Iraq's judicial authority today rejected calls for the country's most senior Supreme Court judge to resign from his post, even though it was among the demands of protesters who took to the streets last week calling for widespread government reforms.
	The development comes as Iraq's Shiite-led government is mired in a war against the Islamic State group, which has captured a third of both Iraq and neighboring Syria.
	The Iraqi forces and their Sunni and Shiite allies have struggled to claw back territory from the Sunni militant group despite US-led coalition airstrikes targeting the extremists.
	Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, the spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council, said council members rejected calls for Judge Medhat Mahmoud "to retire." The council is Iraq's highest legal authority, composed of experts in civil law and Islamic law, or Sharia, and it appoints Supreme Court judges. "The public interest and justice at this stage require him to stay in his duties," Bayrkdar's statement ...

Iraq judicial council rejects calls for top judge to resign

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A man arrested in Trinidad this year after 16 years on the run has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the fatal shooting of a man outside a New York wedding in 1999.
	Balkumar Singh entered the pleas Monday on murder, assault, weapons and other charges in Nassau County court. He wasn't represented by an attorney. A judge says Singh will be provided with a court-appointed lawyer at his next court date.
	Prosecutors say Singh got into an argument with 19-year-old Abzal Khan after attending a June 1999 wedding. Prosecutors say Singh fired numerous times, killing Khan.
	Prosecutors say Singh was arrested in Trinidad in March after authorities were tipped off to his whereabouts.

Man caught in Trinidad pleads not guilty in 1999 NY killing

An airplane with 54 people on board that crashed in the mountains of eastern Indonesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in government cash for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, an official said today.
	Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop plane was spotted from the air this morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said. There was no immediate word of any survivors from yesterday's crash, which happened in bad weather.
	Four postal workers aboard the plane were escorting four bags of cash totaling USD 468,750 in government fuel aid, Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, the provincial capital, told The Associated Press.
	The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was flying from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact.
	Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata said there was no indication that the pilot had made a distress call.
	The cash from the Social Affairs ...

Indonesian plane debris seen; carried 54 people, govt cash

Foreign companies have suspended operations around the Tianjin port as officials scramble to contain the toxic fallout of last week's deadly chemical explosions.
	Toyota, which has operations near the evacuation zone around the blast, said it had suspended three production lines, which account for over half of its China capacity, through Wednesday.
	Impacted models include the Crown, Reiz, Corolla, Vios and the Corolla EX, largely for the domestic market.
	Panasonic, which has a product development center 5 kilometres from the blast site, kept its offices closed Monday, out of concern for employee safety.
	A spokeswoman said executives were still evaluating whether to open the office Tuesday.
	Hong Kong-listed logistics company Singamas Container Holdings, which has two depots close to the blast, told the stock exchange today that it had suspended operations at the site and lost contact with one employee.
	The filing said the company was still evaluating losses, but did not anticipate 

Foreign companies around Tianjin blast suspend operations

A court in Bangladesh's capital has sentenced six officials of a now-dissolved drug company to 10 years in jail for producing toxic paracetamol syrup that reportedly killed hundreds of children who developed kidney diseases and other ailments after taking the medicine in the 1990s.
	Judge M Atoar Rahman found them all guilty, but only one senior official of BCI Pharmaceuticals (Bangladesh) was in court for today's verdict.
	The rest were tried in absentia because they have been on the run since they were charged in 2009.
	Authorities have said hundreds of children died after consuming the medicine. At least 76 died in 1992 alone.
	Prosecutors said the medicine contained a toxic chemical usually used in leather manufacturing.

