Moscow (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday warned against what he called unfounded claims that Syria has chemical weapons, as the United Nations Security Council investigates deadly chlorine gas attacks.

His comments came after Russia on Friday backed the setting up of a UN Security Council panel to identify who is behind the chlorine attacks, which the West blames on the Damascus regime.

Lavrov said the operation to remove chemical weapons from Syria was successful, and that all claims to the contrary should be checked.

"This problem was successfully resolved," he said of Syria's chemical weapons stocks in a statement.

Syria in 2013 had agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal and disable production sites after the United States threatened military action over a sarin attack outside Damascus.

A total of 1,300 metric tonnes of chemical weapons have been removed from Syria, with the majority being destroyed aboard the US Navy ship MV Cape Ray.

"Sometimes publications come out that there could be undeclared chemical weapons in Syria. This is all being checked, here we must avoid unfounded accusations," Lavrov said Sunday.

"We have every basis to consider that Syria will continue cooperating closely."

The United States, Britain and France have repeatedly accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of carrying out chlorine gas attacks with barrel bombs dropped from helicopters.

Russia maintains there is no solid proof that Damascus is behind the attacks.

Russia's top diplomat reiterated Russia's backing for embattled Assad, arguing that the US-led coalition should overcome its "persistent rejection" of cooperation with the Assad regime in the fight with the Islamic State (IS) group.

"We still think this objective is achievable," he said.

Lavrov on Tuesday is set to meet his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir in Moscow to discuss the situation in Syria and Yemen and ways to combat IS.

Lavrov stressed that international powers should unite against IS, calling it a "common enemy."

He referred to a map drawn up by IS showing its plan to control the sites of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia which are sacred to Muslims.

"Members of this terrorist organisation have promised to blow up Muslim sacred sites because they consider them to be a reflection of 'incorrect' Islam. This is a terrible organisation," he said.

BAY CITY, Texas (AP) — For more than 35 years, a Texas man has been in a prison even though an appeals court threw out his conviction on a 1976 murder charge that initially had him on death row.

On Monday, 59-year-old Jerry Hartfield will return to court for a retrial, facing a life sentence if convicted of killing a woman who sold tickets at a Bay City bus station.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers have haggled over who's to blame for decades of inaction and whether Hartfield's right to a speedy trial have been violated. But the trial judge has refused to dismiss Hartfield's indictment and prosecutors recently took the death penalty off the table, citing a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring execution of mentally impaired people.

At a hearing Friday, a psychologist testified Hartfield's IQ is 67, below the threshold of 70 considered mental impairment.

"Regardless of how the time is parsed out, the delay between the initial conviction in 1977 and the trial ... is extraordinary," defense attorney Jay Wooten said in court documents. Potential trial jurors are to arrive Monday for questioning.

Matagorda County District Attorney Steven Reis has said while prosecutors "may be partially responsible" for not retrying Hartfield earlier, the state hasn't acted in bad faith. Hartfield also bears some responsibility for not filing for nearly a quarter-century, Reis said.

"I don't hold no grudge," Hartfield told The Associated Press in 2012 from a Texas prison. "All I want to do is just get things right and get back on with my life again."

Hartfield was 21 in June 1977 when he was convicted of murdering Eunice Lowe, 55, a ticketing agent who was beaten with a pickaxe, stabbed with a glass soda bottle and robbed. She was raped after she was dead. Her car and nearly $3,000 were stolen in the September 1976 attack at the Bay City bus station, about 100 miles southwest of Houston.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Hartfield's capital murder conviction in 1980 because of a jury selection problem and ordered a new trial. Three years later, then-Gov. Mark White commuted Hartfield's sentence to life in prison.

It wasn't until 2006 that an inmate told Hartfield that because of the appellate court reversal, it appeared there was no sentence to commute. With the jailhouse lawyer's assistance, Hartfield, who said he learned to read and write in prison, filed a handwritten court writ demanding retrial or release.

The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected it twice. Hartfield took it to the federal courts where U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes agreed in 2009 there was no conviction.

"Hartfield's position is as straightforward and subtle as a freight train," Hughes said. An appeals court agreed.

State District Judge Craig Estlinbaum, who will oversee the retrial, characterized the case last month as "an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object."

"On one hand, the state's negligence caused a 30-year delay in bringing Hartfield to trial. Nonetheless, Hartfield failed to present a clear, unambiguous demand directly to the trial court for a speedy trial," Estlinbaum said.

