France24

China has granted licences to 31 companies to provide web mapping services in the world's biggest online market, an official said Thursday, but many foreign firms including Google have yet to apply.

Companies that have won approval include Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia, Chinese search engine Baidu and online portals Sina and Sohu, an official with the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) who asked not to be named told AFP.

Philippine medics had to throw away a donated kidney when a local airline refused to fly it, transplant doctors said Thursday.

Cebu Pacific Air said it was protecting passengers from possible infection or contamination when it refused to allow the team who harvested the organ to carry the kidney in the cabin on the flight last month.

Benjamin Balmores, president of the Philippine Society of Nephrology (PSN), said the kidney could no longer be used after doctors instead tried to drive it nearly 400 kilometres (250 miles) to its destination.

Australia's reigning Commonwealth 400-metre champion John Steffensen will boycott next month's New Delhi games because of a dispute with Athletics Australia, reports said on Thursday.

Steffensen, 28, who won the 400m and 400m relay at the 2006 Melbourne Games, said he he wants to expose the "bullying, egotism and outdated approach" of the national governing body.

"This is the toughest decision I've ever had to make but I want people to realise this is more than another headline, more than someone creating controversy," Steffensen told The Daily Telegraph.

The most senior Chinese diplomat at the United Nations delivered a drunken rant last week against his boss, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and Americans at a retreat in Austria, a report said Thursday.

Sha Zukang, the UN undersecretary general for economic and social affairs, did not pull punches in a toast at a dinner in Alpbach, Foreign Policy magazine reported on its website, citing a senior UN official who attended the event.

"I know you never liked me, Mr secretary general -- well, I never liked you either," the official quoted Sha as saying in a toast to Ban.

Roger Federer defied gusting winds to fire 18 aces and advanced to the US Open semi-finals by defeating Swedish fifth seed Robin Soderling 6-4, 6-4, 7-5.

Swiss second seed Federer, a 16-time Grand Slam champion seeking his sixth US Open title and seventh consecutive final, will face Serbian third seed Novak Djokovic on Saturday for a berth in Sunday's championship match.

Federer has a 10-5 career record against Djokovic, including victories in the 2007 US Open final and 2008 and 2009 US Open semi-finals.

South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction said Thursday it had won a 3.42 billion dollar bid to build a power plant in Saudi Arabia.

The company said in a statement it had received a letter from state-run Saudi Electricity Company confirming it had secured the deal.

Construction will begin this month after a contract is signed and will be completed by December 2014, a spokesman told AFP.

He said the thermal power plant at Rabigh on Saudi Arabia's west coast would produce up to 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough for 2.8 million people.

Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill has said the fourth Bledisloe Cup Test against New Zealand will go ahead in Hong Kong next month despite sluggish ticket sales, reports said on Thursday.

The statement came after doubts were expressed that the Hong Kong Test would be played or would perhaps be moved to London's Twickenham stadium because of below expectation ticket sales.

But O'Neill said there were no plans to cancel the Test, which is scheduled to be played at the Hong Kong International Stadium on October 30.

BP sought to spread the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, setting off a battle of oil industry giants with tens of billions of dollars in potential fines and legal liabilities at stake.

The British energy giant released a report concluding that a "sequence of failures" were to blame for the April 20 explosion that killed 11 people and unleashed 4.9 million barrels of oil in the worst-ever maritime spill.

Sidney Crosby isn't about to quit his day job but if the Pittsburgh Pirates ever need a batter to warmup their pitchers he'd be their man.

The superstar Pittsburgh Penguins forward homered into PNC Park's right-field seats while taking batting practice Wednesday with the Pirates.

Crosby played youth baseball in Canada until he was 13 before concentrating full-time on ice hockey.

Crosby missed by several feet of homering during his first round of batting practice before going deep on the 15th swing of his second round.

