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“Help me! I’m Amanda Berry,” the frantic voice begins on the emergency call to a Cleveland police dispatcher. “I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for 10 years and I’m here. I’m free now.” The dispatcher is almost cold. Don’t tell me your story, she says. Save for it for the police – they’re on their way.

Canada has closed its embassy in Iran and will expel all remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada within five days, Foreign Minister John Baird said on today, denouncing Tehran as the biggest threat to global security.

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- An 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest on Thursday - although his record may last only a few days. An 81-year-old Nepalese man, who held the previous record, plans his own ascent next week....

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Prosecutors in Malaysia are pursuing rape charges against a 40-year-old man who allegedly had sex with a 13-year-old girl and then married her....

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- A 33-year-old Polish man received a face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest time frame to date for such an operation. It was Poland's first face transplant....

LONDON (AP) -- A brutal attack in broad daylight near a military barracks in London left one man dead and two suspects hospitalized Wednesday after a shootout with police. British Prime Minister David Cameron said the attack appeared to be terror related....

Many of the clothes sold in American stores come from factories in Bangladesh, which has a history of workplace disasters. Following the factory collapse last month that killed over 1,000 people, Holly Williams went undercover to see what the conditions are really like.

London police say two men used a knife and a cleaver to hack a man to death. The man was then videotaped by an unharmed passerby and waited for police to arrive. Charlie D'Agata reports.

IAEA reports Iranian heavy water reactor approaching completion but Tehran stays well under red lines set by IsraelWhile the presidential election campaign gets underway in Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency has produced its latest quaterly report on the country's nuclear programme, which does so much to shape the backdrop to Iranian politics - and not in a good way.The IAEA Safeguards Report has been leaked, as tradition dictates, and is available online here courtesy of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). The most important single indicator that tells us how close to a conflict we might be, shows there is still breathing room for talks when the elections are over. The report says that Iran's stockpile of 20% enriched (a half-way house between low enriched uranium for nuclear power stations and weapons grade stuff for bombs) is now 182kg, which is up 15kg from the last report three months ago but still well below the 240-250kg that would be enough to make an initial warhead, if the Iranians decided to go for making nuclear weapons. That threshhold is where Binyamin Netanyahu lay down Israel red lines before the UN General Assembly last September.The Iranians have made a total of 324kg of this medium enriched uranium, but continues to process much of what it makes into oxide fuel, which is less of a proliferation concern, so it is not counted as being part of the critical stockpile.The rest of the report, however, makes clear that there is plenty more to worry about. It goes into particular detail about the heavy water reactor under construction in Arak. That has not been in the spotlight much until now because the uranium enrichment programme has been seen as a far more direct route to making a nuclear weapon. It still is. The Arak heavy water reactor, when operational, could produce plutonium if the spent uranium fuel was reprocessed, and plutonium can be used to make smaller, even more powerful nuclear warheads than weapons-grade uranium. To make it, however, Iran would need to build a reprocessing plant and there is so far no sign of that. But the reactor is getting closer to completion. A huge reactor vessel has arrived at the site but has yet to be installed, but a lot of other things have been put in place. [T]he following major components have been installed at the IR-40 Reactor: the containment overhead crane; the moderator and primary coolant heat exchangers, circuit piping and purification systems; the moderator storage tanks; and the pressurizer for the reactor cooling system.The Iranians predict the reactor, which they say is for research purposes, will be operational by the third quarter of 2014. Most observers don't think they will make that deadline. There is still a lot of stuff to be built, like the control room, the mechanism for refuelling the reactor and the cooling pumps. Still, by next year, if work proceeds at the current pace it is easy to see Arak become an serious source of international friction. The report also notes that IAEA inspectors have not been allowed to visit the production plant - which will supply the deuterium oxide (heavy water) for the reactor to function - since August 2011, and since then the agency has had to rely on satellite images. The IAEA goes into more detail that usual about its disagreement with Iran over when the government is supposed to tell the agency about new nuclear facilities. Under the original IAEA rules, a country only had to tell the agency about a new plant six months before nuclear material was due to be delivered for the first time. This was called Code 3.1. In the 1990's a modified Code 3.1 was introduced which said a new facility had to be reported as soon as the decision to built it had been taken. In 2003, Iran agreed to the new Code 3.1, but in 2007, it suspended its implementation, and now refuses to abide by it. You can read more about it here.This is important because of the suspicion that Iran could be building secret facilities. If tomorrow it was discovered that Iran had built a new underground enrichment plant like the one revealed at Fordow in 2009, Tehran would argue it was completely in its rights as it was not bound by the new Code 3.1. Thus the refusal to agree to the new code increases suspicion that there might be a parallel covert nuclear programme under construction. This uncertainty is heightened by the fact that various Iranian officials have announced in recent months that Iran is building four new research reactors, ten new enrichment plants and 16 new nuclear power stations, without saying where any of these facilities are located. All this, along with a complete lack of progress on agreeing guidelines for the IAEA's investigation into Iran's alleged past weaponisation work, adds up to a fairly negative report. It's not bad enough to get the war drums beating again, but sufficiently worrying to underline the importance of reaching some kind of compromise on the Iranian programme soon after the election is over.IranNuclear weaponsInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)Julian Borgerguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- The U.S. and several key allies looked again Wednesday for a strategy to end Syria's civil war, their united efforts unable at the moment to stem the Assad regime's military gains and Washington still unwilling to join those providing the rebels with lethal military aid....

