Islamic State group jihadists are being trained by Saddam Hussein's former pilots to fly three fighter jets captured from the Syrian military, a monitoring group said today.
	The planes, which are believed to be MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets, are capable of flying although it is unclear if they are equipped with missiles, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
	The jets were seized from Syrian military airports now under IS control in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Raqa, according to the Britain-based group, which has a wide network of sources inside the war-torn country.
	It said that former Iraqi army officers who once served under Saddam were supervising the training at the military airport of Jarrah, east of the city of Aleppo.
	Witnesses have reported seeing planes flying at a low altitude to avoid detection by radar after taking off from Jarrah.
	It comes as the United States and its allies carry out a wave of air strikes on IS positions in Syria and Iraq.
	The ...

IS jihadists training to fly Syria warplanes: monitor

PTI Automatic

Iraqi security forces today battled Islamic State jihadists in the strategic city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and near militant-held Tikrit to the north, officials said.
	Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, is one of a dwindling number of areas in the province where pro-government forces still hold ground, and its loss would be a major blow for Baghdad.
	Deputy provincial council chief Faleh al-Essawi said security forces attacked IS jihadists in three different areas of Ramadi today and repelled an assault by the militants from the city's north.
	A police major said an IS attack from the western side of Ramadi was also held off by security forces and allied tribesmen.
	The IS group has gained ground in Anbar in recent weeks, prompting some officials to warn that the entire province could fall to jihadists.
	Essawi reiterated that foreign support will be needed to retake the city, saying Iraqi forces can not do it on their own.
	But top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who commands ...

Iraq battles jihadists west and north of Baghdad

An Ebola vaccine by British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline may not be ready for commercial use until late 2016 and should therefore not be seen as the "primary answer" to the current outbreak, a company researcher said.
	"We have to be able to manufacture the vaccine at doses that would be consistent with general use and that's going to take well into 2016," Doctor Ripley Ballou, head of GSK's Ebola vaccine research unit, told BBC radio in an interview aired today.
	"I don't think this vaccine should be seen as the primary answer to this particular outbreak but we certainly hope that this vaccine could be used to prevent future outbreaks.
	"Unfortunately it's not going to be as quickly as we would like," he said, adding: "In retrospect we should have pulled the trigger earlier."
	Ballou said data on the vaccine's efficacy and safety would not be available before the end of 2015.
	"In order for the vaccine to be used we have to have data on its safety and its efficacy and those .

Ebola vaccine not before late 2016: GSK researcher

Al-Qaeda's deadly Yemen-based franchise today urged Muslims worldwide to support Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq in the face of attacks by a US-led military coalition.
	Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, classified by the United States as the network's deadliest franchise, "prohibits taking part in the fight against" IS, which controls swathes of both Iraq and Syria, AQAP said in a statement posted on jihadist forums.
	"We urge all mujahedeen (Muslim fighters) to set aside their differences and inter-factional fighting and move instead against the crusade targeting all" jihadists, it added.
	"We also urge all Muslims to back their brethren, with their souls, money and tongues, against the crusaders."
	AQAP urged "whoever can weaken the Americans to weaken them militarily, economically, and media-wise."
	"This is a campaign against Islam" that has brought together "crusaders (Christians), majus (a pejorative term for Iranians), and traitor apostate leaders," it ...

Qaeda urges worldwide Muslim support of IS

European leaders expressed hope today of solving the bloody Ukraine conflict following "positive" talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, only for the Kremlin to berate them as out of touch with reality.
	Less than half an hour after host Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had said he was "really positive after this meeting," Moscow shot back that some of Putin's interlocutors had got it completely wrong.
	"Unfortunately, some participants ... Demonstrated complete unwillingness to understand the reality in southeastern Ukraine," the state RIA Novosti news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
	"There are plenty of disagreements, plenty of incomprehension," Peskov said, conceding only that the talks would continue.
	Peskov's comments were in sharp contrast to Renzi's upbeat account of the early morning meeting between Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the leaders of Britain, France and Germany.
	British Prime Minister David Cameron also echoed ...

