Lewis Hamilton says he has no problem with Nico Rosberg’s positioning during the start to the Australian Grand Prix.

Rosberg was on the inside of Turn 1 behind Sebastian Vettel with team-mate Hamilton on the outside, and the two Mercedes had very slight contact as Hamilton was forced wide on to the kerb on the exit of the corner. The close battle saw the defending champion lose two further spots, though he recovered to finish second behind his team-mate in the race.

When it was put to him that he was unhappy with Rosberg at Turn 1, Hamilton replied: “Absolutely not, I never said that at all.

“I just said that I got ran wide at turn one. I couldn’t really recollect what exactly went on, I assume he had someone up the inside and it was the case that Nico braked late whilst he was battling with Vettel.

“[Rosberg went] really deep, he locked up and I wasn’t really anticipating coming over so far to the outside and I took evasive action to avoid him. It was nothing intentional from him and either of us.”

Hamilton had referenced Rosberg’s start during the post-race press conference, during which Rosberg apologised. Both Mercedes’ were beaten off the line by the two Ferraris and Hamilton says it is an area his team must investigate.

“I just got wheel spin. No particular real issues, Ferrari’s are very, very strong. My initial phase was just the same as Nico’s but the second part where you release the clutch fully I just had extra wheel spin and didn’t recover from it so it wasn’t a major issue.

“It’s always an ongoing change, even when my starts have been amazing. It’s always moving, targets are always shifting so it is something for sure… We were just talking now and it’s one of our priorities. The Ferraris got an incredibly good start, so we’re going to try and figure out how we can do better.”

Australian Grand Prix – Driver ratings

REPORT: Rosberg beats Hamilton after huge Alonso crash

AS IT HAPPENED: 2016 Australian Grand Prix 

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AMMAN, Jordan — 

In Iraq’s bloody path to democracy following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leading authority for Shiite Muslims worldwide, held an unparalleled position of moral authority but rarely intervened in matters of governing.

On Friday, in the wake of weeks of protests that have left more than 400 people dead, Sistani broke his customary silence and called on parliament to select a new leader. Hours later, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi acquiesced to Sistani’s counsel and announced he would present his resignation to parliament.

Moments after Abdul Mahdi issued his statement, celebrations broke out in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, with protesters in Tahrir Square cheering to cries of “Long live Iraq; long live the revolution” while others shot off fireworks.

Despite the jubilation, few believe the premier’s departure will mollify protesters’ anger. Since Oct. 1, demonstrations have bloomed in Baghdad and across the country’s south against what many say is corruption and grotesque ineptitude on the part of the ruling elite.

Protesters, most of them young and from the country’s Shiite majority, have braved bullets, tear gas canisters, internet shutdowns and curfews. They have demanded a full dismantling of the political class that emerged in the wake of the U.S. invasion and which they blame for dismal living conditions despite Iraq’s oil wealth.

This week, Iraqi security services shot 40 protesters to death in a 24-hour period ending Thursday evening.

In his statement, Abdul Mahdi said he had listened with “great concern” to Sistani’s call and would heed it by submitting an official request to leave his position as the head of the current government.

It came in the aftermath of what was considered to be one of the bloodiest days since the anti-government protests began, with scores of mostly unarmed protesters cut down in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah by “rapid response” units, an elite force that has received U.S. training and support. Human rights watchdog Amnesty International condemned the violence there, saying it was a “bloodbath” that had the city looking like a “war zone.”

It was that fighting that pushed Sistani — a figure who in the past had been derisively called the “silent authority” for his reticence in commenting on political matters — to speak out and call for parliament to change leaders. In a sermon delivered during Friday prayers, Sistani called on parliament to “reconsider its options” in the wake of the government’s “clear inability” to deal with the unrest.

Iraqi political leaders, including Muqtada Sadr, the populist cleric who has styled himself as a supporter of the demonstrators’ call for reform, moved to capitalize on Abdul Mahdi’s statement. On Friday, Sadr released a statement saying the resignation was the “first fruits of the revolution” and called for a new government to be formed.

The carnage continued Friday in Nasiriyah, prompting U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to issue a statement saying he was “deeply concerned over reports of the continued use of live ammunition against demonstrators in Iraq.”

He called on authorities “to exercise maximum restraint, protect the lives of demonstrators, respect the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and swiftly to investigate all acts of violence.”

On Friday, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. shared “the protesters’ legitimate concerns.”

“We continue to urge the government of Iraq to advance the reforms demanded by the people, including those that address unemployment, corruption, and electoral reform,” the spokesman said.

Abdul Mahdi had previously offered to leave his post Oct. 31 if parliament could find another successor. Parliament refused.

