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 ...

Israeli premier urges calm in Jerusalem

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France's government says it has taken in a UN employee infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone for treatment.
	The ministry said in a statement late yesterday that the patient was evacuated in a special flight and is undergoing treatment in "high-security isolation" in the Begin Army Training Hospital in Saint-Mande, near Paris.
	It didn't identify the patient or the UN agency the patient works for.
	France took in a medic with Doctors Without Borders in September who had Ebola. She later recovered from the infection.
	France has not had any Ebola cases on its territory, but has been active in the fight against Ebola in particular in Guinea, a former French colony.

France takes in UN worker with Ebola

Misbah-ul Haq matched the record for scoring the fastest century in Test cricket and broke that of the fastest fifty as Pakistan set an imposing target of 603 runs for Australia to win the second Test here today.
     The Pakistan captain reached his century in 56 balls at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, matching the previous best effort of West Indian great Sir Vivian Richards, who achieved the feat against England in 1986.
     Earlier, Misbah reached his 50 off 21 deliveries with the last ball before lunch, turning Mitchell Starc to the mid-wicket boundary for three runs, eclipsing the previous record of fastest 50 from 24 balls by South Africa's Jacques Kallis against Zimbabwe at Newlands in 2005.
     It was the second century in the match for Misbah, a feat later matched by Azhar Ali (100 not out).
     It was only the second time in test cricket that two teammates made centuries in both innings of a match. The previous occasion was in Wellington in 1974 when Australian brothers Ian (145, 

Misbah record ton leads Pakistan vs Australia

Top medical experts studying the spread of Ebola say the public should expect more cases to emerge in the United States by year's end as infected people arrive here from West Africa, including American doctors and nurses returning from the hot zone and people fleeing from the deadly disease.
	But how many cases? No one knows for sure how many infections will emerge in the US or anywhere else, but scientists have made educated guesses based on data models that weigh hundreds of variables, including daily new infections in West Africa, airline traffic worldwide and transmission possibilities.
	This week, several top infectious disease experts ran simulations for The Associated Press that predicted as few as one or two additional infections by the end of 2014 to a worst-case scenario of 130.
	"I don't think there's going to be a huge outbreak here, no," said Dr David Relman, a professor of infectious disease, microbiology and immunology at Stanford University's medical school. "However, .

Scientists try to predict number of US Ebola cases

Lava that has been creeping toward a small town on the Big Island has stalled just before reaching the town's main road, officials said.
	Some lava has been breaking out along the sides of the flow, but it's moving slowly, said Darryl Oliveira, director of Hawaii County civil defence yesterday.
	"At this point, there's very little activity taking place that's posing any increased threat to the residents or the community," Oliveira said.
	The flow has stalled about 480 feet from the main road in and out of Pahoa, a town of about 1,000 residents.
	Lava has been streaming down the volcano's flank toward the northeast since June.
	Last weekend, it crossed a country road. It then smothered part of a cemetery, toppled trees and burned a shed, tires and grass.
	Authorities have alerted about 50 households in Pahoa they should be prepared to evacuate.
	Small fires from the lava were generating light to moderate amounts of smoke yesterday. Trade winds have been pushing the smoke toward the ...

Lava stalls short of Hawaii town's main road

Abu Sayyaf gunmen today killed six soldiers who were guarding a road project that has been delayed by militant attacks in an impoverished southern Philippine province, the military said.
	The soldiers were patrolling the outskirts of a farming village in Sumisop town on the island province of Basilan when about 20 heavily armed Abu Sayyaf fighters opened fire, sparking a 45-minute battle, army Col Rolando Bautista said.
	At least one soldier also was wounded. It was not immediately clear if there were rebel casualties.
	The Abu Sayyaf, which is on a US list of terrorist organizations, was founded in the early 1990s in Basilan, a predominantly Muslim province in the majority Catholic nation, about 880 kilometres (550 miles) south of Manila.
	Despite many battle setbacks, the group has endured, surviving mostly on kidnappings and extortion, and remains a national security threat.
	Bautista said he deployed additional troops to pursue the attackers, who were led by a commander he ...

