Celebrated defence lawyer Judy Clarke will launch her bid Monday to save 21-year-old convicted killer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the death penalty for bombing the Boston Marathon in 2013.
	   Clarke, one of America's best-known death penalty experts, will make an opening statement and present witnesses in the penalty phase of the trial that will see Tsarnaev sentenced to death or life in prison.
	   The April 15, 2013 double bombing killed three people and wounded 264 others in one of the deadliest attacks in the United States since 9/11.
	   Tsarnaev was convicted on all 30 counts this month by the 12-person jury that will now determine his fate: execution or life without parole.
	   The defense will plead extenuating circumstances and do everything to humanise the young Muslim of Chechen origin, who moved with his family from Kyrgyzstan to Dagestan to the United States as a young child.
	   He was scared of and manipulated by his radical, older brother Tamerlan, 26, the true mastermind .

Defence to launch bid to save Boston bomber from death

PTI Automatic

Javier Hernandez struck twice as Real Madrid kept the pressure on Barcelona at the top of La Liga by reducing the Catalans' lead to two points with a enthralling 4-2 win at Celta Vigo.
     Nolito fired the hosts into an early lead before goals from Toni Kroos and Hernandez turned the game around yesterday.
     Santi Mina brought Celta level, but James Rodriguez's deflected effort put Madrid in front once more before the break and Hernandez rounded off the scoring in style 22 minutes from time.
     "It was the kind of game we like," said Real boss Carlo Ancelotti.
     "To play on the front foot and take risks as did Celta. That made for a spectacular and very open game.
     "Hernandez is enjoying his moment and helping the team a lot. The whole team worked very hard. We struggled in many moments during the game, but up front we were very efficient."
     Hernandez had starred with the only goal of the tie as Real beat Atletico Madrid for the first time in eight meetings this ...

Hernandez stars for Madrid in six-goal thriller

Chinese island-building efforts "may undermine peace, security and stability" in the disputed South China Sea, said a statement by Southeast Asian leaders meeting for a summit today.
	The statement, yet to be publicly released, was prepared on behalf of leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathering in Malaysia for an annual meeting.
	"We share the serious concerns expressed by some leaders on the land reclamation being undertaken in the South China Sea, which has eroded trust and confidence and may undermine peace, security and stability," it said.
	Today's summit in Kuala Lumpur opens under a cloud caused by fresh evidence in the form of recently released satellite photos showing the scale of Chinese land reclamation.
	They depict flotillas of Chinese vessels heaping huge amounts of sand on fragile coral reefs also claimed by the Philippines.
	ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim parts of the sea, which is rich in ...

Chinese actions 'may undermine peace' in S China Sea: ASEAN

Baltimore police has arrested about 34 people and six officers were hurt when protests over the death in custody of a young black man turned violent, police in the US city said.
	"A small contingent of yesterday's (Saturday's) protesters caused violent disruptions downtown and in west Baltimore last night and early this morning after what had been mostly peaceful protests throughout the day," said Baltimore police spokesman Jeremy Silbert.
	"Approximately 34 people were arrested and six officers suffered minor injuries."
	Freddie Gray, 25, died a week ago from a severe spinal injury following his arrest, triggering demonstrations that escalated on Saturday and saw protesters rampage through downtown Baltimore, which is less than an hour from the US capital Washington.
	"Multiple storefronts were vandalised and several police vehicles and other property was damaged," the spokesman said in a statement yesterday.
	"Members of the BPD (police) along with our local and state law ...

Baltimore police arrest 34 in violent protests: spokesman

Ukrainians have marked 29 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, placing wreaths and candles near the plant where work to lay a new seal over the reactor site has been delayed.
	The explosion of reactor number four on April 26, 1986, spewed poisonous radiation over large parts of Europe, particularly Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
	At 1:23 am (local time), the exact time of the explosion, hundreds of people placed flowers and candles in the dark yesterday, at the foot of a monument in Slavutych, a town 50 kilometres from the plant.
	Slavutych was built to rehouse Chernobyl workers who had lived near the plant and were forced to move further away after the disaster.
	At the site of the plant itself, around 100 kilometres from Kiev, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko laid a wreath at a monument to the victims.
	The human toll of the disaster is still disputed.
	United Nations experts officially recognised 31 deaths among plant workers and firefighters directly linked to the ...

