Heavy fighting raged around the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria today as rebels pressed their offensive against the government stronghold.
	An array of armed opposition groups have advanced through the outskirts of Idlib, the provincial capital and home to some 165,000 people, since launching their campaign Tuesday.
	Rebels have long controlled most of the surrounding towns and countryside, but President Bashar Assad's forces have maintained their hold on the city.
	The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels have seized at least 17 checkpoints and military outposts from pro-Assad troops. It said at least 11 government fighters and 17 rebels have been killed over the past 24 hours.
	The offensive is being led by several groups, including al-Qaida's branch in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, as well as the ultra-conservative Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa groups.
	A photograph posted today on a Twitter account run by the Nusra Front's Idlib unit showed ...

Heavy fighting rages around Syrian city of Idlib

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Nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran entered a critical phase today with US Secretary of State John Kerry meeting his Iranian counterpart less than a week away from an end-of-month deadline to secure the outline of a deal.
	With the clock ticking, Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and their teams huddled today in the Swiss resort town of Lausanne on Lake Geneva trying to overcome still significant gaps after nearly two years of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.
	The top diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia are expected to join the talks if the US and Iran are close to an agreement.
	US officials say the March 31 deadline is achievable but remains uncertain. En route to Switzerland with Kerry yesterday, one official said the American side "can see a path forward to get to agreement" by the end of March as the last round of talks produced more progress than many ..

US, Iran nuke talks enter critical round ahead of deadline

Police say at least 14 people were killed and 28 others were injured when scaffolding collapsed at a construction site in central Vietnam.
	Deputy police chief in Ha Tinh province, Bui Dinh Quang, said today that all the victims were Vietnamese subcontractors hired to work on a seaport breakwater project led by Samsung C&T Corp, a unit of Samsung Corp of South Korea.
	Quang says it is not known if any more workers are trapped in the rubble. Police and rescue workers are searching through the rubble trying to find any survivors from the yesterday night accident.
	The Son Duong seaport is part of the Vung Ang economic zone where Taiwan's Formosa Corp. Is building a multi-billion dollar steel complex.

14 killed in scaffolding collapse in central Vietnam

The US Army sergeant who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held captive by the Taliban could face up to life in prison if convicted of both the charges he is facing, military officials have said.
	Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was charged with misbehavior before the enemy, which carries a maximum sentence of up to life in prison. He was also charged with desertion, which carries a maximum of five years.
	Bergdahl could also face a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank and forfeiture of all his pay if convicted.
	The case now goes to an Article 32 hearing to be held at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. That proceeding is similar to an investigating jury. From there, it could be referred to a court-martial and go to trial.
	A date for that hearing was not announced.
	The charges are the latest development in a long and bitter debate over Bergdahl's case. They also underscore the military and political ramifications of his decision on June 30, 2009, to leave his post after expressing ...

US military: Bergdahl may face life in prison if convicted

At Iraq's request, the US has began airstrikes in Tikrit in support of a stalled Iraqi ground offensive to retake the city from Islamic State fighters, a senior US official said.
	The airstrikes were "ongoing," the official said without providing details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the attacks had not yet been officially announced.
	An Associated Press correspondent in Tikrit reported hearing warplanes overhead late yesterday, followed by multiple explosions.
	Iraq began the Tikrit ground offensive in early March without requesting US air support, even as it welcomed help from Iran.
	In an address to the nation yesterday evening, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi predicted success in Tikrit but did not say the US was providing airstrikes.
	"We have started the final phase of the operation in Tikrit," he said. "You will liberate your ground, not anyone but you," he said, in a speech to the Iraqi people.
	Al-Abadi praised all the groups involved in the battle ...

