France24

Spanish defender Javier Garrido has joined Italian club Lazio from Manchester City, the English Premier League club announced on Friday.

Garrido moved to City for 1.5 million pounds from Real Sociedad in 2007 but struggled to establish himself as a first-team regular at Eastlands.

The arrival of defenders Jerome Boateng and Alexander Kolarov during pre-season meant Garrido was pushed even further out of City's plans and boss Roberto Mancini has allowed him to leave.

A Libyan Jewish community leader who visited his birthplace for the first time since being forced to flee in 1967 said on Friday it felt like he was living a dream.

Raphael Luzon, who was driven out after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and now lives in London, visited his birthplace of Benghazi, 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) east of Tripoli, with his sister and 83-year-old mother.

"We visited Benghazi and met our loved ones amid tears and great longing for friends we have never forgotten," Luzon told AFP. It felt like he was "in a dream."

Two Frenchmen working at the US embassy in Paris underwent medical check-ups after handling a suspect letter Friday, but initial tests suggested the incident was a false alarm.

"The US Embassy to France confirms that a suspicious envelope was received today," an embassy statement said.

"Per embassy security procedures, the two employees who were exposed to it were evaluated by medical professionals and the envelope is being analysed by a laboratory. Preliminary results indicate that the envelope was not harmful."

The head of the council advising Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on rights unexpectedly quit Friday, in a blow for the Kremlin chief who has made developing civil society a priority of his rule.

Ella Pamfilova, the activist who headed the president's council on human rights and the development of civil society, said she would not disclose the reasons for her decision at the moment.

China wants the yuan to be fully convertible and such currencies are generally free-floating, a top central bank official said Friday, six weeks after Beijing pledged to loosen its grip on the yuan.

Yi Gang, a vice-governor of the People's Bank of China and also the head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), however gave no timetable for convertibility to be achieved.

"Our ultimate goal is to make the yuan a convertible currency," Yi said in an interview with China Reform magazine, according to a transcript posted on the SAFE website.

US economic growth slowed to 2.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, the Commerce Department said Friday.

The number was slightly lower than the 2.5 percent rate expected by most analysts.

Disney is selling Miramax Films for about 660 million dollars to the Filmyard Holdings consortium in a deal that includes rights to dozens of award-winning movie titles.

Walt Disney Company announced the sale Friday, saying it expected the deal to close before the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval.

The sale hands a group of investors, including Colony Capital fund, the rights to over 700 film titles, including "Chicago," "Shakespeare in Love," and "No Country for Old Men."

Home hope Mikko Hirvonen crashed out of the Rally of Finland, the eighth leg of the 13-event 2010 World Rally Championship, on Friday, as Peter Solberg set the early pace.

Solberg, who had led ahead of Hirvonen after Thursday's action in his Citroen C4, was again in the ascendency.

But it was the mishap which did for Hirvonen which had Finnish fans wailing.

He led by 4.9sec after three special stages but then crashed going into a bend shortly before the end of stage four.

World oil prices fell Friday as traders awaited news of an expected economic slowdown in top energy consumer the United States.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, weakened 66 cents to 77.70 dollars a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for September retreated 63 cents to 76.96 dollars in early afternoon London deals.

Later Friday, at 1230 GMT, the US government will publish its latest economic growth estimate for the second quarter, a key report that is widely expected to show the recovery is losing pace.

England, after winning the toss, were bowled out for 354 on the second day of the first Test against Pakistan at Trent Bridge here on Friday.

Mohammad Asif took five wickets for 77 runs as England lost their last six wickets for just 17 runs in 51 balls following a fifth-wicket stand of 219 between Eoin Morgan (130) and Paul Collingwood (82).

This is the first of a four-Test series.

The UN refugee agency on Friday urged Saudi Arabia to stop sending Somali refugees and asylum seekers back to the war-ravaged Somali capital, Mogadishu.

