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Israel shells UN-run school in Gaza; Palestinian toll tops 770
Taiwan plane crash: Inquiry launched
Russia will comply
with MH17 probe
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Ukrainian PM resigns
ISIS jihadists order genital mutilation
of Iraqi women
Attack on prisoner convoy in Iraq kills 60
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Israel shells UN-run school in Gaza; Palestinian toll tops 770
Gaza/Jerusalem, July 24 Israeli tanks shells hit a compound housing a UN school in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 persons and wounding 200 others, the Gaza Health Ministry today said on the 17th day of the war. Reports said pools of blood stained the school courtyard and the desks. Books and belongings were scattered and there was a large scorch mark on the premises marking the place where one of the shells hit. The attack came amidst heavy fighting throughout the coastal territory between Israeli forces and Hamas militants. “Many have been killed — including women and children, as well as UN staff,” Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. Ban said he was “appalled” by the news and “strongly condemned” the attack on the school in Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip. Israel focused its attacks on southeast of Gaza, with residents fleeing areas which came under heavy bombing. More than 70 persons were killed in Gaza today, taking the overall Palestinian toll to over 770 since Israel launched its military offensive "Operation Protective Edge" on July 8. In another tragic incident, seven Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli air strikes and tank fire in a flashpoint area near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. The latest casualties included a family of six with two young children. Israeli forces have destroyed at least 475 houses while 2,644 have been partially damaged. Some 46 schools, 56 mosques and seven hospitals had also suffered varying degrees of destruction, Palestinian officials said. Thirty two Israeli soldiers, two civilians and a Thai worker in Israel have also been killed in the conflict. As the death toll mounted, UN Human Rights Council yesterday ordered a probe into Israel's offensive on Gaza. India along with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa voted in favour of the Palestinian-drafted resolution on "Ensuring Respect for international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem". — PTI
Kerry reaches out to Hamas’ allies
Cairo: US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on Thursday to his counterparts in Qatar and Turkey, which support the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as he pressed for a Gaza ceasefire. Kerry — who is in Egypt, which has drafted a truce proposal for the Israel-Hamas conflict - spoke by phone with the foreign ministers of Qatar and Turkey, a US official said. US President Barack Obama also called John Kerry to take stock of the efforts to halt the bitter fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant group
Hamas.
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Taiwan plane crash: Inquiry launched
Taipei, July 24 The plane, a 70-seat ATR 72, crashed on Wednesday evening near the runway while trying to land on the small island of Penghu, west of a Taiwan island, after a typhoon had passed earlier in the day. The aircraft had 54 passengers and four crew members on board. The leaders of rivals China and Taiwan both offered their condolences over the deaths. Taiwan's civil aviation authorities said the weather had been suitable for flying. "There were nine flights on the same route between 2 pm and 7 pm yesterday. Only the TransAsia flight crashed," said Jean Shen, director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Black boxes recovered Rescuers said they had recovered black boxes from the Taiwanese aircraft.
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Russia will comply with MH17 probe
Kuala Lumpur, July 24 Liudmila Vorobyeva also rejected suggestions that the pro-Russian separatists blamed by Western governments for shooting down the MH17 flight possessed a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile, and said the rebels lacked the training to use such a system. ] Nearly 300 people, 193 of them Dutch citizens, were killed when the Malaysia Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was brought down in eastern Ukraine, where separatists are battling government forces, on July 17. The norm under rules set down by the United Nation's civil aviation body (ICAO) is that an air investigation is led by the state in whose territory the plane crash, but Russia had said that Ukraine should not take charge because the rebels who control the crash site did not trust the authorities in Kiev. "We want an international investigation led by the ICAO. Any country part of the ICAO may take part. Netherlands has the right to lead this," the ambassador told Reuters in an interview in Kuala Lumpur. "We are members of the ICAO, we will cooperate with the investigation."Vorobyeva said Russian experts were already participating in the investigation, although she did not say what role they were playing. — Reuters
Putin responsible for MH17 downing: US
Cairo: The US has intensified its attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin, holding him responsible for the tragic downing of a Malaysian plane by a missile over a part of Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists. State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said, "And responsibility lays at the feet of President Putin, not just for this but for every incident that we have seen throughout this conflict." More bodies return to Netherlands Netherlands: Dozens more bodies from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are set to arrive in the Netherlands on Thursday, as the EU prepares to hit Russia with fresh sanctions. Foreign ministers from the 28-nation bloc said they would draw up a new list of Russian individuals and entities to be slapped with sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.
