Prison officer killed in Northern Ireland motorway shooting

BELFAST (Reuters) - A prison officer was killed in Northern Ireland on Thursday when he drove into a hail of bullets and crashed off a motorway at high speed, in an attack blamed by police and politicians on militant nationalists.

It was the first murder of a prison officer since 1993 and the fifth fatal attack on a member of the security establishment since the 1998 Good Friday peace deal, which largely ended three decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

David Black, who was a member of the protestant Orange Order, worked at the top security Maghaberry Jail where militant nationalists are protesting against their living conditions.

Black, a 52-year-old father of two approaching retirement after more than 30 years of service, was shot by a gunman in a car which pulled alongside his and was later found burned out, Northern Ireland's Chief Constable told a news conference.

"It demonstrates the recklessness and ruthlessness and sheer dangerousness of those who oppose peace and are dedicated to taking us back to those dark days of the past," police chief Matt Baggott said.

Northern Ireland's justice minister acknowledged that prison officers had recently been targeted by militant nationalists, forcing some to move house. It has not been disclosed if Black was one of those.

Finlay Spratt, the chairman of the Prison Officers Association, criticized the authorities for dropping security around off-duty officers since the end of the bloody campaign known as "The Troubles" 14 years ago.

More than 3,600 people were killed in the British-controlled province when Catholic nationalists seeking union with Ireland fought British security forces and mainly Protestant Loyalists determined to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Militant nationalists have stepped up attacks in recent years. Two soldiers and a policeman were shot dead in March 2009 and another policeman was killed by a car bomb in April 2010.

"Actions like this have no place in society and those who carried out this murder have nothing positive to contribute," Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers, Unionist Peter Robinson and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, said.

"We refuse to let the people behind the attack divert us from building a better and peaceful future for everyone," they added in a joint statement. Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter said he condemned utterly "the brutal and barbaric murder".

British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want."

(Reporting by Ian Graham; Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Stephen Powell)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

At least 22 killed in Riyadh fuel truck blast

RIYADH (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed when a fuel truck crashed into a flyover in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday, triggering an explosion that brought down an industrial building and torched nearby vehicles, officials and state media said.

Health ministry spokesman Saad al-Qahtani said 135 people were injured in the disaster. He told state television they were mostly men and included some foreigners.

The civil defense department said a gas tanker had hit a bridge in eastern Riyadh, causing a gas leak and an explosion in a nearby heavy machinery and vehicles warehouse, according to the state news agency SPA.

"The truck driver was surprised by a road accident on its route, causing it to crash into one of the pillars of the bridge," spokesman Captain Mohamed Hubail Hammadi said.

Although the incident took place near the headquarters of the Saudi Arabian National Guard and the Prince Nayef Arab College for Security Sciences, officials speaking on state television said it was an accident.

DRIVER BLAMED

The civil defense chief, Saed al-Tweijri, said the fire had been brought under control. He blamed the tanker driver for the accident.

The warehouse, several storeys high, was leveled by the blast, which also caused severe damage to other neighboring buildings. Rubble, twisted metal and shattered glass littered a wide stretch of the surrounding area.

"I was inside the building when the blast came. Then boom, the building collapsed. Furniture, chairs and cabinets blasted into the room I was in," said survivor Kushnoo Akhtar, a 55-year-old Pakistani worker, who was covered in dirt and bleeding from multiple cuts on his face and hands. "My brother is still inside under the rubble. There are lots of people in there."

The blast, which struck at around 7.20 a.m. local time, was on one of the capital's busiest roads but because Saudi Arabia is still observing the Eid al-Adha holiday, traffic was lighter than normal.

An hour after the explosion, fires still raged in cars and trucks nearby and a column of black smoke billowed over the area.

Dozens of burnt-out vehicles surrounded the scene of the blast, including a small bus and other cars on top of the flyover, which was left buckling after the incident.

Television footage and pictures posted on social media showed a body lying by smoking vehicles and at least two charred bodies seated in a car. Another blackened corpse was visible in the remains of a truck.

