TOP NEWS

CAMB.AI is introducing its new Streaming SDK and Streaming Dashboard at IBC2026,  with integrations into NVIDIA Holoscan for Media  open reference architecture

The release gives developers and broadcast teams new ways to integrate, manage and deploy real-time multilingual broadcasting within their existing workflows.

Multilingual broadcasting, now live as an SDK

Available for C++, Python, Java and Rust, the SDKs allow developers to start broadcasting in multiple languages with as little as three lines of code, making it easier to integrate multilingual capabilities directly into existing applications and workflows.

CAMB.AI’s live streaming platform supports 150+ languages, producing dubbed audio and subtitles for live content. It supports source-speaker voice cloning, studio voices and custom terminology, allowing names, venues, sponsors and other specific terminology to remain consistent across languages. 

The release features the latest quality enhancements backed by CAMB’s foundational models MARS and BOLI.

Bringing live dubbing  to NVIDIA Holoscan for Media open reference architecture

CAMB.AI’s new capabilities will be available within the NVIDIA Holoscan for Media reference architecture as a hybrid SaaS. 

Holoscan for Media is NVIDIA’s open reference architecture and developer toolkit for building AI-powered live media solutions on NVIDIA infrastructure.

Program audio can be processed by CAMB.AI’s models to produce dubbed commentary in each target language, with outputs returned to the production network or delivered directly to destinations including CDN, OTT and YouTube Live.

For broadcasters, this allows live localization to operate alongside other production applications. It reduces the need to send feeds to a separate cloud localization environment and back, reducing infrastructure hops while allowing media to remain within the broadcaster’s facility or own cloud environment when required.

New Streaming Dashboard

The new Streaming Dashboard provides a visual environment for building, launching and monitoring multilingual streams.

Operators can configure sources, select audio, set processing profiles, create language pipelines and manage output destinations from a single interface. During a live broadcast, teams can monitor stream health, outputs, runtime and live transcripts, as well as pause and resume dubbing without stopping the stream.

CAMB.AI’s live localization technology has already been used across Ligue 1+, NASCAR and Eurovision Sport, including live AI-dubbed commentary and multilingual subtitling.

See It at IBC2026

CAMB.AI will preview its new dashboard and SDKs at IBC2026. Visitors will be able to see live multilingual dubbing in action at the CAMB.AI booth.

CAMB.AI builds localization AI for content, entertainment and sport.

Its MARS family of speech models and livestreaming platform deliver dubbing, translation and subtitles in more than 150 languages, live and on demand.

Founded in 2022, CAMB.AI has offices in Dubai and San Francisco.

The mother of a Palestine Action prisoner has said she was refused a mortgage due to “adverse media”, as more pro-Palestine voices in the United Kingdom are opening up about their experiences of “debanking”.

Emma Kamio, a small business owner in south Wales, was denied a remortgage with Lloyds on her commercial properties in April due to “adverse media.”

The decision “devastated” her, she told Al Jazeera. “It has put me in a difficult position, one where I have relinquished my responsibilities [in the family business] and let my sister pick up the slack.”

Despite the setback, she said business was no longer central in her life.

“I’ve got one goal and that’s to get my girl out of prison,” she said.

Her daughter Leona “Ellie” Kamio has also been affected. In February 2025, while the 30-year-old nursery teacher was held on remand awaiting trial, Kamio was debanked by Lloyds Bank – meaning the financial institution suddenly closed her bank accounts without explanation.

George Galloway, the Scotland-born politician and broadcaster, said last week that Bank of Scotland, owned by the Lloyds Banking Group, closed his personal account without explanation or notice after 39 years.

“My parliamentary and old age pensions are paid into these accounts,” he wrote on X. “The mortgage on our family home is paid out of them. The mortgage is with them.”

In late June, when Lloyds debanked The Canary, the left-wing news outlet wrote that the bank “has not explained why it has taken this action … despite multiple communications from us”.

More recently, the Pakistani-British writer Tariq Ali on Wednesday said a bank, which he did not name, refused to receive a transfer from his account due to his “opinions”.

“My opinions can only mean those on one subject: Palestine,” he wrote on X.

In the case of Kamio, her account was closed before the UK proscribed Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation. It was also before she was convicted of criminal damage in connection with a raid on a factory operated by Israeli defence firm Elbit in Filton, Bristol, in August 2024 – and sentenced as a “terrorist”. Four of six Palestine Action activists convicted of criminal damage, including Kamio, are seeking to appeal their unprecedented sentencing.

Their appeal submission argues that the judge was wrong in law to find that the non-terrorism offence of criminal damage in their case had a terror connection.

Since Palestine Action was outlawed, more than 2,700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act at rallies and demonstrations in support of the group.

At the time of publishing, Lloyds had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

“We have reached a point where debanking pro-Palestine voices has become systemic,” Anas Mustapha, at the campaign group Cage which advocates against legal abuses from UK counter-terrorism strategies, told Al Jazeera.

He said Cage was debanked more than a decade ago, “with no explanation ever given”.

“Since then we’ve watched the same pattern extend further, with activists being penalised for their politics, and now the families of people jailed for opposing a genocide.”

The issue last made the headlines in late 2023, when Muslims in the UK found a rare common link with Reform leader Nigel Farage.

Anas Altikriti, head of the London-based Cordoba Foundation think-tank, was among those affected by debanking, which he said was being used as a “tool of oppression.”

“This is happening on an industrial scale, to thousands upon thousands of people,” the British entrepreneur, who has also been debanked several times, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

More than 450,000 bank accounts were closed each year, according to The Telegraph.

Altikriti argued that the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, marked the beginning of the “commercialisation of the term terrorism”.

Twenty-five years on, the term “slides off the tongue so easily for any kind of adverse opinion,” he said. “The problem is that once that term is on record, it’s always on record. It’s fixed. It’s always there and it impacts your entire life.”

Altikriti was himself labelled a “terrorist” in a banking database following a claim from the United Arab Emirates that was never independently verified by UK authorities. The British citizen said the term has not made his country safer because it is being used “in order to satisfy certain political agendas”.

“If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,” he added.

Donald Trump is set to arrive in Ireland on Saturday, but most Irish people aren’t happy about it.

A recent poll by the Sunday Independent and Ireland Thinks reported that 69 percent do not support the US president’s visit.

