World News Thread & Breaking News!!

[Equation]

Malaysian Airlines again!? This is a really bad year for them.

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Yeah I know, even though it's NOT ANY of their fault, but still it's just bad luck to fly with them.

 

[texx1]

To the World, please look towards Ukraine. You have to give Netanyahu props, a good leader never lets a crisis go to waste.

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Israel orders ground invasion of Gaza

GAZA CITY — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to begin a ground offensive in Gaza, the prime minister’s office said Thursday.

“The prime minister and defense minister have instructed the IDF to begin a ground operation tonight in order to hit the terror tunnels from Gaza into Israel,” the statement said.

Witnesses and Gaza residents reported heavy artillery and naval shelling along the Gaza border, Reuters reported.

The Israeli ground invasion of Gaza Strip comes hours after a five-hour “humanitarian truce” ended.....

 

[texx1]

Today is a busy day.

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White House on lockdown due to unattended bag

The White House is on lockdown after Uniformed Secret Service officers spotted an unattended bag just outside the north fence, Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said.

Leary said that the bag was spotted at about 3:45 p.m. Officers are sweeping it now to check whether its contents are dangerous.

 

[broadsword]

So how is this different than in other parts of the world? In some countries the journalist cooperate with the government and are extensions of the press office.

Their ideology can be crazy dogmatic, preventing them from seeing the other side.

 

[bd popeye]

Gents please keep the discussion of the Malaysia Airlines that "crashed" today in

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/members-club-room/crisis-ukraine-4-6939.html....thread

bd popeye super moderator

 

[bd popeye]

Just a friendly reminder;

Gents please keep the discussion of the Malaysia Airlines that "crashed" today ,07.17.2014, in

Crisis in the Ukraine....thread..Thank you!.

bd popeye super moderator
​

 

[bd popeye]

My condolences to the families of the victims of this horrible accident.

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CHANGSHA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- At least 38 people are confirmed dead and another five injured after a vehicle crash triggered fire and explosion on a central China highway early Saturday morning, police said.

The accident happened at around 3 a.m. on a section of the Hukun (Shanghai to Kunming) Expressway in Hunan Province, when a freight van loaded with flammable liquid, probably alcohol, rear ended a passenger coach capable of carrying 53 people.

A total of five vehicles were destroyed in the accident. The driver of the van and a passenger in it died at the scene, according to the provincial traffic police.

The injured have been rushed to a local hospital for emergency treatment. Exact casualties are still under investigation.

A joint task team led by senior officials with the State Administration of Work Safety, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport is rushing to the site for rescue and investigation.

The fire has been put out as of 8 a.m. The provincial government has ordered all-out rescue efforts, which is still under way.

 

[texx1]

So much for peace in the Middle East

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More than 70 killed in Israeli shelling, clashes in Gaza

(Reuters) - More than 60 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed as Israel shelled a Gaza neighborhood and battled militants on Sunday in the bloodiest fighting in a near two-week-old offensive.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a massacre in Shejaia in the eastern suburbs of the city of Gaza and declared three days of mourning.

Israel's army said it was targeting militants from Gaza's dominant Hamas group whom it alleged had fired rockets from Shejaia and built tunnels and command centers there. The army said it had warned locals two days earlier to leave.

It was the Israeli military's highest one-day death toll since a 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Army sources said seven of the 13 soldiers were in an armored personnel carrier hit by anti-tank fire. Others were killed setting up positions inside houses they had taken over, the sources added.

Residents fled Sunday's fighting along streets strewn with bodies and rubble, many of them taking shelter in Gaza's Shifa hospital.

Cries of "Did you see Ahmed?" "Did you see my wife?" echoed through the courtyard. Inside, dead and wounded lay on blood-stained floors.

Shifa hospital's director, Naser Tattar, said 17 children, 14 women and four elderly were among the 62 dead, and about 400 people were wounded in the Israeli assault.

Gaza's Health Ministry officials said at least 405 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed and about 2,600 wounded since Israeli air and naval bombardments began on July 8, followed by a ground push on Thursday.

In all, 18 Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians have been killed since the offensive was launched in response, Israel says, to mounting cross-border rocket attacks by militants.

Palestinian fighters kept up their rocket fire on Israel on Sunday. Sirens sounded in southern Israeli towns and in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. There were no reports of casualties from those salvoes.


DEATH TOLL TOPS 400

Thousands streamed out of Shejaia, some by foot and others piling into the backs of trucks and sitting on the hoods of cars filled with families trying to get away. Several people rode out of the neighborhood in the shovel of a bulldozer.

Video given to Reuters by a local showed at least a dozen corpses, including three children, lying in streets, though the footage could not be verified independently.

As the tank shells began to land, Shejaia residents called radio stations pleading for evacuation. An air strike on the Shejaia home of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, killed his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, hospital officials said.

Hamas's armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said it used landmines and roadside bombs against advancing Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers.

"As we moved into Shejaia we were met by anti-tank missiles, RPGs, heavy, extensive weapons fire at the forces from the houses, from the surrounding buildings," said Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

The Israeli military said it beefed up its presence on Sunday, with a focus on destroying missile stockpiles and a vast tunnel system Hamas built along the frontier with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accused Hamas of using non-combatants as human shields, told CNN the army was concentrating on military targets. "Unfortunately there are civilian casualties which we regret and don't seek," he added.


