A US report released today says China's human rights record has worsened in key areas over the past year and that limits on free speech and assembly are growing.
	The annual report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China said the country has tightened restrictions on civil society, rights advocates, journalists and religious organisations. It added that President Xi Jinping has adhered "to the authoritarian model of his predecessors" since taking power last year.
	That model "poses a serious challenge to U.S.-China relations and China's own development," the report said. It recommended that the US press for more freedoms in China, including by looking at how it issues visas to Chinese officials.
	"Human rights and rule of law conditions in China overall did not improve this past year, and declined in some of the areas covered by this report," it said. "The Chinese government and Communist Party continued to emphasise authoritarian control at the expense of human rights and .

US report: China's human rights record worsening

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An imprisoned Syrian journalist and human rights activist has won a major writing award celebrating free speech.
	Mazen Darwish shares the PEN Pinter prize with India-born British novelist Salman Rushdie. The award was announced today at a ceremony in London.
	Darwish was the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression when he was arrested in February 2012 along with two colleagues. The three have been charged with "publicising terrorist acts."
	Rushdie said Darwish "courageously fought for civilised values free expression, human rights in one of the most dangerous places in the world." He said he hoped the prize would bolster calls for Darwish to be released.
	The award was established in 2009 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter. It goes jointly to a British writer seen as sharing Pinter's "unflinching, unswerving" gaze on society, and an international writer who has faced persecution, chosen by the British winner and writers' organisation .

Imprisoned Syrian activist wins PEN Pinter prize

A US lawmaker leading a congressional inquiry into the Secret Service raised questions today about a White House volunteer's possible involvement in a prostitution scandal that rocked the agency two years ago.
	Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security, said in an interview that the White House had new questions to answer in light of information he has received from Secret Service whistleblowers, as well as a report in today's Washington Post.
	White House officials were adamant in denying involvement by anyone on their team in the incident. The scandal led to the firing of more than a half-dozen Secret Service agents who had hired prostitutes while sent to Colombia with President Barack Obama for the 2012 summit.
	The developments come with the Secret Service, which protects the president and his family, in the midst of a shake-up after a series of scandals and security breaches. In one incident last month, a man with 

Republican lawmaker: Possible White House cover-up

Police say a gunman standing on a subway platform opened fire on a commuter train in downtown Chicago, though no one was injured.
	Chicago Police spokesman Martin Maloney says officers arrested a suspect a short distance away after today's shooting and recovered a weapon.
	The shooting occurred at the LaSalle Street Blue Line station, near the Chicago Board of Trade building in the city's financial district.
	One witness, John Langston, says the first car of the train was hit. He says four or five shots were fired, and sounded like blows from a sledge hammer. Langston says spent shell casings littered the platform.
	Police say the gunman fled after the shooting. Chicago Transit Authority spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski says passengers were unloaded and no one was reported injured.

Police: Shots fired at commuter train in Chicago

An amateur hypnotist in the state of Washington is accused of having sex with a woman while she was hypnotized.
	Kevin Christian Geyer pleaded not guilty yesterday in Benton County Superior Court to a charge of indecent liberties.
	Court documents say the 25-year-old hypnotized the woman June 4 at his home in Kennewick. He reportedly had used hypnotism several times in the past to help her with her problems.
	The Tri-City Herald reported the woman told police she had vague images of Geyer sexually assaulting her and later found evidence on her clothing.
	She says when she confronted him he responded by apologising.

US man accused of having sex with hypnotized woman

Secretary of State John Kerry said the US and the world need to confront the threat of climate change while there's still time.
	Kerry said yesterday climate change is already changing the world in real and significant ways, from serious food shortages to increasing temperatures to the threat of rising sea levels. But those changes also bring the potential of millions of new jobs to develop the renewable energy industry, he said, provided the US and the rest of the world act now.
	"We still have in our hands a window of opportunity to make the difference," he said. "But the window is closing quickly. That is not a threat. That is a fact."
	Kerry made the comments after touring a Boston wind technology testing center with his British counterpart, Philip Hammond, who echoed Kerry's remarks.
	"This is a battle that we have to win for the sake of our long-term security," Hammond said. "We do not accept that we have to choose between prosperity and the future of our planet."
	The Wind ...