“Thousands of us will march on Saturday because we refuse to normalise a man who has facilitated genocide,” Sean Radcliffe, an economics undergraduate student at Trinity College Dublin, told Al Jazeera.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin “should say it clearly, firmly, and publicly: the United States is facilitating genocide,” added Radcliffe, who is a leader of the student body’s Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign.

Sean Corcoran, an environmental artist based on the Copper Coast in Waterford, spent five hours with three others carving “No Kings” – a nod to anti-Trump protests under the same name in the US, along with “Gaza, Iran, Ice,” into the sand of Dublin Bay Beach.

“As an Irish artist and citizen, I believe it is important for me to use my voice to share my opinion about the Trump administration,” he told Al Jazeera. “Despite the diplomatic and security welcome that Mr Trump will receive when he lands in Ireland, the majority of Irish do not welcome him to Ireland.”

Trump is expected to meet with several figures in Ireland’s leadership, including Martin and antiwar President Catherine Connolly, who has previously said the US is, along with France and England, a nation Ireland “certainly cannot trust”.

Protests are planned throughout Ireland, including in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance. Many are themed against Trump’s role in supporting Israel’s actions in Palestine.

Ireland, one of the West’s most vocal critics of Israel, was the first European Union country to ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements.

Roughly 4,000 security personnel will be enlisted to protect the US leader from protests and other risks during his visit, including roughly 1,000 US Secret Service agents and “anti-drone weaponry”.

Following his visits with Ireland’s political elites and the US ambassador to Ireland, resulting in the temporary shutdown of Phoenix Park, one of Europe’s largest parks, he is expected to visit the Irish Open golf tournament in Doonbeg, where Trump owns a resort.

Connolly, whose role is largely ceremonial, has said that she is “not afraid to stand against the consensus”. She secured a landslide victory in October 2025.

During her campaign, Connolly said she would meet the US president in her official capacity, but added that “I doubt that [genocide] would be the discussion, I doubt that [Gaza] would be on the agenda”.

“People expect a slightly more activist president who might speak out,” Johan Dornschneider-Elkink, professor of Computational Political Science at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera. “The high level of consensus in the Irish population means that the president can also feel a bit comfortable pushing it a bit.”

Still, the limitations of Connolly’s role, and the economic obligations of the taoiseach are expected to overshadow the issue of Palestine during high-level conversations.

‘Ireland is very much aligned in spirit’

“I think [the protest] shows that Ireland is very much aligned in spirit and policy-wise with the Palestinian people; they very much identify with Palestine,” Stephanie Dornschneider-Elkink, associate professor of Political Science at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera.

“But there’s also only so much space to be critical. Ireland depends on the US, and there’s an economic relationship at stake.”

Johan added that the visit is more an opportunity for Irish people who want to make known their stance on both Palestine and the Trump administration.

“There’s an understanding that Trump is one president among many, and there will be another president. There’s a longer history of the Irish-US relationship which nobody wants to see damaged.”

Leader of the Opposition Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein, told journalists this week that she hoped Connolly would raise issues like “ongoing facilitation of a genocide in Gaza,” adding that the party will take part in Saturday’s protests.

The party’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, trade, and defence, Donnchadh O Laoghaire TD, shared on his Instagram that he would join the protest in the Garden of Remembrance, asking others to join him “to stand up against genocide and against war”.

The demonstration is organised by the Irish Neutrality League, in coalition with the Irish Anti-War Movement and social justice movement Tonn na Cle, and has received endorsements from the Social Democrats, Labour, People Before Profit-Solidarity, and the Green Party, in addition to Sinn Fein.

Student groups in Ireland have been among the loudest voices of pro-Palestine organising in the country, with Trinity College Dublin becoming the first university in the world to officially sever ties with Israel.

Radcliffe said there is no generational divide “of any significance” over the Israel-Palestine conflict in Ireland.

“Some of the best [pro-Palestine] activists I know in Ireland are pensioners,” he said.

Gabriel Jesus claims he was forced to train alone before Barcelona move, but Arsenal ‘surprised’ by criticism.

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta said he was “very surprised” by Gabriel Jesus’s claim that he was forced to train alone and was given no information prior to joining Barcelona.

Jesus ended his four-year spell with the Gunners in September and has since made it clear he felt disappointed with the way his exit was handled.

The Brazilian striker said in an interview this week that “out of nowhere they put me to train apart from the group,” adding that “nobody told me nothing” before he signed for Barcelona.

Responding to Jesus’s criticism, Arteta insisted he had spoken to the former Manchester City star about the transfer and had parted on good terms.

“Very surprised, to be fair. Especially because with Gabi (Jesus) I had an individual talk in the dressing room,” he told reporters on Friday.

“I don’t know what words were said; it’s fine. The words that we used were all about gratitude.”

Arteta also came under fire from former Arsenal striker Ian Wright, who recently said he was “uncomfortable” with what he perceived to be a lack of dialogue between the club and Gabriel Martinelli, who moved to Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal on September 3.

But Arteta used the presence of Leandro Trossard, who was sold to Besiktas in July, to watch Arsenal’s victory over Chelsea last weekend as an example of the club’s bond with their former players.

“I don’t know, it’s OK. Sometimes I understand that when you have to deliver bad news, or news that people don’t expect, somebody has to be the bad cop. If I have to be, I have to be and I understand,” he said, before the Premier League champions’ trip to Sunderland on Saturday.

“What is important is normally what happens three months or six months later. When Trossard comes, he’s in the dressing room with all of us, the atmosphere and the relationship you have.

“Thank God so far that with all the players that left, at some point the relationship has been really good. I hope this is the same case.”

MOSCOW: Russia said on Friday it would aim its nuclear warheads at Lithuania if the Baltic state hosted any weapons from the nuclear arsenals of its NATO allies on its territory.

Lithuania is moving to lift a constitutional ban on having nuclear weapons stored in the country, part of an effort to boost its security posture amid Russia’s offensive on Ukraine.

The decision is currently working its way through parliament — where it needs a two-thirds majority to pass and has the support of the president and major parties — and could come into force this winter.

It would be “a very serious turn in terms of escalating tensions”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV when asked about the plan.

