An Egyptian court has upheld a decision to freeze the assets of several prominent human rights campaigners.
	Today's ruling by a Cairo court comes amid a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent launched after the 2013 military ouster of an elected Islamist president. Authorities have jailed thousands of people, mainly Islamists but also leading secular and liberal activists.
	The five activists named in the court ruling include Gamal Eid and Bahey eldin Hassan, who head two well-known human rights organizations, as well as investigative reporter Hossam Bahgat, also the founder of a rights group.
	They face charges of illegally receiving foreign funds and using them to harm national security. They are part of a wider case against rights groups in Egypt. If convicted, they could face up to 25 years in prison.

Egypt freezes assets of leading rights campaigners

PTI Automatic

A Pakistani court today adjourned the case of a British-Pakistani woman's murder until September 23 to give police more time to finalize charges against her father and ex-husband, who are accused of slaying her in the name of honor, police and lawyers said.
	Police brought both men before the court in Jhelum as they covered their faces. They avoided most questions from journalists. However, when pressed, the woman's father, Mohammad Shahid, told reporters that the accusations are "all lies."
	"The police arrested me, police charged me, you go to police station and check my report, check my statement," Shahid said.
	The death of 28-year-old Samia Shahid has shocked the nation as the latest alleged case of so-called "honor killings" in Pakistan. The Bradford native's death while visiting Pakistan in July was originally declared to be from natural causes.
	But Shahid's second husband, Mukhtar Kazim, publicly accused her family of killing her. The case was reopened and a police probe ...

Pakistan court adjourns case of British woman's murder

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi (ahng sahn soo chee) of Myanmar will be honored as the 2016 humanitarian of the year by students and faculty at the Harvard Foundation.
	Suu Kyi gained international prominence as the General Secretary of the newly formed National League for Democracy in Myanmar in 1990. She became one of the world's most well-known political prisoners during her 15 years of house arrest for participating in protests against the government.
	Later, she was supported by her country and was appointed to the newly created role of State Counselor, a title equivalent to Prime Minister.
	The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Committee praised her for her "non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights."
	She will receive the Harvard Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award during a ceremony today.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to get humanitarian award

China has punished six local officials for failing to take care of a family whose grisly murder-suicide case prompted heated national discussion about the plight of the poor.
	The government of Gansu province in northwestern China said yesterday that three officials face possible dismissal and three others have been reprimanded over the case of Yang Gailan, a 28-year-old villager who axed her four young children to death and killed herself because she couldn't feed them. Yang's husband killed himself a week later.
	The case drew intense attention in the national press and on social media after details emerged about the family's dire circumstances.
	The family including four children below 7 years old barely managed to survive on subsistence farming for years and fell into extreme hardship after their rural community voted to cancel their low-income welfare payments, according to local reports.
	No criminal proceedings will be filed against the punished officials, according to the ...

China punishes local officials after grisly village killings

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has apologised for plagiarising President Barack Obama's 2008 victory speech and says he will punish those responsible.
	The two leaders are set to meet next week in New York.
	Adeola Akinremi in her Friday column for ThisDay newspaper denounced "the moral problem of plagiarism on a day Mr President launched a campaign to demand honesty and integrity."
	Several sentences were almost identical to Obama's in a speech Buhari made September 8 launching his campaign "Change Begins With Me."
	Buhari said, "We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long."
	Obama said, "Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."
	Yesterday, the White House said Obama has scheduled a meeting with Buhari on Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session.
	They are expected to 

Nigeria's president apologises for plagiarising Obama speech

Abu Sayyaf extremists today freed a Norwegian man kidnapped a year ago in the southern Philippines along with two Canadians who were later beheaded and a Filipino woman who has been released by the ransom-seeking militants, officials said.
	Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed in Patikul town in Sulu province and was eventually secured by rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has a signed a peace deal with the government and helped negotiate his release, officials said.
	Sekkingstad, held in jungle captivity since being kidnapped last September, was to stay overnight at the house of Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari in Sulu and then meet with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte tomorrow, said Jesus Dureza, who advises Duterte on peace talks with insurgent groups.
	Dureza said that when he spoke on the phone with Sekkingstad, the Norwegian expressed his gratitude to Duterte. A plan to fly Sekkingstad out of Sulu, a jungle-clad Muslim region about 950 .

Abu Sayyaf extremists free Norwegian hostage in Philippines

Mexican authorities say a traffic accident in northern Mexico has killed 11 people and injured eight.
	Jalisco state Civil Protection office said in a statement yesterday that a van collided with a tow truck near the township of Jalostotitlan, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Guadalajara.
	All of the dead were riding in the Mercedes Benz Sprinter van. Eight were pronounced dead at the scene and three others died later after being taken to a hospital. Two of the injured were riding in a third vehicle, a sedan. The driver of the tow truck was among the injured.
	No information was provided about the cause of the accident.

