Gen Veljko Kadijevic, who was Yugoslavia's last defense minister at the start of the country's bloody breakup, has died. He was 88.
	Serbia's state television said today that Kadijevic died yesterday in Moscow, where he had lived since 2001.
	Kadijevic became defense minister in 1988, shortly before the communist-run ex-federation dissolved along ethnic lines, triggering Europe's worst carnage since World War II.
	Kadijevic led the military during the war in Croatia, including the siege of Vukovar, when the eastern Croatian town was completely destroyed by Serb-led Yugoslav army troops.
	Croatia has accused Kadijevic of war crimes over the Vukovar siege and issued an international arrest warrant. But Kadijevic, who had adopted Russian citizenship, was never handed over to face the charges.

Yugoslavia's last defense minister dies in Moscow

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A bid by environmentalists to confront world leaders with a digital billboard highlighting climate change has been thwarted by Brisbane airport authorities who deemed the message too political.
	Brisbane Airport will be the Australian gateway for leaders of 20 economies when they gather in the Queensland state capital next week for the annual G20 summit.
	Dermot O'Gorman, chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund, said today he was surprised that the Brisbane Airport Corp had refused to allow the climate change message in the international arrivals hall as part of the #onmyagenda campaign.
	The campaign is supported by nine environment groups and encourages people to tweet G20 leaders asking them to include climate change as a stand-alone item on the G20 agenda, as it was on the previous eight G20 summits.
	"The reality is climate change is a global problem affecting economies, societies and environments all around the world, we can't afford to sweep it under the carpet," O'Gorman ...

Brisbane airport bans climate ad ahead of G20

A Jordanian-born Palestinian responsible for a deadly 1982 airline bombing sought to be deported to the West Bank upon completing his prison sentence last year, but the Israeli government denied the request, citing problems with his identity documents, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
	Since then, there have been "confidential diplomatic dealings" aimed at moving Mohammed Rashed out of the US and fulfilling an earlier commitment to deport him, court filings show.
	Rashed was released from federal prison in March 2013 for the bombing of Pan Am 830, which killed a Japanese teenager and injured more than a dozen passengers aboard the Hawaii-bound plane.
	A onetime lieutenant of a Palestinian bomb maker featured on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists, Rashed remains at a federal immigration detention facility in New York state that houses those awaiting deportation.
	He was sentenced to prison in 2006 under a plea deal that allowed for his release last year ...

Records: Plane bomber sought West Bank deportation

Virgin Galactic's experimental spaceship broke apart in flight over California's Mojave Desert after a device to slow the craft's descent prematurely deployed, federal investigators have said.
	National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said that while no cause for Friday's crash of SpaceShipTwo has been determined, investigators found the "feathering" system, which lifts and rotates the tail to create drag, was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed.
	The system requires a two-step process to deploy. The co-pilot unlocked the system but Hart said the second step occurred "without being commanded."
	Hart said the investigation is months from being completed, and pilot error and mechanical failure are among many things being looked at.
	Co-pilot Michael Alsbury, 39, was killed. Peter Siebold, 43, who piloted the mission, parachuted to the ground and is receiving treatment at a hospital for serious injuries.
	The feathering is a feature ...

Spaceship's descent device deployed prematurely

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has decided to drop his tribal name of Ahmadzai and has asked all government departments and media to use his family name only.
	A letter was sent last week by the Presidential Palace's administrative affairs office to all government departments telling them to drop "Ahmadzai" from official documentation, deputy palace spokesman Fayeq Wahidi said. The president had signed the letter, he said.
	The Ahmadzai are one of the biggest Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan, based largely in the south and southeast of the country, though Ghani is from Logar province south of Kabul.
	Tribal names are sometimes added to the end of a name to denote tribal and geographical affiliation.
	Wahidi said Ghani wants to use the name that appears on his national identification card.