Abu Sayyaf militants kill 6 Filipino soldiers

Investigators looking into what caused the crash of a Virgin Galactic prototype spacecraft that killed one of two test pilots said a 5-mile path of debris across the California desert indicates the aircraft broke up in flight.
	"When the wreckage is dispersed like that, it indicates the likelihood of inflight breakup," National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Christopher A Hart said late last night.
	Learning where aircraft parts fell will help investigators determine when and how the breakup occurred, he said.
	The crash almost certainly dashed founder Richard Branson's goal of starting commercial suborbital flight next spring, but the mogul said that while he remained committed to civilian space travel "we are not going to push on blindly."
	In grim remarks at the Mojave Air and Space Port, where the craft known as SpaceShipTwo was under development, Branson gave no details of Friday's accident and deferred to the NTSB, whose team began its first day of investigation ...

Official: Debris sign of spaceship breaking up

Michael Alsbury, who was killed in the test flight of Virgin Galactic's prototype space tourism rocket, was a respected test pilot and devoted husband and father of two young children, his employer and neighbor said.
	Alsbury, 39, was the co-pilot during Friday's ill-fated test flight of SpaceShipTwo high over the Mojave Desert. Scaled Composites, the company developing the spaceship for Virgin Galactic, issued a statement yesterday calling Alsbury "a respected and devoted colleague."
	Peter Siebold, who piloted SpaceShipTwo and survived, was described as alert and talking with his family and doctors, the statement said.
	Alsbury had at least 15 years of flight experience and logged more than 1,600 hours as a test pilot and test engineer, according to a biography posted on the Society of Flight Test Engineers' website. He was listed on the website as an event speaker for the group last year.
	At Scaled Composites, Alsbury participated in the flight testing of nine different manned ...

Spaceship co-pilot was experienced test pilot

The United Nations' expert panel on climate science has finished a report on global warming that the UN's environment agency said offers "conclusive evidence" that humans are altering the Earth's climate system.
	The document, which combines the findings of three earlier reports, was adopted after all-night talks that went on until 5 am. Yesterday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
	The scientists and government representatives on the panel, who jointly approved the document line by line, then rested for a few hours before resuming the session in Copenhagen to finish the document. The report is scheduled to be released to the public today.
	Apart from discussing the human influence, the report is expected to describe how climate impacts, including melting Arctic sea ice and rising levels, are already happening and could become irreversible unless the world curbs its greenhouse gas emissions.
	The IPCC says scientists are now 95 per cent certain that the buildup of such .

UN panel adopts landmark climate report

Pope Francis has paid tribute to what he calls the "unknown saints" those who flee war, hunger and poverty, the jobless and the homeless.
	Francis marked the Catholic Church's Nov. 1 All Saints Day by celebrating Mass and giving a homily Saturday in Rome's sprawling Verano cemetery.
	He hailed those who are forced to flee their homes and villages to save their lives, risking hunger, illness and cold. He lamented that sometimes people regard these refugees, including hungry, ill children "as if they are of another species, not human."
	Francis praised these suffering people as "unknown saints," sanctified through their distress.
	Using his papacy to advocate for the poor, Francis said these people are pleading for peace, bread and work.

Pope hails the poor, homeless as 'unknown saints'

Police in Brazil's biggest city say more than 2,000 people staged a peaceful demonstration demanding the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.
	Participants in yesterday's rally in Sao Paulo claim Rousseff knew of a scheme that siphoned money from the state-owned oil company Petrobras and funneled it to the governing Workers' Party.
	A convicted money launderer has told investigators that the Workers' Party benefited from the scheme and that Rousseff had direct knowledge of it, though he has so far offered no proof. The president has strongly denied the accusations.
	Rousseff was re-elected last Sunday with 51.6 percent of the votes against 48.4 per cent for centre-right challenger Aecio Neves.

