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Apartheid death-squad leader Eugene de Kock, dubbed 'Prime Evil' for his role in the torture and murder of black South African activists in the 1980s and early 1990s, will learn on Thursday whether he will be released on parole after 20 years in prison. _0"> Justice Minister Michael Masutha is due to announce his decision on de Kock's application for parole at 0530 ET at a news conference in Pretoria. Whatever his ruling, it is likely to be highly contentious in a country still dealing with the legacy of repression and brutality meted out by the white-minority administration that prevailed from 1948 to 1994. As head of an apartheid counter-insurgency unit at Vlakplaas, a farm 20 km (15 miles) west of Pretoria, de Kock is believed to have been responsible for more atrocities than any other man in the efforts to preserve white rule. Arrested in 1994, the year Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) came to power, he was sentenced two years later t

A Tamil group criticised Australia's immigration minister on Thursday for visiting northern Sri Lanka without meeting Tamil leaders, days after Australia returned a boat of asylum seekers, including Tamils, under its hardline border security policy. Some of the 41 Sri Lankans intercepted and sent home by Australia said on Tuesday they had been mistreated by Australian Customs, accusations Immigration Minister Scott Morrison denied. A second boat carrying 153 Sri Lankan asylum seekers remained in legal limbo as the Australian High Court considered whether their interception was legal. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott came to power last September partly because of his tough stance on asylum seekers. His government has touted its success in blocking such boats, saying there have been no illegal arrivals since last December. During a visit on Wednesday to the northern city of Jaffna, Morrison met the governor of the Northern Province, G.A. Chandrasiri, a presidential appoin

Missiles from a U.S. drone slammed into a mud house and killed six suspected militants in Pakistan's rugged northwest on Thursday, officials said, as the Pakistani military said it had seized control of 80 percent of a key city from the Taliban. Drone strikes in Pakistan resumed after a six-month hiatus, days before the military launched an air campaign on June 15 to drive Pakistani Taliban militants out of the remote border region of North Waziristan. Thursday's strike in the Datta Khel district killed six militants and injured two, security officials said. The site of the strike was about 45 km (28 miles) west of the regional capital of Miranshah, near the Afghan border. A senior officer took reporters on a tour of the region on Wednesday to underscore what the military says is a successful offensive to bring under control 80 percent of Miranshah, North Waziristan's main town. The region, the base of some of the country's most feared al Qaeda linked terrori

Complaining they had worked without pay for months late last year, employees of the Serbian farming company Agroziv staged a short strike in January. Why should they work for no money, they said. The company, a poultry producer in the north of the country, was short of cash and pleaded for more time to pay wages, workers said. "The management told us, 'Please be patient for another two weeks,’” said Vesna Srdic, a packaging worker with the firm. “We waited and nothing happened. Some workers grew so desperate they were buying bread on credit from local bakers. But after some months even bakers refused to give them bread for nothing." Patience ran out on June 4. Using chains and padlocks, Agroziv employees locked every door and gate they could find on company property. Then they blocked a main road leading to the border with Romania for two hours. "My salary is 29,000 dinars ($343) a month and I haven't received a penny since January. I'm drowning in debt,

Germany cannot insist the spouses of Turkish nationals living in the country speak basic German when they apply for a family reunification visa, Europe's highest court ruled on Thursday. _0"> Since 2007, Germany has demanded basic German language skills from those wishing to join their partner in Germany from outside the European Union, in an effort to prevent forced marriage and promote integration. In the case of a Turkish national who lived in Germany since 1998 and whose wife was refused a visa in 2012 because she did not speak German, the European Court of Justice said that the rule ran counter to European Union (EU) law. The court said this was because of an agreement the European Union made with Turkey in the 1970s to prohibit new restrictions on the freedom to settle in the EU. Some three million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, about a half of them German citizens. While the case itself dealt with Turkish nationals only, the court added that the lan

