Syrian officials supplied the evidence, which Mr Lavrov has not yet seen.

A UN report released on Monday concluded the nerve agent sarin was used in the attack in Damascus, in which hundreds were killed.

The US blamed government forces for the attack, but Russia and Damascus have insisted that rebels were responsible.

The UN report did not apportion blame for the attack, which sparked diplomacy that culminated in a deal for Syria to hand over its chemical arsenal by mid-2014.

The report's author, Ake Sellstrom, told the BBC he believed that the task of finding and destroying Syria's chemical stockpile would be "stressful work", but was "doable".

He said much depended on whether the Syrian government and the opposition were willing to negotiate.

The disarmament deal was brokered by the US and Russia.

The penalty for any possible breaches by Syria are now being thrashed out by the UN Security Council permanent members.

Mr Lavrov said there was plenty of evidence that pointed to rebel involvement in chemical attacks similar to the Damascus attack.

"We will have to find out who did it," he said.

Earlier Mr Lavrov's deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said he had been given the evidence during a trip to Syria.

He said it needed to be analysed, and gave no details of its content.

Mr Ryabkov criticised the UN report, saying it was "distorted" and "one-sided".

"The basis of information upon which it is built is not sufficient, and in any case we would need to learn and know more on what happened beyond and above that incident of 21 August," he said.

"We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the UN secretariat and the UN inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely."

In response to Mr Ryabkov's comments, Mr Sellstrom told the BBC he thought Russia was not criticising the report itself but the process, which he described a political matter and therefore not his remit

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius defended the UN report, saying he was surprised by the Russian reaction.

"Nobody can question the objectivity of the people appointed by the UN," he said.

Human Rights Watch has taken the trajectory of the rockets from the UN document and plotted their likely path.

The rights group said the likely launch site for the missiles was in a government military compound.

The UN inspectors were originally mandated to go to Syria to investigate three alleged chemical weapons attacks, at Khan al-Assal, Sheikh Maqsoud and Saraqeb.

But they were later ordered to shift their focus to the Damascus incident, which was the most deadly chemical assault.

They are due to return to Syria "within weeks" to complete their inquiry into the other attacks, and a report is due in October.

On Tuesday the five permanent UN Security Council members met in New York to discuss a draft resolution put forward by the UK, France and the US.

They want a resolution containing the threat of military action against Syria if it fails to comply with the disarmament deal, but Russia opposes this.

A resolution under Chapter VII of the UN charter permits military action if other measures do not succeed. Chapter VI requires a purely negotiated solution.

The BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow says Russia has delivered a promise from Syria to give up its chemical weapons, and it seems that at this stage Moscow does not feel like giving the Western allies anything more.

Russia and China have three times blocked Western-backed Security Council resolutions against Mr Assad.

More than 100,000 people have died since the uprising against President Assad began in 2011.

Millions of Syrians have fled the country and millions more have been internally displaced.

The release of Grand Theft Auto V yesterday brought to the forefront an apocalyptic scenario. The end-times theme isn’t part of the blockbuster video game’s setting, a fictionalized Los Angeles that’s havoc-filled but otherwise enduring. The apocalypse is part of the non-pixelated reality for gamers living through the final weeks in the eight-year reign of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Later this year, next-generation technology from the two major gaming powers will hit the market and render obsolete the current console, which will be banished en masse to dusty closets and the cluttered shelves of GameStop (GME) outlets. Grand Theft Auto V will likewise become an outmoded relic: Neither the Xbox One nor the PlayStation 4 will be able to run games made for older consoles (at first, anyway).

Rockstar Games (TTWO) reportedly spent $115 million developing Grand Theft Auto V and $150 million on marketing—and the game is expected to make almost six times that much in sales over the course of the first year. So maybe a relatively short shelf life doesn’t matter much. Still, it seems strange to develop the most expensive video game ever for machines that will soon take a major step toward irrelevance.

In part, the decision to build for the old consoles is driven by the fact that game developers have gotten really good at it. Aaron Garbut, the art director at Rockstar North, told BuzzFeed that the studio is just hitting its stride when it comes to using the capabilities of the current consoles to do things like replicate convincing-looking daylight. Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games, told Famitsumagazine that the best games for a console always come out at the moment before it’s overtaken by newer machines:

This seems especially plausible given that Grand Theft Auto V has a rating of 98 out of 100 on the game-rating site Metacritic. While the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be more powerful and include features unavailable on their predecessors, there will also be a learning curve that could go on for several years.

The market for gaming consoles is also relatively friendly to developers who don’t immediately move to the hot new thing. About 150 million current versions of the Xbox and PlayStations have been sold worldwide, and even the most optimistic sales forecasts for the upcoming consoles put them nowhere near those numbers for quite some time. Nor will Microsoft (MSFT) or Sony (SNE) stop selling their old gear. It could be as late as 2015 before annual sales of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 surpass sales of their lower-priced predecessors, according to
Gartner (IT) analyst Brian Blau.

For the next several years, developers will continue to serve two sets of gamers. “I would expect that we would get one more year out of parallel development, where you will see parallel titles, but after a while the developers will start to see diminishing returns,” Blau says. “I think it’s going to take some time.”

