A rebel alliance, including Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front, attacked government-held parts of the southern city of Daraa today, a monitoring group said.
	The alliance, also involving powerful Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, bombarded loyalist positions with mortar and artillery fire, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
	Syria's official SANA news agency said "terrorists hit neighbourhoods of Daraa city with mortar rounds and gas canister bombs," adding that there were reports of casualties.
	"Army units foiled attempts by terrorist groups to attack several military positions in Daraa province destroying several armoured vehicles and killing dozens of terrorists," state television said.
	It made no mention of fighting inside Daraa city, parts of which are already under rebel control.
	Around 70 per cent of Daraa province is under the control of rebel groups, who have made several advances in the region in recent weeks.
	In early June, rebels from the Southern Front ..

Rebels attack regime-held parts of Syria's Daraa

PTI Automatic

Sri Lanka's seamer Dhammika Prasad claimed two early wickets as Pakistan moved to 70 for two at lunch on the opening day of the second Test in Colombo today.
     Mohammad Hafeez was unbeaten on 31 and Younis Khan, playing his 100th Test, was on two after surviving an appeal for leg-before on zero.
     Prasad, who took the field despite having suffered a finger injury during net practice on Wednesday, struck with the first ball of his second over to make it 5 for 1 at the P. Sara Oval.
     Prasad forced Ahmed Shehzad to edge a rising ball to second slip where the 37-year-old Kumar Sangakkara dived to his right to pick up a low catch.
     Azhar Ali, who put on 46 for the second wicket with Hafeez, was dismissed for 26 when TV umpire Paul Reiffel upheld Sri Lanka's review for a caught behind off Prasad after on-field official Richard Illingworth had turned down the appeal.
     Another review by Sri Lanka in the next over for a leg-before appeal by Angelo Mathews against Khan was ...

Prasad strikes twice for Sri Lanka in second Test

Greece will restart crunch talks with its creditors today in a bid to save Athens from default, hours after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lashed out at lenders for rejecting his reform plans.
	Talks were due to start at 6:00 AM (0930 IST), a European source told AFP, after late-night talks last evening ended without a breakthrough as Greece's leaders rejected reforms demanded debtors.
	Tsipras was due to resume meetings with the heads of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank - the "troika" of Greece's main bailout monitors - at 1230 IST.
	They will try to finalise a deal in time to have it approved at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers later in the day, and then rubber-stamped by national leaders meeting at European Union summit today and tomorrow.
	Discussions have become increasingly acrimonious ahead of a June 30 payment deadline and yesterday Greece withdrew some of its proposals, apparently for the first time since negotiations ...

Greece crunch debt talks restart after no late-night deal

South Korea today announced a USD 14 billion stimulus package to boost its troubled economy, hammered by the deadly MERS outbreak which has dented consumer spending and business sentiment.
	In announcing the 15 trillion won programme - which follows a central bank interest rate cut to a record low this month - the finance ministry also slashed its growth outlook for this year.
	Finance Minister Choi Kyung-Hwan said the extra move was crucial as a recovery in Asia's fourth largest economy hinged on efforts to quickly contain the effects of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
	As of today the virus had killed 29 people and infected 151 since the first case was confirmed on May 20, making it the worst outbreak outside Saudi Arabia.
	"We can say that we have overcome the MERS crisis only if our economy rebounds," Choi said, warning that growth could come in below 3.0 per cent without support from the extra spending.
	"The economy is being weighed down by MERS, which has seriously hurt ...

S Korea unveils USD 14 bn stimulus package to spur growth

Japan today executed a man who robbed and killed a woman after plotting the crime with accomplices he met online.
	The execution brings to 12 the total number of death sentences carried out since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took power in 2012.
	Tsukasa Kanda, 44, was hanged for killing 31-year-old Rie Isogai in Nagoya, central Japan, in 2007.
	He met his two accomplices via a mobile phone-based web service and the three of them together devised a plan to target a random woman victim.
	The men kidnapped Isogai from a Nagoya street and suffocated her by wrapping her head and neck with a plastic bag, adhesive tape and rope, before battering her head with a hammer, according to Justice Ministry records.
	"This was an extremely brutal case that brought unimaginable suffering to the victim and her family," Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa told a press briefing after the execution, the first since she came to office in October last year.
	"After a series of careful reviews, I ordered the ...