Ukraine marks 29 years since Chernobyl disaster

President Reuven Rivlin met Armenian community leaders today on the centenary of the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians, the first time an Israeli head of state has marked the killings.
	Israel does not recognise the slaughter of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman forces between 1915 and 1917 as "genocide".
	 "For the first time, an Israeli president has marked the mass massacre of the Armenian people with the Armenian community of Israel," the presidency said in a statement.
	Armenia's honorary consul in Israel, Tsolag Momjian, welcomed the participation of Israeli officials in ceremonies marking the massacre, after two lawmakers travelled to Yerevan to take part in commemorations.
	But the representative of the Armenian Patriarch in Israel, Aris Shirvanian, denounced Israel for not having yet referred to the mass murder of Armenians as "genocide".
	Israeli lawmakers have in the past debated recognising the Ottoman era massacre of Armenians as "genocide", but only at a time when ...

Israel president marks Armenian massacre for first time

Two tour buses carrying rap star Lil Wayne and his entourage came under fire early today in Georgia, according to US media, which said no one was injured in the shooting.
	The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported that the shooting by unknown assailants occurred in Cobb County, near Atlanta, around 0730 GMT, after the music star completed a performance at an area night club.
	Police determined that two tour buses used by Lil Wayne and his crew had been shot multiple times, the daily said.
	Officials said the two buses were carrying a total of about a dozen passengers at the time of the shooting.
	"Witnesses could only provide a limited description of the suspect vehicles," Cobb County Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Espy told the newspaper.
	"They were described as two white vehicles, possibly a Corvette-style vehicle and an SUV.

Gunmen open fire on buses carrying rap star Lil Wayne, crew

Israel said today it planned to airlift 25 infants from quake-hit Nepal born to surrogate mothers, along with their Israeli parents, most of them homosexual couples.
	Officials said Israel was sending a military delegation to offer aid and help repatriate its citizens from Nepal following the quake that has claimed more than 2,500 lives.
	Foreign ministry officials said there were 600-700 Israelis in Nepal, as well as the 25 babies recently born in Kathmandu -- four of them prematurely -- to surrogate mothers from India.
	Nepal has become a destination for couples seeking to have children through surrogate mothers, though the practice is controversial, with critics saying it exploits the poverty of women.
	Priority for repatriation would be given to the infants and their Israeli families, interior ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said, saying they would be "the first on the plane".
	Foreign ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said officials were doing "everything to bring the babies to 

Israel to airlift 25 infants from Nepal born to surrogates

Violent protests in Baltimore yielded to calm today, as mourners readied a funeral wake for Freddie Gray, an African American man who died of injuries sustained while in police custody.
	Gray, 25, who died one week ago after his spine was nearly severed following his arrest, was to be buried tomorrow in his hometown of Baltimore, less than an hour from the US capital Washington.
	A viewing of his body for friends and family was to be held at a local Baltimore funeral home beginning at 1:00 pm local time today.
	One day earlier, protesters rampaged through downtown Baltimore, in the latest show of public rage after the death of an unarmed African American by US law enforcement.
	Speaking to US television, Congressman Elijah Cummings, who represents the Baltimore district where the violence took place, said he was pleased that the US Justice Department was undertaking a "top to bottom" probe of the city's police department.
	"We've got to take this department apart and try to figure out 

Funeral planned for black man hurt in police custody

The Turkish coastguard has rounded up 350 mainly Syrian migrants in an operation against a ship planning to take them to Europe, the official Anatolia news agency said today.
	Coastguard personnel overnight Saturday to Sunday raided the  Mongolian-flagged "Ole" vessel after a tip-off that migrants were being carried on board.
	The coastguard picked up 71 migrants on board the ship off the southeastern Turkish city of Mersin and captured 279 others waiting their turn at the port to board the vessel, Anatolia said.
	It said the migrants, including women and children, were seeking to reach European Union countries, in particular Italy.
	Police detained 10 crewmen and seized the inflatable boats used to transfer the migrants to the ship.
	Turkey, which already hosts 1.8 million Syrian refugees from the civil war, has become a key transit point for migrants seeking a better life in Europe.
	Mersin has become known as an increasingly important hub for Syrian migrants, with local authorities 

Turkey detains 350 migrants en route to Europe: report

A new UN envoy was looking to kickstart peace talks in Yemen as battles raged today between Iran-backed rebels and pro-government forces a month after the launch of Saudi-led air strikes.
	The Shiite Huthi rebels, who have overrun large parts of the country and forced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to flee abroad, have demanded an end to the air war as a condition for UN-sponsored talks.
	But the raids continued on Sunday, hitting the rebel-held presidential palace in Sanaa and anti-government positions in the main southern city of Aden, military sources and witnesses said.
	Fighting also intensified in Marib province, east of the capital, where Sunni tribes and pro-Hadi fighters clashed with Huthis and allied forces.
	A military official said the presidential complex in Sanaa was targeted as reinforcements were being prepared to send to oil-rich Marib.
	The United Nations on Saturday confirmed Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed as the new special envoy to Yemen, ...

