Human Rights Watch (HRW) says ISIL Takfiri terrorists have massacred hundreds of captured Iraqi troops when the militants overran a military base in the north of Baghdad. ● The New York-based group said on Wednesday that the mass killing of 770 soldiers took place at Camp Speicher near the city of Tikrit back in June. The leading international watchdog also says the number of slain Iraqi troops was several times higher than what was initially reported. The HRW also says the new number is based on analysis of new satellite imagery, videos and a survivor’s account. On June 10, the terrorists took hundreds of prisoners from a Mosul prison. They ordered the prisoners to get on their knees and then opened fire, killing up to 670 people on the spot.

Kiev Independence Day Parade Flaunts Artillery and Armor: Russian Roulette

Roman, who introduced himself as a battalion “Aydar” fighter, related that a spotter with Rostov registration was tortured in his battalion. This was reported by the international edition VICE in one of its episodes of the “Russian Roulette” series.

Responding to a reporter's question about what the battalion does with captured Russian soldiers, the alleged “Aydar” fighter related the various torture they would apply, states Korrespondent.

“I saw a spotter ... I’m not afraid to say that, yes, we tortured him. We pinched his nipples with pliers, yet he did not feel any pain. We poked needles under his fingernails, and the whole time he sang “Ridna Mati Moya”. He has a Rostov residence permit”, asserted Roman.

Kiev retracted its earlier statement regarding a “permanent ceasefire” in eastern Ukraine, which followed a phone call between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. The new wording from Poroshenko’s office talks of a ceasefire “regime”. The Russian and Ukrainian languages use the word to mean “mode”, signifying the possibility of a softer, less permanent version of the previous suggestion. Although an earlier corresponding message from Poroshenko’s office initially talked of a “permanent ceasefire”, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov underlined that this wording is not applicable because Russia isn’t a party to the violence.

Photo-journalist Stenin, working in eastern Ukraine for news organization Rossiya Segodnya - formerly agency Ria-Novosti - disappeared on August 5. ● Bewilderment sets in as Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the Russian parliament’s lower house State Duma, muses on why Ukrainian authorities and the West are silent over the disappearance of Russian reporter Andrei Stenin in Ukraine. For they are silent, he told journalists, "ignoring all official inquiries from Russia though there are grounds to believe official Kiev could shed light on the missing reporter's fate," Naryshkin said on Thursday, adding that he was puzzled at lack of interest in the West. Photo-journalist Stenin, working in eastern Ukraine for news organization Rossiya Segodnya - formerly agency Ria-Novosti - disappeared on August 5. There has been no contact with him since. Many international organisations have expressed concern about his fate.

Office of Vladimir Putin: Condolences to family and friends of Andrei Stenin
Stephen Lendman ■ Kiev Fascists Murder Russian Journalist
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Reuters: ISIS Executes American Hostage Steven Sotloff

The British couple who were detained for taking their ill son, Ashya King, from hospital against medical advice has been freed from a Spanish jail. ● Brett and Naghemeh King were released on Tuesday after UK prosecutors withdrew a European arrest warrant and extradition plans. The Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) decision came after over 200,000 people signed a petition demanding the couple must be released and allowed to visit their son in hospital. A Spanish judge ordered the parents' release after the CPS reviewed the case and said, “We consider there is insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction for any criminal offence.” Ashya’s parents were detained after removing their five-year-old son from a hospital in Southampton and taking him to Spain. ● Ashya was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which was successfully removed via surgery last month. In order to prevent the tumor’s return, the child’s parents wanted him to be treated with Proton beam therapy, which is not available in the UK. "Proton beam is so much better in children with brain cancer," King said in a YouTube video, adding, "It zones in on the area whereby normal radiation passes right through his head and comes out the other side, destroys everything in his head."

The Independent: Ashya King's parents released in Spain after Britain drops arrest warrant

Two men convicted of murder in the United States and served 30 years behind bars have been freed after DNA evidence implicated another man. ● Henry McCollum and Leon Brown had been in prison for 30 years in North Carolina since being convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in 1983. Superior Court Judge Douglass Sasser ordered the immediate release of McCollum, 50, and Brown, 46. McCollum had been on death row for decades and his half brother Brown was serving a life sentence. Ken Rose, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, has represented McCollum for 20 years. [He said,] "Henry watched dozens of people be hauled away for execution. He would become so distraught he had to be put in isolation. It's impossible to put into words what these men have been through and how much they have lost." Their convictions were overturned after DNA evidence from a cigarette butt recovered at the crime scene implicated another man with a history of rape and murder. The DNA shows that the real murderer was a 74-year-old man who is currently serving a life sentence for a different murder.