Strike kills former Israeli prisoner Kantar in Syria
Samir Kantar, a prominent Hezbollah member, killed in what group says was Israeli air strike in Damascus.
| War & Conflict, Middle East, Syria
A high-profile member of the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, who had spent years in Israeli prisons, has been killed in Syria in a suspected Israeli air strike, according to Hezbollah.
Samir Kantar was killed along with eight others in a strike on a building in the Jaramana area of the capital Damascus on Sunday morning, al-Manar TV, the official channel of Hezbollah, reported.
"Zionist enemy planes bombed the building where he lived in Jaramana," Hezbollah said in a statement.
Syrian state television, quoting official sources, said Kantar was killed in a "terror attack", without elaborating on who was behind the assault.
Britain: Saudi Arabia’s silent partner in Yemen’s civil war
British missiles and jets made and sold to the Saudis are part of a war that the Government wants us to overlookIf you were told that British fighter jets and British bombs were involved in a Middle Eastern war which has left thousands of civilians dead, you could be forgiven for assuming this referred to Iraq, or perhaps the more recent UK aerial campaign extended to Syria.
What is less likely to spring to mind is another, forgotten conflict in the region – a war sponsored by the UK that is rarely talked about. For the past nine months, British-supplied planes and British-made missiles have been part of near-daily air raids in Yemen carried out by a nine-country, Saudi Arabian-led coalition.
In this conveniently hidden campaign, thousands have died. Bombardments by the Saudi coalition accounted for 60 per cent of the 4,493 civilian casualties in the first seven months of this year.
Iranian citizens fear US visa waiver bill: ‘It’s just unfair’
Nilufar Khalesi
Iranian citizens who have ties to the United States are anxious about a new bill that would no longer allow them to be part of the visa waiver programme. If the bill passes, they would have to ask for visas – which may be hard to obtain – to travel to the United States.
As of today, citizens of 38 countries are allowed to visit the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. But last week, Congress voted to exclude anyone who holds a passport from Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Sudan, as well as any foreign nationals who have visited any of these countries in the past five years. This means, for example, that a French citizen who visited Iran a few years ago would have to apply for a visa to visit the United States.
Congress passed the bill just days after the San Bernardino terrorist attacks, and a few weeks after the Paris attacks. The initial bill focused on just Syria and Iraq, designated as “terrorist hotspots”, but Iran and Sudan were added later. The bill must still be passed by the Senate.
DELHI
Updated: December 20, 2015 13:27 ISTJuvenile convict’s release: victim's mother reacts
It was a long sleepless on Saturday night, one of the many in the past three years, said Badrinath Singh speaking to The Hindu on Sunday morning as he finalised plans for another protest gathering "seeking justice for his daughter" at India Gate this afternoon.
After being released from Maurice Nagar police Station on Saturday evening, where they were detained by the police for participating in a protest demonstration outside the juvenile observation home against the release convict, the parents said: "Justice has not been done in this case."
"My wife and me were following news on the television, about the Delhi Commission for Women approaching the Supreme Court to file a special leave petition against the scheduled release, till about one today morning. After that I forced my wife to sleep. She is under a lot of stress and these past few days have been very tiring for us. She needs rest or she is most definitely going to fall ill," said Badrinath Singh.
Clashes and protests in Haiti after election results
Demonstrators took to the streets after the release of election results; most protests were largely peaceful, but in some outlying towns clashes turned violent with protesters shot and government buildings burned.
Several government buildings have been set ablaze in scattered sections of Haiti and one demonstrator was killed in violent protests ignited by the release of final legislative election results, officials said Saturday.
Street demonstrations and clashes between factions troubled several towns around the Caribbean country, though the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince and most other areas of the country of 10 million people were peaceful Saturday.
In parts of northern and southern Haiti, angry partisans insisted that the results released late Friday by the much-criticized electoral council did not reflect voters' will. Presidential and legislative runoffs are scheduled for next weekend amid numerous accusations of fraud and manipulation of results.
Michele Battelli: ‘It was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. It felt like the whole mountain was coming down’
The climber was attempting to reach Everest’s summit when the Nepal earthquake struck, killing one of his friends
Exactly two weeks before the devastating Nepal earthquake struck on 25 April, I hugged Michele Battelli goodbye at Everest base camp. I’d trekked up with him and a group of aspiring summiters to write a piece about the human cost of climbing Everest: a year previously, they’d been at camp two, above the icefall, when an avalanche struck and killed 16 Sherpas.
Battelli and his two friends, Dan Fredinburg and Florian Nagel, who all worked at Google, had been the last climbers through the icefall before the avalanche struck in 2014. They’d all felt “incredibly lucky”, he says. “It could easily have been us.” They’d been spared and, though it was a terrible end to the climbing season, they were determined to try again this year. “We just felt very strong. We felt we could do this.” Unofficially at least – Battelli won’t confirm it – they were planning to make headlines. A Google Street View camera was going to accompany them to the summit.
And that was where I’d left them. Instagramming their rotations – the practice climbs up through the icefall – and hanging out with their more reserved, mostly British team-mates. Dan, the extroverted social media addict who sported a purple down jacket and had until recently dated a celebrity – the actress Sophia Bush – had a habit of being the centre of attention.
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