Millions of unsuspecting Indian farmers are spraying fake pesticides onto their fields, contaminating soil, cutting crop yields and putting both food security and human health at risk in the country of 1.25 billion people.

The use of spurious pesticides has exacerbated losses in the genetically modified (GM) cotton crop in northern India after an attack by whitefly, a pest, say officials. If unchecked, some of India's roughly $26 billion in annual farm exports could be hit.

Made secretly and given names that sometimes resemble the original, counterfeits account for up to 30 percent of the $4 billion pesticide market, according to a government-endorsed study.

And they are gaining market share in what is the world's No.4 pesticide maker and sixth biggest exporter.

Influential dealers in small towns peddle high-margin fake products to gullible farmers, in turn hurting established firms like Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, DuPont, BASF, PI Industries, Rallis India and Excel Crop Care.

"We are illiterate farmers; we seek advice from the vendor and just spray on the crop," said Harbans Singh, a farmer in Punjab's Bathinda region, whose three-acre (1.2-hectare) GM cotton crop was damaged by whitefly this year.

"It's a double loss when you see the crop wilting away and your money is spent on pesticides that don't work."

The authorities and experts from a number of States are ringing the alarm bells: The United States is being swamped by the legal Prescription Drug Trade, that is drugs and drug-containing medications purchased at pharmacies on prescriptions from doctors (i.e., prescription drug-containing medications - PDCM). A great number of people are involved in this criminal business. According to the management of the country's only specialized task unit that combats violations in the sphere of PDCM, the Drug Diversion Unit of the Police Department in Cincinnati, the illegal sale of prescription drug-containing medications amounts to 30% of all drug trafficking in the United States.

Street sale of these medications is carried out by so-called 'doctor-shoppers" who visit a dozen or more doctors a day in order to get prescriptions for the purchase of such medicines.

Sometimes when visiting a doctor they simply steal prescription forms, and then purchase the drugs at pharmacies in any quantity.

Drug addicts buy 2-3 pills of different PDCM, and prepare a dose for themselves, the efficacy of which is equal to heroin, but costs them no more than 10 US Dollars.

Health workers themselves are also rather active participants in this illegal business. For example, employees of the health care system usually make up one third of those arrested for criminal violations in this sphere by the police of Cincinnati alone. Experts of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators (NADDI) conclude that if there are so many health workers arrested for PDCM violations in Cincinnati, the severity of the problem in other cities, where there are no specialized units to combat this type of crime, can hardly be imagined. However, despite the scale of the disaster becoming an epidemic, according to experts of the NADDI, the Heads of State Police Departments use only a minor part of their capabilities to tackle it and focus the efforts of their staff primarily on combating the illegal street trade of heroin and cocaine, pushing back PDCM to second place.

A Palestinian poet has been sentenced to death by a Saudi Arabian court for allegedly abandoning his Muslim faith, Human Rights Watch reports. The death sentence comes after an initial 2014 verdict that sentenced the poet to four years in prison and 800 lashes.

Poet Ashraf Fayadh was detained in Abha, southwest Saudi Arabia, in 2013 due to allegations by a prosecution witness, who claimed he heard Fayadh cursing God, the Prophet Mohammed and Saudi Arabia. Also, the prosecution alleged offenses based on a book of poems Fayadh had written several years prior to that.

The poet's friends, however, believe he was being punished for posting a video showing Saudi Arabia's religious police (mutaween) lashing a man in public.

"They accused me [of] atheism and spreading some destructive thoughts into society," Fayadh told The Guardian. The book, "Instructions Within," published in 2008, was "just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee ... about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God."

Human Rights Watch's Middle East researcher Adam Coogle, who says he has seen the trial documents, confirmed Friday that the death sentence handed down to Fayadh, a Palestinian national, was on charges of "apostasy."

Sixteen underground workers managed to escape, say Chinese authorities, in disaster at Jixi, near border with Russia

A fire at a coalmine in China's north-eastern province of Heilongjiang killed more than 20 people, state media reported on Saturday.

The fire broke out late on Friday evening at a mine in Jixi city operated by the state-owned Heilongjiang Longmay Mining Holding Group, said Xinhua.

Rescue workers found the bodies of 21 miners and were searching for one more. Sixteen others had managed to escape when the fire broke out.

Jixi city is close to the border with Russia.

China - the world's largest producer of coal - is grappling to improve standards in the poorly regulated sector where profits are often put above worker safety. Accidents in Chinese coal mines killed 931 people in 2014, a top work safety official said in March.

In July rescuers pulled six men from a flooded coal mine in Heilongjiang after they survived a week underground following an accident that killed at least four others, according to state media.