US conducting airstrikes to help Iraq retake Tikrit

Ukrainian officials say a bus accidentally hit a land mine in eastern Ukraine, killing 4 and wounding 11 people.
	The Ukrainian Interior Ministry's branch for the Donetsk region said the explosion occurred yesterday when a bus traveling from Artemivsk to Horlivka took a turn to bypass a checkpoint and hit a land mine on a dirt road. It posted photos of the bus badly disfigured by the blast, its side panel torn off.
	The regional administration appointed by the Ukrainian government said on Twitter that the wounded have been taken to a hospital in Artemivsk.
	Large areas in eastern Ukraine have been covered with land mines following fierce battles between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces. More than 6,000 people have been killed since the conflict flared up in April.

4 killed when bus hit land mine in eastern Ukraine

Amanda Knox's defense lawyer urged Italy's highest court on Wednesday to overturn the American's conviction in the 2007 murder of her British roommate, calling it a "grave judicial error."
	Knox faces 28 years in an Italian jail for the 2007 murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in an apartment they shared in the university town of Perugia, after being convicted by a Florence appeals court last year along with her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
	Sollecito's defense will make its case on Friday, when the case resumes before the Court of Cassation.
	Winding up Wednesday's full day of arguments, Knox defense lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said the Florence court's conviction of Knox "is not justice, it is a distortion of the facts."
	He argued, that based on analysis of blood stains, including two handprints on the victim's pillow, in Kercher's room and elsewhere in the house the two women shared, "there is not one trace of Amanda in the room of the crime."
	"We are confronted 

Knox defense calls conviction grave error

Here in this Persian replica of Mecca, built at the cost of millions of dollars, an Iranian film company is attempting to offer the world a literal glimpse of the Prophet Muhammad despite traditional taboos against it.
	The movie "Muhammad, Messenger of God" already recalls the grandeur and expense of a Cecil B DeMille film, with the narrow alleyways and a replica Kaaba shrine built here in the remote village of Allahyar.
	But by even showing the back of the Prophet Muhammad as a child before he was called upon by Allah, the most expensive film in Iranian history already has been criticised before its even widely released, calling into question who ultimately will see the Quranic story come to life on the big screen.
	In American cinematic history, films involving the Bible often find the biggest audience and box office returns.
	Biblical stories have inspired dozens of films from the 1920s all the way to recent blockbusters like "Noah" starring Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott's ...

Iran film portrays the Prophet Muhammad

With Yemen's president swept out of power by Shiite rebels, neighboring Saudi Arabia and allies such as Egypt are considering whether and how to intervene to stop a takeover of the country by rebels they believe are backed by Shiite Iran.
	President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has asked Gulf countries for military intervention and asked the United Nations to set up a no-fly zone to shut down rebel-held airports that he claims are being used to fly in Iranian weapons. The question is how Arab nations might act: Experts say a ground operation would be a likely impossibly daunting task, but that airstrikes are an option.
	Gulf intervention would have been hard enough when Hadi was clinging to his authority after fleeing from the capital Sanaa to the southern port city of Aden. But it became an even tougher issue today, when Hadi was forced to flee Yemen by boat as rebel fighters, known as Houthis, and their allies advanced into Aden.
	The Houthis now control much of the north and a few ...

Saudis, Egypt consider intervention in Yemen, likely by air

A US official says the Army sergeant who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years will be court martialed on charges of desertion and avoiding military service.
	Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will also be charged with misbehavior before the enemy, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the announcement publicly on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.
	The US military plans an announcement later.
	Bergdahl walked away from his post in Afghanistan and was captured, then released from Taliban capture in a prisoner exchange.
	Gen. Mark Milley, head of US Army Forces Command, has been reviewing the massive case files and had a broad range of legal options, including various degrees of desertion charges.
	A major consideration was whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of returning to his unit a key element in the more serious desertion charges.

