Egypt: US Calls For Release Of Detained Morsi

The US has called for the release of Mohamed Morsi as tens of thousands of supporters of the ousted Egyptian president staged protests across the country.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US agrees with the German Foreign Ministry, which had called for an "end to all restrictive measures considering Morsi".

Mr Morsi, an Islamist who became the country's first freely elected leader, was ousted on July 3 by the military.

His removal followed a wave of protests calling on him to step down.

He has been kept at an undisclosed Defence Ministry facility since then, but no formal charges have been filed.

Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the Army in what many called a coup

Supporters vowed to continue their campaign of street rallies as long as necessary to force Mr Morsi's reinstitution.

At the main Islamist rally in Cairo, the crowd poured into a large boulevard in front of a main mosque where his supporters have been camped out for two weeks.

Some held up photos of Mr Morsi, others carried posters depicting army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sissi with blood coming out of his mouth and emblazoned with the word "traitor".

"We are ready to stay for a month, two months, a year or even two years," an ultraconservative Salafi cleric, Safwat Hegazi, told protesters.

Friday prayers on the third day of Ramadan

The day of protests marked the first Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, which usually cuts down on activity during the day - particularly outdoors in warm summer temperatures.

During the daytime fast, some at the rally rested in their tents, reading the Quran or sleeping.

Similar rallies were held across the Nile River in Cairo's sister city Giza, in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and several other cities.

Clashes have broken out between Mr Morsi's supporters and his critics

A week of violence in a bitterly divided nation has left dozens of Mr Morsi's Islamist supporters dead.

The new military-backed administration has intensified its crackdown on the leadership of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, issuing several arrest warrants.

The administration is pushing ahead quickly with its transition plans, which the military said would include new elections.

However, the new prime minister Hazem el Beblawi said members of the Muslim Brotherhood would be offered cabinet posts.

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Moscow Crash: 'At Least 14 Dead'

Fourteen people have been killed and many injured in a traffic accident in Moscow, according to Russian officials.

A truck, a passenger bus and several other vehicles were involved and the dead includes a young girl, said the interior ministry.

Police believe the accident took place when a truck carrying gravel turned onto a main road and ploughed into the bus.

Helicopter teams and 30 ambulance crews have been sent to the scene.

The bus was taking passengers from Podolsk to Zhokhovo in the south of Moscow. It was broken up into two parts by the force of the collision, according to local reports.

More follows...

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Paris Train Crash: Faulty Track Likely Cause

A faulty part on points may have triggered the derailment of a packed train outside Paris that left at least six people dead and dozens injured.

Pierre Izard, a general manager of SNCF national rail company, said a joint bar, a kind of steel clip that links two rails on a switch, "broke away, it became detached and came out of its housing".

The detached joint "lodged itself at the centre of the switch, prevented the normal progression of the train's wheels and seems to have caused the train's derailment," he said, adding that checks had been ordered on some 5,000 similar devices on the network.

Rescuers pull survivors from the wreckage. Pic: @aishakurdish

The head of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, said the "detachment of this joint bar" was the focus of investigations.

He said the third and fourth carriages initially came off the track, then knocked the others off. He called the accident a "catastrophe", adding that "some cars simply derailed, others are leaning, others fell over".

Earlier, transport minister Frederic Cuvillier had said that human error was unlikely to have caused the tragedy, and that authorities were looking into a possible mechanical error in the switching system as well as other possibilities.

Up to 200 passengers are said to have been injured in the smash

The crash was France's deadliest in years, but Mr Cuvillier said it could have been worse and praised the driver who sent out an alert quickly, preventing a pile up.

Responding to criticism that France had not invested enough in maintaining infrastructure, he added: "For the moment we have no information that allows us to confirm that the dilapidation of the network was the cause of this derailment."

The seven-carriage service with 385 passengers on board was about 20 minutes into a three-hour journey to Limoges when it crashed 12 miles south of the capital at about 5.15pm local time on Friday.

The French interior minister has called the crash a "catastrophe"

Part of the metal roof over the platform was crushed as carriages came off the tracks and smashed into Bretigny-sur-Orge station.

Interior minister Manuel Valls said at least six people had been killed. He added that nine people were gravely injured, and warned the number of dead could rise. In all, nearly 200 people were hurt.

A large, heavyweight crane is expected to be brought in later to try to lift one of the carriages which toppled over.