“If there are nuclear weapons on the territory that are aimed at us, accordingly, the territory of that country will fall into the crosshairs of our own nuclear weapons,” he said.

Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda had announced the plans in July, saying his country wanted to be an “integral part of this nuclear deterrence”.

RIYADH: Trade can grind to a halt before ports close or shipping lanes are blocked. Disruption can begin elsewhere, when cargo or vessels become too costly or difficult to insure, or when markets are unable to provide adequate coverage for war-related risks.

Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical risks in the region and their spillover into maritime traffic, insurance and reinsurance markets, Saudi Arabia is moving to establish a national framework to help keep trade flowing even in a highly volatile maritime environment.

In response, the Cabinet approved the establishment of the “Saudi War Risks Insurance Pool for Cargo and Vessels,” a step aimed at building domestic insurance capacity to address risks that could drive up transportation and trade costs or constrain global insurers’ ability to provide coverage.

The initiative is also intended to help ensure the continuity of goods flows and support businesses involved in transportation and logistics.

The move is particularly significant for Saudi Arabia as it expands its role as a trade and logistics hub. The competitiveness of ports and distribution centers depends not only on cargo-handling speed and transport costs, but also on companies’ ability to price and manage risks when geopolitical conditions change abruptly.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said after the Cabinet approved the mechanism that the Saudi marine insurance pool was a specialized national mechanism designed to support the continuity of trade and supply chains through a public-private partnership.

He said the pool would directly enhance the technical preparedness of the domestic insurance market and expand its capacity to provide the necessary coverage under rules and frameworks set by the Insurance Authority.

He added that the initiative would strengthen the resilience of the national economy and help safeguard its stability amid regional and international crises and challenges.

Industry specialists who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat said the pool’s economic value would be most evident during crises, when insurance premiums surge or insurers and reinsurers tighten their acceptance of risks associated with particular regions.

They said a stable insurance safety net could give transport companies, importers and exporters greater room to plan and continue operating.

A stable insurance environment

Logistics specialist Nashmi Al-Harbi said rising shipping risks in the Red Sea and the Gulf had prompted some insurers to tighten their conditions for covering vessels linked to the region.

That makes the establishment of the Saudi pool particularly timely for domestic transport and logistics companies, he said, as it would help reduce one of the main sources of uncertainty affecting international shipping contracts.

Al-Harbi told Asharq Al-Awsat that international companies doing business with Saudi Arabia, or whose cargo passes through its ports, would also benefit from greater clarity and stability in the insurance environment.

He said the pool’s scope would not be limited to vessels based in the kingdom but would extend to activities and companies with Saudi interests, subject to approved eligibility and coverage requirements.

Al-Harbi said providing stable war-risk coverage would make Saudi Arabia more attractive as a regional hub for storage, distribution and re-exporting.

Logistics companies do not consider only port, transport and cargo-handling costs when selecting destinations, he said. They also take into account the costs of risks to goods and vessels throughout their journeys.

The cost of risk

Supply chain and logistics expert Khalid Al-Ghamdi said the importance of the Saudi war-risk insurance pool went beyond providing coverage for vessels and cargo.

It also addressed a deeper challenge facing businesses: the difficulty of predicting risk costs when geopolitical conditions change suddenly.

Al-Ghamdi said a national war-risk safety net would give Saudi logistics companies greater stability when planning voyages, signing contracts and setting prices.

Companies managing thousands of containers need to know more than the cost of fuel, transport and cargo handling, he said.

They also need greater certainty about insurance costs so that insurance risks do not suddenly become a heavy financial burden or an obstacle to keeping voyages in operation.

The decision sends a message to international logistics companies that Saudi Arabia is continuing to build a business environment capable of operating even when shipping is disrupted, he said.

That could become an additional factor in decisions by global companies when choosing ports and distribution and re-export centers.

Al-Ghamdi added that the selection of a logistics hub was based not only on location and transport costs, but also on its ability to absorb shocks and manage risks associated with trade flows.

Strengthening that capacity could improve supply-chain resilience, bolster international companies’ confidence and create opportunities for more effective risk-management partnerships, he said.

Insurance pool arrangements

The initiative establishes a national insurance mechanism bringing together the public and private sectors under the supervision of the Insurance Authority.

It is intended to strengthen the domestic insurance market’s ability to handle war risks associated with maritime transport and mitigate the effects of volatility and rising reinsurance costs in global markets.

The initiative also aims to enhance Saudi Arabia’s competitiveness as a logistics hub at a time when more flexible tools are needed to manage the risks facing trade and transport.

As part of its implementation, the Saudi Reinsurance Company, known as Saudi Re, said that the Insurance Authority had selected it to lead and structure the pool’s arrangements, with participation from insurers operating in the domestic market.

Saudi Re will manage the pool’s technical operations and reinsurance arrangements. Beneficiaries will be able to obtain coverage through participating insurers under approved terms and conditions.

Initiative’s objectives

The Insurance Authority has identified four main objectives for the pool: enhancing the insurance market’s preparedness and capacity to absorb marine insurance risks; supporting the continuity of trade and supply chains; limiting the effects of sharp volatility and higher reinsurance costs in global markets; and strengthening Saudi Arabia’s competitiveness as a major logistics hub.

The pool will cover cargo transported by land, sea and air, as well as marine hull insurance against covered damage and risks.

It will also cover charterers’ liability and provide protection and indemnity coverage, offering broader protection to parties involved in transport and trade.

Eligible beneficiaries include exporters and importers; vessel owners and operators; shipping, freight and maritime transport companies; businesses involved in cargo movements, logistics and supply chains; and Saudi insurers participating in the pool.

International models

Saudi Arabia is not alone in adopting such a mechanism. Other countries have established national pools to address rising war risks and difficulties in obtaining coverage from traditional insurance markets.

India offers a recent example. This year, it launched a marine insurance pool with a total capacity of $1.5 billion, including a $1.4 billion sovereign guarantee, to cover war risks affecting vessels and cargo linked to Indian interests.

India’s experience demonstrated the scale of demand for such coverage. The scheme issued more than 1,600 policies within weeks of beginning operations, while war-risk insurance premiums fell by about 35% to 40% from the peaks recorded during the escalation of regional tensions.