His resignation request Friday does not mean he has left his post; he remains the head of a fully operational government until parliament ratifies a majority vote of no confidence. If it passes, he would remain as caretaker.

It would then fall on parliament, a deeply fractured body that is hostage to the country’s sectarian divide, to choose his replacement from the largest bloc. Yet members of parliament have tussled for months about which bloc that would be; Abdul Mahdi, lackluster but independent, was chosen as a compromise candidate after months of paralysis because he was acceptable to the top groups.

Even if parliament could overcome its fractiousness to actually select a replacement, it’s unlikely to be enough. Like the demonstrations in Algeria and Sudan this year, and the wide protest parades in Lebanon that began last month and toppled the government there, those on the streets are seeking the uprooting of a political order they accuse of siphoning off their country’s resources while beggaring much of the population.

The contrast is especially galling in Iraq. Though the country is awash with 148.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, amounting to 9% of the world’s oil supply, it doesn’t even have 24-hour electricity, and a full quarter of the country’s youth are unemployed, according to the World Bank.

Besides, few see parliament as representative; some 40% of the population was reported to have voted in parliamentary elections held last year, the lowest turnout since 2003 but a figure that many nevertheless believe is inflated. (The elections were plagued by accusations of fraud as well as malfunctioning voting machines.)

Many of those politicians are also seen as beholden to external powers, including the U.S. and especially Iran, Iraq’s onetime enemy (the two countries engaged in an almost eight-year war during the rule of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein). Iran has since integrated itself into the top echelons of power in Baghdad.

Sistani also called on parliament to speed up preparations for “free and fair elections whose results truly express the will of the Iraqi people.”

Meanwhile, many fear the escalating violence would plunge the country into renewed fighting even as it had just begun to recover from years of combating Islamic State.

During the Sunni jihadist group’s blitzkrieg toward Baghdad in 2014, it was Sistani who issued the call to arms that mobilized hundreds of thousands of mostly Shiite youth overnight to fight the extremists and repel their assault. On Friday, he warned of a new danger to Iraq, one that could lead, he said, to a “cyclone of violence” that would reverse what little progress the country had made.

“The enemies and their pawns are planning … to spread chaos and destruction and drag the country towards infighting and then restore the era of reviled dictatorship,” Sistani said, adding that protesters should make sure there were no “saboteurs” within their ranks.

“All must cooperate to not make them miss the opportunity to do so.”

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LONDON — 

A man wearing a fake explosive vest stabbed several people Friday in London, killing two of them in what police are treating as a terrorist attack. The assailant was tackled by members of the public and then fatally shot by officers on London Bridge, officials said.

Police identified the attacker as a 28-year-old who was released on probation last year after serving six years for terrorism offenses.

Hours later, an attacker stabbed three people in a busy shopping district in the Netherlands, and police were searching for the suspect, authorities said. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two incidents. A Dutch police spokeswoman said it was too early to say whether a terror motive was to blame for the attack in The Hague.

In London, Metropolitan Police Chief Cressida Dick said two stabbing victims had died and three injured people were being treated in hospitals. Health officials said one of the injured was in critical but stable condition, one was stable and the third had less serious injuries.

Police said the attacker, Usman Khan, was convicted in 2012 of terrorism offenses and released in December 2018 “on license,” which means he had to meet certain conditions or face recall to prison. Several British media outlets reported that he was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet.

Neil Basu, the London police counterterrorism head, said Khan was attending a London event hosted by Learning Together — a Cambridge University-backed program that works to educate prisoners — when he launched the attack, killing a man and a woman and injuring three others.

The attacker’s history will raise difficult questions for Britain’s government and security services. Basu said police were not actively looking for any other suspects.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he had “long argued” that it was a “mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early.”

“It is very important that we get out of that habit and that we enforce the appropriate sentences for dangerous criminals, especially for terrorists, that I think the public will want to see,” he said.

The violence erupted 2 ½ years after a van and knife attack in the same area killed eight people and less than two weeks before Britain holds a national election. The main political parties temporarily suspended campaigning in London as a mark of respect.

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Basu said that the suspect appeared to be wearing a bomb vest but that it turned out to be “a hoax explosive device.”

He said officers were keeping “an open mind as to any motive.”

Dick, the police chief, said officers were called just before 2 p.m. to Fishmongers’ Hall, a conference venue at the north end of London Bridge. The pedestrian and vehicle bridge links the city’s business district with the south bank of the River Thames.

Minutes after the stabbings report, witnesses saw a man with a knife being wrestled to the ground by members of the public on the bridge before armed-response officers shot him dead.

