Syria war: Fighting rages in Aleppo as rebels clash with Syrian troops

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor says at least 48 civilians have been killed in recent fighting in Aleppo. The UN has condemned the violence, which comes as rebels attempt to break a government siege on eastern districts of the city

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Iraq: Wave of bomb attacks in Baghdad kill at least 17

Fifth attack on Iraqi capital in a day hits Shia neighbourhood as brief respite from violence in Baghdad ends.

A parked car bomb exploded in Baghdad's northwestern neighbourhood of Hurriyah on Sunday, killing at least 10 Iraqis and wounding 34 others, police said.

The bombing, which hit a popular fruit and vegetable market in a commercial street of the predominantly Shia neighbourhood, was the fifth blast of the day in Iraq's capital.

The day's casualty toll from the attacks in Baghdad was 17 dead and more than 60 wounded.

Earlier, improvised explosive devices killed three people and wounded 10 others at a popular market in the Shaab neighbourhood in northern Baghdad. Another two blasts at traders' markets in the Topchi and Zataria areas killed four and injured 16.

A fourth bomb, planted in a microbus in the poorer Sadr City district, caused no deaths but wounded six.

Death toll from Baghdad blast rises to more than 281

The officials - police and medical sources - who confirmed the bombings spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorised to brief reporters.

The attacks come just a day after a suicide bomber from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group targeted an aid station for Shia pilgrims, killing at least seven and wounding more than 20.

No one claimed immediate responsibility for Sunday's bombings, but ISIL, also known as ISIS, often targets Iraq's Shia Muslims.

Attacks in the capital have been rare since last summer. The renewed violence in Baghdad comes as several forces try to take the northern city of Mosul, ISIL's last major urban bastion in Iraq, from the hard-line group.

Italy quake: Norcia tremor destroys ancient buildings

Towns and villages in central Italy have been hit by an earthquake for the fourth time in three months.

The 6.6-magnitude quake - Italy's strongest in decades - struck close to the region where nearly 300 people were killed by a quake in August.

This time no-one appears to have died, but about 20 people were injured.

The medieval basilica of St Benedict in Norcia, the town closest to the epicentre, was among buildings destroyed.

An evacuation of buildings in the region deemed vulnerable to seismic activity last week, following strong aftershocks from August's quake, may have saved lives.

Tremors from this latest earthquake were felt in the capital Rome, where the Metro system was shut down, and as far away as Venice in thThe head of the national civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio, said there had been extensive damage to many historic buildings but no deaths had been registered.

"About 20 people are injured. As far as people are concerned, the situation is positive, but many buildings are in a critical state in historic centres and there are problems with electricity and water supplies," he added.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has promised that everything will be rebuilt, saying resources will be found.

"We are going through a really tough period," he said. "We must not allow the profound pain, fatigue and stress that we have now to turn into resignation."e north.

Pope Francis mentioned the quake in his Sunday blessing in Rome's St Peter's Square.

"I'm praying for the injured and the families who have suffered the most damage, as well as for rescue and first-aid workers," he said to loud applause.

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Why multiple quakes are hitting Italy - by Jonathan Amos, BBC science correspondent

We have now seen three magnitude-6 tremors in Italy's Apennines region in just three months.

The big picture is reasonably well understood. Wider tectonic forces in the Earth's crust have led to the Apennines being pulled apart at a rate of roughly 3mm per year - about a 10th of the speed at which your fingernails grow.

But this stress is then spread across a multitude of different faults that cut through the mountains. And this network is fiendishly complicated.

It does now look as though August's event broke two neighbouring faults, starting on one known as the Laga and then jumping across to one called the Vettore.

The mid-week tremors appear to have further broken the northern end of the Vettore. But both in August and mid-week, it seems only the top portions of the faults have gone, and the big question is whether the deeper segments have now failed in the latest event.

Read more from Jonathan Amos

Philippine mayor killed in police shootout

Philippine anti-narcotics officers gunned down a town mayor and nine of his men in a clash in one of the bloodiest operations since President Rodrigo Duterte launched a crackdown on illegal drugs.

Samsudin Dimaukom, mayor of the southern town of Saudi Ampatuan, was one of more than 150 local government officials, judges and police identified by Duterte earlier this year as being involved in the illegal drug trade.

He ordered them to surrender immediately or be hunted down.

The mayor had turned himself in to police but denied he was involved in the illegal drug trade. He had told the media that he was fighting illegal drugs himself and supported Duterte's crackdown. 

Ahead of the shootout on Friday, police received information that Dimaukom's group was planning to transport a "huge" amount of methamphetamine from Davao city, Duterte's hometown, to Maguindanao province, where Saudi Ampatuan is located.

Police spokesman Superintendent Romeo Galgo said Dimaukom and his security personnel opened fire after anti-narcotics police stopped their vehicles at a checkpoint on suspicion they were transporting illegal drugs.

Iraqi army fighting to reach site of ISIL executions

Killings meant "to terrorise" as fighters accused of surrounding themselves with civilians in Hamam al-Alil village.

The Iraqi army was trying on Thursday to reach a town south of Mosul where ISIL has reportedly executed dozens of civilians to deter any support for the military offensive to recapture the group's stronghold.

Eleven days into the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, army and federal police units were fighting off sniper fire and suicide car bombs south of Hamam al-Alil - the site of the reported executions.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters shot dead dozens of prisoners there, most of them former members of the Iraqi police and army, taken from villages the group has been forced to abandon as troops advanced.

A Reuters news agency correspondent met relatives of hostages south of Mosul. One was a police officer who returned to see the family, which he left behind when his village fell under ISIL control two years ago.