Official: US military to charge Bergdahl with desertion

British Prime Minister David Cameron has apologised to patients who were infected from a contaminated blood scandal during the 1970s and 1980s.
	Tainted government blood products and transfusions infected thousands of people with the hepatitis C virus and HIV from 1970 to 1991 -- one of the worst treatment disasters in the history of Britain's public health care system.
	Cameron's apology today came after a six-year official inquiry into the scandal was completed. The probe said more should have been done to screen blood and donors, but concluded there were few things that could have been handled differently. It offered a single recommendation: That anyone who had a blood transfusion before 1991 be tested for hepatitis C.
	Victims' families reacted angrily, with some calling the probe a "whitewash.

UK leader Cameron apologizes for tainted blood scandal

A minister in Central African Republic was arrested this week on charges he raped a teenager earlier this year, a prosecutor confirmed today.
	Romaric Vomitiade, the minister for tourism, arts and culture, was arrested Monday night and has been in custody since. He is accused of raping a 16-year-old while visiting Yaloke, in the country's northwest, in January. Vomitiade has denied the accusations, suggesting they are politically motivated.
	Prosecutor Maurice Dibert Dollet said Wednesday that Vomitiade would soon be presented to a judge.
	President Catherine Samba-Panza lifted the minister's diplomatic immunity last month to pave the way for the arrest. Central African Republic has been rocked by violence since the mostly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition toppled the longtime president in 2013.
	 Widespread human rights abuses committed by Seleka led to the formation of the anti-Balaka Christian militia and plunged the country into sectarian fighting.
	Samba-Panza is now leading a ...

Prosecutor: Central African minister arrested for rape

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, struck a conciliatory tone today as he was formally tapped to form a new government, vowing to heal rifts in Israeli society and fix ties with the United States following an acrimonious election campaign.
	Netanyahu's comments appeared to be aimed at repairing the damage caused by comments he made in the final days of the campaign that strained ties with the United States and drew accusations of racism from the country's Arab minority.
	"I will work to mend the rifts opened between different parts of society during these elections," Netanyahu said.
	Seeking to shore up support among his hard-line voters in the final hours of the campaign, Netanyahu said he would not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state on his watch and warned them that Arab voters were heading to the polls "in droves."
	The comments angered the US, which has made Palestinian statehood a major policy goal, and offended Israeli Arabs. His attempts at damage control, 

Israel's Netanyahu tapped to form new government

Iran's atomic energy chief said good progress has been made in nuclear negotiations with world powers, as a critical round of talks begins, the official IRNA news agency reported.
	Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, is heading to Lausanne, Switzerland as part of a negotiating team led by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
	The negotiators are working to meet a self-imposed deadline for a preliminary agreement by the end of March. The talks are focused on an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of harsh international economic sanctions.
	IRNA quoted Salehi as saying that Tehran is seeking a win-win agreement, while Zarif has stated that a full lifting of all sanctions is a red-line condition for any deal.
	"We have had good negotiations and now have reached a stage that needs a serious decision and we hope that the other side can make the proper decision," Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said on Wednesday. ...

Iran says progress has been made as nuclear talks resume

French investigators cracked open a mangled black box and extracted audio from its cockpit voice recorder today, but gleaned no explanation for why a German plane dropped unexpectedly and smashed into a rugged Alpine mountain, killing all 150 on board.
	The orange cockpit voice recorder, dented, twisted and scarred by the impact, is considered the key to knowing why the pilots of Germanwings Flight 9525 lost radio contact with air traffic controllers over the French Alps then crashed yesterday during a routine flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.
	French officials said terrorism appeared unlikely, and Germany's top security official said today there was no evidence of foul play.
	Remi Jouty, director of the French aviation investigative agency, said an audio file was recovered this afternoon, including sounds and voices. But he said it was too early to draw any conclusions from the recorder, which takes audio feeds from four microphones in the cockpit and records all the ...

France gets audio from jet's black box, hunts for 2nd one

Comcast says it expects its USD 45 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable to take longer because of a long-running regulatory review.
	The country's largest cable company wants to buy Time Warner, the No. 2 cable provider, to create an Internet and TV giant that will serve nearly 30 percent of cable TV subscribers and more than half of high-speed Internet subscribers.
	The Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department are still reviewing the deal, which was announced in February 2014.
	Comcast said in a blog post Wednesday that it now expects the FCC's review to finish in the middle of the year. It had predicted the deal would close in early 2015. The FCC has delayed its review due to a related court case that is pending.

