A light-to-moderate earthquake centered in the ocean south of Lima rattled Peru's capital. No injuries or damage was reported.
	The tremor struck yesterday at 7:18 pm local time.
	The 5.6 magnitude was centered 48 miles (78 kilometers) south-southeast of Lima and was 28 miles (45 kilometers) deep, the US Geological Survey reported.

5.6 quake rattles Peru's capital without damage

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Camouflage-clad Russian soldiers parachute from the sky, armoured vehicles fire live rounds on an open field after being dropped from military transport jets and helicopters fire missiles against enemy positions.
	Although the flat terrain resembles the Ukrainian war zones, this is not an armed Russian intervention against its neighbour. It's the first-ever joint Serb-Russian military exercise in Serbia, the Balkan country that has been performing a delicate balancing act in between its Slavic ally Russia and Western Europe, with which Belgrade wants to integrate.
	The "anti-terrorist' drill yesterday, the first such by the Russians outside the former Soviet Union of elite Russian troops in northern Serbia, not far from NATO-member Croatia, has stirred controversy both here and abroad.
	"Serbia's government wants to try and keep everyone happy," said prominent Balkan political analyst Tim Judah. "So, the US helps finance and modernise Serbia's army while now Serbian soldiers train ...

Russian troops hold drills in Serbia

Half a million refugees in Kenya are being forced to go on half rations as the World Food Program scrambles for funding amid an unprecedented number of major emergencies around the globe.
	The United Nations food agency is increasingly taking this last-resort measure as the world body responds to five humanitarian crises in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic and now West Africa with the Ebola outbreak, senior spokesman Steve Taravella said yesterday.
	Taravella said WFP expects it will have to reduce rations like this in other places as resources are stretched thin.
	"We really don't want to be doing this," he said. "Telling hungry people they'll be receiving less food than they're accustomed to is never easy."
	As of today, the 500,000 refugees in northern Kenya, most of them from South Sudan and Somalia, will receive a daily food ration of just over 1,000 calories, compared to the 2,100 calories a day they've been getting, through the end of January. That's when a ...

Half-million refugees in Kenya hit by UN shortage

UN officials say a convergence of droughts, harvest failures, locust invasions and political conflicts in Mali have left 4.75 million people without enough to eat.
	The officials said yesterday that close to half a million children will suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year.
	UNICEF Emergency Director Afshan Khan said malnutrition rates in Mali are now comparable to the crises in South Sudan and the Horn of Africa.
	John Ging, the director of UN humanitarian operations, warned that without additional funds "we can expect that the situation will continue to deteriorate."
	The latest figures are worse than Ging's assessment in June that nearly 500,000 children under the age of five were at risk of acute malnutrition and 1.5 million people were "food insecure.

UN: Nearly 5 million in Mali are hungry

Diem Brown has lost a long battle with cancer.
	The reality star and advocate for cancer survivors died today in a New York hospital, according to E! Network correspondent Alicia Quarles. She was 32.
	Brown first won fame nearly a decade ago as a competitor on MTV's "Real World/Road Rules Challenge." She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 23, and announced her real-life challenge on the show.
	Undaunted, she continued to appear on "The Challenge" until recently, because, she said, it obliged her to keep pushing herself.
	"But there were times I felt alone, and overwhelmed by side effects and medical expenses," she told The Associated Press in 2012.
	That led her to establish Medgift.Com, an online gift registry enabling those with medical troubles to seek financial help as well as physical and emotional support. Her TV celebrity, she explained, gave her "the opportunity to make lives of other patients better."
	In a statement, MTV called Brown "a true fighter (who) brought ...

MTV 'Challenge' star Diem Brown dies at 32

The man accused of abducting a University of Virginia student who was found dead last month pleaded not guilty today in a Fairfax County courtroom on an unrelated sexual assault charge.
	Jesse Matthew, 32, made his first in-person court appearance in Fairfax this morning. He's charged there with attempted capital murder and other counts stemming from a September 2005 attack on a 26-year-old woman in Fairfax City.
	The hearing lasted less than 10 minutes, and Matthew, dressed in a green jail jumpsuit, said nothing other than entering his not guilty pleas.
	Matthew was arrested and charged in September with abducting 18-year-old Hannah Graham, whose remains were found near Charlottesville after a monthlong search.
	Authorities say DNA evidence links him to the 2005 assault in Fairfax as well as the 2009 disappearance and death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.
	After Matthew entered his not guilty plea, the judge set a March 9 trial date. The chief judge, Dennis Smith, ...

Suspect in student kidnapping pleads not guilty

A Brazilian hospital says Pele is "recovering well" after undergoing surgery to remove kidney stones.
	The Albert Einstein hospital said in a statement Friday that the 74-year-old Pele remains in good condition a day after the procedure in Sao Paulo.
	Pele was hospitalized Wednesday evening after canceling his appearance at an event at the Pele Museum in the coastal city of Santos because of stomach pain.
	The hospital did not say when the three-time World Cup winner was expected to be released.

