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Pro-Russia militants have taken over a police headquarters in the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk, local media and witnesses say. This followed a gun battle with the police defending the building as the attackers stormed it. Several other official buildings were reported to have been seized in Donetsk region on Saturday.

A. It is conventional with lithium batteries to refer to the negative electrode as the anode, and the positive electrode as the cathode. The two electrodes, with an electrically insulating separator between them, are often rolled up like a Swiss roll.

Speaking during a visit to China, Australia's leader said teams were hoping to track further signals in a section of the southern Indian Ocean before shifting the search operation to the seabed. "Trying to locate anything 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) beneath the surface of the ocean, about a 1,000km (620 miles) from land is a massive, massive task," he said.

Hama province has seen fierce clashes between rebels and government forces in recent weeks The government and opposition forces in Syria have accused each other of using poison gas in an attack on a village on Friday.

Rev. Fr. Van der Lugt arrived in Syria in 1966 and considered it to be his home A Dutch priest well known for refusing to leave the besieged Syrian city of Homs has been shot dead by a gunman. Frans van der Lugt, who was in his 70s, had become a renowned figure in the rebel-held area that has been blockaded by government forces for nearly two years.

Over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the Syrian conflict. The UN’s human rights chief on Tuesday said an inquiry had produced evidence that war crimes were authorised in Syria at the highest level, including by President Bashar al-Assad. The UN’s human rights chief, Navi Pillay, said her office held a list of others implicated by the inquiry. She added that she had not seen the confidential list but that she had been briefed by UN investigators.

Damascus - Israel has reportedly carried out an air strike on a Syrian military installation to stop a shipment to Hezbollah, as inspectors said Syria's entire declared stock of chemical weapons has been placed under seal. Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said on Thursday that Israel had hit a Syrian air base in Latakia province, targeting a shipment of surface-to-surface missiles destined for the Lebanese Shi'ite movement. A US official confirmed to AFP that "there was an Israeli strike" but gave no details on the location or the target, while Israeli officials refused to comment. "Historically, targets have been missiles transferred to Hezbollah," allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad, the official said. Al-Arabiya quoted the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying explosions took place on Wednesday near Latakia at an air defence base. In May, Israel carried out two air strikes inside Syria, and a senior Israeli official told AF...

Israel is thought to have carried out several air strikes in Syria earlier this year. Israeli aircraft have carried out a strike near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, a US official says. The official said the strike targeted Russian-made missiles intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Latakia is a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an important port city where the Alawite community to which he belongs is concentrated. Israel is widely reported to have carried out at least three air strikes in Syria so far this year. Reports of the strike came as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said all Syria's declared equipment for making chemical weapons had been destroyed, one day before a deadline. Action by the OPCW was agreed following allegations, denied by the Syrian government, that its forces had used chemical weapons in civilian areas - and after the US and France threatened military intervention. Delicate moment A US o...

At an Islamic conference in Washington DC, the BBC's Tara McKelvey found delegates split about President Obama's plan to attack Syria. Ziyad Shalaby, a graduate student at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, says the US should launch strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's forces. Mr Shalaby and his fiancee, Amal Omar, were at the Washington Convention Center in the US capital on Sunday for a conference sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America. We say we're going to help, and then nothing gets done Ziyad Shalaby, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia The event was billed as one of the largest gatherings of American Muslims in the US. People attended lectures on such subjects as spirituality and Muslim dating. But in the hallways they were talking about Syria. Mr Shalaby and others are following the Syria debates on Capitol Hill. They are also struggling with the question of what the US should do to help ease the crisis in the war-torn country. He s...

