TV News LIES

Clashes with Islamic State militants killed a senior Kurdish military commander and eight of his fighters just outside the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday, officials said.

Attacks elsewhere killed 27 people, with twin bombs hitting a crowded market in Baghdad and a suicide bomber targeting pro-government Shiite militiamen who were manning a checkpoint outside a city north of the Iraqi capital.

Apartheid-era death-squad leader Eugene de Kock, dubbed “Prime Evil” for his role in the torture and murder of black South African activists in the 1980s and early 1990s, was granted parole on Friday after 20 years in prison.

"In the interest of nation-building and reconciliation I have decided to place Mr. De Kock on parole," Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha told a news briefing, adding that the date and location of De Kock’s release would be kept secret.

An explosion ripped through a Shia mosque in Pakistan on Friday, just as worshippers were gathering for prayers. The blast killed 35 people and wounded dozens more, underscoring a growing tide of sectarian violence in the South Asian nation.

Attacks against religious minorities have been on the rise in Pakistan, where armed Sunni armed groups often target mosques frequented by Shia, whom the groups do not consider to be true Muslims.

A suicide bomb attack on a funeral in east Afghanistan killed 16 people and injured another 39 on Thursday, a local official said, an unusually high death toll for a single bombing in a country ravaged by decades of war.

Separately, Taliban militants attacked a checkpoint operated by a group of armed villagers late on Wednesday evening, killing 11 people, according to another official. Seven militants were also killed during the attack, he added.

The Scottish government will take a cautious look at shale oil and gas extraction during a moratorium period, the energy minister said Thursday.

"I am announcing a moratorium on the granting of planning consents for all unconventional oil and gas developments, including fracking," Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said in a statement.

A powerful gas tank truck explosion shattered a maternity and children's hospital in Mexico City on Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring dozens.

Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told Milenio television that three were killed, a woman and two men.

He earlier told the Televisa network that at least 54 people were injured, 22 of them children. Most of the injuries were relatively minor, he said, many caused by flying glass.