The Dutch justice ministry says about 190 people have traveled from the Netherlands to fight in overseas "jihadi conflicts," some 35 have returned home and 30 have been killed.
	The ministry published the latest figures today without a specific breakdown of what countries the 190 had traveled to.
	Most are believed to have gone to Syria and Iraq. It also maintained its terror threat level at the second-highest: "substantial."
	The latest threat assessment says that, although there are no "concrete signs" of possible attacks, deadly terror incidents in Paris and Copenhagen and a foiled plot in neighboring Belgium "underscore ... The threat against Europe and therefore also against the Netherlands."
	The assessment says that not only retuning fighters pose a threat but also Islamic extremists who remain in the West.

Dutch justice ministry: 190 people have left to fight jihad

PTI Automatic

London police say heavy cutting equipment has been used to break into a vault containing safety deposit boxes in the Hatton Garden jewelry district.
	Police said today that a number of safe deposit boxes were broken into.
	Police said the burglary was reported this morning when jewelers opened for business.
	It is not clear how many items are missing or how valuable they are. Detective are searching the scene and looking for clues.
	Hatton Garden is home to London's diamond trade and to other types of gem specialists.

UK police report robbery of safety boxes in jewelry district

A new poll says that Americans are divided over Japan playing a more active military role in Asia, 70 years after the US defeat of Japan in World War II.
	It also found that most Japanese oppose the idea.
	The Pew Research Centre survey released today comes as the two countries are finalising a revision of their mutual defence guidelines that is expected to expand the scope of Japan's military activities in the region.
	The telephone survey of 1,000 Americans and 1,000 Japanese also found a high degree of trust between the two nations.
	That's a shift from the animosity that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s when the two countries were embroiled in trade disputes.

Poll: Americans divided over Japan's military role in Asia

FedEx has agreed to take over Dutch delivery company TNT Express for 4.4 billion euros (USD 4.8 billion), bolstering its global business with an acquisition that rival UPS had attempted -- but failed -- to complete two years ago.
	FedEx said today it has reached a conditional agreement with TNT Express' management on an all-cash offer of eight euros (USD 8.75) per TNT share.
	That represents a premium of 33 per cent over the share's April 2 closing price, the companies said.
	The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2016, pending shareholder approval. Dutch postal company PostNL, which owns a 14.7 per cent stake in TNT Express, said it supports the bid.
	The deal comes two years after United Parcel Service Inc dropped its own 5.2 billion-euro takeover bid for the Dutch company, citing objections by European Union regulators worried about the company becoming too dominant.
	TNT Express and FedEx said they are "confident that anti-trust concerns, if any, can be addressed ...

FedEx agrees to take over Dutch rival TNT Express

The Islamic State group has launched English-language radio news bulletins on its al-Bayan radio network.
	The militant group's English bulletin, launched today and promoted via Twitter, accompanies Arabic and Russian bulletins already airing on the network.
	The first bulletin, which provided an overview of their activities in Iraq, Syria and Libya, discussed a range of topics including the alleged death of an IS commander in the Yarmouk refugee camp in the Syrian capital, Damascus, a suicide bombing in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk and mortar attacks on militias in Sirte, Libya.
	The Islamic State militants hold territory in a third of Iraq and Syria and are becoming increasingly active in Libya. The group also publishes a monthly online English-language magazine, Dabiq, with religious lessons, plus news about its activities.

Islamic State launches English-language radio bulletins

The Turkish Coast Guard says it has recovered the bodies of eight migrants who drowned after a wooden migrant boat has sunk in the Aegean off the Turkish coast of Datca.
	The Coast Guard boats rescued nine other people. A boat and a helicopter were still searching for three missing people.
	The Coast Guard did not provide information on the migrants' nationalities or say where they were heading. Datca is close to the Greek islands of Rhodes and Cos. The state-run Anadolu Agency said that the dead included migrants from Syria and Iraq.
	The Coast Guard said it had rescued a total of 152 migrants from the sea between April 3-6, in six separate rescue operations off the coasts of Didim, Bodrum, Datca and Izmir.

8 migrants drown after boat sinks off Turkish coast

An Israeli security official says the Israeli military was responsible for the death of a Spanish UN peacekeeper during an outbreak of violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants on the tense Israel-Lebanon border in January.
	The official said today that Cpl Francisco Javier Soria Toledo was accidentally killed by Israeli artillery following a Hezbollah attack that killed two Israeli soldiers.
	The official says Israel did not intend to harm UN forces. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to reporters.
	After the incident, Spain's UN ambassador blamed Israel and the UN Security Council condemned the killing. A UN diplomat said Israel apologised to Spain, but Israel had not publicly admitted responsibility.
	Israel's military presented its investigation of the incident to the Spanish army.

