Bangladesh politician sentenced to death

Former minister for Jatiya Party becomes 15th person to be convicted of atrocities in series of war-crimes trials.

Jamaat supporters clashed with police after the group's leaders were sentenced to death last year [Reuters]

Bangladesh's war crimes court has sentenced a former government minister to death for rape and genocide during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan.
Syed Mohammad Kaiser became the 15th person to be convicted of atrocities by the International Crimes Tribunal, which found him guilty of heading an armed group that rounded up and killed about 150 people in the nine-month conflict.
The 73-year-old Kaiser, who uses a wheelchair, did not react as the judge read out the verdict and said he would be "hanged by the neck until his death".
Lawyers for Kaiser, a former minister with the Jatiya Party which forms part of Bangladesh's ruling coalition, have rejected the charges and say they will appeal.

Sex slavery 'pushes ISIL victims to suicide'

Amnesty International says girls from Iraq's Yazidi minority have had their lives shattered by ISIL sexual violence.

Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were captured by ISIL after they overran their hometown of Sinjar

Women and girls from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group have committed suicide or tried to, rights group Amnesty International said.
The London-based rights group said on Tuesday, women faced torture, rape, forced marriage and were "sold" or given as "gifts" to ISIL fighters or their supporters in Iraq and Syria. "Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have had their lives shattered by the horrors of sexual violence and sexual slavery in ISIL captivity," Amnesty's Senior Crisis Response Adviser, Donatella Rovera, said in a statement.
"Many of those held as sexual slaves are children, girls aged 14, 15 or even younger,'' Rovera added.
Based on interviews with over 40 former captives, the Amnesty report ,  Yezidi women and girls face harrowing sexual violence , said fearful of rape, some of the women had tried to kill themselves.
A 19-year-old named Jilan committed suicide out of fear she would be raped, Amnesty quoted her brother as saying.

Black teenager killed by police in Missouri

Shooting reported in St Louis suburb, two miles from Ferguson where similar incident has led to protests and riots.

Weeks of protests and riots had erupted in Ferguson after an officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown [Getty]

An 18-year-old black teenager has been killed by a police officer, who claims to have acted in self-defence, at a petrol station in the St Louis suburb of Berkeley in the US state of Missouri.
Police said that an officer was conducting a routine check at the petrol station on Wednesday when he approached two men, one of whom pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer.
Brian Shellman, a police spokesperson, said the officer then fired several shots, striking and fatally wounding the suspect.

ISIL captures pilot of plane downed in Syria

Jordan confirms that one of its pilots has been taken hostage after plane was reportedly shot down during a mission.

Photo posted by ISIL on various websites purports to show its fighters holding the captured pilot

Jordan's military has confirmed that one of its pilots was captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group after his plane went down in Syria, official news agency Petra said.
"During a mission on Wednesday morning conducted by several Jordanian Air Force planes against hideouts of the Islamic State terrorist organisation in the Raqqa region, one of the planes went down and the pilot was taken hostage" by Islamic State, Petra quoted a source from the military's general staff as saying.

Akwa Ibom: Group of 22 guber aspirants denies meeting with Buhari

A group of 22 aggrieved Akwa Ibom State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirants yesterday denied having a meeting with the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), or any of his representatives.

Murder allegation against me politically motivated –Teslim, ex-Senate Leader

Senator Teslim Folarin, the immediate past Senate Leader, is the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State. The 51-year old alumnus of the premier University of Ibadan, hosted journalists in Ibadan at the weekend where he spoke on why he wants to govern the Pace Setter State.

Ex-militants hold Delta deputy gov hostage

Delta State Deputy Governor, Prof. Amos Utuama, was yesterday held hostage at the Government House annex, Warri by aggrieved former militants who were protesting alleged undue delay in the payment of their monthly allowances by the amnesty office.