More than 2,000 Syrians have drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe since 2011, a UN panel reported today, saying there's no end in sight to Syria's civil war.
	In its 10th such report since the war began 4-1/2 years ago, the UN Human Rights Council urges the international community to help Syrian civilians.
	"The global failure to protect Syrian refugees is now translating into a crisis in southern Europe," the report says, alluding to the increased flow in recent months.
	Overall, it offers few new insights into a grinding civil war.
	"Civilians are suffering the unimaginable as the world stands witness," said panel chair Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.
	The report, which calls for "urgent action" by the international community to protect civilians, is based on 335 interviews with victims and witnesses collected from January to July 2015. The report is to be presented to the Human Rights Council meeting on September 21.
	It says warring factions have used tactics like ...

Report: 2,000 fleeing Syrians drowned in Mediterranean

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Aylan Kurdi, whose 3-year-old body was captured face-down in the surf in images that have horrified the world, set out for Europe only after Canada rejected his family's refugee application, a Canadian lawmaker says.
	Images of Aylan's body, clad in blue shorts and a red shirt on a Turkish beach, have heightened global attention to a wave of migration, driven by war and deprivation, that is unparalleled since World War II.
	They are also raising pressure on governments to be more welcoming to refugees fleeing the horror that Syria has become.
	Aylan's aunt, who lives in the Vancouver area, had sought to get Canadian refugee status for her relatives in the Syrian town of Kobani, which was devastated by battles between Islamic State and Kurdish fighters, legislator Fin Donnelly told The Canadian Press. Donnelly submitted the application on the family's behalf.
	Canadian immigration authorities rejected the application, in part because of the family's lack of exit visas to ease their ...

Aunt had tried to sponsor family who drowned off Turkey

Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas will pair for a third consecutive season as Williams' Formula One drivers, the team announced Thursday.
     Massa and Bottas currently sit fifth and sixth, respectively, in the drivers' standings.
      There had been speculation that Ferrari was interested in Bottas but that ended when Kimi Raikkonen renewed his contract with the Italian team two weeks ago.
     "Stability is key for any team to thrive in Formula One, so to be able to enter a third season with one of the strongest driver lineups on the grid puts Williams in a fantastic position to continue its momentum towards the front of the grid in 2016," team principal Frank Williams said.
     Massa, a 34-year-old from Brazil, joined Williams from Ferrari in 2014 and has had one pole and four podiums with the team.
     "(Williams) respect me a lot and the results are there," Massa said. "It has been so nice to be part of the big turnaround the team has seen since the end of 2013. I can't wait ..

Massa and Bottas to pair for 3rd straight year at Williams

US officials and veterans gathered on a decommissioned battleship in Pearl Harbor to mark the 70th anniversary of World War II's end.
	"It was not about retribution. Like today's ceremony, it was an acknowledgement that the shared losses of World War II vastly exceeded the immediate gains at the time," Adm Scott Swift, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, told a crowd of several hundred gathered on the deck of the former USS Missouri yesterday.
	The Missouri's decks are where Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Army Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu signed documents to formally surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. The USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay at the time.
	Allied leaders including Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Adm. Chester Nimitz also signed the surrender documents.
	The ship is now a museum called the Battleship Missouri Memorial. It's moored at a spot overlooking where the USS Arizona sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
	"These two iconic battleships ...

US officials mark 70th anniversary of WWII's official end

A Ugandan military spokesman says 12 Ugandan soldiers were killed in an attack by Islamic extremists on an African Union base in Somalia.
	Lt Col Paddy Ankunda said today that all soldiers were accounted for and that none was captured.
	He said 10 of the bodies will be flown back home today.
	Al-Shabab claimed it killed 50 Ugandan soldiers at the base in the small farming town of Janale, an account disputed by Ugandan officials.
	Uganda was the first country to send troops to Somalia to back up the country's weak federal government under the banner of the African Union.

