TURKEY JOURNALISTS FREED FROM PRISON AFTER COURT RULING

Two Turkish journalists charged with revealing state secrets have been freed from prison.
Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, from the newspaper Cumhuriyet, were detained in November over a report alleging that the Turkish government tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria.
But Turkey's constitutional court has challenged the charges, saying they violated freedom of the press.
They were released early on Friday after three months in jail.
Large crowds chanting support met them outside prison on their release.
Mr Dundar, the paper's editor-in-chief, and Mr Gul, its Ankara bureau chief, spent 92 days in prison and had been due to go on trial on 25 March.
"This is a trial of press freedom," Mr Dundar said. "We got out but more than 30 colleagues are still in prison. I hope that this ruling will pave way for their freedom as well."
Pointing to the prison, he said he would continue to fight for press freedom "until this concentration camp that you see behind me becomes a museum".

UBS CHARGED WITH TAX FRAUD AND MONEY LAUNDERING IN BELGIUM

Swiss bank giant UBS has been charged with money laundering and serious organised tax fraud in Belgium.
A statement from prosecutors said: "The Swiss bank is suspected of having directly, and not via its Belgian subsidiary, approached Belgian clients to convince them to set up constructions aimed at evading taxes."
UBS said it would "defend itself against any unfounded allegations".
It is the latest in a series of probes into malpractice by banks.

The prosecutors' statement said the charges came after "excellent" help from French authorities, who had been looking at allegations that UBS had been encouraging clients to open accounts in Switzerland to avoid tax between the years 2004-12.
The US has also been looking into whether the bank allowed its US customers to hide their wealth from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to avoid paying full tax.
In 2014, Belgian police carried out raids both at the bank and at the homes of UBS Belgium chief executive Marcel Bruehwiler and a client.
Mr Bruehwiler was also charged at the time.
UBS denied that its Belgian division had ever supported tax evasion.
UBS's small Belgian subsidiary, which employed around 60 staff including 20 private bankers, has since been sold to Belgian private bank Puilaetco Dewaay.

GERMANY'S UPPER HOUSE TO RULE ON ASYLUM RESTRICTIONS

The Bundesrat has begun debate over a new round of asylum regulations. The Merkel government has been pressed to curb the refugee crisis as Germany looks set to see in influx in the millions.
Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, is set to decide the fate of a new set of asylum regulations on Friday. The measures, which passed the lower house Bundestag by a wide margin the day before, has garnered significant criticism from opposition parties.
Pressure has been mounting on Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government to deal more strictly with the refugee crisis.

Although Merkel initially adopted an open-door policy, especially towards Syrians fleeing war in their homeland, a number of developments have forced Berlin to reconsider its policies. They include a string of sexual assaults, many perpetrated by migrant men in the city of Cologne on New Year's Eve, a significant number of attacks on occupied or planned refugees homes and a newspaper report suggesting Germany could receive up to 3.6 million refugees by 2020.
Merkel had already worked on reducing the number of asylum seekers in Germany by having North African countries such as Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria declared "safe countries of origin."
The so-called "Second Asylum Package" follows months of heated debate. New measures include setting up fast-track asylum processing centers, which would decide the fate of certain groups of migrants in as little at three weeks. This would apply to those from "safe" countries or those who have been uncooperative with authorities.
New regulations also make it more difficult to avoid deportation for medical reasons.

SYRIA CONFLICT: NEARLY 100 REBEL GROUPS 'WILL RESPECT TRUCE'

Almost 100 rebel factions have agreed to respect an imminent cessation of hostilities in Syria, the main Syrian opposition group has said.
The High Negotiations Committee said Free Syrian Army factions and the armed opposition had signed up to the temporary truce from midnight Saturday.
The news came after Russia was accused of intensively striking rebel strongholds ahead of the cessation.

Russia said it was continuing to bomb "terrorists" in parts of Syria.
World powers agreed on 12 February that a truce would start within a week but that deadline passed and scepticism had lingered over the new plan.
The "cessation of hostilities" involves regime and rebel forces - but not the so-called Islamic State (IS) group and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

KANSAS SHOOTING: GUNMAN KILLS THREE PEOPLE IN HESSTON

A gunman has killed three people and wounded 14 more before being shot dead in the US state of Kansas, police say.
Ten people were left critically injured at a lawnmower factory in Hesston on Thursday, where the attacker worked.
He had been served a court order hours before, which police say was "probably" the motive. Terrorism is not suspected.
The attack comes less than a week after a man was charged with killing six people and wounding two others during a shooting rampage in Michigan.

A number of mass shootings in the United States have elevated gun control as a campaign issue in this year's presidential election.Local police say the gunman, identified as 38-year-old Cedric Ford, began shooting at around 17:00 local time in the town of Newton.
Harvey county's Sheriff T Walton said the attack happened hours after the suspect was served a "protection from abuse" order - a civil court order telling a person not to have contact with someone - suggesting it could be a possible motive.
"I believe that probably is the trigger, and it went from there," Sheriff Walton told reporters on Friday.

HIDDEN PORTRAIT 'FOUND UNDER MONA LISA'

An image of a portrait underneath the Mona Lisa has been found beneath the existing painting using reflective light technology, according to a French scientist.
Pascal Cotte said he has spent more than 10 years using the technology to analyse the painting.
He claims the earlier portrait lies hidden underneath the surface of Leonardo's most celebrated artwork.
A reconstruction shows another image of a sitter looking off to the side.

The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on his claims.nstead of the famous, direct gaze of the painting which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the image of the sitter also shows no trace of her enigmatic smile, which has intrigued art lovers for more than 500 years.
But Mr Cotte's claims are controversial and have divided opinion among Leonardo experts.
The scientist, who is the co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, was given access to the painting in 2004 by the Louvre.
He has pioneered a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM), which he used to analyse the Mona Lisa.It works by "projecting a series of intense lights" on to the painting, Mr Cotte said. A camera then takes measurements of the lights' reflections and from those measurements, Mr Cotte said he is able to reconstruct what has happened between the layers of the paint.
The Mona Lisa has been the subject of several scientific examinations over more than half a century. More recent techniques include infrared inspections and multi-spectral scanning.
But Mr Cotte has claimed his technique is able to penetrate more deeply into the painting.
He said: "We can now analyse exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting."

CHARLIE SHEEN CONFIRMS HE IS HIV POSITIVE

Hollywood star Charlie Sheen has confirmed he is living with HIV in a US television interview.
"I am here to admit that I am HIV positive," he said.
It bring to an end days of intense media speculation. The former star of sitcom Two And A Half Men is appearing on NBC's Today show.
Sheen revealed to Matt Lauer he had paid "enough to take it into the millions" to keep people from going public about his illness.
"I have to put a stop to this onslaught this barrage of attacks and of sub truths," he said, adding he was diagnosed four years ago.