Kremlin dismisses EU hopes of Ukraine progress

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop delivered a diplomatic version of the "shirt front" promised by Prime Minister Tony Abott as Russia came under fire over the fate of flight MH17 at the ASEM summit.
	In an interview with AFP today, Bishop revealed that she had taken her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to task on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe gathering.
	She said she had bluntly spelled out her government's frustration at what it sees as Moscow's hampering of the Dutch-led probe into the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in July.
	All 298 people on board died, including 38 who were citizens or residents of Australia.
	Western governments believe the plane was shot down by pro-Russian rebels with a Russian-made missile.
	Moscow says Ukraine is responsible for the incident.
	Bishop's intervention came as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Roote upbraided Russian President Vladimir Putin for his failure to rein in the pro-Moscow rebels accused of restricting .

Russia under fire over MH17 crash probe

US sprinter Justin Gatlin has been ditched from the final shortlist for World Athlete of the Year, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) revealed on Friday.
     Gatlin, who has twice served doping bans, was a controversial inclusion on the original 10-man shortlist announced on October 3.
     The prospect of a convicted drugs cheat winning the IAAF's athlete of the year award caused outrage in some quarters.
     Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m gold medallist and double sprint world champion in 2005, belied his 32 years during an incredible season which saw him record the three fastest times this year in the 100 metres, and the fastest times in the 100m and 200m ever by a man in his 30s.
     But there will be relief that Gatlin has not made the final shortlist of three names.
     Qatari indoor high jump world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim, Kenyan Dennis Kipruto Kimetto, the new marathon world record holder, and French pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie, who broke ..

Gatlin dumped from top athlete shortlist

A health care worker who may have come in contact with fluids from an Ebola patient who died in Texas is now on vacation on a cruise ship, the US State Department said.
	The person is not showing symptoms of the disease and is voluntarily remaining in their cabin, it said.
	"It has been 19 days since the passenger may have processed the since deceased patient's fluid samples," the department said in a statement.
	But the State Department is working with the cruise line "to safely bring them back to the United States out of an abundance of caution," it said.
	This employee left on a cruise ship out of Galveston, Texas on October 12. The employee's name and gender were not given.
	"The employee did not have direct contact with the since deceased Ebola patient, but may have had contact with clinical specimens collected from him," it said.
	This was a reference to Liberian sufferer Thomas Eric Duncan, who died in a Dallas hospital October 8.
	The person left the United States on the ...

Hospital worker suspected of contact with Ebola patient is on

A French appeals court today blocked chess legend Garry Kasparov from testifying against the extradition of Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov to Russia, which he says will endanger his life.
	Kasparov, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had hoped to persuade the court that putting Ablyazov in Moscow's hands would amount to a violation of his human rights.
	Ablyazov, a former minister and banker turned fugitive, is wanted by Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan on embezzlement charges which he says were trumped up by his arch-foe, the president of his oil-rich nation, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
	He was arrested in France in July last year after fleeing London where he was also the subject of several civil claims in connection with the case.
	Former chess champion turned political activist Kasparov was among several witnesses which Ablyazov's lawyers hoped to present to the court in the city of Lyon.
	After deliberation, Judge Luc Fontaine said he would not "proceed with the ...

French court blocks Kasparov from testifying in extradition

Oscar Pistorius should be jailed for at least 10 years for killing his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, the prosecution said today as the star sprinter's sensational trial approached its climax.
	Slapping down defence claims that the "broke and broken" Paralympic and Olympic athlete had already suffered enough, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said "the minimum that society will be happy with is 10 years imprisonment."
	After hearing final arguments from both the defence and prosecution, Judge Thokozile Masipa scheduled sentencing for next Tuesday.
	Defence lawyer Barry Roux said Pistorius was not a "cold-blooded killer" and should serve a community-based sentence without any prison time.
	Nel described the suggestion as "shockingly disproportionate".
	"Go home, stay in a luxurious house where he's staying at the moment... And he will not leave his house except if he wants to train, work, go to a doctor -- that's what we do every day," said Nel.
	Nel said the "softly spoken words" of ...

Prosecution urges 10-years in jail for Pistorius

A 67-year-old Thai man has been charged with insulting the monarchy after scribbling anti- royal comments on public toilet walls, an official said today, the latest charge under the controversial lese majeste law.
	Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 86, is protected by tough royal defamation rules under which anyone convicted of insulting the king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.
	Opas Charnsooksai was arrested by the military in a shopping mall in eastern Bangkok Wednesday for writing anti-monarchy messages in the public toilets, army officer Burin Thongprapai told AFP.
	"Security guards at the mall discovered he had written insulting comments on walls in the restroom... He confessed to the charge of lese majeste," he said, adding they had obtained CCTV evidence against Opas.
	The accused will now be tried in a military court -- with no right to appeal -- under martial law, which was imposed by the army two days before it seized power in ..

