King
Abdullah swears in transitional Jordanian government
Jordan's
King Abdullah II sworn in a transitional Cabinet on Thursday ahead of the
country’s parliamentary elections. The new 21-member Cabinet took office a week
after the monarch dissolved parliament ahead the new election. The ministers of
finance, foreign affairs and planning retained their posts, the royal palace
said. The new Cabinet is headed by Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, an
independent politician who has ties with the country’s opposition. After the
election early next year, parliament will be allowed to select the premier.
Bangladesh rainstorms kill 14,
hundreds missing
Rainstorms
lashed hundreds of villages in southern Bangladesh on Thursday, killing at
least 14 people. Police said that an estimated 1,500 fishermen were missing
after tropical storms smashed into the country’s southern coastal islands and
districts, AFP reported. Hundreds of houses were leveled in Bhola, Hatiya and
Sandwip Islands, as well as a half-dozen coastal districts, after midnight. The
island of Hatiya was hardest-hit, where at least five people were killed and
more than 1,000 houses were destroyed.
‘Funding shortfall’ forces UN to seek Arab
support for Syria refugees
The UN’s
chief humanitarian coordinators for Syria embarked on a tour of Gulf Arab
states to seek aid, as the agency is quickly running out of funds for refugees.
The aid effort suffered from a “significant funding shortfall” ahead of winter,
the UN's regional refugee coordinator Panos Mumtzis told AFP on Thursday. The
UN estimates that some half-million Syrians fled the country, and expects the
number of registered refugees to more than double to around 710,000 by the end
of the year. There are an estimated 1.2 million displaced Syrians living in
inadequate public buildings inside Syria. The UN requested $488 million for
refugee assistance, but so far only 29 percent of that figure, $142 million,
has been provided.
US drone strike on Pakistani
militant compound kills 10
A US
drone fired four missiles at the compound of a militant commander in Pakistan’s
northwestern tribal region, killing 10, security officials said. At least 15
insurgents were wounded in Thursday's strike in the Orakzai tribal region, the
AP reported. The dead and wounded men were reportedly fighters led by militant
commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is based in North Waziristan.
UNESCO in ‘financial crisis’
after US funding cuts
UNESCO
is in its “worst ever financial situation” after the US, its largest
contributor, froze funding last year, the head of the UN’s cultural agency said
on Thursday. The body was forced to slash spending and cut programs after
losing 22 percent of its budget, Reuters quoted Irina Bokova as saying.
Washington, an ally of Israel, cancelled its grant in protest over the decision
to grant Palestinian Authority full membership in October 2011. The organization,
which designates World Heritage sites and promotes global education, started
the year with a deficit of $150 million out of $653 million for its budget for
2012 and 2013. “We’re not closing UNESCO, but member-states will have to
rethink the way forward,” Bokova said.
Greece to provide island shelters
for 20,000 Syrian refugees
The
Greek government plans to provide shelter on the islands of Crete and Rhodes
for 20,000 Syrian refugees, the public order ministry said on Thursday. The
ministry’s statement announced that the refugees would be housed in special
facilities, fulfilling Athens’ human rights obligations under the UN charter,
AFP reported. The operation is codenamed ‘Ioni,’ for the first ancient Greek
colony established in Syria.
8 Syrians killed in bus attack at
Lebanon border - Syria TV
Eight
people were killed on Thursday in an attack by “armed terrorists” on a bus at
the Lebanon border, Syrian state television said. Eight people on the bus were
also reportedly wounded in the attack. The bus was transporting Syrian workers,
the channel said.
Indian police arrest 3 Muslims
‘planning attacks’
Indian
police arrested three Muslim militants suspected of planning terror attacks in
New Delhi timed to take place during a major Hindu festival season that starts
later this month. The suspects are members of the Indian Mujahideen, an
Islamist militant group, police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said. The group is
linked to Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba, which claimed responsibility for previous
attacks in India, the AP reported. Members of the group were arrested in New
Delhi over the past two weeks, and police recovered explosives in the
operation. The militants were reportedly responsible for several small explosions
in the western city of Pune in August, in which one person was injured.
Private charged in Russian
military range blasts case
Military
investigators brought criminal charges against Private Aleksandr Kasatkin over
explosions at the Donguz range in Russia’s Orenburg region on Tuesday. He
“surrendered to military detectives in the course of the preliminary inquiry,”
representatives of the Military Investigative Department of the Russian
Investigative Committee told Interfax on Thursday. The private, who helped
unload munitions at the missile artillery depot, reportedly said that “he and a
fellow serviceman ignored the ban on smoking in explosion-risk places.”
Officer killed in military
helicopter crash in Turkey
A
Turkish army officer was killed and several others were injured on Thursday
when a military helicopter crashed in the country’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır,
the Turkish media reported. The helicopter went down after hitting a high
voltage electricity line, according to initial reports. The incident took place
in Diyarbakır’s Lice district.
Greece announces jobless rate
over 25 percent
Greece’s
jobless rate jumped to 25.1 percent in July, the state statistics agency
reported on Thursday. “Unemployment in July 2012 was 25.1 percent, compared
with 17.8 percent in July 2011,” AFP quoted the agency as saying. This figure
topped the one-in-four unemployment threshold for the first time since the
country fell into an economic crisis and recession.
