Saudi Arabia says it has thwarted a terrorist attack by a Pakistani resident who was planning to bomb a mosque during sunset prayers in the predominantly Shiite eastern governorate of Qatif.
	An Interior Ministry statement released today says police questioned the man the day before and discovered he was carrying a bomb inside a sports bag. The statement says police fired on the suspect during the encounter and that he died while being transported to the hospital, without providing further details.
	In July, Saudi Arabia identified a Pakistani man as being behind a suicide bombing outside the US Consulate in the western city of Jiddah. Police later arrested 12 Pakistanis in connection with that attack and two others that took place in Qatif and Medina.

Saudi police thwart attack by Pakistani against mosque

PTI Automatic

French schools will now hold three security drills a year including one in which an alleged assailant enters their premises as the French government ramps up security measures after a string of deadly extremist attacks.
	Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced a series of measures Wednesday to improve how French schools and children handle terror threats.
	Students will be taught how to hide or to escape, depending on the situation and where they are.
	All students aged 13-14 and class representatives will also get a basic training on life-saving measures. Vallaud- Belkacem said, as of now, only 30 percent of students are trained.
	In pre-school and kindergarten, for children aged 2 to 6, no mention of an attack or a danger should be made but children must be taught to hide and keep quiet through games, Vallaud-Belkacem said.
	"It's not a question of succumbing to panic or into paranoia, but simply to face our responsibilities," ...

France to teach children how to react to school attacks

Turkey's president said today he planned to demand the extradition of the cleric accused of masterminding last month's failed coup during his meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.
	President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated frequent, earlier demands for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen during a speech in Ankara today.
	Turkish authorities claim Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, was the mastermind behind the violent coup attempt that killed over 270 people. Gulen denies any involvement.
	Erdogan said he would tell Biden that the United States does not "have the right to hem and haw. You have to hand him over."
	Biden said in an op-ed published in Turkish newspaper Milliyet ahead of his visit that he or President Barak Obama could not simply order Gulen's extradition because the request must be assessed by a federal court that will decide if there is enough evidence to send him to Turkey to face charges.
	He also said that while the US has received a request to extradite Gulen over 

Turkey to repeat Gulen extradition demand during US VP visit

Anti-corruption groups in Nigeria have begged US Secretary of State John Kerry to help speed the return of billions of dollars looted from the country's treasury by local officials.
	Kerry met today with Adetokunbo Mumuni, director of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, and other activists before ending his latest Africa visit.
	Mumuni said the looted money is believed to be in banks or their offshore holdings from the United States and Britain, Switzerland and other European countries.
	Kerry told the group that asset recovery is a lengthy, complicated process but the US government has lawyers and accountants working on it, Mumuni said.
	The United States in 2014 froze nearly half a billion dollars of illicit funds from the loot of deceased military dictator Sani Abacha but has yet to say how and when the money will be repatriated.
	President Muhammdu Buhari, who won 2015 elections on a promise to halt graft, has estimated that USD 150 billion has been stolen by ...

Nigerian anti-corruption groups beg Kerry: Return loot

Serbia's defense ministry says a 20-year old Afghan migrant crossing illegally from Bulgaria has been shot dead, apparently by hunters.
	The ministry said today that its border patrol heard a shot yesterday night and then discovered six migrants, of whom one had a chest wound. He later died.
	The ministry says a hunter who was at the scene was detained on suspicion that he shot the migrant.
	Since the so-called Balkan migrant route was closed in March after more than 1 million used it to head for the EU last year, hundreds fleeing wars and poverty are still crossing daily from Bulgaria through Serbia to try to make it into EU-member Hungary.
	UNHCR has estimated that there are currently some 4,400 migrants stuck in Serbia.

Afghan migrant shot dead in Serbia

A proposal to build a mosque and Muslim cemetery has so angered some residents of Newton County outside Atlanta that their commissioners have temporarily banned all building permit approvals for religious institutions.
	The moratorium prompted the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the NAACP to request a federal civil rights investigation in Newton County. A spokesman for US Attorney John Horn confirmed receipt of this complaint yesterday, but declined comment.
	Mohammad Islam, the religious leader behind the proposal, said he doesn't intend to take any legal action; instead, he met yesterday with local leaders of other faiths in Newton County, seeking their support for a fresh start.
	"Our hope is that we will build a strong relationship and the challenges we are facing can be overcome," Islam said. "We respect them, we love them. Their peace is our peace, their security is our security."
	Opposition gathered swiftly this month as word spread that members of a mosque in ...

Civil rights groups defend mosque, cemetery outside Atlanta

German police say a train hit a bus on a road crossing, injuring 10 people.
	Police in northwestern Osnabrueck said the driver of the articulated bus apparently stopped to let passengers on and off next to the crossing in nearby Melle today.
	But the back of the vehicle remained on the tracks. It was then hit by a freight train.
	Two people were seriously injured and eight had minor injuries, including the drivers of the train and the bus, police said in a statement. There were about 15 people on board the bus at the time.

