Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah today blamed Sunni extremists for killing its top military commander in Syria and vowed to keep fighting to defend President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
	The Islamist State (IS) jihadist group, meanwhile, overran a government-controlled hospital in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, killing 20 members of pro-regime forces and taking medical staff hostage, a monitor said.
	Hezbollah has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Mustafa Badreddine had led its intervention in support of Assad's forces, which are also backed by Russia and Iran.
	Badreddine, who was on a US terror sanctions blacklist and wanted by Israel, was killed in a blast on Thursday night near Damascus international airport.
	Hezbollah announced his death yesterday but without immediately apportioning blame, breaking with its usual pattern of accusing arch-foe Israel of responsibility.
	Today, it said a probe had concluded that Sunni Islamist radicals known as "takfiris", who ..

Islamist extremists killed military chief in Syria: Hezbollah

PTI Automatic

At least three people were killed today when a mass brawl involving hundreds of men broke out at a Moscow cemetery, officials said.
	"At the moment, we have 26 injured and three dead," Interfax news agency said, quoting a spokesman for Moscow's health department.
	Twenty-three people were hospitalised, four of them with serious injuries, the official said.
	An earlier toll by police gave two dead and 10 injured, along with 50 arrests.
	Reports said the fight at the Khovanskoye cemetery involved 200 immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and residents from Russia's volatile North Caucasus.
	Footage shown on the TV news channel LifeNews showed dozens of men armed with staves or steel bars in running battles inside the cemetery and at its entrance.
	The interior ministry said the fight including firearms appeared to have been sparked by a dispute over who had the right to work on the cemetery, a massive 200-hectare (500-acre) site on Moscow's southwestern rim.

Three killed in mass brawl at Moscow cemetery

The US called on Iran today to free seven leaders of the minority Baha'i faith serving 20- year prison sentences, asking Tehran to ensure religious and other freedoms.
	The Baha'i leaders were arrested eight years ago and convicted of espionage, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.
	"We join the international community in condemning their continued imprisonment and calling upon the Islamic Republic of Iran to release them immediately, along with all other prisoners of conscience in Iran," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
	"Furthermore, we call upon Iranian authorities to uphold their own laws and meet their international obligations that guarantee freedom of expression, religion, opinion and assembly for all citizens," he said.
	Iran allows religious freedom for several minorities but targets the Baha'i faith, which believes in unity among religions and equality between men and women.
	Kirby's statement comes after ...

US asks Iran to release imprisoned Baha'i leaders

Lewis Hamilton grabbed his first pole position in three races ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg with a thrilling revival of his speed in Saturday's qualifying session for Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix.
	The defending three-time world champion, who trails Rosberg by 43 points in the title race, revived his quickest form of the past with a stunning showing in both Q2 and Q3.
	He ended up with a best lap in one minute and 22 seconds, 0.280 seconds ahead of Rosberg's fastest lap on a day when teenager Max Verstappen demonstrated just why he was promoted, so unexpectedly, by Red Bull from Toro Rosso.
	The 18-year-old Dutchman was second-fastest at one time and his speed inspired his Red Bull team-mate, Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who responded by qualifying third ahead of him on the grid.
	This meant the two Red Bulls separated Mercedes from their main rivals Ferrari, who were pushed back to fifth and sixth, Finn Kimi Raikkonen edging ahead of four-time champion Sebastian Vettel .

Hamilton outpaces Rosberg for Spain pole

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today saw his younger daughter Sumeyye marry defence industrialist Selcuk Bayraktar at a large-scale and high security ceremony in Istanbul.
	Turkish media pictures earlier showed Sumeyye, 30, wearing an Islamic headscarf, sitting in the front seat of the black BMW bridal car.
	Erdogan and his wife Emine have four children -- eldest son Burak, Bilal and two daughters Esra and Sumeyye.
	The wedding started with the reciting of Koran, the private NTV television reported.
	Top officials including Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, army chief Hulusi Akar and former president Abdullah Gul attended the ceremony, to which some 6,000 guests were reportedly invited.
	Foreign leaders including Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were also in attendance.
	Davutoglu's appearance at the wedding could dismiss claims of a split with the president.
	In a surprise move, Davutoglu last week announced he would step down as premier and leader of the ruling Justice ...