Thai man charged with insulting royals for toilet graffiti

Ashes-winning Australian coach Darren Lehmann was Friday handed a one-year contract extension, with senior officials hailing his influence on the team.
     Since assuming the role from the sacked Mickey Arthur in June last year, Lehmann has steered Australia to seven Test wins out of 13, with two drawn and four lost.
     His contract with Cricket Australia was due to end in mid-2016, but he has won an extra year.
	"We have been extremely pleased with the results Darren has achieved with the team since he came on board," CA's performance manager Pat Howard said in a statement.
    	"He has helped create an excellent team environment that has seen players thrive. We want that to continue so we used the winter period to work through an extension to his current contract.
    	"Importantly it provides continuity for the team and certainty for Darren heading into a critical period for Australian cricket."
	Lehmann was thrust into the spotlight a few weeks before Australia's 2013 Ashes ...

Australia coach Lehmann wins contract extension

Two Tanzanian women were hacked to death by men who accused them of casting spells that made them sexually impotent, police said today, in the latest killings of alleged "witches".
	The women, one aged in her 80s and her 45-year old daughter, were killed in the village of Ihugi in Tanzania's northern Shinyanga province late on Tuesday.
	Three men slit their throats and then chopped their bodies up, local police chief Justus Kamugisha said, adding that their neighbour was suspected of carrying out the attack after he believed they had made him unable to have sex.
	A 40-year-old man, who also accused the women of poisoning his mother last year, has been arrested.
	"The victims were attacked as they were about to take their evening meal," Kamugisha said.
	The attack follows the killing last week of seven people in a separate attack in western Tanzania, burned alive in their huts, who were also accused of witchcraft.
	Belief in witches and black magic remains strong in many parts of ...

Two suspected 'witches' hacked to death in Tanzania

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin have major differences over the origin and causes of the conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin said following talks between the two leaders.
	"There are still serious differences concerning the origin of Ukraine's internal conflict, as well as the root causes of what is currently happening," Russian news agencies quoted Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying early today.
	His comments came after the two leaders held what Peskov said was a two-and-a-half-hour meeting late Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe (ASEM) summit in Milan.
	Merkel had earlier said that it was "first and foremost" Russia's responsibility to make sure a tenuous ceasefire and peace plan agreed last month between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels "really will be implemented."
	The ceasefire, reached on September 5 in Minsk, has repeatedly been violated by both sides.
	Putin is due to meet Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko early today, with ...

Putin, Merkel have 'serious differences' over Ukraine: Kremlin

In the week that he marked the 10th anniversary of his competitive debut for Barcelona, Lionel Messi could become the all-time top scorer in the history of La Liga.
     The Argentine made his bow as a 17-year-old in a 1-0 win at city rivals Espanyol on October 16, 2004. Now he is preparing to face Eibar at the Camp Nou tomorrow needing just two goals to equal Telmo Zarra's all-time Spanish top-flight record of 251, set in the 1950s.
     Messi, who told fans he was "constantly trying to improve and win more titles," has been back at his best in the early weeks of this season to help the Catalans to the top of La Liga with six wins and a draw in their opening seven games.
    	They are two points clear of Valencia and have yet to concede a goal so far, and they will want to keep that form going against Eibar before they go to Real Madrid for the first Clasico of the campaign next weekend.
    	"To go into the Clasico in the best possible condition we need to win on Saturday," said ...

Messi eyes record on anniversary as Barca seek Clasico boost

More than 100 Japanese lawmakers visited a Tokyo shrine condemned by China and Korea as a symbol of Japan's militarist past.
	A cross-party group of parliamentarians said 110 members paid homage at the Yasukuni Shrine, yesterday, at the beginning of a four-day autumn festival.
	Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who infuriated Beijing and Seoul by visiting the shrine in December last year, is thought unlikely to go even after he returns home Saturday from an Asia-Europe summit in Italy.
	He instead sent a ritual donation to the shrine, media reports said.
	The group has visited the shrine during its spring and autumn festivals as well as on the August 15 anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.
	The 145-year-old Shinto shrine honours some 2.5 million citizens who died in World War II and other conflicts.
	But it is highly controversial because war criminals are among their number, including senior figures in the WWII administration, such as General Hideki Tojo, who authorised the ...