The U.N. atomic agency said on Thursday it believed nuclear material which Iraq said had fallen into the hands of insurgents was "low grade" and did not pose a significant security risk. Iraq told the United Nations that the material was used for scientific research at a university in the northern town of Mosul and appealed for help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad". Iraq's U.N. envoy this week also said that the government had lost control of a former chemical weapons facility to "armed terrorist groups" and was unable to fulfil its international obligations to destroy toxins kept there. An al Qaeda offshoot, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, took over swathes of Syria and Iraq before renaming itself Islamic State in June and declaring its leader caliph - a title held by successors of the Prophet Mohammad. The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "is aware of the notification from Iraq and

The Taliban shot and killed six people working for a demining company in western Afghanistan, police said on Thursday, a day after the United Nations said the number of civilian casualties in the country jumped by a quarter in the first half of 2014. _0"> "The Taliban killed six de-miners from the Halo Trust landmine clearance organization while they were on an operation in Kohsan district of Herat. They abducted three people," said Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial police chief. "The de-miners started their trip very early in the morning and hadn't informed the police," Ahmadi said, adding that a manhunt was under way to rescue the three abducted workers. The United Nations has documented 4,853 civilian casualties in Afghanistan, including 1,564 civilian deaths and 3,289 injuries, in the period between Jan. 1 to June 30. In southern Zabul province, four policemen were killed by three of their colleagues overnight. The rogue policem

Indonesia's likely next president, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, warned on Thursday against tampering with ballots ahead of a final count of votes from a disputed election. Both Jokowi and his rival, former general Prabowo Subianto, claimed victory in Wednesday's election, the closest ever in the world's third biggest democracy and biggest Muslim nation with a history of deadly political violence. The Elections Commission is to announce the official result around July 22. "We ask everyone's cooperation to now safeguard the election result from yesterday until the official result by (the Elections Commission)...," Jokowi, who was named the election winner by several non-partisan pollsters who have been accurate in the past, told a news conference. "I would ask everyone not to taint the sincerity of Indonesian society's aspirations in the election," he said, a clear reference to fears of doctoring votes that were cast. Prabowo has ac

U.S. and Chinese leaders have agreed that China will reduce its intervention in the currency market when conditions are ripe, reaching an understanding on a prickly issue that has hurt ties between the world's two biggest economies for years. China's Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said on the sidelines of annual high-level talks between the two nations that China will "significantly" reduce its yuan intervention when some prerequisites are met. He did not give further details. Analysts said Zhou's unusual candour about China's currency intervention, which was echoed earlier on Wednesday by the Chinese finance minister, suggested that China may be ready to let the yuan rise again once its economy stabilises. Indeed, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told reporters at the end of talks on Thursday that China was committed to reducing its interference with the yuan, "as conditions permit". China will also increase the transparency of its cur

Utah's attorney general will appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court over last month's ruling by a federal appeals court that backed gay marriage in the conservative, heavily Mormon state, his office said on Wednesday. An appeal by Utah was widely expected after the June 25 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver that the state could not prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. That ruling was put on hold pending Utah's appeal. The office of Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said he would petition the Supreme Court in the coming week, and that the state's measure banning gay marriage was presumed to be constitutional "unless the highest courts deem otherwise." Utah had the option of asking the entire 10th Circuit appeals court to review the ruling or taking the case directly to the nation's top court. The June 25 decision was the first time a regional federal appeals court had made such a ruling in

Police shot and killed a woman brandishing a knife outside a regional medical center in northern Idaho that had been locked down amid reports of a weapons threat, authorities said Wednesday. _0"> Officers investigating the threat late on Tuesday at Bonner General Hospital in Sandpoint said they found a knife-wielding woman who ignored their demands to drop the weapon. An altercation ensued and officers opened fire and killed the 35-year-old woman, Gary Johnston, detective sergeant with the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement. "A preliminary investigation indicates the female aggressed the officers while refusing to comply with commands to drop the knife. The officers responded to the threat using lethal force," Johnston said. Authorities declined to release further details, including the number of officers involved, pending an investigation by the sheriff's office and other law enforcement agencies in Idaho. (Reporting by Laura Zuckerman;