The trend reflects a shift in how countries manage maritime war risks — from relying entirely on global insurance and reinsurance markets to developing domestic capacity that can help keep trade moving when coverage becomes more expensive or private insurers’ appetite for risk declines.

The “best of the best” in athletics are preparing to compete in the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship that gets under way in Budapest this weekend.

The three-day competition will see 26 Olympic champions from Paris, 26 world champions from Tokyo last year, and this season’s top athletes battle it out to be crowned the best in track and field.

Many return to the stomping ground in the Hungarian capital after successes at the 2023 World Championships, while others have racked up global titles after breakout performances throughout the year.

Here’s Al Jazeera’s all-to-know guide to the meet:

Who, what, where and when at the Ultimate Championship?

The Ultimate Championship is an invite-only competition featuring the Olympic gold medallist, World Championship gold medallist, Diamond League winners, and the best performers of 2026 based on the World Rankings qualification system.

It runs from September 11-13 in Budapest and will become a biennial feature in World Athletics’ calendar. The sport’s global governing body chose 2026 to launch the event in between the World Championships, and, in Olympic years, use it to round out a highly competitive season.

Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt, an ambassador for the event, said it was “great to see track and field going in a different direction”.

“It’s going to be great to see the best of the best,” the eight-time Olympic gold medallist said at a news conference on Thursday before the event.

“This was one of my greatest things. I’ve always lived to compete against the best and I would thrive in this moment.”

What is the Ultimate Championship prize pot?

The $10m prize pot will see winners of each event bag a record $150,000.

That’s more than double the $70,000 given at last year’s World Championships in Tokyo, and three times what was awarded by World Athletics to Olympic champions in Paris. Second place takes home $75,000, third place $40,000, all the way to $2,000 for 16th-place finishers.

Relay teams will split $80,000 among themselves, followed by $40,000 and $24,000 for second and third place, respectively.

The Ultimate Champion also walks away with global “bragging rights”, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said before the event as he explained its significance to the sport.

What’s new at the Ultimate Championship?  

For one, there are no medals. It’s part of World Athletics’ “reimagining of awards” that replaces the traditional accolade with a customised trophy for the Ultimate Champions based on individual tokens.

All events will be direct semifinals or finals rather than starting off as heats. Athletes competing in the men’s and women’s 200m will select their preferred semifinal heat and lane based on their seed order.

A tie for first place in a vertical jump will be decided by a jump-off rather than be shared, while athletes in throwing events will have four attempts down from the typical six, that too in the 8:8:6:4 model.

The mixed 4×100-metre relay will feature in Budapest after its debut at the World Relays earlier this year, with each quartet competing in national kits.

Why is Ultimate Championship getting criticism from a few athletes?

A number of events have been excluded from the Ultimate Championship, including shot put, triple jump, women’s hammer throw, and discus throw, as well as long-distance track events like 3,000-metre steeplechase and 10,000-metre.

World Athletics said its decision was based on viewership and priority for faster-paced events.

Olympic discus champion Matthew Denny and former world champion and two-time triple jump champion Pedro Pichardo were among the athletes who lamented the decision on social media.

Denny, current world number two, explained that the prize money “can change a career and a life” and implored World Athletics to reconsider its stance on public interest driven by its own statistics.

“Innovation should not come at the expense of opportunity.”

World record watch

These athletes are already the creme de la creme in their field and are most likely to set a world record, based on this year’s performance:

• Men’s Pole Vault: None other than Sweden’s Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis, who has broken the world record 15 times and most recently this March.
• Men’s 800m: World lead Emanuel Wanyonyi has repeatedly threatened fellow Kenyan David Rudisha’s 1:40.91 set at the London 2012 Olympics.
• Women’s 800m: Audrey Werro is fresh off her 1:53.70 set on home soil at the Zurich Diamond League in August. The Swiss’s time is third all-time and dangerously close to the 1:53.28 set by Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.
• Men’s 400m hurdles: Brazil’s Alison dos Santos recently smashed the record in Zurich, five years after Norway’s Karsten Warholm clocked 45.94 at the Tokyo Olympics.
• Women’s 100m hurdles: Zurich magic extended to the women’s 100m hurdles as USA’s Masai Russell stormed to a 12.09 to cap off 12 straight wins this season.

CORON, Philippines: Firefighters entered a charred ferry in Philippine waters on Friday after a fire two nights earlier left five people dead and 84 missing and produced heat and smoke that prevented search and rescue efforts onboard.

Images released by the coast guard around midday showed three smaller boats near the MV June Aster, which appeared to have stopped emitting smoke as personnel walked on the outer portion of the ship.

Coast guard communications officer Joy Dianne Gumatay said Friday they had not received updates from the firefighting team about what was found inside, including whether there were additional fatalities.

The ferry sailed from the capital, Manila, on Wednesday evening and was around 7.4 kilometers off the village of Turda near its destination of Coron in Palawan province when the fire was reported.

Rescuers struggled to get inside the burning, smoking vessel Thursday to search for passengers who may been trapped. The efforts were halted overnight.

The cause of the fire has not been determined.

The coast guard and other vessels have rescued 43 people, some plucked from the dark waters as the ferry burned.

“The fire quickly spread. That’s when I dropped to the ground and my back was burned,” survivor Arnulfo Nokki Villanueva said in a video broadcast by News5, adding that he jumped from a window. “I wanted to get a life jacket but failed to get one because people were stepping on me. People were in panic.”

The coast guard, other government agencies, private volunteers and fishermen searched the nearby waters and coastal patrols checked for people who may have drifted to shore but no new survivors or fatalities were found.

According to the manifest, 134 people were onboard, 117 of them passengers and 17 crew. The 53-meter (174-foot) vessel had a capacity to carry 306 passengers and 27 crew.

Two passengers listed in the manifest reported to authorities that they failed to board, bringing the number of missing to 84, the coast guard said.

Two of the survivors were tourists from Chile, according to Rachel Conserman, a staffer of the ship’s owner Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc. They are recovering from injuries in a hospital in Coron, she said, adding that there no other foreigners known to have been on the ship.

The shipping company said in a statement it was assisting those who were on board and their families while coordinating with the coast guard and maritime officials to locate the missing passengers and determine the cause.

Coron is a popular tourist destination known for clear blue waters, limestone cliffs and rock formations.

