The 10,000 pigeons released in a ceremony today for China's National Day underwent unusual scrutiny, each having its feathers and anus checked for dangerous materials, state-run media reports said, reflecting government jitters over possible attacks.
	The symbols of peace were released at sunrise in Beijing's symbolic heart of Tiananmen Square in a ceremony for the October 1 holiday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
	Beijing domestic security police officer Guo Chunwei was quoted in the Jinghua Times as saying workers checked the wings, legs and anus of each pigeon ahead of time to ensure they were "not carrying suspicious material."
	The entire process was videotaped, and the birds were then loaded into sealed vehicles for the trip to Tiananmen Square, the newspaper said.
	A similar report appeared in the Beijing News, and the People's Daily tweeted about it in English: "10,000 pigeons go through anal security check for suspicious ...

Reports: China body-searched 10,000 pigeons

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Minimum and maximum temperatures in Celsius and Fahrenheit, preciptation in centimeters and inches, and weather conditions as recorded for the previous day and forecast for the current and following day in each city as of 0700 GMT:
;MIN C;MIN F;MAX C;MAX F;COND;PRECIP CM;PRECIP IN;MIN C;MIN F;MAX C;MAX F;COND;MIN C;MIN F;MAX C;MAX F;COND Amsterdam;12;53;18;66;rn;0.0;0.00;12;54;20;68;pc;14;59;21;70;r n
Athens;16;60;24;75;clr;0.0;0.00;17;64;27;81;pc;17;64;26;79;pc Atlanta;17;64;21;70;rn;0.5;0.02;17;64;28;82;pc;18;66;29;84;pc Auckland;10;50;17;62;rn;0.0;0.00;9;50;17;63;rn;9;50;16;61;rn Basra;22;71;41;107;clr;0.0;0.00;22;72;41;106;clr;22;72;40;104; clr
Bahrain;29;84;34;93;clr;0.0;0.00;28;84;35;95;clr;28;84;36;97;c lr
Bangkok;24;75;31;88;rn;27.0;1.06;24;77;33;91;rn;24;77;34;93;rn Barbados;26;78;30;87;pc;0.0;0.00;27;81;31;88;rn;27;81;31;88;rn Barcelona;20;68;24;76;rn;3.0;0.12;17;63;24;75;pc;17;63;24;75;p c
Beijing;10;50;16;60;cdy;0.0;0.00;8;48;23;73;pc;9;50;19;66;pc ...

Global Weather-Celsius/Fahrenheit

Three soldiers have been charged with homicide in the June killings of 22 suspected gang members in southern Mexico, the government has announced.
	Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said a total of eight military personnel initially participated in an 8- to 10-minute gunfight with the armed suspects in the rural town of San Pedro Limon.
	Subsequently, three soldiers allegedly unleashed "a new series of gunshots that had no justification whatsoever," he said. They were to be formally arraigned today.
	Murillo Karam did not say whether the suspected gang members had surrendered, but a witness to the confrontation has told The Associated Press that 21 had already given up when they were killed.
	The army initially reported that all the suspects had died during a firefight in the June 30 incident in San Pedro Limon.
	The Associated Press visited the scene days later and reported no evidence of a shootout at the scene. Instead, bullet holes and blood stains indicated some were shot ...

3 charged with homicide in Mexico army killings

Floyd "Creeky" Creekmore, a former Montana rancher who held the record as the world's oldest performing clown, has died at age 98, his son has said.
	Creekmore died Saturday night in his Billings home of complications from heart disease, Dave Creekmore said yesterday.
	Creeky turned to rubber noses and orange wigs in the 1980s, after retiring from his previous life ranching and building homes. He joined the Shriners, which holds circus performances to raise money for its hospitals, and he put in thousands of hours of entertaining sick and well children, his son said.
	In 2012, Guinness World Records recognized the then-95-year-old Creeky as the world's oldest performing clown. A previous stroke had knocked the juggling out of his act, but he still regularly donned the multicolored jacket and yellow hat to delight the young and old with a magic trick or a gag.
	He stopped performing later that year when his wife of 74 years, Betty Creekmore, died. Creeky continued to attend Shriners' ..

