Ukraine said today that firefighters have extinguished a forest fire that had burned for four days near the Chernobyl plant, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986.
	The fire was completely put out "at 9:00 am on Saturday," the emergencies ministry said in a statement.
	The levels of radiation were slightly elevated at the Chernobyl site, which is about 100 kilometres from the Ukrainian capital Kiev, it said.
	The blaze came within about 20 kilometres of Chernobyl after breaking out Tuesday afternoon, but officials said it posed no danger to the plant and firefighters brought it under control within a day.
	The area around Chernobyl was evacuated after the 1986 blast and the last reactor there was shut down in 2000 but some personnel still operate in the exclusion zone, where work is underway to build a new seal over the reactor site.
	Officials gave few details of the possible cause of the fire but Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said authorities had not ruled out ...

Chernobyl wildfire extinguished: Ukraine

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An Afghan delegation left for Qatar today where they will hold two days of "open discussion" with Taliban representatives aimed at ending Afghanistan's long war, according to an official.
	"A 20-member Afghan delegation, two from the High Peace Council, left to attend talks in Qatar on Sunday and Monday," Abdul Hakim Mujahid, first deputy of the council, told AFP.
	"It will be an open discussion, based on peace talks in Afghanistan," Mujahid said, adding that representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Taliban would be in attendance.
	The High Peace Council was established by former Afghan president Karzai in 2010 to negotiate peace with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, but so far there has been very little progress.
	The Taliban's official spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, confirmed that an eight-strong Taliban delegation would attend the event, which is being organised by the Pugwash Council, a global organisation that promotes dialogue to resolve conflicts.
	However, the 

Afghan delegation to meet with Taliban in Qatar: officials

Tamim Iqbal smashed Bangladesh's highest Test score of 206 as the first Test against Pakistan petered out into a draw after another run feast in Khulna today.
     The hosts made light of the 296-run deficit in the first innings as they posted a mammoth 555 for six in their second knock before the match was called off after tea on the fifth and final day.
     The draw was a morale-booster for Bangladesh, who had lost all their eight previous Tests against Pakistan, ahead of the second and final match starting in Dhaka next Wednesday.
     A stalemate was always on the cards on the heart-breaking pitch for bowlers at the Sheikh Abu Naser stadium which produced 1,515 runs for the loss of just 26 wickets over the five days.
     Bangladesh had made 332 in the first innings after electing to take first strike and Pakistan replied with 628 on the back of a double-century from Mohammad Hafeez.
     The home team's batting assault left Pakistan still searching for their first win on the ...

Tamin hits double ton as Bangladesh draw Pakistan Test

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was confident Australia could restore its relationship with Indonesia despite anger over the execution of two drug convicts, whose bodies reportedly returned home Saturday.
	Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34, were killed by firing squad on Wednesday over their role in a plot to bring heroin to Australia from the Indonesian resort island of Bali, despite international pleas to Jakarta for clemency.
	Abbott said he understood the dismay and anger over the executions but respected Indonesia's sovereignty.
	"It really was terrible that these cruel and unnecessary executions went ahead," he told reporters in Sydney.
	"Our anger and our grief, sadly, is not going to bring those two young men back.
	"The important thing now is not to do any thing that would make a difficult situation worse."
	The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was unable to confirm reports that the men's bodies were on a flight which touched down early Saturday in Sydney.

Bodies of Australians executed in Indonesia arrive home

US-led air strikes targeting the Islamic State group killed at least 52 civilians in a village in northern Syria, a monitoring group said today.
	"Air strikes by the coalition early on Friday on the village of Birmahle in Aleppo province killed 52 civilians," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
	"Seven children were killed, and 13 people are still trapped in the rubble.

