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| Afghan forces hunt militant leader once welcomed under peace process | | | By Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan security forces are hunting a senior Islamist militant allowed to settle in the country in 2011 under a government peace plan but who is now leading hundreds of insurgents seeking to overrun the northern province of Kunduz, officials said. The search for Qari Bilal, who according to the Long War Journal is from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) group linked to al Qaeda and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban, comes months before most foreign troops are due to leave the country. Afghan soldiers and police have been engaged in weeks of sometimes heavy fighting against militants led in part by Bilal, according to officials in Kunduz, a province of symbolic and strategic importance. Kunduz was the last northern stronghold held by the Taliban during the U.S.-led war that ousted the hardline Islamist group in 2001, and is a trade route linking Afghanistan with the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan to the north. |
| Thai PM vows reform council to include people from all walks of life | |  By Amy Sawitta Lefevre BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Thursday set out broad criteria for the selection of a 250-member council to draw up sweeping political reforms and approve a new constitution, saying people from all walks of life would be included. Prayuth was speaking in Bangkok to mark the beginning of a selection process for the National Reform Council. It will draft political and economic reforms, including reshaping energy policy, education, public health, the media and other matters, he said. "Committees will have to choose people carefully and transparently." The aims of the council mirror demands made by pro-establishment, anti-government protesters who took to the streets of Bangkok for six months from late last year to try to oust then Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
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| Chinese police probe executives of business daily for graft - Xinhua | | | Police in Shanghai are investigating eight people, including employees of the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper, on suspicion of extortion, China's official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday. Experts have long pointed to corruption within the ranks of Chinese media, arguing that blackmail is widespread and journalists are susceptible to bribery. China has cracked down on official corruption and extravagance since President Xi Jinping's appointment last year. Public flaunting of personal, and often illicit, wealth had been common, provoking wide criticism of the ruling Communist Party. |
| INSIGHT - Putin plays cat and mouse with Russian online critics | |  By Alissa de Carbonnel MOSCOW (Reuters) - Before the Internet, Anton Nossik remembers painstakingly copying out Soviet dissident Joseph Brodsky's forbidden writings on a clattering typewriter for samizdat publications. On his popular blog, the online media entrepreneur now instructs readers on ways to use new technology to get around online censorship, warning them: "There's not much time left." With an estimated 75 million people online in Russia, up from just 2 million when Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999, the reach of the Internet dwarfs that of the clandestine texts shared, at high risk, among intellectuals during the Cold War. Where elderly Communist librarians once stood guard over copy machines, activists say a slew of regulations this year aim to police the web at one step removed, enabling authorities to target leading dissenting voices, lean on social networks and telecoms companies and encourage self-censorship. As Western sanctions multiply over Russia's role in splitting Ukraine, so do rules and restrictions over Europe's fastest growing Internet market, hampering a promising sector in the stuttering economy and forcing young entrepreneurs abroad.
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| U.N. chief tries to kick-start sagging enthusiasm for climate deal | |  By Ben Garside and Valerie Volcovici LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon this month hopes to reinvigorate the years-long effort to forge a global climate deal, even as concerns grow over whether the final pact will be rigorous enough to address threats to the environment. Ban wants heads of state at a Sept. 23 gathering in New York to outline how their countries will contribute to a mutual goal to contain rising temperatures, said Selwin Hart, the Barbadian diplomat helping to spearhead the conference. Hart said the event will avoid some of the thornier questions surrounding the ultimate outcome of the Paris summit, but should give a good indication of how serious countries are. They include cities, energy, transportation and climate resilience.
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| Sotloff family mourns, challenges Islamic State leader to debate | |  By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - The family of Steven Sotloff, the second American journalist beheaded by Islamic State militants, said on Wednesday he was "a gentle soul", and challenged the group's leader to a debate on the peaceful teachings of the Muslim holy book, the Koran. President Barack Obama vowed to "degrade and destroy" the group. Barak Barfi, a friend of Sotloff who is serving as family spokesman, began a prepared statement from the family in English, remembering the slain journalist as a fan of American football who enjoyed junk food, the television series "South Park" and talking to his father about golf. The 31-year-old Sotloff was "torn between two worlds," the statement said, but "the Arab world pulled him." "He was no war junkie ... He merely wanted to give voice to those who had none," Barfi said outside the family's one-story home in a leafy Miami suburb.
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| U.S. to probe Ferguson police force after shooting of teen - report | |  Justice Department is launching a civil rights probe into the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, several weeks after a white officer shot an unarmed black teenager, sparking racial unrest, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Citing two federal law enforcement officials, the Post said the investigation would also look at the practices of other police departments in St. Louis County. The investigation could be announced as soon as Thursday afternoon and will be conducted by the department's civil rights division, the Post said. The Justice Department has already begun a civil rights investigation into the deadly Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
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