Turkey president's daughter marries in Istanbul

Thailand's hospital-bound monarch Bhumibol Adulyadej is being treated with antibiotics for inflammation in his knees, the palace said in a statement today.
	The king is the object of an intense personality cult and his frail health is a subject of significant public concern.
	He has spent most of the past two years hospitalised for a series of ailments, with very few public appearances and speeches.
	The Royal Household Bureau said in a statement today that he had a fever, low blood pressure, and inflammation in his right lung and knees earlier this week.
	His temperature and blood pressure have since returned to normal but doctors are "still administering antibiotics to mitigate the inflammation in his knees, as well as medicine to dissolve phlegm," the statement said.
	The king is also receiving physical therapy, according to the palace, which tightly controls information about the royal family.
	Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch and most Thais have never known life ..

Thai king treated with antibiotics for inflammation: palace

Macedonia's former and possible next prime minister Nikola Gruevski says his party is preparing to stand in an early election next month despite a boycott by his opponents and international disapproval.
	Gruevski, who had stepped down in January after 10 years in power to make way for the vote, told AFP late Friday that the troubled Balkan country could now face two general elections in coming months.
	Parliament was dissolved in April as part of an EU-brokered deal to end a national political crisis and street protests, but Gruevski's conservative VRMO-DPMNE was the only major party to register candidates for the June 5 poll.
	His rivals have declared a boycott, saying conditions for a free and fair vote have not been met.
	"We are in a very unpleasant situation now, the only (one) of the four big political parties which is going to the elections," Gruevski said in English in an exclusive interview at his imposing party headquarters in downtown Skopje.
	If the vote goes ahead next ...

Macedonia's ex-PM to go ahead with poll despite boycotts

German authorities today reported an increase in the number of arson fires at shelters for refugees who flooded Germany last year, raising concerns about anti- migrant violence.
	"This year, there have already been 45 arson fires," said Holger Muench, head of the federal criminal police (BKA).
	"What is particularly worrisome is the increasing scale of the violence," he said in an interview with the Funke newspaper group.
	In 2015, when Germany opened its doors to 1.1 million migrants mostly from war-torn Syria, 92 arson fires at centres for asylum seekers were reported, compared with only six in 2014, according to BKA statistics published in late January.
	Muench said he did not have any knowledge of large-scale far-right groups being behind the fires, adding the majority were set by men from the areas near the torched shelters.
	The BKA head however said he was worried about the rising hate speech on the Internet against refugees which could be a trigger for arson.
	Several major ...

Germany sees more arson fires at refugee centres: police

Regional and Western powers gathered in Nigeria today for talks on quelling the threat from Boko Haram as the UN warned of the militants' threat to African security and ties to the Islamic State group.
	French President Francois Hollande told reporters after meeting his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja that "impressive" gains had been made against the Islamists by greater cooperation.
	But he warned: "This terrorist group nevertheless remains a threat."
	Buhari has invited leaders from Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, whose troops will make up a new regional force against Boko Haram, which has been pushed to northeast Nigeria's borders around Lake Chad.
	The 8,500-member force, which has African Union backing and is based in Chad's capital, N'Djamena under a Nigerian general, was supposed to have deployed last July.
	Plugging gaps and improving coordination between armies that are currently operating largely independently is seen as vital in the remote region where ...

Nigeria hosts international summit on Boko Haram

Authorities confirmed today that Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye was charged with treason for challenging the result of recent elections and holding his own swearing-in ceremony.
	Besigye has disputed President Yoweri Museveni's victory in February's election and has been under house arrest for much of the time since.
	Judicial spokesman Solomon Muyita said the charges against Besigye stemmed from, "His persistent declaration that he won the elections, his call for an independent audit of election results and his purported swearing in as president."
	"He made declarations at different places and times within the country," Muyita added.
	On Wednesday Besigye was arrested in the capital Kampala after staging his own swearing-in ceremony and whisked to Moroto, a town in the remote Karamoja region of the country, and subsequently charged.
	He has been remanded in custody until his next court appearance due on 25 May.
	Treason is a capital offence in Uganda, but the death penalty ..

