1. 50 killed in attack on AU base

    At least 50 African Union soldiers are believed to have been killed and another 50 are missing after Shebab militants overran* a military camp in southern Somalia on September 1, according to Western military officials.

    Somalia’s al-Qaida affiliate, which has recently lost a string of key bases in the face of an AMISOM offensive, said the attack was revenge for the killing of seven civilians by Ugandan troops at a wedding in the town of Merka in July.

    2. Guatemalan president resigns

    Guatemalan President Otto Perez resigned in the face of* a corruption scandal that has brought his government to the brink, a spokesman said on September 3.

    Spokesman Jorge Ortega said Perez submitted his resignation at midnight September 2 local time after a judge issued an order to detain* him in the customs fraud case, which already has led to the jailing of his vice president.

    His resignation, the first by a Guatemalan president, is not effective until Congress accepts it and names a new president.

    3. Titanic’s lunch menu to be auctioned

    An original menu from the last lunch aboard the Titanic in April 1912 will soon be put up for auction* and is estimated to sell for US$50,000 to US$70,000.

    A wealthy passenger brought the menu with him aboard Lifeboat No. 1, better known as “The Millionaire’s Boat” or “The Money Boat,” according to New York’s Lion Heart Autographs, the auction company.

    The menu was saved by Abraham Lincoln Salomon, a wealthy New York City businessman. The paper is signed in pencil on the back by another First Class passenger, New Yorker Isaac Gerald Frauenthal, who likely ate lunch with Salomon earlier that day, the auction company said.

    4. Artist commemorates drowned boy

    Slumped* in the sand just like the real body of the young boy it depicts, the sculpture is one of thousands of emotional responses that have poured out across the globe to the shocking images of dead Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi.

    Indian artist Sudarsan Pattnaik created the sand sculpture of the 3-year-old at Puri beach, 65 kilometers from Bhubaneswar in eastern India.

    Aylan was found lying face down in the sand of Turkey’s Bodrum Beach after he drowned alongside his mother Rehan, 35, and brother Galip, 5.

    The desperate family — who fled the IS-besieged Syrian city of Kobane — were on an overcrowded dinghy* bound for the Greek island of Kos when it capsized. The boy’s father Abdullah survived.

    5. Austria, Germany accept migrants

    Austria and Germany threw open their borders on Saturday to thousands of exhausted migrants from the east, bussed to the frontier by the Hungarian Government that had tried to stop them.

    The last train carrying an estimated 1,000 refugees pulled into Munich from Austria at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, bringing the total to have arrived in the Bavarian capital since Saturday to about 8,000.

    6. India jails 3 for rape of Japanese student

    An Indian court convicted* three men on September 4 for the February rape of a Japanese student who was sightseeing and sentenced them each to 20 years in prison, the public prosecutor said.

    The 20-year-old woman told police that one of those convicted, Ajit Singh Choudhary, met her outside her hotel in Jaipur and offered to show her around on his motorbike. He later drugged her and raped her in a secluded area of the historic city.

    The court in the Rajasthani capital convicted three of the nine defendants of gang rape, while another three were convicted of harboring an offender and sentenced to two years in prison.(SD-Agencies)