Two convicted murderers who used forged documents to trick their way out of prison in Florida have been recaptured, US officials say. Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker, both 34, were seized without incident at a motel in Panama City, Florida. The men, who were serving life sentences, had been freed from separate jails after officials were fooled by fake papers reducing their terms. The prison authorities have pledged to tighten up their early-release policy. 'Red flags' missed The two convicts were arrested at the Coconut Grove Motor Inn on Saturday evening, the authorities said. They were detained hours after relatives held a news conference urging them to turn themselves in. Jenkins had walked out on 27 September and registered as felon three days later at a jail in Orange County, Florida, about 300 miles (480km) from the prison where he was serving his sentence. Walker had been set free on 8 October from the same prison and registered on 11 October. The falsified do...

Nine Lebanese Shia pilgrims held hostage in Syria have been freed, Lebanon's interior minster has said. The pilgrims have crossed over into southern Turkey, and will arrive back in Lebanon soon, according to Interior Minister Marwan Charbel. The nine were part of a group of 11 who were seized while making their way back to Lebanon in May 2012 after a tour of holy sites in Iran. Two of the group were subsequently released. The pilgrims' release had been reported by Lebanese officials three days after they were seized, but it then transpired that they had not left Syria. Jubilation "The story is over," Mr Charbel told the Reuters news agency. "In the next 24 hours, they will be with us [in Lebanon]." The Qatari foreign minister told the al-Jazeera television network on Friday that the pilgrims' release had now come about due to Qatari mediation. The news was greeted with jubilation in southern Beirut, where relatives of some of those kidnapped live...

The US has urged the Syrian government to allow immediate aid convoys to starving civilians cut off in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. Washington said the army's months-long siege left many people in desperate need of food, water and medicine. It also cited "unprecedented reports" of children dying of malnutrition just a few kilometres from President Bashar al-Assad palace. The Syrian army has warned the rebel-held areas must surrender or starve. 'Malnutrition' deaths If they want to attack us with chemical weapons - then just do it! But can they make them with the smell of bread so we can die happy? Boy in Yarmouk At least three of Damascus' suburbs - Yarmouk, Eastern Ghouta and Moudamiyah - have been besieged by government forces for several months. The situation has become so desperate that earlier this week Muslim clerics issued a religious ruling allowing people to eat cats, dogs and donkeys just to survive. Those animals are usually considered u...

The US has urged the Syrian government to allow immediate aid convoys to starving civilians cut off in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. Washington said the army's months-long siege left many people in desperate need of food, water and medicine. It also cited "unprecedented reports" of children dying of malnutrition just a few kilometres from President Bashar al-Assad palace. The Syrian army has warned the rebel-held areas must surrender or starve. 'Malnutrition' deaths If they want to attack us with chemical weapons - then just do it! But can they make them with the smell of bread so we can die happy? Boy in Yarmouk At least three of Damascus' suburbs - Yarmouk, Eastern Ghouta and Moudamiyah - have been besieged by government forces for several months. The situation has become so desperate that earlier this week Muslim clerics issued a religious ruling allowing people to eat cats, dogs and donkeys just to survive. Those animals are usually considered u...

A senior Military Intelligence officer has been killed in eastern Syria, state media and activists say. State television reported on Thursday that Gen Jamaa Jamaa had died while "carrying out his national duties" and "pursuing terrorists" in Deir al-Zour. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said he was shot by a sniper during clashes between government and rebel forces in the city's Rashdiya district. Gen Jamaa was close to President Bashar al-Assad, the UK-based group added. He was commander of Syrian Military Intelligence's headquarters in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, when former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated there in 2005. Gen Jamaa was questionedas part of a UN inquiry into the killing after the Syrian withdrawal. Damascus has always denied any involvement, although five members of the allied Lebanese Shia Islamist group Hezbollah have been indicted. In 2006, the US Treasury named Gen Jamaa as a Specially Designated ...

It started with a baby. Within minutes, dozens of teenagers and children staggered into an emergency room on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Rola Hallam, a British Syrian doctor, describes what she saw there in late August. "We had had, you know, over 30 who had arrived, all within about 10 or 15 minutes, all with just heartbreaking, extensive burns," she said. The patients were victims of an August 26 attack in Awram al-Koubra, outside Aleppo, where eyewitnesses described incendiary like devices being dropped from a government fighter jet onto a private residence, and then a school. Incendiary bombs are not chemical weapons, but their effects can be just as devastating. Syria: Chemical weapons team faces many dangers, says U.N. chief Ban They are identified as "any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a ...