Ferries are frequently used for transport in the Philippine archipelago. Sea accidents are not uncommon due to storms, badly maintained vessels, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.

Aryna Sabalenka beat Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-2 to reach US Open final with Elena Rybakina, who toppled her as World No 1.

Aryna Sabalenka stormed past Jessica Pegula in straight sets on Thursday to keep her bid for a rare US Open threepeat on track, booking a championship showdown with Elena Rybakina.

Sabalenka was simply unstoppable in a 7-5, 6-2 victory on Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she beat Pegula en route to US Open victories in 2024 and 2025.

Rybakina battled back to beat 2023 champion Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

In Saturday’s final, the Kazakh will try to deal Sabalenka another blow after her run to the semifinals ensured she will end the Belarusian’s reign atop the world rankings.

Sabalenka, bidding to join Chris Evert and Serena Williams as the only women to win three straight US Open titles, pounded third-seeded Pegula remorselessly with her powerful groundstrokes.

“I was super desperate,” said Sabalenka, who has had a slow summer since back-to-back wins at Indian Wells and Miami in March.

“I wanted it badly to go to the finals, and of course, I want to go all the way.

“The mentality was just I’m ready. I’m ready for whatever it’s going to take to get the win,” Sabalenka added, after producing her best performance of the tournament to snuff out Pegula’s dream of a first-ever Grand Slam title.

Sabalenka’s frustration at her inability to make any headway against Pegula’s serve showed in a tense first set. But she maintained her focus and was rewarded as Pegula, feeling the pressure to stay in the set as she served down 6-5, fell behind 0-40.

The American saved one set point but could not salvage the next.

Sabalenka kept rolling in the second set, attacking Pegula’s suspect second serve and seizing a break for a 3-1 lead when she lasered a forehand into the corner.

She sealed the victory with another break courtesy of another thunderous forehand.

“I thought her level was insanely high,” Pegula said. “Honestly, I don’t really know if there was much I could do today.”

Rybakina, who beat Sabalenka in the Australian Open final in January to claim her second Grand Slam title, said she would need to raise her level to do the same in Flushing Meadows.

“I feel like I definitely need to step my game up, serve much better than today and stay aggressive,” Rybakina said.

Gauff’s bid to return to the final for the first time since she defeated Sabalenka for the 2023 title had got off to a smooth start, the American gaining the lone break of the opening set for a 4-2 lead and pocketing the set with a love game.

But Rybakina hit back with an early break on the way to a 4-1 lead in the second.

Gauff responded superbly, breaking back and holding to square the set at 4-4 to roars from the crowd.

But she was unable to make the most of her fightback and double-faulted in the 10th game to hand two set points to Rybakina, who pounced to force a third set.

Rybakina looked on the brink of victory after breaking Gauff for a 5-3 lead in the third. Gauff broke back, but Rybakina clinched it in the next game.

A deft volley from Rybakina left her with two match points, and Gauff then hit a wide-open smash long to hand her opponent victory.

“I feel like I was a little bit lucky on her serve,” Rybakina said. “A couple of deep returns, one mistake from her, it went quickly my way … It was a real battle.”

Gauff, meanwhile, was left reflecting on the fine margins of the defeat.

“It honestly came down to a couple of service games of mine in both sets and I didn’t quite hold,” Gauff said. “I think she was able to hold the line a bit better than I could tonight.”

The men’s semifinals are on Friday, when eighth-seeded Ben Shelton takes on 11th seed Frances Tiafoe in an all-American clash.

Shelton took out defending champion and seven-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz in an epic quarterfinal that ended at 3:34am on Wednesday – the latest finish in tournament history.

“Big Ben” and “Big Foe” will duel for a chance to end American men’s 23-year Grand Slam title drought.

The winner will take on either top-seeded French Open champion Alexander Zverev or unseeded Russian Karen Khachanov.

RIYADH: Oysters, mussels, crabs and other aquatic invertebrates may be making a far greater contribution to global nutrition than previously recognized, according to a new study led by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

The study, published in the journal Nature and featured on the KAUST website, examined 30 nutrients essential to human health and found that current global production of aquatic invertebrates provides enough vitamin B12 and selenium to meet the equivalent annual requirements of more than 5 billion people. It also supplies enough iodine, zinc, copper and omega-3 fatty acids to meet the annual requirements of more than 1 billion people.

The findings challenge the way aquatic food systems are commonly assessed, with production often measured by the amount of food harvested rather than the nutrients it delivers.

“For far too long, we have measured success of aquatic food systems in tons of production, rather than in the nutrients they deliver to people,” said Jessica Zamborain-Mason, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of marine science at KAUST.

The research team said incorporating nutritional value into decisions on fisheries, aquaculture and food systems could help governments pursue healthier diets while ensuring marine resources are managed sustainably.

Researchers compiled nutritional data from hundreds of aquatic invertebrate species and used predictive models to estimate nutrient content for more than 50,000 potentially edible species. The models were based on species-specific environmental, ecological and life-history traits, addressing major gaps in available nutritional data.

The resulting estimates will be incorporated into SeaLifeBase, a major online database of marine species, giving researchers and policymakers broader access to information on the nutritional value of aquatic foods.

The study found that invertebrates can provide disproportionately large amounts of key micronutrients compared with their share of production. In aquaculture, for example, they account for about one-third of production by weight but provide more than half of the supply of nutrients including iodine, vitamin B12, vitamin C and iron, according to the study.

Processing can also affect nutritional value. The researchers found that 100 grams of dried invertebrates often contain higher concentrations of minerals than raw tissue, pointing to potential opportunities to improve nutrition through food processing while reducing waste.

The study is not a call to harvest more aquatic species, the researchers stressed. Instead, it provides evidence for considering nutrition alongside ecological sustainability when managing fisheries and developing aquaculture.

Many aquatic invertebrates remain poorly studied or unassessed for sustainability, Zamborain-Mason said, underscoring the need to better protect, monitor and assess these resources.

The researchers hope the findings will help governments, industry and international organizations incorporate nutrition more fully into fisheries, aquaculture and food policies, while highlighting areas where more research and nutritional data are needed.

As countries seek more resilient food systems, the study argues that measuring how much food is produced is only part of the equation. Understanding the nutrients that food provides may be just as important.