Kerry: Address climate change before it's too late

A Republic of Ireland opinion poll has found that Sinn Fein, the nationalist party long an outsider in southern Irish politics, has grown as popular as the main government party for the first time.
	Analysts say Sinn Fein could win both parliamentary seats being filled in two by-elections tomorrow, putting more pressure on the two-party government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny with a general election looming by 2016, the 100th anniversary of Dublin's Easter Rising against British rule.
	Today's findings in the Irish Times newspaper put Kenny's center-right Fine Gael party at 24 per cent voter support, the same as the previous poll in May.
	But this time, Sinn Fein rose 4 percentage points to join Fine Gael at 24 per cent.
	The combination of government unpopularity amid higher taxes and crippling household debts, versus Sinn Fein's left-wing appeal to shift tax burdens to Ireland's richest citizens, could continue to 2016, when the government plans to commemorate the Easter rebellion ..

Sinn Fein ties Irish government party for 1st time

Authorities in Iraq say a suicide car-bomb attack on a security checkpoint has killed nine people in a city northeast of Baghdad.
	Police officials say the attack today afternoon took place when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a police checkpoint in the city of Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of the capital. Some policemen were among those killed, and 11 other people were wounded.
	Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
	Iraq is in its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of US troops, as Sunni militant groups led by the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State group have seized a third of the country since early this year.

Suicide attack kills 9 in Iraq

The presidents of three Ebola-stricken West African nations sought an immediate outpouring of money, doctors and hospital beds, and representatives nations gathered at a World Bank meeting today promised to send more aid quickly, including a pledge of medical evacuations for health care responders who catch the virus.
	"Our people are dying," said President Ernst Bai Koroma, speaking by video from Sierra Leone to an Ebola summit at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington.
	He described devastating effects of "this evil virus" children made orphans, doctors and nurses killed, an overwhelmed medical system that can't keep up with the need.
	The world's response hasn't kept pace with the spread of Ebola, Koroma said, and "a tragedy unforeseen in modern times" is threatening everyone.
	United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called for a 20-fold surge in international aid to fight Ebola.
	"For those who have yet to pledge, I say please do so 

UN chief: 20 times more Ebola aid needed

Enthusiasm for free markets runs higher in communist China and Vietnam than in traditional capitalist bastions the United States and United Kingdom, the Pew Research Centre reports.
	A world-topping 95 percent of Vietnamese say that most people are better off in free-market economies, and 76 percent of Chinese agree, according to a Pew survey of nearly 49,000 people worldwide that might have astonished Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong.
	Seventy percent of Americans and 65 percent of those in the UK expressed support for a free-market economic system.
	Expanded world trade has ignited fast economic growth in emerging economies such as China and Vietnam, lifting tens of millions out of poverty. Meanwhile, the advanced economies of the United States and Europe have contended in recent years with sluggish growth, high unemployment and stagnant wages.
	Those distinct experiences appear to have shaped attitudes toward free markets - and the future: 65 percent of those in advanced economies said ..

Study: Vietnamese, Chinese choose capitalist road

Formula One drivers say they will race this weekend's Russian Grand Prix for Jules Bianchi, who was seriously injured in an accident last week in Japan.
     Still trying to cope with Bianchi's accident, some of the leading drivers said Thursday they had to be professional and focus on the race, despite the "gray cloud" over this weekend's event in Sochi.
     "All our thought are with Jules," Ferrari driver and former champion Fernando Alonso said. "I have a huge respect for our sport but when big accidents happen, there are no words to describe the feeling.
     "It's going to be emotionally very difficult, we will race for him, in our minds we are with him, praying."
     Bianchi, who was part of Ferrari's young drivers program, sustained a severe head injury Sunday when his Marussia car slid off the track in rainy conditions on the Suzuka circuit during the Japan Grand Prix and ploughed into a crane picking up the Sauber of Adrian Sutil, who had crashed out at the same spot one ...

