as interior minister, and instead focused on cracking down on migrants working in the region's farming sector.

The judge ruled that Saviano had committed no crime, upholding the author’s defence of legitimately exercising his right to political and cultural criticism.

"This ruling was really important because it shifts attention towards the necessity of the freedom to criticise those in power," Saviano said.

Saviano's lawyer Antonio Nobile told AFP that the outcome was "far from a foregone conclusion", referring to previous defamation allegations brought against him by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

In 2023, Saviano was fined 1,000 euros for criticising Meloni’s stance on migrants and calling the then leader of the opposition a "bastard" on national television in 2020.

Salvini, leader of Italy’s Lega party, vowed to sue the author again.

“As interior minister, I fought the Mafia, the Camorra, and the 'Ndrangheta," he said.

"It seems obvious to me that some judges are ideologically aligned,” he said during a phone interview with Rai talk show Ore 14 Sera.

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Millions of gamers around the world may not know Troy Baker's face but would recognise his voice -- perhaps as the heartbroken father Joel in "The Last of Us" or an intrepid Indiana Jones in "The Great Circle".

That human connection is why the 50-year-old actor is "not afraid of anything replacing artists" even as creative industries are beset by fears of artificial intelligence taking over.

Baker spoke to AFP soon after of the release of a new title, "Screamer", the latest in a string of 430 games and animations to which he has lent his vocal cords rather than his bearded face and piercing blue eyes, according to IMDb.

Although AI can easily ape an actor's voice,"we're talking about art," Baker said.

"We make art. Art is inherently, intrinsically a human expression, and only humans can make it."

In "Screamer", a car racing title released last month for PC and consoles, Baker plays the role of Mister A., the organiser of a tournament whose high-octane clashes are interspersed with animated sequences.

"History has shown us that technology creates more opportunities than it replaces," Baker said.

Nevertheless, "anytime, in any art form, people are fearful of their jobs," he acknowledged. "I understand it."

Baker himself came in for online criticism in early 2022 for associating with a company specialising in NFTs ("non-fungible tokens", or tradeable digital objects) before quickly backing out.

- 'I love Joel' -

Baker fell almost by accident into voice work in the early 2000s as he was trying to get a rock band off the ground.

But it was in 2013 that he broke through with the role of Joel in "The Last Of Us", the action-adventure game that tells the story of a man and a young girl traversing a post-apocalyptic America.

Baker's motions were also captured in his performance as the gruff and bereaved father.

Popular the world over, the game's success spawned a 2020 sequel and an HBO series starting in 2023, in which Baker appeared for a cameo role as a different character.

"I love Joel. I miss him every day," Baker said, while adding that he "cannot imagine any more of (his) story that's left to tell" despite rumours of a third game regularly circulating online.

Unlike the "multimillion-dollar sets" common in the movie business, in games "there's times when I'm given a microphone, a script and a Zoom call," said Baker, whose other major roles include the brother of the protagonist Nathan Drake in "Uncharted 4" (2016) and the antagonist of two "Death Stranding" games (2019 and 2025).

- 'Ask questions' -

Baker struck just the right tone in 2024's "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle," in which he played Harrison Ford's film hero in his prime.

He recalled how at first, he "prepared in a completely wrong way" by attempting to copy one-for-one the movie star's voice and movements.

"That's the least Indiana Jones thing I could do," he later realised, saying he "had to let go" of Ford and do things his own way.

The Hollywood star himself congratulated Baker on his performance at the Game Awards in Los Angeles in 2024, one of the high points of the video game calendar.

But across different projects, "I can't have a single process," Baker said. "Every studio is different. Every game should be different."

His approach these days is to "ask a lot of questions" -- as in "Screamer", where "we spent a lot of time really dialing in each individual character".

This year Baker is appearing in the film "Iron Lung", a sci-fi thriller directed by the YouTube star Mark Fischbach, who goes by the moniker Marliplier.

Nevertheless, "I've never looked at video games as a stepping stone. This is where I love to be," he said.

kf/tgb/js

The first Hong Kong Sevens took place in front of a few thousand curious spectators, and some of the players wore gym shoes in the mud instead of rugby boots.

Fast forward 50 years and the event has grown into a sold-out three-day festival of global repute, mixing sport with socialising, schmoozing and big business.

The runaway success of the Hong Kong Sevens played a key part in rugby returning to the Olympics at Rio 2016 after a 92-year absence.

France's thrilling men's sevens gold, inspired by home hero Antoine Dupont, was one of the standout moments of the Paris Games two years ago.

The Hong Kong extravaganza -- where legends such as Jonah Lomu and David Campese played in the past -- also had a central role in developing the rugby across Asia.

