The BBC: the human rights group Amnesty International has accused the French authorities of failing to investigate alleged violence by security forces.Allegations of beatings, and even unlawful killings, were rarely looked into and those responsible seldom brought to justice, Amnesty said. In a report, it cited cases of abuse, many involving ethnic minorities and foreign nationals living in France.French officials denied that any degree of police violence was being condoned. Amnesty acknowledged that "not every complaint made against the police has merit", but added that the discrepancy between the number of complaints made and the number of disciplinary sanctions "raises questions about the thoroughness and impartiality of the investigations". Amnesty said French officials had not acted on recommendations the human rights group had made in a 2005 report into abuse. Amnesty said in its latest report that "according to limited information" in 2005, there were 663 complaints resulting in 16 dismissals.

The AP: An heir to one of Mexico's most notorious narcotics empires was grabbed by police as he exercised in a city park, officials announced Thursday, shortly before U.S. and Mexican Cabinet officials met to coordinate attacks on escalating drug violence. Carrillo Leyva allegedly inherited a top position in the Juarez cartel from his father Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was nicknamed "the Lord of the Skies" for sending jetliners full of cocaine to the United States. The father was considered Mexico's No. 1 drug trafficker when he died in 1997 during plastic surgery to change his appearance. The U.S. Embassy said Thursday that the embattled remnant of his cartel is still "one of Mexico's most ruthless organized criminal gangs, which controls one of the primary transportation routes for illegal drug shipments into the United States."

British woman Sara Campbell set a new world record in the extreme sport of freediving yesterday (Thurs), surviving a 96-metre (314ft) descent below the Atlantic waves and then back to the surface again - all on a single gulp of air. The 37-year-old from south London dived deeper than any woman has gone before without the assistance of weights to drag her down or air-bags to pull her back up, holding her breath for three minutes and 36 seconds to descend and resurface. Such a journey places immense physical forces on the body as the water pressure crushes the lungs to the size of oranges, the heart slows and the blood vessels constrict. Sara used to work as a PR officer and a yoga instructor, but decided to give freediving a try in 2007, having never trained in the sport before. Within just nine months, she had clinched three world records. She lost her titles last year after the death of her mother forced her to drop out of competition - but in the Bahamas on Thursday she reclaimed her crown, proving to herself and others that her rookie triumphs in 2007 were no fluke, that she had overcome her emotional demons - and placing her on top of one of the world's most riskiest sports. To view full story, click here

French police have detained 300 people after protests in Strasbourg, where Gordon Brown and Barack Obama are due to attend a Nato summit, Sky News reports. The summit has already provoked clashes between police and protesters in the French city. Demonstrators have vowed to disrupt the two-day meeting and police fear violence earlier in the week in London may have encouraged them even more. Police in Strasbourg used tear gas and rubber bullets to beat back several hundred protesters who threw rocks and bottles at officers yesterday. According to the Financial Times, Protest leaders say they want to bring chaos to the Nato gathering and police have warned that clashes at the G20 meeting in London earlier this week have fuelled tensions. Rioters also charged a military vehicle that happened to cross their path, with a masked youth hurling a pole through the windscreen. One of the two occupants, who wearing uniform, drew his gun and pointed it towards the sky, giving his partner time to drive away from the scene. Police later detained dozens of demonstrators, lying them face down on the ground before hauling them off. Journalists were stopped by police from approaching the camp site area.

Zimbabweans can get permits to stay legally in South Africa for six months, the authorities have announced. Some three million Zimbabweans are believed to have crossed the border to escape the economic collapse and human rights abuses at home. The permit gives migrants the right to work and get healthcare and education. An official said the permits would reduce the numbers claiming political asylum, which means they are not allowed to return home. "Most Zimbabweans are not asylum-seekers, they are economic migrants. So what they want to do is to come into the country do some work and go back home and take money back," said Home Affairs Director General of Immigration Services Jackie MacKay. "We also believe this special dispensation will result in foreign currency going into Zimbabwe and assist in building up that country," he said, according to the BBC.

The AP: Gov. David Paterson confirms people were killed in a shooting at an immigration services center in New York state. The governor called the shooting "a tragic day for New York" on Friday. Officials and media reports say at least six people were injured and as many as 41 hostages taken. A law enforcement official says a gunman entered the American Civic Association building through the front while firing. He had already blocked the back door with his car. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the situation continued. According to the Guardian, investigators tried to get in contact with people inside the building. Police sources, speaking on background, said as many as 12 or 13 people had been killed, according to a reporter with WNBF radio, who described the gunman as being of Asian descent, and in his 20s. Between 20 and 40 people were held hostage, and some hostages had been released. At least four people were taken out on stretchers, and as many as 10 ambulances fled to the scene."The scene within minutes turned into one just flooded with police," WNBF radio news director Bob Joseph said.

Al-Jazeera: Nato leaders have gathered in the French city of Strasbourg for the second day of a summit which is likely to be dominated by the war in Afghanistan. Members of the military alliance began the proceedings on Saturday with a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the group. The second day of talks comes after Barack Obama, the US president, urged Europe to do more to help his country win the war in Afghanistan. But European leaders have stopped short of promising an increase in troop numbers to the country, despite efforts by Obama to use his popularity among the European public to wring concessions. The AP says police are clashing with demonstrators in Strasbourg where the NATO summit is under way. Several hundred protesters in eastern Strasbourg are hurling Molotov cocktails, rocks and bottles as they try to push their way into the city's center, an AP reporter on the scene says. Some 100 riot police bearing shields and wearing body armor are responding with tear gas in a bid to break up the melee with the demonstrators, many of who are clad in black and wearing masks. Across the river in the German city of Kehl Saturday, some 2,500 protesters have gathered but police say there is no violence.

The AP: Fierce fighting between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels defending their last remaining territory in the country's war-ravaged north killed 93 rebels on Saturday, the military said. The military also said it destroyed three rebel boats and recovered a torched bulletproof vehicle belonging to the leader of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas. Government forces are in what they say is a final push to defeat the rebels — the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — and end 25 years of civil war. A string of major victories by the military in recent months, in which the rebels' administrative capital and main bases were captured, has pushed the guerillas into a small strip of coastal land measuring just 8.4 square miles (21 square kilometers) in the northeast. Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said separate battles broke out Saturday as soldiers fought to capture the remaining rebel territory. Soldiers found the bodies of 93 rebels after the battles, he said, without giving details of casualties suffered by government forces. A military statement earlier Saturday said five vehicles, including one used by rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, were recovered late Friday. It said the rebels torched them as they withdrew. Navy spokesman Cmdr. Mahesh Karunaratne said a sea battle took place in the middle of the night when 10 rebel boats were intercepted by the navy.

The AP: Thousands of people lined the streets to say goodbye to reality television star Jade Goody. Wellwishers threw flowers as Jade's funeral cortege travelled from London to Essex and hundreds gathered outside the St John the Baptist Church in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, to watch her funeral service relayed on giant screens. Singer Jamelia and Davina McCall, presenter of Channel 4 reality show Big Brother, joined Jade's mother Jackiey Budden, 51, widower Jack Tweed, 21, and more than 300 mourners at the ceremony. Publicist Max Clifford told the congregation Jade was a "very ordinary and very extraordinary" woman who became a "princess" and a "queen". Jade died on March 22 at the age of 27 after losing a battle with cervical cancer. Her funeral procession traced the journey of her life - starting in Bermondsey, south London, travelling to her home in Upshire, Essex, then moving to Buckhurst Hill, where Mr Tweed lives.

Reuters: A North Korean rocket appears to have passed over Japan, the Japanese government said on Sunday, having dropped booster stages to the east and west of the country. "The projectile launched from North Korea today appears to have passed over towards the Pacific," the prime minister's office said in a statement. North Korea has said it was putting a satellite into space and but regional powers say Pyongyang is testing a missile designed to carry a warhead to U.S. territory. Pyongyang said its rockets would drop booster stages to the west and east of Japan. According to the Washington Post, President Obama, in Prague to deliver a speech in which he vows to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons and material, condemned North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile, calling it a threat to the region and to international peace and security. In a statement released just before midnight Eastern time, the president urged North Korea to abide by the United Nations Security Council resolutions which govern ballistic missile tests and to refrain from further "provocative" actions.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shiite religious gathering in the north of violence-wracked Pakistan Sunday, killing at least 20 people, a minister said. The attack took place outside a Shiite mosque in the town of Chakwal, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Islamabad, a senior police official told the AFP. Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said the mosque was jam-packed with people at the time of the explosion. "As soon as members from inside the mosque tried to come out, a suicide bomber dressed in black got close to the gate and detonated his exploseive device," Hyder said. "There are more people dying in Pakistan on some days than Iraq and Afghanistan put together. The country's war on terror is unpopular, Pakistan's US alliance is becoming even more unpopular ... and that is threatening the stability of Pakistan itself."

The BBC: North Korea failed in its attempt to get a satellite into space after a rocket launch early on Sunday, US and South Korean officials say. Two stages of the rocket and its payload landed in the Pacific Ocean, a US military statement said. Hours earlier North Korea claimed the satellite had successfully been put into orbit and was transmitting data. The United States, Japan and South Korea suspect the launch was a cover for a long-range missile test. They strongly condemned the launch. US President Barack Obama urged Pyongyang to "refrain from further provocative actions". "North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long-range missile," Mr Obama told a crowd in the Czech capital, Prague. According to the Korea Times, the U.N. Security Council is scheduled to convene today to discuss countermeasures at Japan's request. North Korea fired a multistage rocket from a launch pad on its East Coast 15 seconds past 11:30 a.m., flying over Japanese territory. An official with the Korean mission to the United Nations confirmed that the Japanese government asked the Mexican mission to call for an emergency meeting. Mexico is the council chair this month, according to the Associated Press. Experts say that Japan's urgency in calling for the U.N. meeting underlines the gravity of the effects of the missile launch on Northeast Asian security. However, 15 members of the U.N. Security Council are divided over the possible countermeasures for what most nations are denouncing as a "clear breach of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718." The North is prohibited from engaging in ballistic missile development under the resolution, adopted after its long-range missile and nuclear tests in 2006.

Somali pirates have hijacked a 20,000-tonne German container carrier in the Indian Ocean, a Kenya-based maritime official told AFP on Sunday. "The ship was taken yesterday (Saturday) far out at sea, around 400 nautical miles from the Somali coast, between Kenya and the Seychelles," said Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme. According to the BBC, A crew of 24 is believed to be aboard the ship.The names of the ship and identities of the crew members are being verified. Somalia-based pirates have captured dozens of ships over the past year. They have expanded their reach far out into the Indian Ocean since foreign warships started patrolling coastal areas. "We believe the German ship has 24 crew on board," said Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme.

The bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial, Rwanda's ambassador said Sunday. The bodies will be exhumed from the shores of Lake Victoria and reburied in three permanent mass graves, Ambassador Ignatius Kamali said on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. "We have decided to accord a decent burial to those genocide victims," he said. "We want the exercise done within 100 days from today." Kamali did not say how much the process would cost but said that Rwanda would foot the bill. Tom Lutu, an official in Rakai district, told The Associated Press that the Rwandan government bought the land where the bodies will be buried. Ugandan officials said to the BBC that they welcomed the plan. The genocide began on 6 April 1994, after a plane carrying Rwandan Hutu President Habyarimana was shot down. Hutu militias began a campaign of orchestrated killing. Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100 days.

The teenage girl who was filmed being flogged by the Taliban in Pakistan's restive Swat valley has denied that the incident ever occurred in a statement made to government officials, media reports said on Monday. Chand Bibi, the 17-year-old girl who was shown being held down by three men while a fourth flogged her, reportedly told the judge of a Qazi or Islamic court and Divisional Commissioner Syed Mohammad Javed yesterday that such an incident had never happened, the Times of India reports. A court hearing has begun in Pakistan over a video in circulation showing the public flogging of a teenage girl in the north-western Swat valley. The hearing was called by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He had summoned police and officials from the North West Frontier Province to the Supreme Court and ordered them to get the girl to testify, the BBC says.

 

The BBC: US President Barack Obama has begun a two-day visit to Turkey to meet Turkish leaders in an effort to revitalise ties between the two countries. En route to Ankara, Mr Obama said he supports the country's efforts to join the European Union. He said Turkey's accession would send an important signal to the Muslim world and firmly anchor it in Europe. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was up to the EU itself to decide who joined the bloc. Obama said, according to Euro News: “Moving forward towards Turkish membership in the EU would be an important signal of your commitment to this agenda and ensure that we continue to anchor Turkey firmly in Europe,”

The AFP: The Khmer Rouge's prison chief told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court that he had "sacrificed everything" for the revolution that ultimately killed up to two million people. Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, last week apologised at his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, saying he accepted blame for the extermination of thousands of people at the notorious prison Tuol Sleng. On Monday the grey-haired 66-year-old stood, arms folded across his chest, to tell how he left his job as a maths teacher to join the communist movement which became the Khmer Rouge. "I believed my decision was proper at the time. I sacrificed everything for the revolution, sincerely and absolutely," Duch said. According to the AP, he took the stand last week to deliver a personal statement of remorse, but Monday began his actual testimony, in which he demonstrated a phenomenal memory for detail, reciting without notes people's names and exact dates of activities from four decades ago. Asked by a judge to put his story in a historical context, he said, — without any apparent intention to justify his actions — that he believed the Khmer Rouge would have died out by 1970 if the United States had not supported Cambodia's military-led government following the 1970 coup d'etat that removed Prince Norodom Sihanouk from power.

Japan is up in arms about North Korea's launch of a missile/satellite on Sunday, but ironically it relied on a great deal of Japanese technology to get airborne. Japanese companies have for years been caught trying to sell advanced technologies to companies abroad when they're not supposed to. Firms have been prosecuted for shipping jet mills, to grind solid missile fuel, and trailer beds that can be converted into mobile missile launch pads. And that's just the ones the authorities have discovered. And if you take a stroll through somewhere like the Akihabara electronics district of Tokyo, there's an awful lot of pretty advanced technolgy that can be picked up over the counter.

A court in Peru is set to hand down its verdict in the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori on charges of human-rights abuses. The 70-year-old is accused of responsibility for two death-squad massacres which killed 25 people. He denies the charges, but faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Mr Fujimori is currently serving a six-year sentence for a separate trial in which he was found guilty of abuse of power in 2007. The BBC says this is the first time a Latin American president has been tried in his country for human-rights abuses. The AP says on the eve of the long-awaited ruling on kidnapping and murder charges against Fujimori, both supporters and detractors of the 70-year-old ex-leader gathered in the capital waving signs and balloons and shouting slogans. Among them were relatives of the 25 people slain by a military death squad Fujimori is accused of authorizing. The family members held a candlelight vigil outside the Palace of Justice, black-and-white laminated photographs of lost loved ones hanging around their necks.

The AFP: The United States' military commander and regional troubleshooter Tuesday held key talks in Pakistan, where President Asif Ali Zardari told them his country was fighting terror for its survival.  Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard Holbrooke, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, arrived late Monday for talks on Washington's sweeping new strategy to defeat Al-Qaeda and its allies. It is the first top-level visit since US President Barack Obama put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda, unveiling a new strategy nine days ago to commit thousands more troops and billions of dollars to the Afghan war.Zardari said in a statement released on Tuesday "Pakistan is committed in eliminating extremism from the society, for which it needs unconditional support by the international community in the fields of education, health, training and provision of equipment for fighting terrorism," Washington has pledged to provide Islamabad with about $7.5bn in economic aid over the next five years to tackle the violence along its border with Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera reports.

The AP: An angry journalist threw a shoe at India's top security official after a confrontational exchange during a press conference over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that left thousands dead. The shoe missed Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, who continued taking questions Tuesday as officials escorted the journalist away. He was later taken into police custody, but it was not immediately clear whether he would face charges, said police spokesman Rajan Bhagat. Local television channels identified the journalist as Jarnail Singh, a veteran reporter with one of India's largest newspapers, the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran. The AFP says Singh had asked the home minister to comment on a recent report by the Central Bureau of Investigation that cleared a senior Congress leader accused of inciting the anti-Sikh violence in 1984. The riots were triggered by the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards who shot the prime minister as revenge for her ordering a military assault on militants holed up in Sikhdom's holiest shrine -- the Golden Temple in Amritsar. According to official figures, some 2,700 people were butchered in the riots, most of them in the capital New Delhi. A number of Congress officials were accused of either inciting the mobs or refusing to intervene to stop the violence. The Iraqi journalist who shot to worldwide fame for hurling his shoes at Bush was jailed for three years last month. Another incident saw a German student at Britain's Cambridge University throw a shoe at visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in February.

The AP: Israeli police fatally shot a Palestinian motorist Tuesday as he tried to run over officers guarding the demolition of the home of a militant who killed three Israelis with a construction vehicle in July. Clashes erupted at the scene of the shooting, as about 50 Palestinians stoned heavily armed border police with helmets and shields, who fired back with tear gas. The driver's body was laid out on the street under a white plastic sheet with one of his hands sticking out. The windshield of his white Seat car was shattered by about 20 bullet holes. Police called it a "terrorist attack". Hussein Ghanyem, a lawyer for Dweiyat's family, told Reuters the bulldozer driver suffered from mental illness, a condition he said had been certified by a court during a criminal case against him in 2000.

The AFP says the Russian Soyuz capsule carrying US space tourist Charles Simonyi and two professional astronauts landed back on Earth in Kazakhastan, the Russian mission control centre said. "According to the search group, the space capusle landed in the planned region. Reuters says NASA feed announced the crew were in "good spirits" as the TMA-13 craft, also carrying U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov, landed north-east of the Kazakh industrial city of Dzhezkazgan. "Welcome back to earth," a NASA official told the crew via a live communication link broadcast on NASA television. About 200 rescue workers and support teams rushed to the scene to open the capsule and assist the crew with post-landing checks.

The New York Times says thousands of anti-government protesters — many of them dressed in red, their signature color — gathered in central Bangkok on Wednesday morning as the Thai capital braced for a new round of political demonstrations. The city’s police commissioner said Wednesday he expected the crowd to number 80,000 or more. Bloomberg News Agency says Thai protesters rallied in scorching heat outside the home of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s top adviser, whom they accuse of masterminding a 2006 coup against former Prime MinisterThaksin Shinawatra. Demonstrators banged heart-shaped clappers and cheered as protest leaders standing on parked trucks shouted for Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda to step down. Inside Prem’s compound, hundreds of riot police stood three rows deep and barbed wire barred the entrance. 

According to Bloomberg News Agency the death toll from Italy’s deadliest earthquake in almost 30 years neared 250 as rescue workers braved aftershocks to continue digging for possible survivors. At least 236 people have been killed, emergency authorities said in interviews in the stricken city of L’Aquila. The Italian news agency Ansa put the number at 250 people and said the estimate was “not definitive.” Another 100 people are reported to be in serious condition and some 20,000 people were made homeless. The BBC says that, once again, rescue teams worked through the night in an effort to find any survivors under the rubble of the city's shattered buildings. This is still very much a rescue operation but slowly the emphasis will shift to salvage and clearance, our correspondent says.