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Islamic State abducts dozens of Christians from Syrian town: monitor

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have captured dozens of Christian families after seizing a strategically located town in the central Syrian province of Homs, a monitor said on Friday. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 230 people were kidnapped or detained, including dozens of Christians, some of whom were taken from a church in Qaryatain, the town captured overnight after heavy fighting

New diplomatic push for Syria seen, but solution elusive

Diplomacy has so far been a total failure during a civil war that has divided the Middle East, killed a quarter of a million people, driven more than 10 million from their homes and left large swathes of Syria in the hands of Islamic State militants. The mainly Sunni Muslim Arab states that support the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad have had virtually no productive contact with either Damascus or

Ukraine buries unidentified soldiers months after eastern battle

Ukraine buried on Friday 57 soldiers still unidentified up to a year after being killed in the eastern separatist conflict, highlighting the difficulties the country faces moving on from one of its deadliest military defeats. Mournful chants drifted over the graves of the nameless soldiers, most of whom fell in the battle of Ilovaisk last August after Ukrainian forces found themselves encircled, outgunned, and vastly outnumbered by Russian-backed rebels. “It’s

Saudi soldier killed in shelling from Yemen

The National Guard serviceman was killed in the Najran region, in the southwest, said the Saudi-led coalition carrying out air strikes against Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen. The Saudi soldier brings the number of people killed in shelling and skirmishes along the frontier with Yemen to more than 50 since the coalition campaign began on March 26.

Facing epidemic, Cincinnati hospitals test mothers, newborns for drugs

By Mary Wisniewski CINCINNATI (Reuters) – Bubbly and athletic, Heather Padgett, raised in a loving family in the Cincinnati suburbs, would not fit the stereotype of a heroin addict. Until she got clean last August, she was part of what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called a heroin epidemic – a 100 percent rise in heroin addiction among Americans between 2002 and 2013. The sharp rise