United Kingdom holidays

United Kingdom holidays

What’s new on the UK coast this summer

Tree tents in Cornwall, beach cabins in Dorest and a thrilling cliff-side pathway in County Antrim are among the new highlights on the UK coast

New National Trust campsite, Pembrokeshire

Gupton Farm is a sandy stroll away from the beach at Freshwater West, near Castlemartin, and tucked into a sheltered hollow. It offers a wet-weather barn alongside shower block facilities. If camping doesn’t appeal, visitors can stay in the farmhouse.

Saltdean lido reopens, Sussex

This art deco beauty was snatched from the hands of property developers five years ago, given a Grade II* listing and returned to the council. Following a campaign by concerned locals, it has been restored and from 17 June, outdoor swimmers will once more be able to revel in its heated 40-metre-long, crescent-shaped pool.

Tiny homes to stay in, Isle of Wight

These cabins are part of a movement to downsize living spaces, and are built to minimise environmental impact. The brainchild of Helen and Frazer Cunningham (of Airstream campsite Vintage Vacations), they have solar power, composting toilets, woodburning stoves, water recycling and share a mandala garden (a circular garden divided by paths)

.New beach houses in Cornwall

Two glamorous, coastal high-end properties: Pentire, a penthouse apartment overlooking Fistral beach, Newquay; and Barford, a holiday home in Widemouth Bay. Each has many high-spec touches, including wood-fired hot tubs with sea views. .

Northern Ireland’s white-knuckle coastal walk reopens

The Gobbins Path runs along the cliffs of Islandmagee in County Antrim, a giddy mixture of crashing waves and suspended steel walkways. Opened in 1872, it was restored and reopened in 2015, then closed last year following a rock fall. At the end of June, visitors can again teeter along the roller-coaster cliff path just above the sea. 

Dreamland rebooted, Margate 

Catch bands including Toots and the Maytals (20 July, £29.50) at the new indoor music venue at the vintage amusement park. Reopened in May, the park is now free to enter – visitors pay for individual rides or buy an unlimited rides wristband – so it costs nothing to marvel at the Grade-II listed Scenic Railway, although it would be hard to resist a ride. 

Beach huts you can sleep in, Bournemouth

Several notches up from the usual day-use-only beach huts, these 15 lodges on the seafront near Boscombe pier are raised on a deck above the promenade and can accommodate four adults and two children overnight. They also have wifi, showers and cooking facilities. 

Hide-out, Cornwall

Kudhva means hideout in Cornish and is the name given by Louise Middleton to her innovative project in 18 hectares near Tintagel, which opens on 1 July. Curious wooden capsules on legs, designed by Ben Huggins, and Tentsile tree tents suspended over a disused quarry and a waterfall will provide accommodation. There are also solar showers, chilled-out music, a bar, cinema club, food, yoga and a truck to take surfers and boards to nearby beaches. 

Gothic castle opens its doors, Isle of Lewis

Following extensive renovation (and being featured in Channel 4’s Great British Buildings: Restoration of the Year), the upper floors of Lews Castle in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, are now open to visitors who can stay in one of several smart, lofty apartments overlooking the harbour. 

Sleep in a beach hut, Dorset

Cunningly constructed with a mezzanine floor to accommodate two adults and two children and to provide a shower room and kitchen, 34 Monmouth Beach in Lyme Regis is a beach hut but not as you know it – and is excellent value given the seashore location. 

Celebrate the Cornish pasty, St Austell 

Cornucopia, a new food and drink attraction opening in St Austell this summer promises to give Cornwall’s favourite hot snack the deference it deserves. Visitors can make one of their own at the “UK’s very first pasty heritage centre”, then sample food and drink from 19 Cornish food and drink producers. There will also be an adventure area with soft play zone, sky wires and trampolines, keeping younger children entertained while older family members tuck in.

Modern Yorkshire cooking, Whitby

Local Michelin-star chef Andrew Pern opens a new Star Inn, a brasserie version of his other three Star Inns, by the harbour at Whitby in July. With its position three metres from the harbour, the menu is seafood-oriented: expect shellfish from the North Sea, potted shrimps, oysters and a Whitby crab stick and, of course, fish and chips. 

