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Syria's Western-backed opposition, the National Coalition, elected Hadi al-Bahra, chief negotiator at the Geneva peace talks, as its new president on Wednesday after a three-day meeting in Istanbul. _0"> The United States and other key powers have designated the National Coalition as the main body representing the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but it has little power inside Syria where disparate militant groups outside its control hold ground. Bahra, a U.S-trained industrial engineer, has close ties to regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, as did his predecessor Ahmad Jarba, who stood down after serving the maximum two six-month terms. "We will not give up the fundamentals of the revolution and our demands are freedom and human dignity," Bahra told a news conference in Istanbul on Wednesday evening. Bahra's election is unlikely to have any impact on the situation in Syria or within opposition ranks for now, though France - the first Western

A cargo train used by Mexicans and Central Americans to travel toward the U.S. border derailed in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Wednesday, stranding about 1,300 migrants, emergency services said. _0"> Many of the migrants aboard were young people and nobody was injured when the train nicknamed "the Beast" came off the tracks, a spokesman for local emergency services said. Since last October, more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors, most from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, have been caught illegally crossing the southwest border of the United States. Children say that they are fleeing violence at home and hope that they will be able to stay in the United States. Several days of heavy rain in southern Mexico may have caused the train to derail, authorities said. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein; Editing by Lisa Shumaker )

China's top prosecutor has ordered greater transparency in publicising corruption cases involving senior officials, state media reported, as the government steps up efforts to win the public's confidence in its battle on pervasive graft. _0"> Such information should be released in a timely way rather than on a case-by-case basis as tends to happen now, the official Xinhua news agency said late on Wednesday, citing an order from the Supreme People's Procuratorate. "The public will be informed in a timely manner of cases such as suspected duty-related violations by provincial-level officials and those behind serious accidents or major food and drug safety scandals," it cited the notice as saying. "Information to be published should include the suspects' identities, the crimes they are suspected of, basic facts and latest developments in cases during investigation, arrest and prosecution," Xinhua added. Pictures and videos will also be rel

Japan on Thursday denied as "sheer misreporting" a front page newspaper story that North Korea had provided a list of some 30 Japanese survivors still living in the isolated country, including known victims of state-sponsored kidnapping. _0"> The Nikkei business daily said North Korea produced the list at a July 1 meeting in Beijing to discuss North Korea's plan to resume investigations into the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 80s. North Korea agreed in May to reopen the probe, prompting Japan to ease some sanctions. "I'm aware of the report, but nothing like that happened during the meeting or during a recess," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference. "It's sheer misreporting." The Nikkei, citing sources, said Tokyo had matched about two-thirds of the names on the list with domestic records of missing persons. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made the abduc

The Pakistani military has seized control of 80 percent of Miranshah, the capital of the remote tribal region of North Waziristan, where the military launched an operation against Islamist militants last month, a general said on Wednesday. Previously, the city was largely under the control of the Taliban and militants used it as a base to prepare bombs and plan attacks, said General Zafarullah Khan, the top commander in rugged North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. "North Waziristan had transformed into a hub and safe haven for terrorists of all colors and creeds," he said during a media trip to Miranshah. "But with the operation, 80 percent of Miranshah and the adjoining areas has been cleared." The offensive in North Waziristan began on June 15, following months of failed negotiations between the government and the militants. Taliban attacks continued during the talks. A brazen assault last month on the airport in the southern city of Karachi killed 34.

China has dismissed as meaningless a proposed referendum on democracy in its southern gambling hub of Macau, a poll that would follow in the footsteps of a similar informal vote in nearby Hong Kong. _0"> Three activist groups said on Monday they would stage a referendum among Macau's 600,000 residents to coincide with the widely expected re-election by a local council of local leader Fernando Chui in August. China denounced the June poll in Hong Kong, underscored by a march by hundreds of thousands of protesters demanding the right to freely elect their local leader in 2017. Five student leaders were arrested after a later sit-in. The former British colony of Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, followed two years later by the Portuguese-run enclave of Macau, now the world's biggest gambling center. Both enjoy wide-ranging autonomy and free speech not permitted on the mainland. "An administrative region has no authority to establish a system of refere

Miro Cerar may be a newcomer to politics, but he is already a household name to the 2 million people of Slovenia, the euro zone state whose fragile economy he will have to nurture if he wins an election on Sunday. The son of one of his country's greatest sportsmen is front runner to become prime minister and take on the task of dragging Slovenia, once seen as a model for post-Communist prosperity, out of financial crisis and economic malaise. Slovenia narrowly avoided having to seek an international bailout for its banks late last year. Sunday's parliamentary election is rattling investors' nerves again, this time over the fate of measures the outgoing government agreed with its EU partners to steady Slovenia's finances and remake an economy roughly 50-percent controlled by the state. A bespectacled law professor and adviser to parliament, Cerar, 50, takes his celebrity from his father Miroslav Cerar, a two-time Olympic pommel horse champion in the 1960s when Slov