Official: Israeli fire killed UN peacekeeper in January

A man and his seven children found dead in their Maryland home were poisoned by carbon monoxide from a generator they were using after the power company cut off their electricity, a couple who identified themselves as the man's mother and stepfather has said.
	Police found the bodies at the home in Princess Anne after being contacted by a concerned co-worker of the father, who had not been seen for days, Princess Anne police said in a news release yesterday.
	They identified the deceased only as an adult and seven young people ages 6 to the teens. They said the cause of the deaths was still under investigation.
	Bonnie and Lloyd Edwards, encountered outside the home by a reporter from The Associated Press, identified themselves as the mother and stepfather of Rodney Todd, 36, whom they identified as the adult who died. They said Todd had seven children, including five girls and two boys. The Edwardses said police told them the family died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
	Bonnie Edwards .

Relatives: Man, kids died from carbon monoxide poisoning

Iraqi forensic teams in the newly liberated city of Tikrit have started exhuming bodies from mass graves believed to contain some of the hundreds of soldiers killed by Islamic State militants last year, a government spokesman said today.
	Kamil Amin, from Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, said the work started on Monday on eight locations inside Tikrit's complex of presidential palaces, where much of the killing is believed to have taken place.
	IS militants overran Saddam Hussein's hometown last June, capturing around 1,700 soldiers as they were trying to flee Camp Speicher, an air base previously used by US troops on the outskirt of Tikrit.
	The fall of Tikrit was part of the IS onslaught that stunned Iraqi security forces and the military, which melted away as the militants advanced and captured key cities and towns in the country's north and west.
	Later, the Islamic State group posted graphic images online that appeared to show its gunmen massacring scores of the soldiers after ...

Iraqi teams start exhuming mass grave of soldiers in Tikrit

More than 1,00,000 people in Yemen have left their homes in search of safety and at least 74 children have been killed since fighting in the country intensified almost two weeks ago, the UN children's agency said.
	UNICEF said the violence has disrupted water supplies in areas of southern Yemen and that sewage is overflowing in some locations, raising the risk of disease outbreak.
	Hospitals are struggling to treat large numbers of wounded with insufficient supplies and some medical facilities have come under attack, the agency. It said at least three health workers, including an ambulance driver, have been killed in attacks.
	Children are especially vulnerable, said the agency's Yemen representative, Julien Harneis.
	"They are being killed, maimed and forced to flee their homes, their health threatened and their education interrupted," Harneis said in a statement, released yesterday in Amman, Jordan.
	The agency said at least 74 children have been killed and 44 wounded since March ...

UN agency says at least 74 children killed in Yemen fighting

Vietnam sent a high-ranking delegation of Communist Party officials and Cabinet ministers to China today as the countries seek to mend relations strained by the giant northern neighbour's deployment of an oil rig last year in disputed waters.
	The four-day trip was led by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh and Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang, the party said in a brief statement on its website.
	The Communist Party's Nhan Dan newspaper said in a front page editorial that Trong's visit "creates favourable conditions" to resolve problems between the countries, although it did not mention the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
	Relations between the communist neighbours plunged to its lowest point in years after China parked a giant oil right last May near the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam.
	The incident triggered a near breakdown in ties and sparked the risk of a naval ...

Vietnam officials visit China to mend ties after rig spat

Armed men have abducted the mayor of a southern Philippine town from her house and fled with her on motorboats, officials said today.
	Five armed men kidnapped Mayor Gemma Adana of Naga, a coastal town in the southern province of Zamboanga Sibugay, from her house while she was with friends late yesterday, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said.
	Roxas condemned the abduction and said a manhunt was underway. A provincial crisis committee has been convened.
	Naga police officer Wilprim Timsan says the unidentified abductors have so far not communicated with Adana's family nor made any ransom demand.
	Abu Sayyaf militants, kidnap gangs and other criminal groups operate in the province.
	Police said five men barged into the mayor's house while a sixth, who operated their boat, waited.
	The military said the kidnappers headed toward the mountainous Kaliantana Island, which is part of the Naga municipality, where three children abducted late March from nearby Zamboanga del Sur province also were 

Gunmen abduct mayor of southern Philippine town

The Palestinians are "ready and willing" to see if the UN Security Council has "the political will" to adopt a resolution with a deadline for ending Israel's occupation and establishing a Palestinian state, the Palestinian UN ambassador has said.
	Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters yesterday that adoption of a resolution with a timetable would be "one of the most effective measures to combat extremism in our region, because extremists receive their fuel from the injustice of the Palestinian people."
	"If there is a just solution to this conflict ... In a short period of time, then you'll take away from them the main source of recruitment and mobilization," he said, adding that it would also contribute to resolving perhaps 70 per cent of the "burning issues in the Middle East."
	Mansour said the United States holds the key.
	US President Barack Obama has said he will reassess US policy toward Israel following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comment before last month's .

Palestinians want UN timetable to end Israeli occupation

A fourth man has been charged in a terrorism case accusing him of raising money for a plot to have US residents travel overseas to fight for the Islamic State group.
	Dilkhayot Kasimov was named with three other previously charged defendants in a revised indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday. He faces charges of conspiracy and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organisation.
	Prosecutors accused Kasimov of working closely with another man, Abror Habibov, to raise USD 1,600 for a third, Akhror Saidakhmetov, to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Saidakhmetov was carrying the cash when he was intercepted at John F Kennedy International Airport on February 25 trying to board a flight to Turkey, court papers say.
	After being detained on immigration charges, Kasimov admitted he delivered the money to the 19-year-old Saidakhmetov and knew that the teen "might be" traveling to Syria, court papers say. .

