Blasts heard in Isfahan as US strikes Iranian nuclear sites

Iran’s parliament has voted to shut down the vital Hormuz shipping channel in retaliation against Donald Trump’s attack on the country, prompting fears of a sharp spike in oil prices that could cause a global recession.

A barrel of Brent crude was selling for about $77 on Friday, having risen by more than 10% since mid-June when Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear sites prompted missile strikes from Tehran against Tel Aviv.

Blasts were heard in Isfahan after the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Explosions from the direction of the Isfahan nuclear site could be heard in a video posted on social media, and at least one fiery ball illuminated the night sky

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Trump says US has attacked nuclear sites in Iran including Fordow

In a post on social media, the US president said ‘A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home’

US has struck three Iranian nuclear sites, Trump says

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the US military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to destroy the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.

The decision to directly involve the US comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country’s air defences and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But US and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and a 30,000-lb. bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily-fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.

Who controls the media message on the Israel-Palestine conflict?

 

Israel condemned for air raid in Gaza that destroyed a tower housing media offices, including Al Jazeera’s.

Israel is being condemned for carrying out air raids on a building that housed the offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other international media in Gaza.

Staff and families living in apartments in al-Jalaa tower were given only an hour’s warning to leave.

Reunited after the Manchester Arena bombing

 Usman was a teenage steward working at Manchester Arena. Sharon was a mum collecting her daughter from an Ariana Grande concert.

Austin bombings suspect believed ‘neutralized’: sources

The suspect thought to be responsible for a spate of bombings in Texas is believed to be "neutralized and down," according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation early Wednesday.

The Austin Police Department was working on an "officer involved shooting" on IH-35, according to a tweet from the department. It did not explicitly state that the shooting was related to the bombings.

Austin Police Dept

✔@Austin_Police

APD is working an Officer Involved Shooting in the 1700 block of N. IH-35. Media staging area will be at the Sherwin Williams Paint, 3321 N. IH-35. APD PIO will be en-route.

4:46 PM - Mar 21, 2018

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Austin has been on edge after a series of package or other bombs detonated across the city over the past few weeks.

Manchester Bombing VIctims

8-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos second victim to be named

Sandra Laville

A “beautiful little girl” has been named a victim of the suspected suicide attack after the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that has left at least 22 dead and 59 people injured.

Eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos, was at the concert with her mother Lisa Roussos and Saffie’s sister, Ashlee Bromwich who were later found injured in separate hospitals.

Chris Upton, Headteacher at Tarleton Community Primary School, where the 8-year-old was a pupil said:

Saffie was simply a beautiful little girl in every aspect of the word. She was loved by everyone and her warmth and kindness will be remembered fondly. Saffie was quiet and unassuming with a creative flair.

The news of her death had come as a “tremendous shock”, he added. “The thought that anyone could go out to a concert and not come home is heartbreaking.”

The tight-knit school would be helping staff and pupils to cope with the shocking news, he said.

The first victim to be named in the aftermath of the attack was 18-year-old Georgina Callander.

Runshaw College, where Callander was a student, released a statement, saying: “It is with enormous sadness that it appears that one of the people who lost their lives in Monday’s Manchester attack was one of our students here at Runshaw College [...]

“Our deepest sympathies, thoughts and prayers go out to all of Georgina’s friends, family, and all of those affected by this loss.”

Deaths reported in blasts in Turkey's Istanbul

At least 13 killed, 20 injured in the attack two hours after a football match at Besiktas Vodafone arena.

Two explosions have hit the Turkish city of Istanbul, killing at least 13 people and wounding 20 others, according to news reports. 

Police have evacuated the area around the Besiktas football arena following Saturday's explosions, which the interior ministry called a "terrorist" car bomb attack. 

Reuters news agency cited security sources as saying 13 people were killed. 

The arena is located across the historic Dolmabahce Palace overlooking the Bosphorus Strait. 

Al Jazeera's Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said all the roads leading to the arena have been closed to the public. Public transportation were also suspended, she said. 

The U.S. Government And Media Blame Everyone But The U.S. For The Bombing Of The MSF Hospital In Afghanistan (videos)

Glenn Greenwald speaking to HuffPost live.

During an appearance on HuffPost Live Monday afternoon, Greenwald called reporting by The New York Times and CNN “even more disgraceful than usual,” adding, “It’s really absolutely shameful how they’ve behaved when it comes to reporting on this story.”

“What it shows is that so many U.S. media outlets, and so many journalists and editors in these outlets, have as their predominant attribute when they do journalism not truth-telling, not objectivity, as they claim, but jingoism, this kind of uber-nationalism, this allegiance to their own government. Either in part because that’s just how they see the world, or in part because they don’t want to alienate the sources they rely [on] inside the government to feed them information,” he said. “But whatever the reason, the reporting from The New York Times has been so atrocious that if you’re a New York Times reader relying exclusively on that paper, you would literally have no idea that the United States is actually the country that perpetrated this attack.”

The United States can't evade responsibility for deadly airstrikes on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan simply because Afghan forces asked for them, the medical charity's president told NBC News on Monday.

Army Gen. John Campbell, the top commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, on Monday "corrected" initial statements by the coalition claiming that U.S. forces were under direct fire when the United States launched airstrikes on the hospital in Kunduz last week. He said it instead was Afghan forces who were under attack, not U.S. forces, and he promised a full investigation.