In pretrial motions, Hartfield's attorneys contended his defense is compromised because the "two most important pieces of physical evidence" aren't available: the murder weapon can't be found and Lowe's car, returned to relatives, no longer exists.

Plus, Wooten said, many of the more than 125 people on the prosecution's witness list are dead or can't be found.

Hartfield was working construction in the Bay City area at the time of Lowe's death. He was arrested within days in Wichita, Kansas, where he had relatives.

He gave a confession to officers returning him to Texas that defense attorneys want suppressed. Hartfield told the AP the confession was "bogus."

But the Texas Ranger and Bay City police detective who took the confession testified at a hearing Friday that it was by the book and they took him to a hospital afterward so a medical exam could show he hadn't been physically abused.

"I knew this day was coming," retired Detective Sgt. Doug Holland said.

That statement was among the key evidence, along with an unused bus ticket at the crime scene that had carried his fingerprints and testimony from witnesses who said he had talked about needing $3,000.

If convicted again, Hartfield immediately would be eligible for parole under the Texas law at the time of his original trial.

New trial for man jailed 35 years without conviction

Jerry Hartfield remains in a Texas prison decades after his capital murder conviction was overturned.
Prosecution's explanation

Baghdad (AFP) - A major shortage of aid funding for Iraq threatens food assistance relied on by more than two million people, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the country said on Sunday.

The Islamic State jihadist group overran around a third of Iraq last year, sparking a conflict that has displaced millions of people, causing a major humanitarian crisis.

The "food pipeline, which is keeping more than two million people alive, breaks... in October. We've got about eight weeks before it breaks," Lise Grande told AFP in Baghdad.

"The food pipeline right now provides supplemental support to families that are food insecure. So what we would expect to see when that pipeline breaks is that food insecurity... is going to increase, there's no question about this, dramatically," Grande said.

On June 4, the United Nations launched an appeal for half a billion dollars to tackle the spiralling humanitarian crisis in Iraq, where conflict has displaced more than three million people since the start of 2014.

"Of the $500 million that we asked for, more than $100 million has been received to date," and other countries have said that they want to help, said Grande.

"We're confident that tens of millions more dollars will be coming, but by our own calculation, we're still only halfway there," she said.

And $500 million is the absolute bare minimum required: "We presented the most pared to the bone humanitarian appeal that had ever been launched in this region," Grande said.

The lack of funds has already taken a toll on aid programmes, causing 184 of 220 frontline healthcare programmes to be shuttered.

"We estimate that a million people who would have been receiving some kind of support are not going to be because we've had to close these programmes. It's devastating," Grande said.

KTRK – Houston
Multiple adults and children found dead inside NW Harris Co. home

HOUSTON (AP) — A family of six children and two parents were fatally shot in the head at a Houston home by a man with a violent criminal history who had previously been in a contentious relationship with the mother, authorities said Sunday.

David Conley, 48, was charged with capital murder in the deaths. Most of the victims had been handcuffed and some had been shot multiple times, said Sgt. Craig Clopton, the lead investigator for the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

The dead were identified as Dewayne Jackson, 50; his wife, Valerie Jackson, 40; and their children Dewayne, 10; Honesty, 11; Caleb, 9; Trinity, 7; and Jonah, 6. Also killed was a 13-year-old, Nathaniel, who was believed to be Conley's son from the relationship with Valerie Jackson. The sheriff's office had earlier said that there were three adults and five children killed.

"We do not — cannot — fully comprehend the motivation of an individual that would take the lives of so many innocent people. Especially the lives of the young ones," said Chief Deputy Tim Cannon of the sheriff's office. "The killer's motives appear to be related to a dispute with Valerie, who was his former domestic partner."

Conley, who is being held in Harris County Jail, didn't appear at a court hearing Sunday where an arrest affidavit was read. The judge denied him bond. Conley doesn't yet have an attorney.

Authorities were first alerted about a problem at the home when a relative of Valerie Jackson's contacted the sheriff's office to conduct a welfare check.

"Upon arrival, deputies made multiple attempts to establish contact with residents inside the home. No contact was made during the primary attempts to investigate the welfare of those residents," Cannon said.

After authorities learned that Conley, who had once lived in the home, had a warrant for his arrest for an assault charge, the sheriff's office High Risk Operations Unit was called.