Train hits bus in northwestern Germany, 10 injured

A French man stabbed a British woman to death and wounded two men in an attack at a hostel in northeast Australia, police said today.
	The 29-year-old suspect visiting Australia did not have any known links to the Islamic State group and appeared to have acted alone, Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said.
	"Investigators will also consider whether mental health or drug misuse factors are involved in this incident," Gollschewski said about the attack which took place last night at a hostel in the town of Home Hill, south of Townsville in northern Queensland.
	A 21-year-old British woman was found dead at the scene and a 30-year-old British man was hospitalised in critical condition. A local man was treated and released for injuries. A dog was also fatally wounded in the attack.
	Police were trying to determine whether the man - who shouted the Arabic phrase "Allahu akbar" meaning "God is great" both during the attack and while being arrested by police - had been 

British woman killed, 2 wounded in Australian knife attack

A Vietnamese court in south-central province of Khanh Hoa has sentenced two activists to up to three years in prison for spreading anti-government propaganda.
	The official Vietnam News Agency reported today that Nguyen Huu Quoc Duy, 31, was convicted of posting a dozen articles on his Facebook page that the court said distorted the policies of the Communist Party and government and had called for the overthrow of the government, and was given three years in jail at the one-day trial yesterday.
	Duy's cousin, Nguyen Huu Thien An, 21, was found guilty of painting "reactionary" slogans on the wall of a local police station and was sentenced to two years in jail at the same trial.
	The defendants' actions are "very serious, infringing on the strength of the state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, reversing the people's confidence in the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam and causing negative impact on the social order," the agency quoted the judges as saying.
	They could ...

Vietnam jails 2 activists for anti-government propaganda

A man who took a woman bowling after meeting through an online dating site was fatally shot the next night when she returned with three other men and a gun, police said.
	Adam Hilarie, 27, was shot in the head during a robbery that police say Hailey Bustos, 18, arranged within hours after visiting his home on their first date in the central Florida town of Auburndale.
	Police said Hilarie and Bustos met through the PlentyOfFish website. They went to his place after bowling Thursday night, and then he drove her home. Investigators believe she and three other assailants then met to discuss the robbery.
	She returned Friday night with Andre Warner, 26; Gary Gray, 31; and Joshua Ellington, 31, police said yesterday after all four were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, armed robbery and first-degree murder.
	The group knocked on his door until he opened, then forced their way in at gunpoint, police said yesterday.
	Bustos told police that Hilarie was forced to the kitchen 

Police: Man robbed, killed after bowling date set up online

Indiana's attorney general has opted not to appeal a recent ruling that overturned a woman's feticide conviction for a self-induced abortion that killed her premature infant.
	Yesterday's deadline passed without Indiana's attorney general or Purvi Patel's attorneys asking the Indiana Supreme Court to take up the state Court of Appeals' July ruling.
	Patel's attorney, Stanford University law professor Larry Marshall, says he's pleased Indiana "didn't drag things out" by appealing.
	Marshall says Patel could be resentenced and released from prison next month.
	The northern Indiana woman appealed the 2015 convictions that netted her a 20-year sentence.
	July's ruling overturned Patel's feticide conviction and vacated her child neglect conviction. The court found she should be resentenced on a lower-level child neglect charge.
	The attorney general's office did not have immediate comment.

No appeal in Indiana woman's overturned feticide conviction

A US official says the FBI is investigating a cyberattack targeting reporters of The New York Times and is looking into whether Russian intelligence agencies are responsible.
	The official was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
	The official says the breach is believed to have targeted some individual reporters, but the newspaper's network was not compromised.
	CNN first reported the violation.
	The news comes as federal authorities investigate a breach of the Democratic National Committee that outside cybersecurity experts have attributed to Russian intelligence agencies.
	New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Official: FBI investigating cyberattack of New York Times

A Mississippi man used a gun and an ax to kill five adults as they slept in an Alabama home, police allege in criminal complaints filed today.
	The criminal complaints filed in Mobile County District Court do not allege in what order Derrick Dearman used the weapons or elaborate on the nature of the slayings in the rural home Saturday.
	Yesterday, as he was led to jail in shackles, Dearman professed his love for the estranged girlfriend whose family and friends were massacred and blamed the killings on drugs.
	Speaking with reporters as he was escorted to jail by deputies in Mobile, Alabama, Derrick Dearman said yesterday that he was on methamphetamine when he went to the house, located at the end of a dead-end dirt road.
	"Drugs (were) making me think things that's not really there," said Dearman, 27, hanging his head and dressed in a bright yellow jail uniform.
	After the killings, authorities said, Dearman abducted estranged girlfriend Laneta Lester, who had sought refuge at the ...

Complaint: Man attacked people with ax, shot them with gun

More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money either personally or through companies or groups to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.
	At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press.
	Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as USD 156 million. At least 40 donated more than USD 100,000 each, and 20 gave more than USD 1 million.
	Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought ...

