US President Barack Obama, in a chilling assessment of international efforts to stem a deadly Ebola outbreak, said the world has not done enough to respond to a health crisis that poses a growing threat to regional and global security.
	"There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be," Obama said today in remarks to a high-level United Nations meeting on Ebola.
	The crisis in West Africa is the largest ever outbreak of Ebola, with more than 6,200 people believed to have been sickened, almost half of whom have died.
	US health officials have warned that the number of infected people could explode to at least 1.4 million by mid-January, though they have also cautioned that the totals could peak well below that if efforts to control the outbreak are ramped up.
	Margaret Chan, director of the World Health Organization, addressed the Ebola meeting ahead of Obama and warned that the outbreak will likely get worse before it gets better. The virus, she said, is .

Obama urges world to do more to tackle Ebola

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Eric Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and pushed to make the US criminal justice system more even-handed, is resigning after six years on the job. He is the nation's first black attorney general.
	The White House said that President Barack Obama planned to announce Holder's departure later today. The White House said Holder plans to remain at the Justice Department until his successor is in place.
	The 63-year-old former judge and prosecutor took office in early 2009 as the US government grappled with the worst financial crisis in decades and with divisive questions on the handling of captured terrorism suspects, issues that helped shape his six-year tenure as the country's top law enforcement official. He is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in US history.
	In his first few years on the job, Holder endured a succession of firestorms over, among other things, an ultimately-abandoned plan to try terrorism ...

Official says Holder resigning as attorney general

Iran's president says a nuclear deal is possible before the November deadline if the West wants a deal and shows flexibility.
	Hassan Rouhani told the UN General Assembly today that Iran is determined to continue its confidence-building approach and transparency in the nuclear negotiations.
	Rouhani said a nuclear agreement would create a new environment "for cooperation at regional and international levels, allowing for greater focus on some very important regional issues such as combating violence and extremism in the region."
	He said it would also be "a historic opportunity" for the West to show it doesn't ignore an international treaty that allows Iran to have a peaceful nuclear program to produce energy.

Rouhani: nuclear deal on Iran possible by deadline

First Italy fought its mafia mobsters by confiscating their wealth. Now judges are taking away something more precious: their sons.
	Riccardo Cordi', a shy 18-year-old scion of one of Italy's most notorious mob families, is a pioneer in a new strategy to fight the mafia by exiling crime clan sons from their homes and families. Riccardo is the first of about 20 sons sent into a kind of rehab away from the mob by juvenile courts in the southern region of Calabria, home to the dangerous 'ndrangheta syndicate.
	By age 16, Riccardo seemed destined to go the way of his father, a reputed boss gunned down in a turf war, and three elder brothers in prison on mafia-related convictions. Their photos line the wall of the fortress-like Cordi' home in Calabria, seen in an exclusive visit by The Associated Press, in a testimony to the rule of blood in the powerful 'ndrangheta.
	But when Riccardo was charged with attempted theft and damage to a police car, judge Roberto Di Bella followed up his ...

Italy fights mafia with new strategy: banish sons

Chinese police detained the publisher and the general manager of an influential business publication today, weeks after some editors and reporters for the publication's website were detained on allegations of extortion, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
	It said Shen Hao, publisher of the 21st Century Business Herald, and general manager Chen Dongyang were taken away by police, but did not say what charges they might face.
	The financial publication is part of the influential Nanfang Media Group. Officials at the group were not immediately available for comment.
	Corruption has plagued China's media industry, where extortion in exchange for cover-ups and payments for news are common.
	In early September, police said some employees of the publication's website, 21cbh.Com, had extorted money from companies by threatening to publish negative news about them.
	Chinese newspapers, broadcasters and other media are all owned by the state or the ruling party. But they must support ...

