A British jihadi who faked his own death in an apparent bid to make it easier to return to England unnoticed faces prison after pleading guilty to terrorism offenses.
	Imran Khawaja was arrested when he tried to return to Britain last year after attending a terrorist training camp in Syria and being photographed holding a man's severed head.
	His guilty plea at the Old Bailey courthouse last month could not be reported until today when reporting restrictions were lifted.
	He had admitted preparation of terrorist acts, attending a terrorism training camp, receiving weapons training and possessing a firearm for terrorism use.
	The court was shown a smartphone photograph of Khawaja, 27, in combat gear and a balaclava sitting on a tank with a rifle, and other incriminating photographs of his time in Syria, including one that showed him at a training camp carrying an assault rifle.
	Khawaja, from Southall, west London, had asked his taxi-driver cousin Tahir Bhatti, 44, to pick him up in ...

British jihadi faces prison after admitting terrorism acts

PTI Automatic

The White House chief of staff is taking the blame for not having a top-level official at an anti-terror solidarity rally earlier this month in Paris.
	Appearing on a nationally broadcast interview today, Denis McDonough noted that the White House has said that it regrets the misstep. The decision, he said, "rests on me. That's my job."
	The Obama administration came under sharp criticism for not sending a high-level representative to the march, which was attended by more than 40 world leaders and more than a million people.
	The US ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was the top American official at the rally.
	McDonough said he regretted it in particular because the stir of criticism that it caused "covered up and obfuscated the very good progress that our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement, FBI and DOJ" have made with their French and European counterparts on confronting the threat of terrorism. McDonough spoke on NBC's "Today Show."
	The Paris rally was attended by several 

White House chief of staff shoulders blame for Paris snub

Scientists have succeeded in reading parts of an ancient scroll that was buried in a volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago, holding out the promise that the world's oldest surviving library may one day reveal all of its secrets.
	The scroll is among hundreds retrieved from the remains of a lavish villa at Herculaneum, which along with Pompeii was one of several Roman towns that were destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.
	Some of the texts from what is called the Villa of the Papyri have been deciphered since they were discovered in the 1750s.
	But many more remain a mystery to science because they were so badly damaged that unrolling the papyrus they were written on would have destroyed them completely.
	"The papyri were completely covered in blazing-hot volcanic material," said Vito Mocella, a theoretical scientist at the Institute of Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR) in Naples who led the latest project.
	Previous attempts to peer inside the scrolls failed to yield .

X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by volcano

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court condemns the escalation in "appalling levels" of violence in Nigeria's northeastern Islamic uprising and warns she will prosecute members of any party to the conflict most responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
	A statement Tuesday from Fatou Bensouda says her office is continuing to investigate allegations Boko Haram extremists are killing large numbers of civilians, using girls and boys to participate in the conflict and forcing massive numbers of people from their homes.
	She also warns the government of Nigeria of its obligation to prosecute crimes that "deeply shock the conscience of humanity."
	Both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military are accused of summary executions of civilians in the 5-year uprising that killed more than 10,000 people last year.

ICC: We will prosecute crimes in Nigerian Islamic uprising

Cameroon's government says that more than 10,000 panic-stricken Cameroonians have fled areas that border Nigeria for safer locations in the wake of attacks by Nigeria's Islamic militant group Boko Haram.
	The minister of territorial administration and decentralization Rene Emmanuel Sadi said Tuesday a humanitarian food crisis looms because the extremist insurgents have looted food and livestock.
	Cameroon's minister of education Monouna Fotso said more than 10 schools had been deserted since Sunday's attack on Mabass village in northern Cameroon in which three people were killed and dozens kidnapped.
	 He said that 140 schools have closed because of the attacks. Fotso said the government is trying to accommodate the affected students.
	Boko Haram has, in the past month, raided at least two dozen villages and towns in Cameroon.