52 civilians dead in coalition strikes in Syria: monitor

Thai authorities today resumed the excavation of a mass grave site in a remote patch of jungle where migrants believed to be from Myanmar and Bangladesh were held for months by people smugglers in appalling conditions.
	Eight bodies have been recovered so far from the abandoned camp in Sadao district, in Songkhla province, a few hundred metres (yards) from the border with Malaysia.
	The grim discovery has once again exposed Thailand's central role in a regional human trafficking trade.
	Four shallow holes in the dirt a short walk behind the camp mark where the bodies were retrieved, an AFP reporter at the scene said, while white ribbons tied to a few dozen bamboo poles delineated suspected new graves.
	The cause of the migrants' deaths is not yet clear, but details emerged Saturday of the conditions they endured, in what Thailand's police chief has described as a "virtual prison camp".
	Doctors treating the two sole survivors -- men aged 25 and 35 -- told AFP their patients were ...

Thai authorities resume dig at migrant mass grave site

Jamaican sprint sensation Usain Bolt is back from an injury-blighted season and fully ready to soar to the heights that saw him set world records in both the 100 and 200m.
     The six-time Olympic gold track medallist skipped a large part of last season with a nagging foot injury, but said he was gearing up nicely towards defending his sprint titles at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing in August.
     "I have no pain," said Bolt ahead of this weekend's second World Relays in the Bahamas, adding that he saw his doctor every three months to "keep everything in line".
     "The main thing is to avoid injuries this season and go to the world championships.
     "I'll be happy to go back to Beijing, that's where it all started," he said in reference to the first of his Olympic treble gold haul at the 2008 Summer Games, mirrored four years later in London.
     Bolt, who admitted that his social life had taken a back seat -- "I try to limit myself as much as possible" -- said ...

Relay king Bolt ready to hit new highs

Alastair Cook's long overdue 26th Test hundred saved England from complete collapse as his side reached 240-7 at stumps on the opening day of the third and final Test against the West Indies.
     Captain Cook was dismissed for a painstaking 105 off the last ball of the day at the Kensington Oval.
     His determined innings, compiled with exceptional care over 315 minutes and occupying 266 deliveries, was also the 100th Test century scored on the Caribbean's oldest international ground, dating back to the first-ever Test match in the region, against England in 1930.
     Having seen his side reduced to 38 for three in the morning session after winning the toss and choosing to bat, Cook displayed great resolve, stroking 12 boundaries on a pitch offering some encouragement to the faster bowlers.
     He put on 98 for the fifth wicket with Moeen Ali in mid-afternoon in what was the only period of play that England dominated.
     That partnership ended when Ali was run out for 58 for ...

Cook ends Test ton drought to boost England

Five people have been swept to their deaths by flash flooding in northeastern Australia, officials said today, after what the Queensland state premier described as an "off-the-scale" downpour.
	State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said in the first incident a man, woman and child died when their car was swept away by floodwaters in Caboolture, some 44 kilometres (27 miles) north of Brisbane.
	"This is off-the-scale," she said of the deluge in which 277 millimetres (almost 11 inches) of rain fell in the Caboolture area in just three hours yesterday afternoon.
	In a second incident, also in Caboolture, a car carrying three people was swept away but two passengers, a 21-year-old woman and a boy aged 16 managed to escape. The body of the driver, a 49-year-old man, was found early today.
	Police said in a third fatal incident involving vehicles being swept away, a 75-year-old man died in nearby Burpengary but police were able to rescue a 68-year-old woman found clinging to a tree.
	"It's ...

Five swept away in Australian floods

Two of the surviving journalists from French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo have brushed off controversy over a literary award.
	In January, 12 members of the magazine's staff were massacred when two Islamist gunmen -- enraged by caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed -- stormed an editorial meeting in Paris.
	This month, the publication is to be honoured by the PEN authors association, but more than 150 writers have pulled out of the event in protest at cartoons they say are offensive to France's minority populations.
	Speaking in Washington, Charlie Hebdo's film critic Jean-Baptiste Thoret -- who only avoided the attack because he had been late for work -- said the critics had misunderstood the reason for the PEN award.
	"Maybe there is a little misunderstanding, I guess they imagine this award was given to Charlie Hebdo regarding its content," he said.
	"There is a confusion. It's an award given to the principle of freedom of speech."
	Those pulling out of the May 5 annual PEN ...