Japan executes murderer who suffocated and battered woman

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will travel to Vienna on Saturday to join a final push for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with major powers, state media reported.
	"On Saturday morning, he will join his deputies who are at the talks drafting the text of a comprehensive agreement," the official IRNA news agency reported today.
	US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is to join the talks tomorrow, called on the Iranian side to address all outstanding issues.
	"If they are not addressed, there won't be a deal," he stressed yesterday.
	Iran and the so-called P5+1 group - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - are working to a June 30 deadline to allay international fears that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability.
	Iran denies any such ambition but is eager to secure a lifting of crippling Western economic sanctions imposed over those concerns.
	On Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set out "red lines" for the negotiations, .

Iran's Zarif to join nuclear talks Saturday

Australia's domestic spy agency today played down concerns that maps shown in a media briefing revealing the source of homegrown fighters travelling to the Middle East were classified, after fears their publication was a security breach.
	The maps, which revealed the Sydney and Melbourne suburbs where fighters heading to join jihadists came from, were photographed and filmed by journalists during a meeting yesterday between Prime Minister Tony Abbott and spy chief Duncan Lewis.
	The Labor opposition attempted to move a motion in parliament today condemning Abbott and the government.
	"The House condemns the prime minister and the government for putting politics before the security of Australians by revealing sensitive information of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation for the sake of a media opportunity," read the motion, which was defeated.
	But ASIO said the maps were not classified.
	"The director-general of security (Lewis) confirms the documents used in the briefing 

Australia spy agency denies terror maps a security breach

Niger's army killed 15 Boko Haram militants in the course of land and air operations against the armed Islamist group, the defence ministry has announced.
	The army also took 20 prisoners, Colonel Moustapha Ledru said on state radio, and destroyed an armoured vehicle, 26 motorbikes, and two caches of food and fuel held by the Islamists.
	Ledru did not say whether the Chadian army, which has large numbers of troops in Niger, had taken part in the operation. Nor did he specify whether it had taken place in Niger or neighbouring Nigeria.
	The armies of Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon have been fighting a joint campaign against Boko Haram for several months, pushing militants out of captured towns and villages.
	The yesterday's announcement came after an attack by Boko Haram militants in southeast Niger last week killed 38 civilians, most of them women and children.
	The attack - which took place in Deffa province near Nigeria, parts of whose northeast are under Boko Haram control - was 

Niger army says it killed 15 Boko Haram militants

A group of Filipino fishermen have asked the United Nations to stop China harassing them as they cast their nets around a disputed South China Sea shoal, their lawyer said today.
	The fishermen allege that China, which has controlled the Scarborough Shoal since a brief 2012 stand-off with the Philippines, is violating their rights to food and livelihood by driving them away, lawyer Harry Roque told AFP.
	Signed by 30 fishermen, the petition was sent via email to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and others in the organisation in Geneva yesterday, he said.
	"They are asking for a remedy. (What they want is) no one telling them where and when they can fish," Roque said.
	The current situation was "very, very sad" he said, adding that some of the men are now forced to fish in shallow waters with little success, while many of their wives work abroad to support the family.
	The shoal lies 220 kilometres off the main Philippine island of Luzon and 650 kilometres from Hainan island, .

Displaced Filipino fishermen seek UN help against China

A second prison worker was arrested and charged today over the escape of two convicted killers weeks ago from a maximum-security New York jail, with police warning they are likely armed and dangerous.
	Richard Matt, 49, and David Sweat, 35, used power tools to cut their way out of their cells at the Clinton Correctional Facility before dawn on June 6 in a spectacular prison break likened to a Hollywood movie.
	The escape sparked a huge manhunt with more than 1,000 agents backed by sniffer dogs and helicopters deployed to find the men, who have reportedly been spotted in several locations in recent days in upstate New York.
	Corrections officer Gene Palmer, 57, was charged with promoting prison contraband, two counts of tampering with evidence and one count of official misconduct, Major Charles Guess of New York State Police said in a statement.
	Palmer allegedly helped smuggle tools and other banned items hidden in hamburger meat, said Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie, ...