Two men attacked another man near a London military barracks in what British authorities were investigating as a possible terror act. Lucy McDonald reports.

Warning: graphic video. A man with bloodied hands and knives appears in amateur video that shows the immediate aftermath of an attack in southeast London in which a man was killed.

Unsealed search warrants show suspect in shooting that killed 12 used iPhone to take pictures of movie-theater doorJames Holmes received six shipments of ammunition from an online retailer, carried a platinum MasterCard and photographed the door to the movie theater where he allegedly killed 12 people and injured 70, according to court records released Wednesday.The information comes from search warrants unsealed at the direction of the judge overseeing the case against Holmes, who could be executed if convicted of the 20 July 2012 shooting in Aurora, Colorado.The warrants show that in the hours after the attack, investigators wanted to search Holmes' bank records and an iPod Touch. They found that Holmes had received ammunition from the website BulkAmmo.com at his apartment in Aurora. Authorities wanted to determine whether he had received other material at the nearby University of Colorado, Denver, where he had been a neuroscience graduate student, or at his parents' home near San Diego. Detectives also wrote that on 9 July, Holmes downloaded a US Postal Service form to track shipments. That was around the time Holmes shipped a notebook and burnt $20 bills to his former psychiatrist at the university. That package was not found until after the shooting. The notebook's contents have not yet been disclosed.The documents released on Wednesday did not show what investigators found. They did say that Holmes carried an iPhone that contained pictures of the theater where the massacre occurred. Included in those pictures were images of the door jamb at the theater. Prosecutors have said Holmes entered the theater that night apparently unarmed, slipped out the external exit door then returned with his weapons and body armor.Holmes is attempting to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. He is due to appear in court on Thursday, for a routine hearing.Wednesday's release is an addition to a wider April disclosure of documents that were sealed in the days after the shooting. Media organizations successfully sued to unseal those search warrants and affidavits. But a handful of records were omitted from the April disclosure and were released instead on Wednesday.Aurora shootingColoradoUnited StatesUS crimeGun crimeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Governor Hickenlooper cited doubts about death penalty as one of several causes for granting indefinite reprieveThe governor of Colorado on Wednesday indefinitely delayed the execution of a man convicted of killing four people, citing doubts about the death penalty.Governor John Hickenlooper said he was granting Nathan Dunlap a reprieve, not clemency. Clemency would have changed Dunlap's sentence to life without parole.Under a reprieve, Dunlap could conceivably be executed one day. The reprieve will stay in force until Hickenlooper or another governor lifts it.Hickenlooper said Colorado's capital punishment system is flawed, citing a study that showed the death penalty was sought and imposed inconsistently.He also said the state doesn't have the drugs in place to carry out an execution by lethal injection, and that many states and nations are repealing the death penalty.Hickenlooper said he granted a reprieve instead of clemency because he saw the question before him as being about the use of the death penalty, not about Dunlap.Dunlap was convicted in 1996 of ambushing and killing four employees at a Denver-area Chuck E Cheese restaurant. The jury sentenced him to die. His last guaranteed appeal was rejected this year.His execution was scheduled for the week of August 18.Prosecutors have said Dunlap should be executed because he had shown no remorse and had bragged about the killings.Dunlap's attorneys said that he was remorseful, and they released a video and written statement in which Dunlap apologized.They also said he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time of the shootings.Capital punishmentColoradoUS constitution and civil libertiesDemocratsUnited StatesUS politicsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Crook, County Durham: I was tempted to relieve it of its burden with a fine brush. But perhaps that would have been a mistakeBumblebees still foraged on the blackcurrant blossom, even though the afterglow of sunset was beginning to fade. One, a queen Bombus pratorum, fell from a truss of flowers and landed almost at my feet, brushing her legs over her furry back as if to rid herself of some irritation.When I knelt to look closely I could see the source of her apparent torment – dense clusters of pink mites, clinging to her fur in crevices that were beyond the reach of grooming. I've often seen bees infested with mites like this, but rarely one so heavily laden. It is impossible not to feel sorrow at the sight of such industrious, valued insects afflicted in this way and there was a time when I might have contemplated catching them to try to relieve them of their burden with a fine paintbrush.But perhaps that would be a mistake. Unlike Varroa mites that devastate honeybee colonies, there's little evidence that these bumblebee mites transmit disease or inflict significant direct harm; they may be little more than hitchhikers that are minor irritations for their host. They are commensals in bumblebee nests, and studies in Switzerland have revealed that they feed on the sticky coatings of pollen rather than on the bees to which they often cling.They may, in a mutually advantageous evolutionary pact, even be of some benefit to the colony by eating detritus and moulds that might harm the brood. Hitching a ride on their hosts is their method of dispersing throughout the bee population, detaching themselves to crawl into a flower during a pollination visit then boarding the next bee for a ride to its nest.I watched the queen climb on to a leaf, buzz to warm up her flight muscles and then disappear over the hedge, carrying her passengers to her nest. Perhaps she had just been weary at the end of another day of dawn-to-dusk foraging.Rural affairsBeesInsectsWildlifeAnimalsPhil Gatesguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sinn Fein accuses Britain of violating agreement by prosecuting 61-year-old John Downey over bombing that killed four soldiers

The Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City continued to show signs of seismic activity last week. Increased explosive activity could lead to increasingly powerful explosions of ash and lava.

Authorities have raised alert levels for Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano

While warning of Hezbollah and Iran's involvement in Syria, Kerry tries to push Assad regime to negotiate a truce