View gallery

Harris County Sheriff's Department Sgt. D.J. Hilborn, right, walks away from the scene of a multiple …

"While awaiting response for the (unit), the body of an unidentified child was observed through a window at the residence," he said. "Deputies on scene forced entry into the home and were immediately met with gunfire. The deputies withdrew from the home ... and awaited the arrival of the" unit.

A standoff ensued for several hours between Conley and authorities until Conley surrendered, said Clopton.

Investigators declined to say when on Saturday the victims were shot or if any victims were alive when deputies first tried to enter the home.

Conley told authorities that he discovered on Saturday morning that the locks had been changed at the home after he had moved out. He entered the home through an unlocked window, according to the affidavit.

Court records show Conley's criminal history dates back to at least 1988, with the most recent incident last month, when was charged with assault. In court documents, authorities said Conley had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Valerie Jackson. The attack happened at the home where the bodies were found; documents say the two were dating.

Court documents said Conley pushed Valerie Jackson's head against a refrigerator multiple times after she tried to stop him from disciplining her son with a belt. The case was still pending.

In 2013, he was charged with aggravated assault for threatening Jackson with a knife. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months in the county jail.

In 2000, he was arrested for retaliation, accused of putting a knife to his then-girlfriend, threatening to kill her, her baby and himself. That came after she filed an assault charge against him for cutting her with a knife and punching her in the face. He was sentenced to five years in prison for retaliation. It was unclear if that woman was Valerie Jackson.

Clopton said Valerie Jackson and Conley were in a relationship, which ended, and "then (Dewayne Jackson) began a relationship with Valerie, which led to five children. At some point that relationship ended and the defendant began another relationship with Valerie. At some point that broke down," Clopton said.

Authorities declined to comment on assault charges Conley had faced in the past in connection with his relationship with Valerie Jackson or say what prompted relatives to worry and request that deputies be sent to the home on Saturday.

The area around the home was cordoned off Sunday, with sheriff's deputies coming in and out of the house and the medical examiner's office later removing the bodies.

Neighbor Dalila Mercado said she didn't know the residents of the house well but would occasionally say hello to Valerie Jackson and see her children waiting to catch the school bus.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at www.twitter.com/juanlozano70

By Dana Ford, CNN

Updated 1130 GMT (1830 HKT) August 10, 2015

An estimated 1 million gallons of waste water spilled out of an abandoned mine area in the southern part of the state last week, turning the Animas River orange and prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to tell locals to avoid it.

"This action has been taken due to the serious nature of the incident and to convey the grave concerns that local elected officials have to ensure that all appropriate levels of state and federal resources are brought to bear to assist our community not only in actively managing this tragic incident but also to recover from it," said La Plata County Manager Joe Kerby.

According to the EPA, the spill occurred when one of its teams was using heavy equipment to enter the Gold King Mine, a suspended mine near Durango. Instead of entering the mine and beginning the process of pumping and treating the contaminated water inside as planned, the team accidentally caused it to flow into the nearby Animas River. Before the spill, water carrying "metals pollution" was flowing into a holding area outside the mine.

“It was devastating to see this happen to our community. I was just in the river last weekend and we all love it around here,” said Ryan Urban, who shot this photo in Hermosa. “Whenever there is any type of oil spill or waste in the water, it makes me hurt for the earth.”

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials have been watching for any effects on wildlife since the incident began on Wednesday. They are optimistic that the effects of the spill on terrestrial wildlife will be minimal, the EPA said. Fish are more sensitive to changes in water.

Officials said they believe the spill carried heavy metals, mainly iron, zinc and copper, from the mine into a creek that feeds into the Animas River. From there, the orange water plugged steadily along through the small stretch of winding river in southern Colorado and across the state border to New Mexico where the Animas meets the San Juan River.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez was in Farmington over the weekend to tour the damage.

"The magnitude of it, you can't even describe it," she said, CNN affiliate KRQE reported. "It's like when I flew over the fires, your mind sees something it's not ready or adjusted to see."

The affiliate spoke to Rosemary Hart, who lives on the Animas River. Her family reportedly depends on a well to get water, and the spill has made the water unusable.

"We came out here together, and we looked at the river and we cried," Hart told KRQE.

The EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department said they will test private domestic wells near the Animas to identify metals of concern from the spill.

Tests on public drinking water systems are conducted separately by the state environment department, the agencies said.

CNN's Eli Watkins, Jackie Castillo, Jethro Mullen and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.