4th man charged in NYC over Islamic State recruitment plot

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko publicly lifted his objections to a referendum that could give more powers to the restive regions engulfed in more than a year of warfare, reversing his government's previous position.
	Russia-backed separatists, however, dismissed Poroshenko's gesture as meaningless.
	The conflict between Russia-backed rebels and government troops in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 6,000 lives. When it began, protesters in the east demanded a vote on giving their regions more autonomy. Such calls were rejected by the Ukrainian government at the time.
	But Poroshenko yesterday met a parliamentary commission that is drafting amendments to the country's constitution and said in a televised meeting that if the commission decides a referendum is necessary, he wouldn't stand in the way.
	"I'm ready to launch a referendum on the issue of state governance if you decide it is necessary," he said. The president added that he was sure Ukrainians would support a strong, 

Ukrainian leader lifts objections to vote on regional power

Lufthansa indicated today that it was under no obligation to report to Germany's national aviation authority the fact that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had suffered from depression before qualifying as a pilot several years ago.
	Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper quoted the Federal Aviation Office as saying that it wasn't informed about Lubitz's previous depression before the March 24 crash of Flight 9525.
	Investigators believe that Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit and deliberately flew the Airbus A320 into a French mountainside during the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf. All 150 people on board were killed.
	Lufthansa has said Lubitz informed its flight school when he returned from a several-month break in pilot training in 2009 that he had experienced an episode of "severe depression." It has said he subsequently passed all medical tests.
	The Federal Aviation Office said a Lufthansa medical center issued a fit-to-fly certificate in 2009 and sent it ..

Lufthansa indicates not required to report Lubitz depression

A South African teenager was taken off an airline flight because the 15-year-old girl was suspected to be leaving her home in Cape Town to join the Islamic State group, state security officials said today.
	The girl was found at the Cape Town International Airport yesterday, said State Security spokesman Brian Dube. It is believed that she was planning to travel to Saudi Arabia.
	"There was information we were able to get that showed she might have been in contact with recruiters," said Dube.
	Security officials found documents in her home that showed she had been planning to join the military group.
	The girl was questioned and then returned to her family's care, he said. The girl's family was also debriefed before she was sent home.
	The State Security department is investigating how the teenager had paid for the flight and how she may have been recruited. Her parents discovered she was missing last morning and alerted the authorities, according to local media reports.
	South ...

Official: South African teen stopped from leaving to join IS

A pastor who played a key role in the American civil rights movement has died.
	The Progressive National Baptist Convention says the Rev. Gardner Taylor died yesterday. He was 96 and lived in North Carolina.
	Taylor was the grandson of former slaves who gained national prominence as pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn.
	Taylor was known for his preaching voice, which experts compared to an organ with all the stops pulled out. Around 1960, he sided with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In a pivotal dispute among black clergy about whether King was too liberal. Taylor and King went on to help form the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
	Taylor was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000.

Gardner Taylor, preacher and civil rights figure, dies at 96

The Palestinian UN ambassador is urging the UN Security Council to take action to ensure safe passage for up to 18,000 Palestinians besieged in a refugee camp in the Syrian capital.
	The council held an emergency meeting today on the crisis at the Yarmouk camp, which is now mainly controlled by the Islamic State group.
	The Palestinian ambassador, Riyad Mansour, told reporters that saving the refugees is his government's top priority. He appealed to all nations to help the refugees relocate to safer areas in Syria or in other countries.
	Mansour said about 2,000 of the estimated 18,000 refugees in Yarmouk had made it to safety on their own.
	The Security Council was being briefed behind closed doors by the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Pierre Krahenbuhl.

Palestinians urge UN to ensure safety of besieged refugees

Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to launch her campaign for US president sometime in the next two weeks and will initially focus on intimate events, rather than soaring speeches to big rallies.
	The goal, according to two people close to the Clinton organization, is to make Clinton's second run for the White House more about voters and less about herself.
	While it appears at this moment Clinton will not face a tough primary challenge in 2016, she is aiming to show voters she plans to earn their support and won't take the Democratic Party's nomination for granted.
	Clinton, who served as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state, has quickly emerged as the favorite for her party's nomination.
	The field is more open on the Republican side, though former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have gained momentum as they take key steps toward launching campaigns. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who became the first major Republican to enter the race, is expected to ...

Clinton to start 2016 bid with focus on voter interaction

Pope Francis today again pressed the international community to do something about the killing of Christians in several parts of the world and not "look the other way."
	He has been increasingly vocal about the fate of Christians being targeted by Islamic extremists in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
	Addressing pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square, Francis praised those who were "sensitizing public opinion about the persecution of Christians in the world."
	While not suggesting any particular course of action, he urged "concrete participation and tangible help in defense and protection of our brothers and our sisters, who are persecuted, exiled, slain, beheaded, solely for being Christian."
	The pope was building on his Good Friday denunciation of what he then called "complicit silence" about the targeting of Christians.
	"They are our martyrs of today, and they are many. We can say that they are more numerous than in the first centuries," Francis said.
	"I hope that 

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