W O R L D

Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘undisguised aggression’
Kiev/Moscow, September 1
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia on Monday of "direct and undisguised aggression" which he said had radically changed the battlefield balance as Kiev's forces suffered a further reverse in their war with pro-Moscow separatists.

Local residents sit in a basement used as a shelter from artillery fire on the outskirts of Donetsk, on Monday. Reuters

UN says IS behind large-scale atrocities
Geneva, September 1
Islamist fighters have carried out atrocities on "an unimaginable scale" in months of fighting with Iraqi forces, who have also killed detainees and shelled civilian areas, a UN official said on Monday.

Shia militia fighters from the south of Iraq and Kurdish peshmerga forces take control of Sulaiman Pek from the Islamist State militants, in Tikrit city on Monday. Reuters

Rift in Imran’s party to fore Disgruntled party chief Hashmi says protests scripted With deadly confrontation between the government and protesters in the capital showing little signs of letting up, PTI's disgruntled president Javed Hashmi made a sensational statement on Monday that the political crisis is scripted. Supporters of Imran Khan during an anti-government protest near the Prime minister’s residence in Islamabad on Monday. AFP

Syrian army, rebels fight on Golan Heights Ein Zivan, Golan Heights, September 1 Heavy fighting between the Syrian army and Islamist rebels erupted on Monday on the Golan Heights, where the militants have wrested control of a key frontier crossing which had been operated by the United Nations. Fighting erupts: A blast is seen near the border fence with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Monday. Reuters

Vote reform: Beijing faces defiance in Hong Kong Hong Kong, September 1 Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers disrupted a Beijing official's speech today as he sought to explain a decision announced over the weekend to tightly limit voting reforms for the southern Chinese financial hub. Pro-democracy protesters clash with police officers outside the Hong Kong government complex on Monday. AFP

Afghan Prez election close to failure
Kabul, September 1
Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah today issued another ultimatum over the disputed election result, threatening to withdraw from all efforts to negotiate a solution to the deepening political crisis.

Nude photos of celebrities leaked online
Los Angeles, September 1
Nude photos of more than 100 well-known celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Selena Gomez, Kirsten Dunst among others, have leaked online in one of the biggest celebrity hacking scandals in recent memory.

Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘undisguised aggression’
Poroshenko to make changes in top military brass as rebels advance

Kiev/Moscow, September 1
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia on Monday of "direct and undisguised aggression" which he said had radically changed the battlefield balance as Kiev's forces suffered a further reverse in their war with pro-Moscow separatists.

In the latest in a string of setbacks in the past week, Ukraine's military said it had pulled back from defending a vital airport in the east of the country, near the city of Luhansk, where troops had been battling a Russian tank battalion.

Poroshenko said in a speech there would be high-level personnel changes in the Ukrainian armed forces, whose troops fled a new rebel advance in the south which Kiev and its Western allies say has been backed up by Russian armoured columns.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who called on Sunday for immediate negotiations on the "statehood" of southern and eastern Ukraine, blamed Kiev's leadership for refusing to enter into direct political talks with the separatists.

European Union leaders decided at a summit on Saturday that the direct engagement of Russian troops in the war - still denied by the Kremlin - called for a stepping up of economic sanctions unless Moscow pulled its soldiers back.

With German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressing that accepting Russia's behaviour was not an option, EU ambassadors were to start discussing a new package of measures that could include a ban on Europeans buying Russian government bonds, EU sources said.

Until last week Ukraine had appeared close to crushing the four-month rebellion in the east, which erupted after a pro-Moscow president was forced out of power by popular protests. But then the rebels opened a new front to the south on the coast of the Sea of Azov, pushing towards the city of Mariupol.

Poroshenko repeated Kiev's belief that Russian forces are helping the rebels to turn the tide of the war. "Direct and undisguised aggression has been launched against Ukraine from a neighbouring state. This has changed the situation in the zone of conflict in a radical way," he said in his speech at a military academy in Kiev.

Defence Minister Valery Heletey added on his Facebook page that Ukraine no longer faced a threat from separatists but outright war with Russian troops. "Unfortunately, in such a war, the losses will be numbered not in their hundreds, but in thousands, even tens of thousands," he said. — Reuters

‘Sanctions won’t help in solving problems’

Putin called for the EU to think twice about stepping up the sanctions, which were first imposed after Russia's annexation of Ukraine in March. "I hope that common sense will prevail and we will work in a normal modern way," the Interfax news agency reported him as saying. He won support from China, with which Putin wants to trade more as the West tightens its restrictions. "A political solution is the only way out. Sanctions do not help to solve the underlying problems in Ukraine," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.from Saudi Arabia a few months ago

UN says IS behind large-scale atrocities

Geneva, September 1
Islamist fighters have carried out atrocities on "an unimaginable scale" in months of fighting with Iraqi forces, who have also killed detainees and shelled civilian areas, a UN official said on Monday.

There is "strong evidence" Islamic State and allied groups have carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, sexual abuse and torture in Iraq, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said, opening an emergency debate on the conflict in Geneva.

Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, told the session that Islamic State militants, "oozing with barbarity", threatened his country and the world, but did not immediately respond to allegations against state troops.

Islamic State has grabbed large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, declaring a cross-border caliphate and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. At least 1,420 people were killed in Iraq in August alone, UN figures showed on Monday.

The one-day UN Human Rights Council session, called by Iraq with the support of allies including the United States, is expected to agree to Baghdad's request to send a team of UN experts to investigate crimes committed in the conflict. "The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale," Pansieri told the Council, on its first meeting about the latest surge in violence. — Reuters

Rift in Imran’s party to fore
Disgruntled party chief Hashmi says protests scripted
Afzal Khan in Islamabad

With deadly confrontation between the government and protesters in the capital showing little signs of letting up, PTI's disgruntled president Javed Hashmi made a sensational statement on Monday that the political crisis is scripted.

Addressing a televised news conference, Hashmi insinuated that Imran Khan is agitating through a plan which envisages that that the army and the Supreme Court would oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and call fresh elections.

Hashmi's embarrassing claims came just as Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif triggering speculations that he has asked the PM to step down.

Simultaneously, the SC hearing a petition to preempt any unconstitutional development asked the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami to file written proposals suggesting how the court could intervene to resolve ongoing conflict.

Both the army and the government denied the rumours as baseless. The Prime Minister conferred with parliamentary leaders of all political parties where he declared that he would neither resign nor go on temporary leave as proposed by the PTI.

However, Imran Khan on Monday rejected Hashmi's allegation as wholly unfounded adding that he had never thought of using army's crutches to promote his agenda.

Syrian army, rebels fight on Golan Heights

Ein Zivan, Golan Heights, September 1
Heavy fighting between the Syrian army and Islamist rebels erupted on Monday on the Golan Heights, where the militants have wrested control of a key frontier crossing which had been operated by the United Nations.

It was not clear whether the forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had managed to retake control of the Quneitra crossing from the rebels of the Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

Persistent gunshots and explosions from mortar shells and other munitions could be heard on the Israeli-controlled side of the frontier and combatants could be clearly seen targeting each other with their weapons.

At least one tank belonging to the Syrian army was also involved and some rebels could be seen a few metres (yards) away from the frontier fence.

A large Syrian flag that had been flying for days between the Quneitra crossing and the abandoned town was taken down and a United Nations position in the area, thought to be unmanned, was pounded with mortar shells.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in the Syrian civil war, said the Nusra Front and allied fighters were battling government forces near the Quneitra crossing and in the nearby village of al-Hmaydieh.

The Observatory, which says it gathers information from all sides in the conflict, said there were confirmed casualties on both sides. — Reuters

Vote reform: Beijing faces defiance in Hong Kong

Hong Kong, September 1
Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers disrupted a Beijing official's speech today as he sought to explain a decision announced over the weekend to tightly limit voting reforms for the southern Chinese financial hub.

The legislators chanted slogans and held up placards accusing China's central government of breaking its promise to let Hong Kong directly elect its leader. Some stood on chairs and pumped their fists, waving signs that said "Shameful" and "Loss of faith."

The demonstration at the start of the speech by Li Fei, a deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, was a rare occasion on which a Beijing official faced open defiance.

Li continued his speech after security officers hustled the lawmakers out of the auditorium, to applause from other members of the audience, including lawmakers and local councilors from pro-establishment parties and business leaders.

Police used pepper spray on members of a radical activist group that attempted to storm metal barricades and enter the venue.

Yetsterday, Beijing inflamed political tensions by ruling out open nominations of candidates running for Hong Kong's top job in inaugural elections in 2017. The widely expected announcement set the stage for escalating confrontations between China's central government and democracy supporters in Hong Kong who have pledged to carry out a civil disobedience campaign that could culminate in a mass protest to cripple the city's financial district. — AFP

Afghan Prez election close to failure

Kabul, September 1
Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah today issued another ultimatum over the disputed election result, threatening to withdraw from all efforts to negotiate a solution to the deepening political crisis.

Abdullah claims that fraud cheated him of victory in the June 14 election, and fears have risen of a return to unrest of the 1990s civil war after his supporters called on him to form a "parallel government".

As tensions threatened to boil over, the US brokered a deal between Abdullah and his rival Ashraf Ghani in which they agreed to an audit of all eight million votes.

But Abdullah's spokesman said his team was on the brink of abandoning both parts of the deal -- potentially plunging Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power into further turmoil. — AFP

Nude photos of celebrities leaked online

Los Angeles, September 1
Nude photos of more than 100 well-known celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Selena Gomez, Kirsten Dunst among others, have leaked online in one of the biggest celebrity hacking scandals in recent memory.

The pictures, which first appeared on image-sharing site 4chan, show most of the celebrities nude or in provocative poses, reported Variety.

A spokesperson for Lawrence confirmed the photos were real and blasted the hackers. "This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence," Lawrence's representative said.

A total of 101 celebrities were hacked, although it is unclear how many of those photos are authentic. — PTI