Charlie Hebdo says prize protest a 'misunderstanding'

Three people, including two policemen, were killed and several people  wounded in a grenade attack in the capital of Burundi, which has been rocked by protests at the president's bid to seek a third term in office, police and witnesses said.
	The deaths came in an attack in the Kamenge district of Bujumbura yesterday.
	Police director general General Andre Ndayambaje told AFP two officers were killed and one was wounded, while a local resident said a civilian also lost his life and two others were wounded.
	A similar attack in the centre of the capital of the small central African nation wounded three policemen, the general said.
	A senior police officer, who requested anonymity, said police patrolling on foot in Kamenge were attacked with a grenade and a police vehicle was also hit with a grenade.
	The local resident said the grenade attack was followed by automatic gunfire.
	One policeman died on the spot and another was wounded in the legs, he said.
	Minutes later, a grenade ...

3 killed, including two policemen, in Burundi attack: police

A lawyer retained by Baltimore's police union to represent six officers accused of wrongdoing in the death of a young black suspect denounced "an egregious rush to judgement."
	"We believe that these officers will be vindicated as they have done nothing wrong," said Michael Davey, a lawyer working for the city's Fraternal Order of Police.
	"I have never seen such a hurried rush to file criminal charges," he said yesterday, appearing to suggest that prosecutors had been rushed into acting by pressure from a week of street demonstrations.
	Earlier, Maryland state prosecutor Marilyn Mosby charged six officers in relation to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, whose suffered severe spinal injuries when he was arrested on April 12 and died a week later.
	The charges range from second-degree murder and manslaughter at the most serious end of the scale to a simple misconduct charge at the other. Five of the six have been detained.

Baltimore police union slams 'egregious rush to judgement'

Police in Burundi said today they have arrested close to 600 people during protests and clashes sparked by the president's bid to stay in power.
	Protesters announced a two-day truce, but warned they would return to the streets on Monday unless President Pierre Nkurunziza backs down.
	The United Nations voiced alarm over the central African nation's political crisis, saying the Nkurunziza's government was engaged in a brutal crackdown but "will not succeed in quashing dissent".
	Social media has been blocked and radio stations have been shut down.
	Sporadic clashes continued in parts of the capital Bujumbura today, witnesses said, while hundreds of university students -- whose student lodgings have been closed by the government -- have been camping outside the US embassy, saying they want protection.
	According to the Burundian Red Cross, at least seven people have died and 66 others have been wounded in nearly a week of clashes between police and protestors in the capital Bujumbura. .

Burundi says nearly 600 arrested over protests

Gunmen fired on a military helicopter in western Mexico today, killing three troops as the aircraft made an emergency landing in a day of violence across drug crime-plagued Jalisco state.
	The attack on the Cougar helicopter came as more than a dozen buses and trucks were torched in Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city, and a gang clashed with police in the town of Autlan.
	Five banks were set on fire in the town of Ciudad Guzman, authorities said.
	Authorities have not said who was responsible for the violence, but it came amid an escalation of violence by the Jalisco New Generation Drug Cartel, which killed 20 police officers in two ambushes in March and April.
	The military helicopter was taking part in Operation Jalisco, which had just launched on Friday to combat crime, when it spotted carloads of gunmen in the southwestern part of the state.
	"(The gunmen) attacked the military personnel with shots from firearms, hitting the Cougar helicopter, which conducted an emergency ..

Gunmen hit army chopper in Mexico, three troops dead

The UN Security Council today went into closed-door consultations on the crisis in Yemen, where fuel shortages are threatening relief operations as the Saudi-led bombing campaign entered a sixth week.
	Russia requested the meeting to push for an end to the fighting or at least humanitarian pauses to give civilians some reprieve.
	UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned yesterday that dire fuel shortages were threatening to bring all relief operations to a halt "within days" and said deliveries must resume immediately.
	 Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his government was "very concerned" by the crisis in Yemen and accused Saudi Arabia of showing little interest in resuming peace talks.
	"We support negotiations but we don't see an interest on the part of those who are engaged in bombing, in engaging with the new special representative of the secretary general," Churkin told reporters.
	Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was appointed this week to replace Jamal Benomar 