Second prison worker arrested over US jail break

Israel today said it was revoking permits for 500 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to enter Jerusalem for Ramadan prayers because of rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave.
	The punitive measure was ordered after a rocket hit southern Israel on Tuesday night, provoking an airstrike from the Jewish state, neither of which caused any injuries.
	It was the third incident in recent days to lead Israel to cancel part of its measures easing restrictions on movement for Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
	Gaza, ruled by Islamist movement Hamas and ravaged by three wars in the past six years, is under a blockade, with Israel maintaining strict control over the entry and exit of goods and people.
	Israel has however eased restrictions on Palestinians seeking to enter Jerusalem for Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, for Ramadan.
	Part of the measures included allowing up to 800 Gazans to travel to Al-Aqsa for ...

Israel revokes entry permits for 500 Gazans after rocket

North Korea issued a call to arms against "gangster US imperialists" in a statement released today to mark the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.
	The Stalinist state's powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) made the appeal on the anniversary of the devastating conflict which the North maintains was started by the United States.
	"We appeal to the world to turn out in the worldwide anti-US struggle to dismember the gangster US imperialists", said the statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
	In a tirade typical of the North's state media, it continued: "Asia should turn out to cut off the US right hand, Africa should rise up to cut off the US left land, the Mid-east has to cut off the US ankles and Europe has to cut off the US neck."
	"The only way for the US to take is to make apology before the army and people of the DPRK and hoist a white flag," it said.
	In South Korea the anniversary was low-key, but Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn ..

N Korea denounces 'US imperialists' on war anniversary

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apologized to his victims for the first time at a highly emotional court hearing where he was formally sentenced to death for the 2013 attacks.
	The US citizen of Chechen descent was sentenced to death on six counts for perpetrating the Marathon bombings, one of the bloodiest assaults on US soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
	"I would like to now apologize to the victims and to the survivors," said the 21-year-old former university student in his first public remarks since the April 15, 2013 bombings that killed three people.
	"I am guilty," he said in a slight Russian accent, standing pale and thin in a dark blazer. "Let there be no doubt about that."
	"I am sorry for the lives I have taken, for the suffering, the damage that I have done," he said, couching his remarks in the name of Allah and asking for God's forgiveness.
	Judge George O'Toole officially imposed the death sentence, which had been reached unanimously by a 12-person jury on May .

Boston bomber apologizes, sentenced to death

The United Nations has said that around a quarter of Congolese militia group the Patriotic Revolutionary Forces of Ituri(FRPI) had been "neutralised" after a three-week military operation.
	The Congolese army, backed by UN peacekeeping troops, launched an offensive against the FRPI in early June -- leaving 35 people dead, 52 wounded, and 36 captured alive, according to Martin Kobler, head of the UN's MONUSCO mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
	Kobler said the UN had provided military aid, including attack helicopters and drones, as well as logistical support.
	The operation indicates bridge-building between Kinshasa and the UN peacekeepers after several months of tensions over which Congolese leaders should lead joint missions.
	Ituri, in the DR Congo's northeast, has experienced a resurgence in violence in recent months after the surrender of FRPI leader Cobra Matata in November.
	The FRPI is one of many militias formed along largely ethnic lines that fought in Ituri ...

UN troops help 'neutralise' DR Congo militia

The US Treasury today named senior Taliban official Maulawi Abdul Rashid Baluch, arrested by Afghan authorities a year ago, as a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist'.
	The Treasury said Rashid had been the Taliban's shadow governor of Nimroz province in the country's southwest, where he helped arrange bombs and deployed suicide bombers aimed at coalition forces and Afghan officials.
	Rashid was behind one improvised explosive device that killed a US soldier in mid-2013, the Treasury said.
	He also allegedly raised money for the Taliban by offering protection of the narcotics trade in the region.
	The 'Global Terrorist' designation freezes any assets he might have in US jurisdiction and forbids Americans from any dealings with him.

US names jailed Taliban figure a 'global terrorist'

A UN report recommends that Internet and social media chiefs report to the United Nations on how they are combating groups like Islamic State that use "digital terror."
	The experts' report released today said the "scale of digital activity linked to ISIL and, to a lesser extent, some Al-Qaeda affiliates is of deep concern" and that the Security Council should take action. ISIL is another way to refer to the Islamic State group.
	The report recommended that a council committee invite Internet and social media companies to give a briefing on their efforts to "respond to the exploitation of their services" by Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and their allies.
	The experts said the "growth of high-definition digital terror" was a "worrisome trend" as Islamic State supporters regularly use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to spread propaganda among young followers.
	Islamic State has released videos of beheadings and other atrocities to shock and spread fear while its widespread use of Twitter ...

