Tradisional Sabah Borneo

A national forensics institute which tracks homicides says the Central American nation recorded 911 last month. It's an average of nearly 30 a day.

Institute director Miguel Fortin Magana said Wednesday that August was "without doubt the most violent in El Salvador's history."

On Aug. 23 alone there were 52 murders, making it the bloodiest day of the year.

Terrorized by brutal street gangs, El Salvador is one of the world's deadliest nations.

The country has already surpassed last year's murder total of 3,942, with 4,246 killings in the first eight months of 2015.

AP

Germany, with relatively liberal asylum laws and generous benefits, is the EU's biggest recipient of economic migrants from southeastern Europe and people fleeing war in the Middle East.

From January to August, some 413,535 people registered on Germany's Easy system, said a spokesman for Bavarian Social Minister Emilia Mueller.

The Easy system is used for the initial registration of migrants and refugees arriving in Germany. Applying for asylum is a separate procedure. Around one-third of registrations in August were in Bavaria, the spokesman said.

Europe is facing its biggest refugee crisis since World War Two and has yet to find a common response. Thousands of people from the Middle East, Asia and Africa have died making the perilous journeys by land and sea.Germany expects about 800,000 people to file for asylum in Germany this year, four times last year's level.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told German television channel ZDF on Wednesday that Germany could deal with that number this year but a lot of money was needed to deal with the refugee crisis and "for three, four, five, six years, 800,000 is too many, even for a country like Germany".

He suggested opening refugee registration centres in Hungary with the help of U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. Thousands of refugees are arriving in Hungary, and from there many travel on to Germany via Austria.

Hans-Peter Friedrich, deputy head of the conservative parliamentary group, told a German newspaper that the influx was jeopardizing Europe's passport-free Schengen zone.

"If we don't manage to secure the EU's external borders, including the borders with the Balkan countries, nation states will sooner or later take up national measures and then Schengen would be in danger," he said in comments due to be published in regional newspaper Rheinische Post on Thursday.

Towns have been overwhelmed with the new arrivals and want more money to house and care for them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a fair distribution of asylum seekers within the EU and has also warned against racism after almost daily attacks on shelters.

On Tuesday evening, 40 people suffered minor injuries after a man burst into a refugee shelter in the eastern town of Massow with an irritant spray which caused breathing problems, said police. It was them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a fair distribution of asylum seekers within the EU and has also warned against racism after almost daily attacks on shelters.

On Tuesday evening, 40 people suffered minor injuries after a man burst into a refugee shelter in the eastern town of Massow with an irritant spray which caused breathing problems, said police. It was unclear if the attack was racially motivated.

In an interview with the newspaper Die Zeit, de Maiziere said integrating the new refugees could be more difficult than it was for previous groups of migrants, because as many as 20 percent might be illiterate and may struggle to find work.

"Now we will receive hundreds of thousands of Arab Muslims and that is, according to everything my French colleague says, a significant difference in terms of integration," Die Zeit quoted de Maiziere as saying.

Germany is home to some 4 million Muslims, mostly with Turkish backgrounds. Germany has long struggled to integrate its Turkish population, some of whom live in parallel communities where Turkish is the main language.

REUTERS

The statement from the Palestinians also responded to allegations by Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor, who on Tuesday called the Palestinian push to fly their flag alongside full member states' "another cynical misuse of the U.N. by the Palestinian Authority."

"We ... respectfully appeal to the member states of the General Assembly to support the draft resolution on the raising of the flags of the non-member observer states," the Palestinian mission's statement said.

The statement also dismissed Israeli suggestions that the Palestinian draft resolution on flying non-member state flags at U.N. headquarters was being forced through the General Assembly or that the assembly was being hijacked.

Currently, only member states' flags fly at U.N. headquarters. While the General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine in 2012, a Palestinian attempt to secure full U.N. membership failed. Palestine is considered a non-member state at the U.N.

But the flags of the two recognized non-member states - Palestine and the Vatican - could soon be flying at the United Nations.

The General Assembly is expected to vote on Sept. 10 on a Palestinian resolution that says the flags of non-member observer states "shall be raised at the United Nations Headquarters and Offices following the flags of the member states of the United Nations."

U.N. diplomats say the Palestinians will easily secure a majority of votes to pass their resolution.

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday described the Palestinian flag initiative as "counterproductive."

Last week, the Holy See's mission issued a diplomatic note saying it would not co-sponsor the resolution and demanding that all references to it be cut from the Palestinian draft.

