The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Amid air strikes, Turkey says won’t go it alone against ISIS Militants seize more than a third of Syrian border town Mursitpinar, Beirut, Oct 9 Islamic State fighters seized more than a third of the Syrian border town of Kobani, a monitoring group said on Thursday, as US-led air strikes failed to halt their advance and Turkish forces nearby looked on without intervening. With Washington ruling out a ground operation in Syria, Turkey described as unrealistic any expectation that it would conduct a cross-border operation unilaterally to relieve the mainly Kurdish town. The US military said Kurdish forces appeared to be holding out in the town that lies within sight of Turkish territory, following fresh air strikes in the area against a militant training camp and fighters. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State had pushed forward on Thursday. "ISIS control more than a third of Kobani - all eastern areas, a small part of the northeast and an area in the southeast," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory which monitors the Syrian civil war. The commander of Kobani's heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders confirmed that the militants had made major gains in a three-week battle that has also led to the worst streets clashes in years between the police and Kurdish protesters across the frontier in southeast Turkey. Militia chief Esmat al-Sheikh put the area controlled by Islamic State, which has already seized large amounts of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, at about a quarter of the town. "The clashes are ongoing - street battles," he told Reuters by telephone from the town. Explosions rocked the town throughout Thursday, with black smoke visible from the Turkish border a few kilometres (miles) away. Islamic State hoisted its black flag in Kobani overnight and a stray projectile landed 3 km inside Turkey. The United Nations says only a few hundred inhabitants remain in Kobani but the town's defenders say the battle will end in a massacre if Islamic State prevails, giving it a strategic garrison on the Turkish border. They complain that the United States is giving only token support through the air strikes, while Turkish tanks sent to the frontier are looking on but doing nothing to defend the town. However, the US Central Command said it conducted five air strikes near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, and that the Kurdish fighters in the area appeared to "control most of the city and are holding out against" the militants. — Reuters IS’ advance on Kobani will not deter US, says Kerry Boston: The advance of IS rebels on the Syrian border town of Kobani is a tragedy but will not deter the US and its allies from their long-term strategy in the region, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday. "Kobani is a tragedy because it represents the evil of ISIS but it is not the definition either of the strategy or the full measure of what is happening with response to ISIS," Kerry said. — Reuters
	Ebola scare: Extra level of screening at US airports Washington, October 9 An extra level of screening at major airports will reach more than 9 of 10 persons travelling to the US from Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa, the White House announced on the same day when the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in America died. About 150 travellers a day will have their temperatures checked using no-touch thermometers. Health officials expect false alarms from fevers due to malaria. The extra screening likely wouldn't have singled out Thomas Eric Duncan when he arrived from hard-hit Liberia last month, because he had no symptoms while travelling. Duncan died in Dallas. The disease has killed at least 3,800 people in West Africa with no signs of abating. Today, the presidents of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the countries hardest hit in the outbreak, were appealing to the World Bank for more help for their nations. “What we're paying for now is our failure to have invested in those countries before," said Francisco Ferreira, the World Bank's chief economist for Africa. The US military is working to build medical centres in Liberia and may send up to 4,000 soldiers to help with the Ebola crisis. The new US airport screening will begin on Saturday at New York's JFK International Airport and then expand to Washington Dulles and the international airports in Atlanta, Chicago and Newark. — PTI Spanish patient's condition worsens Madrid: The health of a Spanish nurse with Ebola worsened on Thursday and four other people were put into isolation in Madrid, while the Spanish government rejected claims its methods for dealing with the disease weren't working and blamed human error. Teresa Romero, 44, is the first person to have contracted Ebola outside of Africa, after becoming infected by a Spanish priest repatriated from Africa with the disease. — Reuters
	Briton dies of suspected Ebola in Macedonia Skpje, October 9 A British man showing symptoms of the Ebola virus died in Macedonia on Thursday and authorities said they had sealed off a hotel where he stayed, keeping another Briton and hotel staff inside. A Health Ministry official said the man had arrived in the capital, Skopje, from Britain on October 2 and had been rushed to a hospital on Thursday, where he died. Dr Jovanka Kostovska of the ministry's commission for infectious diseases said the man had been suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding, and that his condition deteriorated rapidly. Amid fears that the disease might spread in Europe, Kostovska told a news conference: "These are all symptoms of Ebola, which raises suspicions with this patient." Kostovska said that samples had been sent to Germany for tests, and that steps had been taken to isolate the hotel where he had stayed. — Reuters Liberia cancels Senate election Monrovia: Ebola-hit Liberia has suspended its nationwide Senate polls after the election commission admitted it would not be able to stage the ballot safely, according to a government statement. The election commission said in a statement it had recommended the postponement because it could not conduct "a free, fair, transparent and credible election" because of the epidemic. — AFP
	Australian couple abandons surrogate baby born in India Melbourne, October 9 An Australian couple abandoned one of their biological children born to a surrogate mother in India because of the baby's gender, despite Australian consular officials pleading with them to take home the twins. Australian Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant said she was told by Australian High Commission officials in New Delhi that the couple's decision to leave their surrogate baby in India was based on its gender. The twins were a brother and sister. The High Commission delayed giving the parents a visa to try and convince them to take both children home, she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) in an interview broadcast today. The couple already had one child and decided to go for surrogacy from India through an agency. The surrogate mother gave birth to twins and the couple were said to have made the decision to keep one of the surrogate twins based on its gender. According to ABC and Foreign Correspondent joint probe, the latest case from 2012 has surfaced where the couple only wanted one of the babies. Bryant said the case showed there was a need to be a national inquiry into surrogacy. She said consular officials told her there was pressure from Australia to provide a visa to allow them to return home with one baby, as the parents did not want both babies. "They told me the surrogate mother had given birth to twins and the Australian couple only wanted one of the children," Bryant said. "I don't know whether it was a boy or a girl.” — PTI Abott rejects call for law on surrogacy Melbourne: Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday rejected calls for a national law on overseas surrogacy. He said although the situation was "distressing", there was no role for the federal government in law reform and it should be left to the state governments. — PTI
	Suicide bombings kill 67 in Yemen Sanaa, October 9 Suicide bombers targeting Yemen's powerful Shi'ite Houthi group and an army camp killed at least 67 persons in two attacks on Thursday, hours after a political crisis forced the new Prime Minister to step down. At least 47 people were killed, including four children, when a suicide bomber detonated a belt packed with explosives at a Houthi checkpoint in the centre of the capital Sanaa where Houthi supporters were preparing to hold a rally. Body parts were scattered across Tahrir Square and pools of blood formed on the asphalt after the blast, which also wounded at least 75 persons. In eastern Yemen, where the militant group Al -Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has waged repeated attacks on army installations and government facilities in recent months, at least 20 soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing and gun attack on an army outpost, state news agency SABA reported. The attacks occurred just hours after a showdown between the Houthis and President Abd-Rabbu Mansour forced Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, whose appointment on Tuesday under a power-sharing deal signed last month had angered Houthi leaders, to turn down the post. The Houthis have emerged as Yemen's main power brokers since their paramilitary forces seized the capital on September 21, following weeks of anti-government demonstrations. — Reuters
	Hong Kong protesters vow to fight on as talks collapse Hong Kong, October 9 Crunch talks between Hong Kong democracy protesters and the government were called off today just hours after demonstrators vowed to ratchet up their occupation of key parts of the city if their demands were not met. The collapse of the talks, which were due to take place tomorrow, plunges the vital financial hub into fresh crisis with protesters refusing to retreat from their barricades and an equally intransigent government rejecting further negotiations. Parts of the southern Chinese city have been paralysed for more than a week by demonstrations calling for Beijing to grant the former British colony full democracy and for the city's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to resign. Under plans unveiled by China in August, Hong Kongers will be able to vote for Leung's successor in 2017, but only two to three vetted candidates will be allowed to stand. Although protester numbers have dwindled in recent days, small groups still control multiple intersections across the city. — AFP
	Protests in US after cop kills black teen St Louis, October 9 A white off-duty policeman shot and killed a black teenager in St Louis on Wednesday, officers said, triggering a night of protests just miles from the site of another police shooting of another black youth in the suburb of Ferguson. The police said the 18-year-old was armed and fired three shots while he was being chased by the officer, and they had recovered a gun at the scene. The youth was killed almost two months to the day since sometimes violent protests erupted in Ferguson after a white police officer shot dead unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown. In Wednesday's shooting, the dead man was one of three people who fled after being approached by the officer, a six-year veteran of the department who was working for a private security company, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson said. The officer fired 17 shots at the teenager, the police added. — Reuters
	France’s Patrick Modiano wins literature Nobel Stockholm, October 9 Patrick Modiano of France, who has made a lifelong study of the Nazi occupation and its effect on his country, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature today. The Swedish Academy gave the 8 million kronor ($ 1.1 million) prize to Modiano “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”. Modiano, 69, whose novel “Missing Person” won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1978, was born in a west Paris suburb two months after World War II ended in Europe in July 1945. His father was of Jewish Italian origins and met his Belgian actress mother during the occupation of Paris. Jewishness, the Nazi occupation and loss of identity are recurrent themes in his novels, which include 1968’s “La Place de l’Etoile” later hailed in Germany as a key Post-Holocaust work. Modiano owes his first big break to a friend of his mother’s, French writer Raymond Queneau, who first introduced him to the Gallimard publishing house when he was in his early twenties. He has published more than 40 works in French, some of which have been translated into English, including “Ring of Roads: A Novel,” ‘’Villa Triste,” ‘’A Trace of Malice,” and “Honeymoon”. He has also written children’s books and film scripts and made the 1974 feature movie “Lacombe, Lucien” with director Louis Malle. He was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. — AP
	NASA invites public to sign up for free space ‘boarding pass’ Washington, October 9 More than 2.8 lakh people from around the world, including 21,729 Indians, have so far submitted their names to be inscribed on a NASA microchip that will eventually fly to Mars. NASA is giving people a chance to shoot their names up into space on the first Orion mission, scheduled to be launched on December 4, and then eventually to the Red Planet. Currently, 2,80,429 people have submitted their names to fly into space. The highest number of names submitted to NASA so far from a single country — a total of 1,13,121 — comes from the US, while the third-largest submission of names is from India, with 21,729 space enthusiasts from the nation giving their names. Other countries with high participation include the UK (22,491 names), Philippines (9,869) and Canada (7,760). Currently, only 1,828 names have been submitted from China and 1,620 from Pakistan. The collected names will be included on a microchip the size of a dime. The first trip will be on board NASA’s initial test flight for the new Orion spacecraft. It is set for a 4.5-hour mission in orbit around Earth. — PTI