More than 100 emergency personnel were combing the wreckage on the flyover and searching for victims in the rubble of the building, which housed the operations of Zahid Tractor, a distributor of heavy machinery.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall in Riyadh and Mirna Sleiman in Dubai,; Editing by Andrew Torchia and Mark Trevelyan)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

China proposes new initiatives for Syria ceasefire

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday it had proposed new initiatives to head off an escalation of violence in Syria, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the establishment of a transitional governing body.

China has been strongly criticized by some in the Arab world for failing to take a stronger stance on the violence in Syria and has subsequently been keen to show it is trying to take a more proactive role in resolving the crisis.

The Chinese plan, proposed on Wednesday to Lakhdar Brahimi, the visiting United Nations-Arab League joint peace envoy on Syria, comes after the collapse of the latest ceasefire proposal to stop the fighting over the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

The 19-month-old conflict, in which rebels are trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, has killed about 32,000 people.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing that under the "new proposal there are constructive new suggestions such as a ceasefire region by region and phase by phase, and establishing a transitional governing body".

He said it was "an extension of China's effort to push for a political resolution of the Syrian issue".

Guo Xian'gang, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, a government think tank, said the latest proposal did not herald a change in Beijing's position, "but it makes it more concrete".

"China has always maintained the principle of peaceful resolution of the Syria problem, that anti-government forces should achieve peace through dialogue, without outside armed intervention," Guo said.

Brahimi met on Wednesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who said the world should act with greater urgency to support Brahimi's mediation efforts.

"More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration," Hong said.

"China's new proposal is aimed at building international consensus and supporting Brahimi's mediation efforts ... and push forward for relevant parties in Syria to realize an early ceasefire and end of violence, and launch a political transition process led by the Syrian people at an early date."

China and Russia, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad's government for the bloodshed.

But China has been keen to show it is not taking sides and has urged the Syrian government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

In the latest wave of violence, rebels killed 28 Syrian army soldiers on Thursday in an attack on three checkpoints around the town of Saraqeb straddling the main north-south highway, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Mark Heinrich)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Risk of death close for Turkish hunger strike: doctors

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Jailed Kurdish militants on hunger strike in Turkey may start to die within the next 10 days, Turkey's main medical association warned on Thursday, saying the prime minister's dismissal of the protest as a "show" risked hardening their resolve.

The hunger strike entered its 51st day on Thursday, with some 700 prisoners refusing food in dozens of prisons across Turkey, demanding the government grant greater Kurdish minority rights and better conditions for their jailed leader.

But the inmates are consuming sugar, water and vitamins that would prolong their lives and the protest by weeks.

The main demand of the protesters, mostly convicted members of the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, is improved jail conditions for PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned on an island in the Marmara Sea south of Istanbul.

The protests follow a surge in violence between Turkey and the PKK, which took up arms 28 years ago to try to carve out a Kurdish homeland in Turkey's southeast and which is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.

"Our worry is that after around 40 days lasting damage begins to emerge and after 60 days deaths may begin," Ozdemir Aktan, head of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), which represents 80 percent of the nation's doctors, told Reuters.

Dozens of leftist prisoners died in a hunger strike more than a decade ago, but Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has played down the latest action, saying only one prisoner was on a "death fast" and was being monitored medically.

"Currently there is no such thing as a hunger strike. This is a complete show," he told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday.

He has said the inmates were being manipulated by "merchants of death", a reference to the PKK and Kurdish politicians, and accused Kurdish politicians of ordering the militants to go on strike while they themselves feasted on kebabs.

"Such statements make those taking part in hunger strikes more determined, motivating those who may have been considering giving up to continue. This can bring with it various illnesses and deaths," Aktan said.

"JOURNEY OF DEATH"

A jailed member of parliament from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), who joined the hunger strike on Oct 15, rejected Erdogan's description of the strike as a "show".

"We and hundreds of our friends are on a journey of death," Faysal Sariyildiz, member of parliament for the southeastern province of Sirnak, said from Diyarbakir prison where he is being held on remand on charges of links to the PKK.

"As much as hunger eats away at our bodies each day, the support of our people for the resistance is a big source of hope and morale for us," he said in a statement released by the BDP.

The hunger strike is another area of apparent difference between Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, who have traded barbed comments in recent days over the police handling of a banned march.

