BBC News with Joe Macintosh
Islamic State fighters are reported to have seized control of the last government held airbase in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights a UK based monitoring group said the fighters were now in full control of the Tabqa airfield.Sebastian Usher reports.
The final battle of the airbase was fierce and lasted several days.The Jihadist fighters reportedly have finally breached the defenses of the base on Sunday storming into and killing the soliders were remained.Casualities have been heavy on both sides,Syrian state media acknowledged the loss, saying the troops had evacuated the airbase.It's the last remaining government outpost in the province around the Islamic State fighters' key stronghold, the city of Raqqa. they celebrated earlier victories of the two other bases by displacing the severed heads of soliders in the middle of the town.
An American journalist kidnapped nearly two years ago has been freed in Syria and handed over to the United Nations.Peter Theo Curtis was reportedly abducted in Turkey in 2012 while preparing to travel to Syria.Rajini Vaidyanathan reports.
Peter Theo Curtis from Massachusetts was held by militants from the al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda which is fighting the Syrian government and is now a rival of Islamic State.In the statement the US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was relieved and grateful.Theo Curtis was coming home but didn't divulge details about the release.He did say the US had worked with more than two dozen countries to get help from anyone who might have the tools or influence to secure his release or that of any American hostages in Syria.
Iranian news reports say an Israeli drone has been shot down near the nuclear site in the towns in central Iran.A statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the drone was downed by anti-aircraft missile before it reached the airspace above the uranium enrichment facility but it didn't say when this took place.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed the outbreak of Ebola in the north of the country.The Congolese Health Minister said two people who died in a fever outbreak in the province of Equateur earlier this month had tested positive for the virus.The World Health Organization had previously said the disease was not Ebola.Julian reports from Kinshasa.
The DR Congo's Health Minister Felix Numbi told the BBC two out of eight samples that were examined over the weekend in a laboratory in the capital Kinshasa tested positive.He said the virus was not likely to have been imported as the people infected have not left their remote village in the Equateur province nor have they been in contact with anyone from west Africa.The Health Minister said one of the two cases identified was a woman whose husband was a bush meat hunter.Hunting bush meat has been identified as a critical factor in the spread of Ebola.
World News from the BBC.
The State of Emergency is enforced north of San Francisco after the strongest earthquake that hit northern California in 25 years caused significant damage.About 90 people were injured in the overnight quake.Emergency services are crackling with damaged buidlings, roads and bridges as well as fires burst water and gas mains.The magnitude six quake struck the Napa wine producing area about 35 kilometers northeast of San Francisco.
Three separate shootings in the American city of Los Angeles have left three people died and two others injured.The shootings all happened within an hour the police said they may be related, a police spokesman said a woman was killed earlier on Sunday morning, she's at 45 minutes later police responded to a call and found a man died at the scene, ten minutes later a third woman was shot in the head and died.
Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have marched dozens of captured Ukrainian soldiers through the streets of their stronghold Donetsk.The incident took place on Ukraine's Independence Day.David Stern reports.
The Separatists forced Ukrainian PRWs through the center of Donetsk point.The prisoners' hands tied behind their backs.The crowd shouted insults of them and call them fascists.The march are violation of conventions governing the treatment of caption combatants was carried out as a counterpoint Ukraine's Independence Day events in Kiev.Hundreds of troops some destined to leave for the front stood at the tension as heavy military hardware drove down the capital's main street.
And a British actor and film director Richard Attenborough has died at the age of 90.He began his career in the theater but soon moved to the films.