Speaking to AFP on Friday as Hong Kong's biggest party kicked off, World Rugby chair Brett Robinson said there was nothing quite like it.

"It's the pinnacle," he said.

"Firstly, it's sort of one of the pinnacle events in global sports, let alone rugby.

"It's the jewel in the crown of our Sevens series."

- 'Really special' -

Packed crowds with many flying in from overseas for the weekend are a far cry from when a group of club enthusiasts launched the event in 1976.

Now there are men's and women's sides from all over the globe, but then it was mostly teams from Asia and the Pacific in a one-day men's tournament.

"It started as a bit of a jolly," former Hong Kong Rugby Football Union president Brian Stevenson, who was involved at the start, once reflected.

A few of the Hong Kong players did not even have the proper footwear, and one of them was a policeman.

A 3,000 crowd packed Hong Kong Football Club to see New Zealand's Cantabrians win the first Hong Kong Sevens.

"It was a kaleidoscope of colour, full of the pace and grace, thrills and spills and the glorious uncertainty that make seven-a-side rugby arguably the fastest and best ball game in sport," local newspaper the South China Morning Post purred in its report at the time.

The seed was sown, and the tournament grew as a commercial and sporting success in tandem with Hong Kong's development as a global financial centre.

The 40,000-capacity Hong Kong Stadium became the tournament's home, with the South Stand in particular providing a raucous backdrop of well-oiled party-goers decked out in outrageous fancy dress.

After the Covid pandemic put a temporary spoiler on things, the tournament last year moved to the new $3.85 billion Kai Tak stadium.

The 50,000-seat arena, which boasts a futuristic purplish facade and retractable roof, is purpose-built for rugby sevens with 24 separate changing rooms.

It is on the site of the old Kai Tak airport, famed for its hair-raising approach over the top of nearby housing estates.

Robinson said that when rugby was applying to become an Olympic sport again, delegations were shown Hong Kong to help stake its case for inclusion.

"It's just really special in terms of the scale of it, the attendance rates, the momentum and the history of the tournament," he said.

pst/fox

French actor Gerard Depardieu on Friday dropped a lawsuit against broadcaster France Televisions over a 2023 television report that portrayed him as making sexual comments about a young girl.

Depardieu, whose prolific film and television career includes 1990 comedy "Green Card" and Netflix series "Marseille", is the highest-profile figure caught up in France's response to the #MeToo movement.

The 77-year-old actor's decision to withdraw the lawsuit was announced by his new attorney, Delphine Meillet, at the start of a hearing before the Paris Criminal Court.

The court case focuses on a dispute between Depardieu and a television show that in December 2023 aired a report that dented his public image and sparked an uproar in France.

The episode, titled "The Fall of the Ogre", included footage of him repeatedly making sexual comments about women during a trip to North Korea in 2018.

In one section, he appears to make an obscene comment about a young girl riding a horse.

Outrage at the actor's behaviour peaked after the release of the previously unseen footage.

The actor argued he had never spoken in such a way about the girl.

The withdrawal of the lawsuit also applies to France Televisions President Delphine Ernotte-Cunci, the authors of the report, and the production company Hikari.

"France Televisions welcomes this withdrawal, which brings to an end two years of legal proceedings, controversy, and misinformation," the broadcaster said. 

"Two expert analyses concluded that the actor had indeed made remarks of a sexual nature toward a young girl and ruled out any fraudulent manipulation of the footage," France Televisions added. 

- 'Utterly disloyal' - 

Speaking in court in October, Depardieu's previous lawyer, Jeremie Assous, had denounced the editing of the report as "utterly disloyal."

He had asserted that the lewd comments heard while a child was visible on screen actually referred to an adult woman who was not shown.

In 2023, President Emmanuel Macron said Depardieu was the target of a "manhunt."

"Everyone is ganging up on the same person, saying the worst possible things based on a news report, without even giving him a chance to defend himself," he said at the time.

He suggested that the footage might have been doctored. "I saw the footage. I also heard there was controversy over the audio not matching the images."

Macron's intervention at the time sparked controversy.

At the October hearing, Depardieu's defence team cited Macron's support.

"The president is, after all, better informed than others," said Assous, who has since been removed from the actor's defence team.

The tarnished film icon has been accused of sexual assault or rape by around 20 women.

A Paris court last year handed Depardieu an 18-month suspended sentence after convicting him of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021.

The court also ordered that the actor register as a sex offender.

Depardieu has filed an appeal. 

"I'm vulgar, rude, foul-mouthed, I'll accept that," he has told the court.

But he added that he did not "touch."

ng-as/yad

Thousands of displaced Lebanese civilians took to the road on Friday, hoping that a 10-day ceasefire with Israel would allow them to return to their homes in southern Beirut and the country's war-torn south.