New UN Yemen envoy looks to revive talks as fighting rages

Kazakhstan's citizens turned out in force today for a presidential poll almost certain to re-elect the 74-year-old strongman incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev, who said he was confident of public backing for his campaign.
	The country's Central Election Commission said the turnout was 89.69 per cent by 1200 GMT with polling set to continue until 1400 GMT.
	The marginalised opposition in the energy-rich former Soviet state has not put forward any candidates for the election and Nazarbayev is standing against two candidates widely seen as pro-government figures.
	Nazarbayev has ruled the Central Asian country since before the breakup of the USSR in 1991. If he wins a new five-year term, he will be on course to reach three decades as leader.
	He cast his ballot to loud applause in the capital Astana, saying he was confident Kazakhstan's people would back his campaign.
	"I am sure Kazakhstan's people will vote primarily for the stable development of our state and the improvement of people's .

Kazakhstan strongman Nazarbayev 'confident' of poll victory

Bahrain today extended by two weeks the period of detention for prominent rights activist Nabeel Rajab, accused of spreading false news, for the second time this month.
	Rajab's family say he was arrested on April 2 for posting comments on Twitter denouncing alleged torture in a prison where Shiite activists are held.
	The prosecution "ordered that he remain detained for 15 days" pending the results of further investigation, the official BNA news agency reported.
	Shiite-majority but Sunni-ruled Bahrain first extended Rajab's period of detention by 15 days on April 11.
	 A prosecution service statement said the Shiite activist was accused of "spreading tendentious rumours" about the Gulf state's participation in the Saudi-led Arab coalition waging an air offensive against Shiite rebels in Yemen, and "attacking a state institution".
	It accused him of posting online "edited footage from television broadcasts on events in Syria and Palestine, unrelated to military operations in Yemen", .

Bahrain again extends top rights activist's detention

British opposition leader Ed Miliband appeared to go a step further today in ruling out a deal with the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) if he fails to win next month's election outright.
	"I'm not doing deals with the Scottish National Party... it's not happening. I'm working for a majority Labour government," Miliband said in a BBC interview.
	Miliband leads the centre-left Labour party which is virtually neck and neck in opinion polls with Prime Minister David Cameron's centre-right Conservatives before May 7's vote.
	This indicates that neither of the two main parties will win outright and will have to team up with one or more smaller parties to form a coalition or minority government.
	SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, whose party is expected to win most of Scotland's House of Commons seats amid surging support after last year's rejected independence referendum, wants to do a post-election deal with Labour.
	Miliband's comments come as the Conservatives, facing ...

UK opposition leader narrows options on SNP election deal

Fruity sweets and packets of chicken soup that fall foul of halal laws are disappearing from Pakistan's shop counters as the country looks to clean up its Islamic food credentials to boost exports to rich Gulf states.
	At the start of the year the government published a list of around 20 imported food products it said were not halal, or permitted under Islamic law.
	Shops in Pakistan, an Islamic republic where 97 per cent of the population are Muslims, already do not stock pork or alcohol - with a few extremely rare exceptions for foreigners and the small Christian minority.
	Now the government wants to crack down further on products using alcohol and pork derivatives as ingredients.
	So amongst other things, Pop-Tarts are off the shelves in many stores, along with imported jelly, sweets and several European brands of chicken soup.
	They have been found to contain ingredients banned in Islam such as wine or gelatine derived from pork, or extracts from chickens not killed in accordance 

Sweets and soup vanish as Pakistan aims for halal export boost

Croatia today commemorated the tens of thousands of victims, mostly Serbs and Jews, killed by the country's pro-Nazi World War II regime at a notorious concentration camp dismantled 70 years ago.
	Several hundred people, including survivors of the Jasenovac camp, victims' relatives, officials, religious leaders and foreign diplomats gathered for a multi- denominational service and wreath-laying ceremony at the camp site.
	"The horrors of Jasenovac warn us... Not to allow discrimination and persecution based on national, religious, ideological or gender differences ever again," parliamentary speaker Josip Leko said.
	Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said the country, which has been independent since 1991, had distanced itself in its constitution from the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime which set up the camp in 1941.
	Underlining the role of Croatian anti-fascist partisans during WWII, he added, "There was only one Croatian army during World War II and these were Croatian partisans."
	The ...