Three Iran border guards killed
in clash with drug smugglers
Three
Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with armed drug traffickers near
the Iran-Pakistan border, an official said. Two smugglers were also killed in
the incident, which took place near the Koshtegan region in the southeastern
province of Sistan-Baluchestan, AFP quoted Colonel Mehdi Mansourzadeh as
saying. In the past six months, Iran has seized 50 tons of various drugs in
operations in its frontier regions with Afghanistan and Pakistan. More than
4,000 police officers and soldiers were reportedly killed during the past three
decades in clashes with drug traffickers, who often travel in armed convoys.
Militants abduct Pakistani
intelligence official
Pakistani
militants kidnapped a retired army brigadier working with the country’s
Inter-Services Intelligence agency, a security official said. The abduction
took place on the outskirts of Islamabad on Thursday, the AP quoted another
official as saying. The kidnapped officer was reportedly working on a
counter-terrorism assignment.
US lifts international lending
restrictions on Myanmar
Washington
has lifted restrictions on international financial institutions like the World
Bank lending to Myanmar. The US eased nearly all of the sanctions imposed on
country during decades of military rule as a way of rewarding its progress
toward democracy. Financial leaders from 30 states and organizations met in
Tokyo on Thursday to discuss measures to support Myanmar's debt repayment, the
AP said. Japan announced a comprehensive support package in which Myanmar's
debts to international creditors would be canceled in January 2013. The Asian
Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank will also clear Myanmar's debts by 2013.
Nigerian farmers sue Shell in
Dutch court over environmental damage
Nigerian
farmers are suing Shell in a Dutch court, demanding that the oil multinational
clean up environmental damage allegedly caused by pipeline leaks. Thursday's
case in the Netherlands’ Hague Civil Court was the first time a Dutch company
was sued for alleged environmental pollution caused by an overseas subsidiary,
the AP reported. Royal Dutch Shell argued that the case should be heard in
Nigeria. Villagers claimed the June 2005 leak fouled fish ponds, farmland and
forests in the Niger Delta’s Oruma region, and said it took 12 days to seal the
leak, which they say was caused by corrosion in a pressurized underground pipe.
Shell claimed the leak was caused by sabotage.
French prosecutors release 5 of
12 accused of market attack
Five of
the 12 people accused of links to an attack on a kosher market in France have
been freed, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Thursday. Seven people
remained in custody a day after police discovered bomb-making materials in an
underground parking lot near Paris, the AP reported. Interior Minister Manuel
Valls said that several of the 12 suspected “terrorist cell” members arrested
over the weekend apparently planned to go to Syria to fight in its civil war
Chavez names FM Maduro new
Venezuelan vice president
Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez named Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro the country’s new
vice president. Chavez made the announcement at an event on Wednesday where he
was declared the winner of Sunday's presidential election, the AP said. Maduro,
49, has been Venezuela's top diplomat since 2006. He was a bus driver in
Caracas before getting involved in national politics. Maduro replaces VP Elias
Jaua, who will run for the governorship of Miranda state against defeated
presidential candidate Henrique Capriles in December.
Prince of Sealand dies
The
"prince" of the self-declared sovereign principality of Sealand has
died aged 91 in Essex from Alzheimer's disease. Paddy Roy Bates, inspired by
the 1960s "pirate radio" movement, set up Radio Essex on an offshore
fort off the North Sea coast. When that was closed down, he moved in 1966 to
Fort Roughs, a disused Second World War platform in international waters about
seven miles off the coast. Rejecting UK government orders to vacate, he
proclaimed the fort the Principality of Sealand, declaring himself Prince Roy
and his wife, Joan, princess. The 550-square-meter platform claimed to be the
world's smallest sovereign state, but was never internationally recognized.
Gaddafi’s son would be 'hanged'
in Libya, lawyer tells ICC
Saif
al-Islam Gaddafi would get a death sentence if tried in Libya, his lawyer told
the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. "Although the Libyan
government has danced around the issue, let's be very clear: if convicted [in
Libya], Mr. Gaddafi will be hanged," his lawyer told the court. Libya's
government wants Saif to be tried in Libya while the ICC wants him to be tried for war crimes
in The Hague. The Libyan attorney delegation told the court on Tuesday that the
country had enough evidence to charge Saif with crimes against humanity. But
the lawyers admitted that although Tripoli was committed to a fair trial for
Gaddafi, it was a "complicated process and that Libya needed more
time." One attorney cited a law passed by Libya's post-revolutionary
National Transitional Council, stating that no child of Gaddafi will ever
benefit from leniency.
Saakashvili approves government's
resignation
The
Georgian president has approved a petition from Mikhail Saakashvili's
government for its resignation, the president's official website states. A new
government is to be formed after Saakashvili's party, the United National
Movement, lost the parliamentary elections of October 1, receiving 67 of the
150 seats in parliament. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the leader of the "Georgian
Dream” Coalition, received 83 deputy mandates in the new parliament. On Monday,
Ivanishvili submitted a list of candidates for new posts in the government,
which will go before Parliament at its first meeting, on October 20-21. Prior
to that, the Cabinet will carry out its duties under the supervision of the
winning coalition.
"Innocence of Muslims"
maker denies probation violation
The filmmaker
behind the Islamophobic movie that cause outrage around the world has denied in
a Los Angeles court that he violated the terms of his probation, following his
conviction for bank fraud. Federal prosecutors accuse the 55-year-old Mark
Basseley Youssef of breaking eight probation violations, including lying to his
probation officer and using aliases. The man has been in jail since September
28. Youssef went into hiding after a 14-minute clip of "Innocence of
Muslims" sparked anger and violence across the Muslim world. He is
scheduled to appear at an evidentiary hearing for November 9.
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