SAN FRANCISCO, California: Anthropic said Thursday it shut down multiple cases of state-sponsored surveillance operations that used its artificial intelligence (AI) models, and warned that governments and state-aligned actors are increasingly using AI to spy on ethnic minorities and dissidents.

The incidents were found and disrupted between January and July, and they originated in China, Iran and west Africa, Anthropic said in a report about misuse of its models.

These surveillance campaigns “targeted the same diaspora and dissident communities these regimes have historically targeted. These include pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, Tibetan and Falun Gong communities across Asia, and Iranian minority communities and opponents of the Iranian regime abroad,” the report said.

In one case, Iranian actors developed a way to identify people through their social media accounts; in another, a contractor working for Malian national security authorities used Claude “to design the underlying software that enabled the intelligence gathering.”

“AI is now being used in place of an engineering workforce,” the report said.

Anthropic also disrupted efforts by users to design weapons, conduct questionable biological research, and create dating scams.

The San Francisco-based AI lab also accused Chinese developers of deceptively using Claude to produce responses to user queries while simultaneously “distilling” that data to improve their own models.

Distilling is an industry term that refers to a process where one AI model is used to train another one.

Chinese developers have previously been accused of using that technique without permission, essentially stealing resources from American labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

Now Anthropic alleges that China’s Moonshot and Deepseek have also secretly used Claude to generate answers given to its users.

“In one instance, over a ten-day period, Moonshot relayed almost 300,000 customer requests to Anthropic” through a “network of 5,380 fraudulent accounts, most of which appeared to be located in Singapore and Japan,” the report said.

Some of that data contained sensitive user information, potentially in violation of privacy agreements.

“We do not know if Moonshot notified their customers that their requests were being rerouted to Anthropic and exposed to a third party,” the report said.

Deepseek used similar techniques.

When it comes to the research Anthropic detected and blocked that was related to biological weapons, the intent of the actors was less clear-cut and the AI lab did not identify them.

“The individuals implicated in these case studies are working scientists. We do not assert that they intended harm, and identifying them or their labs could expose them to harm,” the report said.

The scientific research in those cases involved work around the mosquito-born chikungunya virus, a “highly-pathogenic” strain of the bird flu, a family of viruses that include smallpox and mpox, venoms and other toxins.

NEW YORK: Aryna Sabalenka moved a win away from her third straight US Open title, beating Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-2 on Thursday night.

Sabalenka blasted her way out of what was a dead-even match for most of the first set, pouncing on Pegula’s second serves and turning the second set into perhaps her most impressive stretch of tennis in the tournament.

“No complaints,” Sabalenka said. “I’m just super happy that I was able to pull out such tennis.”

The No. 1 seed will face No. 2 Elena Rybakina or No. 4 Coco Gauff on Saturday, needing a victory to become the first player to win three in a row in Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams from 2012-14.

Rybakina will replace Sabalenka atop the women’s tennis rankings next week, and Sabalenka said this week she would be fine ceding No. 1 after she held it 99 consecutive weeks if it she was able to win another US Open trophy.

It will be hard to prevent that if she hits the ball Saturday the way she did against Pegula.

Sabalenka pounded 29 winners to Pegula’s 12, turning their third straight meeting at the end of the US Open into a rout, after her victory in the 2024 final and 2025 semifinals were tight most of the way.

“I was so desperate for the win, I wanted it badly,” Sabalenka said.

She has won 19 straight matches at the US Open since losing to Gauff in the 2023 final.

BIRMINGHAM, England: Rain prevented England from putting Pakistan in a deeper hole than 52-2 and 268 runs behind on day two of the Edgbaston cricket test on Thursday.

Pakistan walked out after tea 320 runs behind to begin its second innings in gloomy, lights-on conditions perfectly suited for England’s four-man pace attack which has dominated the series.

Pakistan has yet to crack a 200 total, and Ollie Robinson was the man of the moment again.

Robinson got Saim Ayub to nick to the slips off the first ball and became only the fifth bowler in test history to twice take a wicket with the first ball of an innings in a series. The last person was Zaheer Khan for India against Bangladesh in 2007. Bill Voce was the only previous Englishman in 1937 against Australia.

Ayub was playing Twenty20s in the Caribbean 10 days ago but was summoned in mid-series in a panic call by the Pakistan Cricket Board to play his first test in 20 months. He bagged a pair.

Robinson struck again with his fourth ball, nicking off Abdullah Shafique.

That made Pakistan start 0-2 for the sixth time ever in tests and the second time against England. The other was at the same ground in 1982. The bowler was Ian Botham.

From 0-2, Azan Awais and Shan Masood dug out Pakistan to 52-2 in 12 overs. Awais had 29 and Masood 21 after being dropped on 13 by Ben Duckett off the luckless Gus Atkinson.

Wet weather came sooner than forecast and guaranteed Pakistan lived to fight at least one more day in a three-test series already lost. England, up 2-0, should complete the sweep on Saturday with no test going the distance.

Fifties and no hundreds again

England began the day already in front with a lead of 23 at 156-4.

In two sessions, 50 overs, they added 297 runs at a pacy 5.9, its fastest rate on any day all summer. Three more batters scored fifties to add to Emilio Gay’s gritty 60 and Harry Brook’s unbeaten 52 on Wednesday but the effort looked nothing like Bazball.

However, Brook, Dan Lawrence, Jamie Smith and less so Robinson would have thought a century was at their mercy.

The former trio spent more than two hours at the crease, three hours in Brook’s case, but all fell tamely and showed obvious frustration to miss out on a century on a fair pitch against a popgun attack.

Brook ran himself out on 75, Lawrence dragged on on 65, and Smith chipped back to fast bowler Razaullah Khan on 69.

Robinson’s breezy 50 from 47 balls highlighted the merciless contribution from the tailenders of 116 runs and 15 boundaries.

Brook resumed on a restrained 52 and Dan Lawrence on 5, and in sunny conditions they plundered seven runs per over in the first hour.

Brook then mistakenly took on Shan Masood at midwicket and has now been involved in five run outs in tests — only Virat Kohli (6) has been in more. Brook has gone 11 tests without a century but was still averaging more than 40.

Lawrence, filling Ben Stokes’ old spot, had in hand his third fifty in three tests when he chopped on. He gave up an agonizing “No” and Mohammad Imran’s first test wicket.