Bangladesh sentences 6 for making toxic syrup for kids

Prosecutors pushing for a murder conviction against Oscar Pistorius today filed papers at South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal.
	Court registrar Paul Myburgh said the papers were filed today, four days ahead of Pistorius' expected release from prison to be moved to house arrest.
	Prosecutors want a panel of judges at the Supreme Court to overrule a decision by another judge to acquit the double-amputee Olympic athlete of murder for killing girlfriend Reva Steenkamp in 2013.
	Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, for shooting Steenkamp through a toilet cubicle door in his home.
	He was sentenced to five years in jail.
	Pistorius is expected to be released from prison Friday after serving 10 months of his culpable homicide sentence. He would serve the remainder under house arrest.

Pistorius prosecutors file appeal papers at Supreme Court

Police in northeastern Bangladesh are seeking charges against 13 men for allegedly beating a 13-year-old boy to death in a case that stunned a nation used to violent crime because a video of the boy being tortured was posted online.
	Detective Branch Inspector Suranjit Talukdar yesterday sent the charges to a court in Sylhet city involving the case of victim Samiul Islam Rajon, who died of internal bleeding.
	The attackers allegedly punished him after accusing him of stealing a bicycle, an allegation his family and police say is unfounded.
	A magistrate in Sylhet, Farhana Yasmin, scheduled a hearing for August 24 to determine whether charges will be accepted.
	A 28-minute chilling video of the beating of the boy, who cried for help, went viral online, triggering protests in the South Asian country, where such incidents are not rare. His body bore at least 64 injury marks, according to an autopsy report.
	In the video, recorded with a cellphone camera, the boy is heard screaming in ...

13 in Bangladesh to face charges over teen's death

A German woman was kidnapped in Kabul today by armed assailants, a senior Afghan police official said.
	Gul Agha Rouhani, Kabul's deputy police chief, said the woman was taken by two gunmen who stopped her car early this morning.
	The woman, who has not been identified, is believed to be employed by German government aid agency GIZ.
	No comment was immediately available from the German embassy or GIZ in Kabul. The German Foreign Office and GIZ head office in Germany also did not comment.
	Security in Kabul has deteriorated in recent months as Taliban insurgents have intensified their war against the Kabul government.
	The insurgents have repeatedly said they would deliberately target foreigners. In recent months insurgents have launched a series of deadly attacks on offices, residential compounds and guest houses occupied by foreign nationals.
	As the economy deteriorates and jobs dry up, abduction for ransom is also becoming more common, though mainly targeting Afghans.
	Foreigners ..

Afghan police: German national kidnapped in Kabul

Police say a 58-year-old American and his Filipino-American wife have been killed, their decomposing bodies found inside a 20-foot-deep well in central Negros Occidental province in a case suspected to be linked to robbery.
	Senior Inspector Lawrence Gerald Bathan says rescuers recovered the body of Kelvin Fleischauer on Sunday and the body of his 60-year-old wife, Lolly Mangilaya Fleischauer, on Monday in a well near their home.
	Police responded yesterday to a report of robbery in the couple's house. Investigators said that some valuable items of the couple were missing, and that the main door of their residence had been damaged.
	Fleischauer's hometown in the United States was not immediately known.

American couple found dead in central Philippines

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is likely to call a confidence vote in his government after the country's third bailout deal with international creditors sparked a rebellion within his party, one of his ministers indicated today.
	Expectations of a confidence vote, which could lead to early elections, heightened after last Friday's parliamentary vote in favor of the 86 billion euro three-year (USD 93 billion) bailout passed thanks to opposition support and saw dozens of lawmakers in Tsipras' Syriza party dissent.
	Without the bailout, Greece faces defaulting on its debts and eventually being forced out of Europe's joint currency, the euro.
	"I consider it self-evident, after the deep wounding of the parliamentary majority and in particular of the parliamentary group of Syriza, for there to be a move that at least approaches the issue," Energy and Environment Minister Panos Skourletis told Skai television when asked about the possibility of the government calling a confidence ...

