Lawmakers in Denmark have voted to send a Danish container vessel, a support ship and 200 staff members to an international operation to rid lawless Libya of its chemical weapons arsenal.

In a 99-0 vote with 80 absentees, Denmark's Folketing legislature decided Friday to send the contribution to the UN-backed Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

A firm run by Donald Trump's campaign chairman directly orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's then-ruling political party, attempting to sway American public opinion in favor of the country's pro-Russian government, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.

The lobbying included attempts to gain positive press coverage of Ukrainian officials by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and AP. Another goal: undercutting American public sympathy for the imprisoned rival of Ukraine's then-president. At the time, European and American leaders were pressuring Ukraine to free her.

Syrian opposition activists have released haunting footage showing a young boy rescued from a partially destroyed building in the aftermath of a devastating airstrike in Aleppo.

The image of the stunned and weary-looking boy, sitting in an orange chair inside an ambulance, covered in dust and with blood on his face, encapsulates the horrors inflicted on the war-ravaged northern city. Photographs of the boy were widely shared on social media.

South Sudan's former rebel leader and ex-vice president Riek Machar has escaped to the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo following violent clashes last month, an official said Thursday.

Greece's foreign ministry says it has received an official extradition request from Turkey seeking the return of eight Turkish military personnel who fled to northern Greece by helicopter after an abortive coup in Turkey.

Typewritten notes urging violence against Muslims discovered at an apartment complex in Maine are being investigated as a hate crime, but there is no evidence of an immediate threat to residents' safety, police said.

An Iraqi man went to Westbrook police Wednesday morning and told officers that he had found a piece of paper that said "All Muslims are Terrorists should be Killed," Westbrook Police Chief Janine Roberts said at an afternoon news conference.

Chinese state media say a top military officer visited Syria this week in a show of support for President Bashar Assad's embattled regime.

The official Xinhua News Agency says Rear Adm. Guan Youfei met on Monday with Syrian Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij in Damascus. It said he also met the same day with a Russian general who is coordinating his country's military assistance to Assad's fight against armed opposition groups.

Syria's conflict has caused hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee to Lebanon, putting a huge strain on the Lebanese economy and its already-crumbling infrastructure.

But the five-year Syrian civil war has been a boon for at least one economic sector: the tobacco industry.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has dismissed suggestions that the influx of refugees over the past year has brought Islamic extremism to Germany.

German news agency dpa quotes Merkel as saying that "Islamist terrorism by IS isn't a phenomenon that came to us with the refugees, it's one that we had before too."

Twelve people were killed in a spate of bombings against Turkish security forces blamed on Kurdish rebels who appear to have ramped up their campaign of attacks in the aftermath of the failed coup.