Smokers should switch from cigarettes to vaping, says world's biggest tobacco firm

The world's biggest tobacco company is encouraging smokers to give up cigarettes and switch to vaping in a multi-million pound campaign.

The £2 million campaign, called Hold My Light, is aimed at persuading the UK’s 7.4 million smokers to go “smoke free” with the help of family and friends.

Smokers are encouraged to give up the habit for a minimum of a month based on Public Health England research that found smokers who gave up for 28 days were five times more likely to stop smoking completely.

UEFA Europa League Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Akhisar Spor were the opponents

UEFA Europa League Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Akhisarspor'un opponents have been certain. Beşiktaş was in Group I with Genk of Belgium, Malmö of Sweden and Sarpsborg of Norway. Fenerbahçe took place in Group D with Anderlecht of Belgium, Dinamo Zagreb of Croatia and Spartak Trnava of Slovakia. The opponents of Akhisarspor were Sevilla in Spain, Krasnodar in Russia and Standard Liege in Belgium in Group J!

Over 63,000 displaced as Myanmar dam burst floods 85 villages

Authorities launched a desperate rescue effort after the spillway of an irrigation dam burst at Swar creek in central Myanmar, sending a torrent of water through villages and the nearby towns of Swar and Yedashe.

As many as 85 villages were flooded in Myanmar after a dam failed, unleashing waters that blocked a major highway and forced more than 63,000 people from their homes, a state-run newspaper said on Thursday. The dam had been cleared by authorities a few prior to the flooding.

Turkey's Afrin operation: The latest updates

Turkey announced that it had launched "Operation Olive Branch" on January 20 to clear Syria's Afrin region of the YPG/PKK and Daesh, which Turkey considers to be a threat to its national security. TRT World has the latest updates on the operation.

Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch at 14:00 GMT on January 20 to clear Syria's Afrin region of the YPG/PKK, after months of warnings on the issue.

The operation started days after the US announced the formation of a 30,000-strong "Border Security Force" composed of YPG/SDF militants near Turkey's border in northern Syria.
The announcement was met with alarm by Ankara, which considers the YPG to be the Syrian branch of the PKK, which is a designated terrorist organisation in Turkey, the US and the EU.
Turkey’s biggest security concern is the YPG carving out an autonomous territory near its southeastern border.

The US supports the SDF, a YPG-dominated group it founded in 2015, in northeast Syria. Afrin, on the northwest, has no such support from the US but a couple hundred of Russian soldiers are based in the region.

TRT World has the latest on the operation:

Turkish amateur club signs player with bitcoin

A Turkish amateur league football club has transferred a player by paying him with bitcoin, in what the club chairman said is the first signing of a player in cryptocurrency.

Harunustaspor chairman Haldun Sehit told Turkey's Anadolu Agency on Tuesday that the club paid Omer Faruk Kiroglu 0.0534 bitcoin (2,000 Turkish lira) in addition to $540 (2,000 Turkish lira).

Sehit said the club decided to sign Kiroglu with the cryptocurrency to make the team known "in Turkey and the world."

Sehit said: "God willing, bitcoin will bring us the championship."

Harunustaspor competes in the first division of the amateur league in Sakarya, a city about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Istanbul.

Volkswagen faces inquiry call over diesel fume tests on monkeys

Public criticism of the German auto industry has escalated after a report that an industry-sponsored entity commissioned a study of the effects of diesel exhaust using monkeys, while another study exposed humans to low levels of one type of air pollutant.

The German government said on Monday such studies were unjustifiable. The tests were reportedly commissioned by a research group funded by major German auto companies.

Volkswagen sought to distance itself from them, with its chairman saying that "in the name of the whole board I emphatically disavow such practices."