Comcast says USD 45 Billion Time Warner Cable deal to take

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has denied former Liberian President Charles Taylor's request to serve his 50-year sentence for war crimes in Rwanda, rather than Britain.
	Taylor was convicted in April 2012 of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding murderous rebels in Sierra Leone's civil war.
	Taylor argued that detention in Britain violates his rights because the visa process will make it nearly impossible for his family to visit. He also complained about the conditions of his detention.
	The court denied his request in a decision made public Wednesday, saying Britain's denial of his family's visa application did not violate his rights. It said that his wife simply had not met visa requirements and had ignored offers to help her to reapply.

War crimes tribunal: Charles Taylor to stay in British jail

Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled the country by sea today on a boat from Aden, as Shiite rebels and their allies advanced on the southern port city where he had taken refuge, captured his defence minister and seized the city's airport.
	Hadi's departure marks a dramatic turn in Yemen's turmoil and means a decisive collapse of what was left of his rule, which the United States and Gulf allies had hoped could stabilise the chronically chaotic nation and fight al-Qaida's branch here after the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.
	Over the past year, the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are believed to be supported by Iran, have battled their way out of their northern strongholds, overwhelmed the capital, Sanaa, seized province after province in the north and worked their way south. Their advance has been boosted by units of the military and security forces that remained loyal to Saleh, who allied with the rebels.
	With Hadi gone, there remains resistance ..

Yemen's president flees country by sea amid rebel advance

Wells Fargo will close its home lending servicing office in Milwaukee and eliminate 1,000 jobs, saying fewer homeowners are falling behind on payments and seeking help keeping their homes.
	In an emailed statement, Wells Fargo & Co. Said Wednesday that as the economy has improved over the last two years, it has received fewer delinquent payments, and fewer customers have required assistance staying in their homes. The company says it will continue to offer assistance to borrowers facing financial hardship.
	Wells Fargo will close the office in late July. It says it will inform employees of other job opportunities within the company.
	The San Francisco company has about 265,000 employees. Its shares slipped 64 cents to USD 54.71 in afternoon trading, but have risen 13 percent over the last 12 months.

Wells Fargo cutting 1,000 jobs as it closes Milwaukee office

A Pennsylvania man recovering from surgery has won USD 7 million off a lottery ticket tucked into his get-well card.
	Joseph Amorese got the ticket from his father, who lives in New York state.
	Amorese had just undergone surgery. A few scratches later on the "USD 7 million Golden Ticket," and he was feeling great. He sent a photo of the ticket to his dad, who agreed that it was a winner.
	The 46-year-old Verizon employee then called his wife, a social worker. When he said, "Honey, I think we won USD 7 million," he was met by a long, stunned silence.
	Lottery officials presented Amorese with a ceremonial check Wednesday.
	The ticket was purchased at a store in New York state.

Feel-good tale: Man gets USD 7 Million lottery ticket in

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, trying to repair relations with the US, told Congress today that his country owes a "profound debt" to the more than 2,200 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
	In a speech to a joint meeting of Congress, Ghani also thanked the US for development aid and other civilian assistance. And he promised he will be a good steward of continued US assistance to his country as it works to rebuild while struggling against a stubborn insurgency.
	"We owe a profound debt to the soldiers who have lost limbs to buried bombs, to the brave veterans, and to the families who tragically lost their loved ones to the enemy's cowardly acts of terror," Ghani said.
	"We owe a profound debt to the many Americans who have come to build schools, repair wells, and cure the sick. And we must acknowledge with appreciation that at the end of the day it is the ordinary Americans whose hard-earned taxes have over the years built the partnership that has led to our conversation ...

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