Kush the cat was quarantined in central Florida after her owner called 911 over the weekend for help, saying the ferocious feline had her trapped in her home. "I can’t get out. She’s got us trapped in our bedroom,” Teresa Gregory, 50, told the emergency police dispatcher, according to the record of the call. 'She’s just sitting outside my bedroom door right now. We don’t know what to do.” Gregory told the dispatcher that Kush, a 4-year-old Russian Blue, began behaving badly earlier in the day so her husband James locked the cat in the bathroom for a while. Gregory said she might have accidentally stepped on the cat, sparking the aggressive behavior. When the cat was released, “she freaked out on us,” hissing, scratching and scaring them, Gregory said. Gregory said both she and her husband were bleeding from scratches to their arms and legs but both later declined treatment. "I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I love this cat to death,” Gregory told the dispatche

U.S. prosecutors are using a new tactic to crack down on banks that fail to fight money laundering: systematically asking suspects in a wide range of criminal cases to help them follow the money back to their bankers. The efforts are paying off in probes of banks and other financial institutions now filling the prosecution pipeline, according to Jonathan Lopez, who last month left his post as deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Money Laundering and Bank Integrity Unit (MLBIU). "Asking criminals the simple question 'Who is moving your money?' can lead the Department of Justice to a financial institution's doorstep," said Lopez, who declined to identify specific targets. The department confirmed the stepped up reliance on criminal informants in anti-money laundering investigations, but also declined to discuss probes underway. The four-year-old MLBIU, which includes a dozen prosecutors, is responsible for insuring that financial institutions adhere to U.S

Police in a Dallas suburb shot a suspected burglar after he poured a flammable material on his clothing and set himself on fire on Wednesday outside a chicken wing restaurant, a city official said. _0"> Three officers also suffered severe burns including one who had to be airlifted to a hospital for emergency care, said Corky Brown, a spokesman for Cedar Hill, the suburb southwest of Dallas where the incident took place. There were no reports immediately available on the condition of the suspect or the officers, Brown said. The officers were pursuing the man, a suspect in an apartment robbery, and confronted him outside the restaurant in the shopping center, Brown said. The suspect, who was brandishing a bottle of what appeared to be gasoline, entered the restaurant and then quickly exited engulfed in flames, witness Robert Gonzales told Dallas broadcaster WFAA. "He looked like a human torch. He had no facial features," Gonzales said. (Reporting by Jon Hersk

Congressional Republicans asked the Obama administration on Wednesday to provide documents related to last month's anthrax scare at a U.S. lab facility, where more than 80 people were initially feared to be exposed to the deadly pathogen. _0"> In a series of letters, top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked for the results of several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab inspections and audits of potential weaknesses in biosecurity protocols dating back to October 2007. "How many suspected exposures to select agents and/or toxins have been reported at CDC since October 2007? How many actual exposures have been reported," said the July 9 letter to CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden signed by three Republican panel members including Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan. The lawmakers, who also requested information from the inspector general of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said they were gathering information for

President Barack Obama urged Congress on Wednesday to pass his request quickly for $3.7 billion in funds to address the influx of unaccompanied migrant children from Central America crossing the U.S. border. _0"> After meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry, Obama said he would consider deploying the National Guard to the border as Perry and other Republicans have requested. Obama told reporters he urged Perry to press Texas lawmakers in the U.S. Congress to support the White House's funding request. The president also rejected criticism that he did not visit the border during his Texas visit. "This isn't theater. This is a problem," Obama said. (Reporting by Steve Holland in Dallas and Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler )

A New Orleans-area school district reached a deal with federal officials on Wednesday to make changes that address allegations of discrimination against Hispanic students and parents. The settlement, which ends a federal probe, stems from a formal complaint filed against the Jefferson Parish Public School System in 2012 alleging it required proof of U.S. citizenship or immigration status from Hispanic students, failed to provide interpreters for parents with limited English and overlooked racially charged bullying. “We applaud Jefferson Parish for ensuring that all students will have access to their public schools and that all parents... are equipped with the information necessary for their children to fully participate,” Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said in a statement. The three-year agreement between the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education and the school district will require it to change any policies dissuading non-citi

