| Toll from twin Ankara blasts soars to 95 Posted: 10 Oct 2015 04:22 PM PDT  At least 95 people were killed in Ankara Saturday when bombs set off by two suspected suicide attackers ripped through a crowd of leftist and pro-Kurdish activists at a peace rally, in the deadliest such attack in Turkey's recent history. The twin blasts, near Ankara's main train station, ratcheted up tensions ahead of Turkey's November 1 snap elections which were already soaring amid the government's offensive on Kurdish militants. The attack also left 246 wounded, 48 of whom are in intensive care, according to an updated toll announced by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's office.
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| Suicide bombings kill 95 people at Ankara peace rally Posted: 10 Oct 2015 04:00 PM PDT ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Nearly simultaneous explosions targeted a Turkish peace rally Saturday in Ankara, killing at least 95 people and wounding hundreds in Turkey's deadliest attack in years — one that threatens to inflame the nation's ethnic tensions. |
| Three months of Turkish unrest Posted: 10 Oct 2015 03:57 PM PDT  Istanbul (AFP) - Nearly 100 people were killed and more than 200 injured after twin blasts hit a peace rally in Ankara Saturday, in the deadliest attack of its kind in Turkey's modern history.
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| Bombs kill 95 at pro-Kurdish rally in Turkish capital Posted: 10 Oct 2015 01:45 PM PDT  By Ece Toksabay and Gulsen Solaker ANKARA (Reuters) - At least 95 people were killed when two suspected suicide bombers struck a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists outside Ankara's main train station just weeks before elections, in the worst attack of its kind on Turkish soil. Bodies covered by flags and banners, including those of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), lay scattered on the road among bloodstains and body parts. The HDP blamed the government which, it said, had blood on its hands.
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| Lake Chad blasts blamed on Boko Haram kill 37 Posted: 10 Oct 2015 01:24 PM PDT  N'Djamena (AFP) - Three explosions killed 37 people Saturday in a Chadian city on the shores of Lake Chad, security sources said, in the latest atrocity blamed on the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram. Another 52 people were reportedly wounded in the attacks that struck at around 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), the sources told AFP, with one blast targeting the fish market at Baga Sola and the other two occurring at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the city. It was the first time Baga Sola was hit by such an attack, and the belief that it was relatively safe had led tens of thousands of Nigerian refugees and Chadians displaced by Boko Haram violence to seek shelter there.
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| UN, World Bank announce new funds for Mideast refugee crisis Posted: 10 Oct 2015 01:08 PM PDT  The UN and World Bank said Saturday they will increase financing for the Middle East and North Africa to help countries there deal with millions of refugees and rebuild after conflicts. "The world today is witness to... the highest level of forced displacement since the Second World War," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. "To address the scale and the nature of the conflicts, we need new approaches.
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| Syria, migrant crisis coverage wins war correspondents prizes Posted: 10 Oct 2015 01:05 PM PDT  France's prestigious Bayeux-Calvados award for war correspondents on Saturday honoured journalists covering conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, as well as Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II. Two of the awards went to correspondents covering the Islamic State group's game plan and its atrocities. The text category award went to German Der Spiegels' Christoph Reuter, who wrote an in-depth story on the shadowy mastermind of IS's strategy in Syria and Iraq.
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| Syria regime advances with Russian air support Posted: 10 Oct 2015 12:48 PM PDT  Syrian forces made advances Saturday against rebels in Hama and Latakia provinces as they pressed a ground operation backed by Russian air support. Washington said the United States and Russia had made "progress" in discussions designed to avoid accidents between them in Syria's increasingly crowded airspace. In the northern province of Aleppo, meanwhile, rebels battled to reverse an advance by the Islamic State group that brought the jihadists to within a few kilometres (miles) of Syria's second city.
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| Three killed in violent unrest in Iraq's Kurdistan region Posted: 10 Oct 2015 12:24 PM PDT By Isabel Coles ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Three people were killed in a third day of violent unrest in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Saturday, as protesters attacked or torched several offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Sulaimaniyah province. The protests, the most serious the region has seen for years, began on Oct. 1 as a show of public anger over an economic crisis that many blame on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in which the KDP and other parties are partners. |
| Fierce battles in central Syria amid Russian airstrikes Posted: 10 Oct 2015 11:21 AM PDT  DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian troops backed by Russian airstrikes seized a village in central Syria on Saturday amid fierce clashes with rebels, part of a ground offensive launched earlier this week.