Uganda: 12 soldiers killed in Somalia attack

Migrants poured into Budapest's Keleti train station today as police ended their blockade, but there were no trains running to Western Europe, the goal of many of them.
	The rail company said its stance was due to "railway transport" security reasons.
	Police shut down the Keleti terminal to migrants on Tuesday, preventing those with valid tickets but no travel documents from boarding trains to Austria and Germany, many migrants' preferred destination.
	There was no immediate explanation from police or other authorities of today's decisions, which came hours before Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was to meet European Union leaders in Brussels to discuss the crisis.
	Yesterday, migrants had threatened to walk the 105 miles (170 kilometers) to the Austrian border if police would not let them board trains to their desired destinations in Austria and Germany.
	Hungary tantalizingly opened the way Monday, allowing more than 1,000 migrants to pack westbound trains and inspiring a ...

Migrants flood Budapest rail station; no trains to the West

A Guatemalan judge has issued an unprecedented order to detain President Otto Perez Molina in a fraud scandal that has engulfed his government, becoming the most serious blow so far against entrenched political corruption in the Central American country.
	The order is not for arrest, but for Perez Molina to declare before Judge Miguel Angel Galvea, who granted the request yesterday from Attorney General Thelma Aldana, she told Canal Antigua television.
	The president will have to appear on accusations of illicit association, fraud and receiving bribe money in a customs fraud scandal in which the vice president has already been jailed and some of his Cabinet ministers have stepped down.
	Galvez will decide the next step based on the president's testimony, which could include stripping Perez Molina of his position, jailing him or leaving him in his post and free during the judicial process.
	Aldana said there is a preliminary investigation underway about the president's possible ...

Guatemala president ordered detained in corruption probe

About 100 marijuana farmers in Paraguay are staging a protest against the recent burning of their pot by anti-drug agents.
	The farmers demonstrated yesterday in the country's northern state of San Pedro. They say the burning of some 345 acres (140 hectares) of their marijuana threatens their livelihood.
	Marijuana is illegal in Paraguay, a poor, landlocked country in the heart of South America.
	But farmer Gabriel Dos Santos says that he grows pot at the risk of prison because the government doesn't provide his impoverished community with seeds to produce anything else.
	Paraguay's anti-drug chief Luis Rojas says marijuana is illegal and farmers should choose other crops as sources of income. He says pot might be more lucrative, but argues that farmers don't depend on it for their survival.

Paraguay: marijuana farmers protest burning of their pot

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko took over control of the country's football association Wednesday ahead of the 2018 World Cup, with promises of government money for the sport.
	The arrival of Mutko, who also oversees Russia's World Cup preparations, comes as Swiss prosecutors investigate alleged corruption in the bidding process for the 2018 tournament.
	Mutko has been a member of FIFA's executive committee since 2009 and played a leading role in Russia's winning bid.
	Mutko was previously Russian Football Union president from 2005 until 2009 and takes over from Nikolai Tolstykh, who was ousted in May after disputes over the organization's debts.
	After he was elected unopposed on Wednesday, Mutko talked up state support for football, saying the government planned to spend 7 billion rubles (USD 100 million) on developing the game.
	"We need to organize a precise system of running football, in order to discover the potential of our football, which is there. That's the most ...

Government minister takes over Russian football

A suspected US drone strike on a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan killed six men, Pakistani intelligence officials said today.
	In a separate incident, gunmen ambushed a police patrol today in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing three police officers and wounding six, said local police official Saeed Khan. No one claimed the attack.
	The two intelligence officials said the compound hit late yesterday in the Shawal area of North Waziristan belonged to Islamic militants loyal to an Afghan warlord and was also frequented by Uzbek fighters.
	The officials say the identity of those killed has not yet been determined. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
	The Pakistani military has been battling militants in Shawal as part of an offensive launched in June 2014 in North Waziristan, a longtime stronghold of al-Qaida and other armed groups along the Afghan border.
	Pakistani military courts have meanwhile convicted and ...

