W O R L D

Gaza truce holds for 2nd day
Gaza/Cairo, August 6
A Gaza truce was holding on Wednesday as Egyptian mediators pursued talks with Israeli and Palestinian representatives on an enduring end to a war that has devastated the Hamas Islamist-dominated enclave.

Picking up the pieces: A Palestinian boy writes on a shrapnel- riddled blackboard at a heavily damaged Sobhi Abu Karsh school in Gaza City’s al-Shejaea neighborhood on Wednesday. AFP

NATO fears ground invasion as Russia masses troops on Ukraine border
Brussels/Donetsk, August 6
Russia has massed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's border and could use the pretext of a humanitarian mission to invade, NATO said on Wednesday, its starkest warning yet that Moscow could soon mount a ground assault against its neighbour.

A pro-Russian separatist and a woman stand near a damaged building following what locals say was a recent airstrike by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk on Wednesday. Reuters

China quake toll nears 600 Beijing, August 6 Chinese relief workers today saved a 50-year-old woman from the rubble, 67 hours after a powerful 6.5-magnitude earthquake destroyed her home in China's Yunnan Province even as the death toll climbed to nearly 600 as more bodies were pulled out from the debris. An earthquake survivor walks through the rubble of collapsed houses at Longtoushan, Yunnan province, on Wednesday. AFP

Saudi men can’t marry women from Pakistan
Riyadh, August 6
Saudi Arabia has banned its male citizens from marrying women from four countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chad and Myanmar — a police officer said. The announcement comes as a part of Saudi Arabia's efforts to prohibit Saudi men from marrying expatriates, a subject widely debated in the Gulf nation.

Gaza truce holds for 2nd day
Talks on a longer-term ceasefire under way in Egyptian capital

Gaza/Cairo, August 6
A Gaza truce was holding on Wednesday as Egyptian mediators pursued talks with Israeli and Palestinian representatives on an enduring end to a war that has devastated the Hamas Islamist-dominated enclave.

Egyptian intelligence officials met in Cairo with a high-level Israeli delegation late on Tuesday, a day after conferring with Palestinians who included envoys from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group, Egyptian officials said.

"The indirect talks between the Palestinians and Israelis are moving forward," one Egyptian official said, making clear that the opposing sides were not meeting face to face. "It is still too early to talk about outcomes but we are optimistic."

Egyptian and Palestinian sources said further discussions were expected to be held in Cairo on Wednesday, with expectations of an initial response by Israel to Palestinian demands, which it has so far shown no sign of accepting.

Israel withdrew ground forces from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning and started a 72-hour Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas as a first step towards a long-term deal.

In Gaza, where some half-million people have been displaced by a month of bloodshed, some residents left UN shelters to trek back to neighbourhoods where whole blocks have been destroyed by Israeli shelling and the smell of decomposing bodies fills the air.

Streets in towns in southern Israel, which had been under daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, were filled again with playing children.

Palestinians want an end to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on impoverished Gaza and the release of prisoners, including those Israel arrested in a June crackdown in the occupied West Bank after three Jewish seminary students were kidnapped and killed.

Israel has resisted those demands."For Israel the most important issue is the issue of demilitarisation. We must prevent Hamas from rearming, we must demilitarise the Gaza Strip," Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuters television. — Reuters

UN is ready to help rebuild Gaza

United Nations: The United Nations is ready to help rebuild Gaza but for the last time, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned on Wednesday. Ban opened a special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with an appeal for a lasting peace as a 72-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was holding for a second day. “The senseless cycle of suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Israel must end,” he told the 193-nation assembly.

NATO fears ground invasion as Russia masses troops on Ukraine border

Brussels/Donetsk, August 6
Russia has massed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's border and could use the pretext of a humanitarian mission to invade, NATO said on Wednesday, its starkest warning yet that Moscow could soon mount a ground assault against its neighbour.

With fighting escalating and rebels losing ground in the weeks since a Malaysian airliner was shot down over separatist-held territory, Russia has announced military exercises this week in the border region.

"We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground - and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement.

Moscow could use "the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission as an excuse to send troops into Eastern Ukraine", she said.

Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in the Black Sea in March, and Western countries say it funded and armed pro-Russian rebels that rose up in the east of Ukraine in April.

Since June, government troops have gained ground against the rebels, who are led almost exclusively by Russian citizens and have managed to acquire tanks, missiles and other heavy weaponry that Kiev and its Western allies say can only have come from across the frontier.

Kiev said 18 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed and 54 injured in 25 separate clashes over the past day in eastern Ukraine. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said troops had been shelled from inside Russian territory and frontier guards had come under a four-hour mortar and artillery attack. Fighting has intensified since Malaysian flight MH17 crashed on July 17, killing all 298 people on board. — Reuters

Rebel-held Donetsk hit by air strike

A first air strike hit the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk in east Ukraine on Wednesday, as government forces preparing to retake the city said 18 soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels. Kiev denied that it was behind the strike, which caused no civilian casualties, according to local authorities. Ukrainian forces have been making advances over the past months and have been tightening their grip around million-strong Donetsk, where pro-Russian fighters have hunkered down and pledged to fight to the death.

China quake toll nears 600

Beijing, August 6
Chinese relief workers today saved a 50-year-old woman from the rubble, 67 hours after a powerful 6.5-magnitude earthquake destroyed her home in China's Yunnan Province even as the death toll climbed to nearly 600 as more bodies were pulled out from the debris.

Saudi men can’t marry women from Pakistan

Riyadh, August 6
Saudi Arabia has banned its male citizens from marrying women from four countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chad and Myanmar — a police officer said. The announcement comes as a part of Saudi Arabia's efforts to prohibit Saudi men from marrying expatriates, a subject widely debated in the Gulf nation.

There is an estimated 500,000 women from the four countries, residing in Saudi Arabia.

Mecca Police Director Assaf Al-Qurashi said additional formalities have been placed before issuing the permission for marriage with foreigners.

The largest oil exporting nation is home to an estimated 9 million expatriate worker, constituting 30 per cent of the total population. — IANS