Several days later, it issued a new news release reiterating that it did not object to the Palestinian draft resolution on flying non-member states' flags but without any reference to its earlier demand that the resolution not refer to other non-member states. But it made clear it was satisfied with the status quo.

Israel said the Vatican issued the second statement after being pressured by the Palestinian and Arab delegations.

REUTERS 

The migrants, who have swamped every nook and cranny of public space outside the city's Keleti train station, threatened to walk the 105 miles (170 kilometers) to the Austrian border if police don't let them board trains to their desired destinations in Austria and Germany.

"I will walk the whole way if I must," declared 28-year-old Ahmed Shamoun, who deserted Syria's army three months ago, leaving nine brothers and eight sisters behind in Damascus. "I could pay a taxi 500 euros ($550) to take me to Austria, but the police might stop me. I could wait here forever before Hungary lets me take the train."Hungary tantalizingly opened the way Monday, allowing more than 1,000 migrants to pack westbound trains — and inspiring a migrant surge to the capital — before it withdrew the option 24 hours later. The question of how to defuse the human gridlock in Hungary is set to dominate meetings in Brussels on Thursday between EU leaders and Hungary's anti-immigrant prime minister, Viktor Orban.

Hungary, which for months had permitted most applicants to head west after short bureaucratic delays, now says it won't let more groups deeper into the European Union and has cited EU backing for the move. Police blocking migrants from entering the capital's main international train hub also stopped them from marching around the station, sparking scenes of anger but no violence.

Migrants "are not entitled to move freely within the European Union even after entering Hungary," government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told The Associated Press.The tent city outside Keleti has steadily grown to an estimated 3,000 migrants camped out on the concrete plaza and subway entrances. Men sleep tightly packed together, using backpacks for pillows, as young children play in their midst, coloring with crayons or swerving around the carpet of bodies on tricycles. Rumors in shouted Arabic spread quickly, fueling surges of excitement and fury as people are told that the train station soon will reopen for migrants, or that police are about to attack and detain them.

Conditions around the transportation hub have grown increasingly squalid despite the efforts of volunteers distributing water, food, medicine and disinfectants. Local restaurants demand cash to let migrants use their restrooms. A lone city fire hose provides water from a faucet, where a sign in English prohibiting the washing of feet is ignored.

The fate of Europe's asylum seekers, more than 330,000 of whom have arrived so far this year, is dividing Hungary as illustrated by two profoundly different demonstrations Wednesday night.Around 5,000 people marched in Budapest in support of combating racism and strengthening state support for the new arrivals from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

"The government is carrying out policies which are inhumane, un-Christian and lack solidarity," said Veronika Kramer, a 35-year-old lawyer who took part in the rally along with her husband and sons, aged 5 and 7. Earlier, she had taken her boys to Keleti to meet migrants and give them bottled water.

"The boys needed to see them," she said. "One of their kindergarten classmates told them that he hated the migrants because they spread disease."

Some 110 miles (175 kilometers) to the south, on Hungary's border with Serbia, such anti-immigrant hatred was on graphic display. Leaders of the neo-fascist Jobbik party — the third-largest in Hungary — led some 300 supporters on a march that confronted the newest migrant arrivals with xenophobic verbal abuse.

Waving Hungarian and party flags, the Jobbik activists shouted into the faces of migrants walking into Hungary along train tracks that pass through Hungary's border security barriers. The migrants, many of whom had just walked for hours from Serbia, appeared terrified.Police positioned on the rail line typically marshal the new arrivals into asylum registration centers. But on Wednesday night, fearful that the extremists might assault the group of about 50 foreigners, police formed protective circles around them and told them to run into a farm field.

Hundreds more migrants remained on the Serb side until the rally dispersed.

"Hungary has to be able to turn back everyone who arrives at the Hungarian borders as an illegal migrant — everyone without distinction," Jobbik leader Gabor Vona told supporters in a speech on the border.

"There is a real humanitarian catastrophe taking place here, but the humanitarian catastrophe is not about what will happen to the poor immigrants. The humanitarian catastrophe is what will happen to poor Hungary. This is what everyone should be asking," he proclaimed to applause.Hungary's government says it will pass a bill soon that creates new prison-style migrant holding centers near the border that allow for fast-track decisions, limited rights of appeal and easier deportations back to Serbia.

"We have to reinstate law and order at the borders of the European Union, including the border with Serbia," said Kovacs, the Hungarian government spokesman. "Without re-establishing law and order, it will be impossible to handle the influx of migrants."

Elsewhere on the long route into Europe, 13 people died when two boats ferrying them from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos capsized. Turkish media said 12 drowned, including a woman and three children, while another person died later in a hospital.