Authorities confirm Uganda opposition leader's treason charge

At least two people were killed today after a mass brawl involving hundreds of men broke out at a Moscow cemetery, police said.
	"Out of the 10 wounded people, two have died," police spokeswoman Sofya Khotina told Interfax news agency. "Fifty people who took part were arrested."
	Reports said the fight at the Khovanskoye cemetery involved 200 immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and residents from Russia's volatile North Caucasus.
	The interior ministry said the fight involved firearms and appeared to have been sparked by a dispute over who had the right to work on the cemetery, a massive 200-hectare site on Moscow's southwestern rim.

Two killed in mass brawl at Moscow cemetery

Twenty-five Palestinian children were killed in the last three months of 2015 during a wave of anti-Israeli attacks and the number detained was the highest in seven years, the UN children's agency said.
	"Serious concerns arose regarding excessive use of force, particularly in relation to incidents where Palestinian children were shot dead by Israeli security forces after carrying out or being suspected of carrying out stabbing attacks," UNICEF said in a report.
	It said more than 1,300 Palestinian children were injured during the spike in attacks, almost all in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, while three Israeli children were hurt in the West Bank and west Jerusalem.
	UNICEF cited the example on October 25 in Hebron in the West Bank of a 17-year-old girl who was "taken by IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldiers for a search, shot with at least five bullets and killed".
	"Israeli authorities said that she had attempted to stab a policeman, however an eyewitness stated that she was not .

25 Palestinian children killed in 3 months: UNICEF

Spanish authorities allowed residents near a giant tyre dump blaze to return home today, saying that toxic fumes billowing from the rubber heap posed less of a risk although the fire has yet to be extinguished.
	The news came as it emerged that the European Commission had contacted Madrid over the illegal dump, the first step in a procedure which it can launch when it suspects a member state of infringing EU law.
	Some 10,000 people living in the town of Sesena near the Spanish capital evacuated their homes Friday after the dump went up in flames in a suspected arson attack.
	A massive black cloud of fumes billowed into the air, prompting widespread health concerns.
	The government of Castilla-La Mancha, where the dump is located, said today it had lifted its evacuation order "as a result of the reduced risk for residents in the area" as firefighters brought the blaze under control and the cloud reduced in intensity.
	The blaze broke out before dawn yesterday in the dump that ...

Residents near Madrid return home as toxic blaze under control

Boko Haram remains a threat despite "impressive" military gains against it, French President Francois Hollande said today, as regional and Western leaders gathered for talks on the Islamist threat.
	"The results (of the counter-insurgency) are impressive" and the rebels had been "diminished and forced to retreat", he told a news conference in Abuja.
	But added: "This terrorist group nevertheless remains a threat."
	Hollande was speaking after talks with his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa in the Nigerian capital before regional leaders met to discuss the conflict.
	Nearly seven years of violence have left at least 20,000 dead and left more than 2.6 million homeless, devastating infrastructure in Nigeria's remote northeast and creating a humanitarian crisis.
	Discussions at the security summit are expected to focus on the formal deployment of a new regional force comprising troops from Nigeria and its neighbours Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
	Over the 

'Boko Haram still a threat despite counter-insurgency gains'

Islamic State group jihadists today killed 20 members of pro-regime forces in an attack on a Syrian hospital in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, a monitoring group said.
	"IS attacked Al-Assad hospital at the city's eastern entrance, killing at least 20 soldiers and allied fighters," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
	He said the attack sparked clashes in which six jihadists were also killed.

'IS attacks Syrian hospital, killing 20 pro-regime forces'

A pioneering Italian gynaecologist best known for helping women in their 60s to have babies has been arrested on suspicion of removing eggs from a patient without her consent.
	Severino Antinori, 70, was arrested at Rome's Fiumicino airport yesterday following a complaint filed by a 24-year-old Spanish woman who was being treated for an ovarian cyst at Milan clinic run by the specialist, police and lawyers involved in the case told the AGI news agency.
	Antinori has had his licence to practice gynaecology provisionally suspended for a year and been placed under house arrest in Rome on charges of aggravated robbery and causing personal injury, the agency reported.
	The alleged victim was a Spanish national with a nursing qualification who had recently begun working at the clinic.
	Prosecutors allege that Antinori, who had met the woman by chance, set up the job interview and subsequently diagnosed the ovarian cyst with the sole intention of harvesting her eggs without her ...