F1 drivers dedicate Russia race to Jules Bianchi

Two suicide bombers struck in Yemen today, one targeting a gathering of Shiite rebels in the country's capital and the other hitting a military outpost in the south , in attacks that killed nearly 70 people, officials said.
	The bombings underscored Yemen's highly volatile situation following last month's takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Shiite Houthi rebels whose blitz stunned the impoverished Arab nation on the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
	The Houthis' push into Sanaa also prompted threats of retaliation from their Sunni militant foes in al-Qaida's Yemen branch.
	The Health Ministry said at least 47 people died and 75 were wounded when a suicide attacker set off his explosives today morning in central Sanaa.
	The attacker targeted a gathering of Houthis and their supporters, mingling among the protesters as they were getting ready for the rally in the city's landmark Tahrir Street before he detonated his explosives, according to security and health ...

2 suicide attacks in Yemen kill nearly 70 people

An extra level of screening at major airports will reach more than 9 of 10 people traveling to the US from Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa, the White House announced on the same day that the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in America died.
	About 150 travelers a day will have their temperatures checked using no-touch thermometers. Health officials expect false alarms from fevers due to malaria.
	The extra screening likely wouldn't have singled out Thomas Eric Duncan when he arrived from hard-hit Liberia last month, because he had no symptoms while traveling. Duncan, died today in Dallas.
	The disease has killed at least 3,800 people in West Africa with no signs of abating. Today, the presidents of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the countries hardest hit in the outbreak, were appealing to the World Bank for more help for their nations.
	"What we're paying for now is our failure to have invested in those countries before," said Francisco Ferreira, the World Bank's ...

Obama: Not much margin for error in Ebola fight

Patrick Modiano of France, who has made a lifelong study of the Nazi occupation and its effect on his country, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature today.
	The Swedish Academy gave the 8 million kronor (USD 1.1 million) prize to Modiano "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation."
	Modiano, 69, whose novel "Missing Person" won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1978 was born in a west Paris suburb two months after World War II ended in Europe in July 1945. His father was of Jewish Italian origins and met his Belgian actress mother during the occupation of Paris.
	Jewishness, the Nazi occupation and loss of identity are recurrent themes in his novels, which include 1968's "La Place de l'Etoile" later hailed in Germany as a key Post-Holocaust work.
	Modiano owes his first big break to a friend of his mother's, French writer Raymond Queneau, who first introduced him to the Gallimard publishing ...

France's Patrick Modiano wins literature Nobel

Members of the new Palestinian unity government travelled from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip on today for their first Cabinet session in the war-battered territory a largely symbolic meeting meant to mark the end of absolute Hamas control of Gaza.
	The gathering, set for midday today, comes three days ahead of an international pledging conference where Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will seek USD 4 billion for Gaza reconstruction following a 50-day war there this summer between Israel and Hamas.
	By meeting in Gaza for the first time, the unity government of independent experts hopes to reassure donors that it can lead reconstruction efforts and that funds pledged for Gaza will not reach Hamas, shunned by the West as a terror group.
	However, it remains unclear how much authority the unity government, which reports to Abbas, will have on the ground. The Islamic militant Hamas, which seized Gaza from Abbas in 2007, has said it will step aside, but has refused to ..

Palestinian unity Cabinet to meet 1st time in Gaza

A federal magistrate judge will decide if a 19-year-old US citizen from suburban Chicago accused of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State militants should stay behind bars pending trial.
	Mohammed Hamzah Khan's detention hearing in federal court in Chicago today follows his Saturday arrest at O'Hare International Airport as he attempted to board a plane to Turkey.
	Prosecutors filed a motion yesterday evening asking Judge Susan Cox to close part of today's hearing to the public. Their explanation was itself sealed.
	Investigators said Khan left a letter for his parents in his bedroom at the family's Bolingbrook home expressing disgust with Western society.
	He's charged with attempting to provide material support to foreign terrorists. A conviction carries a maximum 15-year prison term.

