Oil prices eased slightly in Asia today amid reports OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia would further raise output in August.
	Prices hit five-week highs this week, supported by hopes that a Russian-Saudi cooperation may reach a pact to freeze output, easing the stubborn supply glut dogging the market since late last year.
	OPEC members and their non-OPEC rivals are to meet informally in Algeria next month, and both Saudi and Russia have indicated they could discuss measures to stabilise prices.
	The market was boosted further yesterday after the weekly US inventories report showed significant declines in commercial crude stockpiles, indicating strong demand in the world's top oil consumer.
	US crude stockpiles fell by 2.5 million barrels in the week to August 12, and gasoline stocks declined 2.7 million barrels, official data showed.
	Analysts however, said gains were being eroded by media reports that Saudi Arabia, OPEC's top producer, is ramping up production to fresh record levels in ...

Oil dips in Asia amid Saudi Arabia output boost reports

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An inferno scorching swathes of southern California threatened the homes of more than 82,000 people, sending flaming "firenadoes" tearing across the brush and prompting a state of emergency.
	More than 1,300 firefighters were battling the giant blaze, with more on the way, but they were unable to contain the blaze on Wednesday.
	Dramatic local TV news footage of the wildfire captured from the front line in the town of Phelan showed tornado-like flaming vortexes -- known as "firenadoes" -- sent spinning into the air by the unusual ferocity of the blaze.
	"We have very, very dry brush, thick fuel, it helps move it along very quickly," Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for the state firefighting agency Cal Fire, told AFP.
	"It is very dangerous to the public and also to the firefighters."
	Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for San Bernardino County, just 100 kilometers east of Los Angeles, where the so-called Bluecut Fire was quickly growing, its cause still unclear.
	The ...

Firenadoes rage in California as blaze menaces 82,000

Three people were killed and 40 more wounded today in a car bomb attack in Turkey's eastern city of Van carried out by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, a local official said.
	The attack targeted a police headquarters in the central Ipekyolu district of Van city, Van governorate official Mehmet Parlak was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency, blaming the "regional terror group", the official phrase for the PKK.

3 killed, 40 wounded in PKK car bomb attack in eastern Turkey

Bolivian President Evo Morales has inaugurated a new "anti-imperialist" military academy, calling it a response to the former School of the Americas, a US program that provided training to Latin American military regimes.
	The leftist leader yesterday said the new academy was needed to "confront the empire's cultural, ideological, political and economic domination and capitalist structure."
	Morales, who has had rocky relations with the United States and expelled the US ambassador in 2008, told the inaugural class of 100 cadets that their mission would be "to defend the people, not the empire."
	The head of the armed forces, General Gonzalo Duran, said the new school, located in the eastern town of Warnes, would teach about "de-colonization, gender equality, intercultural understanding and social inclusion."
	The program will be mandatory for soldiers seeking to be promoted to captain.
	Bolivia returned to democracy in 1982, after a series of coups.
	Its Cold War-era military regimes .

Bolivia's Morales opens 'anti-imperialist' army academy

Boko Haram killed five traders in an ambush on a highway in northeast Nigeria that was recently reopened after coming under repeated attack from the Islamist group, a military source has said.
	A convoy of vehicles carrying Nigerian immigration officials and a group of traders were travelling from Gamboru, on the border with Cameroon, to the city of Maiduguri when they came under fire on Monday.
	"Three (immigration) officers were hit and injured in the fire exchange. The immigration men drove off towards Maiduguri, leaving the traders behind," an army officer told AFP yesterday on condition of anonymity.
	The five traders had joined the official convoy thinking it would be a safer way to reach the Borno state capital than travelling the notorious road alone.
	The traders' two trucks were looted and set alight, Gamboru resident Umar Ari told AFP by phone, also confirming the toll of five dead.
	The Gamboru to Maiduguri highway is a strategic 140-kilometre trade route in the region, ...