Sky's Ian Woods, at the scene, said: "They don't know for certain, but there may well still be people underneath that carriage they haven't been able to get to.

Firefighters rescue passengers trapped in a carraige

"It's unclear whether anyone at the station was hurt by the impact of the train and flying debris, or whether all of those injured were on the train," he added.

Footage from the scene showed crushed metal on the platform and debris from the crash clogging up the stairs.

Emergency services went on red alert with 300 firefighters, 20 paramedic teams and eight helicopters deployed to the area.

All Paris regional hospitals were put on standby to deal with casualties.

People at the station look on from across another platform

Within hours French President Francois Hollande was at the scene and said: "I want to express our solidarity to all the families.

"It will take a long time to identify the victims. Investigations are under way and as soon as possible we will name them and inform their families - I understand their anxiety and pain."

Briton Graham Hope, a passenger in the third carriage, told Sky News: "The carriage I was in was bouncing for several seconds before we came to a halt.

"Everyone was very calm. A couple of people were quite concerned, but we worked together to get out of the carriage.

The passenger train crashed into the platform and some cars tipped over

"When I got out we could see the rest of the train was further up the line ... I would be very surprised if people got out of the front carriage unscathed."

A witness in a nearby train, 19-year-old Bazgua El Mehdi told Le Parisien newspaper: "I heard a loud noise. A cloud of sand covered everything. Then the dust dissipated.

"I thought it was a freight train, but then we saw the first casualties ... many passengers on the (train) were crying."

French President Francois Hollande speaks to some of the injured

A police source said: "The train arrived at the station at high speed. It split in two for an unknown reason. Part of the train continued to roll while the other was left on its side on the platform."

But a passenger speaking on France's BFM television said the train was going at a normal speed and was not meant to stop at Bretigny-sur-Orge.

The station is expected to remain closed for several days during the investigation and clear-up operation.

The train derailed at Bretigny-sur-Orge, just south of Paris

The crash comes as France prepares to celebrate its most important national holiday, Bastille Day, on Sunday.

Many people have been heading out of Paris and other big cities to see their families or to go on holiday.

Earlier, passengers observed a minute's silence at Austerlitz railway station in Paris as a mark of respect.

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Indonesia: Prisoners Escape Amid Jail Riot

Security forces have retaken control of a crowded prison in western Indonesia where inmates started a massive riot that left five people dead and hundreds of prisoners, including convicted terrorists, on the loose.

About 500 policemen and 300 soldiers have been deployed around Tanjung Gusta prison in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, where the riot broke out on Thursday night.

Fire brigades have also been battling fires started by prisoners which had engulfed the jail.

Prison directorate spokesman Akbar Hadi said the situation is now under control after soldiers entered the prison without resistance.

Prisoners stand inside the Tanjung Gusta prison amid the riot

Hundreds of policemen have blocked roads linking Medan to the provinces of Aceh, Jambi and West Sumatra while searching for inmates who escaped during the riot, which began after a protest over a lack of water and electricity turned violent.

Indonesian authorities said security forces had recaptured 64 out of 240 prisoners who fled the facility in the nation's third-largest city.

Inmates had been in control of the jail until early on Friday morning, casually chatting outside their cells while heavily armed security forces formed a cordon round the building.

Five people, three prisoners and two prison staff, were killed in the riots. Ten civilian guards had briefly been held hostage but were later released.

The jail was set ablaze by inmates

Prisoners still on the loose included five of the 14 terror convicts that were being held at the institution.

The terrorists are believed to have links to Toni Togar, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in a separate prison for a series of church bombings in Sumatra in 2000, according to the Jakarta Post.

A spokesman for the justice and human rights ministry, Goncang Raharjo, said that, like many jails in Indonesia, Tanjung Gusta was overcrowded - holding more than double its official capacity.

"The prison capacity is only 1,054 but it now holds about 2,600 convicts and suspects on trials.

"Most prisons across the country have this problem," he said.

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Free Syrian Army Killing Exposes Rebel Rifts

The assassination of a senior Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander by militants linked to al Qaeda is tantamount to a declaration of war, FSA rebels have said.

Kamal Hamami - better known as Abu Bassir al Jeblawi - of the FSA Supreme Military Council was killed by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a hardline Islamist group, on Thursday.

A senior FSA commander said the al Qaeda-linked militants had previously warned FSA rebels that there was "no place" for them in the northern Latakia province, where Hamami was killed.

He added that there would be retaliation for the killing.