Greek government seen calling confidence vote

The Saudi military says two soldiers have been killed along the border by a missile fired from inside Yemen.
	The statement released says the soldiers were killed in the Saudi border region of Jizan. Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of Arab countries in airstrikes against Shiite rebels and their allies in Yemen since March.
	Several dozen Saudi soldiers have been killed in border attacks since the airstrikes began, mostly by missiles launched by the Houthi rebels and their allies.
	The United Nations says health facilities in Yemen have reported more than 4,000 conflict-related deaths since the coalition began airstrikes.
	The Houthis overran Yemen's capital and other cities last year, forcing the country's Saudi and US-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen border missile attack kills 2 Saudi soldiers

President Salva Kiir of South Sudan and his political rival are expected to sign a peace agreement in Ethiopia today, say mediators.
	Representatives of Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar have been negotiating in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa since August 6. The US had urged the warring factions to reach a peace agreement by August 17 or face sanctions.
	Kiir and Machar will sign what he called a "compromise document" today, said Haile Michael, a spokesman for a regional bloc mediating the talks.
	Several previous attempts to reach a negotiated settlement have failed. At stake were issues such as how to share power and the composition of a transitional government of national unity.
	Many parts of South Sudan have experienced war since December 2013.

South Sudan's warring leaders to sign compromise deal

A passenger plane with 54 people on board that crashed in the mountains of eastern Indonesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in government cash for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, a local postal official said today.
	Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop plane was spotted from the air today morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said.
	There was no immediate word if there were any survivors from yesterday's crash, which happened in bad weather.
	Four postal workers aboard the plane were escorting four bags of cash totaling USD 468,750 in government fuel aid money, Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, the provincial capital, told The Associated Press.
	The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was flying from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact.
	Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata said there was no indication that the pilot had made a distress call.
	The cash .

USD 470,000 in cash aboard Indonesian plane that crashed

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian attacker after he stabbed an Israeli police officer at a West Bank checkpoint today, the police and the military said.
	According to Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri, the attacker approached the checkpoint, telling border police officers there that he felt unwell.
	As he got closer, he pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the officers, who was slightly wounded. Another officer then fatally shot the attacker, Samri said.
	The attack was the third stabbing since Saturday, when two Palestinians were shot, one fatally, after they attacked security forces in two separate incidents in the West Bank. A Palestinian assailant was also shot dead in another West Bank stabbing earlier this month.
	Tensions have been high since the July arson attack against a Palestinian West Bank home, when an 18-month-old toddler was burned to death. The child's father later died from wounds he suffered in the attack while his mother and 4-year-old brother were .

Israeli forces shoot, kill Palestinian attacker in West Bank

South Korea's LG Display said today that it will change its investment priority to advanced displays called OLEDs as Chinese manufacturers quickly catch up with their South Korean rivals in the LCD market.
	LG Display Co, a supplier to Apple Inc, said that over the next three years it plans to spend 10 trillion won (USD 8.4 billion) on future displays including OLED, flexible displays and high-end LCD screens.
	It did not give breakdown figures, saying the size for each type of display will hinge on market situations.
	LG Display and LG Electronics are the lone manufacturers of OLED TVs, which are still more expensive and more difficult to produce than LCD TVs. LG Display's OLED business has been losing money.
	OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, require no backlight and can be made into a flexible display.
	Rival Samsung Electronics uses OLEDs only for small-size devices such as smartphones, saying that big-size OLED TVs face challenges in prices and productions.
	But LG vowed ..

LG to put OLED first as Chinese LCD makers narrow gap

Egypt has opened its border with the Gaza Strip for the first time in two months.
	The Rafah border crossing opened today for four days, allowing Palestinians to travel in both directions. Crossing director Khaled al-Shaer says some 20,000 people have applied to exit. Gazans seeking medical care and students are among those expected to cross.
	Rafah is Gaza's only gateway to the outside world with no Israeli control. Egypt has kept it mostly closed since the militant Hamas group seized control of the coastal strip in 2007.
	The closure worsened after Egypt's military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, in 2013. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood.
	The crossing has been opened for a total of just 15 days this year.