Pioneering Italian doctor suspected of stealing patient's eggs

The Islamic State group infiltrated a town in Iraq's Anbar province with several fighters wearing suicide belts today, in a raid that killed at least five people, security officials said.
	The jihadist attackers entered Amriyat al-Fallujah, a government-held town 50 kilometres southwest of Baghdad and a key base for any operation against the IS-controlled city of Fallujah, further north.
	"Eight suicide bombers snuck into the city, the security forces succeeded to repel the attack by killing five of them," Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi, who heads Anbar Operations Command, told AFP.
	"The other three blew themselves up, which led to the killing of three civilians and two policemen," he said.
	A leader of the tribal forces assisting federal forces in Anbar confirmed the death toll and said the situation had been brought back under control.
	The government's "war media cell" that provides updates on Iraq's fight against the jihadists posted a video of fighters shooting in the air to ..

IS kills at least five in Iraq suicide raid

One soldier and two Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes today in Turkey's restive southeast, the Turkish army said.
	Two soldiers were also wounded in the fighting in the Daglica region of Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, the army said on its website.
	"Our hero comrade fell martyr during the armed clashes with the terrorists," the army said, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.
	It said "two terrorists" were killed, adding there was an ongoing operation to hunt PKK rebels in the region.
	Six Turkish soldiers were killed on Friday in a clash with Kurdish militants in the Cukurca district of Hakkari while two more lost their lives when a military helicopter sent to the scene crashed.
	Turkey has been waging an offensive against the PKK after the collapse in 2015 of a two-year ceasefire declared by the group.
	Hundreds of members of the Turkish security forces have been killed in attacks since.
	Over 

One Turkish soldier, two PKK militants killed in clashes: army

Israel has arrested a prominent Palestinian activist and sent him to a military prison for "interfering" with the work of the army in the occupied West Bank, his family said today.
	Abdullah Abu Rahma has had several run-ins with the army and has spent time in jail in the past for organising weekly demonstrations against Israel's separation barrier in the village of Bilin.
	The activist, who has organised the protests for the past 11 years, was arrested again on Friday, said his brother Rateb Abu Rahma.
	He was moved to the Ofer military prison in the West Bank on Saturday and told his lawyer he had been accused of "interfering with the work of the army in a closed military zone," he added.
	In February, an Israeli court handed Abu Rahma a four-month suspended sentence on similar charges. He was also arrested and jailed for 15 months in 2009 for coordinating the Bilin protests.
	Over the years foreign and Israeli demonstrators have joined Palestinians staging weekly protests in ...

Israel arrests Palestinian activist over West Bank protest

Two tigers escaped today from a big cat shelter in the north of the Netherlands, police said, triggering an urgent search.
	Veterinarians equipped with tranquiliser guns and a police helicopter circling overhead began combing the area around the village of Oldeberkoop where the animal shelter is located.
	Police later said they spotted the two tigers around 11:00 am and local residents have been warned about the escape.
	"We are going to try to bring the animals back to the shelter safe and sound," police said.
	Authorities added it was possible the tigers escaped through an open gate, according to the Dutch news agency ANP.
	The tigers had been kept at the Felida big cat rescue centre that takes in animals from zoos, circuses and individuals in need of care from possible abuse, neglect or aging.
	The goal is to eventually transfer the animals to a sanctuary in South Africa.

Two tigers escape from Dutch refuge: police

Fed up with drug-related violence, a growing number of Mexican politicians see one potential cure: legalising the cultivation of opium poppies for the production of medicine.
	The debate has emerged in recent weeks after President Enrique Pena Nieto proposed legislation in April to loosen marijuana laws by legalizing medical cannabis and easing restrictions on its recreational use.
	Since then, governors and congressional lawmakers have voiced their support for regulating opium poppies, which are often grown by farmers in poor areas of the country and sold to cartels as the raw material for heroin.
	The idea was launched by Hector Astudillo, governor of the southern state of Guerrero, which has the country's highest murder rate amid turf wars among drug cartels battling for control of the mountains where US-bound heroin is born.
	Astudillo, whose state is the biggest producer of opium poppies, proposed a pilot program for the crop's cultivation for medical uses.
	Graco Ramirez, ...

AFP

AFP

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