Designers from around the world were to start unveiling their creations Thursday at New York's Spring-Summer 2011 Fashion Week held for the first time at the prestigious Lincoln Center.

The fashion world was in buoyant mood for the start of the event which runs to September 16, celebrating both the new digs and what insiders see as an economic turnaround in the luxury sector.

Shows were to start Thursday in tents set up in Damrosch Park within the Lincoln Center, a huge complex permanently hosting the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and New York Symphony Orchestra.

Five people remained missing as firefighters battled for a third day to contain a major wildfire in the western US state of Colorado, officials said.

Sporadic rainfall helped douse the blaze, but the fire -- which erupted Monday in Fourmile Canyon northwest of the state capital Denver -- affected about 6,400 acres (2,600 hectares) of land, according to an afternoon update.

The fires destroyed some 140 homes and other buildings, up from 92 reported earlier in the day, officials confirmed.

Researchers said Wednesday they have identified two new genetic mutations linked to the deadliest types of ovarian cancer, which may play a key role in suppressing tumors.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center hope their research will help develop treatments and drugs that will better target ovarian clear-cell carcinoma, which accounts for about 10 percent of cancers that start in the cells on the surface of the ovaries.

The disease mainly affects women aged 40 to 80 and resists chemotherapy.

Taking the biggest steps yet in their quest to inspire peace between their homelands, India's Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi reached the US Open men's doubles final on Wednesday.

With United Nations ambassadors from their countries sitting side-by-side to cheer them on, Qureshi and Bopanna beat Argentina's Eduardo Schwank and Horacio Zaballos 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.

England manager Fabio Capello has ruled out the possibility that he will continue in the job after the Euro 2012 tournament, killing off speculation that recent good performances could prolong his stay.

The Italian's reputation took a battering after England's dismal World Cup performance, but his stock has bounced back after impressive victories against Bulgaria and Switzerland in Euro qualifiers this month.

Homosexual men in Europe are increasingly failing to adhere to safe sex, according to two new studies. In France, transmission of the AIDS virus "seems to be out of control" among men who have sex with men, said a paper published on Thursday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Overall incidence of HIV in France declined from 8,390 new infections in 2003 to 6,940 in 2008, said its lead author, Stephane le Vu of the National Institute for Public Health Surveillance.

Serbian third seed Novak Djokovic advanced to the US Open semi-finals on Wednesday, defeating French 17th seed Gael Monfils 7-6 (7/2), 6-1, 6-2, in windy conditions at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Djokovic will face the winner of a later quarter-final between Swiss second seed Roger Federer and Swedish fifth seed Robin Soderling on Saturday for a berth in Sunday's final.

Tiger Woods has reached the third and most crucial stage of the PGA Tour playoffs, feeling much better about how quickly he is adjusting to his new swing changes.

Woods has been working part-time with Canadian swing coach Sean Foley who is in Chicago this week for the BMW Championship at the Cog Hill golf course.

Woods is a five-time winner at the course and the defending champion here, winning last year by eight strokes.

"It's good to be back," Woods said. "It's even better to be in the event."

Thousands of Iranian narcotics agents have been killed and billions of dollars spent in Iran's fight against the opium trade, the country's ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday.

The ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, told the UN General Assembly his country needs more international help to combat the narcotics trade which he said was the "main financial source" for militant groups in the region.

"For decades, Iran has been at the forefront of a full scale war against transnational drug mafiosi," Khazaee told an anti-terrorism debate at the UN assembly.

Kno Inc., a company developing a digital textbook reader for students, said Wednesday that it has received 46 million dollars in the latest round of funding from venture capitalists.

Kno said Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm launched by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, was the lead investor along with Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital.

Britain's financial watchdog has hit Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs with a 20-million-pound (31-million-dollar, 24-million-euro) fine linked to US fraud charges, a report said Wednesday.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined the banking giant for failing to disclose it was under investigation for fraud by the US financial watchdog earlier this year, the BBC reported, without citing its sources.