Pele 'recovering well' after kidney stones surgery

A Polish doctor says she has been in "deep shock" since learning that a 91-year-old woman she pronounced dead woke up in a morgue several hours later.
	The doctor identified in the media as Wieslawa C said on TVN24 television today that she was sure the patient was dead after finding "no basic life functions" during a morning house call on November 6.
	She said she checked for a pulse on a forearm and neck arteries, listened for a heartbeat and the sound of breathing, and checked the pupils for reaction to light, but found none.
	"If I had had doubts, I would have called the ambulance, done an electrocardiogram, but I was sure that the patient is dead," the doctor said.
	The doctor examined the elderly woman, identified by the media as Janina Kolkiewicz, in the eastern town of Ostrow Lubelski after relatives noticed she was not breathing.
	Some two hours after she was pronounced dead the woman was taken to the morgue. Shortly before midnight, an undertaker who brought in another body .

Pronounced dead, 91-year-old Polish woman awakens

President Barack Obama mounted a warm show of support today for Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, voicing opposition to a constitutional rule that's preventing the pro-democracy icon from contesting for the presidency next year.
	While crediting Myanmar for progress in its transition to democracy, he offered a blunt assessment of the distressing shortcomings that have called that transition into question.
	In his joint appearance with Suu Kyi, on the back porch of her lakeside home, Obama stopped short of an explicit endorsement for her potential campaign for president.
	But his affection and deep admiration for Suu Kyi was clear, from his praise for her efforts to liberalize the government to the ease with which he whispered in her ear as they walked arm in arm into the home where she was once confined as a political prisoner.
	Although Obama was quick to caution he didn't want to dictate how Myanmar should pick its next president, he said told President Thein Sein the ...

Obama oozes support for Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi

Under crushing financial strain, Kumar Budathoki sold one of his kidneys to organ traffickers for USD 5,000, a sum he hoped would help set him up for a lifetime free of money problems.
	Instead, he got a lifetime of health problems and only a fraction of the money promised to him by a shady broker in Hokshe, a village of tiny farms and mud huts that has been the center of the illegal organ trade in Nepal for more than a decade.
	Only about 4,000 people live here, yet at least 121 of them have sold their kidneys, said Krishna Pyari Nakarmi, who has been leading the campaign against the kidney trade in Hokshe.
	In Hokshe, traffickers have operated with surprising impunity. Nearly every resident seems to know someone who sold a kidney on the black market.
	Dr Rishi Kumar Kafle of the National Kidney Center in Katmandu said while there is illegal organ trafficking elsewhere in Nepal, he knows of no place where it has been as pervasive as it is in Hokshe. Over the years, the village earned 

Health woes in Nepal village known for organ sales

A big, wild cat eluding 200 police and military forces near Disneyland Paris is not a tiger, French authorities said today but they don't know exactly what it is.
	The creature popped up near a supermarket, crossed a major highway, slinked past a gas station, and sent regional officials into high alert.
	The administration for the Seine-et-Marne region had announced yesterday that authorities were searching for a tiger on the loose.
	But in a statement this afternoon, the administration said "the presence of an animal of the tiger species has proven to be excluded." The statement was based on analysis by government wild animal experts of the animal's tracks.
	It said the animal is a feline but they are still trying to determine its species. The hunting office could not be reached for comment.
	The animal's origins remain a mystery.
	Some 200 police, military officers and others are still searching for it. A helicopter buzzed over woods east of Paris and a dozen police vehicles lined a 

France: Big cat on the prowl is not a tiger

Corruption is a perennial topic for the G-20, with leaders dubbing it a threat to global growth, and activists arguing it hurts the poorest countries the most by siphoning away desperately needed money that could be used to improve health systems, schools and roads.
	Washington, DC-based advocacy group ONE has urged leaders to make the issue a top priority at this weekend's summit in Brisbane after recently releasing a report that estimates money laundering, bribery and tax evasion cost the developing world more than USD 1 trillion a year.
	The group also estimates that as many as 3.6 million deaths could be prevented if money drained from the poorest countries by corruption was invested in health systems.
	Anti-corruption group Transparency International, Amnesty International and other human rights groups have urged G-20 leaders to deliver concrete results at the summit, calling in particular for a crackdown on the use of shell companies that hide the true owners of ...

G-20 leaders to tackle corruption at summit

Philippine troops today battled Abu Sayyaf militants blamed for the kidnappings of several foreigners and Filipinos in the restive south, leaving at least five soldiers and nine extremists dead, a military commander said.
	At least 26 other soldiers and more than 30 Abu Sayyaf gunmen were wounded in the clashes that raged for five hours in Sulu province's mountainous Talipao town, army Col Allan Arrojado said. The fighting eased by nightfall and government forces were pursuing about 300 militants who split into smaller groups and withdrew, he said.
	He described it as "a major encounter," and added in a text message, "We are tracking their whereabouts."
	A military officer involved in the fighting said another soldier was missing and the wounded troops would be airlifted to a military hospital. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters about the ongoing operation.
	The militants were reportedly under Radulan Sahiron, a one-armed Abu Sayyaf ..