"UNHCR is deeply troubled by the reports of continuing deportations of Somali refugees and asylum seekers from Saudi Arabia to the conflict-stricken Somali capital," said agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

"UNHCR is urging the Saudi authorities to refrain from future deportations on humanitarian grounds," she added.

A UN panel of experts called Friday on Israel to fall in line with international norms on civil rights and to take action against targeted killings, torture and impunity for security forces.

The UN Human Rights Committee also called for an end to the blockade of Gaza and questioned the independence of Israel's own inquiry into a naval raid on a Gaza-bound relief supply ship in which nine Turkish nationals dead.

Europe's main stock markets fell on Friday as investors looked ahead to key economic growth figures from the United States, after dissecting news of a major takeover, company earnings and eurozone data.

London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares fell 0.49 percent to 5,287.29 points in morning trade. Frankfurt's DAX 30 dropped 0.65 percent to 6,095.67 points and in Paris the CAC 40 index shed 0.64 percent to 3,629.08 points.

The Stoxx 50 index of top eurozone shares declined 0.72 percent at 2,733.01 points.

Japan's number two car maker Honda posted a record 3.15 billion dollar quarterly net profit Friday, a strong comeback from a year earlier, and boosted its forecast for the year by a third.

Driven by Asia and North America sales, Honda's net profit of 272.49 billion yen for the first quarter soared from 7.56 billion yen in the April-June period in 2009, when the global financial crisis hammered demand.

The Tokyo-based company revised up its annual net profit forecast by 33.8 percent to 455.00 billion yen for the year ending March 2011.

London launched a major cycle hire scheme on Friday which aims to make transport in the city greener ahead of the 2012 Olympics, following in the tracks of cities like Paris and Shanghai.

Mayor Boris Johnson, himself a keen cyclist, said the scheme was a "new dawn" for pedal power in London, adding he hoped the bikes will become as common a sight on its streets as black cabs and red double-decker buses.

Cricket Australia said Friday it would not renominate former Australian prime minister John Howard to take over the leadership of the sport's international governing body.

CA said Howard was its best available candidate and had decided not to consider suggesting any other names, and instead would support New Zealand Cricket's nomination of Alan Isaac for the position of vice-president of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

India compiled their second-highest total ever as the big-scoring second cricket Test against Sri Lanka headed for a draw on Friday.

India, replying to Sri Lanka's first innings total of 642-4 declared, were all out for 707 just before lunch on the fifth morning at the Sinhalese Sports Club on Friday.

The total was just 19 runs short of India's Test record of 726-9 declared against the same opposition at the Brabourne stadium in Mumbai last year.

Sri Lanka went to lunch on 19-0 in two overs with Tharanga Paranavitana and Tillakaratne Dilshan on five runs apiece.

A consortium led by Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing has made a 9.0-billion-dollar "irrevocable" offer to take over the British power distribution network of French electricity giant EDF, the French company said Friday.

If completed, the deal would be the biggest by a Hong Kong entity in Britain.

EDF Energy, the largest electricity supplier in Britain, is owned by EDF, the state controlled French giant which said in October it had put its three distribution grids up for sale as it tries to reduce debt. EDF group is Europe's biggest electricity producer.

Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers blocked highways, attacked factories and looted shops in Dhaka on Friday, police said, after rejecting the terms of a government wage hike.

An estimated 5,000 workers, who stitch clothes for leading Western brands, blocked the city's main Tejgaon link road and attacked dozens of nearby garment factories with rocks, police sub inspector Abdul Quddul told AFP.

At least 5,000 more workers protested in Dhaka's up-market Gulshan area where many embassies and foreign aid groups have their offices.

French oil giant Total said Friday its second quarter net profit jumped 72 percent to 2.96 billion euros (3.86 billion dollars), benefitting from higher oil prices.

Sales were 41.3 billion dollars, a rise of 31 percent, the company said.

The figures were higher than expected by financial analysts polled by Dow Jones newswires who predicted a net profit of 2.67 billion euros, an increase of 55 percent.