World's oldest clown dies at 98 in Montana

Chilean authorities were searching for a Canadian and a Swiss tourist missing after an avalanche that occurred while they were hiking in the country's south.
	The tourists, whose names have not been released, arrived in Cochrane in the Aysen region of Chile's Patagonia on Friday. Cochrane police Capt Alvaro Herrera said yesterday that rescue officials have been flying over a hard-to-reach area near mount San Lorenzo.
	Local Radio Santa Maria says the tourists were part of a crew of four people shooting a documentary, and they managed to alert authorities about the avalanche using a satellite phone.
	Two other people in the group who were rescued told police that a wall of rocks and snow cascaded down the mount, trapping them.

Swiss, Canadian tourists missing in Chile

Fourteen of the 57 students reported missing after weekend shootings that killed six people in the southern state of Guerrero have been located, officials have said.
	Some were found in their homes or at school, and a search was continuing for the 43 teachers college students still unaccounted for, state Prosecutor Inaky Blanco said yesterday.
	Earlier, the head of the state human rights commission, Ramon Navarrete, said some of the students had fled the shooting, and some were detained and then released. He added that there were high hopes of finding the rest.
	Student activists linked to the Ayotzinapa normal school are known for their radical protests.
	Authorities say police shot at buses that had been hijacked by students over the weekend, killing three students and wounding 25. Masked men later fired on two taxis and a bus carrying a third-division soccer team. Two people on the soccer bus were killed along with a woman in one of the taxis.
	Twenty-two police officers from the ..

Mexico says 14 of 57 missing students found

A Somali American is scheduled to be sentenced today for attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction four years ago in Portland, Oregon.
	Mohamed Mohamud faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for the plot that was actually an FBI sting. Agents posing as terrorists supplied the fake bomb that Mohamud tried to detonate at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
	In court documents, government lawyers ask a federal judge to sentence Mohamud to 40 years in prison, saying he never wavered in his willingness to kill thousands.
	Defense attorneys seek a 10-year sentence. They say the plot wouldn't have happened without government involvement and Mohamud has shown remorse.
	The sentencing was delayed a year after the government disclosed that warrantless overseas wiretaps helped make its case. Mohamud's conviction was later upheld.

Somali American to be sentenced in US terror case

An Italian lawmaker has decried a secret arrangement in which intelligence agents paid imprisoned top Mafiosi for information during several of the years when Silvio Berlusconi was premier.
	Claudio Fava, vice president of Parliament's anti-Mafia commission, told reporters Tuesday that magistrates who investigate Italy's organized crime syndicates were kept in the dark about the practice, described in a written protocol between the now-defunct intelligence agency Sisde and the national prison administration agency. The practice came to light after Premier Matteo Renzi declassified the document in July, and the arrangement was subsequently made public at the appeals trial of a former Sisde chief, Mario Mori, in Palermo, Sicily.
	The arrangement ran from about 2003 to 2007. The commission will begin hearings Wednesday to learn if information bought from bosses was useful. Fava said he suspects the information might have been used to derail investigations into whether politicians had ...

Lawmaker: Italian spy agency paid Mafia bosses

A wave of car bombings and other attacks mainly targeting Shiite areas of Iraq killed at least 47 people today, including more than 20 in the capital Baghdad, officials said.
	No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were likely carried out by Sunni militants. The extremist Islamic State group, which seized a third of the country in a lightning offensive over the summer, has claimed similar previous attacks.
	In the deadliest attack, a car bomb in northwestern Baghdad killed eight people and wounded 15. Another car bomb in a different area killed seven and wounded 21, and a mortar attack killed seven and wounded 13 elsewhere in the capital, police said. All three attacks targeted Shiite-majority areas.
	Earlier today a car bomb killed four civilians and two policemen in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, about 90 kilometers south of Baghdad. Another 16 people were wounded in the blast.
	Another explosives-laden car went off in the town of Iskandariyah, 50 kilometers south of 

Wave of attacks kills nearly 50 in Iraq

The next version of Microsoft's flagship operating system will be called Windows 10, as the company skips version 9 to emphasize advances it is making toward a world centered on mobile devices and Internet services.
	The current version, Windows 8, has been widely derided for forcing radical behavioral changes. Microsoft is restoring some of the more traditional ways of doing things and promises that Windows 10 will be familiar for users regardless of which version of Windows they are now using.
	For instance, the start menu in Windows 10 will appear similar to what's found in Windows 7, but tiles opening to the side will resemble what's found in Windows 8.
	Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft executive who oversees Windows design and evolution, said Windows 10 will offer "the familiarity of Windows 7 with some of the benefits that exist in Windows 8" to help business users make the transition.
	Microsoft offered a glimpse of its vision for Windows at a San Francisco event today aimed at ...