Boko Haram kills five in attack on reopened highway

The world's "largest aircraft" has embarked on its maiden flight, four days after a previous attempt was abandoned due to technical issues.
	The Airlander 10 -- part plane, part airship -- yesterday took to the skies amid cheers and applause from crowds gathered at an airfield in Cardington, central England.
	The successful flight comes 85 years after another airship --  the ill-fated R101 -- took off from the same airfield in October 1930 before crashing in France, killing 48 people and effectively ending the development of airships in Britain.
	Originally developed for the US army as a surveillance aircraft, the 92-metre-long Airlander 10, also has potential uses in the commercial sector, such as carrying cargo, according to makers Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV).
	The firm, which describes the Airlander as the "largest aircraft currently flying", received a British government grant of USD 3.7 million to develop the project.
	The Airlander can fly at up to 4,880 metres and reach speeds of 

World's 'largest aircraft' gets off ground

Russia has dismissed a suggestion from Washington that Moscow is violating a UN Security Council resolution by using an Iranian air base for its bombing raids on Syria.
	Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday denied that Moscow could be in breach of a ban on supply or transfer of warplanes to Iran without prior approval of the United Nations Security Council.
	"There are no grounds to suspect Russia of breaching the resolution," Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow.
	Russia on Tuesday began flying warplanes from an Iranian airbase in a major switch in its bombing campaign in Syria that the United States condemned as "unfortunate".
	Washington responded to Lavrov's latest statements yesterday, saying it is evaluating Russia's actions.
	"We're looking at, we're assessing it, we're assessing whether this would constitute a violation," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
	"It does require a very detailed, legal analysis," he said, adding, "but I stand by what I ..

Syria raids from Iranian base do not violate UN resolution:

Sweden ended a disconsolate Marta's dreams of guiding Brazil's women to a first Olympic football gold medal with a 4-3 penalty shoot-out win to set up a final with Germany.
     The five-time world player of the year walked off in tears after the upset before 70,000 people in a stunned Maracana stadium.
     Brazil thrashed the Swedes 5-1 in the group stages but were held to a third consecutive 0-0 draw. As in their quarter-final win over Australia, they forced to go through the agony of penalties.
     Unlike against the Australians, Marta converted from the spot, but then saw her ambition of capping a glorious career by finally winning a major international title devastated.
     "There is no way to describe the feeling of frustration," said Brazil coach Vadao.
     Marta, who has played her club football in Sweden for the past four years, was consoled by Swedish players, whilst the huge Maracana crowd gave their defeated team a huge ovation.
     Cristiane, the Olympics' all-time ..

Marta in tears as Sweden dump Brazil in penalty shoot-out

Three people, including a policeman, were killed today in clashes in a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after a massacre sparked angry accusations of security failures by the government, local officials said.
	Several hundred people rallied on the main street of Beni at the end of a three-day mourning period called by civil groups over the murder of dozens of people on Saturday night.
	At least 50 people were hacked to death, the UN military mission to DRC said Wednesday, in the latest in a two-year string of attacks blamed on rebels.
	Police and troops fired tear gas and warning shots in a bid to break up the crowd, but the protestors blocked off streets with barricades.
	In the first fatal incident, "a policeman and a civilian were killed, nine people were injured, (comprising) six civilians and three soldiers", Beni Mayor Edmond Masumbuko said.
	The head of Beni's civil society movement, Gilbert Kambale, said the civilian fatality was a young man who was killed by 

Three dead in protests after DR Congo massacre

Defective combat helmets produced for the US military using prison labor in Texas put soldiers' lives at risk, according to a report released today by a Justice Department watchdog agency.
	Poorly supervised inmates also used dangerous, improvised tools, including makeshift hatchets, which could easily have become prison weapons, according to the Justice Department's Inspector General.
	Nearly 150,000 of the helmets were manufactured between 2006 and 2009, a period during which the White House ordered "surges" in combat troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	However, investigators did not uncover any evidence that soldiers or marines had died as a result of defects in the helmets, which failed ballistics tests and were made with substandard materials.
	All but 3,000 of the helmets were recalled or quarantined by military officials.
	ArmorSource, an Ohio defense contractor tasked with making the bulk of the helmets, agreed with the Justice Department in March to pay USD 3 million for ..

Prison-made US combat helmets endangered soldiers: report

Oscar-nominated director and former Academy president Arthur Hiller died on Wednesday in Los Angeles of natural causes. He was 92.
	The Canadian-born filmmaker enjoyed a movie career spanning five decades which included 1964 comedy "The Americanization of Emily," ratings smash "Love Story," for which he was Oscar nominated in 1970, and 1975's "The Man in the Glass Booth."
	"We are deeply saddened by the passing of our beloved friend Arthur Hiller," Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a statement.
	"I was a member of the board during his presidency and fortunate enough to witness firsthand his dedication to the Academy and his lifelong passion for visual storytelling."
	Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Hiller served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, and embarked on a show business career first in Canadian television and then in Hollywood.
	A jobbing director at first, he turned out episodes of "Matinee Theatre," "Playhouse 90" and "The Third Man" in the ...