Chinese media executives detained amid scandal

China's state media released the first comprehensive report on evidence used to convict a prominent ethnic minority scholar of separatism and send him to prison for life, as top officials defended the harsh sentence amid criticism abroad.
	In an account released a week after the closed-door trial, the official Xinhua News Agency said prosecutors had marshalled 210 pieces of evidence against Ilham Tohti, including a video of one of his lectures in which he purportedly said that the restive western Xinjiang region belongs to the Muslim Uighur people, not the Chinese majority Han.
	The report late yesterday also quoted the scholar as telling his students "I am not Chinese because I am a Uighur. My pride is that of greater Turkestan."
	Xinhua reported that prosecutors also said the scholar publicised a fake opinion poll showing 12 per cent of Uighurs supported separating from China and that his students had testified that he had forced separatist teachings on them.
	Defense lawyer Li ...

China defends life sentence for Uighur scholar

The Fire Department of New York says three retired firefighters who worked at ground zero have died on the same day from illnesses related to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
	Lt Howard Bischoff and firefighters Robert Leaver and Daniel Heglund died Monday.
	Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro says their deaths are "a painful reminder that 13 years later we continue to pay a terrible price for the department's heroic efforts."
	The three worked at the World Trade Centre site after the attacks. One had leukemia, one had esophageal cancer and a third had colon cancer.
	The Uniformed Fire Officers Association says first responders showed health problems soon after the attacks, with 99 per cent of exposed firefighters reporting at least one new respiratory illness.
	The FDNY lost 343 firefighters on September 11.

9/11 illness kills 3 retired firefighters in 1 day

Sri Lanka Cricket said today it will allow suspended off-spin bowler Sachithra Senanayake to play domestic cricket as he is making good progress in remedying his bowling action.
     The sport's governing body said in a statement that Senanayake had worked with some experts in University of Western Australia and had made "tremendous improvement" and continues training with his coaches.
     In the meantime Sri Lanka Cricket will allow him to play in the local mercantile cricket tournament starting next month as per International Cricket Council guidelines, a significant step for the bowler to return to the game.
     The ICC guidelines say a suspended bowler could play domestic cricket with the permission and supervision of the home board.
     Senanayake was reported to be having a suspect action during Sri Lanka's tour to England in May and was suspended from bowling in international cricket in July after tests showed that he was exceeding the allowed 15-degree elbow extension while 

Suspended Senanayake to play domestic cricket

Airbus has sent its latest jet up for its first flight above the skies of southern France, amid high demand for the single-aisle A320neo and its promised fuel economy.
	The planemaker has already taken more than 3,000 orders for the A320neo, a revamped version of its best-selling A320 range of jets.
	The A320neo or "new engine option" incorporates an engine that uses less fuel and sharklet wing tips that help reduce fuel needs. A320s are mid-range jets that generally seat up to 180 passengers.
	The plane took off and landed safely in a test flight today in Toulouse.
	Airbus yesterday raised its long-term forecast for new airplane demand, predicting that airlines will need 31,400 new aircraft over the next 20 years, with most being single-aisle.

Newest Airbus jet, the A320neo, takes first flight

Government prosecutors marshalled 210 pieces of evidence against prominent Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti before a court sentenced him to life in prison on charges of promoting separatism in his writings and lecture, Chinese state media has reported.
	The official Xinhua News Agency yesterday released a raft of details from the prosecutors' case against Ilham Tohti, who was known as a mainstream mediator between the Uighur minority group and the ruling Han Chinese.
	The harsh sentence handed down Tuesday prompted international condemnation, including a call for his release from US President Barack Obama.
	Xinhua said the evidence against Ilham Tohti included video of one of his lectures where he said, "Does Xinjiang belong to the Hans? No, it first belonged to the Uighurs and it first belonged to the people of Central Asia."
	The report also quoted the scholar as telling his students "I am not Chinese because I am a Uighur. My pride is that of greater Turkestan."
	Xinhua reported that ...