10,000 Cameroonians flee inland after Boko Haram attacks

The US Supreme Court today sided with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in the company's high-profile patent dispute with rival firms over the top-selling multiple sclerosis drug.
	The justices ruled 7-2 that a federal appeals court wrongly overturned five of Teva's patents for the drug Copaxone. The high court's decision gives the Israel-based company another chance to keep its exclusive rights to the drug until September 2015.
	Copaxone generates about USD 4 billion in annual sales for Teva.
	Teva had argued that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should not have second-guessed factual findings made by a federal district court that had earlier ruled in Teva's favor.
	Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said all appeals courts must generally defer to findings of fact made by lower courts. He said there is no exception to this rule for patent cases, in which a judge has carefully considered the entire case and has a better chance to gain "familiarity with ...

US Supreme Court sides with Teva in drug dispute

Shelling in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk killed at least six civilians today, as fighting intensifies between government and rebel forces.
	AP reporters saw the bodies of two people killed while waiting for a bus in the separatist-held city of Donetsk.
	Separatist authorities said another person died from an attack elsewhere in the city. Regional authorities loyal to the government said six people in total, including the three counted in Donetsk, had died throughout the day.
	Fighting spiked over the weekend in the bitter battle for control over Donetsk's now-shattered airport. The level of artillery exchanges has abated since that peak.
	In an effort to kick-start a peace process, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier invited his counterparts from France, Russia and Ukraine to a meeting in Berlin tomorrow to discuss the crisis in eastern Ukraine.
	The resurgence in fighting during the last few days led "to a threatening situation," Steinmeier said in ...

Shelling in eastern Ukraine kills at least 6 civilians

The Islamic State group threatened to kill two Japanese hostages unless they receive USD 200 million in 72 hours, directly demanding the ransom from Japan's premier during his visit to the Middle East. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to save the men, saying: "Their lives are the top priority."
	Abe and other Japanese officials declined to discuss whether they'd pay the ransom for captives Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, though their armed forces generally only operate in a self-defense capacity at home.
	 Their kidnapping also immediately recalled the 2004 beheading of a Japanese backpacker in Iraq, carried out by the Islamic State group's predecessor over Japan's involvement in the US led war there.
	Tuesday's video, identified as being made by the Islamic State group's al-Furqan media arm and posted on militant websites associated with the extremist group, mirrored other hostage threats it has made.
	 Japanese officials said they would analyze the tape to verify its authenticity, ...

Islamic State group threatens to kill 2 Japanese hostages

A 9-month-old boy is dead after his 5-year-old brother playing with a handgun accidentally shot him in the head.
	Authorities say the baby was pronounced dead at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City just before noon on Monday.
	The Kansas City Star reports that emergency responders were called to a home in Elmo around 9 a.M. Monday after a 5-year-old found a loaded .22 caliber handgun and apparently was handling it when it fired.
	White says the bullet struck the 9-month-old, who was in a playpen.
	Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White says there is no reason to believe the shooting was anything other than an accident.
	Elmo is north of Kansas City, Missouri.

5-year-old US boy fatally shoots 9-month-old brother

A Bahraini defense lawyer says prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab has been found guilty of insulting government ministries on Twitter and sentenced to six months in jail.
	Lawyer Jalila al-Sayed told The Associated Press today that Rajab will be able to remain free on bail pending an appeal of his case.
	Rajab was charged in October with insulting the ministries of defense and interior over tweets alleging that Bahrain's security institutions were incubators for extremist ideology.
	His comments followed the release of a video purportedly showing four Bahrainis who joined the Islamic State group calling on countrymen to take up arms against the tiny island country's Sunni monarchy and majority Shiite population. One of the militants was identified as an officer who defected from Bahrain's Interior Ministry.

Bahrain rights activist gets 6 months in jail over tweets

The International Monetary Fund lowered its forecasts for global growth over the next two years, warning today that weakness in most major economies will trump gains from lower oil prices. The IMF's report was released as China reported its slowest growth in 24 years.
	The IMF downgraded projections it issued in October by 0.3 percentage point each, predicting global growth at 3.5 per cent this year and 3.7 per cent in 2016.
	But even with those reductions, the world economy will be growing faster than in 2014, when the IMF estimates it expanded 3.3 per cent. Much of the momentum is coming from an accelerating recovery in the US, the world's largest economy.
	China reported today that its economic growth slowed to 7.4 per cent last year, the weakest expansion since 1990, compounding the challenges for the country's communist leaders as they try to overhaul the economy.
	Europe, Japan and Russia are also logging slower growth, while the US is a rare bright spot.
	"The recovery in the ..