11 killed, 8 injured in road accident in northern Mexico

Fiji police are investigating the theft of an Olympic gold medal belonging to Fiji rugby sevens player Masivesi Dakuwaqa.
	Dakuwaqa was a member of the team which won Fiji's first-ever Olympic medal at the Rio de Janeiro Games. He told Fiji media the medal went missing last week from his home at Waqadra, near Nadi.
	Namaka Police confirmed an official complaint of theft has been filed and said investigations are continuing.
	Dukuwaqa began the Olympic sevens tournament as Fiji's traveling reserve before replacing the injured Savenaca Rawaca.

Fiji police investigate theft of Olympic gold medal

An investigator "with a bit of free time" decided to send for testing DNA samples from a long-dormant cold case, which led authorities to arrest a pair of men linked to the 1973 shotgun slayings of two young girls, authorities said.
	Police in Oklahoma and California arrested the two 65-year-old suspects yesterday morning for the murders of Valerie Janice Lane, 12, and Doris Karen Derryberry, 13.
	The seventh grade classmates told their mothers they were going to a mall shopping near their homes about 40 miles north of Sacramento on Nov. 12, 1973. Witnesses saw them in their neighborhood that night, but neither girl returned home. Both suspects were living in Olivehurst at that time, investigators said.
	Two boys were target shooting and found the girl's bodies about 20 hours later, according to news accounts at the time. Investigators say the girls were driven to a wooded area and shot at close range.
	Authorities then and now said a large-scale investigation was immediately launched 

DNA match brings arrests in California girls' 1973 killings

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres today suffered a stroke and was rushed to a hospital.
	His office said the 93-year-old's condition was stable and that he was fully conscious.
	It gave no further details, but Channel 10 TV, citing hospital officials, said he was awake but confused, and that tests had determined he suffered a stroke.
	Another TV station, Channel 2, reporting from the hospital, described the stroke as "significant" and "serious."
	Early this year, Peres was twice hospitalized for heart problems but quickly released.
	Peres has held virtually every senior political office in Israel over a seven-decade career, including three terms as prime minister as well as stints as foreign minister and finance minister.
	He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in reaching an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians.
	As president, a largely ceremonial office, he cultivated an image as the country's elder statesman and became a popular fixture at international ...

Israel's Peres hospitalized after stroke

Three witnesses ordered to testify today before a House committee investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server asserted their constitutional rights against self-incrimination and did not appear or refused to answer questions.
	Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department computer specialist tasked with setting up Clinton's server, did not attend the Republican-led hearing.
	His attorneys said in a letter to the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Pagliano will continue to assert his constitutional right not to testify.
	Pagliano spoke previously to the FBI under immunity, telling the bureau there were no successful security breaches of the server.
	But he said he was aware of many failed login attempts that he described as "brute force attacks."
	Pagliano also refused to answer questions last year before a House panel investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
	"He has never made any statement or taken any action that would ...

Witnesses refuse to testify in hearing on Clinton's email

The Security Council today approved the deployment of a UN political mission to monitor a cease-fire between the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
	The resolution unanimously approved authorizes a mission made up of 450 observers and a number of civilians to be deployed in 40 widely dispersed locations to oversee the laying down of arms by the FARC and other aspects of the agreement.
	Diplomats say the mission should be in place when the two parties sign a formal peace agreement on September 26 in Cartagena and when the deal goes to a national referendum on October 2.
	On June 23, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC rebels signed a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal that moved the country to the brink of ending the 52-year war.
	"Columbians will have the opportunity to open the doors to a better future, with a stable and lasting peace which we have been able to construct with the support of the Security Council and the ...

UN approves Colombia peace mission

A teenager charged with preparing acts of terrorism planned to carry out a bombing in a busy area of London, British prosecutors said today.
	Haroon Ali-Syed, 19, is accused of engaging in "conduct in preparation" of terrorist acts between April and September. He was arrested at his home in west London on Thursday and charged today.
	During a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, prosecutors said Ali-Syed attempted to obtain weapons online, including an explosive device, with a view to launching an assault on a busy area of the British capital.
	The teenager spoke only to confirm his name, age and address during the brief court hearing.
	District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe ordered him detained until his next court appearance on Monday.
	Two other men, aged 19 and 20, detained at the same time have been released on bail.
	Police said the arrests were part of an "intelligence-led investigation" by counterterrorism officers.

Teenager charged with planning London bombing

A group that monitors extremism says Islamic State group supporters have published a letter said to be from three women who assaulted a Kenya police station on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
	The letter, handwritten in English, pledges allegiance to IS.
	All three women died in Sunday's attack in Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city. No group has claimed responsibility.
	The letter is signed by "Umm Maysarah," ''Umm Ma'bad" and "Umm Sa'ad," who pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, SITE Intelligence said late Monday. The letter threatens bloodshed to revenge the jailing and killings of Muslims in Mombasa.
	"We promise to make your women widows and your children orphans like you did to ours," it says.
	The head of the national Anti-terrorism Police Unit, Munga Nyale, said they could not immediately establish the letter's authenticity.
	Kenya over the past year has raised concerns that the Islamic State group is trying to gain a foothold in East ...

