WEST BANK
Army kills two Palestinians
Israeli forces yesterday killed two Palestinians in a raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said its troops had opened fire after coming under attack. “During an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] operation in the Jenin refugee camp, Palestinian gunmen opened fire at the forces and assailants hurled explosive devices at the forces,” the military said in a statement. “In response to the immediate threat, forces shot towards the attackers.” The Palestinian health ministry said the two people killed by the troops were aged 21 and 16, and that a third person was shot and wounded in the leg. Camp residents made no mention of any Palestinian gunfire in their accounts of the raid in which they said rocks were thrown at the troops.
TURKEY
Five killed in IS cell raid
Police yesterday killed five Islamic State (IS) militants in a raid on a house in the city of Konya and four police officers were slightly wounded, the provincial governor’s office said. Special forces police launched the operation at the house in Meram District at 5:15am because they believed the militant cell was planning an attack, Dogan news agency said. It said there were suspicions that those killed might have been planning to target events being held this week to commemorate the anniversary of an attempted military coup on July 15 last year. A gunfight broke out after those in the house resisted the police and five Kalashnikov rifles, a pistol and ammunition were seized during the raid, the governor’s office said in a statement.
PHILIPPINES
Nine killed in rebel clash
Philippine troops yesterday clashed with communist rebels in the south, leaving eight rebels and a soldier dead, officials said. The fighting erupted after patrolling troops encountered about 40 New People’s Army rebels in Compostela Valley, army spokesman Captain Alexandre Cabales. The guerrillas later fled, leaving behind the bodies of eight rebels and six high-powered guns. A wounded soldier died on the way to a hospital, he said.
AUSTRALIA
Flyer checks-in beer
A beer-loving man has managed to check-in a can of lager as his only luggage on a domestic flight, with the brew arriving safely thanks to courteous baggage handlers. To the amusement of ground staff at Melbourne Airport, the can of Emu Export Lager was tagged and made its way along the conveyor belt to the plane as the only check-in item for passenger Dean Stinson on Saturday last week. Stinson said he concocted the plan with a friend who worked at the airport “just for a laugh,” adding he was pleasantly surprised that his precious cargo survived the four-hour journey.
CHINA
Dozens arrested over fraud
Authorities have detained 35 Japanese in Fujian Province for alleged fraud, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “We were informed that local authorities notified the Japanese consulate-general in Guangzhou on July 3 that they had taken 35 Japanese nationals into criminal custody on suspicion of fraud,” a ministry official who asked not to be identified said. The Japanese were accused of being involved in scams targeting residents in Chiba Prefecture, the Nikkei Shimbun said, adding that it could be the largest Japanese telecom fraud group found operating in China, in terms of the number of people detained.
DR CONGO
Envoy reports new arrests
Ambassador to the UN Ignace Gata Mavita on Tuesday said investigations into the killing of two UN experts in March have led to 11 new arrests, including eight people who allegedly “played a direct role” in the murders. Mavita told the UN Security Council that “justice will be delivered” for the two experts as well as the four Congolese men accompanying them, whose bodies have never been found.
GERMANY
Arrests made after heist
Special police commandos yesterday arrested several people during raids in Berlin over the robbery of a 100kg gold coin, worth about US$4 million, from Berlin’s Bode Museum in March. Pictures showed armed police in balaclavas and paramedics outside a property in the Neukoelln area. “We are at the moment conducting searches and executing arrest warrants in several places in Berlin concerning the break in at the Bode museum in March,” police said. The robbery was at one of Berlin’s most prestigious museums in the center of the capital and from behind bullet-proof glass. The Canadian coin, named “Big Maple Leaf,” which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II, is made out of pure gold with a material value of about US$4 million. Its face value is about US$1 million. The coin, 53cm in diameter and 3cm thick, even made it into the Guinness Book of Records for its unrivaled degree of purity. It was loaned to the Bode Museum in December 2010. Local media showed a picture of a man being led away by police with a white garment over his head.
UNITED STATES
Request prompts standoff
Police said that a man with an axe showed up outside a Massachusetts radio station demanding that the song My Axe be played and held off responding officers for three hours. Witnesses and station employees said the man arrived at Kiss 108 in Medford on Monday and unsuccessfully requested the station play the song by Insane Clown Posse. Officers found the 38-year-old man in his car in the station parking lot. The man surrendered at about 4:30pm. WBZ-TV reported that he had minor, self-inflicted cuts on his arms.
UNITED STATES
Thoreau stamp issued
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. The rest are observing the 200th birthday of Henry David Thoreau, the author who penned that line. The Postal Service yesterday marked the occasion with a new postage stamp honoring the “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience” writer, philosopher and naturalist. Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817. Concord postmaster Ray White and officials from the Thoreau Farm and Birthplace were to be on hand to dedicate the stamp. They said it was in tribute to Thoreau’s “personal example of simple living, his criticism of materialism and the timeless questions he raises about the place of the individual in society.”
UNITED STATES
MSNBC host quits party
MSNBC host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough said he is leaving the Republican Party. The Morning Joe cohost has become a sharp critic of President Donald Trump. Scarborough on Tuesday said during an interview with CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert that “I’ve got to become an independent.” He appeared as a guest with his cohost and fiance, Mika Brzezinski, who has faced criticism from the president.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
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