Egypt opens border with Gaza for first time in 2 months

South Korea's high military court today upheld a death sentence for a soldier convicted for killing five comrades in shooting and grenade attacks last year.
	The assault was the latest in a series of shooting rampages by bullied soldiers in South Korea, which requires all able-bodied men to conduct about two years of military service in the face of a threat from North Korea.
	The soldier, only identified by his surname Yim, told investigators he attacked his colleagues in June last year after seeing drawings they made of him that he considered insulting.
	Yim, a conscript soldier, had fled into the forest near the border with North Korea but was captured after a failed suicide attempt.
	He was sentenced to death at a lower-level military court in February and had appealed the verdict.
	Today, the high military court rejected Yim's appeal, saying his acts lowered morale among South Korean soldiers, undermined public confidence in the army and caused a "serious vacuum in national ...

S Korea soldier's death sentence upheld over shooting spree

Republican presidential candidates are split on whether the US should send ground troops to the Middle East to combat Islamic State forces.
	And most of those who would commit troops offer few details on their plans.
	"I don't see anybody on our side coming up with a robust plan that truly would destroy" the Islamic State militants, Sen. Lindsey Graham yesterday said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
	Graham stands out among Republicans hawks for his specifics. He has called for 20,000 American troops divided between Iraq and Syria.
	Yet several other Republicans want to try, or at least not to get mired in the details beyond casting President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as weak and feckless.
	Clinton is Democrats' 2016 favorite. Businessman Donald Trump, who has taken an early lead in most surveys of likely Republican primary voters, backed into a commitment of ground troops yesterday during a wide-ranging interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."
	Trump said to ...

US hopefuls split on sending ground troops to Middle East

Two small planes have collided midair while approaching an airport in San Diego County, killing at least four people and sparking brush fires in a remote field where the wreckage landed, authorities said.
	The collision occurred at about 11 am yesterday, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.
	Both planes - a twin-engine Sabreliner jet and a single-engine Cessna 172 - were approaching Brown Field, Gregor said.
	The aircraft caught fire when they hit the ground and broke apart, said Nick Schuler, a division chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
	"It appears it was a very violent crash, as you can tell by both aircraft being in multiple pieces," Schuler said.
	First responders initially reported three fatalities, but as they inspected the wreckage which was strewn across a quarter-mile area, they determined that at least four people were killed, he said.
	The Sabreliner crashed on a grassy slope and the Cessna fell within the bounds of 

US authorities: 4 dead in midair collision of small planes

Actor Morgan Freeman is mourning the death of his granddaughter, who was found stabbed to death yesterday on a Manhattan street.
	Police responding to a 911 call at about 3 am found 33-year-old Edena Hines lying on the street with multiple stab wounds to the chest. She was pronounced dead at Harlem Hospital.
	A 30-year-old man was taken into police custody at the scene - in front of Hines' apartment on West 162nd Street.
	Freeman issued a statement saying that "The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer."
	Hines had studied acting and was involved with teaching urban youth. She is the granddaughter of Freeman's first wife.
	No charges have been filed. Police are investigating the stabbing.

Morgan Freeman's granddaughter stabbed to death in Manhattan

An airliner carrying 54 people was missing after a short flight in bad weather in Indonesia's mountainous easternmost province of Papua, and rescuers were heading to an area where villagers reported seeing a plane crash into a mountain, officials have said.
	The Trigana Air Service plane was flying from Papua's provincial capital, Jayapura, to the Papua city of Oksibil when it lost contact with Oksibil's airport, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata.
	There was no indication that the pilot had made a distress call, he said.
	The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on the scheduled 42-minute journey, Barata said. Five children, including two infants, were among the passengers.
	Local media reports said all the passengers are Indonesians. The airline did not immediately release a passenger manifest.
	Oksibil, which is about 280 kilometers (175 miles) south of Jayapura, was experiencing heavy rain, strong winds and fog when the .

AP

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