Beirut, August 21
Syria's main opposition group accused the regime of using chemical weapons on Wednesday to strike rebel areas near Damascus in a "massacre" that left more than 1,300 people dead.

Videos distributed by activists, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified, showed medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed.

More footage showed dozens of people laid out on the ground, among them many children, some of them covered in white sheets.

The claim of a chemical attack, which could not be independently verified, was vehemently denied by the Syrian regime which said it was intended to hinder the mission of UN chemical weapons inspectors now in the country.

The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists, reported hundreds of casualties in the "brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime".

Eastern Ghouta "was also shelled by warplanes following the chemical attack that is still ongoing, which led to hundreds of casualties and victims, among them entire families," it said.

In one video, children are seen being given first aid in a field hospital, notably oxygen to help them breathe. Doctors appear to be trying to resuscitate unconscious children.

The opposition National Coalition's George Sabra, who spoke to reporters in Istanbul, labelled the attack as a "coup de grace that kills all hopes for a political solution in Syria".

State news agency Sana said "reports on the use of chemical weapons in Ghouta are totally false. It's an attempt to prevent the UN commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission." British Foreign Secretary William Hague said his country will refer the charges of a chemical weapons strike to the Security Council.

The Arab League urged the inspectors to visit the site immediately "to see the reality of the situation and investigate the circumstances of this crime." — Agencies

Cairo, August 21
An Egyptian court today ordered the release of ousted President Hosni Mubarak in a corruption case against him. The criminal court in Cairo decided to release the 85-year-old leader pending further investigation of corruption charges against him.

The ruling does not mean Mubarak will be immediately released. He will remain in prison for at least 48 hours pending a possible appeal by prosecutors, judicial sources were quoted as saying by Al Jazeera.

It also does not mean Mubarak has been acquitted on charges of taking about $11 million worth of gifts from Al-Ahram, the state-run newspaper. But it removes the final legal hurdle blocking his release.

Mubarak is also facing retrial in connection with charges of killing protesters during the 2011 revolution.

He was sentenced to life in prison last year, but a retrial was ordered earlier this year. His next court hearing is scheduled for August 25. That re-trial is still underway.

However, the case does not require Mubarak to remain in custody, as his lawyer successfully argued that the former leader has already spent the maximum time in prison for a defendant in pre-trial detention.

If Mubarak is freed later this week, it would come only six weeks after the armed forces that he once commanded deposed his freely elected successor, Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi.

Morsi remains in custody since the army toppled him on July 3, but his supporters have held protests calling for his reinstatement.

The court convened at Tora prison in Cairo where the ousted leader is being held, judicial sources said.

On Monday, the court had ordered Mubarak’s release pending a probe into a separate case in which he is accused of splurging 1.1 billion pounds in public funds to renovate his palatial private residences, drawing him closer to release as the number of charges he faces decrease.

The ex-President, who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years was ousted in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and detained shortly after, remains in prison pending investigations. — PTI

Fort Meade, August 21
Bradley Manning, the US soldier convicted of the biggest breach of classified data in the nation's history by providing files to Wikileaks, was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday.

Judge Colonel Denise Lind, who last month convicted Manning of 20 charges including espionage and theft, could have sentenced him to as many as 90 years in prison. Prosecutors had asked for 60 years. Manning, 25, will be dishonorably discharged from the US military and forfeit some pay, Lind said.

His rank will be reduced to private from private first class. Manning would be eligible for parole after serving one-third of his sentence, which will be reduced by the time he has already served in prison plus 112 days.

In 2010, Manning turned over more than 7,00,000 classified files, battlefield videos and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks, the protransparency website, in a case that has commanded international attention. Defense attorneys had not made a specific sentencing request but pleaded with Lind not to "rob him of his youth."

Manning was working as a low-level intelligence analyst in Baghdad when he handed over the documents, catapulting WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, into the international spotlight.

The classified material that shocked many around the world included a 2007 gunsight video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Baghdad. Among the dozen fatalities were two Reuters news staff. — Reuters

Tokyo, August 21
Japan declared a radioactive water leak at the crippled Fukushima plant a level-three “serious incident” today, its highest warning in two years, as operators scrambled to seal a tank that has seeped 300 tonnes of toxic water.

The leak is the worst since the nuclear crisis began in March 2011, when a quake-generated tsunami knocked out reactor cooling systems and sparked meltdowns.

“Something that we were very much concerned about has occurred,” Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a meeting in Tokyo. “We are in a situation where there is no time to lose.” The regulator raised the assessment on the United Nations’ seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) to a level-three “serious incident”, from level one which indicates 
an “anomaly”.

At its height, the Fukushima crisis was classified as level-seven, one of only two events ever rated in that category along with the Chernobyl disaster a quarter of a century ago.

Other incidents which have been ranked level-three include the 2005 radioactive waste leak at the British nuclear reprocessing facility in Sellafield.

The Japanese regulator will now inform the International Atomic Energy Agency about the leak and consult with the UN body over the accuracy of its assessment, officials said.

The evaluation came a day after plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said some 300 tonnes of radioactive water was believed to have leaked from one of the tanks that hold water used to cool the reactors.

TEPCO said the leak was thought to be continuing today and it had not yet pinpointed the source, but that there were no significant changes in radiation levels outside the plant.

“We are removing the soil contaminated with the leaked water, while sucking the remaining water from the troubled tank,” a TEPCO spokesman said.

“We are also hurriedly checking if similar troubles happen to some 350 tanks of the same type,” he said.

Islamabad/Washington, August 21
The US has imposed sanctions on a Pakistani madrassa being used for training bomb makers and suicide attackers for the LeT and the Al-Qaida. This is the first time such an action has been taken against a seminary.

Ganj Madrassa in the northwestern city of Peshawar, officially known as Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal-Hadith Madrassa, is the first seminary to be designated a terrorist organisation by the US. The sanctions forbid Americans from having any business interaction with it.

The US Treasury said Ganj Madrassa was being used as a training and recruiting base by Al Qaeda, Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166.

Under the garb of religious education, students at the seminary are being trained to become bomb makers and suicide bombers for the three banned groups, the Treasury said. The seminary also facilitates funding for the groups.

The US Treasury said in a statement: “The activities of the Ganj Madrassa exemplify how terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the Taliban, subvert seemingly legitimate institutions, such as religious schools, to divert charitable donations meant for education to support violent acts.” The head of the seminary, Fazeel-A-Tul Shaykh Abu Mohammad Ameen Al-Peshawari, alias Shaykh Aminullah, has been a US and UN-designated terrorist since 2009. — PTI

Chinese navy sailors stand on the guided-missile destroyer, Qingdao, before departure for a naval drill at a military port in Qingdao in east China's Shandong province. — AP/PTI

Cigars of Hitlar’s deputy up for auction
London: A collection of cigars that belonged to German dictator Adolf Hitler's deputy and close confidant, Hermann Goering, may fetch up to £1,200 at an auction in the UK. Specially made for Goering, the cigars were taken from the cellars of the Reichsmarschall's home in Brandenburg. The cigar boxes bear the words "Sondernfertigung Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering", which means "Specially made for Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering". — PTI