President Barack Obama rejected demands from Texas Governor Rick Perry and others that he visit the border where a child migrant crisis is unfolding and said his critics should get behind his request for $3.7 billion if they want to solve the problem. "Are folks more interested in politics or are they more interested in solving the problem," Obama said he told Perry. "If they are interested in solving the problem then this can be solved. If the preference is for politics then it won’t be solved." Obama visited Texas for the first time since the influx of child migrants from Central America overwhelmed border resources. He had talks with Perry aboard his Marine One helicopter and in a group meeting with local officials that Obama called constructive. In a brief news conference after the meeting, Obama dismissed criticism from Perry, a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, that he should personally visit the border region for a first-hand look. "

Total marijuana demand in Colorado, where the nation's first recreational pot shops opened in January, is estimated at 130 tonnes this year, a study for the state's revenue authority said on Wednesday. A day after Washington became only the second state to allow recreational sales of the drug to adults, the report said the projected demand in Colorado was much higher than anticipated. More than 90 percent of it came from residents, while out-of-state visitors accounted for only about 9 tonnes. "The primary difference is caused by much heavier dosage amounts consumed by the state's 'heavy user' population – those who consume marijuana on a daily basis," said the report, prepared for the Colorado Department of Revenue. It said tax figures showed that the retail supply of marijuana was growing in the state, while supply via medical marijuana dispensaries had remained relatively constant. "The retail demand is derived primarily from out-of-state

A 20-year-plus veteran of the Tennessee National Guard was shot to death on Wednesday by an intruder at an armory outside Nashville, and a man described as a "person of interest" in the case was detained hours later for questioning, authorities said. The shooting occurred about 5 p.m. local time in the National Guard armory in Lobelville, a town in Perry County, Tennessee, about 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Nashville. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh Devine said late Wednesday night that detectives were probing how the shooter gained access to the building, which is normally kept locked to outsiders for security reasons. The victim was a sergeant first-class in the Tennessee Guard who was rushed to Perry County hospital but died of his wounds while being prepared for a helicopter flight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, authorities said. Authorities did not identify the detained man, but Devine said he was not a member of the Guard.

Regulators in drought-stricken California are proposing stringent new conservation measures to limit outdoor water use, including fines of up to $500 a day for using a hose without a shut-off nozzle. _0"> The most populous U.S. state is suffering its third year of drought and in January Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency, allowing the state to request federal aid. In some cities and towns about half the water residents use is for lawns and cleaning cars, according to the State Water Resources Control Board, which made the proposal public on Tuesday. Voluntary measures do not go far enough, it said. "It's not meant to spank people, it's meant to make people aware and say, 'This is serious; conserve'," said agency spokesman Timothy Moran, noting that the rules authorize local law enforcement agencies to write tickets imposing fines. The new restrictions prohibit watering gardens enough to cause visible runoff onto roads or walkways

A Florida man who confessed to the rape and murder of a child is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday, while another convicted murderer in Georgia had his death sentence, also due to be carried out on Thursday, commuted to life imprisonment. Their cases follow a string of executions in the U.S. South last month, including those of two other men in Florida and Georgia, in the wake of a botched Oklahoma execution in April that sparked an uproar among death penalty opponents. Florida's Eddie Wayne Davis, 45, was sentenced to death in Florida after he admitted to taking an 11-year-old girl from her mother’s home, sexually assaulting and strangling her in 1994. Davis confessed three times to the murder of Kimberly Waters, who was found strangled in a dumpster. He was 25 years old at the time of her killing, but his defense team claimed that he was mentally still a juvenile. The Georgia man, Tommy Lee Waldrip, was convicted of the 1991 shooting death of a man who had be