Dolphin watching from a new restaurant, Scottish Highlands

The Sun Dancer restaurant’s name is a nod to the site’s previous occupant – the Sandancer arcade. The beeps and crashes of arcade games have been replaced with calming views across the Moray Firth, and hopefully diners will spot the occasional dolphin pod from the restaurant in Nairn’s harbour. 

Rich People In India

Rich People In India-Mukesh Ambani

APPLE PARK Mid May 2017 Sunset Flight

APPLE PARK: Mid-May 2017 - Sunset Flight

US warns Beijing on South China Sea islands

US warns Beijing on South China Sea islands

The US will not accept China's militarisation of man-made islands in the South China Sea, Defence Secretary James Mattis has warned.

Speaking at a security conference in Singapore, he said such moves undermined regional stability.

China's territorial claims in the resource-rich South China Sea are contested by several nations.

At the same time, Gen Mattis praised Beijing's efforts to restrain North Korea's missile and nuclear activity.

His comments came shortly after the UN Security Council expanded targeted sanctions against North Korea in response to a series of missile tests conducted this year.

The council voted unanimously to back the sanctions after weeks of negotiations between the US and China.

In his speech at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue forum, Gen Mattis said: "We oppose countries militarising artificial islands and enforcing excessive maritime claims.

"We cannot and will not accept unilateral, coercive changes to the status quo."

President Donald Trump and other senior US officials have repeatedly stated that they would protect its interests in the South China Sea, a key shipping route.

During his nomination hearing earlier this year, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that the US was "going to have to send China a clear signal that first the island-building stops, and second your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed."

In response, the Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing would "remain firm to defend its rights in the region".

But in Singapore Gen Mattis also struck a positive note on US-China relations, saying that while competition between the two countries "is bound to occur, conflict is not inevitable".

The biggest question amongst Asian delegates attending the forum has been how much of a role the US will continue to play in this increasingly tense region, the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Singapore reports.

She adds that Gen Mattis sought to reassure his peers that the US was not turning its back on Asia.

What is the South China Sea dispute?

Rival countries have wrangled over territory in the South China Sea for centuries, but tension has steadily increased in recent years.

Its islets and waters are claimed in part or in whole by Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

Beijing has been building artificial islands on reefs and carrying out naval patrols in waters also claimed by these other nations.

Although the previous US administration of Barack Obama insisted it was neutral, it spoke out strongly against the island-building and sought to build ties with, and among, the South East Asian nations whose claims overlap those of China.

In July 2016, an international tribunal ruled against Chinese claims, backing a case brought by the Philippines, but Beijing said it would not respect the verdict.

The frictions have sparked concern that the area is becoming a flashpoint with global consequences.

Sri Lankan arrested for pretending to blow up plane Video

Sri Lankan arrested for pretending to blow up plane [Video]

A Sri Lankan national living in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong was charged with allegedly threatening to blow up a plane.

The man allegedly tried to enter the cockpit while claiming to have a bomb shortly after takeoff on a Malaysian Airlines flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur late last night.

The 25-year-old is facing two charges against the Crimes Aviation Act, but Victoria's Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said they are not treating it as a terrorism incident.

Ashton revealed the man is believed to have checked out of a psychiatric facility in Melbourne earlier yesterday.

Because he was in the facility voluntarily, there was nothing to stop him leaving.

He is expected to face Melbourne Magistrates Court this afternoon.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed the incident on flight MH128, which left Melbourne at 11.11pm before performing a small loop and landing again at 11.47pm.

The passenger was overpowered by the plane's crew and later arrested at Melbourne's airport, Malaysia's Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told AFP.

"It is not a hijack. One disruptive passenger tried to enter the plane's cockpit," he said.

"The passenger... claimed to have a bomb. But it was not a bomb but a powerbank (battery charger)."

Ashton also defended the long wait passengers endured on the tarmac before police came on board to arrest the man.

"In some of those circumstances, if we had an incident where there were further explosives that were triggered, we could have had a mass casualty incident," he said.