"We are going to wipe the floor with them. We will not let them get away with it because they want to target us," he said on condition of anonymity.

The FSA and Islamists have sometimes joined forces

The statement is the latest sign of disarray in the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who has regained the upper hand more than two years into an insurgency that grew out of Arab Spring-inspired pro-democracy protests.

Opposition sources said the killing of Mr Hamami followed a dispute over control of a strategic checkpoint in Latakia.

"FSA rebels fired into the air, and subsequently, an ISIS fighter shot Abu Bassir dead and wounded two other fighters from his battalion," the opposition Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said

The Observatory for Human Rights added that the FSA and the Islamic State have had violent exchanges in several areas of Syria over the past few weeks, showing growing antagonism between Assad's foes.

"Last Friday, the Islamic State killed an FSA rebel in Idlib province and cut his head off. There have been attacks in many provinces," the Observatory's Rami Abdelrahman said.

The West is considering arming the Free Syrian Army

FSA Supreme Command Political Coordinator Louay Mekdad said Mr Hamami and his brother were shot dead at the roadblock by Abu Ayman al Baghdadi, the Islamic State's Emir of the coastal region.

He said a fighter who was travelling with them was set free to rely the message that the Supreme Command was now an al Qaeda target.

"If these people came to defend the Syrian revolution and not help the Assad regime, then they have to hand over the killers," Mr Mekdad said.

Syria's conflict turned violent in the face of a crackdown on protests. Civil war ensued with disparate rebel groups taking up arms and the Observatory says more than 100,000 people have been killed.

The FSA and the jihadists have sometimes joined forces on the battlefield but the divisions have been highlighted as the West considers arming the FSA and some Gulf states have funnelled weapons to the Islamists.

US congressional committees are holding up plans to arm the rebels because of fears that such deliveries will not be decisive and the arms might end up in the hands of Islamist militants.

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Edward Snowden 'Wants Asylum In Russia'

Intelligence services whistleblower Edward Snowden has reportedly told activists he wants to request asylum in Russia, after accusing the US of trying to stop other countries giving him safe haven.

Snowden has held closed-door talks with rights groups and lawyers at the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for weeks.

Human Rights Watch representative Tanya Lokshina told the Interfax news agency that Snowden revealed he "wants to stay" in Russia.

Russian parliament member Vyacheslav Nikonov, who was also in the meeting, also reported Snowden's intentions to seek asylum.

A Russian lawyer speaks to reporters just before entering the meeting

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has said Snowden might be allowed to stay in Russia if he stops harmful US leaks.

A picture of Snowden at the meeting, taken by Ms Lokshina, shows him with WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison on his right.

Protesters have shown their support for Snowden

In a letter to Human Rights Watch earlier, he said the US government was waging a campaign to stop him getting asylum in any other country.

He said: "I have been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world. These nations have my gratitude.

"Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the US government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"The scale of threatening behaviour is without precedent: never before in history have states conspired to force to the ground a sovereign president's plane to effect a search for a political refugee."

That remark appears to refer to how Austrian authorities last week searched the Bolivian president's plane when it was diverted to Vienna because the US suspected Snowden was on board.

Snowden is wanted by the US on espionage charges over a series of leaks about spying programmes, with his most recent claims involving collaboration between Microsoft and American intelligence services.

He fled to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 and has been in limbo in Sheremetyevo airport's transit area despite three countries - Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia - saying they would be willing to grant him asylum.

Doubts had been raised about whether Snowden could fly from Moscow to any of those countries without passing through the airspace of the US or its allies.

Snowden's latest evidence concerns the NSA spying on Skype video calls

He is seeking to avoid extradition after divulging embarrassing evidence about the activities of US spies, as well as the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ, to newspapers including The Guardian.

The latest files said Microsoft helped America's National Security Agency (NSA) to circumvent encryption so it could view web chats on the Outlook.com portal, which is replacing Hotmail.

Evidence seen by the paper said Microsoft also worked to give the NSA easier access to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which has more than 250 million users. And by July 2012, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the Prism intelligence programme was collecting triple the amount of Skype video calls.

Major tech firms in Silicon Valley have been calling on the Obama administration to let them reveal more about their co-operation with the NSA, to alleviate customers' privacy concerns.

Microsoft told the paper it only provides information about users when demanded to do so by the government.

Snowden's files revealed the NSA claimed to have access to the servers of web firms including Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo, while GCHQ scans vast amounts of internet traffic through a system of fibre optic cables.