Afghanistan's president drops his tribal name

Daredevil Nik Wallenda wowed the world with back-to-back walks on a tightrope between Chicago skyscrapers without a safety net or a harness, performing one of them blindfolded, as a crowd gasped and cheered.
	"I feel incredible," Wallenda said at a news conference afterward last night.
	He said strong winds and the steeper-than-expected angle of the first high wire caused him to hurry his performance. Wallenda had practiced at a 15-degree angle but said the wire was actually at 19 degrees.
	"That cable looked like it was going straight up," he said.
	Thousands of cheering fans packed the streets around the city's Marina City towers to watch the 35-year-old heir to the Flying Wallendas' family business.
	It took Wallenda about six and a half minutes to walk the 454-foot (138-metre) stretch from the Marina City west tower to the top of a building on the other side of the river.
	"I love Chicago, and Chicago definitely loves me," said Wallenda as he walked that wire, with the crowd below 

Daredevil walks rope between towers blindfolded

An Afghan official says a deputy provincial governor has been shot dead in southern Kandahar province while he was sitting in class at a university.
	Thirty-two-year-old Abdul Qadeem Patyall died of his injuries after a gunman opened fire on him through the window of a classroom at Kandahar University, Samim Khpolwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said today. The attack took place last night.
	Patyall, who was studying to become a teacher, was seriously wounded and died later in hospital, said Khpolwak. President Ashraf Ghani has sent condolences to Patyall's family and described his killing as a terrorist attack, the presidential palace said. A government delegation will investigate the incident.
	No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban insurgents have intensified anti-government activity in recent months.

Afghan deputy governor shot dead while in class

A young woman who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state's assisted-suicide law took lethal drugs prescribed by a doctor and has died, a spokesman has said.
	Brittany Maynard, 29, was diagnosed with brain cancer on New Year's Day and was later given six months to live. She and her husband, Dan Diaz, moved from California because that state does not allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with lethal drugs prescribed by a doctor.
	Maynard became a nationally recognised advocate for the group Compassion & Choices, which seeks to expand aid-in-dying laws beyond a handful of states.
	Sean Crowley, a spokesman for Compassion & Choices, said yesterday in a statement that Maynard died on Saturday as she intended peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones.
	Crowley said Maynard "suffered increasingly frequent and longer seizures, severe head and neck pain, and stroke-like symptoms. As symptoms grew more severe she chose to abbreviate the dying process by ...

Terminally ill 'death with dignity' advocate dies

Lewis Hamilton got the better of Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg once again, winning the US Grand Prix to edge closer to his second Formula One world championship.
     Hamilton leads Rosberg by 24 points with two races left in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. The final race will be worth double points under a rule change this season.
     Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was third yesterday for his eighth podium finish on the season.
     Rosberg started on the pole, but couldn't hold off Hamilton for even half the race. Hamilton's 10th victory of the season also was the 32nd of his career, passing Nigel Mansell for the most Formula One wins by a British driver.
     He also won the world title in 2008 with McLaren.
     Hamilton and Rosberg have waged a season-long duel for the title, a tense back-and-forth that has strained their long friendship. Hamilton has won five races in a row, but Rosberg had stayed close in the season standings by finishing no lower than second 10 times.
     Hamilton ...

Hamilton wins US Grand Prix, moves closer to title

A wrought-iron gate bearing the Nazis' cynical slogan "Arbeit macht frei," or "Work sets you free," has been stolen from the former Dachau concentration camp, police said today.
	Security officials noticed this morning that the gate measuring 190 by 95 centimeters (75 by 37 inches) set into a larger iron gate was missing, police said in a statement.
	Whoever stole it during the night would have had to climb over another gate to reach it, they added.
	Police said they found nothing in the immediate vicinity of the camp and appealed for anyone who noticed any suspicious people or vehicles to come forward.
	Dachau, near Munich, was the first concentration camp set up by the Nazis in 1933. More than 200,000 people from across Europe were held there and over 40,000 prisoners died before it was liberated by US forces on April 29, 1945. The camp is now a memorial.
	Memorial director Gabriele Hammermann condemned the theft of the gate, which she described as "the central symbol for the ...