The Lebanese army had warned the residents not to go back to the areas, which have been pounded by Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah, and the Iran-backed movement said its finger remained "on the trigger" in the event of any violations.

But at the bombed Qasmiyeh bridge near the southern city of Tyre, AFP reporters found long queues of families waiting for bulldozers to restore the crossing so they could head home. 

For some returnees, the short truce between Israel and the Lebanese government, brokered under pressure from US President Donald Trump, was a new source of hope.

"Our feelings are indescribable, pride and victory," 37-year-old Amani Atrash told AFP from her car seat, adding she hoped the truce would be extended. 

Across the border in Israel, the military's home front command had not yet removed restrictions on civilian movements in vulnerable border areas.

Still, some civilians there were daring to hope for a return to a more normal life.

"I've got a three-year-old girl and a two-month-old baby, and the whole time we've just not left the house because you never know when there'll be a rocket attack," 31-year-old Ofir Ben Aris Lev told AFP.

"It's been crazy, but I think things will be quiet now and I'll be able to take my daughter to the park", he added.

- 'High alert' -

Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has been pummelled by Israeli strikes and engaged its forces on the ground in the south, has indicated it will respect the truce unless Lebanon is attacked again.

"The fighters will keep their finger on the trigger because they are wary of the enemy's treachery," the movement said in a statement.

The ceasefire represents a key step in Washington's efforts to reach a deal to end its war with Iran, after Tehran insisted that halting the Lebanon fighting must be part of any agreement.

Pakistan has been leading a diplomatic push to restart face-to-face talks between Tehran and Washington, and Trump said they were "very close" to striking an agreement.

The fighting broke out in Lebanon on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel a few days after the start of the Middle East war in retribution for the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

As the ceasefire came into effect, Israel's military said it had struck over 380 "Hezbollah terror organisation targets in southern Lebanon" and was on "high alert" to resume strikes.

Trump said he had spoken to both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ahead of the truce, which he said they had agreed "in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries".

He later said he expected Netanyahu and Aoun to visit the White House "over the next four or five days". 

- 'Very happy' -

A top-level face-to-face meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli leadership would be a watershed moment for the region. But it remained to be seen whether it would take place.

Netanyahu said the ceasefire with Lebanon offered an opportunity for a "historic peace agreement" with Beirut -- but insisted that the disarmament of Hezbollah remained a precondition.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed Trump's announcement, saying a truce was a "key Lebanese demand that we have pursued since the very first day of the war". 

But the Lebanese president had rejected Trump's request for a direct call with Netanyahu, an official source told AFP.

Trump called the developments "very exciting", in response to a question from an AFP reporter as he left the White House. 

"Today they're going to be having a ceasefire, and that'll include Hezbollah," he said.

Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told AFP it would "cautiously adhere" to the truce if Israeli attacks stopped, thanking Iran for having applied pressure in Lebanon's favour.

Iranian state television portrayed the ceasefire as the result of Tehran's "insistence" alongside Hezbollah's "resistance".

Netanyahu said Israel agreed to the truce but would maintain a 10-kilometre (six-mile) "security zone" along the border in southern Lebanon.

Violence continued right up until shortly before the truce began, with Lebanon's health ministry saying at least seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in an Israeli strike on the town of Ghazieh on Thursday.

burs/dc/smw

An old Smith Corona typewriter, letters from literary contemporaries and photographs are part of the items spanning the life of renowned Mexican writer and journalist Elena Poniatowska to go on display this week in Mexico City.

Poniatowska, winner of the 2013 Cervantes Prize -- the most prestigious award in Spanish-language literature -- and still active at the age of 93, was not at all pleased with the idea of an exhibition about her life.

"But what I've done my whole life is give a voice to others!" the writer protested when organizers proposed the project to her, according to Alejandro Brito, director of the Museo del Estanquillo in the historic center of the Mexican capital.

The exhibition, which explores her career in journalism and literature, opens on Saturday at the museum founded by Carlos Monsivais, Poniatowska's close friend and literary partner who died in 2010.

On display is a 1955 essay on photography by Mexican painter Diego Rivera, a letter from author Fernando del Paso and photographs from Poniatowska's interviews with figures who have shaped Mexico's artistic, political and social life over the past seven decades.

The writer, born in Paris in 1932 and distantly related to the last Polish king, arrived in Mexico aged 10 and developed an interest in journalism and literature early on. 

- 'Massacre in Mexico' -

Photographs show her reporting from a prison, where she interviewed students who were political prisoners following a massacre against student demonstrators in 1968.

Those interviews inspired her to write one of her most courageous and well-known books "Massacre in Mexico."

