Dozens of activists are holding a protest outside a Finance Ministry building early today, in Lebanon's capital, after failing to storm it as part of a recent series anti-government rallies stemming from a national trash-collection crisis.
	The protesters attempted to enter the building but security forces stopped them. They are demanding the Finance Ministry stop paying salaries for lawmakers, complaining that the parliament is illegitimate.
	Members of parliament have illegally extended their term twice amid disputes over an election law. The parliament has been unable to function, failing to elect a president for over a year.
	What started as protests against trash piling in the streets because of government dysfunction is turning into Lebanon's largest protest movement in years, targeting an entire political class.

Anti-corruption protesters rally outside Lebanon ministry

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A day after threatening rocket launches, North Korea declared today that it has revamped and restarted all its atomic bomb fuel production plants.
	The back-to-back announcements, which many outside analysts consider threats designed to spur talks with the United States that could eventually provide impoverished North Korea with concessions, will push Pyongyang further toward a standoff with Washington and its allies.
	The North said in its state media that its plutonium and highly enriched uranium facilities at the main Nyongbyon nuclear complex had been "rearranged, changed or readjusted and they started normal operation."
	Yesterday, Pyongyang warned that it is ready to launch "satellites" aboard long-range rockets that the West considers banned long-range missiles meant to eventually threaten America's mainland with atomic bombs.
	The North says the launches would mark the ruling communist party's anniversary next month.
	The North's National Aerospace Development Administration ..

NKorea says it has restarted all nuclear bomb fuel plants

A college instructor suspected in the fatal shootings of a woman he lived with on Mississippi's Gulf Coast and a professor at Delta State University 300 miles away died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after trying to flee police, authorities said.
	Shannon Lamb had earlier told authorities that he was "not going to jail."
	Police in Greenville, Mississippi, were following Lamb as he was driving when the suspect pulled over and jumped out of his car, Lynn Buford, chief of the Delta State University police, told The Associated Press. One of the victims was killed at the university yesterday.
	When police gave chase, they heard one gunshot and then found Lamb, Buford said. They took him to a hospital in Greenville where he was pronounced dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Buford said.
	Lamb's death brought to an end a chaotic day that saw terrified students and teachers hunkered down in classrooms for hours. The Delta State campus was put on lockdown .

Police say suspect in Mississippi campus shooting is dead

The Premier League season is only five games old, but Jose Mourinho is already facing a stern examination of his credentials as Chelsea manager.
     Only four months ago, he was lifting the Premier League title at Stamford Bridge for the third time as Chelsea cruised to its fourth championship, eight points ahead of runner-up Manchester City.
     Now, the Blues already trail Manuel Pellegrini's side by 11 after Saturday's 3-1 loss to Everton. It was their third loss of the season, equaling the number from the whole of the last campaign.
     Chelsea looked unfit, uninspired and stagnant against Everton, which relentlessly carved up the defending champions. Mourinho, so often a figure of charisma and swagger, was restless and riled, something which is fast becoming a familiar sight.
     Eden Hazard propelled Chelsea to the Premier League title last season and won three separate player of the year awards after starting all 38 games and scoring 14 goals. But the Belgium international .

Mourinho faces scrutiny after Chelsea's poor start to season

A San Diego man has been charged with lying to the FBI during an investigation into his brother, who is believed to be the first American jihadist killed in Syria while fighting for the Islamic State.
	Marchello McCain, 33, is accused in an indictment of providing false information about his brother's travel to Syria and how he financed the trip, federal prosecutors said yesterday.
	McCain already faces gun possession charges.
	His lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment.
	The brother, Douglas McCain, 33, was reportedly killed a year ago while fighting with the Islamic State, the extremist group trying to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
	Douglas McCain traveled to Syria to follow his basketball buddy from Minneapolis into the terrorism fight.
	Douglas McCain, who last lived in San Diego, once said in a Twitter feed that embracing Islam was the best thing he'd ever done. He was following Islamic State group fighters on Twitter, but it's ...