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San Francisco Crash Pilot 'Blinded By Light'

The pilot of a plane which crashed at San Francisco airport, killing two people, may have been temporarily blinded by a bright light as he came into land.

Lee Kang Kuk, who was making his first landing at the airport and had just 43 hours' experience at the controls of the Boeing 777, said he saw a bright flash as he approached the runway.

It happened around 35 seconds before impact when Asiana Airlines flight 214 was around 500ft (150m) off the ground - the point at which the aircraft began to slow down and drop steeply.

Deborah Hersman, who chairs the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the use of lasers had not been ruled out.

Passenger Eugene Anthony Rah took this photo of the aftermath of the crash

It is not clear whether the flash of light caused the crash or whether other factors were to blame.

The pilot's claim came as phone calls to the emergency services made by passengers on board the plane were released, demonstrating the confusion caused when the Boeing 777 hit the runway.

Pleading for ambulances to be sent, one woman can be heard saying: "There are a lot of people that need help ... We have people over here who weren't found and they're burned really badly."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that passengers were initially told not to evacuate the aircraft.

The airline stewardesses at a press conference following the crash

The plane hit a sea wall as it came into land, causing its tail fin to break off and the rest of the fuselage to spin across the runway.

However, the NTSB found people did not begin leaving the plane until a fire erupted 90 seconds after impact.

"We don't know what the pilots were thinking, though I can tell you in previous accidents there have been crews that don't evacuate, they wait for other vehicles to come to be able to get the passengers out safely," Ms Hersman said.

She suggested that the pilots in the cockpit may not have been in a position to spot the fire outside the plane.

Air crash investigators at the site in San Francisco

At least one of the emergency escape slides opened inside the aircraft, pinning down two flight attendants.

Three other crew members were flung from the aircraft onto the runway but survived.

The NTSB is using pilot interviews, cockpit recordings and control tower communications to piece together the moments leading up to the crash.

They found both Mr Lee and his co-pilot, Lee Jung Min, who was on his first flight as an instructor, both thought the aircraft's speed was being controlled by an autothrottle, which was set to 157mph.

Wreckage from Asiana Airlines flight 214 was strewn across the runway

When they realised the plane was approaching the waterfront runway too low and too slow, they both reached for the throttle.

Passengers heard a loud roar as the pilots made a desperate attempt to abort the landing.

Two Chinese students were killed in the crash, which left 180 people injured. The students, who began their journey to the US in Shanghai, were on their way to a 15 day camp to study English.

Families of around 20 survivors who remain in hospital have begun arriving to care for their loved ones.

Flight 214 was a direct flight from Incheon in South Korea to San Francisco.

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Canada Train Blast: Engineer Blamed For Crash

Fifty people have now been confirmed dead or are presumed dead after a runaway freight train derailed and exploded in Canada.

Twenty bodies have already been found and officials are telling the families of 30 other people missing that all are believed to have been killed.

A railway boss has blamed an employee for failing to set the brakes properly.

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive of Rail World, made his comments during his first visit to the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.

Mr Burkhardt, who arrived with a police escort and was heckled by angry residents, said a train engineer had been suspended without pay.

The boss said: "I think he did something wrong. It's hard to explain why someone didn't do something.

"We think he applied some hand brakes but the question is did he apply enough of them.

"He said he applied 11 hand brakes, we think that's not true. Initially we believed him but now we don't."

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive of Rail World visited Lac-Megantic

Mr Burkhardt does not suspect sabotage was involved.

An area of Lac-Megantic was flattened in the inferno caused by the crash, as a wall of fire tore through homes and businesses.

Some parts of the devastated scene have been too hot and dangerous to enter and find bodies even days after the disaster.

The blaze forced about 2,000 residents to flee their homes in the town, which has a population of 6,000. Most residents started returning on Tuesday.

The train, operated by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and carrying crude oil, had been stopped for a crew change in the nearby town of Nantes when it broke loose and hurtled downhill without a conductor towards Lac-Megantic.

It travelled for nearly seven miles before derailing at a curve in the tracks at 63mph and several wagons exploded.

Investigators are looking closely at a fire that happened on the train less than an hour before it became loose while stationary in Nantes.

The train's engine was shut down - standard operating procedure but one that might have disabled the brakes.

Police said a range of possibilities remain under investigation, including criminal negligence.