Oscar-nominated director Arthur Hiller dies

The main hospital in Guatemala's capital today confirmed the country's first case of a Zika-linked birth defect in a newborn and two cases of a related nerve disorder.
	A 70-year-old man and a five-year-old girl were diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological autoimmune condition which can cause paralysis, Carlos Mejia, head of the infectious diseases clinic in the Hospital Roosevelt, told a news conference.
	"We have also detected the first case of microcephaly compatible with Zika," he said.
	Microcephaly is where babies are born with abnormally small skulls and underdeveloped brains.
	Zika is most commonly transmitted by mosquito, although rarer cases of transmission through sex have been identified.
	Mejia said tests were being carried out out on two other babies to determine whether their mothers had contracted Zika while pregnant.
	He added that there have been no confirmed deaths from conditions linked to the virus, but there was a report of a man infected with Zika 

Guatemala confirms first Zika-linked microcephaly, paralysis

Jordan has allowed a sick Syrian child to enter the country from a border area where thousands of refugees are stranded, the army said today, after an online campaign.
	A video of the child that was posted online last week shows the boy crying with a severely inflamed testicle.
	The video provoked a wave of sympathy on social media, with the launch of the Arabic-language hashtag Let_the_Rukban_child_in.
	The child and his family are among tens of thousands of Syrians who are stuck around the Rukban border crossing in the northeast of the kingdom.
	Jordan declared the area a "closed military zone" in June, after a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed seven soldiers near a makeshift desert camp where more than 100,000 Syrians are stuck.
	This cut off aid access to the Syrians, who have been gathering at the border for months attempting to flee their country's five-year civil war into Jordan.
	In a statement, the army thanked "all those who helped to relay the image .

Jordan allows in ill Syrian child after support campaign

A policeman and a protestor were killed today in clashes at a demonstration in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the government's alleged failure to protect civilians, after a gruesome massacre in the east of the country.
	Security forces stepped in after hundreds gathered in the town's main street on the last day of a three-day mourning period called by civil society groups over the murder of dozens of people on Saturday night.
	Police and troops fired tear gas and warning shots to break up an angry protest in the town of Beni where 51 civilians were hacked to death, in the latest in a string of attacks blamed on rebels.
	"A policeman and a civilian were killed, nine people were injured, six civilians and three soldiers," said Edmond Masumbuko, the mayor of Beni in North Kivu province.
	The United States has warned of more violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, should President Joseph Kabila hold on to power after his mandate expires in December.
	The civilian killed ...

Two dead in protests after DR Congo massacre

The United States announced emergency import restrictions today on Syrian artifacts in response to looting of the country's cultural heritage in the midst of a brutal civil war.
	The Islamic State group has ravaged ancient archeological sites under its control in Syria and Iraq, along with local looters. Among the worst incidents was the destruction by IS of temples in the famed ancient city of Palmyra, which provoked international outrage.
	"These import restrictions are intended to reduce the incentive for pillage to better preserve Syria's cultural heritage and to combat profiting from the sale of these artifacts by terrorists and criminal organizations," the US State Department said.
	"Preserving the cultural heritage of Syria will be a vital component in shaping a future for the country based on reconstruction, reconciliation and building civil society."
	The restrictions were published by US Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security and the Treasury ...

US places import restrictions to protect Syrian artifacts

Scientists today unveiled a synthetic drug that appears to neutralise pain as effectively as morphine but without the side-effects that make opioids so dangerous and addictive.
	The big-data methods used by the researchers also open up a promising avenue in drug innovation, they reported in the journal Nature.
	In experiments with mice, the new compound -- identified after screening "trillions" of candidates -- activated a known molecular pathway in the brain that triggers pain suppression.
	But unlike morphine and prescription drugs such as oxycodone or oxycontin, it did not switch on a second pathway that can slow or block normal breathing.
	Respiratory suppression caused by opioids results in some 30,000 deaths every year in the United States alone, where opioid use and abuse has taken on epidemic proportions.
	Nor did the new drug -- dubbed PZM21 -- produce addiction in the lab mice, which get hooked on morphine and pharmaceutical painkillers as easily as humans.
	In experiments, .