According to the treaty's wording, signatories are "determined for the sake of all mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons, through the implementation of the provisions of this Convention." Sixteen years later, more than 100 additional states have ratified the treaty. In September, Syria became the latest nation to ask to join the convention. It is due to enter into force in Syria on October 14, when it will become the 190th member state. Peace prize In the lead-up to the prize announcement Friday, the global media speculated that an individual would win, possibly Congolese physician Denis Mukwege, who treats victims of gang rape, or Malala Yousafzai, the teenage education activist from Pakistan whom a Taliban assassin shot for her work to promote education for girls. Malala appeared to be the front-runner in headlines around the world. LaNUBlog asked Jagland why she did not win. "Fortunately, we have many good candidates e...

The Nobel Peace Prize has turned the global spotlight back on the conflict in Syria. The prize committee in Oslo, Norway, awarded it Friday to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international chemical weapons watchdog helping to eliminate the Syrian army's stockpiles of poison gas. EXCLUSIVE: Inside lab that tested Syria chemical weapon evidence Its inspectors have just begun working in the active war zone, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it hopes the award offers "strong support" to them as they face arduous and life-threatening tasks. But the OPCW did not receive the prize primarily because of its work in Syria, committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said. "It is because of its long-standing efforts to eliminate chemical weapons and that we are now about to reach the goal and do away with a whole category of weapons of mass destruction. That would be a great event in history, if we can achieve that." Nevertheless, OPCW Dire...

The Hague - International inspection teams overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons will have to negotiate cease-fires to access some sites, officials closely involved with the mission said on Wednesday, in a clear indication of the risks and difficulties of the unprecedented disarmament plan. The very fact that the joint United Nations and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons team will have to persuade Syrian government forces and rebels to put down their arms highlights how hard it will be for the international effort to rid Damascus of its poison gas stockpile by a mid-2014 deadline. OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu told reporters in The Hague the timeline was tight but "not unrealistic". He said inspectors have to visit more than 20 sites in coming days and weeks. Since the mission started last week, they have been to one location; they are expected to inspect a second site near Damascus on Wednesday. This is the first time the glob...

The destruction of Syria's chemical weapons has begun, international monitors have said. The operation is being overseen by a team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The mission was established under a United Nations resolution, which was passed after agreement between Russia and the US. The resolution followed international outrage at a chemical weapons attack near Damascus in August. In an interim report, UN chemical weapons inspectors confirmed that the nerve agent sarin had been used in the attack in Ghouta on the outskirts of the city on 21 August. It was estimated to have killed hundreds of people and was blamed by the United States and other Western powers on the regime of Bashar al-Assad. But he accuses Syrian rebels of being behind it. Analysis ByPaul Wood BBC News, at the UN in New York It's a huge task - one estimate says Syria has 1,000 tonnes of the nerve agent sarin, VX nerve gas, mustard gas and other chemical weapons a...

A team of international disarmament experts is due to arrive in Damascus to begin work on dismantling Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. Syria says it will co-operate with the mission set up after a US-Russia deal endorsed by the UN Security Council. It is the first time the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been asked to destroy a country's chemical arms during a war. Correspondents say the OPCW inspectors face a daunting task. Syria's Foreign Minister, Walid Muallem, has said that seven out of 19 declared chemical weapons sites are in combat zones. The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says it could be complicated for the inspectors to gain access to these areas; local truces may be needed to allow the work to proceed. SYRIA PEACE PLAN *."Geneva II" talks proposed in Switzerland *.Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans November date *.Diplomats want to build on UN consensus over chemical arms *.Syria says Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Q...