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Militants capture Iraq’s biggest Christian town, trigger exodus
Russia hits back, bans food from West over Ukraine sanctions
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Dozens die as jihadists storm Syrian army base
Gaza peace deal: Palestinians, Israelis race against time
King Richard III to be reinterred on March 26
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Militants capture Iraq’s biggest Christian town, trigger exodus Arbil (Iraq), August 7 Photographs showed Islamic State fighters controlling a checkpoint at the border area of the Kurdish region, over 30 minutes’ drive from Arbil, a city of 1.5 million that is headquarters to the Kurdish regional government and of many businesses. Sunni militants earlier captured Iraq’s biggest Christian town, Qaraqosh, prompting many residents to flee, fearing they would be subjected to the same demands the Sunni militants made in other captured areas — leave, convert to Islam or face death. The Islamic State, which is considered more extreme than Al-Qaida, sees Iraq's majority Shi'ites and minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, a Kurdish ethno-religious community, as infidels. In Rome, Pope Francis appealed to world leaders to help end what the Vatican called "the humanitarian tragedy now under way" in northern Iraq. France called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to “counter the terrorist threat in Iraq”. Shares in energy companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan plummeted on news of the sweeping Islamist advance towards oilfields in the region. Kurdish officials say their forces still control the dam, Iraq's biggest. On Thursday, two witnesses told Reuters by telephone that Islamic State fighters had hoisted the group's black flag over the dam, which could allow the militants to flood major cities or cut off significant water supplies and electricity. The Sunni militants inflicted a humiliating defeat on Kurdish forces in the weekend sweep, prompting tens of thousands from the ancient Yazidi community to flee the town of Sinjar for surrounding mountains. — Reuters Car bombs kill 21 Baghdad: Two bomb attacks in Iraq on Thursday killed 21 persons and injured scores of others. Obama mulls airstrikes to help trapped minorities WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama is considering airstrikes and emergency relief airdrops to help 40,000 minorities in Iraq who are trapped on a mountaintop after threats by Islamic militants, the New York Times reported on Thursday. — Reuters |
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Russia hits back, bans food from West over Ukraine sanctions
Moscow, August 7 The announcement shows that while President Vladimir Putin doesn't appear ready to heed Russian nationalists' calls to send troops into Ukraine, he is prepared to inflict significant damage on his own nation in an economic war with the West. The US and the EU have accused Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March, of supplying arms and expertise to a pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and have sanctioned individuals and companies in Russia in retaliation. Moscow denies supporting the rebels and accuses the West of blocking attempts at a political settlement by encouraging Kiev to use brutal force to crush the insurgency. The ban, announced by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at a televised Cabinet meeting, covers all imports of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, milk and milk products from the US, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway. It will last for one year. — AP NATO, Ukraine discuss alliance support
Kiev: NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk discussed possible Western alliance support for Ukraine's defensive strength on Thursday, while more of its troops were killed in fresh clashes with separatists. The two men discussed the possibility of a proposed NATO trust fund supporting Kiev's ability in areas including command and control, communications and cyberdefence, the government said in a statement. — AFP |
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Dozens die as jihadists storm Syrian army base
Beirut, August 7 A monitoring group said over 40 persons were killed in multiple suicide car bombings carried out by Islamic State fighters and in ensuing clashes. The Islamic State, an Al-Qaida offshoot, has made rapid gains in Syria since it seized northern Iraq's largest city, Mosul, on June 10, and declared an Islamic caliphate on adjoining territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. Raqqa is a major stronghold of the Islamic State, which took control of the provincial capital and expelled rival Syrian rebel groups at the start of the year. The group's hardened fighters — many of them foreign — have been chipping away at government holdouts in the area since last month. Islamic State fighters killed at least 50 soldiers when they took over a base outside Raqqa city about two weeks ago. They also killed around 270 soldiers, guards and staff when they overran a gas field in central Syria about a week before that, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), we announce to the Islamic nation news of the total liberation of the 93rd Brigade (military base)," said a Twitter feed which regularly publishes news from Islamic State in Raqqa province.— Reuters |
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Gaza peace deal: Palestinians, Israelis race against time
Gaza/Cairo, August 7 The clock was ticking on the 72-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that has brought relief to millions on both sides after a month of fighting killed nearly 1,900 Palestinians and 67 persons in Israel, mostly soldiers. Egyptian officials, who brokered the truce that began on Tuesday, were working against the clock to persuade both sides to agree a long-term deal. "Indirect talks are ongoing and we still have today to secure this," an Egyptian official said when asked whether the truce was likely to be extended beyond 0500 GMT tomorrow. "Egypt's aims are to stabilise and extend the truce with the agreement of both sides and to begin negotiations towards a permanent agreement to ceasefire and ease border restrictions," he said, according to the BBC. Israel has agreed to extend a ceasefire that ended a month of fighting in Gaza beyond a Friday deadline, an Israeli official said yesterday. "Israel accepted an unconditional 72-hour ceasefire, and is willing to extend an unconditional ceasefire," Israeli official said. They said the country had offered to extend the three-day ceasefire in Gaza which began on Tuesday. But Hamas deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuq, denied that there was yet any agreement on the extension of the ceasefire. — PTI
No country can tolerate terror attacks on it
Washington: Defending US' ally Israel, President Barack Obama has said no country would tolerate launching of rockets and terror attacks on its cities, as he called for the extension of a ceasefire in Gaza. “I have no sympathy for Hamas. I have great sympathy for ordinary people who are struggling within Gaza,” Obama said. — PTI End senseless cycle of suffering
United Nations: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for an end to “the senseless cycle of suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Israel”. "Do we have to continue like this —build, destroy, and build and destroy? We will build again but this must be the last time — to rebuild. This must stop now,” he said.— IANS Dialogue only option to resolve crisis: India
United Nations: India has said the current crisis in Gaza can be resolved through a negotiated political settlement and a dialogue remains the "only viable option" to effectively address issues confronting the region and its people. "We endorse Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's statement on Gaza crisis," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador said. |
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King Richard III to be reinterred on March 26
London, August 7 The reinterment, which will take place at Leicester Cathedral, has been announced two years after the King's remains were found beneath a car park - making him the only English monarch without a marked grave. A week-long series of events will see the slain king's coffin travel from Bosworth, where he died in battle in 1485, to the city where he was first buried, the BBC reported. The ceremony is estimated to cost £2.5 million. Richard III was the last Yorkist king of England, whose death at the age of 32 in the Battle of Bosworth effectively ended the Wars of the Roses. Richard's grave was lost to later development and then rediscovered under a Leicester council car park in 2012. The remains were confirmed as those of the king, after a series of tests, in February 2013. — PTI |
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