At the time, the work was hailed for raising awareness about the brutal military repression that had been kept under wraps.

According to her son Felipe Haro, director of the Elena Poniatowska Amor Foundation, his mother wrote the book because "she felt comfortable in the prison; she liked the stories" she found there.

"Elena is a great storyteller," he told AFP during a media tour of the exhibition.

The author, who continues to write and publish, recently visited President Claudia Sheinbaum at Mexico's National Palace.

Sheinbaum asked if Poniatowska needed help getting from the parking lot to the presidential office.

"She almost took offense when we asked her (...) she walked in perfectly fine, completely lucid," the president said at a press conference this week.

During the press tour, Haro said the family had received offers from abroad to display the archives, but that his mother wanted the collection to remain in Mexico.

"Taking the archive away is like taking away the memory" of a country, Haro said.

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The International Cricket Council said Friday it is investigating Cricket Canada over allegations of match corruption, including the team's loss to New Zealand at the recent T20 World Cup hosted by India and Sri Lanka.

The game in Chennai -- which Canada lost by eight wickets -- is under scrutiny following allegations of corruption highlighted in a documentary aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on Thursday.

"The ACU (anti-corruption unit) is aware of the programme broadcast by CBC," Andrew Ephgrave, interim general manager of the ICC's Integrity Unit, said in a statement.

The documentary by the public broadcaster made wide-ranging accusations of corruption and poor governance against Canada Cricket.

In the Chennai game, suspicion is focused on the fifth over bowled by captain Dilpreet Bajwa during New Zealand's chase, according to the ESPN Cricinfo website.

He started with a no-ball, bowled a wide, and ended up conceding 15 runs in the over.

Canada scored 173 for four wickets in 20 overs, while New Zealand replied with 176 for two off 15.1 overs.

The ICC, the game's world governing body, is also investigating a telephone call involving then Canada coach Khurram Chohan in which he claims that senior Cricket Canada board members put pressure on him to select certain players, it said.

"Governance matters in relation to ICC Members are considered by the ICC, where they fall under its jurisdiction, in accordance with the ICC's standard constitutional processes," Ephgrave said.

Cricket Canada said it was treating the matter with "utmost importance".

"Recent promotional material alludes to allegations related to organized crime and match-fixing -- issues that Cricket Canada takes extremely seriously," the organisation said on its website.

"Where matters are raised, we are committed to reviewing them responsibly and taking appropriate steps as needed."

abh/fox

Blistering temperatures rising to 40C and above will now be branded "cruelly hot" or "kokusho-bi" in Japan, the weather agency said Friday, as heatwave days become increasingly frequent in the region.

By using this designation, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) "will more effectively call for vigilance against extremely high temperatures", it said.

Last year, Japan sweltered through its hottest summer since records began in 1989 -- with warmer days on the rise globally due to climate change. 

To come up with the new category, JMA conducted a survey with the public and received responses from 478,000 people before adopting "cruelly hot", which was deemed the most popular. 

Coming in second was "super-extremely hot day" or "cho-mosho-bi" while "sauna day", "stay-at-home day" and "boiling day" were also among the choices, JMA said.

The new category joins terms already used by JMA for temperatures rising to 25C and higher (summer day), 30C and higher (midsummer day), and 35C and higher (extremely hot day).

kh/ane/abs

French actor Gerard Depardieu on Friday dropped a lawsuit against broadcaster France Televisions over a 2023 television report that portrayed him as making sexual comments about a young girl.

Depardieu, whose prolific film and television career includes 1990 comedy "Green Card" and Netflix series "Marseille", is the highest-profile figure caught up in France's response to the #MeToo movement.

The 77-year-old actor's decision to withdraw the lawsuit was announced by his attorney, Delphine Meillet, at the start of a hearing before the Paris Criminal Court.

The court case focuses on a dispute between Depardieu and a television show that in December 2023 aired a report that dented his public image and sparked an uproar in France.

The episode, titled "The Fall of the Ogre", included footage of him repeatedly making sexual comments about women during a trip to North Korea in 2018.

In one section, he appears to make an obscene comment about a young girl riding a horse.

The withdrawal of the lawsuit also applies to France Televisions President Delphine Ernotte-Cunci, the authors of the report, and the production company Hikari.

"France Televisions welcomes this withdrawal, which brings to an end two years of legal proceedings, controversy, and misinformation," the broadcaster said. 

"Two expert analyses concluded that the actor had indeed made remarks of a sexual nature toward a young girl and ruled out any fraudulent manipulation of the footage," France Televisions added. 

A Paris court last year handed Depardieu an 18-month suspended sentence after convicting him of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021.

The court also ordered that the actor register as a sex offender.

ng-as/giv