“Bitterly disappointed to get out in the 60s,” Lawrence said. “Something I’ve prided myself on this season is kicking on. I really wanted a big hundred today.

Pakistan still went to lunch with an air of resignation as Smith collected an unbeaten 47 of the 143 runs in the session.

Smith got his third 50 of the summer straight after lunch by crashing Razaullah through the covers, but Razaullah got him caught and bowled on 69.

No. 9 batter Robinson greeted the new ball by lofting Mohammad Abbas for six over cow corner and got his second 50 of the season from 46 balls. The entertainment was ended by a good catch from Masood in the covers.

NEW YORK CITY: Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the UN warned the Security Council on Thursday that “the international community cannot call for de-escalation” in Yemen “while at the same time allowing the continued flow of support that enables this (Houthi) militia to continue its hostile and criminal conduct.”

The warning from Abdulaziz Alwasil came during an emergency council session to discuss Houthi attacks against the Kingdom this week. It was requested by the UK, the penholder on Yemen, and Bahrain.

He said the latest strikes on Saudi cities, which began on Tuesday, were not an isolated episode but “an extension of a systematic, hostile approach pursued by this militia since its coup against the legitimate Yemeni government in 2014,” and part of a pattern that has also targeted commercial shipping and threatened freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait.

He said a press statement by the council on Aug. 7 condemning Houthi missile strikes on the Kingdom since July 13, and attacks against commercial vessels since July 22, had gone unheeded, and the militia had answered the international warnings with further escalation.

Alwasil said Saudi Arabia had backed nearly every major effort to end the Yemen war — including the Gulf Initiative, the transitional period, the National Dialogue Conference, the Geneva, Kuwait and Stockholm talks, a 2021 initiative and the UN-brokered truce in 2022 — but the Houthis had repeatedly met those efforts with renewed violence.

“My country affirms its legitimate right to defend itself, its citizens and residents, and to safeguard our national resources,” he said, adding that Riyadh “will not hesitate to take all measures necessary to deter Houthi attacks and to protect our security, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

He called on the council to enforce Resolutions 2216, which imposed an arms embargo and sanctions on the Houthis, and 2722, which demanded an immediate halt to Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and to send “a clear and firm message” that leaves no room for misinterpretation that attacks on the Kingdom must stop.

Yemen’s ambassador, Abdullah Alsaadi, affirmed Sanaa’s “full solidarity with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its leadership, government and people,” and its “absolute rejection of the use of any part of the Yemeni territory as a platform for launching missiles and drones, or for threatening the security of the Kingdom or any neighboring country.”

He said the attacks amounted to the “hijacking” of Yemen’s own sovereign decisions over war and peace, carried out by a militia that operates outside of state institutions and was “militarily and technically supported by the Iranian terrorist regime.”

Saudi Arabia had shown “a great degree of restraint,” Alsaadi said, and been “the principal partner of the Yemeni people and state” in supporting institutions, salaries and services throughout the war. But he cautioned that “restraint should not be misconstrued as weakness.”

The security of Yemen and of Saudi Arabia “cannot be separated from one another,” he added, as he called for full enforcement of the arms embargo on the Houthis, and accountability for those who finance and arm the group.

After lower house approval, the bill to grant tens of thousands of Sahrawis citizenship now goes to the Spanish Senate.

Spanish lawmakers have backed legislation that would grant citizenship to tens of thousands of Western Saharans who were born when Spain ran the disputed territory now largely controlled by Morocco.

Spain’s lower house of Parliament on Thursday approved the legislation 168-31, with 145 abstentions.

The bill still requires Senate approval before becoming law.

The text grants Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born before September 29, 1977 and to their children through naturalisation, even if they never resided in Spain.

Although the exact number of beneficiaries is unknown, Sahrawi groups estimate that between 70,000 and 120,000 people could benefit from the legislation, which supporters described as addressing a “historical injustice” by colonial Spain in the Western Sahara.

Tensions with Morocco

The vote comes at a particularly sensitive time for Madrid’s historically delicate relations with Rabat due to the migration crisis in Spain’s north African territory of Ceuta, and the mass arrival of at least 70,000 migrants from Morocco in July.

Spain’s leftist government has avoided blaming Morocco – which does not recognise Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Spain’s other North African territory of Melilla – but the right accuses Rabat of orchestrating the surge for political motives.

Morocco claims sovereignty over Western Sahara and began asserting control over the territory after Spanish ⁠rule ended.

The Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement seeks recognition ⁠of an independent state called the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Many Sahrawis live in refugee camps in Tindouf in western Algeria, or elsewhere abroad, while others remain in Western Sahara.

Against this backdrop, the initiative to grant Spanish nationality to Sahrawis has divided opinion in Morocco but not prompted condemnation from the government.

Moroccan media quoted Ramadan Messaoud, a member of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs, as saying in July that Rabat had “no problem” with Sahrawis obtaining Spanish citizenship. Others had done so “over the past few years”, noted Messaoud, who is also president of the Sahrawi Association for Human Rights.

‘Restoring’ identity

Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975, when Spain relinquished its administration under agreements with Morocco and Mauritania.

Spain’s ruling Socialist Party and its junior left-wing partner Sumar, which filed the initiative, were among those who supported the bill, ‌while the opposition conservative People’s Party abstained and far-right Vox voted against it.

“With the adoption of this legislation, we are restoring – and I emphasise, restoring – the Spanish national identity card to those Sahrawis who once held it and from whom this state took it away,” said Tesh Sidi of the leftist Sumar coalition, the first woman of Sahrawi origin ⁠to serve in Spain’s Parliament.

The bill will now go to the Senate, where amendments are expected, before returning to the lower house for final approval.

BERLIN: Buoyed by partisan home fans, host Germany upset Belgium 93-74 to reach the semifinals of the women’s FIBA World Cup on Thursday.

Leonie Fiebich scored 17 points and had 10 rebounds to lead Germany to a showdown with France on Saturday. Nyara Sabally also had a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“I can’t quite believe it yet,” forward Frieda Bühner said. “We’re among the best four teams in the world. I can’t believe it. It’s crazy.”

The players screamed and whooped in celebration. Germany had never reached the semifinals before.

