21 September 2013 Last updated at 09:17 GMT
Pakistan 'frees top Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar'
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Afghan Taliban, has been freed from jail in Pakistan, reports say.
There is no official confirmation. The Afghan government had requested his release to boost the Afghan peace process and has hailed the move.
Mullah Baradar is one of the four men who founded the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in 1994.
He became a linchpin of the insurgency after the Taliban were toppled by the US-led invasion in 2001.
He was captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010.
News of Mullah Baradar's release came from officials of the interior ministry. However, a spokesman later denied the reports.
Mammy Merkel keeps it personal
Tomorrow’s poll is less an election on the German leader’s polices than a referendum on her personality
Derek Scally
To understand Angela Merkel’s appeal, watch her in action in her Baltic coast constituency.
A windswept place of flat empty fields and dark wooden windmills, she’s been an MP here since 1990. She won half the total direct vote here last time around, despite the pressures of office is a regular sight at local events.
Ahead of tomorrow’s federal election, and a likely third term, Merkel asked a local campaign manager what was most popular with people at the rally stand: the pamphlets? The postcards? No: The yellow supermarket trolley token.ELECTIONS
After decades of conflict, Tamils get taste of democracy in Sri Lanka
Tamil voters in Sri Lanka are voting to form a provincial government. More than 700,000 voters are registered to elect 36 members to the council, which will not have much power.
Tamils have their first say in regional affairs Saturday after years under rebel or military control. Nine hundred candidates stand in what the UN views as a crucial test of reconciliation between the Tamils and majority ethnic Sinhalese, who control the national government and the military.
The UN called the election an "important opportunity to foster political reconciliation."
Ethnic divisions widened during Sri Lanka's 1983-2009 civil war, which killed 80,000 people and reduced many cities in the north to rubble. Tamils have demanded regional autonomy for Sri Lanka's north and east, where they hold a majority, since the country became independent from Britain in 1948. The campaign took the form of nonviolent protests for many years until the civil war broke out between government forces and armed Tamil groups calling for full independence.
Experts to probe deaths of 64 elephants in Zimbabwe park
Zimbabwean wildlife authorities will dispatch a team of experts to the country's largest game park Saturday to investigate the poisoning deaths of 64 elephants, an official said.
"Experts drawn from seven ministries will travel to Hwange National Park [on Saturday] to make findings on the disaster at the park where 64 elephants have died from cyanide poisoning," the director general of the parks and wildlife authority, Edson Chidziya, said.
"There are fears that there could be more deaths but we need chemists to determine whether the danger is still there."
The elephants reportedly died in separate incidents after drinking poisoned water. The state-owned Herald newspaper gave the number of elephants killed as 69.
North Korea blames South, cancels family reunions
September 21, 2013 -- Updated 0532 GMT (1332 HKT)
In a sudden turn of events, North Korea on Saturday postponed reunions that were to start next week for families separated during the Korean War.
A statement in North Korea's state news agency KCNA blamed South Korea and said the reunions could not be rescheduled until a "normal atmosphere" was restored for dialogue and negotiations.
North Korea claimed it had made sincere efforts to negotiate with its southern neighbor, but accused the South's conservatives of "reckless and vicious confrontations."
It also alluded to a recent South Korean scandal involving a leftist politician who is accused of plotting to overthrow the Seoul government in case of a war with the North, calling the recent case a "witch-hunting campaign."Why Jerusalem still hangs onto ancient archaeological mysteries
Jerusalem has been a religious and historical hot spot for millennia, and yet it still manages to surprise the experts.
Why does the city continue to yield unexpected revelations about the days of King David and Jesus — seemingly in plain sight of its residents? One big reason is that it's devilishly difficult to tease out the history of a place where every acre is closely guarded and deeply coveted.
"It's a living city, and it's a city that's been inhabited continuously for thousands of years," Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told NBC News. "Unless, God forbid, the city is ever completely abandoned, we'll never get a complete picture."
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