One video posted on social media showed two men struggling on the bridge before police pulled a man in civilian clothes off a black-clad man on the ground. Gunshots followed. Another depicted a man in suit and overcoat holding a long knife that apparently had been taken from the attacker.

Other images showed police, guns drawn, pointing at a figure on the ground in the distance.

Karen Bosch, who was on a bus crossing the bridge, said she saw police “wrestling with one tall, bearded man” and then heard “gunshots, two loud pops.”

She said the man “pulled his coat back which showed that he had some sort of vest underneath, whether it’s a stab vest, or some sort of explosive vest, the police then really quickly moved backwards, away.”

Another bus passenger, Amanda Hunter, told the BBC that the vehicle “all of a sudden stopped and there was commotion and I looked out the window and I just saw these three police officers going over to a man.”

“It seemed like there was something in his hand, I’m not 100% sure, but then one of the police officers shot him.”

Police confirmed that Khan died at the scene.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the “breathtaking heroism of members of the public who literally ran towards danger not knowing what confronted him.”

“They are the best of us,” Khan said.

The prime minister also praised the bystanders and said anyone who was involved in the attack “will be hunted down and will be brought to justice.”

Cars and buses on the busy bridge stood abandoned after the shooting, with a white truck stopped diagonally across the lanes. Video footage showed police pointing guns at the truck before moving to check its container.

London Bridge station, one of the city’s busiest rail hubs, was closed for several hours after the attack.

Scores of police, some armed with submachine guns, ushered office workers and tourists out of the area packed with office buildings, banks, restaurants and bars. Staff in nearby office blocks were told to stay inside.

As police cleared the streets, workers in shops and restaurants ushered customers into storerooms and basements. Some had been through similar traumatic events in June 2017, when eight people died in the van and knife attack launched by three people inspired by the Islamic State group. The attackers ran down people on the bridge, killing two, before fatally stabbing several people in nearby Borough Market.

That fatal attack took place days before a general election. Britons are due to go to the polls again Dec. 12.

Political leaders expressed shock and sorrow at Friday’s attack.

“We will not be cowed by those who threaten us,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said. “We must and we will stand together to reject hatred and division.”

Both Labour and the Conservatives suspended campaigning in the city after the attack, and the prime minister was also canceling political events for Saturday.

Security officials this month had downgraded Britain’s terrorism threat level from “severe” to “substantial,” which means an attack is seen as “likely” rather than “highly likely.” The assessment was made by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center, an independent expert body that evaluates intelligence, terrorist capability and intentions.

The U.K.’s terror threat was last listed as “substantial” in August 2014; since then it has held steady at “severe,” briefly rising to “critical” in May and September 2017.

The Hague attack happened about 7:45 p.m Friday, when a man stabbed several people on the street. Authorities offered no immediate motive.

“We are keeping every scenario open,” police spokeswoman Marije Kuiper said.

The stabbing happened in an area teeming with shoppers. Supermarket chains and luxury shops were lighted up with early Christmas decorations.

Police sealed off a wide perimeter behind which onlookers were kept at bay.

The Netherlands was shocked by a similar stabbing in Amsterdam a year ago, when two Americans were wounded in a knife attack that prosecutors say had a “terrorist motive.”

SEATTLE — 

Nancy Haque worried about the conditions in sweatshops around the world. For Lynne Dodson, it was the possibility of attacks on public education. The plight of imperiled sea turtles got Lisa Wathne.

An array of issues brought tens of thousands of protesters to Seattle 20 years ago Saturday, with one unifying theme: concern that the World Trade Organization, a then-little-known body charged with regulating international trade, threatened them all.

With their message amplified not just by their numbers, but by the response of overwhelmed police who fired tear gas and plastic bullets, the protesters delayed the WTO’s conference and raised awareness of the international trading system and its implications for the environment, labor standards and human rights.

While many of the problems they identified are unsolved two decades later, some still credit the protest with restoring a sense that mass demonstrations and civil disobedience can effect change.

Demonstrators’ criticisms of economic inequality, rapacious capitalism, environmental degradation and worker exploitation are at home in the platforms of progressive Democratic presidential candidates such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

“There was a real feeling among students in the ’90s that it doesn’t matter, that nothing we do is going to change anything,” said Dodson, a longtime teacher and labor organizer. “The WTO protests changed that.”

Officials from 135 nations gathered in Seattle for a conference intended to launch a new round of talks to reduce trade barriers, but a months-long leadership tussle within the WTO hobbled advance preparations, making it unlikely the meeting would succeed.

Seattle had lobbied to host the conference because Washington was — and still is — one of the nation’s most trade-dependent states, with Boeing planes, Microsoft software and agricultural products such as apples and cherries making up significant exports.