The Greek coast guard also recovered the body of a man south of the island of Kalolimnos. It wasn't clear whether the death was connected to the capsized Turkish boats about 14 miles (22 kilometers) to the northeast.Meanwhile, the Czech Republic announced it no longer intended to prevent Syrians who had already claimed asylum in Hungary from traveling via its territory to Germany. The Czechs previously had detained Syrian migrants, as well as those from other nations, for up to 42 days. The new policy could allow Syrian migrants to travel more freely to Berlin because the most direct Hungarian trains to Germany's capital pass through the Czech Republic.

The clampdown on train travel from Budapest has had an immediate effect in the migrants' primary target country, Germany. German police reported Wednesday that only about 50 migrants arrived on the morning trains to Munich, compared to 2,400 on Tuesday.The Greek coast guard, meanwhile, said it had rescued 1,058 people in 28 Aegean Sea locations over the past 24 hours. More than 200,000 migrants have reached Greece this year, chiefly from neighboring Turkey, where more than 1 million live in refugee camps after fleeing warfare in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Greek police also arrested six suspected smugglers in northern Greece after finding 103 migrants, including 19 children, hidden in a truck.

And in Vienna, police interrogated the 30-year-old Romanian driver of a truck that was discovered Tuesday containing 24 Afghans on the outskirts of the Austrian capital. Police spokesman Thomas Kleibinger said the vehicle's rear doors had been padlocked to keep the Afghan men, aged 16 to 20, trapped inside, and the windows were sealed, preventing fresh air from getting inside. He said the men were in good health because they had spent relatively little time inside.

In France, cross-Channel trains resumed normal service Wednesday after serious overnight disruptions triggered by reports of migrants running on the tracks and trying to climb atop trains.

Passengers aboard one Paris-to-London train said their service was suspended because migrants trying to climb aboard the train had damaged fire safety equipment. In tweets, passengers also described seeing migrants running along the roofs of another train near the French port of Calais.

AP

New Democracy has 25.3 percent support among voters just ahead of the Syriza party of charismatic ex-premier Alexis Tsipras, according to the poll carried out for the Mega TV channel.

Tsipras quit on August 20 -- triggering the early parliamentary elections -- after his decision to sign Greece up for a third huge international bailout sparked a major rebellion within his own party, leaving him barely able to govern.Syriza had stormed to power in January promising an end to the steep spending cuts and tax rises demanded by Athens' creditors in exchange for two previous bailouts.

Tsipras himself remains a popular political leader, with 41.9 percent of support but New Democracy leader Vangelis Meimarakis now tops him with 44.3 percent, according to the new poll.

The third most popular party is the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn, according to the poll, though it trails far behind the two main contenders with just 5.5 percent support.

A group of Syriza dissidents, unhappy with their party's handling of the crisis, recently set up their own Popular Unity group, named after the alliance that brought Chile's Salvador Allende to power in 1970, are currently coming fourth with four percent of support.

Syriza's eight months in power have been far from easy, with banks forced to shut to avert a catastrophic bank run, and Greeks struggling under capital controls, including limits on withdrawals from ATMs.

And it remains to be seen how much of an impact the Syriza rebels -- at least 25 of whom have split off to form Popular Unity -- could have on the vote.

Their leader is Panagiotis Lafazanis, a former communist who believes Greece could happily exist outside the euro.

AFP

"At the end of the investigation... it has not been demonstrated that Mr Yasser Arafat was murdered by polonium-210 poisoning," the three judges ruled, according to the prosecutor at Nanterre court near Paris.

The decision was blasted as "fundamentally biased" by lawyers for Arafat's widow Suha and rejected by the Palestinian Authority's own inquiry committee.

Arafat died in Percy military hospital near Paris aged 75 in November 2004 after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Many Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning Arafat, a charge flatly denied by the Jewish state.Arafat's widow has claimed he was poisoned, possibly by highly radioactive polonium.

But the judges ruled it out, saying there was "not sufficient evidence of an intervention by a third party who could have attempted to take his life," the prosecutor said.

Suha Arafat filed suit in 2012 at the Nanterre court.

The same year, Arafat's tomb in Ramallah was opened for a few hours to allow three teams of French, Swiss and Russian investigators to collect around 60 samples.

Three French judges concluded their investigations in April and sent their findings to the Nanterre prosecutor, who recommended in uly that the case be dropped.

- Palestinians undeterred -

A centre in the Swiss city of Lausanne had tested biological samples taken from Arafat's belongings that were given to his widow after his death, and found "abnormal levels of polonium."