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Ukrainian PM resigns
Kiev, July 24 He said Parliament could no longer do its work and pass necessary laws. The nationalist Svoboda party and the Udar party led by former boxer Vitali Klitschko pulled out of the group of legislators that took over after former President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted by protesters seeking closer ties with the European Union. Meanwhile, Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov announced the formal dissolution of the European Choice coalition in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada in a move that gives President Petro Poroshenko the right over the next month to announce a fresh parliamentary poll. — Agencies |
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ISIS jihadists order genital mutilation of Iraqi women
Geneva, July 24 The UN's second most senior official in Iraq, Jacqueline Badcock, said, “It is a fatwa (or religious edict) from the ISIS, we learnt about it this morning. We have no precise numbers." The Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), took over large swathes of the country last month and has begun imposing its extreme Salafist interpretation of Islam. Badcock said that if you took UN population figures as a guide, around "four million girls and women could be affected". Female genital mutilation is unusual in Iraq and is only practised in "certain isolated pockets of the country", she added. She said only 20 families from the ancient Christian minority now remain in Mosul, the northern Iraq city which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has taken as the capital of its Islamic state. Most have reportedly fled north into Kurdish-controlled territory. Badcock said some Christians had converted to Islam, while others have opted to stay and pay the jiyza, the tax imposed on non-Muslim's by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. — AFP Fatwa from ISIS
* Female genital mutilation could affect up to four million women and girls in the war-ravaged country * The UN's second most senior official in Iraq, Jacqueline
Badcock, said, "It is a fatwa (or religious edict) from the ISIS, we learnt about it this morning. We have no precise numbers. * Female genital mutilation is unusual in Iraq and is only practised in "certain isolated
pockets of the country", she added. |
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Attack on prisoner convoy in Iraq kills 60
Baghdad, July 24 Most of those killed in Taji, 25 km north of Baghdad, were prisoners whose escort were attacked and described by the police as being mostly Sunni militants charged with terrorism. Explosions from the attack were heard in some neighbourhoods of the capital, where UN chief Ban Ki-moon landed today on an unscheduled stop in his Middle East tour. "At least 60 people, prisoners and policemen, were killed in a suicide attack followed by several IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and shooting," an interior ministry official told AFP. One security source said the inmates were being transferred as a precautionary measure after Taji prison was hit by mortar fire yesterday. However, the exact circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear, nor how many attackers were dead and how the prisoners they were apparently trying to free were killed. — AFP
Masum Iraq’s new President
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Crash kills father-son duo attempting world record
Afghan market bombing kills six Pak ex-CJ slaps
Rs 20 bn defamation suit on Imran Indian accused of stalking women in Australia
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Israeli tanks today shelled a UN-run school in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, killing 15 persons and wounding dozens who took shelter there, amid frantic international diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed that has left 770 Palestinians and 34 Israelis dead so far.
Jihadists in Iraq have ordered that all women between the ages of 11 and 46 must undergo female genital mutilation, which could affect up to four million women and girls in the war-ravaged country, a UN official said today.
Kurdish politician Fuad Masum became the new President of Iraq on Thursday, in a step towards forming a new government that visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon said must be inclusive for the country to survive. Parliament elected Masum, who served as the first prime minister of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region more than two decades ago by an overwhelming majority of 211 votes to 17. “Iraq is facing an existential threat, but it can be overcome by the formation of a thoroughly inclusive government," Ban said. — AFP