70 years on, 'Croatian Auschwitz' victims remembered

UN chief Ban Ki-moon today urged Europe to refrain from resorting to a military solution to prevent a repeat of the shipwreck in the Mediterranean that left more than 750 migrants dead.
	Last weekend's tragedy off the Libyan coast has spurred the EU to plan a military mission against people smugglers, with the bloc's top diplomat Frederica Mogherini charged with obtaining UN approval for such a deployment.
	But Ban said in an interview with La Stampa that "there is no military solution to the tragedy in the Mediterranean".
	"What is crucial is to have a global approach that takes into account the roots of the problem, the security and human rights of migrants and refugees, such as having immigration channels that are legal and regular," he said.
	"The United Nations is ready to work with our European partners to this end," said Ban, who is visiting Italy tomorrow.
	"The measures recently announced in Luxembourg and Brussels are an important first step towards collective European ...

UN chief says no military solution to migrant crisis

Two protestors have been shot dead during clashes with police in the capital of Burundi, witnesses said today.
	Clashes were taking place in several parts of Bujumbura the day after the president launched a controversial bid to stay in power for a third term and despite a government ban on protests.
	Independent eyewitnesses said one person was shot dead in the city's Ngagara district and another in Musaga after police used live ammunition to disperse crowds.
	One body was left in the streets while another was taken away by Red Cross workers, several eyewitnesses said.
	"We had called for peaceful protests and that is what happened, but the police and ruling party militia fired real bullets at the protestors," said a Burundian opposition leader, Frodebu Leonce Ngendakumana.
	Local media reports added that several more people have been wounded in the city, while several police have also been hurt in stone throwing.
	Burundi's Interior Minister Edouard Nduwimana condemned what he said ..

Two protestors shot dead in Burundi capital: witnesses

Malaysian police said they arrested 12 people plotting to sow civil unrest and seized explosives today, just one day before the country hosts a Southeast Asian summit.
	National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the suspects were arrested in a western suburb of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
	"The suspects are believed to be planning to cause civil unrest in the country," Khalid said in a posting on the official Malaysia police Facebook page.
	He gave no details of the items seized or the backgrounds of those detained, nor did he make any link to the diplomatic gathering. Police counter-terror officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
	Kuala Lumpur is host of tomorrow's summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Malaysia plans to call at the gathering for regional anti-terror cooperation.
	Over the past year the Muslim-majority nation has announced a series of arrests that authorities say have involved suspected supporters of the extremist ...

Malaysia police say violent plot foiled ahead of summit

Asian countries were scrambling on Sunday to locate thousands of their nationals stranded in Nepal after a huge earthquake devastated the Himalayan nation, severing communications and transport links.
	China said it is chartering flights to pick up 683 tourists that were in the country when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit near Kathmandu yesterday, reducing parts of the capital to rubble in the worst disaster to hit the country in more than 80 years.
	Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said her government had contacted more than 200 of the 549 Australians in the South Asian nation, while New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said more than 110 nationals had been accounted for.
	"While there are reports of extensive loss of life, at this point there are no reports of Australian deaths," Bishop said in a statement, adding that staff from the foreign affairs department were travelling to Nepal to help locate other citizens.
	Japan's foreign ministry said it has set up a ...

Asian countries search for citizens stranded by Nepal quake

Beijing is poised to take "de facto control" of the South China Sea, the Philippines warned today as it called on fellow Southeast Asian countries to "stand up" to their massive neighbour.
	Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim parts of the strategic South China Sea, but Beijing claims nearly all of it and its increasingly aggressive moves to assert those territorial ambitions have caused concern in the region and beyond.
	"(China) is poised to consolidate de facto control of the South China Sea," Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told fellow ministers at a regional meeting in Kuala Lumpur, according to a transcript of his remarks.
	Foreign ministers met a day ahead of a summit by regional leaders that will convene amid growing concern over a Chinese land-reclamation campaign that is building up disputed reefs into full-fledged islands.
	Satellite photos that emerged earlier this month triggered alarm bells by providing fresh evidence of the activities, ...

AFP

AFP

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