"There were 337 passengers on that plane, plus crew, and we could have had a very serious incident.

"That was avoided through having a proper approach to getting the passengers off."

Police said the suspected bomb was just a speaker wrapped in plastic.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said his staff had reached out to Malaysia Airlines to offer counselling support.

"I want to take this opportunity to thank the crew and those very brave passengers who actually subdued this person, and indeed thank every single passenger for their patience, and you can imagine how traumatic that would have been to go through that experience," Andrews said.

Andrews said the arrested man had been Australia on a student visa studying to be a chef.

"His history would appear to have mental illness, we do not believe this is terrorist related at the moment," Superintendent Tony Langdon told reporters on the tarmac.

"It's quite heroic for the passengers and crew to restrain this person," Superintendent Langdon added.

Malaysian Airlines said in a statement this afternoon that technical and cabin crew on the flight will not operate until further notice.

Among the passengers who subdued the man was Arif Chaudery, who sprung to action after a female crewmember raised the alarm.

"Families, kids, they were very scared, and some screaming…so three or four guys, we jumped as quickly as possible," Chaudery told Today.

"We just put him on the floor and finally staff brought the belt, so we handcuffed him and tied his legs and put his face on the floor.

"We thought he was drunk or on some drug…if he's a bum, how did the person get on the flight?

"This could be worse, I can tell you that now, but that's 300 people who are safe."

Former Melbourne footballer Andrew Leoncelli told 3AW the man was threatening to "blow the plane up" after being told by flight attendants to return to his seat.

"I was sitting in business class and I could hear this idiot saying he wanted to go in an see the pilot and staff were saying sit back down," Leoncelli said.

"He said 'I'm not going to sit down, I'm going to blow the plane up' (and) an air hostess yelled out for help.

"I approached him, he ran down the side and two lads grabbed him and bashed him … took a giant black thing out of his hand.

"I've never seen anything like it."

Leoncelli said the object seized from the man was the size of a watermelon and had "two wire things coming out of it".

"I think the guy was just an idiot," he said.

"He ran literally down the other end of the plane and got restrained.

"We sat for an hour and 20 minutes waiting for the police to come.

The man has been arrested by Australian authorities, who stormed the plane after it landed at Tullamarine.

Malaysia Airlines said the captain turned the plane back to Melbourne after being alerted by a cabin crew "of a passenger attempting to enter the cockpit".

In air traffic control audio, a male voice can be heard saying: "We have a passenger trying to enter the cockpit."

About three minutes later the same male voice can be heard saying the passenger was "claiming to have an explosive device, tried to enter the cockpit, has been overpowered by passengers".

Passengers started leaving the plane about 1.30am.

All other flights were diverted to Avalon, near Geelong, with Melbourne Airport in lockdown at the time.

Melbourne Airport has now re-opened and is accepting arriving and departing flights on the east-west runway. The north-south runway remains closed

Airport workers are being allowed to return inside.

The incident came just months after Canberra called off the search for missing flight MH370 carrying 239 passengers and crew, after a vast underwater hunt off Australia's west coast failed to find the plane.

MH370 disappeared in March 2014, while another passenger jet, MH17, was shot down in July of the same year while flying over Ukraine in twin tragedies to hit Malaysia's national carrier.

Chines Russian Presidents condole loss of life

Chinese, Russian Presidents condole loss of life

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday sent messages of condolences to President Maithripala Sirisena over the devastating floods and landslides in the country in which 151 people have been killed.

In the message, Xi expressed deep condolences over the victims and showed sincere sympathy to those stricken by the disasters and the families of the victims.

China and Sri Lanka are traditional friendly neighbors, and the Chinese people feel the same as the Sri Lankan people when they suffer in the disasters, Xi said.

The Chinese government is willing to exert all efforts to support the Sri Lankan government in its disaster relief work, and offer support and assistance to the Sri Lankan side, Xi said.

He believes the Sri Lankan government and people will definitely be able to overcome the disasters and rebuilding their homeland.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences to President Maithripala Sirisena regarding the loss of life and large-scale destruction caused by flooding, the Kremlin press service reported.

Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in connection with considerable loss of life and large-scale destruction caused by flooding in different parts of the country.

“The Russian President stressed that Russia shares the grief of those who lost their loved ones due to this natural disaster and hopes for speedy recovery of the injured,”

the Kremlin press service in statement said. 

BREAKING NHS Hospitals CYBER ATTACK HACKED & HELD TO RANSOM

BREAKING! NHS Hospitals CYBER ATTACK! HACKED & HELD TO RANSOM?

Massive cyber attack across the world

Massive cyber-attack across the world

A massive cyber-attack using tools believed to have been developed by the US National Security Agency has struck organisations around the world.

Computers in thousands of locations have been locked by a programme that demands $300 (£230) in Bitcoin.

In April hackers known as The Shadow Brokers claimed to have stolen the tools and released them online.

Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability in March, but many systems may not have been updated.

How big is the attack?

There have been reports of infections in 99 countries, including the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy and Taiwan.

Cyber-security firm Avast said it had seen 75,000 cases of the ransomware - known as WannaCry and variants of that name - around the world.

"This is huge," said Jakub Kroustek at Avast.

Many researchers say the incidents appear to be linked, but say it may not be a coordinated attack on specific targets.

Meanwhile wallets for the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin that were seemingly associated with the ransomware were reported to have started filling up with cash.

Who has been affected?

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) has been hit and screenshots of the WannaCry program were shared by NHS staff.

Hospitals and doctors' surgeries were forced to turn away patients and cancel appointments. One NHS worker told the BBC that patients would "almost certainly suffer" as a result.

Some reports said Russia had seen more infections than any other single country. Russia's interior ministry said it had "localised the virus" following an "attack on personal computers using Windows operating system".

 People tweeted photos of affected computers including a local railway ticket machine in Germany and a university computer lab in Italy.

A number of Spanish firms - including telecoms giant Telefonica, power firm Iberdrola and utility provider Gas Natural - suffered from the outbreak. There were reports that staff at the firms were told to turn off their computers.

Portugal Telecom, delivery company FedEx, a Swedish local authority and Megafon, the second largest mobile phone network in Russia, also said they had been affected.

Who is behind the attack?

Some experts say the attack may be have been built to exploit a weakness in Microsoft systems that was identified by the NSA and given the name EternalBlue.

The NSA tools were then stolen by a group of hackers known as The Shadow Brokers, who then attempted to sell the encrypted cache in an online auction.

However they subsequently made the tools freely available, releasing a password for the encryption on 8 April.

The hackers said they had published the password as a "protest" about US President Donald Trump.

At the time, some cyber-security experts said some of the malware was real, but old.

A patch for the vulnerability was released by Microsoft in March, but many systems may not have had the update installed.

Microsoft said on Friday its engineers had added detection and protection against WannaCrypt. The company was providing assistance to customers, it added.

How does the malware work?

Some security researchers have pointed out that the infections seem to be deployed via a worm - a program that spreads by itself between computers.

Unlike many other malicious programs, this one has the ability to move around a network by itself. Most others rely on humans to spread by tricking them into clicking on an attachment harbouring the attack code.

By contrast, once WannaCry is inside an organisation it will hunt down vulnerable machines and infect them too. This perhaps explains why its impact is so public - because large numbers of machines at each victim organisation are being compromised.

Chinese buyers behind surging demand for SLs latest bonds report

Chinese buyers behind surging demand for SL’s latest bonds - report

A surge in demand for Sri Lanka’s latest dollar bond is putting a spotlight on the appetite for emerging-market securities, even amid the Federal Reserve’s tightening campaign.

The small South Asian country garnered more than $11 billion of orders for the $1.5 billion of 10-year notes it sold last week, marking a quadrupling in demand compared with its dollar-debt issuance in 2015 and 2016. Chinese banks participated in arranging the sale for the first time, underscoring Sri Lanka’s deepening ties with Asia’s biggest economy.