TRUCE EFFORTS

Egypt, Qatar, France and the United Nations, among others, have all been pushing, with little sign of progress, for a permanent ceasefire in the worst surge of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in two years.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he might travel to the Middle East soon to try to aid truce efforts. He said he supported Israel's efforts to destroy tunnels it says Gaza militants use for infiltration attempts and to hide weaponry.

"We support Israel's right to defend itself against rockets that are continuing to come in," Kerry told Fox News.

Washington has also urged Israel to minimize civilian casualties.

Qatar was due to host a meeting between Abbas and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, a senior Qatari source told Reuters. Ban was due to travel to Kuwait, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan during the week, a U.N. statement said. The Qatari source said Abbas would also meet Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.

Western-backed Abbas in April struck a reconciliation deal with Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 from forces loyal to his Fatah movement. The agreement led to the formation of a Palestinian unity government and Israel's pullout from U.S.-brokered peace talks.

Hamas has already rejected one Egyptian-brokered truce, saying any deal must include an end to a blockade of the coastal area and a recommitment to a ceasefire reached after an eight-day war in Gaza in 2012.

Hostilities escalated following the killing last month of three Jewish students that Israel blames on Hamas. Hamas neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

The apparent revenge murder of a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, for which Israel has charged three Israelis, further fueled tension.

 

[delft]

Germany - US:

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Berlin wants to prosecute US handlers of German spies
Published time: July 20, 2014 13:30


Criminal prosecution is likely to be expanded on Americans involved in recruiting and supervising activities of German officials spying for the US intelligence, Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas told Welt am Sonntag.

If investigators find a body of evidence that alleged double agents in Germany’s federal intelligence service and Defense Ministry have been spying to the benefit of American intelligence, “the investigation would extend on their feasible patrons,” Maas declared.

According to Welt am Sonntag, the alleged spymaster is the US citizen Andrew M., a 52-year-old international political consultant, who allegedly received confidential military documents from the Germans.

“The law applies to everyone without discrimination,” Maas said, stressing that intelligence security laws apply on friendly states either. “Those who do not abide by the law in this country may have to face criminal prosecution,” he said.

“Spying among friends is like breaching a diplomatic dam,” Maas said.

“The evidence for espionage activities is very strong,” an anonymous security officer closely familiar with the case told the paper. “If I were the federal prosecutor, I would press charges.”

An unceasing row of intelligence scandals, that started over a year ago with revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who have revealed that the US has been extensively eavesdropping Germans, Chancellor Angela Merkel included, for years now.

The scandal grew fiercer after on July 2, 2014, Germany’s secret service arrested a German citizen employed by national Federal Intelligence Service (BND) on suspicion of spying for the US. The BND official allegedly got 25,000 euro for his services.

Just a week later Bild am Sonntag, Germany's largest-selling national Sunday paper, reported that the US secret services had recruited more than a dozen officials in various German government ministries to work as spies, including BND and the Ministry of Defense, with some of them working for the CIA for many years.

This revelation resulted in Germany expelling the CIA chief in Berlin as retaliation step and 'in addition to existing issues'.

The opposition to the ruling Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party in Bundestag craves for blood of political opponents and would like to make maximal use the scandal. The left party Die Linke and its leader Katja Kipping demanded earlier that they expect the federal government to “present a concerted action plan against US spying in Germany.”

Now Kipping’s party colleague and deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee which oversees the intelligence services, André Hahn, who also called earlier for a “no spy” agreement with the US, has expressed full support to possible prosecution of the foreign citizens if they have been involved in the spy scandal.

“If the Attorney General finds out with whom the suspect has had contact for years, it must be understood that this track and the background of this person will be cleared up completely,” André Hahn said. “For those Americans who violate our laws and do not enjoy diplomatic immunity, the German criminal law shall apply.”

 

[ManilaBoy45]

World's Largest Indoor Arena Opens in the Philippines

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Asia News Network - Sunday, Jul 20, 2014

MANILA - It's all systems go for Monday's inauguration of the Philippine Arena in Bocaue town, Bulacan province, "the world's largest domed indoor arena," which will be the main site of the centennial celebration of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) on July 27 where more than 1 million of its members are expected to congregate.Located in a 50-hectare complex called Ciudad de Victoria or City of Victory, which is part of the INC's centennial project, it has a bowl-shaped structure inspired by the narra, the Philippine national tree, according to the world-acclaimed architectural firm Populous, its concept designer. The firm also designed the huge 23,000-seat O2 Arena in London, as well as various huge sports arenas and stadiums in the world.The Philippine Arena is more than twice the size of The O2 in London and even of the large indoor arenas in the United States, which was why it was a big challenge to design and build. The Philippine Arena "pushed the boundaries of arena design" and is now considered the world's largest indoor arena, Populous said in its website.During its groundbreaking in August 2011, INC executive minister Eduardo V. Manalo said the arena and other massive architectural marvels to be built in the City of Victory had been designed to bring glory to God and honour to the country.