Top News Stories –

Wentworth golf club asks for six-figure membership fee –
One of the UK’s most exclusive golf clubs is to start charging £125,000 to new joiners. Wentworth, which was bought by the Beijing-based Reignwood Group in September 2014, has told existing members they must stump up £100,000. Annual fees on top of that are to rise from £8,000 to £16,000. James Wyatt said he and other members faced having to pay “an enormous amount”. The Surrey golf club said membership pricing “is a private club matter”. [BBC]

Working Enigma machine fetches world record price at New York auction –
An extremely rare and fully operational Nazi Enigma machine from Second World War has sold for $365,000 in New York, setting a new record at auction, Bonhams said on Thursday. The M4 machine, which was built between 1943 and 1945, is one of around 150 to have survived from an estimated 1,500 that were built as Nazi Germany fought to fend off the Allies. A spokeswoman for Bonhams said the $365,000 (£237,000) sale price set a new world record for an Enigma machine sold at auction. The purchaser at Wednesday’s sale was identified only as a private collector. [Daily Telegraph]

Rudely-named south-east London coffee shop ordered to remove its sign –
A crudely-named coffee shop in south-east London has been ordered by its landlord to remove the “offensive” sign bearing its name. Fuckoffee tweeted a picture of a letter it received from the landlord’s lawyers:

The letter read: “We are instructed that you have either erected or allowed your sub-tenant to erect an offensive sign on the exterior of the buliding… without the permission or authority from our client to do so and this constitutes a trespass.” According to the letter, the Bermondsey Street coffeeshop could face legal proceedings or the forfeiture of its lease if it does not remove the sign. It will also have to cover the costs of the legal steps taken so far. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

One Direction – Perfect

Top Twitter Trends –

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian Civil War
  • The Associated Press reports that Kurds in Syria established a new administration in the Sunni–Arab town of Tal Abyad, which the Kurds wrestled from ISIS last June. (U.S. News and World Report)
  • Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
    • Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least a dozen people, including health-care workers, were killed when Russian aircraft attacked a field hospital in Sarmin, Idlib. (AFP via Yahoo News)
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–present):
  • A joint early-morning raid conducted by Iraqi and US forces on an IS-run prison in Hawija, Kirkuk Province has freed 70 hostages. One U.S. Delta Force soldier was reported killed – the first American combat death since the start of the US-led intervention against IS. (BBC)
• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • Taliban insurgents assassinate Mohammad Daud Sultanzoy, a district administrator in Afghanistan‘s eastern Ghazni province. (Voice of America)
• Sinai insurgency
  • Egypt‘s military says it has gained “full control” over the North Sinai areas of Arish, Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid after successful raids on terrorist strongholds and weapons caches. (Ahram Online)
• At least 10 people are killed and 12 injured when a suicide-bomber attacks a Pakistani Shia Mosque and Imambargah during prayers in the District Bagh of Kachhi 300 Km from Quetta in Balochistan. (Pakistan Today)

Arts and culture

• Robert Mugabe is awarded the Confucius Peace Prize. (CBS News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2015 Pacific typhoon season
  • The death toll for Typhoon Koppu (Lando) in the Philippines rises to 54 with more than 1.2 million affected. (Rappler) (The Guardian)
• 2015 Pacific hurricane season
  • Hurricane Patricia strengthens to Category 4 ahead of making landfall in Mexico. (Washington Post)
• European migrant crisis
  • Human Rights Watch says unidentified armed men have been disabling boats carrying migrants and asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea traveling from Turkey toward the Greek islands. Witnesses have described eight incidents this month in which masked assailants intercepted and disabled the boats by damaging engines or fuel systems, and in the case of inflatable boats, attempting to puncture hulls. (UPI) (Human Rights Watch)
  • In a pair of incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday, two migrants were killed, 16 are missing, and 48 were rescued from boats heading to Greece from Turkey that capsized in the Aegean Sea. (Hürriyet Daily News)

International relations

• European migrant crisis
  • Authorities in Slovenia say around 2,000 migrants from a refugee camp at the Croatian border are traveling in four trains toward Austria, three to the overloaded crossing at Šentilj and the other to Jesenice. (Washington Post)
  • U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein accuses the Czech Republic of committing systematic human rights violations by detaining refugees for up to 90 days and strip-searching them for money to pay for their own detention. Czech PresidentMiloš Zeman rejected Zeid’s criticism “of his stance against migration and Islam.” (Reuters) (NYSE Post) (The Guardian)
• Kuril Islands dispute
  • Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu announces Russia plans to build a new military base on the Kuril Islands, a group of Pacific islands it seized from Japan at the end of World War II. (Business Insider)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)
  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met today in Berlin with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the recent spate of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Kerry will meet on Saturday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas andKing Abdullah of Jordan in Amman. (Washington Post)

Law and crime

• Trollhättan school attack
  • A teacher and a student are killed, and another student injured, in an attack at a high school in Trollhättan, Sweden. The attacker was shot dead by police. (BBC) (The Guardian)
• Chilean officers start to grant civil unions licences to both heterosexual and homosexual couples, marking the first time a same-sex relationship is officially recognized in the country. (BBC) (The Guardian)
• A shooting late Thursday on the Tennessee State University campus in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., injures three people, one critically. The victims were transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. (New York Daily News) (NBC News)

Politics and elections

• West Lothian question
  • The UK House of Commons passes an “English votes for English laws” bill by 312 to 270 votes giving English MPs a greater say over legislation that only applies to England. The bill has been fiercely opposed by the opposition Labour Party and theScottish National Party. (BBC)
• U.S. President Barack Obama vetoes the $612 billion annual defense authorization bill because of the way it would sidestep budget limitations for the military and because it would restrict the transfer of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay. This is the President’s fifth veto since 2009. (Washington Post) (Reuters)
• Paul Ryan announces that he will run to succeed outgoing Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner after receiving the support of a significant majority of members of the Republican Party. (NBC)

Sports

• Baruto Kaito, former sumo wrestler who once reached ōzeki, the sport’s second-highest rank, announces he will compete in mixed martial arts and is set to make his debut at Rizin Fighting Federation. (Kyodo News)

News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource