WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Friday that about 100 American troops have been deployed to the African nation of Niger. Two U.S. defence officials the troops would be setting up a base for unarmed drones to conduct surveillance. Obama announced the deployment in a letter to Congress, saying that the forces "will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region." The move marks a deepening of U.S. efforts to stem the spread of al-Qaida and its affiliates in the volatile region. It also underscores Obama's desire to fight extremism without involving large numbers of U.S. ground forces. The drone base will allow the U.S. to give France more intelligence on the militants its forces have been fighting in Mali, which neighbours Niger. Over time, it could extend the reach not only of American intelligence-gathering but also U.S. special opera

BEIJING: China's hugely controversial "re-education" labour camps are set to be abolished this year, state media Monday quoted a senior legal official as saying. It is another signal that the widely criticised system -- where people can be sentenced to up to four years' "re-education" by a police panel, without an open trial -- is coming to an end. The comments come after the Communist Party's new leader Xi Jinping said the party recognised as a "pressing problem" that it was "out of touch with the people". About 60,000 people are detained in the camps, officials say, most of whom serve from six months to a year. Opponents say the camps are used to silence government critics and would-be petitioners who seek to bring their complaints against officials to higher authorities. Earlier this month reports emerged briefly that the system -- known as laojiao -- would be abolished. But they were swiftly deleted and replaced with predictions

JERUSALEM: Israel demanded Palestinian leaders quell unrest as protests and clashes rocked the West Bank on Sunday, after the death of a prisoner who the Palestinians claim died under Israeli torture. Over 4,000 Palestinian prisoners staged, meanwhile, a one-day hunger strike to protest the death on Saturday of Arafat Jaradat, amid widespread street clashes with Israeli security forces. Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs Issa Qaraqaa accused Israel of torturing Jaradat to death, citing the preliminary findings of an Israeli-Palestinian autopsy. Israeli prison authorities had initially said he appeared to have died of a heart attack. "The evidence corroborates our suspicion that Jaradat died as a result of torture, especially since the autopsy clearly proved that the victim's heart was healthy," Qaraqaa said in a statement. He said the autopsy carried out at Israel's national forensic institute near Tel Aviv, in the presence of a Palestinian doctor, indicated bru

SEOUL: South Korea's new president Park Geun-Hye on Monday labelled North Korea's nuclear test a threat to the survival of the Korean people, but vowed a "step-by-step" policy of engagement with Pyongyang. "North Korea's recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people," Park said in her inauguration speech after being sworn in as South Korea's first female president. - AFP/ck

JERUSALEM: Palestinian political and religious leaders on Sunday stressed that US President Barack Obama should not visit the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem in a way that might compromise its "Muslim sovereignty." Obama will be arriving in Israel and the Palestinian territories in the spring, and Palestinian media is speculating that he will visit the contested site, referred to as the Temple Mount by Jews and Al-Haram Al-Sharif by Muslims. It houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques, and is venerated by Jews as the site where their ancient temples stood before the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The Old City complex is controlled by the Islamic authority known as the Waqf, which allows non-Muslims entry to the site only through one portal, the Mughrabi Gate, where Israeli police monitor visitors. Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, head of the higher Islamic council and former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, said that Obama must enter through a gate that wa

(Reuters) - Israel carried out a successful test of its upgraded Arrow missile interceptor on Monday, an Israeli official said. The U.S.-backed Arrow missile is designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles at altitudes high enough to allow for any non-conventional warheads to disintegrate safely. (Reporting by Dan Williams; editing by Crispian Balmer)

(Reuters) - Syria n rebels have captured the site of a suspected nuclear reactor near the Euphrates river which Israeli warplanes destroyed six years ago, opposition sources in eastern Syria said on Sunday. Al-Kubar site, around 60 km (35 miles) west of the city of Deir al-Zor, became a focus of international attention when Israel raided it in 2007. The United States said the complex was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to making weapons-grade plutonium. Omar Abu Laila a spokesman for the Eastern Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army said the only building rebels found at the site was a hangar containing at least one Scud missile. "It appears that the site was turned into a Scud launch base. Whatever structures it had have been buried," he said, adding that three army helicopters airlifted the last loyalist troops before opposition fighters overran the area on Friday. The Syrian military, which razed the site after the Israeli raid, said the complex was a regu

BAMAKO - Five people, including two suicide bombers, have died in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 extremists dead. Two vehicles targeting civilians and members of the ethnic Tuareg rebel group, the MNLA, exploded near the town of Tessalit, killing three and wounding several others, a security source said yesterday. The suicide bomber drivers also died. A spokesman for the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in Burkina Faso confirmed the report. Mohamed Ibrahim Ag Asseleh said "the two kamikazes were killed and in our ranks there were three dead and four seriously wounded". The blasts came after Al-Qaeda-linked rebels claimed a car bomb attack on Thursday near a camp occupied by French and Chadian troops in the city of Kidal, local officials said. At least two civilians were reported wounded in that attack. The vehicle, apparently driven by a suicide bomber, was targeting th

In a fascinating discovery, a British academic has stumbled upon a 500-year-old “most wanted” notice for the arrest of Niccolo Machiavelli, the infamous Italian Renaissance political figure. Machiavelli is the author of the masterpiece ‘The Prince’, a political treatise which argues that the pursuit of power can justify the use of immoral means. Professor Stephen Milner from Manchester University discovered the historic document while researching town criers and the proclamations they read out in archives in Florence. The 1513 proclamation, which called for the arrest of Machiavelli, eventually led to his downfall and death. “When I saw it I knew exactly what it was and it was pretty exciting,” Milner said.

The Chadian army says that its troops killed 65 Islamic extremist rebels and destroyed five vehicles in fierce fighting northern Mali. The Chadian military said in a statement on Saturday on state broadcasting that 13 Chadian soldiers were also killed and six were wounded in the fighting Friday in northern Mali. The statement said the clashes were in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains of northeastern Mali. Chad has deployed some 1,800 troops in Mali as part of the French-led military intervention begun in January to wrest control of northern Mali from the Islamic radicals linked to al Qaeda. The Islamic rebels retreated to mountainous hideouts near Mali's northern border with Algeria, after being expelled at the end of January by French and Malian forces from the major towns in northern Mali.