One of Turkey's best known novelists, Yasar Kemal, called at a news conference in Istanbul for efforts to stop the protesters dying, saying the government was responsible for what happens as it had been in previous hunger strikes.

Aktan said the TTB had asked the justice ministry several times for permission to enter prisons and monitor the situation but had not yet received a response.

Authorities accepted such a request during a previous hunger strike in 2000 when 122 people died. That total includes 30 prisoners and two guards killed when security forces stormed jails to end the far-left protest against isolation in cells.

Hundreds more suffered permanent health damage and the TTB said inmates were again at risk from neurological illnesses such as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a condition whose symptoms include loss of memory and coordination.

Erdogan's government has introduced reforms granting greater Kurdish cultural rights since taking power a decade ago, but Turkey is also prosecuting hundreds of Kurdish lawyers, academics, activists and politicians on suspicion of PKK links.

More than 40,000 people have been killed since the militants took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state for Turkish Kurds, who now number around 15 million, or around a fifth of the population.

(Additional reporting by Pinar Aydinli in Ankara; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Jon Hemming)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nigerian forces making Islamist insurgency worse: Amnesty

ABUJA (Reuters) - Human rights abuses committed by Nigeria's security forces in their fight against Islamist sect Boko Haram are fuelling the very insurgency they are meant to quell, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

Boko Haram says it wants to create an Islamic state in Nigeria and its fighters have killed hundreds in bomb and gun attacks targeting security forces, politicians and civilians since launching an uprising in 2009. The sect has become the top security threat to Africa's biggest energy producer.

The Amnesty report said Nigeria's security forces acted outside the rule of law and their brutal tactics could build support for Boko Haram outside its extremist core.

The Nigerian police said in a statement that it would study the report's findings but it was concerned about the strength of sources used in the study, while a military spokesman contacted by Reuters rejected the report as "biased and mischievous".

"The cycle of attack and counter-attack has been marked by unlawful violence on both sides, with devastating consequences for the human rights of those trapped in the middle," said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

"Every injustice carried out in the name of security only fuels more terrorism, creating a vicious circle of murder and destruction."

The report is likely to add to calls for Nigeria's security forces to change its heavy-handed approach to tackling the insurgency, which critics have long said is driving desperate youths into the arms of Boko Haram.

EXECUTIONS

It details cases of abuses stretching back to the start of the Boko Haram uprising in 2009.

The report said a "significant number" of people accused of links with Boko Haram had been executed after arrest without due process, while hundreds were detained without charge or trial and many of those arrested disappeared or were later found dead.

"People are living in a climate of fear and insecurity, vulnerable to attack from Boko Haram and facing human rights violations at the hands of the very state security forces which should be protecting them," Shetty said.

Amnesty said it had spoken to witnesses who described seeing people who were unarmed and lying down with their hands over their heads shot at close range by soldiers.

In one case, a widow described how soldiers put a gun against her husband's head three times and told him to say his last prayers before shooting him dead. They then burned down their home. She now fends for her seven children alone.

"(We) have begun a comprehensive and critical study of the report with a view to establishing its veracity and relevance," a statement from the Nigerian police said on Thursday.

"The fact that most of the sources of the content of the report are not named ... puts the authenticity, credibility and legitimacy of the report in question."

Defense spokesman Colonel Mohammed Yerima said that Nigerian forces only kill Boko Haram suspects during gunfights, never in executions

"We don't torture people. We interview a suspect, if he is not involved we let him go. If he is involved we hand him to the police," he said. "I totally disagree with this report. It is biased and it is mischievous."

Amnesty said it had sent a delegation to the states worst affected by the insurgency, Kano and Borno, between February and July to investigate reported atrocities.

(Editing by Tim Cocks and Myra MacDonald)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Israel's Netanyahu, France's Hollande eulogize slain Jews

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined with French President Francois Hollande on Thursday in remembering victims of an al Qaeda-inspired gunman, with both pledging to fight anti-Semitism in France and around the globe.

The ceremony for the seven people shot dead in March in the south of France, including three Jewish children and a rabbi, came on the second and final day of Netanyahu's first official visit to France, home to Europe's largest Jewish population.