It will take three to four years before the current consoles really become obsolete if the patterns of past cycles continue, and by then sales of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will likely be slowing down as consumers anticipate the next generation of consoles down the line. That will be just about the time when developers finally start cranking out games that take advantage of the aging technology.

The South American nation has suggested forcing internet firms to open data centres in Brazil, which would be used to store locally generated material.

It is also pursuing a plan to build a new internet cable.

The project would offer a way for data to bypass the US.

Brazil's President, Dilma Rousseff, has postponed a state visit to Washington after allegations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had targeted her emails and phone calls.

It has also been alleged that the NSA hacked state-run oil company Petrobras and intercepted billions of emails and calls to Brazilians.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has previously defended the NSA's actions, saying they were necessary to combat terrorism.

"Brazil and other countries will understand exactly what we are doing, why and how - and we will work together to make sure that whatever is done is done in a way that respects our friends and our partners," he said last month on a visit to the country.

Brazil's IT policy secretary Virgilio Almeida has suggested that internet firms would have to operate data centres in the country, which would make them subject to local privacy laws.

In addition, he said, the government might move to ensure that its own data about tax information and other sensitive subjects would be stored locally rather than in the cloud.

Last week a Brazilian official specifically named Facebook, Google and Microsoft as examples of companies that would have to change their practices, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.

The three companies are among those that have acknowledged handing over data about "national security matters" after legally binding requests from the US authorities.

However, there is no suggestion that Brazilians would be barred from using US-based storage services.

Brazil is also backing a separate plan to create the Brics Cable.

This would see a fibre-optic link run from the Brazilian city of Fortaleza to Vladivostok, Russia. The link would pass through Africa and Asia and connect with cables running to mainland Europe and the Middle East.

There would also be a link between Fortaleza and Miami, but it would mean data would not need to go through Florida before travelling elsewhere.

At present the vast majority of Central and South America's internet data is routed through a single building in Miami known as the Network Access Point.

According to documents leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the NSA and its UK counterpart GCHQ have used cable taps to collect "vast amounts" of data passing though their countries, which are then analysed using encryption-cracking tools.

The Brics Cable's organisers hope to have their 34,000km (21,000 miles) link ready to use by the end of 2015.

Brazil's telecom firm Telebras is also planning to launch the country's first communications satellite in 2016. Its military currently relies on a system run by Mexico's Embratel.

In addition the country's postal service has announced plans to create an encrypted email service to offer the public an alternative to Gmail, Yahoo email or Outlook.com.

One expert warned that such measures would give Brazil only a limited degree of protection from the NSA.

"They are a step towards getting out the very strong control the US has over the internet infrastructure," said Dr Joss Wright, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Oxford's Internet Institute.

"But if you send an email from your encrypted Brazilian provider to somebody else who has a Gmail account then Google is getting to read the thread of information anyway.

"Regarding the new cables, you can't say, 'My data should go from here to here across this particular path.'

"It's calculated on a very ad-hoc basis where it is going to go... which means you can't guarantee that just because there is a new high-capacity cable running from Brazil to Russia that all the data will go through it rather than an alternative."

He added that taking steps to make firms subject to local data protection laws might also be easier said than done.

"Look at the EU - it already has very strict rules about sharing and processing data and the general rule is that you can only share data if you share it with a country that has equivalently strong protection laws," he told the BBC.

"However, the US being the US has a get-out-of-jail-free card with what are called the 'safe harbour provisions'.

"They are an industry self-regulatory agreement which says they will treat data according to EU standards. But there is no oversight, there's no comeback if they do not live up to them."

The eight women and three men are said to also include the reformist politician Mohsen Aminzadeh.

Ms Sotoudeh was arrested in 2010 and jailed for six years on charges of acting against national security.

The release of the political prisoners comes just days before Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani visits New York for the UN General Assembly.

In his election campaign, he promised to free political prisoners.

Ms Sotoudeh's husband Reza Khandan wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday, "Nasrin came... they told her you are free," Reuters reported.

Mr Khandan has not commented further.

Ms Sotoudeh is a well-respected and outspoken human rights lawyer known for taking on high-profile political cases.

Last year she held a 50-day hunger strike in protest at the authorities' treatment of her daughter who was subjected to a travel ban.

Aaron Alexis, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas, died in a gun battle with police during the rampage at Washington Navy Yard.

Eight others were injured in the attack, which began at around 8:20 local time (12:20 GMT) on Monday.

US President Barack Obama ordered flags be lowered to half mast at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

He said he mourned "yet another mass shooting" and condemned the "cowardly act".

No motive is known for the attack, whose dozen victims ranged in age from 46 to 73, said the authorities.

Police initially responded to reports of two other armed suspects, but after exhaustive searches Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said on Monday night they were all but certain that Alexis was the only gunman.

Witnesses said the suspect sprayed bullets in a hallway and fired from a balcony down on to workers in an atrium at the heavily secured installation in the US capital.

He was reportedly armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and a handgun that he took from a police officer at the scene.

