Government gains more ground in eastern Aleppo
Intense bombardment rocks Syrian city as rebel-held Sheikh Saeed neighbourhood is seized by government forces.
Syrian government forces have seized the eastern Aleppo neighbourhood of Sheikh Saeed from rebels in overnight fighting, as government warplanes continued to mount heavy air strikes on remaining rebel-held areas.
Free Syrian Army sources confirmed to Al Jazeera that Sheikh Saeed, in the eastern corner of the shrinking area rebels control, had fallen on Monday - just a day after an other neighbourhood, al-Madi, was also captured by government forces.
"The concern rebels have now is that we are seeing some kind of a domino effect, more neighbourhoods may be following as days go by," Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab reported from Gaziantep on the Turkish border.
Crimean Tatars accuse Russia of kidnappings and political arrests
Moscow said to be trying to scare activists into submission over annexation, with growing numbers disappearing
Human rights activists have warned of a worsening campaign of harassment in Crimea against Crimean Tatars, including political arrests, trials and kidnappings.
Crimean Tatars lived in the area for centuries before it was settled by either Russians or Ukrainians, but now make up only about 13% of Crimea’s population. During Russia’s 2014 annexation of the region, the Crimean Tatars largely boycotted the hastily organised referendum, and community leaders called for Crimea to remain part of Ukraine.
Two-and-a-half years later, Crimean Tatar activists accuse the Russians of trying to scare them into submission.
We still don't know who bombed Istanbul – and that's a sign of the trouble Turkey is now in
President Erdogan has responded to the Istanbul bombings by swearing to eradicate those responsible, but it was he himself who created the conditions under which terrorism has become a permanent feature of Turkish life
The bombings that killed 38 people and injured 155 after a football match in Istanbul is the latest episode to underline Turkey’s violent instability. Government officials blame the attack on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), with which the Turkish state has been fighting a guerrilla war since 1984. But only a week ago the spokesman of Isis called on its followers to target “the security, military, economic and media establishment” in Turkey.
The fact that either an offshoot of the PKK or Isis could have carried out the football stadium bombings is a measure of the trouble Turkey is now in. The credibility of the government’s initial attribution of responsibility to the PKK is undermined by its past tendency to claim that that the Kurds are behind any terrorist atrocity, regardless of the evidence. The biggest terrorist attacks in Turkey in recent months – 47 killed at Istanbul International Airport in June and 57 dead at a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep in August – were both carried out by Isis.
Murder and blood on streets become norm in Philippines drug war
OBSERVERS
More than 5,000 people have died in five months in the bloody and violent war on drugs unfolding in the Philippines. Constant images of corpses dotting the streets have now become common, according to our Observer.
In the grainy, black and white CCTV footage, two scooters approach a group of people sitting on the street. One of the riders on the first scooter takes out a gun and shoots. They then ride away, with a second gunman shooting those who flee.
This kind of scene has become common in the Philippines, as President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has snowballed into a violent crackdown that leaves bodies in the streets to be discovered the next day.
Duterte was sworn in as president on June 30, promising to rid the Philippines of crime and drugs. An estimated 5,869 people have been killed since he took office, and the slaughter shows no sign of abating.
SDF peacekeepers in South Sudan take up controversial new roles
NATIONAL
JUBA —
Japanese troops taking part in U.N. peacekeeping operations in South Sudan on Monday took on new roles of rescuing U.N. staff and other personnel under attack and of playing a bigger part in protecting U.N. peacekeepers’ camps.
The Japanese government has assigned the new duties to a 350-member Ground Self-Defense Force unit that Monday replaced a unit deployed in the conflict-torn country the past six months. The new unit will continue to undertake the Japanese troops’ main task of building roads and other infrastructure in South Sudan.
The new duties are authorized by security legislation enacted last year by the Diet that gives the nation’s Self-Defense Forces more leeway in activities overseas under Japan’s war-renouncing Constitution, but the move remains controversial at home.Rohingya refugees from Myanmar tell of trauma
Some hid in rice fields, others ate only leaves while making the long journey by foot across the border into Bangladesh.
by
Maher Sattar
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh - Outside this town by the Bay of Bengal, we kept bumping into fresh arrivals when we visited the camps for Rohingya refugees fleeing a security crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.
Many of them said they were from the village of Kearipara in Myanmar. From the sounds of it, that village has been utterly devastated.
All of them shared similar stories: watching family members get murdered, hiding without eating for days, and having their homes burned down.
Several told us about having to sell their valuables - rings, piercings, earrings, whatever they had on them - to facilitate a safe passage into Bangladesh.
The route, which was always difficult and deadly, has become even more problematic.
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