"Every time a Jew is targeted for being Jewish, Israel is concerned. That's why you are here," Hollande told Netanyahu in front of an auditorium of invited guests at the Ohr Torah school in Toulouse where the four Jews were killed in March.

Hollande, who represents for Israel a key Western ally against Iran, called the guarantee of safety for Jews in France "a national cause".

Security was tight at the school where guests were searched and some 300 police were deployed, some with sniffer dogs.

Netanyahu cited what he called a key difference between the Nazi slaughter of Jews during World War Two and the recent crimes committed in Toulouse.

"In the dark days of Nazism ... most European governments did not lift a finger against the madness of anti-Semitism. But today I am here with my friend Francois Hollande, who speaks clearly and resolute against this folly, and fights against it."

Netanyahu was met with applause when he said Israel would defend Jewish interests around the world through military means, a veiled reference to current tensions with neighbor Iran.

"Today, the Jewish people have their own state. Today the Jewish people have their army. Today ... the Jewish people have the means to defend themselves against those who want to wipe them from the map."

French gunman Mohamed Merah, 24, went on a 10-day rampage in March in which he killed three soldiers in two separate attacks before targeting the school. Merah was later killed by police at his apartment after a 30-hour standoff.

His four Jewish victims were buried in Jerusalem.

ALLY AGAINST IRAN

On Wednesday, the two leaders and gave a joint press conference in which Netanyahu praised Franco-Israeli relations, complimented Hollande's "warmth and openness" and welcomed what he called France's "strong position" on sanctions against Iran.

France, which holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, has pressed for tighter sanctions on Iran, against which Israel has threatened military action if it refuses to halt its disputed nuclear program.

Relations between Netanyahu and Hollande's predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, hit a rocky patch last year after a gaffe in which Sarkozy was overheard telling U.S. President Barack Obama he thought Netanyahu was "a liar".

Netanyahu said Hollande and his predecessors had shown a "clear determination" to fight anti-Semitism, but cited what he called a new threat in which radicalized youths from the gritty outskirts of French cities target Jews.

"It's new type of anti-Semitism that comes from new quarters, very violent quarters, and I think there is a recognition that this doesn't merely threaten the Jews of France but threatens everyone in France," Netanyahu said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Jon Hemming)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Venice hit by worst flooding in two years

VENICE (Reuters) - Tourists in Venice put plastic bags over their legs and residents wore rubber boots as water rose to knee-high levels in many parts of the lagoon city on Thursday.

The median level of the Adriatic Sea swelled to about 1.4 meters (1.5 yards) above normal - the highest in nearly two years - sending water from the lagoon into St. Mark's Square and many narrow alleyways.

Wooden catwalks which are usually used to allow pedestrian passage over flooded areas were removed after the water rose above them, rendering them useless.

In some places, it was impossible to distinguish where canals ended and sidewalks began.

Much of Italy has been hit by heavy rain and strong winds over the past week.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; editing by Paul Casciato)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dissident says reforming Lukashenko's Belarus impossible

LONDON (Reuters) - Belarussian dissident Andrei Sannikov, granted political asylum in Britain, is worried about the safety of his family he left behind but believes the autocratic government of President Alexander Lukashenko could eventually fall, he said on Thursday.

A former deputy foreign minister, Sannikov, 58, moved to Britain in August after being released from prison where he said officials tried to push him to kill himself.

In his first interview since coming to Britain, the soft-spoken and bearded Sannikov said his wife, Irina Khalip, was unable to leave the capital Minsk and join him in Britain because of restrictions imposed on her by the government.

"The most important thing for me now is my family and the safety of my family," Sannikov added, saying he had taken the decision to leave because it was impossible for him to stay in the country any longer.

Sannikov ran against the veteran Belarus leader in the 2010 presidential poll which Western observers said was fraudulent, and was sentenced to five years in jail last year for taking part in a protest against Lukashenko's re-election.

His wife has herself been given a suspended sentence over the protests and is barred from leaving Belarus.

"She has to be at home every day and police are watching her. Sometimes they deliberately visit in the middle of the night even though there is a small child."

