Battle for Mosul: Isis stronghold under attack from Iraqi and Kurdish forces launch assault on – latest news
The Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga fighters are converging on Iraq’s second-largest city, which has been in the hands of Islamic State since 2014
Here are a few videos purporting to show the situation in and around Mosul this morning. The first is from ITV news’ middle east editor, and we suppose is fairly reliable.
About 1,500 Iraqi fighters trained by the Turkish army are to take part in the attack on Mosul, Turkish military sources have told Reuters.
Their involvement comes despite a row between the Iraqi and Turkish governments over the presence of Turkish soldiers at the Bashiqa camp, in northern Iraq, where some 3,000 irregular fighters have been trained, and over who should take part in the attack, the agency reports.
“Around half of the 3,000 are currently taking part in the operation. The other half are being kept in reserve,” one of the sources told Reuters.
“There is currently no participation in the operation by the Turkish military, but developments are being watched very closely,” the source added.
The source said there were Shi’ites, Yazidis and Christians in the force, which also included Turkmen fighters.
Dubai's Emir flies more than £250,000 of aid to Haiti in his private jet
Sheikh Mohammed donated 90 tonnes of emergency supplies in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum sent 90 tonnes of emergency supplies in his Boeing 747 to the Caribbean island in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.
Around 300,000 Haitians have been forced by the tropical storm to live in temporary shelters after an estimated 1,000 people were killed when it struck the poor country.
Signs of dissent, desperation amid food shortages and rising prices in Egypt
Despite a widespread government crackdown on dissent, some Egyptians are resorting to drastic measures to express their desperation over the food shortages and double-digit inflation that have made many of life’s necessities hard to come by.
Nearly six years ago, a frustrated and destitute Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself ablaze, sparking a series of popular revolts across the region now collectively known as the Arab Spring.
Following on the heels of Tunisians, Egyptians took to the street in January 2011 and succeeded in overthrowing President Hosni Mubarak, the repressive military dictator who ruled the country for almost 30 years. But whereas Tunisians managed to build a functioning, if flawed, democracy in the aftermath of their revolt, Egyptians today find themselves under an even more repressive military regime coupled with dwindling food supplies and skyrocketing prices. The price of rice has gone up by 48 percent over the past year while the cost of cooking oil – which is increasingly hard to find – has gone up 32 percent.
Nigeria: Chibok girls in tearful reunion with families
Cries of celebration as released Nigerian girls meet their families after more than two and a half years.
Some of the 21 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the armed group Boko Haram have reunited with their families, following their release after 30 months in captivity.
Cries of joy filled the room as the freed girls, who had been kidnapped along with more than 200 other pupils in the town of Chibok in April 2014, met their relatives in Abuja on Sunday.
The girls were freed on Thursday, but it took days for most of the families to reach the capital for the reunion.
Japan may accelerate missile defense upgrades in wake of North Korean tests: sources
By Nobuhiro Kubo and Tim Kelly,Reuters
Japan may accelerate around $1 billion of planned spending to upgrade its ballistic missile defenses in the wake of rocket tests suggesting North Korea is close to fielding a more potent medium-range missile, three government sources told Reuters.
The outlays, currently in a budget request for the year starting April, includes money to assess a new missile defense layer - either Lockheed Martin Corp's Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system or Aegis Ashore, a land-based version of the ballistic missile defense system used by vessels in the Sea of Japan.
It also covers money to improve the range and accuracy of PAC-3 Patriot batteries, said the sources familiar with the proposal, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
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