Japanese lawmakers visit controversial war shrine

At least seven people have been killed in clashes between rival armed Tuareg groups and their allies in northern Mali, several sources said.
	"There were at least seven dead on both sides and several injured," said an African military source from the MINUSMA UN mission in Mali yesterday.
	A health worker in N'Tilit said they had initially counted seven dead.
	The fighting took place around 130 kilometres south of Gao, the main town in northern Mali, and lasted more than six hours, according to the source.
	The fighters were reportedly from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and a rival movement known by its French acronym GATIA.
	The GATIA fighters drove the MNLA away and took over the town of N'Tilit, the military source said.
	The MNLA is one of six northern armed groups taking part in peace talks, which started last July, with the Malian government in neighbouring Algeria.
	The GATIA, created in August, was seeking to control a territorial base in order to ...

At least seven dead in north Mali clashes

A Liberian minister said today she had gone into quarantine voluntarily after her driver died of the Ebola virus sweeping west Africa.
	Liberia has been the hardest hit by the epidemic, with 2,458 deaths out of 4,249 cases, according to World Health Organization figures. The disease has claimed nearly 4,500 lives overall in west Africa.
	Transport Minister Angela Cassell-Bush said she had quarantined herself after her personal driver became sick.
	"I did not have any direct contact with him but I am doing it by precaution," she said in a statement, adding that she would stay away from work for 21 days under agreed protocols.
	It was not immediately known when her driver died.
	Liberia's chief medical officer, Bernice Dahn, meanwhile said she had returned to work on Monday after being placed in quarantine for 21 days following the death of her deputy last month.
	International efforts increased to help the worst-hit countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, after the UN Security ..

Liberia minister in quarantine after driver dies of Ebola

Three Ethiopian peacekeepers were killed today in an attack in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the joint UN-African Union mission said, the latest deaths in increasingly dangerous peace operations in Africa.
	They were guarding a well in Karma, North Darfur state, when they were attacked by gunmen, who fled afterwards, the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur said.
	Two of them were killed in the attack and the third, gravely wounded, died later.
	UNAMID was deployed in late 2007 to help end bloodshed among militias, rebel forces and gangs in Darfur.
	In New York, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said "this has been a bloody October for UN peacekeeping.
	"In Darfur, Mali and the Central African Republic, we have lost 14 peacekeepers in hostile acts -- nearly one per day."
	A wave of attacks in northern Mali has killed 31 peacekeepers since July 2013, while a Pakistani serving in the Central African Republic was killed in an ambush last week.
	Ten UN peacekeepers have been injured in ...

Three Ethiopian peacekeepers killed in Darfur attack: UN

Vladimir Putin today compared the construction of a controversial natural gas pipeline to love, saying Europe needs to show its affection for the Russian project.
	Speaking on a visit to EU aspirant Serbia about Brussels' reluctance to back the Russia-led South Stream gas pipeline, Putin said Moscow could not go it alone.
	"That is just like love. It can only be happy if there are two participants of this wonderful process and both want to develop a relationship," Putin said, smiling.
	"Same here. We cannot unilaterally build a pipeline system worth billions of dollars if our partners are still thinking whether or not they should implement this project."
	Putin spoke hours before his planned arrival in Milan for high-profile talks with EU leaders and after he issued a Cold War-style tirade, accusing US President Barack Obama of a "hostile" approach.
	The crisis in Ukraine has made the pipeline, which is already under construction to bring Siberian gas to the European Union -- ...

Pipeline - 'like love' - should be mutual: Putin

Brent oil hit a fresh four-year low today, after another sharp sell-off in equities, with traders increasingly concerned about the global economic outlook ahead of key US inventories data.
	Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November struck USD 82.72 a barrel -- the lowest level for since November 23, 2010 -- in earlier Asian trade. The contract later stood at USD 83.34, down 44 cents from yesterday.
	US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil for November meanwhile shed USD 1.45 to USD 80.33 per barrel.
	"Crude oil prices extended sharp declines ... As investors remained cautious awaiting key oil fundamentals data from the weekly US oil inventories report," said Sucden analyst Myrto Sokou.
	The US government's Department of Energy will later publish its weekly US crude inventories report -- a closely watched barometer of demand and supply in the world's top oil consuming nation.
	Crude futures had also fallen heavily again yesterday on rising fears that slowing economic growth 

AFP

AFP

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