UN wants Internet chiefs to crack down on 'digital terror'

Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition have launched heavy raids against rebel positions in seven Yemeni provinces, witnesses and military sources said today.
	The attacks that began overnight and continued today were the most intensive since the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan last week, witnesses said.
	Positions were targeted in the northern region of Saada, which is the main stronghold for the Shiite Huthi rebels, as well as Hajja on the border with Saudi Arabia, residents said.
	The warplanes also raided positions in the western province of Hodeida, and the provinces of Baida, Daleh, Lahj and Aden, in the south.
	The targets included the Iran-backed Huthis as well as troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has allied himself with the rebels against the government of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
	The warplanes hit rebels near the airport of Aden, where heavy fighting continues between rebels and southern fighters allied with Hadi, 

Saudi-led warplanes bomb rebels across Yemen

China and the United States launched a new joint initiative today to protect the oceans, a key issue along with climate change on which the two nations say they can cooperate.
	US Secretary of State John Kerry and State Councilor Yang Jeichi chaired the first meeting of a new oceans working group as the two nations moved into the third and final day of key annual strategic talks.
	"Once again we're breaking new ground with respect to China and the United States's ability to find an area in which we can cooperate which has major significance ... For people everywhere," Kerry said.
	Some 400 Chinese officials have been visiting Washington since Sunday for the annual strategic and economic dialogue, a
 Forum for the two uneasy partners to try to manage their increasingly complex ties.
	China and the United States are two of the top fishing nations in the world, Kerry said, and also leaders in ocean science.
	"So we have a real opportunity here to be able to come together ... To deal with 

China, US in new bid to protect the world's oceans

Scientists said today they had identified a marker in blood for pancreatic cancer, raising hopes for a test that would allow earlier diagnosis of this deadly disease.
	A research team from the United States and Europe said people with cancer of the pancreas had a protein called glypican-1 (GPC1) in their blood.
	The protein is contained in exosomes -- tiny bags containing genetic information in the form of DNA and RNA which are excreted by all types of cells. Exosomes from healthy cells were not found to contain GPC1.
	Having found the marker in mice, the team took blood samples from humans, and found GPC1 in the blood of all 250 pancreatic cancer patients they tested, according to study results published in the journal Nature.
	They were able to distinguish between the blood of cancer sufferers and 120 healthy volunteers -- "a highly reliable bio marker," study co-author Raghu Kalluri of the University of Texas' MD Anderson Cancer Center told AFP.
	There were no false positives or ...

Protein may yield early detection of pancreatic cancer

The parliament of ex-Soviet Tajikistan passed a law today annulling the citizenship of nationals fighting abroad with militant organisations including the radical Islamic State group active in Iraq and Syria.
	"People will automatically be stripped of their citizenship of the republic of Tajikistan if they fight in the ranks of terrorist groups and organisations abroad," Zarif Alizoda, the central Asian country's human rights ombudsman said in parliament.
	MPs voted unanimously in favour of the bill.
	The impoverished republic says more than 400 Tajiks have joined the brutal IS insurgency in Iraq and Syria, including a high profile defector that once headed the special forces unit of the interior ministry.
	Many nationals are recruited to fight for the group in Russia, where over a million work as migrant labourers, Tajik security services say.
	In May, Colonel Gulmurod Halimov, a former commander of the interior ministry's special forces unit, shocked the country by announcing in a ..

Tajikistan changes citizenship law amid IS threat

Prosecutors in Naples today asked the judge in Silvio Berlusconi's latest corruption trial to send the former prime minister and media tycoon to jail for five years.
	Court officials said the judge would deliver a verdict on July 8 in a case that centres on the centre-right political leader's alleged bribing of an Italian senator as part of a plot to destabilise a 2006-08 centre-left government.
	The prosecutors requested a four year and four months sentence for Valter Lavitola, an associate of Berlusconi who is accused of actually paying bribes totaling three million euros to Senator Sergio De Gregorio in order to induce him to leave the coalition of then premier Romano Prodi.
	The idea was to further weaken an already fragile coalition and the defection is widely seen as hurting Prodi's government, which collapsed in 2008, two years after it was elected. Berlusconi's Forza Italia party won the resulting election and he served a third term as Italian premier until 2011.
	"It was a ...

AFP

AFP

Page 2241 - Afp