Top News Stories –

Sam Smith’s James Bond theme makes UK chart history –
Sam Smith’s Writing’s On The Wall has made history by becoming the first Bond theme to reach number one in the UK. The track achieved combined chart sales and streams of 70,000 copies – 13,000 ahead of its closest competitor, Justin Bieber’s What Do You Mean? The previous highest-charting Bond themes were Adele’s Skyfall and Duran Duran’s View To A Kill, which both reached number two. Smith said he was “so proud” of the song and being number one was “crazy”. He told BBC Radio 1: “Out of all the songs I’ve brought out in my life, I was not expecting this to even chart in the top 10, let alone number one. It’s unbelievable.” [BBC] See List of the Day
Sam Smith

Janet Jackson puts the breaks on her Unbreakable world tour –
Janet Jackson has postponed her upcoming concert in Las Vegas and this isn’t the first time the pop icon has hit a road block along the way on her Unbreakable World Tour. The 49-year-old singer and performer announced her comeback this past June but it has been a series of highs and lows for the pop icon since. She has planned to reschedule this stop for next May 2016 when the venue will move to a new arena that can accommodate 20,000 fans. [Daily Mail] Today also saw the release of her new album “Unbreakable”, the first studio album from Jackson in seven years. See Video of the Day
Janet Jackson

Switzerland ‘could house 50,000 refugees in Cold War bunkers’ –
Switzerland can accommodate up to 50,000 refugees in nuclear bunkers, the country’s defence minister has said. During the Cold War, Switzerland began a policy of building enough fallout shelters that the entire country could safely retreat underground if there was a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the West. Today, while theoretically still available in a doomsday scenario, many of the bunkers are put to other uses. One in the small town of Sevelen was run as a “zero-star hotel” for some years, while the city of Geneva has used its bunkers as homeless shelters. Mr Maurer said around one-third of Switzerland’s public bunkers were currently in a position to take in refugees, with space for 50,000. [Daily Telegraph]

American wingsuit flier Johnny Strange dies in Switzerland accident –
Johnny Strange, an American adventurer who was the youngest person to climb the world’s seven tallest summits, has died in a wing suit accident in the Alps, Swiss police confirmed on Friday. The 23-year-old, who crashed shortly after jumping from Mount Gitschen in central Switzerland, is the latest casualty in what is regarded as one of the world’s most deadly extreme sports. He died on impact with the ground, likely after losing control mid-jump, according to authorities in the Swiss canton of Uri. Mr Strange, from Malibu, California, became the youngest person to scale the tallest peaks on each of the world’s seven continents in 2009, when he was 17. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Janet Jackson – BURNITUP! Feat. Missy Elliott (Lyric Video)

List of the Day –

James Bond Movie title themes [Wikipedia]

Top Twitter Trends –

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian Civil War
  • Russian intervention in the Syrian Civil War
    • The Russian Government says Russian jets bombed Syria for the third consecutive day, hitting 12 Islamic State (ISIS) targets. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that ISIS has no presence in the western and northern areas struck though Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front does. Russian planes also bombed Raqqah, the unofficial capital of ISIL. (Daily Mail)
• Turkey–PKK conflict
  • At least 17 PKK militants are reportedly killed following a Turkish military operation in the Kurdish-majority city of Silvan. (RT)
• War in Donbass, 2014-15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine
  • OSCE observers who are monitoring a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian rebels, reported the presence of a new Russian weapons system in rebel-held territory this week, the ‘TOS-1 Buratino‘ is a thermobaricmultiple rocket launcher system which can destroy several city blocks in one strike and cause indiscriminate damage. Only Russia produces the system and it was not exported to Ukraine before the conflict broke out. (Reuters)

Business and economy

• Air France KLM will cut 2,900 jobs after talks with pilots unions are unsuccessful. (BBC)

Disasters and accidents

• Indonesia‘s Aviastar airline loses contact with an aircraft between Masamba–Makassar carrying 10 people. (DailyMail)
• Hurricane Joaquin
  • The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a 735-foot (224-meter) cargo ship named ‘El Faro,’ with 33 people on board, that went missing near Crooked Island in the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin. Five Poles and 28 Americans make up the crew. (The Telegraph) (Reuters)
  • Hurricane Joaquin attacked The Bahamas as a Category 4 hurricane and destroyed houses, cut communications and electric power, uprooted trees, and unleashed heavy flooding. So far, there are no reports of fatalities or injuries. The storm, which weakened to Category 3 status with 125 mph sustained winds, is expected to dump up to 25 inches (63.5 centimeters) of rain in some location before it moves away from the islands. (AP via Sacramento Bee) (AFP via Yahoo News)
• El Cambray tragedy
  • A Guatemalan hillside, loosened by heavy rains, collapses and sends tons of dirt and trees onto Santa Catarina Pinula on the edge of Guatemala City, killing at least 26 with as many as 600 people missing. (Reuters) (BBC)

Law and crime

• A 15-year old boy shoots and kills a civilian NSW Police employee outside the NSW Police headquarters in Parramatta, Sydney. The incident is labelled as a terrorist attack. (Daily Telegraph)
• Hackers steal the personal information of about 15 million T-Mobile US customers and applicants. The breach is at a unit of the credit agency Experian. (BBC)
• 2015 FIFA corruption case
  • Longtime FIFA corporate sponsors — Coca-Cola Co., McDonald’s, Visa Inc., and Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch InBev — demand FIFA President Sepp Blatter step down immediately following last week’s announcement of his criminal investigation by the Swiss attorney general. Blatter refused. (Reuters) (Irish Independent)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource