Baghdad (AFP) - Dozens of people were killed and 40 inmates escaped in a bloody prison break north of the Iraqi capital for which the Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsibility on Saturday.

The interior ministry said six guards and 30 detainees were killed Friday while 40 inmates escaped from the police compound prison in Khalis, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Baghdad.

"One of the prisoners seized a weapon from a guard. After killing him, the inmate headed up to the weapons storage and he seized more weapons," spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan told AFP.

"Clashes erupted inside. We lost a first lieutenant and five policemen, forty prisoners fled. Nine of them were held on terror charges and the rest for common crimes," he said.

Maan added that 30 prisoners who had been held on terrorism charges were killed in the clashes.

The Islamic State group gave its own account, in a statement posted on jihadist forums, and claimed that it simultaneously targeted police outside the prison.

"Brothers inside the Khalis prison were able to coordinate with brothers outside the prison," the group said.

"Fifteen IEDs (improvised explosive devices) were detonated against army and police convoys and vehicles around the prison," the statement said.

"Our brothers managed to take control of the weapons storage and attack the apostates, killing many ... Thanks to God, more than 30 knights of the Islamic State were freed," it said.

Iraq has been plagued by several prison breaks over the past two years, including in the early days of a huge June 2014 offensive by IS.

The jihadists freed and recruited hundreds of Sunni inmates, including in the cities of Tikrit and Mosul.

A mass break-out at Abu Ghraib prison in west Baghdad during which more than 500 inmates, including top Islamist militants, escaped in July 2013 is considered to be one of the key moments in the rise of IS.

At least 11 people were killed on Friday in a double suicide attack claimed by IS against a Shiite mosque in Baladruz, east of Khalis in Diyala province, northeast of the capital.

Government and allied forces clawing back territory from the jihadists announced earlier this year that Diyala had been completely liberated but sporadic attacks have continued.

IS also claimed a car bomb targeting Shiite pilgrims in central Baghdad on Saturday in which at least seven people were killed.

Russia, China sign raft of economic deals, including loans

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian and Chinese leaders on Friday signed a plethora of deals in Moscow, including billions in infrastructure loans for Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow this week for talks as well as for the May 9 commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in World War II, an event that most Western leaders stayed away from amid tensions over Ukraine.

Putin and Xi on Friday oversaw the signing of 32 contracts including a 300 billion ruble ($6 billion) loan to build a high-speed railway link.

Russian gas giant Gazprom also signed a memorandum of understanding with China's CNPC to build a gas pipeline to China and sell up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas, but the details have yet to be hammered out.

Putin said after the talks that Russia would welcome the involvement of Chinese companies in tapping the giant Vankor oil and gas fields in eastern Siberia, adding that specifics are being worked out.

Putin and Xi also talked about the Silk Road Economic Belt, an ambitious Beijing project intended to encourage the infrastructure development in formerly Soviet Central Asia.

Moscow in the past had been jealous about China's efforts to increase its sway in the region, but the two leaders seemed to reach common ground on the sensitive issue during Friday's talks in the Kremlin.

They issued a statement saying that while conducting the project, China will coordinate closely the Eurasian Economic Union, an economic alliance that includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

"It means reaching a new level of partnership that envisages common economic space on the entire Eurasian continent," Putin said after the talks.

Xi, in turn, pledged to coordinate the Chinese plans with Russia-led integration efforts to "expand mutual openness and link development strategies."

The Afghan Taliban, condemned for their misogynistic ideology, were surprisingly open with female delegates who attended peace talks in Qatar, pledging support for women's education and their right to work in "male-dominated professions", activists said.

Women were brutally consigned to the shadows during the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan, denied basic human rights and not allowed to leave their homes without a male chaperone.

But three women who were part of a 20-member Afghan delegation that held informal peace talks with insurgent representatives in Qatar last weekend said they were unanticipatedly receptive to their viewpoint.

"Taliban participants reportedly pledged support for women's education up to the university level and vowed to permit women to work outside the home, 'even in male-dominated professions like engineering'," Heather Barr, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher on women's rights in Asia, said in a statement.

"These are rights almost entirely banned under the pre-2001 Taliban government, which basically relegated women to their homes except when under male supervision."

Former MP and women's rights activist Malalai Shinwari, who attended the talks, also said the Taliban representatives voiced support for female lawmakers and for the right of women to choose their own spouse.

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Niloofar Rahmani is the first female fixed-wing aviator in Afghanistan's history and the country …

"They paid close attention when I told them 'you made wearing the burqa compulsory, I used to see the world through small holes in the burqa, through a small window'," Shinwari told AFP this week.

"I even told them the story of a woman in my village whose two sons died -- one fighting for the government and the other for the Taliban. She is devastated after losing her sons," she said.

Shinwari said she went into the meeting expecting the insurgent delegates would not even greet her, but one elderly Taliban member with a wispy white beard walked up to her and said he had tears in his eyes after hearing her speak.

But Shinwari's revelations to the media triggered an avalanche of criticism from other activists who accused the Taliban of phony assurances.

It also remains unclear whether the Taliban members have the wider support of insurgent commanders who have waged a war against US-led forces for nearly 14 years.

Barr also weighed in with scepticism.

"The Taliban often says one thing and does another. During the long conflict with the Afghan government, the Taliban have often attacked girls' schools and teachers, and threatened and killed women's rights activists and women in public life. These attacks continue," she said in her statement.

Shinwari was accompanied by two young Afghan women who serve as defence lawyers for Taliban detainees.

"I told the Taliban representatives: 'You didn't let these two women go to school, but after your regime ended, they completed university, and today they are lawyers defending the Taliban in government prisons'," she said.

Wochit
Liberian 'Overjoyed' With Ebola-Free Declaration

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia is now free of Ebola after going 42 days — twice the maximum incubation period for the deadly disease — without any new cases, the World Health Organization announced Saturday.

While celebrating the milestone, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told The Associated Press the damage wrought by the worst Ebola outbreak in history is "a scar on the conscience of the world."

For some survivors, she said, "the pain and grief will take a generation to heal."

Meanwhile, new cases were reported this week in neighboring Sierra Leone and in Guinea, the other two countries hit hardest by Ebola. Officials said they are cautious about openly celebrating the end of Ebola in Liberia, as the continued presence of the disease in the region means just one sick patient slipping over the border into Liberia could spark a resurgence of cases.

A White House statement congratulated Liberia but urged vigilance to keep Ebola from coming back. "We must not let down our guard until the entire region reaches and stays at zero Ebola cases," the statement said.

On Saturday Sirleaf toured health centers in Monrovia, taking group photos with doctors and nurses. Nearly 200 health workers died fighting Ebola in Liberia.

She lamented the damage done to her country, which was only about a decade removed from a devastating civil conflict when the outbreak struck.

"Young Liberians who only months before strode confidently to school with dreams of a future as an engineer, a teacher or a doctor — all of which Liberia desperately needs — had their lives mercilessly cut short," she told AP earlier at her Monrovia home.

The international response to Ebola has been roundly criticized as too slow and ineffective. While praising the international partners for helping to get Liberia to zero cases, Sirleaf said the fight "got off to slow start."

"Therefore, let today's announcement be a call to arms that we will build a better world for those Ebola could not reach," she said. "It is the least the memories of our dearly departed deserve."




Liberia officially declared Ebola-free

While she's celebrating the news, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said "the pain and grief will take a generation to heal."
Still cautious

TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — Michelle Obama on Saturday invoked the storied history of Tuskegee University as she urged new graduates to soar to their futures, saying the past provides a blueprint for a country still struggling with the "age-old problems" of discrimination and race.

The first lady gave the commencement address at the historically black university in Alabama. Obama described how the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed first African-American pilots of World War II, endured humiliating slights as they shattered racial stereotypes about the capabilities of black men and how the university's students in the 1800's made bricks by hand to construct campus buildings so future generations could study there.

"Generation after generation, students here have shown that same grit, that same resilience to soar past obstacles and outrages -- past the threat of countryside lynchings; past the humiliation of Jim Crow; past the turmoil of the Civil Rights era. And then they went on to become scientists, engineers, nurses and teachers in communities all across the country -- and continued to lift others up along the way," Obama said.

The defining story of Tuskegee is the story of rising hopes and fortunes for all African Americans. And now, graduates, it's your turn to take up that cause," Obama said of the university founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington.

The first lady, taking head on the issue of racial discrimination, mentioned the strife that has occurred in Baltimore and Ferguson — and the slights she and the president have endured — as she addressed the school's 500 mostly African-American graduates.

"The road ahead is not going to be easy. It never is, especially for folks like you and me. Because while we've come so far, the truth is those age-old problems are stubborn, and they haven't fully gone away," Obama said.

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First lady Michelle Obama flips her hair after telling the graduates that they all look amazing just …

The first lady said she and President Barack Obama have dealt with the sting of daily slights through their entire lives. "The people at formal events who assumed you were the help and those that have questioned our intelligence, our honesty and even our love of this country."

She said those little indignities are minimal compared to "nagging worries that you are going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason" or the "agony of sending your kids to schools that may no longer be separate, but are far from equal."

Obama said the frustration is "rooted in decades of structural challenges that have made too many folks feel frustrated and invisible. And those feelings are playing out in communities like Baltimore and Ferguson and so many others across this country." But those frustrations are not an excuse to give in to despair and anger, Obama said.

She said history provides a "blueprint" for moving forward through politics and voting and education.

"Those Airmen, who rose above brutal discrimination, they did it so the world could see just how high black folks could soar. That's the spirit we've got to summon to take on the challenges we face today," Obama said.

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First lady Michelle Obama speaks during the Tuskegee University's spring commencement, Saturday, …

Like the students who made bricks so future generations could attend college, Obama challenged students to do their part, mentoring children, volunteering at food banks and after-school programs and helping others achieve their college dreams.

Obama became the second first lady to visit the private school. Eleanor Roosevelt was the first in 1941, when she flew with a black Army pilot to show support for the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

A crowd of nearly 4,000 heard the first lady's remarks during graduation. Tickets were largely limited to family members of the 500 graduates. Sarah Jordan, 21, had her mortar board emblazoned with "Law School Bound" and decorated in shiny pink and black. The Pasadena native is headed back to California for law school after getting her English degree Saturday.

"This is such a dream come true for me to have her here. She's a role model for everyone," Jordan said. "It means everything especially because I am an aspiring lawyer. I definitely look up to her," Jordan said. Obama is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

The first lady described the anxiety and criticism she initially endured over crafting her role as first lady, and how she learned to put it aside. She said a cable news program once called her "Obama's Baby Mama" and that her self-described primary job as Mom might not be what some want to hear from an Ivy League-educated lawyer.

She urged graduates to likewise put aside negative voices and stay true to themselves and their dreams in deciding their paths.

"No matter what path you choose, I want to make sure that it is you choosing it and not someone else," Obama said.

The Tuskegee speech is one of three commencement addresses Obama will give this spring. The first lady last visited Alabama in March. She accompanied President Obama and their two daughters to Selma for the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

First lady addresses 'age-old problems' of race

Michelle Obama tells Tuskegee graduates she and the president have dealt with slights most of their lives.
Past provides blueprint