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| Egypt, France sign warships deal as PM starts Arab tour Posted: 10 Oct 2015 11:05 AM PDT  Egypt signed a deal with France Saturday to buy two Mistral warships originally ordered by Russia as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls began an Arab tour. Valls arrived in Cairo at the start of visits to three nations aimed at boosting economic ties and holding talks on regional conflicts, and met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The Mistrals contract illustrates the rapprochement Paris has had with the regime of former army chief Sisi, who ousted elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and has since cracked down on his supporters and on all opposition.
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| Two killed as Iraqi Kurdish protests turn violent Posted: 10 Oct 2015 10:45 AM PDT  Four people have been killed in two days of demonstrations in Iraqi Kurdistan, where discontent over unpaid salaries grew into protests demanding the regional president's ouster. Guards shot dead two demonstrators in Kalar on Saturday as protesters tried to storm the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a hospital official said. "Two protesters have died of bullet wounds.
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| Iraqi Kurdish protests urge regional president to quit Posted: 10 Oct 2015 08:39 AM PDT  Thousands of people took to the streets of several towns in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Saturday, urging its long-time president Massud Barzani to step down. Scuffles broke out in Sulaimaniyah, a bastion of opposition to Barzani and his party, a day after two people were killed in a protest in another southern Kurdish town. "Barzani, leave!" demonstrators chanted in Sulaimaniyah, as a wave of protests demanding the payment of long-overdue salaries for civil servants turned political.
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| Merkel's vision and strength; rising political left; UN's to-do list; Russia and China as global powers; renewable energy in India Posted: 10 Oct 2015 05:00 AM PDT "As the refugee crisis unfolds, [German Chancellor Angela Merkel] ... will inevitably make compromises and alter direction. Germany cannot take in all the world's refugees, as Merkel well knows," writes Rolland Nelles. Jeremy Corbyn's "rise [as elected leader of Britain's Labour Party] is part of a new wave of political success for populist, liberal parties, not just in Europe but also in the United States...," writes Alain Frachon. |
| AP PHOTOS: Selection of Mideast, Afghan and Pakistan photos Posted: 10 Oct 2015 04:46 AM PDT  This week, a string of lone wolf stabbing attacks by Palestinians against Israeli soldiers and civilians and deadly clashes in the West Bank and on the border of the Gaza Strip sparked concern among Israelis that a third Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, was looming. Meanwhile a series of car bombs in Iraq killed dozens and Lebanese protestors continued to clash with police and pressure their government for sweeping reforms.
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| Canada parties split on security, anti-IS air strikes Posted: 09 Oct 2015 11:55 PM PDT  Canada could curb its counterterrorism efforts, including airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, if Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories are defeated in October 19 elections. The New Democrats said they would end the military mission, while the Liberals said they would withdraw Canadian war planes, but continue training forces in Iraq. The two parties also vowed to repeal or modify, respectively, a bitterly-opposed anti-terror law that dramatically expanded the powers and reach of Canada's spy agency, if elected.
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| Islamic State closes in on Syrian city of Aleppo; U.S. abandons rebel training effort Posted: 09 Oct 2015 07:09 PM PDT  By Dominic Evans and Parisa Hafezi BEIRUT/ANKARA (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters have seized villages close to the northern city of Aleppo from rival insurgents, a monitoring group said on Friday, despite an intensifying Russian air-and-sea campaign that Moscow says has targeted the militant group. News of the advance came as the United States announced it was largely abandoning its failed program to train moderate rebels fighting Islamic State and would instead provide arms and equipment directly to rebel leaders and their units on the battlefield. The Obama administration is grappling with a dramatic change in the four-year-old Syrian civil war brought about by Moscow's intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
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| US, Russia to hold new Syria air safety talks: Pentagon Posted: 09 Oct 2015 05:58 PM PDT  Russia and the United States are set to renew talks to avoid accidents in Syrian air space as the two countries conduct separate bombing campaigns, a US official said. The Pentagon expressed alarm this week after Russia failed to quickly answer proposals made during initial talks, even as it launched cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea and repeatedly violated Turkish air space. "The Department of Defense has received a formal response from the Russian ministry of defense regarding DoD's proposal to ensure safe air operations over Syria," Cook said.
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