During more than a year of planning, the city failed to heed signs of a massive disruption, neglecting to ensure it had enough police to handle the influx of protesters.

A WTO meeting in Geneva the year before had drawn protests, and protesters surrounded and rocked a bus carrying the WTO’s new director general during an October 1999 appearance at the University of Washington.

The day before the conference, Mayor Paul Schell insisted he wanted to honor the right to protest and pleaded with the demonstrators: “Be firm in your message but be gentle with my city.”

As the conference opened on Nov. 30, 1999, thousands of demonstrators chained themselves together in downtown intersections. They locked arms outside a convention center, preventing dignitaries, including U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, from entering.

Tens of thousands of drumming and chanting steelworkers, machinists, teachers and other union members marched. Many of the union members’ jobs depended on trade, but they worried reducing trade barriers without requiring labor standards would allow companies to ship their jobs to developing countries.

To the dismay of many activists, a small number of black-clad anarchists rampaged, breaking windows, vandalizing stores with graffiti and looting a Starbucks. The start of the conference was delayed, leaving the assembled nations less time to reach agreement on key issues.

Understaffed police stood by at first, but by midmorning began using tear gas to try to disperse the protesters. With then-President Clinton due to arrive, the mayor declared a downtown curfew and no-protest zone — restrictions not seen in Seattle since World War II.

The next day, police began making mass arrests. Nearly 600 people were arrested, some of whom had nothing to do with the protests. A federal jury later ruled the city was liable for arresting protesters without probable cause, and the city settled lawsuits.

Dodson first became concerned about the WTO because she feared it might consider public funding of education to be an unfair trade practice. That didn’t materialize.

She remembers walking with her 11-year-old daughter after a WTO-related event when police reached out of their vehicle and tried to pepper-spray them. Her daughter grew up to be a labor activist.

“It radicalized her,” Dodson said. “What were they thinking when they leaned out and pepper-sprayed this little girl and her mom as they were walking down the street?”

For Haque, who worked in Portland, Ore., as a labor activist, she had become concerned about major corporations relying on sweatshop labor to make apparel and soon had other worries about the WTO.

She lay down in an intersection on a rainy morning, while others dressed as butterflies drew attention to Monsanto Corp., saying its pesticides were killing butterflies.

Haque was overwhelmed by tear gas, but she returned the next morning and blocked a sidewalk. She was arrested and spent five days in jail.

“We were anti-exploitation,” she said. “Twenty years later, I think more people are aware of the effects of the way capitalism is working, the way it’s destroying the planet and exploiting people.”

Among the most enduring images from the protest were demonstrators in sea-turtle costumes. The WTO had invalidated American restrictions that required shrimp fishermen overseas to use devices that would allow turtles to escape from nets if they wanted to sell their product in the U.S.

The WTO has always insisted that ruling was misunderstood: The U.S. lost the case not because it sought to protect the turtles, but because it helped Caribbean countries comply but didn’t do the same for Asian nations. That was discriminatory, the WTO said.

“Our number one goal was the sea turtle issue. We helped bring that to the forefront,” said Wathne, who lives in the Seattle suburb of Lake Forest Park and works for the Humane Society. “But on a personal level, it was heartening to see people who cared about so many different issues coming together.”

Such misperceptions about the organization were common, said WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell, who was in Seattle at the time. Many protesters thought they were helping people in the developing world by insisting on higher labor standards, but those countries opposed them, fearing it would hurt their competitive advantage — cheap labor — to the detriment of their economies.

After four days, the trade talks collapsed.

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Afterward, the WTO took steps to better explain itself, opening its dispute resolution process, releasing documents and launching a regular forum where people could air concerns.

“A lot of important things happened as a result of Seattle, in terms of the way the organization functioned and in terms of transparency,” Rockwell said.

James Gregory, a University of Washington history professor who specializes in labor issues, said the most lingering effects of the WTO protests might be the connection of the labor and environmental movements and a reawakening of progressivism.

In Seattle, a vast campus for Amazon — a poster child for global capitalism — has emerged. But Gregory noted the city retains a strong progressive streak that has made it a national leader on workers’ rights, including a $15 minimum wage and paid leave requirements.

The legacy of the WTO protests may be partly to thank, he said.

“The electrifying images and stories built excitement among labor people and environmentalists and activists of every kind,” he said. “Had there not been that kind of clash and publicity, we wouldn’t be talking about Seattle.”

Johnson writes for the Associated Press.

AUSTIN, Texas — 

Officials lifted evacuation orders Friday for about 50,000 people on the Texas Gulf Coast, determining a massive fire was finally under control at a chemical plant rocked by two major explosions two days earlier.

