8 June 2013 Last updated at 03:52 GMT
Chinese leader Xi Jinping joins Obama for summit
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama have begun a two-day summit in California.
The two leaders spoke of overcoming differences and forging a new relationship between their countries.
President Obama spoke of "areas of tension" and mentioned their rivalry in the Pacific, North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and cyber espionage.
The meeting is the first between the two since Mr Xi became president in March.
The informal setting is seen as a chance for the leaders of the world's largest economies to build a rapport amid a slew of high-stakes issues.
Special Report: The tortured activist whose fate tells Turkish protesters: don’t seek refuge in Greece
Bulut Yayla, a Turkish archaeology student and left-wing activist, says he travelled to Greece in April this year to escape imprisonment and torture he endured under the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Once in Athens he tried to seek asylum as a political refugee to escape an international arrest warrant issued against him after being accused of having links with an outlawed Marxist organisation.
On 30 May, Bulut, 26, left the restaurant where he worked, in the central Athens neighbourhood of Exarhia, to meet some friends He never made it.
PEACEKEEPING
UN turns down Russian peacekeepers in Golan Heights
The UN has declined a Russian offer to bolster the understaffed peacekeeping force in the cease-fire zone between Israel and Syria. Austria has said it would be withdrawing its troops from the Golan Heights.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said on Friday that permanent Security Council members were barred from deploying peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, under the terms of the 1974 cease-fire agreement between Israel and Syria.
The United Nations Disengagement Force (UNDOF) monitors the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
"We appreciate the consideration that the Russian Federation has given to provide troops to the Golan," Nesirky said. "However, the Disengagement Agreement and its protocol, which is between Syria and Israel, do not allow for the participation of permanent members of the Security Council in UNDOF."
Danger in 3-D: The Rapid Spread of Printable Pistols
A student from Texas has invented a plastic pistol that anyone can make with a 3-D printer. It is undetectable by metal detectors and capable of killing. And it is spreading unchecked across the continents.
A few days after Cody Wilson's invention had been created, the United States Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to the rest of the world. The officials, responsible for fending off terrorist attacks, wrote three pages about the dangers of a weapon against which they are powerless. They wrote that public safety is threatened. They also wrote that, unfortunately, it is impossible to prevent this weapon from being made.
Mali crisis: Human Rights Watch condemns ethnic abuses
Both Tuareg rebels and the army in Mali have committed abuses against civilians because of their ethnic origins, a Human Rights Watch report says.
The Malian army has been advancing towards the last Tuareg-held town.
Soldiers are accused of torturing Tuaregs, while the rebels are said to have rounded up and beating members of rival, darker-skinned groups.
French-led forces this year ousted Islamist militants, allied to the Tuaregs, from most of northern Mali.
The Tuaregs of northern Mali, who are mostly light-skinned, have a long history of seeking autonomy from the rest of the country, saying they have been discriminated against by the government in Bamako.
Mexico City's 'mass kidnapping' highlights countrywide rise in abductions
On average 130 people per month have been reported kidnapped this year, compared to 40 per month in 2004. Some question if Mexico's inability to prosecute crimes is fueling the problem.
Kidnapping is the crime that causes the greatest fear in Mexico.
Even a slight uptick in abductions can dramatically alter how safe people say they feel, according to a new study by a Mexico City think tank, CIDAC. And kidnapping is on the rise.
Last month, 12 people disappeared from an after-hours bar just one block from the monuments and skyscrapers of Mexico City's busy Reforma Avenue last month. Twelve days have passed with no word of their whereabouts, and the capital’s chief prosecutor has so far declined to name suspects or possible motives.
Adding to Mexicans' concerns is that the monthly average of reported abductions grew 132 percent between 2006 and 2012, according to México Evalúa, a Mexico City-based think tank. So far this year, reported kidnappings are averaging 130 per month, up from 109 per month last year and a monthly average of fewer than 40 in 2004.
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