Some officials have raised the possibility the train was tampered with before the crash.

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Magnitsky Trial: Dead Lawyer Guilty Of Tax Fraud

A Moscow court has found the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion three years after his death.

The investment fund lawyer, who died while in pre-trial detention in 2009, was convicted in Russia's first ever posthumous trial - branded a "show trial" by his supporters.

The Tverskoy District Court also found Mr Magnitsky's former boss, the London-based investor William Browder, guilty of tax evasion. He was tried in absentia after declining to return to Russia and received a nine-year jail term.

But Russia's options for jailing US-born Mr Browder are limited since Interpol has refused to include him on its international search list after deciding that Russia's case against him was political.

Court bailiffs wait before a session in the trial

Mr Browder has all along dismissed the trial as a politically motivated effort to discredit him and Mr Magnitsky.

An empty cage in the courthouse - where normally the defendant hears the verdict - symbolised the absence of the late Mr Magnitsky and his co-accused.

"I did not doubt that the decision would look like this," the lawyer for Mr Magnitsky's family Dmitry Kharitonov told the RAPSI legal news agency.  "I know that he committed no crimes."

Mr Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 soon after accusing Russian law enforcement officers of corruption. The lawyer was held on charges of tax evasion after claiming officials conspired to claim $230m (£150m) in tax rebates through Mr Browder's Hermitage Capital investment company.

Magnitsky died on his 358th day in custody in a Moscow detention centre

A year later, the 37-year-old father died in prison of pancreatitis, after what supporters claim was a systematic torture campaign. A report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that he had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.

Campaigners say the fraud was committed by state officials who subsequently had him framed and arrested for the crime.

His death sparked widespread condemnation and a US law named after Mr Magnitsky imposing sanctions on Russians implicated in the lawyer's death.

The legislation infuriated Moscow, which in retaliation passed legislation prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian children.

Friends and relatives attend Magnitsky's funeral ceremony

Mr Magnitsky had kept a diary in which he documented the conditions he was being held in and his deteriorating health.

Entries recorded in the months before he died describe excruciating pain from his untreated pancreatitis, raw sewage flooding prison cells and the sound of rats running through the prison at night.

Shortly before his death, the lawyer wrote: "I'm being subjected to punishment only for trying to defend the interests of my client and my country."

The Kremlin's own human rights council has said there was evidence suggesting Mr Magnitsky was beaten to death, but President Vladimir Putin has dismissed allegations of torture or foul play and told the nation last year that he died of heart failure.

Russian authorities closed the case against Mr Magnitsky after his death but reopened it in 2011, in a move former colleagues say was illegal because they did not have the consent of his relatives.

"This show trial confirms that Vladimir Putin is ready to sacrifice his international credibility to protect corrupt officials who murdered an innocent lawyer and stole $230m (£150m) from the Russian state," Hermitage Capital said in a statement.

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Royal Hoax DJ Takes Action Against Station

By Jonathan Samuels, Australia Correspondent

One of the Australian radio DJs at the centre of the royal prank phone call scandal is taking legal action against her employer.

Radio host Mel Greig, who is yet to return to work, has filed a claim against Sydney radio station 2dayFM's parent company Southern Cross Austereo.

Her claim will now be heard by Australia's industrial relations body, Fair Work Australia.

Ms Greig is accusing her employer of failing to maintain a safe workplace.

The action comes seven months after Ms Greig and colleague Michael Christian made a prank call to London's King Edward VII's Hospital, where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for severe morning sickness.

The presenters were put through to her ward by nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who took her own life soon after the hoax.

Michael Christian on air with Ms Greig

Ms Greig's lawyers said the matter would proceed to "confidential conciliation" under Australia's Fair Work Act.

They said she was still employed by Austereo, and would not be making any comments on the matter.

It is understood that if the two parties are unable to come to an agreement the case could end up in court.

Fair Work Australia gave no details of the nature of the claim.

Ms Greig has been granted permission to appear as an individual at an inquest into Ms Saldanha's death, due in London in September.

It is not known if she will appear in person or via a video link.

Last month Austereo controversially awarded her former co-host Mr Christian the title of "Top Jock".

Ms Greig's legal action comes as the company awaits a decision by the courts about the authority of the Australian broadcasting watchdog.

The company is disputing that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has the power to decide whether the radio station broke the law recording and broadcasting a phone call without permission.

If the radio station is found to have breached regulations it could ultimately have its licence suspended.

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