Strategically located along the maritime Silk Road route championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Sri Lanka is also benefiting from Chinese demand for investments linked to their government’s Belt and Road development initiative. Three people involved in the bond sale noted the presence of Chinese buyers in the allocation.

Since Xi introduced the Silk Road initiative in 2013, China has invested more than $50 billion in Belt and Road countries to develop new land and sea trade links with Asia, Europe and Africa, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency. Credit Suisse Group AG analysts expect China to pour more than half a trillion dollars into the efforts.

Other Asia-Pacific nations have also sought to tap the dollar bond market, with Mongolia issuing in March and a debut issue from Papua New Guinea mooted for this year.

Emerging-market bonds have continued to thrive even after the Fed began accelerating the pace of rate hikes over the past half year, lifting its benchmark by a quarter percentage point in December and March. The Central Bank is expected to move again in June.

Flows to emerging-market bond funds rose to more than $2.5 billion in the week to May 3, a 14th week of net gains, according to data compiled by consultancy EPFR Global. Inflows to hard-currency developing-nation debt funds total $16.7 billion in 2017.

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CIA sets up unit to deal with North Korea

CIA sets up unit to deal with North Korea

The CIA has established a Korea Mission Center to address "the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by" North Korea and its unpredictable leader, the US intelligence agency announced Wednesday.

The creation of the center focusing on specific threats from the Korean peninsula will allow the CIA to "harness the full resources, capabilities, and authorities of the Agency" to deal with North Korea, according to the agency's statement.

The center will put the forces of CIA analysts and officers side-by-side in one location to tackle the threat from Pyongyang.

"The new Mission Center draws on experienced officers from across the Agency and integrates them in one entity to bring their expertise and creativity to bear against the North Korea target," the statement reads.

Former CIA senior analyst John Nixon told CNN he expected the center to issue "sitreps" -- situation reports for the intelligence community and the Trump administration -- possibly twice daily, indicating an around-the-clock watch by an office of significant size.

In the statement, CIA Director Mike Pompeo says the creation of the center focuses the CIA's efforts against the "serious threats" emerging from North Korea, which has in recent months ramped up both nuclear and missile tests in an effort to enhance its military capabilities.

"Creating the Korea Mission Center allows us to more purposefully integrate and direct CIA efforts against the serious threats to the United States and its allies emanating from North Korea," Pompeo said, adding its creation "reflects the dynamism and agility that CIA brings to evolving national security challenges."

The timing is unlikely to be linked to any recent events but rather to better position the agency against a very real and growing threat to the US, justifying the allocation of enough resources to a dedicated center, according to Bruce Klingner, former CIA Deputy Division Chief for Korea and senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center.

"Although there aren't many details, a restructuring of the bureaucracy is something that takes quite a while to prepare, review, and go through multiple levels of approval," Klingner told CNN.

There are 10 such existing centers in the CIA, and the new addition will be the most focused in terms of geographical area and remit -- the Korean Peninsula currently falls under the jurisdiction of the Mission Center for East Asia and Pacific.

The new office will "work closely with the intelligence community and the entire US national security community," the CIA statement said.

Nixon, the former analyst, said he also expects significant cooperation with South Korean intelligence services going forward.

"I think (cooperation with the South Korean National Intelligence Service) will be very high. Also with the (Korean Central Intelligence Agency)."

He added that the announcement of the center, coinciding with the election of a less-hardline South Korean President who is likely to pursue at least some form of diplomacy with Seoul's belligerent neighbor to the north, was "interesting."

"I think its very interesting that this happened and now we have (newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in) who says he want a different relationship with Pyongyang. I think that's very helpful, hardline never works."

Nixon said the creation of the mission would send a message from the CIA to the Trump administration that his foreign policy priorities were being acknowledged.

"It's not an easy regime to collect information on, but we're not getting the information out of there that we should. It's a sign that, 'OK folks, we're going to get serious about this,'" he said. "(This center will) show the administration that this (issue) is going to be front and center.

"One thing that's interesting about Trump is that he's getting briefed up about North Korea. He's absorbing this stuff. It's another sign that North Korea is the top of the list."

