Syrian authorities today released a prominent human rights activist who spent more than three years in prison for reporting on the government's crackdown on protesters in the early days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, activists said.
	Mazen Darwish was the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression when he was arrested in February 2012 in a Damascus security raid, along with two of his colleagues.
	The organisation confirmed his release today but said he is still standing trial and is scheduled to attend a court hearing on August 30.
	"After an arbitrary arrest that lasted three years, five months, and 23 days, Mazen Darwish has released from prison today," the group said in a statement.
	Darwish was an outspoken critic of the government's crackdown on protests that erupted against Assad's rule in March 2011.
	He was one of the rare journalists who dared publish details of arbitrary arrests and violations by policy and security forces.
	He has ...

Syria releases prominent rights activist from prison

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Russian investigators say all nine people aboard a helicopter and a seaplane were killed when the aircraft collided over a water reservoir near Moscow.
	The Armenian Embassy said four citizens of Armenia, including two children, were among the dead. Russian Channel One state television said one of its journalists also was killed.
	The Cessna 206 and Robinson 44 helicopter collided over the Istra reservoir Saturday night. By Monday morning, investigators said divers had recovered eight bodies, while the search for the ninth victim was continuing.
	The federal Investigative Committee said the accident appeared to have been caused by pilot error.
	The seaplane was used to take people for rides over the reservoir, which is 22 kilometers long and up to 2 kilometers wide.

Helicopter-seaplane collision kills 9 in Russia

A man who opened fire on officers in Ferguson, Missouri, on the anniversary of an unarmed black teen's death was critically wounded when the officers shot back, St. Louis County's police chief said today.
	Chief Jon Belmar said at a news conference that officers had been tracking the man, who they believed was armed, during a protest marking the death of Michael Brown's, the 18-year-old whose killing by a white Ferguson police officer touched off a national debate over police treatment of minorities and the "Black Lives Matter" movement.
	The anniversary of Brown's killing has sparked days of renewed protests, though until Sunday they had been peaceful and without any arrests. For the first time in three consecutive nights of demonstrations, some officers were dressed in riot gear, including bullet-proof vests and helmets with shields. Police at one point early Monday shot smoke to disperse a lingering crowd, Belmar said.
	The shooting happened shortly after what the chief called "an .

US police: Man shot near Ferguson protest critically injured

The final hearing for a Washington Post reporter detained in Iran more than a year ago and charged with espionage ended today, with a verdict expected in the coming days in a trial that has been condemned by the newspaper and press freedom groups.
	The fourth closed-door hearing in the trial of Jason Rezaian ended after a few hours devoted to his defence.
	Rezaian was tried by a Revolutionary Court, which hears sensitive cases, including those related to national security.
	The 39-year-old journalist was born and spent most of his life in the US, and holds American and Iranian citizenship. Iran does not recognise dual nationalities for its citizens.
	His lawyer, Leila Ahsan, told The Associated Press after the hearing that she expects a verdict "in a week." The trial began in May.
	Rezaian's mother, Mary, who was outside the court with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, told reporters her son was innocent, a victim of the hostility between Iran and the United States dating back to the 1979 ...

Trial wraps up for Washington Post reporter held in Iran

Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria says it is withdrawing from areas on the border with Turkey where a zone free of the Islamic State group is expected to be established.
	The Nusra Front says in a statement today it is against its religion to join the US-led coalition or be aided by it.
	In a major policy shift, Turkey agreed last month to allow the United States to use the strategic Incirlik Air Base to launch airstrikes against IS and agreed on the outlines of a plan to rout the extremists from a stretch of Syrian territory along the Turkish border.
	The Nusra Front and other Islamic factions in Syria have been fighting IS since last year.
	Nusra Front says other insurgent groups are replacing it in northern Aleppo.

Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria withdrawing from area near Turkey

German federal prosecutors today dropped a much-criticised treason investigation of two journalists who had reported on secret plans to expand online surveillance in Germany.
	Prosecutors notified website Netzpolitik.Org in late July that its founder, Markus Beckedahl, and fellow journalist Andre Meister were under investigation, touching off widespread criticism from free-speech advocates.
	The website specialises in coverage of online privacy and digital culture.
	Justice Minister Heiko Maas questioned the decision to open a treason probe, and last week fired chief federal prosecutor Harald Range after the two clashed over public allegations by Range of political interference, which the minister denied.
	The federal prosecutor's office said it is closing the case because it believes the leaked documents the website's reports were based on were not a "state secret" and other conditions for treason charges also were not fulfilled.
	The probe, which was opened following a criminal ...

German prosecutors drop treason probe against journalists

Greece's coast guard has rescued more than 1,400 migrants in nearly 60 search and rescue operations near several Greek islands in the eastern Aegean Sea over the past three days as the pace of new arrivals increase, authorities said today.
	Tens of thousands of people, many of them fleeing war and conflict in Syria and Afghanistan, have been making their way from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands in inflatable dinghies, overwhelming cash-strapped authorities on the islands.
	The vast majority then head to mainland Greece and from there, try to access more prosperous European Union countries by either walking across the Balkans from northern Greece, or sneaking onto Italy-bound ferries from the west.
	The 1,417 migrants rescued between Friday morning and Monday morning were picked up at sea in 59 separate incidents off the coasts of the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Agathonisi and Kos, the coast guard said.
	Those figures do not include the hundreds of others who manage to ..

Greek coast guard rescues 1,417 migrants over 3 days

An apparent suicide car bombing at a busy roundabout near the entrance to Kabul's international airport today killed at least four people and wounded another 15, officials said.
	A huge plume of black smoke rose above the city after the midday explosion, as police, soldiers and ambulances rushed to the site, which is usually thronging with pedestrians and vehicles.
	Wahidullah Mayar, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said at least four bodies had been recovered. "Among the injured are one child and one woman," he told The Associated Press.
	Gen Gul Agha Rohani, Kabul's deputy police chief, said he was told a suicide car bomber had struck the front gate of the airport and was on his way to the scene.
	The charred remains of a car lay on its side near the roundabout. Nearby shops were destroyed and the windows of a wedding hall at the intersection were shattered, witnesses said.
	The entrance to the airport is often clogged with traffic, as vehicles must stop at a number .

Afghan officials: Explosion near Kabul airport, 4 dead

A Philippine military official says Abu Sayyaf militants have killed two soldiers who went to a market but reinforcement troops later retaliated with an assault that may have killed an unspecified number of the attackers in the country's south.
	Military commander Brig. Gen Alan Arrojado says about 10 heavily armed militants opened fire on the soldiers on Sunday then stole one of their motorcycles before fleeing into a jungle in Sulu province. The victims were in civilian clothes and had pistols but were killed before they could return fire.
	A military report said Monday that the attackers belonged to an Abu Sayyaf faction led by Moammar Askali.
	Askali's group reportedly received a huge ransom in exchange for freeing two German tourists in October, allowing it to acquire new weapons.

Abu Sayyaf militants kill 2 soldiers in southern Philippines

A woman who lost custody of her 9-year-old daughter killed three relatives in a Vermont home and then headed to a nearby state office to gun down the social worker involved in the custody case, authorities alleged.
	Police said 40-year-old Jody Herring shot social worker Lara Sobel, 48, twice on Friday, killing her outside an office of the state Department for Children and Families in Barre as Sobel was leaving work. Herring was tackled outside the building and arrested on a first-degree homicide charge.
	The next morning, an emergency call brought officers to a Berlin home, where they found three relatives of Herring dead. Police said at least two of the women appeared to have been shot.
	The Burlington Free Press reported that Tiffany Herring, 23, who identified herself as the daughter of victim Rhonda Herring, said her mother had received a threatening phone call from Jody Herring Friday morning.
	"My mother got a call in the morning, maybe 7:30 or 8 o'clock, saying it was Jody ...

Police: Vermont mom killed 3 relatives, then social worker

Haitians were electing legislators to Parliament today after a yearslong wait, but the vote was plagued with delays, disorder and occasional fistfights.
	The legislative elections had been postponed for nearly four years due to a political showdown between Haiti's executive and opposition, and they have been billed as a crucial test of the country's electoral system ahead of a presidential vote in October.
	Today's first round seeks to fill two thirds of the 30-member Senate and the entire 99-Chamber of Deputies.
	But a number of polling stations across the country were still waiting for ballots a few hours after voting was supposed to start at 6:00 a.M. In sections of Port-au-Prince, voters who began trickling in around dawn grew exasperated after being told they couldn't cast ballots because their names weren't on official voting lists.
	"This is very frustrating. Are they trying to discourage voting?" gardener Gerald Henry complained to a reporter after election workers turned him .

Haitians votes in long-delayed legislative elections

Back in the country where they were detained as prisoners of war in the 1950s, two former North Korean soldiers now find little apparent objection or hostility, at least superficially they were even welcomed by veterans who had fought for the South. But it's also a trip that brings back bitter memories of war and puts them on the defensive again.
	They are among the 76 North Korean POWs held in South Korea who opted to resettle abroad at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. Labeled traitors, opportunists or fence-sitters amid fierce Cold War rivalry between the Koreas, they've died abroad one by one and now less than a dozen are still believed to be alive.
	Kim Myeong Bok and Kang Hi-dong came back to South Korea on July 23 with a South Korean movie director who's making a documentary on ex-POWs.
	The film, titled "Return Home," is intended to trace back their turbulent lives, but the men may not be able to make one important stop. Pyongyang has not given them permission to enter North .

Retracing war past, ex-N. Korean POWs return to South Korea

President Cristina Fernandez and her late husband dominated Argentine politics for 12 years, focusing on social welfare programs for the poor at home while often employing combative rhetoric and protectionist policies with other nations.
	SSVoters got a chance Sunday to help decide whether those policies are likely to continue in the South American nation of 41 million as they cast ballots in open primaries for presidential candidates who have all but sealed the nominations in their respective parties.
	For the candidates vying to replace Fernandez, the primaries will help them judge how their campaigns are faring ahead of the October 25 general elections and how closely they should align themselves to the social welfare policies of Fernandez's political movement, known as Kirchnerismo.
	Daniel Scioli, the governor of the Buenos Aires province and a former vice president, is Fernandez's successor candidate. He has praised Fernandez's policies but also promised to make reforms where ...

Argentines vote in presidential, congressional primaries

A year after tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians fled communities overtaken by Islamic State militants, their lives are on hold in exile: They won't go back to Iraq, saying it's not safe for Christians, but as refugees they're barred from working in temporary asylum countries such as Jordan. Expectations of quick resettlement to the West have been dashed.
	"We've lost hope in everything," said Hinda Ablahat, a 67-year-old widow who lives with dozens of fellow refugees in plywood cubicles set up in a church compound in downtown Amman, the capital of Jordan. "We've been sitting here for a year and nothing's happened."
	About 7,000 Christians from northern Iraq have found refuge in Jordan, including about 2,000 living in church-sponsored shelters.
	Last evening, Patriarch Louis Sako of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church and Jerusalem-based Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal led hundreds of worshippers in an outdoor prayer service in the town of Fuheis, near Amman, to mark a year since the Iraqi ..

Iraqi Christians who fled IS living in limbo while in exile

A Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Yemen hit allied fighters in a friendly fire incident, killing at least 20, Yemeni security officials and pro-government fighters said today.
	The officials said the strike late Saturday hit the fighters on a coastal road as they headed toward the embattled city of Zinjibar in southern Yemen.
	The Saudi-led, American-supported coalition began launching airstrikes in March against Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies, who control the capital and much of the country's north.
	The fighting in Yemen pits the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
	The United Arab Emirates said Saturday three of its soldiers were killed while taking part in a Saudi-led campaign. A statement carried by the official news agency WAM did not say how the soldiers were killed or whether they died in Yemen.
	Five ...