Brother of San Diego ISIS fighter charged with lying to FBI

Vietnam's ruling Communist Party has called for reforms and a stepped-up fight against corruption as it prepares for an upcoming party congress.
	The calls were included in the draft political report released on the Communist Party's website and in most daily newspapers today and designed to garner ideas from the public.
	The report said the country has recorded important achievements over the past 30 years, but it still faces problems with increasing public debt, and low economic productivity and competitiveness, adding that more needs to be done to transform Vietnam into an industrial nation by 2020.
	The party congress, held every five years, is set to be held early next year when the ruling party lays out its course for the next five years and selects new leadership.
	"The renewal process must be stepped up comprehensively," the report said of the party's goals for the next five years. "The economy must be developed fast and sustainably, building the foundation to soon develop our 

Vietnam calls for stepped-up reforms and corruption fight

Guatemalan presidential candidate Manuel Baldizon has quit his political party and dropped out of the race, leaving a television comedian and former first lady to vie in the runoff to be the country's next president.
	Baldizon, of the Renewed Democratic Liberty party, told a local radio station yesterday that he couldn't endorse the results of the September 6 vote that put him in third place, but also in a statistical tie with former first lady Sandra Torres, though she garnered about 6,000 votes more than he did. Election authorities hadn't officially announced who had placed second and Baldizon never asked for a recount before quitting.
	That leaves Torres to face political neophyte Jimmy Morales in the October 25 runoff. Morales placed first in the vote but only with 24 per cent, and the winner needs 50 per cent plus 1 to win. A former television comedian, he has never held office.
	Baldizon told Radio Sonora that he could not endorse the electoral process and said the results ...

Guatemala presidential candidate drops out of race

A second consecutive day of violence at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site prompted a rare warning today from the king of Jordan, the custodian of the ancient sites, while an Israeli man died and several people were injured after attacks by rock-throwing Palestinians.
	The holy site is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jordan, which has a peace treaty with Israel, administers Muslim religious affairs at the site, sacred to both Jews and Muslims. The compound is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the two biblical Jewish temples. Muslims revere it as the Noble Sanctuary, where they believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
	Earlier today, Israeli police and Palestinian stone-throwers clashed for the second day at the site. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said protesters threw rocks at officers who entered the area to ensure security. She said several masked Palestinians suspected of stone throwing were ...

Jordan king warns Israel over Jerusalem holy site violence

Russia is in the midst of a steady military buildup at a Syrian airport, indicating Moscow intends to create an air operations base there, although no fighter jets or helicopters have arrived yet, the Pentagon said today.
	A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt Jeff Davis, said the US is closely monitoring the buildup, but he declined to reveal specifics about the Russian military personnel and equipment being flown to the base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia.
	"We have seen indications in recent days that Russia has moved people and things into the area around Latakia and the air base there that suggests that it intends to establish some sort of a forward air operating base," Davis said.
	He declined to provide an estimate of the number of Russian troops there or say what kinds of military equipment have arrived. He said the US has concerns about ensuring that any Russian military air operations not come into conflict with US and coalition airstrikes that are being conducted in other 

Pentagon: Russians apparently setting up air base in Syria

A professor was killed in his office at Delta State University in Mississippi, an official said today, and the campus remained on lockdown with the shooter still believed to be on the loose.
	County Deputy Coroner Murray Roark said history professor Ethan Schmidt was killed inside an office. It was not immediately clear if anyone else was wounded.
	Schmidt directed the first-year seminar program and specialized in Native American and colonial history, said Don Allan Mitchell, an English professor at the school, who called him "a gentleman in every sense of the word."
	"Dr Ethan Schmidt was a terrific family man, a good friend, a true son of Peabody, Kansas, and his beloved Emporia State University," he said.
	Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said the suspect is no longer believed to be on the campus. He would not say how investigators reached that conclusion or say where the suspect is believed to be.
	The lockdown began about 10:45 am local .