UN Security Council meets on Yemen crisis

Flying people to deep space -- like Mars or an asteroid -- is high on NASA's wish list, but research on mice suggested today that extended radiation exposure permanently harms the brain.
	Central nervous system damage and cognitive impairments were observed in lab animals that were exposed to highly energetic charged particles -- similar to the galactic cosmic rays that astronauts would encounter during long space flights -- said researchers at the University of California, Irvine.
	"This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two- to three-year round trip to Mars," said lead author Charles Limoli, professor of radiation oncology in UCI's School of Medicine.
	"Performance decrements, memory deficits, and loss of awareness and focus during spaceflight may affect mission-critical activities, and exposure to these particles may have long-term adverse consequences to cognition throughout life."
	Currently, the world's astronauts rotate in shifts that last about six months at ...

Space radiation may harm astronauts' brains: study

Gunmen fired at a Mexican army helicopter in western Jalisco state today, killing three soldiers and wounding a dozen as the aircraft made an emergency landing, the defense ministry said.
	The helicopter was carrying 18 soldiers, federal police officers and crew taking part in an anti-drug cartel operation when it came under fire from carloads of gunmen, the ministry said in a statement.

'Gunmen fire at Mexico army helicopter, three soldiers killed'

Dozens of gunmen stormed a northern Mali town, killing one and taking six other people hostage in an attack blamed on Tuareg rebels, officials said.
	"More than 50 armed men from the Coordination for the Movements of Azawad (CMA) came Thursday to sow terror in Bintagoungou. They killed a man and took six hostages with them," Hama Aboubacrine, mayor of the town about 90 kilometres to the west of Timbuktu, told AFP.
	"Everyone knows each other here. (The attackers) had a CMA flag," added the mayor.
	The gunmen also pillaged several shops and a pharmacy, and made off with two vehicles.
	A Bintagoungou resident also told AFP that his father was one of the six who were taken hostage.
	CMA officials were not immediately available for comment today, but a UN peacekeeping source in Mali also confirmed the attack.
	Mali was upended by a coup in 2012 that opened the door for Tuareg separatists to seize the towns and cities of the vast northern desert with the help of several Islamist ...

One killed, six taken hostage in north Mali attack: officials

US President Barack Obama said today it was "absolutely vital" that the truth come out about the death of an African American man in Baltimore from injuries sustained while in police custody, after six officers were charged.
	"It is absolutely vital that the truth comes out on what happened to Freddie Gray," Obama said at the White House after the dramatic revelation of the charges, which include second-degree murder and manslaughter.
	"Justice needs to be served. All the evidence needs to be presented," Obama said, while noting he had not yet seen the specific charges filed and would not comment on the particulars of the case.
	"What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. That's what people around the country expect.

Obama says 'vital' that truth come out on Gray death

Turkey today was holding in detention two judges who issued a controversial release order that would have allowed the liberation from custody of dozens of opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
	Judges Metin Ozcelik and Mustafa Baser at the weekend issued an order to release the 74 former police and the head of the Samanyolu TV channel Hidayet Karaca from police custody.
	All are accused of being allies of Erdogan's arch foe, the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, and working with him in a parallel state aimed at overthrowing the government.
	The decision had been blocked by a higher court and the judges themselves were then suspended by Turkey's Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK).
	An Istanbul court had yesterday issued arrest warrants for the two judges.
	Ozcelik was arrested late yesterday and was remanded in custody in Silviri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul.
	Baser meanwhile surrendered to the authorities at the ...

Turkey detains two judges over release order

The United Nations today criticised the Maldives for jailing its former president after a "vastly unfair trail" as police in the honeymoon destination's capital teargassed protesters demanding his release.
	The latest UN censure came as international experts, including London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, petitioned the world body over the controversial jailing of Mohamed Nasheed for 13 years.
	The UN Human Rights Office said their delegation, which visited Male late last month, found that the country's first democratically elected leader had been subjected to a "rushed trial" under a system that was highly politicised.
	"The trial of Mr Nasheed was vastly unfair and his conviction was arbitrary and disproportionate," the UN rights body said in a statement issued from Geneva. He was convicted on a charge of ordering the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge when he was in power in 2012.
	It asked the government of President Abdulla Yameen, the half brother of former strongman 

AFP

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