Officials says Saudi-led friendly fire in Yemen kills 20

An Egyptian security official says a leading member of the hard-line group Gamaa Islamiya has died in prison.
	Interior Ministry official Maj. Gen. Hassan el-Sohagi said today that Essam Derbala died of natural causes.
	A statement from Gamaa Islamiya's political party accused Egyptian authorities of "assassination." It said authorities intentionally deprived Derbala of medicine and subjected him to psychological torture.
	The statement called for responsible officials to be prosecuted.
	Derbala was arrested earlier this year and accused of inciting violence. He was imprisoned in a high-security facility in Cairo called Scorpion.
	Gamaa Islamiya waged an armed insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s. The group later renounced violence and was a strong ally of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi before and during his year in office.

Prominent hard-line Islamist dies in Egyptian prison

Pope Francis says the detonation of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago remains "a permanent warning to humanity" to reject war and ban weapons of mass destruction.
	The pope during his traditional Sunday blessing recalled the US detonation of atomic weapons as "a tragic event that still arouses horror and revulsion." He said the bombings of the Japanese cities had become a symbol of mankind's destructive power when science and technology are put to "distorted use."
	US planes dropped two atomic bombs on two days in August 1945, unleashing unprecedented destruction that killed more than 200,000 people and left survivors with lifelong psychological and physical scars. It was the first and only time nuclear weapons have been used.

Pope recalls horror of atomic bombs 70 years ago

The United Arab Emirates says three of its soldiers have been killed while taking part in a Saudi-led campaign against Shiite rebels in Yemen.
	The statement carried by the official news agency WAM yesterday did not say how the soldiers were killed or whether they died in Yemen.
	The ruler of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah led funeral services for the three corporals today. This brings to five the number of Emirati officers killed in battle since March, when the UAE and other Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia launched an offensive against the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis.
	Yemeni security officials say that Saudi, Emirati, Egyptian and Jordanian military advisers are training hundreds of fighters at a military base near the Yemeni port city of Aden.

UAE says 3 soldiers killed in Yemen campaign

US authorities say five children and three adults have been found dead inside a Texas home following the arrest of a man who exchanged gunfire with police.
	Harris County Sheriff spokesman Thomas Gilliland tells KHOU-TV that deputies were called to a home in the Houston area yesterday. He says deputies subsequently received information indicating that a man inside the home was wanted on an aggravated assault warrant.
	Gilliland says while waiting for a High Risk Operations Unit, deputies spotted the body of a juvenile through a window. Four deputies forced themselves inside, prompting the 49-year-old suspect to begin shooting.
	Deputies pulled back, and the man surrendered about an hour later.
	The relationship between the suspect and victims wasn't immediately known.

US police: 5 children, 3 adults found dead inside Texas home

The number of people affected by flooding across Myanmar was approaching 1 million today, with waters in the low-lying southwestern delta inundating homes and forcing villagers into temporary shelters, the government said.
	The death toll was on the verge of topping 100.
	In some places, only the roofs of homes could be seen. International aid is on the way following appeals by the government, but so far, most of the help has come from volunteers ferrying noodles, rice and clean water door-to-door in small boats.
	Heavy monsoon rains that began in late June compounded more recently by Cyclone Komen have triggered some of Myanmar's worst flash floods and landslides in recent memory.
	All but two of the country's 14 states have been affected.
	The death toll reached 99 today and more than 900,000 people have been affected, a third of them in the Irrawaddy Delta, said Phyu Lei Lei Tun, director of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.
	It is here in a desperately poor .

Nearly 1 million affected by Myanmar floods; 99 dead

A suicide bomber in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province has killed 29 people, mainly members of illegal armed groups that have clashed with security forces and the insurgents in the past, an Afghan official said today.
	Heyatullah Amiri, district administrative chief of Khan Abad district, said a suicide bomber on foot targeted a meeting of criminal groups late yesterday. Twenty-five of those killed were members of the armed groups, including four leaders, while the remaining four were civilians, he said.
	Amiri said 19 others were wounded, including 15 civilians.
	Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in an email sent to media.
	The Taliban have stepped up attacks across the country since US and NATO forces shifted from a combat to a support and training role at the end of last year.
	In the northern Badakhshan province, Taliban insurgents hanged a 27-year-old mother of three after accusing her of having extramarital sex, said Nawid Frotan, ...

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