The Islamic State (IS) militants on Sunday released 19 Christian Assyrians they had kidnapped last month, a monitoring group reported.
The 19 people are the first batch of 29 Assyrians the sharia court of the IS exonerated on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, Xinhua reported.
On February 23, the IS abducted 220 Christian Assyrians during an assault it had waged on predominantly Assyrian areas, mainly in the area of Tal Tamr and its countryside in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
The fate of the other abductees is still unknown amid reports that the rest of the Assyrians are awaiting trials in the IS courts.
There is no clear reason why would the IS even put the Assyrians on trial.
Also on Sunday, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV said the Syrian troops captured as many as 33 towns in the eastern countryside of Hasaka after clashes with the IS.
The police in Japan have arrested a man suspected of sedating and raping up to 100 women on the pretext of conducting medical tests on them, while he filmed his misdeeds and posted them on the internet, media reports said Tuesday.
A Brazilian beauty pageant took a bizarre turn when the first runner-up snatched the crown off the winner, and threw it to the ground moments after the result was announced.
Father Davis Chiramel, chairman of the Kidney Federation of India popularly known as "Kidney Father From Kerala", has launched a voluntary charity organisation in Britain to add more organ donors from the South Asian communities, especially Indians.
Shiva Chauhan, 27, went missing after carrying out his regular deliveries May 1 last year with his locked van found next day in Keysborough, a suburb of Melbourne.
The Islamic State (IS) militants claimed in a video to have beheaded a second Japanese hostage, according to media reports Sunday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the purported killing as “a despicable terrorist act”.