Historic gate at Dachau concentration camp stolen

Islamic State group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 Iraqi men, women and children from the same tribe today, officials said, in the latest targeting of the group by militants.
	The killings, all committed in public, raise the death toll suffered by the Sunni Al Bu Nimr tribe in recent days to some 150, suggesting IS fighters now view them as a threat.
	Some Sunnis in the volatile province had previously supported the local expansion of IS and other militants in December.
	Meanwhile, separate attacks around Baghdad killed at least 19 people, authorities said.
	Today's attack on the Sunni tribe took place in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of Ramadi, the provincial capital. There, the militant group killed at least 40 men, six women and four children, lining them up and shooting them one by one, senior tribesman Sheikh Naim al-Gaoud told The Associated Press. The militants also kidnapped another 17 people, he said.
	An official with the Anbar governor's office ...

Islamic State group kills 50 Iraqis

A Libyan medical official says at least 210 people have been killed in fighting in Benghazi since troops loyal to the country's elected government launched an attempt to re-take the city from Islamist militias two weeks earlier.
	In comments today, the official would not identify those killed. The battle for control of Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, still rages. The troops, under the command of a renegade general, had largely fought from bases outside the city. On Oct. 15, the elected government joined forces with them and young fighters from the city, broadening the offensive.
	A security official said government troops have entered a new neighborhood and also arrested a spokesman for the Islamist militias. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief reporters.

Over 210 killed in fighting over Libya's Benghazi

Climate change is happening, it's almost entirely man's fault and limiting its impacts may require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero this century, the U	N's panel on climate science said today.
	The fourth and final volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's giant climate assessment offered no surprises, nor was it expected to since it combined the findings of three reports released in the past 13 months.
	But it underlined the scope of the climate challenge in stark terms. Emissions, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, may need to drop to zero by the end of this century for the world to have a decent chance of keeping the temperature rise below a level that many consider dangerous.
	Failure to do so, which could require deployment of technologies that suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, could lock the world on a trajectory with "irreversible" impacts on people and the environment, the report said. Some impacts already being observed included ...

UN climate report offers stark warnings, hope

At the close of voting today, President Barack Obama will most likely face a new Congress where Republicans control not only the House of Representatives but the Senate as well.
	That's a vast change. He started his presidency with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, but in 2010, in the middle of his first term, his party lost the House of Representatives in a wave of very conservative Republican tea party victories and backlash against the president's health care overhaul, widely called "Obamacare."
	Obama's sagging approval ratings a few points above 40 percent have been a major drag on Democrats in Senate races, with most of them declining presidential appearances on the campaign trail. Hurting Democrats as well is the quirk of US elections this year the mid-point of Obama's second term where many incumbent Democrats or those vying for seats held by retiring Democrats are running in states such as Arkansas and Montana that voted heavily for Republican Mitt Romney in the .

Democrats slipping in Tuesday Senate contests

Shepherds guided a flock of 2,000 sheep through Madrid's streets today in defense of ancient grazing, droving and migration rights increasingly threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.
	Tourists and city-dwellers were surprised to see the capital's traffic cut to permit the bleating, bell-clanking parade to pass the city's most emblematic locations.
	Shepherds halted at the old town hall so the chief herdsman could hand authorities 10 maravedies copper coins first minted in the 11th century as payment for the crossing.
	They then continued past Puerta del Sol Madrid's equivalent of New York's Times Square and past the Bank of Spain headquarters on their way to Retiro Park.
	Children shrieked with joy as the sheep went from a trot to a gallop past a hamburger restaurant and luxury jewelry store in the city's toniest downtown quarter.
	Since medieval times, shepherds have had the right to use droving paths crisscrossing a landscape that was once a checkerboard of ...