IMF cuts growth forecasts, citing sluggish EU, Japan, BRICS

Terror attacks by French Islamic extremists should force the country to look inward at its "ethnic apartheid," the prime minister said today as four men faced preliminary charges on suspicion of links to one of the gunmen.
	Prime Minister Manuel Valls told journalists that fighting hatred, anti-Semitism and racism in the country is an urgent priority, notably in France's impoverished suburbs that house sizable immigrant communities.
	Valls, a relatively conservative Socialist whose hard line on Islamic extremism has won many fans, says he wasn't making excuses for crime or terrorism, "but we also have to look at the reality of our country."
	Three French gunmen born of immigrant parents carried out attacks from Jan. 7-9 in the Paris region, targeting the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, police and a kosher supermarket. Twenty people were killed in all, including the gunmen in police raids.
	The Paris prosecutor's office said the four men in court today, the first to face charges in .

France ponders national divisions as 4 face attack charges

In Silicon Valley, it's never too early to become an entrepreneur. Just ask Indian-origin 13-year-old Shubham Banerjee.
	The California eighth-grader has launched a company to develop low-cost machines to print Braille, the tactile writing system for the visually impaired. Tech giant Intel Corp recently invested in his startup, Braigo Labs.
	Shubham built a Braille printer with a Lego robotics kit as a school science fair project last year after he asked his parents a simple question: How do blind people read? "Google it," they told him.
	Shubham then did some online research and was shocked to learn that Braille printers, also called embossers, cost at least USD 2,000 too expensive for most blind readers, especially in developing countries.
	"I just thought that price should not be there. I know that there is a simpler way to do this," said Shubham, who demonstrated how his printer works at the kitchen table where he spent many late nights building it with a Lego Mindstorms EV3 ...

Indian-origin boy, 13, builds Braille printer, starts company

A Romanian inventor who claimed he beat the Americans to make the world's first jetpack, and who built dozens of other vehicles, has died aged 81.
	The hospital in the southern city of Ploiesti said Justin Capra died yesterday. The cause of death was not given but Capra had diabetes.
	He crafted unconventional flying machines and dozens of prototypes of fuel-efficient vehicles, including a small car in 2011 that did 470 miles to the gallon (about 200 kilometres to the litre), running on a mixture of gasoline and water.
	In 1956 he invented the "flying rucksack," a personal flying machine, in then-communist Romania. In 1962, one was produced in the U.S. By Bell Aircraft Corp. "All that was different was the colour," he insisted in an interview.

Romanian who claimed he invented world's 1st jetpack dies

Thailand's anti-graft agency today called for corruption charges against a former commerce minister and his deputy for allegedly committing fraud in a government-to-government rice sale.
	An investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Commission found that Boonsong Teriyaphirom and his deputy Poom Sarapol, along with 17 government officials and businessmen, sold rice from the Thai government's stockpile to a Chinese company that did not represent the mainland government.
	Commissioner Wicha Mahakhun, who headed the investigation, said the sale which was supposed to take place between the Thai and Chinese governments, caused "serious losses" to Thailand.
	The watchdog's announcement comes two days before military-appointed lawmakers will vote on whether to impeach ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government was toppled in a coup last May.
	Yingluck is accused of dereliction of duty for failing to halt a rice subsidy program that accumulated losses of at least USD 4.4 .

Thai agency seeks prosecution of ex-ministers for rice sale

Yemen's embattled president and rival Shiite rebels were holding talks today amid a tense ceasefire, a day after heavy street fighting engulfed the capital, Sanaa, killing at least nine people and dragging the impoverished Arab nation into deeper turmoil.
	Sanaa remained on edge, with armed Houthi rebels roaming the streets on foot and in pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns. They also manned checkpoints across Sanaa and near the prime minister's residence in an indisputable show of force, and beefed up their presence around other key building, including the intelligence headquarters.
	The Houthis seized control of state media in Sanaa and clashed with Yemeni soldiers near the presidential palace in the biggest challenge to US-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government since September, when they swept in from the Houthi northern stronghold and seized the capital.
	Witnesses said heavy machine gun fire could be heard as artillery shells struck around the ...