He added that the CIA is looking to "beef up" its Seoul station, including the appointment of a new, high-profile station chief in Seoul.

"They're going to look for somebody with serious gravitas, who has connections and knows the players," he said..

excerpt to daily news

Biggest Accident In The World

Biggest Accident In The World

Top10 Most Deadly Armored Vehicles In The World

Top10 Most Deadly Armored Vehicles In The World

Top 10 Most Powerful People in the world 2017

Top 10 Most Powerful People in the world 2017

South Korea election Polls open to choose new president

South Korea election: Polls open to choose new president

South Koreans are voting in a presidential election, called early after a huge corruption scandal brought down their former leader.

Left-leaning Moon Jae-in is the clear front-runner with centrist Ahn Cheol-soo his nearest challenger.

The election is being closely watched at a time of economic uncertainty and heightened tensions with North Korea.

Moon wants to increase contact with the North in contrast to ex-leader Park Geun-hye who cut almost all ties.

Observers are expecting a high turnout at the ballot boxes, with numbers boosted by younger voters, as South Koreans choose from 13 candidates.

Polls close at 20:00 local time (11:00 GMT), with the winner expected to be announced soon after.

Money and jobs

All the candidates are promising to protect the fragile recovery in South Korea's economy - the fourth largest in Asia - and to bring down youth unemployment, which remains stubbornly high.

There are also promises to rein in perceptions of elitism in South Korean political society and reform the family-run conglomerates - chaebols - which dominate the domestic economy.

Keeping an eye on the North

But heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent weeks has also made the perennial concern of domestic security a key election concern.

Moon, of the Democratic Party of Korea, has advocated greater dialogue with the North while maintaining pressure and sanctions.

He has been critical of the two previous conservative administrations for failing to stop North Korea's weapons development.

Conservative candidate Hong Joon-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party however has attacked Moon's approach, saying on Thursday morning that the election was a "war of regime choices".

North Korea has dropped a pretty clear hint about who it wants to win the election.

A state media editorial says the current North and South relationship has been "been wrought by the conservative groups which, having been in power for the past 10 years, revived the foregone period of confrontation and maximized the political and military rivalry between the same race".

This indicates it favours a candidate associated with what's known as the Sunshine Policy when Pyongyang and Seoul communicated and co-operated.

The policy finally collapsed in 2008 after North Korea's started testing nuclear devices, though it had faltered earlier when South Korea stopped sending aid to the north in 2006.

Moon Jae-in was part of the government which promoted the Sunshine Policy. He has indicated he wants closer ties with the North in this campaign. An endorsement by Pyongyang won't help him win - but it probably won't harm his chances very much either.

New blood at the top

Candidates are also promising a break from the past as symbolised by the deeply unpopular Park.

Moon, has called for an "overwhelming victory" as it would help to heal a national divide caused by her impeachment.

"I feel that not only my party and myself but also the people have been more desperate for a change of government," he told reporters on Tuesday morning after he cast his vote.

In March, Park Geun-hye became the first South Korean president to be removed from power by impeachment.

She denies wrongdoing - although she has repeatedly apologised - and is standing trial on charges of bribery and abuse of power.

Moon narrowly lost to Park in the last presidential election in 2012.

Ahn had also run for the job but dropped out to endorse Moon in an attempt to consolidate votes against Park. He has now positioned himself as an alternative to Moon, promising to be tougher on national security.

"The time for Ahn Cheol-soo is here and the time for Moon Jae-in is slipping away," he declared in his campaign.

Top 10 Most Powerful Countries In The World 2017

Top 10 Most Powerful Countries In The World 2017

French Presidential candidate Macron condemns massive hacking attack as documents leaked

French Presidential candidate Macron condemns 'massive' hacking attack as documents leaked

The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron says it has been the target of a "massive hacking attack" after a trove of documents was released online.

The campaign said that genuine files were mixed up with fake ones in order to confuse people.

It said that it was clear the hackers wanted to undermine Macron ahead of Sunday's second round vote.

The centrist will face off against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

The documents were leaked on a file sharing website late on Friday, as the official presidential campaigning period drew to a close.

