Nigerian officials say close to 500 people may have been killed in weekend sectarian violence near the central city of Jos, not the 200 first reported.
Witnesses said gangs armed with guns and machetes rampaged through three mostly Christian villages, firing shots to draw people from their homes and then running them down and killing them.
Yemi Kosoko, a reporter with the independent Nigerian news network Channels, told The Associated Press most of the bodies appeared to be women and children killed by blows from machetes.
Plateau …

A law enforcement official with knowledge of the case says the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into a Pennsylvania school district accused of activating webcams inside students’ homes without their knowledge.
The cameras came with the Apple computers that the school district had distributed to all of its 1,800 students.
The official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, says the FBI will explore whether Lower Merion School District officials broke any federal wiretap or computer intrusion laws.
Lower Merion officials say they remotely activated webcams 42 times to find …

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda triple agent, US media reports say.
He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan who was arrested by Jordanian intelligence a year ago.
He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA – who thought they had successfully turned him – and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders.
He is believed to have been working undercover in Afghanistan for weeks before detonating a bomb at a CIA base.
The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman was the …

CULIACÁN, Mexico — The steady drumbeat of complaints against Mexico’s army is expected to continue Tuesday, when Amnesty International is scheduled to release a report raising allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detentions against soldiers engaged in the nation’s drug war.
The report, which meshes with earlier examinations by Human Rights Watch and Mexican human rights groups, accuses soldiers of torturing 25 police officers in Tijuana in March to coerce them to confess to links to organized crime. It says a man arrested by soldiers in October 2008 in Ciudad …

The release of Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout has brought a sense of relief to her friends and family and Canadians across the nation. After 15 months in captivity in Somalia by their kidnappers, Ms. Lindhout, along with her fellow colleague, Australian photographer, Nigel Brennan, will be home for Christmas.
The scenario, however, is much more bleak for Canadian journalist Beverly Giesecrecht. Not only does she lack the family support base, she seems to have lost the support the from the majority of Canadians.
That is because the 53 year-old West Vancouverite …

On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.
They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.
The reports disclose that:
Tony Blair, …

Lebanese Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji instructed his troops to raise the level of alert along the border with Israel in preparation for an attack planned by “the Israeli enemy”, London-based Alquds Alarabi reported on Saturday.
In a statement published ahead of Lebanon’s independence day, which will take place on Sunday, the Lebanese military chief called for “greater vigilance” on the border “to counter the planned attacks by the Israeli enemy against the homeland.”
All the available options must be used to address Israel’s violations of the country’s sovereignty “land, sea and …

Deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has rejected any possibility of a deal to restore constitutional order in the two weeks before the next scheduled elections, saying that to do so would legitimize a June coup.
Zelaya, who was ousted by the military on June 28, informed US President Barack Obama in a letter Saturday that he would not accept any proposal to return him to office temporarily to cover up the coup d’etat.
“This electoral process is illegal because it conceals the military coup and the de facto state of Honduras that …

WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that …

BOISE (CN) – KBR and Halliburton poisoned U.S. troops and civilian contractors by burning an immense variety of toxic, unsorted wastes in Iraq and Afghanistan to cut costs and preserve profits, according to a federal class action. The class claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ “utter indifference to and conscious disregard” of troops’ welfare.
The class claims the Pentagon contractors, “motivated by financial gain,” ignored contract requirements minimize risks, environmental effects and human exposure to toxic fumes when disposing of waste. Instead, the contractors cut corners and …