US signals shift in Syria-Iraq campaign against Islamic State
The US has indicated a shift in its campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria, including the use of direct ground raids.
Defence Secretary Ash Carter said there would also be more air strikes against "high-value targets".
Observers say his comments reflect acknowledgment of the lack of progress in defeating the militant group.
Separately, the US says Iran is being invited for the first time to international talks over Syria's war.
Mr Carter's comments, made to the Senate Armed Services Committee, come a week after US-Iraqi forces rescued dozens of hostages held by IS in Iraq.
"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Mr Carter said, using an alternative acronym for IS.
New legal move to prevent Japan from whale hunting in Antarctic
Australian campaigners to bring court case in a bid to prevent whaling season from going ahead
Environmental campaigners in Australia have mounted a fresh attempt to prevent Japan from killing hundreds of whales in the Antarctic this winter, as officials in Tokyo indicated they would ignore an international ban on the country’s “scientific” expeditions imposed last year.
The Australian branch of Humane Society International claims that Kyodo Senpaku, the Japanese firm that conducts the controversial hunts, is in contempt of court after ignoring a 2008 federal court injunction not to slaughter the animals in a whale sanctuary declared by the Australian government.
Japan, which does not recognise the sanctuary, has not sent a whaling fleet to the region since March last year when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered an immediate halt to the hunts after concluding that they were not, as Japan had claimed, conducted for scientific research.US, China tensions rise in South China Sea
Tensions are rising in the South China Sea after a US warship traveled through disputed waters. Washington says it's protecting freedom of navigation, but China calls the American naval maneuver a provocation.
After months of observation, the United States made its move. The USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, passed within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of an artificial island built by Beijing in the South China Sea.
"We are asserting the principle of global commons," Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, told DW. "These are international waters despite China's very strong suggestions otherwise."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the USS Lassen of "illegally" entering the waters off the island, named Subi Reef, and called the maneuver a "deliberate provocation." A Chinese guided-missile destroyer and naval patrol ship tracked the US warship. Beijing summoned the US ambassador.
Video shows Paris police punching handcuffed suspect
Team Observers
French police have come under fire after a video has emerged of an officer punching a handcuffed suspected drug dealer in the face in a Paris suburb.
The shocking video, which was uploaded to Facebook, shows a police unit arresting a man on October 16. The man, suspected of being a drug dealer, is pinned to the ground by the officers in the suburb of Chanteloup-les-Vignes. Despite being handcuffed, the man is dragged to a police car, and then punched in the face.
Throughout the ordeal, the suspect does not appear to put up any resistance. A passer-by remonstrates with the police officers, protesting that the use of force seems excessive. An officer orders the passerby to step away, before his colleague fires a warning shot from the non-lethal hand-held weapon, Flash-ball.
Myanmar's purged party chief Shwe Mann orchestrating election comeback
Aubrey Belford
Phyu: Ousted Myanmar ruling party chief Shwe Mann is mounting a comeback ahead of a historic election next month, setting the stage for a likely presidential bid that will add to the unpredictability of the country's transition to democracy.
Hundreds of campaign workers are blitzing Shwe Mann's home district in an attempt to maintain the taciturn ex-general's foothold in parliament. If he succeeds, some analysts predict a split that could help opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).
"There's nobody like him," croons a male vocalist as campaign trucks in the tumbledown town of Phyu blare a rock ballad lauding the area's most famous son. "He's the one the people should choose for democratisation."
Rights groups: Iranian poets face lashes for shaking hands with opposite sex
Updated 0654 GMT (1454 HKT) October 28, 2015
Two Iranian poets are facing 99 lashes each for shaking hands with people of the opposite sex in one of the latest examples of harsh punishments meted out against writers and artists by Iran's judiciary, according to human rights advocates.
The poets, Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Mehdi Musavi, have also both been sentenced to years in prison for "insulting the sacred" in their writings, a decision slammed by freedom of expression activists.
"Ekhtesari and Musavi's arrests and convictions are a travesty of justice, and send a chill over the already beleaguered creative community in Iran," Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of Free Expression Programs at PEN American Center, said in a statement earlier this month.
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