China media release details in Uighur scholar case

Militants with the Islamic State group publicly killed a rights lawyer in the Iraqi city of Mosul after finding her guilty of apostasy in a self-styled Islamic court, the United Nations said today.
	Samira Salih al-Nuaimi was seized from her home on Sep 17 after allegedly posting messages on Facebook that were critical of the militants' destruction of religious sites in Mosul. Her Facebook page appears to have been removed since her death.
	According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, al-Nuaimi was tried in a so-called "Sharia court" for apostasy, after which she was tortured for five days before the militants sentenced her to public execution.
	"By torturing and executing a female human rights' lawyer and activist, defending in particular the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul, ISIL continues to attest to its infamous nature, combining hatred, nihilism and savagery, as well as its total disregard of human decency," Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy to 

Iraqi woman activist killed by Islamic State

A government-backed renewable energy company in the United Arab Emirates says a Swiss-made solar-powered aircraft will aim to begin and end its first round-the-world solar flight from the federation's oil-rich capital of Abu Dhabi.
	Clean-energy company Masdar today said that the Solar Impulse 2 plane will attempt its historic journey in March from the OPEC member country. Project founders Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg hope to complete the journey over four or five months, including stopovers.
	The Solar Impulse 2 is powered by some 17,200 solar cells arrayed on wings that span 236 feet. It is a larger version of a single-seat prototype that first flew five years ago. The founders say the plane in theory can stay airborne indefinitely.

Global solar flight to start, end in Abu Dhabi

Several Nobel Peace Prize winners will skip an annual meeting in Cape Town because the Dalai Lama has not received a visa to travel to South Africa.
	The Nobel Women's Initiative, founded by female Nobel laureates, said in a statement this week that China puts political pressure on countries in order to curb the Tibetan spiritual leader's travel and interaction with political leaders.
	The Dalai Lama says he wants more autonomy for Chinese-controlled Tibet, while China says he is a separatist.
	The women's group says those skipping a meeting of Nobel peace laureates in South Africa on Oct 13-15 are Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Leymah Gbowee and a representative of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
	The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

Several Nobel peace laureates to skip meeting

US-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the militant Islamic State group overnight and early today, killing nearly 20 people as the militants released dozens of detainees in their de facto capital, fearing further raids, activists said.
	The latest strikes came on the third day of a US-led air campaign aimed at rolling back the Islamic State group in Syria, and appeared to be aimed at one of the militants' main revenue streams.
	The US has been conducting air raids against the group in neighbouring Iraq for more than a month.
	The Islamic State group captured most of Syria's largest oil fields earlier this year and is believed to be partly funding its operations by smuggling oil out and selling it on the black market.
	At least four oil installations and three oil fields were hit around the town of Mayadeen in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and two local activist groups. A third activist ...

US-led strikes hit IS-held oil sites in Syria

At least three people were dead and 13 were missing after a tourist boat capsized in the Paraguay River during a storm at the town of Carmelo Peralta in northern Paraguay, authorities said.
	Aldo Saldivar, operations manager at the state National Emergency Secretariat, said yesterday that the boat was carrying 11 Paraguayan crew members and 16 Brazilian tourists.
	Saldivar said the tourists were on a fishing expedition to the Pantanal, a wetlands region straddling the border with Brazil about 600 kilometres north of Paraguay's capital, Asuncion.
	He said the boat capsized in the harbour of Carmelo Peralta. "Apparently the accident occurred during a strong storm," he said.
	Saldivar said 11 of the 27 people on the boat had been able to swim to shore after the vessel turned over. Navy divers were called in to look for the missing and three bodies had been recovered before the search was suspended at nightfall, he said.

13 missing after tourist boat capsizes in Paraguay

A terror suspect shot dead after he stabbed two Australian counterterrorism police officers may not have been acting alone as originally thought, a lead investigator said today.
	Numan Haider, 18, was killed Tuesday after he stabbed two officers during a meeting outside a Melbourne police station. Police initially said Haider appeared to be working on his own, but Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said new information suggests that might not be the case.
	"There's some information that he was certainly talking to other people around the time that he came to the police station," Lay told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
	"It's just a little unclear to us at the moment whether there were actually people at the police station with him, whether they dropped him off, whether they were waiting for him."
	Haider caught authorities' attention about three months ago, after police say he began displaying a series of troubling behaviors, including waving what appeared to be an Islamic ...