Spanish shepherds guide 2,000 sheep across Madrid

Gunfire erupted outside the headquarters of state television in Burkina Faso today as an opposition politician tried to announce she was in control of the West African country that was plunged into chaos days earlier after the president was forced out.
	In the aftermath of the gunfire, the military made a show of force by deploying armored vehicles along all of the avenues leading to the national television and radio station offices, witnesses said.
	The developments underscored the uncertainty about who was actually at the helm of Burkina Faso after longtime president Blaise Compaore resigned Friday after 27 years in power and fled with his family to Ivory Coast amid violent protests seeking his ouster.
	Two different military officials had declared themselves in charge before the army confirmed Saturday that Lt. Col. Isaac Yacouba Zida was the transitional leader.
	However, about 1,000 activists who had opposed Compaore's rule took to the streets of the capital today, where internal 

Gunfire breaks out in Burkina Faso capital

Authorities in Iraq say a car bomb attack near tents serving Shiite pilgrims has killed 14 people in Baghdad.
	Police officials say the attack took place today afternoon as people were delivering food to the Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy city of Karbala to mark the religious holiday of Ashoura.
	They say the blast wounded 32 people. Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorised to speak to journalists.
	Ashoura commemorates the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and an iconic martyr among Shiite Muslims. Sunni insurgents frequently target Shiites whom considered as heretics.
	Iraq is facing its greatest challenge since the 2011 withdraw of US troops, as militants from the Islamic State group now hold vast swaths of the country and neighbouring Syria.

Iraqi officials: Car bomb kills 14 Shiite pilgrims

China's roaring economy for years has pulled much of the rest of the world with it, soaking up oil, iron ore and other commodities from developing countries and autos and luxury goods from Europe.
	But its role as a global engine is fading as its economy slows and many other nations, in the view of economists, will feel the pain. An Associated Press survey of 30 economists has found that 57 percent of them expect China's decelerating economy to restrain growth in countries from Brazil and Chile to Australia and South Korea.
	A notable exception is the United States, which the economists see as largely insulated from China's troubles.
	China's once-explosive growth has slowed in part because of its government's efforts to restrain its speculative real estate sector and shift its economy toward consumer spending.
	China's economy expanded 7.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, its slowest pace since 2009. A growth rate above 7 percent would be the envy of most major ...

AP survey: China slowdown to bruise global economy

Authorities in Sierra Leone say another doctor there has tested positive for Ebola, marking a setback for efforts to keep desperately needed health care workers safe.
	Government Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brima Kargbo confirmed on Sunday that a fifth doctor has tested positive. The other four all have died from the virus that has killed nearly 5,000 across West Africa.
	The sick physician has been identified as Dr. Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in northern Sierra Leone. He was driven to the capital of Freetown after reporting he wasn't feeling well.
	Doctors and nurses have been the most vulnerable to contracting Ebola, as the virus spread through bodily fluids. Some 523 health workers have contracted Ebola, and about half of them have died.

Sierra Leone doctor tests positive for Ebola

Hong Kong police said they have arrested a foreign man suspected of killing two women, including one whose body was found inside a suitcase on the balcony of the man's upscale apartment.
	Police said the 29-year-old-man asked them to investigate the case early yesterday at the apartment in Hong Kong's Wan Chai nightlife and red light district.
	Hong Kong news reports said the man was a British national. When asked about the case, Britain's Foreign Office confirmed that a British citizen had been arrested.
	According to a police statement, officers rushed to the man's apartment, where they found an unconscious woman, aged 25-30, with cuts to her neck and buttock. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
	While investigating, police found a suitcase on the balcony containing the body of a dead woman who had sustained neck injuries, the statement said.
	Police said they seized a knife at the apartment, located in Hong Kong's upscale J Residence building, a 40-story apartment tower. The man .

Foreign man arrested in Hong Kong double killing

Israel's prime minister vowed not to change worship arrangements at Jerusalem's most sacred and sensitive site today and called for calm and restraint amid rising tensions in the holy city.
     There have been almost daily clashes in east Jerusalem between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police in recent months, with much of the unrest focused on the city's sacred compound revered by both Jews and Muslims.
     It is the holiest site for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount because of the revered Jewish temples that stood there in biblical times; Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary and it is their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
     Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for calm at his weekly cabinet meeting Sunday. "Since the days of Abraham, the Temple Mount has been the holiest site for our people and with this, the Temple Mount is also the most sensitive kilometer on earth," Netanyahu said.
     "Alongside our determined stance for our rights, we are ...

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