Demonstrators want impeachment of Brazil president

A Dallas nurse who recovered from Ebola has been reunited with her dog named Bentley, who has been quarantined since she fell ill.
	Nina Pham and the King Charles Spaniel were reunited privately today in a vacant residence where officers once lived at a decommissioned naval air base, where he was quarantined for 21 days. Veterinarians in full personal protective gear checked on him daily.
	"I'd like to take a moment to thank people from all around the world who have sent their best wishes and prayers to me and Mr. Bentley," said Pham, who read part of a statement at a news conference Saturday and called the dog "one of my best friends."
	Pham was diagnosed with Ebola last month. She contracted the virus while caring for a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died October 8.
	Pham recovered and was released October 24 from a Washington, DC-area hospital.
	Earlier this year, authorities in Madrid, Spain, caused a public uproar when they euthanized a dog belonging to a nursing assistant 

Reunion for Dallas nurse who survived Ebola, dog

Police are investigating a prominent former Canadian Broadcast Corp. Radio host on sexual assault charges after three women came forward to complain.
	Toronto police sex crimes Insp. Joanna Beaven-Desjardins said today they are actively investigating former CBC star radio host Jian Ghomeshi. The allegations by the three women and several others by unnamed women in media reports rocked the CBC, a vaunted Canadian institution. CBC fired Ghomeshi last weekend over what it said was "graphic" evidence that he had caused physical injury to a person.
	Ghomeshi has said he had consensual "rough sex" with women and is the victim of a disgruntled ex-girlfriend. He has said he would meet the allegations "directly," but won't discuss it with the media.
	Beaven-Desjardins says police want anyone with evidence to contact them.

Police probe ex-CBC host in sex assault case

Britain has scrambled RAF fighter jets for a second time this week after at least one Russian Bear bomber approached UK airspace.
	The Ministry of Defense said today that RAF Typhoons based at Lossiemouth in Scotland intercepted the aircraft yesterday.
	Images released with the statement showed one bomber, but the ministry declined to say how many aircraft were involved.
	A similar incident took place Wednesday.
	NATO earlier this week reported a spike in Russian military flights over the Black, Baltic and North seas and the Atlantic Ocean, with groups of Russian warplanes conducting large-scale maneuvers in international airspace.
	Tensions have been high since Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March. Alliance pilots have conducted 100 intercepts this year three times more than in 2013.

British jets intercept Russian bombers

A Bahamas-registered cruise liner that ran aground in northern Norway a few months ago did it again today, in sight of the pier where it was to be moored.
	The Norwegian rescue services say passengers had been allowed to leave the "Marco Polo" cruise ship, which was carrying more than a thousand people when it ran aground in the Lofoten archipelago early today
	A Norwegian pilot was onboard "Marco Polo" while two tugboats were trying to free the vessel by pushing it from starboard. A Norwegian coast guard vessel also arrived to assist.
	Rescue officials say there were no injuries, and no damage to the ship has been found.
	"Marco Polo" was chartered by Britain-based Cruise & Maritime Voyages and was cruising along Norway's fjords when it ran aground. Passengers were chiefly from Britain while the nationalities of the crew was not immediately available, the rescue service said. The passengers left the cruise ship took part in a planned sightseeing on land.
	Resident Karl Roger ...

Cruise ship stuck off Norway, no damage

The Russian government's communications watchdog has issued a warning to a top independent radio station over a program about Ukraine.
	Roskomnadzor's warning to Ekho Moskvy related to this week's program, in which two journalists exchanged first-hand accounts of fighting between pro-Russia rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine.
	The journalists, Sergei Loiko of the Los Angeles Times and Timur Olevskiy of Russia's independent Dozhd television station, talked, in particular, about fighting around the airport in the main rebel-held city of Donetsk, that has continued despite a truce signed in September.
	The agency said Friday the program contained "information justifying war crimes," but didn't elaborate.
	Ekho Moskvy's editor-in-chief, Alexei Venediktov, rejected the claim and said the station would appeal the warning.
Under Russian law, a media outlet could face closure if it receives two warnings in one year. The warning was the first for Ekho Moskvy.
	While most Russian ..