14 killed as Philippine troops battle militants

Argentina is complaining about a British military training exercise near the Falkland Islands.
	Argentina lost a brief but bloody 1982 war with Britain over the South Atlantic archipelago and still claims the islands.
	Argentina's foreign ministry said in a statement late yesterday that it rejects a naval and military training exercise in what it says is "Argentine territory illegitimately occupied by the United Kingdom."
	The foreign ministry said that the exercise included the firing of 136 shells from the HMS Iron Duke, and said it was a provocation aimed at showing the firepower of the British frigate.
	The statement said the ministry has called in an official in charge of the British embassy in Buenos Aires to demand explanations.

Argentina accuses Britain over Falklands

The leader of the Islamic State group has ordered the terror organisation to start minting gold, silver and copper coins for its own currency the Islamic dinar.
	A website affiliated with the group posted the order late yesterday, saying IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi instructed his followers to mint the coins to "change the tyrannical monetary system" modelled on Western economies that "enslaved Muslims."
	The order was approved by the Islamic State group's Shura Council, an advisory board, according to the website. The authenticity of the posting could not be independently verified but the website has been used in the past for IS postings.
	After seizing large swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory earlier this year, the Islamic State group proclaimed a caliphate on lands under its control. It has also sought to implement its harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, and al-Baghdadi has proclaimed himself the caliph.
	According to photographs of coin prototypes, they carry the ..

Islamic State group says it'll mint its own coins

The Islamic State group has denied food and medicine to hundreds of thousands of people and hidden its fighters among civilians since a US-led coalition began launching airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, a UN panel investigating war crimes in Syria reported today.
	The panel said Syrians and Iraqis are subjected to an Islamic State "rule of terror" from its calculated use of public brutality and indoctrination to ensure the submission of communities under its control, and that the tactics include repeated violations against children and women.
	The conclusions from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, a four-member panel of independent experts, are based on more than 300 interviews with people who fled or are living in IS-controlled areas and on collected video and photographic evidence.
	"Those that fled consistently described being subjected to acts that terrorise and aim to silence the population," said Brazilian diplomat and scholar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who ..

UN: IS denies food aid to hundreds of thousands

Mission controllers say a European probe is pushing ahead with efforts to drill into a comet, though they're still trying to pin down where exactly the probe is.
	The Philae lander on Wednesday became the first spacecraft to touch down on a comet and has since sent its first images from the surface of the body, known as
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
	Scientists hope to drill into the comet to extract some of the material buried beneath the surface of the comet. Stephan Ulamec, head of operations for Philae, said in an online briefing today that "we have activated the drill."
	However, he said, it isn't yet clear whether it will succeed in taking samples. Ulamec said controllers haven't yet been able to identify where exactly on the comet Philae is.

Comet craft starts drilling; location still sought

Philippine troops today battled Abu Sayyaf militants blamed for the kidnappings of several foreigners and Filipinos in the restive south, leaving at least five soldiers and extremists dead, a military commander said.
	At least 26 other soldiers were wounded in the clash in Sulu province's mountainous Talipao town, army Col Allan Arrojado said. The fighting eased by nightfall and government forces were pursuing about 300 militants, who split into smaller groups and withdrew, he said.
	He described it as "a major encounter," and added in a text message: "We are tracking their whereabouts."
	A military officer involved in today's fighting said another soldier was missing and the wounded troops were to be airlifted to a military hospital. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to reporters about the ongoing operation.
	The militants were reportedly under Radulan Sahiron, a one-armed Abu Sayyaf commander long wanted by US and Philippine governments for his 

9 killed as Filipino troops battle militants

Iraqi government forces today drove Islamic State militants out from their remaining strongholds inside the oil refinery town of Beiji, two security official said, in a key victory over the terror group that has captured much of northern and western Iraq in a stunning summer offensive.
	The Iraqi troops, backed by allied Sunni militiamen, also lifted the Islamic State group's siege of the oil refinery, Iraq's largest, and hoisted Iraq's red, white and black flags atop the sprawling complex hosting the facility.
	Reached by telephone in Beiji, the officials said the army used loudspeakers to warn the small number of residents still holed up in the town to stay indoors while bomb squads detonated booby-trapped houses and remaining bombs planted on the roads.
	The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
	State Iraqi television also reported the "liberation of Beiji," quoting the top army commander there, Gen Abdul-Wahab ...

Iraqi forces drive IS from refinery town of Beiji

Hong Kong student leaders plan to fly to Beijing tomorrow to try to meet China's top officials to press their case for a greater say in choosing the territory's next leader.
	Eason Chung, a member of a student group that played a main role in organising street protests that started nearly two months ago, said today that he and two others had bought plane tickets for the trip.
	If they are allowed to enter mainland China, they will go straight to China's legislature to seek talks with Premier Li Keqiang and other officials.
	The students have already asked the Hong Kong government's No 2 official as well as former leader Tung Chee-hwa to arrange a meeting but their requests have been rebuffed.
	"When those bridges between the Hong Kong government and Beijing rejected all our demands, we think they are not doing their due responsibility, so we'll go ourselves," said Chung, a member of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
	Federation leader Alex Chow and two deputies, Chung and Nathan ..

Hong Kong activists plan trip to Beijing tomorrow

Obama presses for greater freedoms for reporters in Myanmar and China

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