A man accused of fatally shooting four children ages 4 to 14 and their parents after entering their suburban Houston home disguised as a FedEx delivery man while looking for his former wife was charged with capital murder on Thursday. Ronald Lee Haskell, 33, went to the home searching for his former wife, who is related to the victims, and held the children at gunpoint until their parents returned, authorities said. He then brought all seven family members into a room and shot them, killing all except a teenage girl, authorities said. "I've not personally in 40 years seen a tragedy in one family this horrific," Harris County Constable Ron Hickman told reporters. Haskell, who formerly worked for a contractor used by FedEx, is being held without bail. In Texas, the charge of capital murder carries the possibility of the death penalty. Police in Logan, Utah, said in a statement that Haskell and his then-wife lived in the city from 2006 to 2013. They said they had once

U.S. prosecutors are using a new tactic to crack down on banks that fail to fight money laundering: systematically asking suspects in a wide range of criminal cases to help them follow the money back to their bankers. The efforts are paying off in probes of banks and other financial institutions now filling the prosecution pipeline, according to Jonathan Lopez, who last month left his post as deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Money Laundering and Bank Integrity Unit (MLBIU). "Asking criminals the simple question 'Who is moving your money?' can lead the Department of Justice to a financial institution's doorstep," said Lopez, who declined to identify specific targets. The department confirmed the stepped up reliance on criminal informants in anti-money laundering investigations, but also declined to discuss probes underway. The four-year-old MLBIU, which includes a dozen prosecutors, is responsible for insuring that financial institutions adhere to U.S

Congressional Republicans asserted on Wednesday that new emails show a former Internal Revenue Service official deliberately sought to hide information from Congress, opening a new chapter in a probe of IRS treatment of conservative groups. An email exchange released by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa shows the former official, Lois Lerner, asking a colleague whether communications made through an internal messaging system can be searched by Congress. Issa said the exchange, culled from documents provided to Congress last week, showed that Lerner was "leading an effort to hide information from congressional inquiries." The latest accusation prompted heated questioning of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at a hearing and angry exchanges among a Democrat and Republicans on the panel. In the emails, Lerner says she has been telling colleagues to be cautious about what they say in emails and asks whether internal messages are subject to the same data transparen

BNP Paribas, for the second time in nine days, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions, as part of a nearly $9 billion settlement in which the French bank admitted to breaking embargoes against Sudan, Cuba and Iran. Prosecutors had accused the bank of processing billions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of the Sudanese and others barred because of human rights abuses, support for terrorists and other national security concerns. U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield accepted the plea at a hearing in Manhattan federal court. The plea was entered by the bank's general counsel, Georges Dirani. BNP Paribas admitted to having conspired from 2004 to 2012 to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act. The U.S. Justice Department unveiled the record settlement on July 1, when the bank pleaded guilty in New York state court to charges of falsifying business records and conspiracy brought by

President Barack Obama urged Congress on Wednesday to pass his request quickly for $3.7 billion in funds to address the influx of unaccompanied migrant children from Central America crossing the U.S. border. _0"> After meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry, Obama said he would consider deploying the National Guard to the border as Perry and other Republicans have requested. Obama told reporters he urged Perry to press Texas lawmakers in the U.S. Congress to support the White House's funding request. The president also rejected criticism that he did not visit the border during his Texas visit. "This isn't theater. This is a problem," Obama said. (Reporting by Steve Holland in Dallas and Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler )

Israeli air strikes shook Gaza every few minutes on Wednesday, and militants kept up rocket fire at Israel's heartland in intensifying warfare that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 53 people in the Hamas-dominated enclave. Missiles from Israel's Iron Dome defense system shot into the sky to intercept rockets launched, for the second straight day, at Tel Aviv, the country's commercial capital. Some were also aimed at Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, 80 km (50 miles) from Gaza, but were either shot down or landed in open country. With cries of "Allahu akbar" (God is Greatest), Palestinians in the Gaza Strip cheered as rockets streaked overhead toward Israel, in attacks that could provide a popularity boost for Islamist Hamas, whose rift with neighboring Egypt's military-backed government has deepened economic hardship. Dimona, desert site of a nuclear reactor and widely assumed to have a role in atomic weaponry, was targeted by locally made