"I'm afraid they will keep pulling them back from village to village until they get to Mosul. And then they will disappear," he said, asking not be identified to protect family members still in the hands of the fighters.

The executions were meant "to terrorise the others, those who are in Mosul in particular", and also to get rid of the prisoners, said Abdul Rahman al-Waggaa, a member of the Nineveh provincial council. Some of the families of those executed are also held in Hamam al-Alil, he said.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville on Tuesday said ISIL had reportedly killed scores of people around Mosul in the last week.

euters also spoke to a woman and an elderly man who were among a group of families forced to march two to three days to reach Mosul from the villages of Safiya and Ellezaga, about 30km and 50km, respectively, to the south.

Children and the elderly were released when they arrived in Mosul on Tuesday and told to stay with relatives, they said, speaking on the phone from the city's edges.

A resident of Mosul, Rayyan, said he saw the families when they arrived in the city, "their bare feet bleeding and covered with dust as if coming from under the rubble".

"We cried when we saw them," he said.

Local officials, activists, and a resident of Qayyara district told human rights group Amnesty International that civilians were kept in schools, homes, and other locations near ISIL fighters in Hamam al-Alil after being forced to move from their homes.

ISIL deliberately prevented them from fleeing areas of conflict and fighters embedded themselves within the civilian population.

Using civilians to shield yourself from attack is a war crime. But even in cases when IS fighters are holding civilians as human shields, this does not absolve Iraqi and coalition forces from the obligation to take their presence into account, take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, and avoid launching attacks that could cause disproportionate harm to civilians," said Amnesty's Lynn Maalouf in a statement.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces are recapturing territory as part of the offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is known by its opponents in Arabic as Daesh. 

On Thursday, Kurdish Peshmerga forces - fighting alongside Iraqi soldiers and militiamen - seized the northern Iraqi village of Fadiliya, which lies about 4km away from Mosul.

Residents had hung up white flags on their homes, hoping to avoid being targeted by air strikes.

Children joyfully ran through the streets singing songs and chanting "Peshmerga", "Peshmerga", "Peshmerga".

Australia theme park to reopen on Friday

Dreamworld: Australia theme park to reopen on Friday

The Dreamworld theme park, in the Australian state of Queensland, is to reopen on Friday, three days after an accident on a ride killed four people.

The Gold Coast park said it hoped the reopening would begin the "healing process" and that all entry proceeds would go to the Australian Red Cross.

A sister and brother, and the brother's partner, were among the dead.

The four died when their raft on the Thunder River Rapids ride collided with another raft and flipped over.

In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the park said it would host a "Memorial Day" on Friday, with doors opening at 11:00 (01:00 GMT).

Sci-fi stories envisage Iraq in 100 years By Heather Sharp

Sci-fi stories envisage Iraq in 100 years

A Chinese-run hive of digital development dependent on "water trains" from Europe. A hi-tech destination for a new generation of religious pilgrims. A dried-out wasteland with little left to trade but corpses and sand.

When the award-winning Iraqi writer Hassan Blasim and British publisher Ra Page asked Iraqi writers to imagine their homeland in 2103, 100 years after the US-led invasion, a plethora of haunting, dissonant - and sometimes uplifting - versions of the future emerged.

The resulting anthology, Iraq +100, published in the UK this week mixes science fiction with other genres including fantasy, fairy tale and satire.

The aim was to overturn literary traditions Mr Blasim felt had become staid under decades of censorship and violence, and create a platform for a generation of younger writers shaped by the internet and modern technology.

Russia suspends weapons-grade plutonium deal with US

Russia has suspended an agreement with the US on the disposal of surplus weapons-grade plutonium, the latest sign of worsening bilateral relations.

In a decree, President Vladimir Putin accused the US of creating "a threat to strategic stability, as a result of unfriendly actions" towards Russia.

Moscow also set pre-conditions for the US for the deal to be resumed.

Under the 2000 deal, each side is supposed to get rid of 34 tonnes of plutonium by burning it in reactors.

It is part of cuts to nuclear forces.

The US state department said the combined 68 tonnes of plutonium was "enough material for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons". Both sides had reconfirmed the deal in 2010.

In a separate development, the US said it was suspending talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis.

Washington said Moscow had not lived up to the terms of last month's ceasefire agreement, which has since collapsed.

Russia said it regretted the decision, accusing the US of trying to shift the blame on to Russia over the failed deal.

'We fulfilled our duties'

In Monday's decree (in Russian), President Putin said Russia had to take "urgent measures to defend the security of the Russian Federation".

In April, Mr Putin said the US was failing to fulfil its obligations to destroy plutonium. Instead, he argued, the US reprocessing method allowed plutonium to be extracted and used again in nuclear weapons.

Both sides had agreed to build special facilities for disposing of the surplus plutonium.

"We fulfilled our duties, we built that enterprise. But our American partners did not," Mr Putin said.

The US rejected that claim, insisting that its disposal method did not violate the agreement.

Also on Monday, President Putin submitted a bill (in Russian) to parliament setting a series of pre-conditions for the US for the agreement to be resumed, including:

• reduction of US military infrastructure and troops in countries that joined Nato after 1 September 2000
• lifting of all US sanctions against Russia and compensation for the damage they have caused

The US - as well as the European Union - imposed a series of sanctions against Russia following the annexation by Moscow of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula in 2014, and Russia's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Tensions between Washington and Moscow rose further last month over Russia's bombing campaign in Syria, which some have described as a "war crime".

Russian planes are helping Syrian government forces to hit rebel groups, some of which are supported by the US and its Gulf Arab allies.

Russia is currently modernising its nuclear arsenal.