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special to the tribune
Gaza war rages as
10-day ceasefire collapses
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Clashes in Ukraine leave 43 dead
36 dead, seven missing in Hiroshima landslide
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Islamist militants behead US journalist
 Release video showing execution of Foley in retaliation for air strikes in Iraq World appalled by killing: ObamaAshish Kumar Sen in Washington dc US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that the world is “appalled” by the execution of an American journalist by militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and gave no indication that the US will stop bombarding the militants in Iraq. ISIS militants on Tuesday posted a video showing James Foley being beheaded by a masked militant who spoke with a British accent. They said the execution was in retaliation for US air strikes on their positions inside Iraq. “The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” the masked militant says in the video. Obama gave no signal that the US will stop air strikes on ISIS positions in Iraq. “The US will continue to do what we must do to protect our people… When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what is necessary to see that justice is done,” he said. He says Foley’s death “shocks the conscience” of the entire world. He earlier spoke with Foley’s parents who had been working hard to secure their son’s release after he was kidnapped while covering the Syria war in November, 2012. Obama sought to make clear that the ISIS, a Sunni militant group, did not represent Islam. The militants have mostly killed Muslims, Shias as well as Sunnis, in their campaign to carve an Islamic caliphate across Syria and Iraq. They have also killed Christians and other minorities, including Yazidis trapped on a mountain in Iraq’s north. “The ISIL has no ideology… Their ideology is bankrupt,” the President said. The US intelligence community earlier on Wednesday verified the authenticity of the video showing Foley's execution, said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. The video shows a masked militant beheading Foley, a freelance journalist with Agence France-Presse and GlobalPost. In the video, which was later removed from YouTube, Foley, clad in an orange jumpsuit, is seen kneeling in a barren landscape with his executioner by his side. Foley makes a brief statement. "I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers — the US government — for what will happen to me is only a result of their complacent criminality," he says. He is then beheaded. Foley was previously kidnapped in Libya in April, 2011. He was released six weeks later. Afghan's murder: Saudi Arabia beheads PakistaniRiyadh: A Pakistani national was beheaded by sword in the south west of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for the murder of an Afghan, the interior ministry said. Mohammed Ayub Ajab Khan was convicted of having killed Khair Mohammed Saz by striking him with several blows from a metallic object, according to a ministry statement carried by official SPA news agency. The execution raises to 34 the number of executions announced in Saudi Arabia so far this year. — AFP UK police hunt for killer, Cameron breaks holiday
London: Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday described the apparent beheading of a US journalist by a militant with a British accent as "shocking and depraved". British police and Whitehall officials are trying to identify the man suspected of the killing. Cameron said on Twitter: "If true, the murder of James Foley is shocking and depraved." He cut short his holiday in Cornwall for meetings on Iraq and Syria with UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond, Downing Street said. — PTI |
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Gaza war rages as
10-day ceasefire collapses
Gaza/Jerusalem, August 20 Palestinians launched more than 130 rockets, mainly at southern Israel, with some intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, the military said. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side. Egypt, which has been trying to broker a long-term ceasefire in indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks, said it would continue contacts with both sides, whose delegates left Cairo after hostilities resumed on Tuesday. But there appeared to be no end in sight to violence that shattered a 10-day period of calm, the longest break from fighting since Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8 with the declared aim of ending rocket fire into its territory. Israeli aircraft have carried out 80 strikes in the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, "targeting terror sites", the military said. Hamas and medical officials said 19 people died in the latest Israeli raids, including Deif's wife and seven-month-old son. Deif is widely believed to be masterminding the Islamist group's military campaign from underground bunkers. A Hamas official said Deif, head of Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades had not used the targeted house, from which the bodies of three members of the family that lived there were also pulled out of the rubble. Chanting "Qassam, bomb Tel Aviv!", thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of Deif's wife and son in Jabalya refugee camp. The woman's mother told reporters she wished she had "another 100 daughters" to offer Deif in marriage. Accusing Israel of opening a "gateway to hell", Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem late on Tuesday, demonstrating the Islamist movement could still reach Israel's heartland despite heavy Israeli bombardments in the five-week-old conflict. There was no confirmation from Israel that it had tried to kill Deif, who has been targeted in air strikes at least fourtimes since the mid-1990s. Israel holds him responsible for the deaths of dozens of its citizens in suicide bombings. "I am convinced that if there was intelligence that Mohammed Deif was not inside the home, then we would not have bombed it," Yaakov Perry, Israel's Science Ministertold Army Radio. — Reuters ‘Hamas is like Islamic State militants’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday Israel's military campaign in Gaza may be an extended operation and he accused the territory's Hamas rulers of using "savagery" against civilians just like Islamic State militants in Iraq.
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Clashes in Ukraine leave 43 dead
Kiev, August 20 Nine government troopers were killed and 12 others wounded in fights with independence-seeking insurgents during an operation to encircle the rebel strongholds in Lugansk and Donetsk regions, said Andrei Lysenko, spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC). Most of the casualties were caused by the fighting that erupted near Ilovaysk town, which lies on the highway, connecting the two centres of rebel activity — the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk. According to the NSDC, insurgents deployed tanks and heavy artillery during the fighting, Xinhua reported. As of Wednesday morning, government troops have claimed to have taken control of Ilovaysk. Meanwhile, at least 34 civilians were killed and 29 others wounded during battles in other cities and towns across Donetsk region over the past one day, said the press service of the Donetsk city council. In total, at least 951 people have been killed in Donetsk region since violence began, it added. The exact number of casualties in the neighbouring Lugansk region is still unclear. The conflict, which erupted in eastern Ukraine in mid-April, claimed the lives of over 2,000 people and injured thousands of others, according to observers. — IANS Ukrainian fighter plane shot down
Pro-Russian separatists shot down a Ukrainian SU-25 single-seat fighter jet in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, a military spokesman said. — Reuters |
US lawmaker to NYPD: Address anti-Sikh violence Two militants killed, 66 arrested in Egypt ‘Manmohan enjoys immunity as PM, not as FM’ Thailand's coup leader likely to become PM Top honour for Indian woman in South Africa Vietnam, Myanmar test three patients for Ebola Ferguson police arrest 47 as protest degenerates Death of Afghan Sikh stowaways: 1 more arrested
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US President Barack Obama said today that the world was “appalled” by the execution of an American journalist by militants belonging to the
ISIS and gave no indication that the US would stop bombarding the militants in Iraq.
An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed the wife and infant son of Hamas's military leader, Mohammed Deif, the group said, calling it an attempt to assassinate him after a ceasefire collapsed.
At least 36 people, including several children, were killed in Japan on Wednesday, when landslides triggered by torrential rain slammed into the outskirts of Hiroshima. The toll could rise further, the police said. Seven people were missing after a month's worth of rain fell overnight. — Reuters
111-year-old Japanese declared world's oldest man