Suspected US drone strike kills 6 in northwest Pakistan

A federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit in California against Uber over the payment of its drivers, upping the stakes for the ride-hailing company in the case.
	Yesterday's ruling increases the number of potential California plaintiffs in the suit that claims Uber drivers are incorrectly classified as independent contractors when they are actually employees.
	"Today's ruling sets the stage for a trial and a legal battle that will have dramatic implications for Uber's business model as well as more generally how independent contractors are viewed under California law," said Lonnie Giamela, a labor lawyer in Los Angeles who has been following the case.
	US District Court Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco made his decision in the lawsuit filed by several current or former Uber drivers. The plaintiffs named in the suit say they are Uber employees and have been shortchanged on expenses and tips.
	Their lawsuit sought class certification on behalf of 160,000 drivers who ...

Court sides with Uber drivers to expand case over pay

China will hold a massive military parade through the heart of its capital, but ordinary folks can't watch.
	Authorities obsessed with security and leery of any possible hitches will virtually shut down central Beijing tomorrow, keeping most people out of eyeshot for the parade commemorating the defeat of Japan in World War II.
	Residents who live along the parade route have received notices ordering them to stay off balconies, keep windows shut, invite no guests and - at some buildings - snap no pictures.
	"I am eager to watch the parade, but I understand it's impossible for everyone to have the chance to see it," said a Beijing lawyer who identified himself only by his surname, Yao. "I think watching the live broadcast will be a good alternative."
	The neighbourhoods around Tiananmen Square, the main venue where President Xi Jinping will inspect the troops with foreign dignitaries, will be under curfew, and Beijing has mobilised 850,000 neighbourhood watchers to report anything even 

China to hold big parade, but ordinary folks can't go see it

India's largest SUV maker is ready to make its debut on US roads. But it's starting with two wheels, not four.
	Mahindra hopes to win over city and campus dwellers with a USD 2,999, Vespa-like electric scooter called the GenZe, which goes on sale this fall in California, Oregon and Michigan.
	Sales could soon expand to other states and Europe.
	If buyers like it, Mahindra could use the GenZe as a springboard into the car market, just as Honda made the leap from motorcycles to cars here in the 1970s.
	The strategy has some risks. Scooters have never been as popular in the US as elsewhere -- people in China buy as many electric scooters in a day as Americans do in a full year, for example. And consumers might not trust Mumbai-based Mahindra, which scrapped an attempt to sell vehicles here five years ago because it couldn't meet US safety standards.
	"The pressure has really been on to make sure that we get this right," says Terence Duncan, the head of customer engagement for the GenZe ..

India SUV maker rides into US market ... On a scooter

A man has been sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for swindling investors with a fake story about a Walt Disney theme park in North Texas.
	The judge also ordered Thomas W Lucas Jr of Plano to pay USD 8.4 million in restitution yesterday.
	Lucas was convicted on seven counts of wire fraud and one count of making false statements to the FBI.
	Prosecutors say Lucas defrauded more than 280 investors out of about USD 20 million from 2006 to 2010.
	Those who paid for land in Collin and Denton counties were told it was on the edges of the future park. Investors hoped to sell the land to developers for a profit after Disney made an announcement.
	The Walt Disney Co has denied rumors of a North Texas theme park.

Texas man gets 17 years in prison in fake Disney park scam

Malicious software targeting smartphones with the Android operating system is becoming more common, with some handsets already infected when they're bought.
	A report by German security firm G DATA found that the samples containing such malware had increased by 25 per cent in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year.
	The company's 10th such report, released today, found that analysts could identify a new strain of malware every 14 seconds.
	It says some phones by manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi contain modified apps designed to spy on users or display advertising.
	G DATA spokesman Christian Lueg says the phones appear to have been installed by middlemen, but in tracing the source "we lost the trail in China."
	Users can detect the malware with free software.

Report: Malware targeting Android smartphones on the rise

More than a dozen hard-line Iranian students have unveiled an anti-American plaque at the gate of the former US Embassy in Tehran.
	The plaque unveiled today by the Basij paramilitary forces carries a list of condemnations of America uttered by the Islamic republic's late founder, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
	During the gathering, the students set fire to US, British and Israeli flags.
	Iran and the US have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when Iranian students stormed the embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
	Hard-liners in Iran have stepped up displays of anti-American fervor since the signing of a landmark nuclear agreement with Washington and five world powers last month.

