While adults pray, kids play A young Indian Muslim girl plays as others sit inside the Jama (Grand) mosque on the first Friday of Ramadan in New Delhi. Muslims worldwide are marking the month of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, when the devout fast from dawn till dusk. Photo by Tsering Topgyal / Associated Press

Brazil

Rousseff says no layoffs after tax cut

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff demanded Friday that the industries benefitting from the recently renewed tax cuts do not fire employees.

The government has lately decided to resume a tax cut on domestic appliances and cars, and the president said she also plans to make cuts in other sectors.

"We give fiscal and financial incentives and we want something in return," she said. "We give incentives because we ensure jobs."

United States

Shooting suspect got psych care

A former University of Colorado graduate student accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 others in a shooting rampage at a Denver-area movie theater last week had been under the care of a psychiatrist who was part of a campus threat-assessment team.

The disclosure came in court documents filed on Friday by lawyers for James Holmes, 24, who is accused of opening fire last Friday on a packed showing of the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

Sergeant on trial for hazing soldier

A Chinese-American soldier in Afghanistan was forced to crawl about 50 yards (meters) as punishment while his superiors yelled and hurled rocks at him hours before he took his own life, a fellow soldier testified on Friday in a court-martial hearing.

Private Danny Chen killed himself by a gunshot in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan last October.

One of his superiors, Sergeant Adam Holcomb, is standing trial in Fort Bragg on allegations his physical mistreatment and racial harassment pushed Chen to commit suicide.

Holcomb, 30, has pleaded not guilty and faces nearly 18 years of confinement and a dishonorable discharge if convicted on charges that include negligent homicide.

Woman who lived with corpse charged

A woman who lived for months with the corpse of a companion was arraigned Friday on charges of cashing his pension and Social Security retirement checks.

Linda Chase, 71, appeared in court three weeks after police found the remains of Charles Zigler in a chair in the living room of their house in Jackson, Michigan.

Chase is not charged with any crimes related to Zigler's death or her failure to report it.

Cayman Islands

Tax on foreign workers eyed

Known as a tax haven for the mega rich around the world, the Cayman Islands is proposing the unthinkable: a direct tax on expatriates to help fix the budget woes of the British territory.

The proposal, called a "community enhancement fee" and unprecedented in the island's history, is effectively a 10-percent payroll tax on all foreign workers earning income over $24,000 in the Cayman Islands.

DPR Congo

UN urged to hunt rebels near border

The Democratic Republic of Congo said on Friday it wanted the mandate of UN peacekeepers strengthened so they could help to eliminate rebel groups in its lawless east, as called for by regional leaders seeking to end the nation's cycles of conflict.

The statement came after Britain joined the United States and the Netherlands as donors that have cut or suspended aid to Rwanda after a UN report said Kigali was backing rebels in fighting that has displaced 470,000 since April.

Rwanda has rejected the report, saying donors were acting on "flimsy evidence".

Thailand

4 soldiers slain by suspected rebels

Four Thai soldiers were shot to death at close range on Saturday in a brazen daylight attack carried out by suspected Muslim insurgents in Thailand's violence-prone south. Two soldiers were wounded.

A surveillance video shows pickup trucks tailing a pair of motorbikes that soldiers were riding as they returned from a military patrol to their base.

As the trucks pulled up alongside the motorbikes, armed men opened fire on the soldiers at close range and shot them dead. They then stole their victims' rifles, which they used to fire at another oncoming security vehicle before fleeing.

Nepal

14 killed by runaway jeep

Officials say a jeep has veered off a highway in Nepal, killing 14 people who were on their way to cremate the body of a relative. Two others were seriously injured.

District officials say the dead included 13 Nepali citizens and their Indian driver. The accident occurred on Saturday in Palpa district, 300 kilometers (185 miles), west of Katmandu, as the group was traveling to a pilgrimage spot to cremate the body.

Syria

'Big blast' rattles Homs overnight

Syria's TV said a big blast rocked central Homs province overnight on Friday. A large number of armed men were killed, and bodies of "terrorists" were piled up to portray them as victims of an army-led attack, the report said.

News Watch

A senior advisor to Iran's supreme leader said on Saturday that the negotiations between Iran and major powers (P5+1) over Teheran's nuclear program will continue until they produce constructive results.

Xinhua - Reuters

(China Daily 07/29/2012 page2)