Chief Lanier told reporters that the attacker "was engaged in shooting with police officers" when he died. "There is no question he would have kept shooting," she added.

Valerie Parlave of the FBI said that the suspect, who was employed by a subcontractor that was working on a US Navy intranet network, had a valid pass to enter Washington Navy Yard.

Alexis was formerly a petty officer 3rd class who served full-time in the naval reserve from 2007-11, said the US Navy.

It was not immediately clear why he left the military, but unnamed military officers told US media there had been a series of misconduct issues during his service.

According to media reports, Alexis was a Buddhist convert who had had two previous gun-related brushes with the law.

In 2004 he was arrested in Seattle for shooting a construction worker's car tyres, in what he described as an enraged "black-out".

And he was questioned by Fort Worth police in 2010 after firing his gun through the floor of an upstairs apartment. He said it was an accidental discharge.

In addition to those killed in Monday's rampage, one police officer was shot in the legs, a female civilian was shot in the head and hand, and another woman was treated for a shoulder wound.

All three were expected to recover, said Washington Hospital Center officials.

Five others required medical treatment, mostly for minor injuries, said Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray.

As news of the shooting emerged, emergency vehicles and police surrounded the complex, while helicopters hovered overhead.

The US Senate buildings and six nearby schools were temporarily placed on lockdown as a precaution, while flight departures were briefly suspended at Reagan National Airport.

Patricia Ward, who works at Washington Navy Yard, said she had heard three shots, a pause, and then four more.

"Everybody was panicking and trying to decide which way to get out," she told reporters.

The Washington Nationals baseball team called off their game against the Atlanta Braves on Monday night at Nationals Park, not far from Navy Yard.

Monday's mass shooting occurred at a building that serves as the headquarters for the Naval Sea Systems Command, which builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy.

Washington Navy Yard is the US Navy's oldest shore installation, first opened in the early 19th Century, according to the Navy.

They said that the unprecedented salvage effort "reached degree zero [vertical], which was our target".

In the operation that took all of Monday and most of the night, they used cables and metal boxes filled with water to roll the ship onto a platform.

The Costa Concordia capsized in January 2012, killing 32 people.

The bodies of two of the victims of the disaster, by the island of Giglio, have never been found. There are hopes that they may be located during the operation.

The ship was declared completely upright shortly after 04:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's Civil Protection Authority, said the vessel was now sitting on a platform built on the sea bed.

"A perfect operation, I must say," said Franco Porcellacchia, leader of the technical team for Costa Cruise, the owner of the ship.

He added that no environmental spill was detected so far.

"I think the whole team is proud of what they achieved because a lot of people didn't think it could be done," said salvage master Nick Sloane - but he added "it's not over yet".

When the vessel was finally righted in the early hours of Tuesday morning, there was a giant cheer from people gathered at Giglio harbour, says the BBC's Matthew Price, and rescue workers have been out celebrating with coffees.

As daylight broke, the now-upright, brown hulk of the ship was visible - its hull muddy and crushed from 20 months spent submerged on its side.

The man, Ji Zhongxing, said he had been paralysed after being beaten by security agents in China in 2005.

No one was killed in the blast, although Mr Ji suffered injuries and was taken to hospital.

If found guilty, he could face three to 10 years in jail for endangering public safety, state media report.

Photos in state media showed Mr Ji giving evidence from a hospital bed to the court.

According to the verified microblog feed of the Beijing court, Mr Ji said he did not deliberately detonate the home-made device and that he regretted his actions.

His lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said that Mr Ji "took out the explosives at the airport to raise awareness about his plight", and "detonated the explosives by mistake" when he was putting them down.

"This is a case of an explosion caused by negligence," he wrote on his microblog.

Prosecutors said that Mr Ji had endangered public safety and should be held criminally responsible for the explosion, news agency China News Service reported.

The 34-year-old from central Shandong province had been petitioning the authorities over his lower limb paralysis, which he said was caused by a beating from several security officers in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province, in 2005.

Mr Ji was also apparently dissatisfied with the way his complaints against the authorities had been dealt with.

His case drew widespread sympathy from the Chinese public, the BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing reports.

While an extreme example, it exposed the immense frustrations many feel in China when trying to seek justice, our correspondent adds.

There were reports of petitioners gathering outside the court, expressing support for Mr Ji and asking for their grievances to be considered.

There was also considerable sympathy for Mr Ji on China's microblogs.

Sina Weibo user nymfj wrote: "I hope he is pardoned", while user Let Go of Your Arrogance asked: "Has anyone investigated the case where Ji Zhongxing was beaten?"

Sina Weibo user Old Yip's Comments wrote: "Ji Zhongxing is a man pushed to the brink by Chinese society. From media reports, you can see that he did not want to harm anyone with his 'explosion', he only wanted to gain attention for his plight. I recommend he is given a reprieve. At the same time, the Guangdong government must give him compensation, and support him for the rest of his life."

However, some users argued that Mr Ji should be punished.

"These cases show that terrorism must be opposed everywhere... it must all be dealt with in accordance to the law," user Zhang Yiwu wrote.