After clashes, Yemen president and Shiite rebels hold talks

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani presented his new nominees for Cabinet in his national unity government today to the National Assembly, the Afghan parliament.
	Ghulam Nabi Farahi, minister for parliamentary affairs, presented each candidate along with a short biography. Also facing a confirmation vote will be the nominees for intelligence chief and Central Bank director.
	Missing from the proceedings was Mohammad Yaqub Haidari, the nominee for agriculture minister. After his nomination, it was revealed that Haidari may be wanted in Estonia for fraud and tax evasion. An investigation has been launched by the Afghan government regarding Haidari's case.
	"I have tried my best to present a cabinet that would be acceptable to you," Ghani said during an hour-long speech before the assembly. "The authority of accepting or rejecting the Cabinet is the duty of the people's representatives."
	Shukria Barekzaim, a parliamentarian from Kabul, pledged that Ghani's candidates would be closely vetted .

Afghan Cabinet nominees face confirmation vote

Israeli defense officials say the country is on high alert for possible attacks from the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah following an Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah fighters in Syria.
	Israeli officials say the country has boosted deployment of its "Iron Dome" aerial defense system along its northern frontier, which borders Lebanon, and has increased surveillance activities in the area.
	 The officials say Israel's Security Cabinet is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss a potential escalation in violence.
	The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss security deliberations publicly.
	Israel has neither confirmed nor denied Sunday's strike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, which killed a prominent Hezbollah fighter, a senior Iranian general, and five other Hezbollah members.

Israel on high alert for possible Hezbollah retaliation

Some 200 police officers have raided 13 residences, mostly in Berlin but also other parts of Germany, in connection with arrests last week of two suspected members of an Islamic cell.
	Police said today the raids were aimed mainly against people who, like the pair arrested last week, were members of a mosque in Berlin's Moabit neighborhood.
	Police say there was no evidence that any of the people whose homes were searched were planning an attack.
	The police did not yet say if any arrests were made in the raids.
	The two men who were arrested Friday, were identified only as 41-year-old Ismet D. And Emin F., 43, in accordance with privacy laws.

200 police raid homes in Germany based on terror suspicions

The family of a prominent Egypt blogger imprisoned for protesting say he has been hospitalized after 78 days on hunger strike.
	Alaa Abdel-Fattah, 33, is facing a retrial after he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking part in an unauthorized protest, and for allegedly assaulting a police officer.
	 Abdel-Fattah says the trial, which includes 24 other defendants, is a farce. He started a hunger strike soon after he was re-arrested despite an earlier release on bail.
	His wife Manal Hassan said today that Abdel-Fattah was moved a day earlier to a prison hospital after his blood sugar level dropped dangerously low. He has already lost more than 28 pounds, but is refusing to end his strike.
	"He is on strike for his freedom," she said.

Egypt imprisoned blogger on hunger strike hospitalized

North Korea today sought to discredit a prominent North Korean prison camp survivor who recently admitted inaccuracies in parts of his widely read story about horrific abuse in the country of his birth.
	The public backtracking by Shin Dong-Hyuk proves that the entirety of his description of life in a North Korean prison camp was "scripted by (his) masters," said a column on Pyongyang's government-run Uriminzokkiri website.
	The website also said survivor reports published in a UN investigation into Pyongyang's human rights abuses must be "nullified" as they depended on "human scum" such as Shin.
	The attack on Shin isn't surprising as Pyongyang harshly criticised him even before his recent retraction of some details in the 2012 book, "Escape from Camp 14."
	But the new developments feed fears among rights groups and other defectors in South Korea that a push to hold North Korea accountable for its alleged abuse could stall.
	Shin's earlier account helped drive international efforts ..

AP

AP

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