Microsoft skips Windows 9 to emphasize advances

Pro-democracy protesters demanded that Hong Kong's top leader meet with them, threatening wider actions if he did not, after he said today that China would not budge in its decision to limit voting reforms in the Asian financial hub.
	Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has taken a hard line against any perceived threat to the Communist Party's hold on power, meanwhile vowed in a National Day speech to "steadfastly safeguard" Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.
	He said Beijing believes Hong Kong will "create an even better future in the big family of the motherland."
	China's government has condemned the student-led protests as illegal, though so far it has not overtly intervened, leaving Hong Kong's semi-autonomous government to handle the crisis.
	But Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's rejection of the student demands dashed hopes for a quick resolution of the five-day standoff that has blocked city streets, forcing some schools and offices to close.
	Leung's statement drew a ...

Hong Kong leader rejects protesters' demands

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson said today she takes full responsibility for the breach of White House security in which a man with a knife entered the mansion and ran through half the ground floor before being subdued.
	Pierson also said there have been six fence-jumpers this year alone, including one just eight days before Army veteran Omar J. Gonzalez jumped the fence on Sept 19.
	Pierson appeared today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to face blistering criticism. "The fact is the system broke down," declared committee chairman Darrell Issa. "An intruder walked in the front door of the White House, and that is unacceptable."
	Not only that, he said, but the intruder penetrated at least five rings of security protecting what is supposed to be one of the world's most secure properties.
	"How on earth did it happen?" he asked. "This failure ... has tested the trust of the American people in the Secret Service, a trust we clearly depend on to protect ...

Security chief takes onus for White House breach

It was a fitting goodbye for China's biggest tennis star, complete with hugs from her former competitors, cheers from Chinese fans, and a bouquet of flowers from Rafael Nadal.
     There were also tears. Plenty of tears.
     Li Na received a touching send-off at the China Open on Tuesday, more than a week after she announced her retirement from the sport, citing recurring knee injuries.
     Wearing a black pantsuit and her hair pulled back in a low bun, the two-time major winner fought back tears as she walked onto center court to a rapturous applause and a giant red banner proclaiming in English, "Yes, This is Li Na's Motherland--China."
     With some 40 women's players standing behind her, she then watched as highlights of her biggest tennis moments played on the stadium's giant screens, and listened to tributes from tennis officials and one of her closest friends on tour, two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
     "The most important thing I want to say tonight is thank you 

Li Na receives teary goodbye at China Open

German investigators are asking for help in tracking down two Pakistani men suspected of defrauding Germany of USD 173 million in connection with carbon dioxide emissions trading.
	State prosecutors in Frankfurt today issued pictures of Mobeen Iqbal, 32, and Ashraf Muhammad, 35, who are wanted on international warrants for tax fraud for allegedly running the scheme between August 2009 and April 2010.
	Their whereabouts are unknown, but investigators say they are believed possibly to be in Dubai.
	Prosecutors say emissions certificates were bought and sold in an elaborate chain of transactions involving German and foreign companies that served to cover up missing or inaccurate tax declarations.
	A 41-year-old British man was charged in July with involvement and eight others have already been convicted.

Germany seeks 2 Pakistani men in tax fraud scheme

The mobile payment service PayPal is splitting from eBay and will become a separate and publicly traded company next year.
	Almost a year after billionaire Carl Icahn opened a proxy fight and pressured eBay for a spinoff of PayPal, eBay President and CEO John Donahoe announced the split today.
	Donahoe will step down as CEO of eBay after overseeing the separation of the two companies and will not have a management roll in either of the two afterward. He may have a seat on the board at one or both, along with eBay Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan.
	EBay, based in San Jose, California, said that the separation was the best path for growth and shareholder value creation for each business.
	EBay is an e-commerce that connects sellers to buyers. PayPal, acquired by eBay in 2002 for USD 1.3 billion, has been its fastest growing segment.
	In the most recent quarter, PayPal gained 4 million new, active registered accounts, up 15 per cent, to 152 million.
	Consumers who use PayPal can send and 

PayPal to separate from eBay in 2015

The Olympic Council of Asia says a wushu gold medalist from Malaysia has been kicked out of the Asian Games for doping and stripped of her medals.
     Council director General Husain al Musallam said in a statement on Tuesday that the banned stimulant sibutramine was found in a urine sample taken from Tai Cheau Xuen after competition on Sept. 20.
     He said Tai was disqualified and stripped of her gold medal in the nanquan martial arts style category and bronze in the nandao category. It wasn't immediately clear whether Tai was still in Incheon.
     The test findings were to be forwarded to the Asian and international wushu federations and the World Anti-Doping Agency for further action, including a possible competition ban.
     Sibutramine was also in the positive doping test by Cambodian soft tennis player Yi Sophany. Tai is the third competitor to fail a doping test at these games.