Professor dead after shooting at college in Mississippi

A key suspect in last month's bombing at a Bangkok shrine that killed 20 people has fled to Turkey, Thai police said today, in another indication that the attack could be the work of members of China's ethnic Uighur minority who have sympathizers in Turkey.
	Police had previously said the man, carrying a Chinese passport in the name Abudureheman Abudusataer, may have directed the Aug 17 bombing of the Erawan Shrine.
	Investigations revealed that he left Thailand on Aug 16 for Bangladesh, and police speculated that he might have gone to China.
	However, national police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri said that information gathered by Thai police and Bangladeshi officials showed that the man departed Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, on Aug 30 and travelled to Istanbul in Turkey as his final destination, via New Delhi and Abu Dhabi.
	"He departed Dhaka on Aug 30 for Delhi by Jet Airways. From Delhi, he continued his travel to Abu Dhabi, and from Abu Dhabi he traveled on Aug. 31 to Istanbul. ...

Thai police say Bangkok bombing suspect fled to Turkey

Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants stopped a truck at gunpoint and abducted nine construction workers today but two escaped and sought help from authorities, military and police officials said.
	Army troops were deployed to find and rescue the workers, who were traveling on a water delivery truck when the militants stopped them in a remote village in Sumisip town on the island province of Basilan, regional military spokeswoman Capt Maria Rowena Muyuela said.
	Muyuela said the military was working with local officials to gather more details about the missing workers and locate them.
	The Abu Sayyaf, which has about 400 gunmen split into a few factions in Basilan and outlying islands, originally projected itself as a hardline armed group fighting for a separate Muslim homeland in the south, home of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic country.
	Military officials, however, dismiss the gunmen as bandits involved mainly in kidnappings for ransom, beheadings, extortion and deadly ...

Philippine military: 7 workers feared abducted by militants

More than 350 inmates escaped an Afghan prison following a coordinated attack by Taliban insurgents, an Afghan official and the Taliban said.
	Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy governor of Ghazni province, said Monday that insurgents wearing military uniforms launched a well-organized attack this morning that included using a suicide bomber to breach the compound's walls.
	Four guards were killed and seven others were wounded, while three insurgents were also killed, Ahmadi said.
	Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on the Ghazni prison in an email sent to the media.
	A total of 355 prisoners escaped, the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement, and only 82 prisoners remain in custody in the prison.
	However Ahmadi added that 20 of the prison's most dangerous inmates had been transferred to another facility a day earlier after a fight broke out. Officials in Ghazni said that there were attacks by the Taliban in at least 10 different parts of the ..

Taliban insurgents raid Afghan prison and free inmates

The European Union has extended by six months a visa ban and asset freeze targeting several close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin and others involved in Russia's annexation of Crimea and other territorial disputes in Ukraine.
	The EU said today that the "assessment of the situation did not justify a change in the regime of sanctions" under which 149 people and 37 entities are currently listed. The 28-nation EU has coordinated its sanctions in close cooperation with Washington.
	The extension came amid continued unrest in eastern Ukraine throughout the year.
	Despite a cease-fire declared in February, both Ukrainian troops and the Russia-backed separatists carried out regular artillery strikes until they pledged anew to implement the truce from Sept. 1.

EU extends sanctions against Russia over Ukraine crisis

Australia's beleaguered Prime Minister Tony Abbott will face a second challenge to his position this year, with a ballot of government colleagues later today after a senior minister challenged him for his party leadership.
	Former Liberal Party leader and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked Abbott to open the party's leadership to an internal vote as the two-year-old conservative coalition government struggles in opinion polls.
	The contest will pit a man who has been described as the most socially conservative Australian prime ministers in decades against a challenger some think is not conservative enough.
	Unlike Abbott, Turnbull supports gay marriage, wants Australia to replace the British monarch with an Australian president as head of state, and backs a policy of making polluters pay for their carbon gas emissions.
	Abbott announced the ballot of ruling Liberal Party lawmakers would be held in Parliament House late today.
	"This country needs strong and stable ...

