1. China to abolish labor camps

2. After months of rumors, China announced Friday it will abolish labor camps in an effort to improve human rights. According to a prominent Beijing lawyer, "There have been many methods used recently by this government that are against the rule of law, and do not respect human rights, or freedom of speech." The abolishment of the so-called "re- education through labor" system under which tens of thousands are imprisoned in China without trial will be a big change. "Reform through labor" was set up in the 1950s. This labor camp system was established to punish early critics of the Communist Party but now is used by local officials to deal with people challenging their authority on issues including land rights and corruption. Millions are believed to have died through overwork, suicide and harsh conditions. According to the latest available figures from the Ministry of Justice, 160,000 people were held in 350 re-education through labor centers nationwide at the end of 2008. The United Nations has said the figure is possibly as high as 190,000 people. As part of the reforms, China said it will reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty.

3. In Other News Radical anti-government fighters in Syria mistakenly beheaded a wounded fellow rebel soldier after assuming he was a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad. An online video showed a gruesome display of radical fighters holding what appeared to be the victim's head. After the beheading earlier this week, the victim was determined to be Mohammed Fares, an anti-government fighter wounded in clashes against the Syrian Army earlier. On Thursday, an online statement from a spokesman for the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), whose fighters apparently carried out the beheading of Fares, called for forgiveness for the killers and asked for "restraint and piety" from anti-government supporters. A massive iceberg that broke off an Antarctic glacier in July is now moving toward the open ocean and could pose a threat to busy shipping lanes. The huge berg is estimated to be about 270 square miles in area, about the size of nation of Singapore or double the size of the city of Atlanta. "An iceberg that size could survive for a year or longer and it could drift a long way north in that time and end up in the vicinity of world shipping lanes in the Southern Ocean," according to Robert Marsh, a scientist at the University of Southampton in England. A pilot's mayday distress call sent rescuers scrambling to an area near Miami on Thursday to search for a passenger who reportedly fell out of a small plane. "He opened the back door and he just fall down the plane," the pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic controllers. The pilot said he was flying at 1,800 feet about two miles from the shore when the man fell on Thursday afternoon. Miami-Dade police spokesman Javier Baez described the search as a recovery mission, saying it was unlikely the man could survive a fall from that height. Authorities did not release the 47-year-old pilot's name or the identity of the man believed to be missing. A police spokeswoman said it was unclear whether the man accidentally fell out of the plane or deliberately jumped.