3 women killed in Kenya attack 'pledged allegiance to IS'

The number of people killed following a rare earthquake in the Lake Victoria region over the weekend has risen to 17, a Tanzanian official said today.
	The 5.7-magnitude earthquake also left 252 people injured and 840 families homeless, George Simbachawene, the minister of state in the office of the president, told the National Assembly.
	People died in collapsing homes. More than 1,200 houses need repair, and the government has closed two secondary schools that were heavily damaged by Saturday's quake, he said.
	A government statement said President John Magufuli cancelled a planned three-day state visit to Zambia to deal with the aftermath.
	The quake was felt in western Kenya and parts of Uganda, which share the waters of Lake Victoria. Tremors also were felt in Rwanda's capital, Kigali.
	Damage assessment is still ongoing, according to the UN office for humanitarian affairs.
	The quake was shallow, occurring at a depth of 10 kilometers. Shallow quakes generally tend to be more ...

Official: Death toll in Tanzania earthquake rises to 17

South Africa has barred an American pastor who has made anti-gay comments from entering the country.
	Malusi Gigaba, the home affairs minister, said today that Steven Anderson and members of the Faithful Word Baptist Church of Tempe, Arizona will not be allowed to travel to South Africa because they allegedly promote hate speech.
	Gigaba says South Africa is still struggling to curb discrimination despite laws that are among the most "progressive" in the world. He says the country does not "need more hatred advocated to our people."
	Anderson has made harshly critical comments about homosexuals. His church website lists a "soul-winning marathon" in Johannesburg on Sunday.
	Activists had urged South Africa's government to bar him from entering.

South Africa bars American pastor over alleged hate speech

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he won't allow government forces to conduct joint patrols of disputed waters near the South China Sea with foreign powers, apparently scrapping a deal his predecessor reached with the US military earlier this year.
	Duterte also said today that he was considering acquiring defense equipment from Russia and China. The Philippines has traditionally leaned on the US, its longtime treaty ally, for its security needs.
	Duterte said that the Philippines does "not go into a patrol or join any other army from now because I do not want trouble."
	Like other security pronouncements, Duterte did not provide details, but his rejection for joint patrols apparently goes against such an arrangement announced in April by the US and Philippine defense chiefs.

Philippine leader rejects joint patrols, eyes China weapons

Singapore said today it is investigating the severity of its locally transmitted Zika virus, amid a rising number of cases.
	Researchers concluded last week that the strain of Zika found in two patients in Singapore was not from South America, but was similar to those found in the region decades ago.
	"We cannot tell at this moment whether the viruses found here cause more or less severe disease than those in South America. Further research will be needed to shed light on this," Health Minister Gan Kim Yong told Parliament.
	Singapore announced its first confirmed Zika infection in May, with the virus imported by a 48-year-old man who had traveled to Brazil.
	Yesterday, the Ministry of Health and National Environment Agency confirmed four more locally transmitted cases, bringing the total to 333, including eight pregnant women.
	"It is still early days to ascertain what the long-term trend of Zika infection will be," Gan said, stopping short of labeling the outbreak an ...

Singapore investigating Zika strain as infections rise

The Ukrainian president's office says at least three troops have been killed and 15 injured in fighting in eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours.
	Government troops and Russia-backed rebels last month agreed to cease fire by Sep 1, the first day of school in the country, but the new truce seems to be failing.
	Olexander Motuzyanyk, presidential spokesman for the operation in the east, said today that two people were killed in fighting to the north of the conflict zone and another by artillery fire to the south. One more person was reported missing and 15 injured.
	Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in eastern Ukraine earlier this month with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been a key mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

3 killed, 15 injured in eastern Ukraine

More than 200 of Cambodia's nearly extinct royal turtles were released today in muddy waters at a new breeding and conservation center that was built in hopes of keeping the national reptile from disappearing.
	The Koh Kong Reptile Conservation Center in western Cambodia is a joint effort between the government's fisheries department and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
	The 206 turtles belong to one of the world's 25 most endangered tortoise and freshwater turtle species. It's also known as the southern river terrapin, but its primary name harkens to historical times when only the royal family could consume the turtle's eggs.
	The turtle was believed extinct until 2000 when a small population was rediscovered, and it was designated the national reptile in 2005.
	Since 2001, a joint project between the government and conservation society has saved 39 nests with a total of 564 eggs that resulted in 382 hatchlings. The hatchlings are raised in captivity and later ...

206 of Cambodia's rare royal turtles released at new center

Iran's state TV says the country's Revolutionary Guard has unveiled a new high-speed vessel capable of carrying a helicopter and up to 100 people.
	The report today follows a series of close encounters between American warships and Guard vessels in the Persian Gulf.
	It showed a catamaran-type ship described as 55 meters (yards) long and 14 meters (yards) wide, carrying a light civilian helicopter. It did not elaborate on the speed of the boat.
	It was painted with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's call for US forces to "Go back to the Bay of Pigs."
	In May, Khamenei criticized the US presence in the Persian Gulf region in an apparent reference to the 1961 failed invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs by 1,500 CIA-trained exiles.

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