Australia's prime minister faces party leadership ballot

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed concern about the detention and interrogation of more than 100 lawyers in China.
	Speaking at today's start of the 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva, Zeid Raad al-Hussein delivered a broad-ranging speech on concerns about human rights worldwide like discrimination against African-Americans in the US, recent killings and arrests in Burundi, and the "deepening nightmare that is Syria."
	Overall, Zeid said he feels "exhausted and angry" about growing "human misery" around the world, and the seeming inability to change it.
	The three-week council meeting is expected among other things to examine Sri Lanka's long civil war and the human rights situation in North Korea.
	Zeid also urged member states to investigate sexual abuses by peacekeepers in Central African Republic.
	Several countries, he said, appear to be "engaged in a war on information, in which legitimate critics and journalists are targeted for violence, arbitrary ..

UN rights chief airs worry about lawyers detained in China

China's Communist Party has issued a long-awaited blueprint for overhauling bloated state industries that would retain the party's dominance in the economy.
	The plan comes at a time when the government of President Xi Jinping is under pressure to reverse an economic slowdown and reduce reliance on trade and investment to drive growth.
	Communist leaders have promised to give entrepreneurs and market forces a bigger role but insist state ownership will remain the core of the economy.
	The plan issued late yesterday reflects the complex path the party walks in trying to develop the world's second-largest economy while preserving its monopoly on power.
	It calls for state companies to face more free-market competition, become financially self-supporting and be clearly divided between commercial competitors and those that serve social purposes.
	It gives no details of how individual companies will be treated and no timetable but promises a "decisive outcome" by 2020.
	Rather than ...

China issues blueprint for state industry overhaul

Israeli police say a Jewish man died from wounds sustained when rocks were thrown at his car.
	Spokeswoman Luba Samri said the man was injured today as his vehicle was attacked while returning from a meal marking the Jewish new year.
	She said the identity of the attackers is unknown but are likely from a nearby Arab neighborhood.
	Later, police and Palestinian stone throwers clashed for a second day in a row at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site.
	Samri said Palestinians threw rocks at officers who entered the area to ensure security and several were arrested.
	The compound is holy to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the two biblical Jewish temples. Muslims revere it as the Noble Sanctuary where they believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

Israeli dies from injuries sustained in rock attack on car

Two of California's fastest-burning wildfires in decades overtook several Northern California towns, killing at least one person and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and sending thousands of residents fleeing highways lined with buildings, guardrails and cars still in flames.
	The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection confirmed one fatality in the wildfire north of San Francisco that raced through dry brush and exploded in size within hours.
	Officials also counted 400 homes, two apartment complexes and 10 businesses destroyed by the flames, department spokeswoman Lynn Valentine said.
	The devastation comes after a separate wildfire to the southeast destroyed at least 81 homes.
	Residents fled from Middletown, dodging smoldering telephone poles, downed power lines and fallen trees as they drove through billowing smoke.
	Whole blocks of houses were burned in parts of the town of more than 1,000 residents that lies about 32 kilometres north of the famed Napa ..

Northern California fire destroys 400 homes, businesses

Australia's beleaguered Prime Minister Tony Abbott could face a second challenge to his position this year, after a senior minister today called on Abbott to allow a vote on his party leadership.
	Former Liberal Party leader and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he asked the prime minister to open up the party's leadership to an internal vote, as the two-year-old conservative coalition government struggles in opinion polls.
	It was not immediately clear if Abbott will agree, but he is now under intense pressure to prove he has the support of his colleagues.
	"Ultimately, the prime minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs," Turnbull told reporters. "He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs."
	Turnbull might not be the only candidate to replace Abbott. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the Liberal Party deputy leader, is regarded as a possible contender, as is Social Services Minister Scott ...

Australia's prime minister faces leadership challenge

European Union interior ministers meet for emergency migration talks today, a day after Germany reintroduced checks at its border with Austria to stem the continuing flow of refugees.
	The ministers will try to narrow a yawning divide over how to share responsibility for thousands of migrants arriving daily and ease the burden on frontline states.
	Their talks will focus on distributing 160,000 refugees over the next two years.
	The arrival of around 500,000 migrants so far this year has taken the EU by surprise and it has responded slowly.
	The ministers will confirm the distribution of an initial 40,000 refugees, but this scheme was conceived in May and some nations still do not plan to do their full share before year's end.

AP

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