Australian terror suspect may not have acted alone

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani has asked the United States to move beyond "insignificant" fears that his country seeks nuclear arms and challenged it to join his country in battling what he described as the global threat of Islamic extremism.
	Rouhani also made clear he was not prepared to interfere in the case of Jason Rezarian, an American-Iranian journalist detained on unspecified charges in Iran, during a speech and question-and-answer session hosted by the New America think tank yesterday.
	But most of his comments focused on the menace posed by the Islamic State terror group and attempts by his country and the US to seal a deal to meet White House demands that Iran agree to significant long-term curbs on its nuclear program that could be used to make weapons in exchange for an end to crippling sanctions.
	The Iranian president is addressing the UN General Assembly today, and his comments yesterday touched on some of the issues he is likely to highlight.
	The nuclear talks ...

Iran leader: US should focus on terror, not nukes

The number of shootings in which a gunman wounds or kills multiple people has increased dramatically in recent years, with the majority of attacks in the last decade occurring at a business or a school, according to an FBI report.
	The study focused on 160 "active shooter incidents" between 2000 and 2013. Those are typically defined as cases in which a gunman in an attack shoots or attempts to shoot multiple people in a populated area.
	The goal of the report, which excluded shootings that are gang and drug related, was to identify common themes and to help local law enforcement prepare for or respond to similar killings in the future, law enforcement officials said yesterday.
	"These incidents, the large majority of them, are over in minutes. So it's going to have to be a teaching and training of the best tactics, techniques and procedures to our state and local partners," said James F Yacone, an FBI assistant director who oversees crisis response and was involved in the ...

FBI releases report examining mass shootings

The British prime minister has said he will ask Parliament to approve joining international airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq.
	David Cameron announced the move in his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday.
	Cameron did not mention the prospect of also joining the US-led international airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria that began this week.
	The threat of the terror group's grip on large parts of both Iraq and Syria has dominated this week's annual gathering of world leaders.
	Cameron also warned against believing that it's necessary to "do a deal" with Syrian President Bashar Assad to defeat the Islamic State group, calling that thinking "dangerously misguided."
	He said the brutality of Assad's government has been a powerful recruiting tool for extremists during the conflict there, which is now in its fourth year.
	Assad's government has not asked for international intervention in fighting the Islamic State group, but Iraq has.
	The prime ...

Cameron wants UK to join in airstrikes in Iraq

Vietnam has said it wants to be able to buy weapons from the United States and that regional powerhouse China should not be alarmed.
	As relations between the US and Vietnam warm, the US is moving closer to lifting a ban on lethal arms exports applied after the communist victory in the Vietnam War.
	Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh yesterday said it's been nearly 20 years since Washington and Hanoi normalised relations, and so it's "abnormal" to retain the ban.
	"If we do not buy weapons from the United States, we (would) still buy from other countries," Minh said at the Asia Society. "Why should China bother about that?"
	Despite fraternal ties between the ruling parties of Vietnam and China, tensions spiked this year after China deployed a deep-sea oil rig near the disputed Paracel islands.
	Vessels from the two sides repeatedly rammed each other near the rig. The standoff triggered deadly anti-China protests and riots in Vietnam.
	Minh, who is also Vietnam's foreign .

Vietnam eyes US arms sales, downplays China impact

The president of Turkey has slammed the UN Security Council's inaction on some of the world's most pressing issues, accusing its members of rendering the world body ineffective.
	Speaking before the General Assembly meeting in New York yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the UN has repeatedly failed to act, citing the Syrian civil war which has killed more than 200,000 people and this summer's Gaza War in which more than 2,000 people died.
	He also criticised Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi who spoke from the same podium shortly before.
	He said the democratically elected President of Egypt, Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, was overthrown by a coup, and the UN chose to legitimize the person who conducted this coup, a reference to El-Sissi.

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