Lukashenko has run Belarus since 1994, tolerating little dissent and maintaining a welfare state thanks largely to Russian economic support.

His crackdown on the opposition movement after the 2010 election prompted the European Union to impose travel bans and asset freezes on the president and several other Belarussian officials and businessmen.

"It's not a functioning system," Sannikov said. "At the moment (state) resources are aimed at crushing all forms of protest. Through all these years the authorities have only confirmed they are not capable of reform."

Asked if Belarus could one day witness the kind of revolutionary change that has swept the Arab world since early 2011, Sannikov said: "Theoretically, everything is possible".

He added he was prepared to step in to fill any ensuing political void and lead his homeland towards closer ties with Europe but said that Lukashenko's grip on power was very strong.

"I do want to go back to the country as soon as possible. If I am useful to the country then of course I would accept certain proposals," Sannikov said.

"But it's too early to say that ... This situation (exile) is not normal for me, it's a hideous situation. Of course I want to go back to the country, to a free country."

Lukashenko's system depends on financial backing from Russia, its former Soviet overlord which provides Belarus with cheap energy and other benefits, and has so far shown little sign of growing grassroots dissent.

"The game is always the same," Sannikov said. "(Lukashenko) needs money. He wants to retain authority, and to retain authority, he wants to retain this obsolete economic model.

"His aggressive behavior against the West helps him secure Russian cash, and he is right. When Russia starts making economic demands he softens his rhetoric against the West. This game has now become very cynical."

(Reporting by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Jon Hemming)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kenya police make three more arrests in Venezuela diplomat murder

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police have arrested three more suspects in connection with the murder of a Venezuelan diplomat in the capital Nairobi in July, a senior officer said on Thursday.

Olga Fonseca, Venezuela's acting ambassador and charge d'affaires, was found strangled in her bedroom less than two weeks into her posting, which followed the abrupt departure of the previous ambassador after he was accused by his domestic staff of sexual harassment.

"We have arrested three suspects including one Kenyan and two foreigners who are assisting the police with their investigation," Moses Ombati, Nairobi regional police commander told Reuters by phone.

"The suspects will be arraigned in court of law as soon as the police finish their interrogating them."

Ombati did not give any more details on the suspects.

Dwight Sagaray, the first secretary at the embassy, was charged in August with Fonseca's murder, as were two Kenyan security guards at her compound for failing to use any reasonable means to stop her murder. They have all pleaded not guilty.

A Kenyan court on Monday turned down a request to release Sagaray - who was arrested after his diplomatic immunity was waived - on bail, saying there was a likelihood he would interfere with investigations.

One of Sagaray's friends, Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Hassan, is still at large and police are looking for him in connection with Fonseca's death. A warrant for his arrest is in force.

Kenyan Foreign Ministry officials said local staff employed by the Venezuelan embassy had complained to its Diplomatic Police Unit after the diplomat fired them.

She had sacked them after they refused to retract sexual harassment claims against the former head of the Venezuelan embassy, the employees said.

(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Editing by Stephen Powell)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Car explodes outside barracks in Turkey's Iskenderun port

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A car exploded outside a military barracks in the Turkish port town of Iskenderun on Thursday, injuring four people, in what a local news agency said was a bomb attack.

The Dogan news agency said the car, which was packed with explosives, blew up 150 meters from the entrance to the barracks shortly before a military vehicle had been due to pass and that the blast injured at least three passengers in a civilian car.

"There was an explosion and we can confirm four people are slightly injured. The cause is still under investigation," Ragip Kilic, police chief in Hatay province, told Reuters.

Iskenderun lies on the Mediterranean coast in Hatay, which also borders Syria. The Turkish military has dispatched troops and equipment from the town to help secure the border in recent months as the conflict in Syria deepens.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Kurdish militants have carried out similar attacks in the past.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union - has carried out a steady stream of attacks on military targets, stepping up a 28-year-old insurgency.

Fighting between the army and the PKK intensified over the summer, a development which Ankara sees as linked to the chaos in Syria. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused Syria's President Bashar al-Assad of arming the PKK militants.

(Reporting by Hamdi Istanbullu and Seltem Iyigun; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More