“Everyone stepped up today and we did it from the first second to the very last,” said Alexandra Wilke, who scored 10 points.

Germany lost their opening game by 30 points to Spain, but bounced back with impressive wins over Japan and Mali before routing South Korea in a playoff to reach the quarterfinals.

Egged on by fervent commentary from the announcer, fans cheered, jumped and waved Germany flags at the Berlin Arena to help the home team keep their momentum going.

“It’s always really cool to play in front of such a crowd,” Sabally said. “I couldn’t have wished for more, especially in Germany. It’s really cool to see that there’s so much hype and the whole venue is caught up in it. It’s really, really cool.”

It’s the sixth straight World Cup at which the host have made the final four since China failed to make the semifinals in 2002.

Belgium, the European champion, were one of three teams that advanced through group play without a loss.

Emma Meesseman led Belgium with 29 points and added eight rebounds, but her team were unable to regain the lead after Bühner made it 20-19 toward the end of the first quarter.

Germany did not qualify for the World Cup since the unified country’s only previous appearance as host in 1998. East Germany’s women’s basketball team finished fourth at the 1967 tournament.

France rout China

Marine Johannès and Janelle Salaün led France to the semifinals for the first time by beating China 90-61 earlier.

Both Johannès and Salaün scored 15 points while Gabby Williams contributed 14 as the Olympic finalists put themselves in contention for a first World Cup medal since the inaugural tournament in 1953, when France finished third in the final round.

“It means a lot,” Williams said of reaching the semifinals for the first time. “We want to be one of the greatest teams ever to put on the French jersey. Obviously, we have a big goal this tournament, but it’s great to check this off the list.”

Chants of “Allez les Bleues” rang around the Berlin Arena before Williams opened the scoring, and the French supporters made sure they were heard for the rest of the game as their team dominated on the court below. France have been fluid and free-scoring, beating their four opponents so far by a combined 156 points.

The team set a tournament record for 3-pointers in a single game by netting 22 in their final group game on Monday. The French players connected on 14 of 37 attempts Thursday, with Johannès and Salaün scoring three triples each.

“We are lucky because we are a group that have known each other for a couple of years now,” Salaün said of France’s team spirit. “We went through a lot of things, the Olympics, training camp(s), so we just know each other and we know what we want. We have a goal and we want to do everything to get to this goal.”

Salaün had an ice pack bound to her right knee. France coach Jean Aime Toupane told The Associated Press it was just a precaution.

Zhang’s impact limited

The French defense limited the impact of China’s 7-foot-3 Zhang Ziyu, who had the attention of two French players any time she received the ball. The 19-year-old sensation was held scoreless over her 7 minutes, 18 seconds of play in the first half, though she contributed in defense with three blocks before halftime.

There was nothing Zhang could do to stop Johannès from scoring successive 3-pointers in the third quarter, when she also got on the scoreboard. Zhang finished the game with seven points, eight rebounds and seven turnovers.

Han Xu, who had a double-double in each of her four games at the tournament, again led China with 21 points and nine rebounds.

US never in danger

The United States, the four-time defending champion, routed Hungary 108-56 in the first quarterfinal with Napheesa Collier scoring 19 points to stretch their winning run in the tournament to 34 games since a semifinal loss to Russia in the 2006 semifinals.

The US await the winner of Spain-Australia in the last quarterfinal later.

Demoralised tourists reach 52-2 before rain ends play early on day two, needing 268 runs to make England bat again.

Ollie Robinson continued his outstanding summer with two wickets in his opening over as England pushed Pakistan towards ⁠defeat in the third Test ⁠at Edgbaston.

Robinson, man of the match in the first two Tests, struck with the first ball of Pakistan’s second innings on Thursday and again three deliveries later to leave England closing in on a 3-0 series ⁠whitewash.

The demoralised tourists reached 52-2 before rain ended play early on day two, needing 268 runs to make England bat again.

Robinson, 32, has been almost unplayable in this series, taking 21 wickets at an average of under seven runs each.

He continued in the same ⁠vein in Birmingham, removing Saim Ayub, who was dismissed for a duck in both innings, and then Abdullah Shafique to finish the day with figures of 2-10 from his six overs.

“He’s probably one of the most consistent bowlers in world cricket. He knows what he’s doing with the ball, and he wears you down a bit so it’s a challenge,” said Pakistan batting coach Mike Smith.

“He has bowled exceptionally well, and he’s in a little purple patch as a player. We need to find a way to combat that as well as we can.”

Shan Masood, who was dropped at slip by Ben Duckett off Gus Atkinson, was still there on 21 at the close, alongside opener Azan Awais on 29, but Pakistan’s position appears hopeless.

England, who led by 23 overnight, had earlier pressed the accelerator to extend their first-innings advantage to a daunting 320.

They made 453 with Harry Brook and Dan Lawrence extending their fifth-wicket partnership to 86 until Brook set off for an impossible single and was run out by Masood for 75 from ⁠97 balls.

Lawrence went on to make 65 from 82 balls before dragging a wide ball onto his ⁠stumps to give Mohammad Imran his first Test wicket. It was a third Test half-century in a row for Lawrence, who was recalled after a two-year absence for this series.

“I’m really happy with how I’ve contributed,” said Lawrence. “I was feeling really good today, got on a bit of a roll with Brooky and ⁠went with it.

“I thought I was going to make a really big score, to be honest. It wasn’t to be, but I think if I’d been offered 65 at the start of the ⁠day, I’d have taken it.”

There was also a welcome half-century from the out-of-form Jamie ⁠Smith, who overcame an uncertain start and a finger injury, which caused him to hand over the wicketkeeping gloves to Jordan Cox, to strike 69 off 84 balls including one six and nine fours.

It was his highest Test score since a second-innings 88 against India on the same ground 14 months ago.

Robinson chimed in with ‌a 50 of his own, which included a huge six into the Hollies Stand off Mohammad Abbas, before becoming Razaullah’s fourth victim.

The blooding of the 21-year-old, who had only played eight first-class games prior to his call-up, was one of the few positives for ‌Pakistan.

While ‌he was expensive – he conceded 148 runs off his 23 overs – he posed a threat with his pace and aggression.

Razaullah may represent a brighter future for Pakistan, but the present remains bleak for a team that has lost 15 of its last 20 Tests.