Russia's top radio station slapped by government

The leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has denied agreeing to any cease-fire with the government and said more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls all have converted to Islam and been married off.
	In a new video released last night, Abubakar Shekau dashed hopes for a prisoner exchange to get the girls released.
	"The issue of the girls is long forgotten because I have long ago married them off," he said, laughing.
	"In this war, there is no going back," he said in the video received by The Associated Press in the same way as previous messages.
	Nigeria's chief of defense staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, on Oct. 17 announced that Boko Haram had agreed to an immediate cease-fire to end a 5-year-old insurgency that has killed thousands of people and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes in northeast Nigeria.
	But attacks and abductions have continued with the extremists this week seizing Mubi, a town of more than 200,000 people. Fighting also continued ...

Boko Haram denies truce, kidnapped girls married

After an all-night session, the United Nations' expert panel on climate science was scrambling Saturday to finish a report on global warming that a top U.N. official said offers "conclusive evidence" that humans are altering the Earth's climate system.
	Combining the findings of three earlier reports, the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is also expected to describe how climate impacts, including melting Arctic sea ice and rising levels, are already happening and could become irreversible unless the world curbs its greenhouse gas emissions.
	The IPCC says scientists are now 95 percent certain that the buildup of such gases from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation is the main cause of warming seen since the middle of the 20th century.
	"The report offers conclusive scientific evidence that human activities continue to cause unprecedented changes in the Earth's climate," said Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Program.
	The world has the ...

UN panel scrambling to finish climate report

The leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremists is threatening to kill a captured German. Abubakar Shekau says in a new video released late Friday that Boko Haram is still holding the unidentified German who he says is "always crying."
	He says they could "hack him or slaughter him or shoot him." Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said this week that there was no new information about the abducted German.
	A previous video, received by The Associated Press through the same channels, showed the beheading of a man friends identified as the pilot of a missing fighter jet that Boko Haram claims to have shot down.

Boko Haram leader threatens to kill German hostage

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai vowed Saturday to crack down on corruption and ensure security in his nation, even as insurgent attacks in an eastern province killed at least 12 local troops.
	Speaking after returning from a four-day visit to China, Ghani Ahmadzai said that those who embezzled almost $1 billion from the Kabul Bank in 2010 would face justice in the courts. The incident decimated investor confidence in the country's already anemic financial sector.
	Ghani Ahmadzai has made the battle against endemic graft a key policy initiative. One of his first actions after taking office was to reopen the Kabul Bank case and begin proceedings against the high-profile figures who have been accused of using the bank as personal slush funds.
	On security, the president said that Beijing was committed to helping bring peace to Afghanistan after more than 30 years of war and that Afghan territory never again would be used as a base for insurgents to launch attacks on other ...

Afghan president: Corruption, security top issues

The United Nations mission in Baghdad says at least 1,273 Iraqis were killed in violence in October, a slight increase compared to last month amid the ongoing assault by the extremist Islamic State group.
	The UN report issued today said violence killed 856 civilians and 417 members of Iraq's security forces. It said attacks wounded 2,010 Iraqis.
	The worst-hit city was Baghdad, with 379 civilians killed.
	The UN says the figures do not take into account causalities in Anbar province nor some other militant-held parts of Iraq.
	The October count apparently did not include the victims of the recent mass killings conducted by Islamic State group militants in Anbar province against pro-government Sunni tribesmen.
	The UN has said September's death toll was 1,119 Iraqis killed.

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