Police chiefs have issued an unreserved apology to seven women who were tricked into having long-term relationships with men who were later exposed as undercover police officers deployed to spy on protest groups.

The apology, issued on Friday, comes four years after the women began legal action against the Metropolitan police for causing emotional trauma. The police have also paid financial compensation to the women, some of whom were in relationships with undercover officers for up to nine years. The statement issued is part of an out-of-court settlement.

"Thanks in large part to the courage and tenacity of these women in bringing these matters to light, it has become apparent that some officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong," said Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt.

"I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women's human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma. I unreservedly apologize on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service. I am aware that money alone cannot compensate the loss of time, their hurt or the feelings of abuse caused by these relationships."

In response to the apology, the women said they are "pleased" with the outcome. "Although no amount of 'sorry' or financial compensation can make up for what we and others have endured, we are pleased the police have been forced to acknowledge the abusive nature of these relationships and that they should never happen," they said in a statement. "By linking our cases together we have been able to evidence a clear pattern of abusive, discriminatory behavior towards women which amounts to institutional sexism by the Metropolitan Police."

Republican Rep. Steve Russell of Oklahoma laid into his party for its stance on Syrian refugees, saying that turning away people seeking solace from violent terrorist groups hands victory to Islamic State jihadists.

Russell, a combat veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and 21-year career soldier with the Army, spoke Wednesday to Congress and decried anti-refugee rhetoric and moves by mostly-conservative state governors to bar fleeing migrants from settling in their states. "While I have tried to focus my comments on actions that we should take to eliminate ISIS, one action we should not take is to become like them. America is a lamp that lights the horizon of civilized and free mankind," he said on the House floor.

"The Statue of Liberty cannot have a stiff arm. Her arm must continue to keep the torch burning brightly," Russell continued. "If we use our passions, anger, and fear to snuff out her flame by xenophobic and knee-jerk policy, the enemy wins. We have played into their hands, period."

Russell also pointed out there is a multi-layer system in place for vetting refugees, and also noted that only 1,900 Syrian refugees have come to the United States in the last four years, most of whom are women and children. He then illustrated the similarity between many conservatives' current stance on refugees and the views held during World War II about people fleeing the Nazis in Europe.

Since Ukraine failed to guarantee security humanitarian aid was delivered to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic from Russian territory, Bundestag lawmaker Wolfgang Gerke said.

Representatives of the German Parliament had to deliver humanitarian aid to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic from Russia because Ukraine failed to guarantee safety and security, German lawmaker Wolfgang Gerke told journalists in Donetsk of Friday.

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to send a puppy to their French counterparts to replace Diesel the police dog that was killed during a police raid in Paris on Wednesday.

Diesel, a 7-year-old Belgian Malinois, was a member of a French anti-terrorist police unit. The dog bravely died when the French Special Forces raided an apartment building in Saint-Denis.

To support the French policemen, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to send them a little German Shepherd puppy, named Dobrynya [after one of the most popular folk heroes in Russian culture], Elena Alekseeva, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, said on Instagram.

Rhode Island Republican lawmaker has gone one step closer to the Third Reich's "Final Solution" by saying Syrian refugees should be rounded up and placed in a concentration camp. State Sen. Elaine Morgan (R) made the comment in a Tuesday email to a member of the public, which she accidentally CC'ed to other lawmakers, WPRI reports.

"If we need to take these people in we should set up [a] refugee camp to keep them segregated from our populous." Morgan wrote in the email. "I think the protection of our US citizens and the United States of America should be the most important issue here."


Morgan also launched into a bigoted attack on Muslim people by lumping the entire religious community together with Islamic State terrorists. "The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim," she wrote, also stating, "I do not want our governor bringing in any Syrian refugees. I think our country is under attack. I think this is a major plan by these countries to spread out their people to attack all non Muslim persons."

Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King warned on Thursday that America was committing "cultural suicide" if it allowed Syrian refugees into the country following last week's attacks in Paris.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the refugee crisis, King grilled U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez about why refugees were asked about their religion only in cases of religious persecution. "Have you ever seen a suicidal terrorist that was not a Muslim?" King asked, leaving Rodriguez speechless.

"I'm not even sure how to answer that question," the director replied. "What I can say is that we do our job, and if terrorists are attempting to gain admission to the United States, then we do our job to prevent them."

"You're telling me you're doing a thorough vetting process but you're not able to tell me that you ask them what their religion is," King interrupted, pointing to a Daily Mail report which claimed that nearly 70 people — including refugees — had been arrested in the U.S. over ISIS plots.