“We are in a position to say it’s contained. We feel comfortable with the efforts that have been made by our firefighters,” Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said at a news conference in Port Neches, about 80 miles east of Houston.

But the area around the TPC Group plant remained dangerous. Several isolated fires were still blazing and visible at the facility, which makes chemical and petroleum-based products. Officials said they could not predict when those would be fully extinguished.

The explosions began early Wednesday morning and were so big that nearby homes captured the bright balls of fire on front-porch security cameras. The blasts shattered windows and ripped doors off hinges. Three workers were injured, and when a second blast erupted 13 hours after the initial overnight explosion, evacuation orders took effect in a four-mile radius around the plant.

Debris thrown across Port Neches — and potentially neighboring towns — by the magnitude of Wednesday’s explosions also posed risks to families returning home. Branick, the top county official, cautioned that construction on the plant began in the 1940s and that asbestos may have been hurled into people’s yards. He urged homeowners to steer clear of any “white, chalky substance” and to call health officials if any were found.

Branick said it may be several months before the cause of the explosions is known. He said the air quality posed no threat to residents.

“There’s still going to be smoke in the air. There’s still going to be flames visible at night,” said Troy Monk, the director of health safety and security for the TPC Group. “I would love to tell you we’re going to be done by the end of the day. I would not be telling you the truth if I made that statement. It’s very difficult for us to quantify in days how long this is going to take.”

The explosion was the latest in a series of high-profile accidents this year up and down the Texas Gulf Coast, which is home to the highest concentration of oil refineries in the U.S. In July, an explosion at an ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown left more than dozen people with minor injuries and put nearby residents under a shelter-in-place order for three hours.

Toby Baker, the head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, called it an “unacceptable trend of significant incidents” this week and said the petroleum industry must be accountable.

But environmental groups for years have accused Baker’s agency of being a toothless watchdog that provides inadequate oversight and slaps highly profitable corporations with only meager penalties. The TPC Group plant had been labeled a “high priority” violator by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after its last inspection in 2017 and had been cited multiple times in recent years for clean air violations.

Environmentalists were also quick to point out that the TPC Group explosion occurred just a week after the Trump administration scaled back chemical safety plant measures that had been prompted by a 2013 explosion at a Texas fertilizer storage facility that killed 15 people. The rollback included eliminating a required public access to information about dangerous chemicals companies keep on site.

Officials have said the first blast occurred around 1 a.m. Wednesday in an area of the plant that makes butadiene, a chemical used to make synthetic rubber and other products. It sent a large plume of smoke stretching for miles and started a fire. The second blast ripped through the plant about 2 p.m., sending a steel reactor tower rocketing high into the air.

The plant has 175 full-time employees and 50 contract workers.

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Mercedes race engineer Pete Bonnington, the man who guides Lewis Hamilton on Grand Prix weekends, will miss the Mexican and US races to undergo a personal medical procedure in the UK.

Bonninton – or “Bono” – is the instantly recognizable voice on Hamilton’s radio and the valuable strategist who has helped the Briton secure his four titles with Mercedes.

The scenarios Hamilton needs to bag the title in Mexico

“Bono is not in Mexico this weekend and will not be in Austin either owing to a medical procedure back in the UK,” said a spokesman for Mercedes.

“Lewis will be engineered by Marcus Dudley, usually his performance engineer standing to Bono’s right in the garage.

“Performance engineer for the two weekends will be Dom Riefstahl, who usually runs our race support operations in Brackley.”

Hamilton has a reasonable shot of clinching his sixth world title in Mexico City, but if the 34-year-old secures the crown on Sunday it will be the first time Bonnington won’t be present for the coronation.

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Le 2e volet des “Animaux fantastiques”, la nouvelle saga de J.K. Rowling, fait moins bien que le précédent opus, mais prend la tête du box-office américain avec 62,2 millions de dollars de recettes.

1. N°5 – Les Veuves : 12,3 millions de dollars de recettes
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© Twentieth Century Fox

Sans surprise, Les Animaux fantastiques : Les Crimes de Grindelwald prend la tête du box-office américain pour son premier week-end d’exploitation. Avec 62,2* millions de dollars de recettes, il réalise toutefois un score moins impressionnant que le premier volet de la saga qui avait engrangé près de 75 millions de dollars en un week-end, mais fait mieux que le premier opus à l’international. Le Grinch, en haut de classement la semaine dernière, reste en bonne position avec 38* millions, suivi par Bohemian Rhapsody et ses 15,7* millions de dollars.

Box-office américain du 16 au 18 novembre 2018 : le Top 10