The Macron camp condemned the leak minutes before the midnight deadline (22:00 GMT).

Candidates and the media now face restrictions until the polls close on Sunday evening, meaning Macron cannot issue any more statements.

Opinion polls had indicated the former economy minister carried a lead of 20 percentage points or more over Le Pen.

What was released?

About nine gigabytes of data were posted online by an anonymous user.

The details are unclear so far, but Macron's En Marche movement said internal campaign documents, including emails and financial data, had been taken in an "act of massive, co-ordinated hacking".

"The leaked files were obtained several weeks ago by hacking personal and professional email accounts of several officials of the movement," it said in a statement.

The campaign said the documents showed only legitimate campaign activities.

France's election authorities have warned media outlets against reporting on the contents of the leaked documents because of the restrictions now in place.

Who might be responsible?

That too remains unclear. The Macron camp has not blamed any specific party but said the hack clearly aimed to damage it and undermine French democracy,

It compared it to the leak of Democratic Party emails in last year's US presidential election that was blamed on Russian hackers.

Wikileaks, which published those emails, posted a link to the Macron documents on Twitter but implied it was not responsible.

Last month security experts from the company Trend Micro said that Russian hackers were targeting  Macron's campaign.

Russia has denied that it is behind attacks aimed at Macron.

On Thursday, the centrist candidate filed a lawsuit over online rumors that he had a secret bank account in the Caribbean.

Macron called the allegations "fake news and lies" and said some of the sites spreading them were "linked to Russian interests".

What else happened on the final day of campaigning?

Separate security alerts in and around Paris marred Friday's final scramble by the candidates to court voters.

A suspected radical Islamist possessing weapons and a pledge of allegiance to IS was arrested north of the capital.

And Greenpeace activists scaled the Eiffel Tower to unfurl a banner, sparking an emergency police meeting.

What is at stake on Sunday?

France's voters have rejected the two big political parties - the Socialists and the Republicans - that have governed for decades,

Voters will be making a decision on France's future direction and on its place at the heart of the European Union.

If they opt for liberal Emmanuel Macron, they will be backing a candidate who seeks EU reform as well as deeper European integration, in the form of a eurozone budget and eurozone finance ministers.

If instead they choose far-right Marine Le Pen she promises quite the opposite. She wants a Europe of nations to replace the EU.

"I give myself six months to negotiate with the EU the return of sovereignty. Then it will be the French who decide," she tweeted.

The assumption is that she would fail and a referendum would take place initially on France's membership of the euro.

After the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of US President Donald Trump, France is the latest country to deal a blow to politics as usual.

What are the battleground issues?

One of the overriding issues facing French voters is unemployment, which stands at almost 10% and is the eighth highest among the 28 EU member states. One in four under-25s is unemployed.

The French economy has made a slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and all the leading candidates say deep changes are needed.

Economic challenges facing next president

Marine Le Pen wants the pension age cut to 60 and to "renationalise French debt", which she argues is largely held by foreigners.

Emmanuel Macron wants to cut 120,000 public-sector jobs, reduce public spending by €60bn (£50bn; $65bn), plough billions into investment and reduce unemployment to below 7%.

What about security?

The election is taking place amid a state of emergency, and the first round took place three days after a policeman was shot dead on the Champs Elysées in the heart of Paris.

More than 230 people have died in terror attacks since January 2015 and officials fear more of the hundreds of young French Muslims who travelled to Syria and Iraq may return to commit new atrocities.

Intelligence services believe attackers are deliberately pursuing a Le Pen victory, says the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris - because that could tip the country into chaos.

The former FN leader wants to suspend the EU's open-border agreement on France's frontiers and expel foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence services.

What happens after Sunday?

Macron and Le Pen came top of the 11 candidates in total who participated in the first round of voting on 23 April.

While the outcome of Sunday's second round should be clear that evening, the results will be officially proclaimed by France's constitutional council on Thursday, 11 May.

Sunday, 14 May, marks the end of outgoing President François Hollande's term, and is the latest possible date for the inauguration and official transfer of power to his successor.

excerpt to daily news