Judge to rule on detention in Islamic State case

The Thai pilot of a helicopter that went missing in a mountainous part of Myanmar almost two weeks ago has been found and taken to hospital.
	The pilot identified by Thai media as Chatchawal Thanthong arrived in Yangon late yesterday. He'd been flown from northern Kachin state after a search party discovered him earlier in the day.
	His helicopter disappeared September 27 as it was delivering supplies to rescuers looking for lost climbers on one of Myanmar's tallest mountains. Two other men were on board, both from Myanmar.
	Hope was fading for the crew when one of the men walked into a small town Tuesday. He said his crewmates were still alive, prompting the search that found the Thai pilot. The other crew member is still missing.

Pilot of missing helicopter found alive in Myanmar

Two men on a motorcycle have fired a grenade at the main gate of a Protestant church in the southern Philippines, killing two churchgoers and wounding three others, police said.
	It was not immediately clear if Muslim rebels were involved in the attack at the United Church of Christ in the Philippines church in Pikit town in North Cotabato province, police said. The attackers escaped.
	Pikit police chief Mautin Pangandigan, said the grenade was fired late yesterday from an M203 launcher.
	Pangandigan said a 54-year-old nurse was declared dead on arrival at a hospital and a 39-year-old public school teacher died later from her wounds. He said another teacher and two businessmen were wounded.
	Pastor Jerry Sanchez told a local radio station there were at least 40 people inside the church at the time.
	"We have no idea why this thing happened. We condemn this act," Sanchez said, adding that his church has been actively promoting peace in the community.
	Government forces have been on ...

Grenade blast kills 2 in Philippine church

These are treasures that Israel doesn't allow anyone to check out of its national library.
	Kafka's Hebrew vocabulary notebook. The first written evidence of the Yiddish language. And the Crowns of Damascus, Bibles smuggled out of Syria 20 years ago in a Mossad spy operation so classified that their very existence in Israel was kept secret for years.
	Many nations maintain official libraries of their countries' most prized historical manuscripts. Israel's is unique: It seeks manuscripts from every country in the world where Jews have ever lived.
	Now the National Library of Israel is dusting the cobwebs off some of the most prized jewels of its collection as it seeks to draw attention to a new effort to preserve and publicise these treasures.
	It's pioneering a worldwide initiative to digitize every Hebrew manuscript in existence. It's building a new home next to the Israeli parliament.
	On Sunday, it sent a prized manuscript handwritten by medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides to ...

Israeli library's manuscripts tell unique stories

Authorities sealed off villages for months in Myanmar's only Muslim-majority region and in some cases beat and arrested people who refused to register with immigration officials, residents and activists say, in what may be the most aggressive effort yet to compel Rohingya to identify themselves as migrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
	Immigration officials, border guards and members of the illegal-alien task force in the northern tip of Rakhine state home to 90 per cent of the country's 1.3 million Rohingya said they were simply updating family lists, as they have in the past. But this year, in addition to questions about marriages, deaths and births, people were classified by ethnicity.
	The government denies the existence of Rohingya in the country, saying those who claim the ethnicity are actually Bengalis. Residents said those who refused to take part suffered the consequences.
	"We are trapped," Khin Maung Win said last week. He said authorities started setting up police ...

Myanmar blockades Rohingya, tries to erase name

Japan and the United States are revising their mutual defense guidelines for the first time in nearly two decades to respond to China's military expansion and increase Japan's role in regional defense.
	An interim report released today says the US and Japan are pursuing a wider partnership that requires "enhanced capabilities and greater shared responsibilities."
	The revision, the first since 1997, comes at a time of heightened Japan-China tensions over islands claimed by both countries in the East China Sea, as well as continuing concern about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons development.
	"What we need to address today is quite different from what we were aiming for in 1997," Koji Kano, a Defense Ministry official in the Japan-US cooperation division, told reporters earlier this week. "The point is how Japan and the US can respond better in the current environment."
	The revised guidelines will factor in policy changes under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that enable Japan to ..

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