New painkiller could replace morphine: study

A train crashed into a tree that had fallen onto the tracks in a hailstorm in southern France today, leaving eight people seriously injured, rescue workers said.
	The regional service carrying some 250 passengers was travelling at 140 kilometres an hour between Nimes and Montpellier when it hit a tree that had been uprooted by a hailstorm.
	One of the seriously injured was rushed to hospital by helicopter in an "absolutely urgent" state, according to the head of local rescue services, Christophe Risdorfer.
	Another 50 people suffered minor injuries or were in shock, he said.
	National rail operator SNCF said in a statement: "At Lunel at around 3:45 pm, a TER (regional train) going at 140 kmh hit a tree which had fallen on to the track after extremely violent storms in the region."
	Around 80 rescue workers deployed to the scene, where SNCF said "access is very difficult.

Eight seriously injured in France train crash

Filipino and Saudi officials are working together to help thousands of stranded workers under a directive from King Salman, a diplomat said today as the Philippines labour secretary visited.
	The roughly 11,000 Filipinos are among tens of thousands of workers affected by financial troubles at the kingdom's major construction firms.
	"Their salaries have not been paid, some of them for as long as eight months," Iric Arribas, charge d'affaires at the Philippine embassy, told AFP.
	"It turned into a humanitarian crisis."
	Workers were unable to renew their residency permits, meaning they could not leave the country and could not access their bank accounts, he said.
	Some living in company accommodation "did not have food", Arribas added.
	About 7,000 of the Filipinos worked for Saudi Oger Ltd, while 3,000 were with Saudi Binladin Group and the rest with other firms, Arribas said.
	Saudi King Salman earlier this month ordered various measures to help affected foreign workers.
	These ...

Philippines minister in Saudi over stranded workers

The UN's cultural agency expressed concern today over the poor maintenance of a centuries-old cave temple in Sri Lanka, which risks being struck off the list of world heritage sites.
	UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said she raised the maintenance issue at the Golden Temple of Dambulla with local authorities during her visit to the island.
	The Sri Lankan government is bound by international treaty obligations to protect the cave monastery which is home to 2,000-year-old murals and 157 Buddha statues, she told reporters in Colombo at the end of her four-day visit.
	A team of experts who visited the site in central Sri Lanka last year found the site poorly maintained and warned that new constructions have affected its heritage value, she said.
	A Buddhist monk at the temple has been resisting Sri Lankan government efforts to take over the maintenance of the temple, but Bokova said it was the responsibility of the Sri Lankan state to ensure that the property was well ...

UN voices concern over Sri Lanka's crumbling cave temple

The United Nations has launched a probe of a hotel attack in South Sudan in which soldiers raped women and assaulted aid workers while UN peacekeepers allegedly failed to act.
	Civil war broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup. The fighting has split the country along ethnic lines and driven it to the brink of collapse.
	A peace deal signed between the government and rebels almost a year ago has so far failed to end the conflict. And last month Juba was rocked by several days of heavy fighting between Kiir's forces and those loyal to Machar.
	The abuses now being probed by the UN -- specifically, a July 11 attack on the Hotel Terrain in the capital Juba -- took place during these days of fighting.
	Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said late Tuesday he was "concerned about allegations that UNMISS did not respond appropriately to prevent this and other grave cases of sexual violence committed in Juba."
	He 

UN launches probe of South Sudan violence

One person was killed and several more wounded today in Mali during a protest over the arrest of a popular radio presenter.
	Medical sources confirmed a passerby was killed walking through the protest in the capital, Bamako, as protesters clashed with security forces who fired tear gas.
	The demonstration was sparked by the arrest on Monday of Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, a government minister's son also known as "Rasbath", whose polemical presence on local radio has raised the ire of the authorities.
	Supporters had gathered outside court to show their support where the young presenter was due to appear in connection with a police investigation into whether he broke public morality rules.
	Rasbath has accused President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of being unable to manage the Malian army and attacked the prime minister and several senior military figures on his show "Carte sur table" (Card on the table).
	He comes from establishment stock himself as the son of land affairs minister Mohamed ..

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