Pakistani Taliban training Frenchmen

Pakistani intelligence officials say dozens of French Muslims have been training with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. The officials said on Saturday they were investigating whether Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent suspected of killing seven people in southern France, had been part of this group. Merah traveled to Pakistan in 2011 and said he trained with al-Qaida in Waziristan. He was killed in a gunfight with police Thursday in the French city of Toulouse. The officials said 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years. Most have dual nationality with France and North African countries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state, where two Mexican drug cartels are warring over control of smuggling routes and targeting sources of independent information. The brutal campaign is bleeding the media and threatening to turn Veracruz into the latest state in Mexico where fear snuffs out reporting on the drug war. Three photojournalists who worked the perilous crime beat in the port city of Veracruz were found dismembered and dumped in plastic bags in a canal Thursday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative newsmagazine was beaten and strangled in her home in the state capital of Xalapa. Press freedom groups said all three photographers had temporarily fled the state after receiving threats last year. The organizations called for immediate government action to halt a wave of attacks that has killed at least seven current and former reporters and photographer...

Ebola outbreak vastly underestimated

The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola stood on Wednesday at 1,069 from 1,975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said. The majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, while four people have died in Nigeria. The agency's apparent acknowledgement the situation is worse than previously thought could spur governments and aid organisations to take stronger measures against the virus. "Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," the organisation said. "WHO is coordinating a massive scaling up of the international response, marshalling support from individual countries, disease control agencies, agencies within the United Nations system, and others." International agencies are looking into emergency food drops and truck convoys to reach hungry people in Liberia and Sierra Leone cordoned off from the outside world to halt the sprea...

Former British and European champion boxer Jamie Moore has been shot in Marbella

Former British and European champion boxer Jamie Moore has been shot in Marbella - apparently in both legs. Moore, the former European light-middleweight champion, was in Spain working at a gym owned by boxer, Matthew Macklin, who he is training. It is understood the 35-year-old Moore, from Walkden, Greater Manchester, has now left hospital after treatment. Moore, highly regarded in the sport, was on the verge of a WBC title shot, in 2009, but decided to quit the sport in 2010 on medical grounds. Moore is a former two-time British light-middleweight champion and Commonwealth champion. A source told the Manchester Evening News : "It would appear he was out and about, not at the gym, when he was shot." A spokesman for the Foreign Office confirmed that a British national had been shot over the weekend. Moore was helping prepare Mackin for a fight in Dublin later this month against Argentinian, Jorge Sebastian-Heiland for the WBC international midldeweight title. As well as a wo...

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