Iranian hard-liners unveil anti-US plaque at former embassy

Swiss drug maker Novartis says it will cooperate with California-based biotech giant Amgen to develop and sell neuroscience treatments for illnesses and ailments like Alzheimer's disease and migraine headaches.
	A Novartis statement released late yesterday said that as part of the deal, Amgen will make initial payments and cover some research and development costs at the start with regard to the BACE inhibitor program for treatment of Alzheimer's. That will be followed by a 50-50 cost and profit sharing arrangement.
	As for migraine, Novartis will fund some R&D expenses for an agreed period and pay Amgen double-digit royalties on sales. The Basel-based company will also receive some commercialization and co-development rights to "the investigative molecules in Amgen's migraine portfolio."
	Specific financial terms were not disclosed.

Novartis, Amgen partner on Alzheimer's, migraine treatment

Masked men in military uniforms kidnapped 18 Turkish employees of an Ankara-based construction company in Baghdad early today, bundling them into several SUVs and speeding away, Iraqi and Turkish officials said.
	They said the 18 are employed by Nurol Insaat, a Turkish construction company contracted to build a sports complex in the sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City. The kidnappers stormed the construction site, where the workers were sleeping in caravans, breaking down doors and disarming the guards before taking the workers away.
	The Iraqi officials said an Iraqi national was kidnapped along with the Turks.
	Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tanju Bilgic said those kidnapped included 14 workers, three engineers and one accountant. He said the kidnappers specifically targeted Turkish nationals, picking them out from the rest and leaving behind workers from other countries.
	There were no reports of violence.
	Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus confirmed the ...

Masked men kidnap 18 Turkish workers in Baghdad

If an Air Koryo passenger ignores its no-photography rule, a flight attendant might take the camera and delete the pictures herself. Crumpling up a newspaper bearing the image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can earn travelers a stern lecture, or worse.
	Those are among many quirks that may help explain why North Korea's airline has earned a singular distinction: It's been ranked the world's worst airline for four straight years.
	Air Koryo is the only carrier to have been awarded just one star in rankings released recently by the UK-based SkyTrax consultancy agency. More than 180 airlines are included in the five-star ranking system, which is widely considered the global benchmark of airline standards.
	Some experts and frequent Air Koryo passengers disagree with the "world's worst" title. The airline is a definitely a unique ride, but fairly reliable, they say. The SkyTrax ratings are focused on service and not safety.
	"It's a bit of a giggle, actually. They are clearly not the .

Is N Korean airline world's worst? It may be the quirkiest

Masked men in military uniforms kidnapped 16 Turkish workers and engineers in Baghdad today, bundling them into several SUVs and speeding away, Iraqi security officials said.
	They said the 16 are employed by a Turkish construction company contracted to build a sports complex in the sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City. The kidnappers stormed the construction site, where the workers were sleeping in caravans, and disarmed the guards before taking the workers away.
	There were no reports of violence.
	The Turkish Foreign Ministry confirmed that 16 Turkish nationals were kidnapped in Baghdad and said it was in constant contact with Iraqi authorities over the incident. It said that for security reasons it cannot reveal details on the workers or who employed them.
	Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan told The Associated Press that authorities are investigating the incident and that a contingent of security forces has been tasked with tracking down the kidnappers.
	The Iraqi officials .

Masked men kidnap 16 Turkish workers in Baghdad

A man who spent nearly 25 years on Missouri's death row was executed for the kidnapping, rape and stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl.
	Roderick Nunley, 50, became the sixth death row inmate to be put to death in Missouri this year. During the execution, his breathing became labored for a few seconds. He briefly opened his mouth before becoming still.
	He was pronounced dead at 9:09 pm CDT yesterday.
	"Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber," Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."
	Of 20 executions nationally in 2015, all but four have been in Missouri and Texas. Nunley's execution was delayed by last-minute appeals from attorneys for death penalty opponents in Missouri questioning the competence of Nunley's lawyer.
	Nunley made no final statement and no one witnessed his ..

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