Wushu gold medalist caught doping at Asian Games

News Corp is spending about USD 950 million to buy the online real estate business Move Inc in a deal that aims to speed up the media company's digital expansion.
	News Corp says it will pay USD 21 per share in cash for each outstanding share of Move. That represents a 37 per cent premium over the stock's closing stock price of USD 15.29 yesterday.
	Move operates the website realtor.Com and News Corp. Says it displays more than 98 per cent of all for-sale properties listed in the United States.
	The media company says Move's network of websites reaches about 35 million people per month.
	New York-based News Corp, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, expects the deal to close at the end of the year.
	Move's board has unanimously approved the acquisition.

News Corp to buy Move Inc for about USD 950 million

Thousands of feet above the Pacific Ocean, the bullets were coming fast and the flak was flying.
	Japanese fighter planes whizzed around like bees as the American forces in their lumbering B-24 bombers tried everything to reach their targets, save fuel and stay airborne for the long trip home.
	Tom Pelle, a 20-year-old tech sergeant, was pulling double duty as a machine gunner that October day. That was 70 years ago, but he remembers the battle like it was yesterday.
	"They hit every one of us. They shot down seven, and we were almost number eight," said Pelle, who lost his right leg in the battle.
	Now Pelle and the few other remaining members of the 13th Air Force's famous 307th Bombardment Group, their family members and Ancestry.Com's military records site Fold3 are working to keep alive the group's memory by collecting and digitizing thousands of photographs, military orders and other memorabilia.
	The records are being posted online as part of a searchable database.
	The effort .

Records, photos of famed US WWII bombers go online

Pilots on Lufthansa's long-haul fleet have started a 15-hour walkout at the airline's main Frankfurt hub in a festering contract dispute.
	The Vereinigung Cockpit union called members out on strike from 8 am (0600 GMT) today in its fourth limited several-hour walkout over recent weeks and the first since a new round of talks collapsed last week.
	Lufthansa said it plans to go ahead with 32 of the day's 57 scheduled intercontinental flights from Frankfurt 26 flown by volunteer pilots, the other six pushed forward or back tomorrow.
	The two sides are at odds over the pilots' demand that Lufthansa keep a transition payment for those wanting early retirement.
	The airline, facing competition from European budget airlines and major Gulf carriers, wants to cut those payments.

Lufthansa long-haul pilots start 15-hour strike

The transfer of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay has ground to a halt amid a slow Pentagon approval process.
	That's caused frustration within the administration and raised doubts that President Barack Obama can fulfill his campaign promise to close the prison at the US Navy base in Cuba for terrorism suspects.
	A detainee sent back to Algeria in March is the only prisoner to have moved out this year, beyond the exchange of five Taliban members in return for US Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, taken prisoner in Afghanistan.
	The slow pace is the result of a law giving Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel final authority to transfer detainees. Pentagon officials say they must consider the risks before signing off.
	The White House says recidivism risks must be weighed against the danger to the US in keeping the prison open.

Obama goal of Gitmo closure stalled at Pentagon

Militants of the Islamic State group were closing in on a Kurdish area of Syria on the border with Turkey an advance unhindered so far by US-led coalition airstrikes, including one that struck a grain silo, killing two civilians, according to activists.
	Islamic State fighters yesterday pounded the city of Kobani with mortars and artillery shells, advancing within five kilometres of the Kurdish frontier city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a Kurdish official.
	The Islamic extremists intensified their shelling of the border region following US-led strikes Saturday. The aerial assault appeared to have done little to thwart the militants, Kurdish officials and activists said, adding that of anything, the extremists seemed more determined to seize the area, which would deepen their control over territory stretching from the Turkish border, across Syria and to the western edge of Baghdad.
	"Instead of pushing them back, now every time ..

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