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the international community to renew its commitment to eliminate weapons of mass destruction as technological advances make it cheaper and easier for terrorist groups to produce and deliver materials for making the weapons.
	Ban, speaking at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council, said much good work has been done to curb the production of WMDs, including the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Security Council Resolution 1540 in 2004, which legally obligates UN member states to enforce measures against the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
	But he said technological advances have made it easier for terrorist groups to gain access to the materials needed for making such weapons.
	"Vicious non-state actors that target civilians for carnage are actively seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," he said.
	In fact, the possibility of the use of such weapons by terrorist groups, criminals .

UN chief calls for renewed focus on mass destruction weapons

A court official says a man has been found guilty of killing another man outside a suburban Atlanta preschool in his second trial in the case.
	Hemy Neuman was convicted today of malice murder and possession of a firearm while committing a felony, said spokesman Marcus Garner of the DeKalb County Prosecutor's Office.
	Prosecutors said Neuman was having an affair with Andrea Sneiderman, and that Neuman killed Russell "Rusty" Sneiderman in November 2010 so he could be with her.
	Andrea Sneiderman has repeatedly denied the claims.
	Another jury later convicted Sneiderman of perjury and she spent time in prison before being released.
	Neuman had been previously found guilty but mentally ill in Rusty Sneiderman's death, but the Georgia Supreme Court reversed that conviction, citing a violation of attorney-client privilege.

Man found guilty of murder in daycare killing retrial

A South Carolina mother charged with killing her newborn son by putting him in the refrigerator for several hours was expected to appear before a judge today.
	Angela Blackwell was expected to have a bond hearing at 2 pm at the Chester County jail, according to Sheriff's Chief Deputy Robert Sprouse.
	Blackwell, 27, was arrested by State Law Enforcement Division agents yesterday on a charge of homicide by child abuse. Deputies say Blackwell was at her home on February 27 when she put her 4-day-old son in the refrigerator and shut the door. After three hours, she took him out and sought medical attention.
	First-responders did CPR on the boy and took him a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to an incident report. The boy, William David Blackwell, died from hypothermia with asphyxiation from being placed in the cold, according to Chester County Coroner Terry Tinker.
	Authorities haven't said what they think may have led Blackwell to act as she did, and there was no phone ..

Deputies: Mom killed newborn by putting him in refrigerator

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said today he expects talks with China on a long-simmering territorial dispute to start possibly this year, and urged Beijing to allow Filipinos to fish at a disputed shoal.
	Duterte told reporters he preferred to engage China in a diplomatic dialogue rather than take a more aggressive stance that could anger Chinese officials into calling off possible talks.
	Former President Fidel Ramos, a key political backer of Duterte, met Chinese intermediaries recently to pave the way for the talks, to be held in Beijing.
	An international arbitration tribunal ruled last month that China's massive territorial claims in the South China Sea based on historical grounds were invalid under a 1982 UN treaty, in a major setback for Beijing, which has ignored the decision.
	Duterte's predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, initiated the arbitration case against China. Duterte, however, has not pressed for Chinese compliance and does not plan to raise the decision at an ...

Philippines expects talks with China on sea feud this year

China's efforts to reduce poverty have improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people, but they could be undermined in the future without efforts to root out corruption and better address public complaints, a United Nations representative for human rights warned today.
	Unless it takes action, China risks sparking mass protests and unrest, said Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights. Alston visited China for nine days and presented his preliminary findings at the UN mission in Beijing.
	Alston cited estimates that say China has lifted 700 million people out of poverty in the last several decades thanks to its roaring economy and what he described as "genuine political will" to help the poor.
	Authorities have said they aim to lift all Chinese out of "extreme poverty" by 2020. Alston says he believes China will meet that goal.
	But China also has deep income inequality, particularly between urban and rural areas, as well as a lack of means 

UN envoy: China must give public voice to stamp out poverty

Officials say Turkish and American justice officials are discussing Turkey's demands for the extradition of a US-based cleric accused of masterminding last month's failed coup attempt.
	Turkey's Justice Ministry says its officials opened talks Tuesday with US Justice Department and State Department officials in the capital, Ankara.
	Fethullah Gulen has lived in the US state of Pennsylvania for the past 17 years in self-imposed exile. He has denied any involvement in the July 15 coup attempt that claimed 270 lives.
	The US government has asked for firm evidence before considering extradition. Senior officials in the Obama administration say Turkey's extradition requests have been based on allegations of other crimes against Gulen, not evidence of involvement in the coup attempt.

Turkish, US officials discuss US-based cleric's extradition

Officials in Myanmar say United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend a peace conference next week that seeks to end decades of armed conflict with ethnic minority groups.
	The UN is expected to soon confirm Ban's attendance at the conference, which begins August 31 in the capital, Naypyitaw.
	The deputy director of the President's Office, Zaw Htay, said today the government invited Ban to what is being called the 21st Century Panglong Conference after he expressed an interest in attending. Another official involved in the peace talks confirmed Ban's plan to attend.
	It will be Ban's first visit to Myanmar since Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party replaced an army-backed government in March this year. His last visit was in November 2014.

AP

AP

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