But it stopped short of saying that he had been poisoned by the substance.

French experts found that the isotopes polonium-210 and lead-210, found in Arafat's grave and in the samples, were of "an environmental nature," Nanterre prosecutor Catherine Denis said in April.

Lawyers for Arafat's widow said the investigation had been "fundamentally biased" and accused the judges of closing the probe too quickly.

"The lack of investigation leads inevitably to the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence," the lawyers said, calling for more experts to be questioned.

The head of the Palestinian Authority's inquiry committee on Wednesday refused to accept the judges' conclusions.

The Palestinian committee has still not presented its conclusions on the death of the veteran leader, a joint winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.We'll continue our investigation to reach the killer of Arafat, until we know how Arafat was killed," Tawfiq Tirawi told AFP.

AFP

Closing out his three-day tour of Alaska, Obama set off first for the fishing village of Dillingham in Western Alaska. He was to become the first sitting president to travel north of the Arctic Circle later in the day with a visit to the town of Kotzebue, a regional hub with a population of barely more than 3,000.

Obama's trip will put on rare display the ways of life and daily challenges in Alaska's more than 200 far-flung rural villages. Outside of Kotzebue, 1 in 5 in the Alaska Arctic doesn't have a proper kitchen, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And even more lack complete plumbing. Instead, many use the "honey bucket" system — five-gallon drums that serve as makeshift toilets are emptied into nearby sewage lagoons.

Obama's goal was to showcase the havoc he says human-influenced climate change is wreaking on Alaska's delicate landscape: entire rural villages sinking into the ground as permafrost thaws, protective sea ice melts and temperatures climb.

Alaska Natives have joined the president in sounding the alarm on climate change. Yet the obstacles they confront daily in rural Alaska extend far deeper, raising questions about whether the federal government has done enough to help some of the country's most destitute citizens.

This is a life of subsistence hunting for bowhead whales, walruses and seals, a proud tradition of dependence on the land that poses immense logistical challenges.

"The vast majority of Americans have no idea there are dozens of communities in Alaska that live like this," Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said in an interview. "It's unacceptable, and we need to do more to fix it."Even as Obama's travels brought him near the Bering Sea, there were five Chinese PLA Navy ships in the sea that the U.S. military has been tracking for a number of days.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said U.S. officials don't view the Chinese vessels to be a threat but he added that the reason for their presence "is still unclear."

The ships were participating in a military exercise with Russia in previous days and then broke off to head into the Bering Sea, according to a U.S. defense official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to Navy Cdr. Bill Urban, the U.S. respects the right of all navies to operate in international waters, under international law.

With no roads to their villages, residents in rural Alaska are dependent on boats, snowmobiles and bush planes — weather permitting — to ferry them to rare doctor visits or other business. Among Alaska Natives, cancer is the leading killer, with incidence rates about 16 percent higher than for white men and women in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.At the same time, temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as anywhere else on earth, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said, bringing with it profound changes to Alaska's cherished landscape. Amid dire poverty and few resources, many rural villages have had their foundations literally pulled out from under them as the planet gets warmer.

Permafrost, the layer of frozen ice under the surface, is thawing and causing homes, pipes and roads to sink as the soil quickly erodes. Some 100,000 Alaskans live in areas vulnerable to melting permafrost, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates.

And in coastal Alaska, sea ice that once offered critical protection is melting, exposing coastlines, causing more extreme ocean storm surges and risking mass emergency evacuations.

It's enough that the 400 or so residents of Kivalina, an Arctic town on a skinny barrier island along the Chukchi Sea, have decided they have no choice but to pick up and move. Kivalina is one of about a dozen other rural villages have voted to relocate to more stable terrain inland despite the hurdles it presents in maintaining their traditions, such as hunting marine mammals.

Alaska scholars say the struggles in Kivalina and other rural villages have been compounded by disputes among local, state and federal agencies and a lack of money for large-scale resiliency projects the relocation of an entire village, for example. One recommendation from an Obama-commissioned task force was for Washington to take the lead in coordinating relocation.

But Brian Deese, Obama's senior adviser, said the administration was looking for ways to be more nimble in helping communities relocate — not to make the decision for them.

"It should be easier and more effective for the federal government to come in and support that decision," Deese said.

Alaska officials say well over $2 billion in federal and state funds have been spent over the last 50 years to bring indoor plumbing to rural Alaska, but the challenge is finding money to build water and sewer systems in nearly three dozen village that still lack them to one degree or another