ROTTERDAM, September 27 -- Activists in Kobani, under attack from IS, say US-led coalition launched air raids near Syria's border with Turkey. Fighter jets have bombed targets near the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, activists in the town told Al Jazeera, as the US-led coalition continued its air campaign against the Islamic State (IS). Clashes have raged around Kobane, known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic, for two weeks as IS captured dozens of villages and tried to push into the town itself. About 160,000 people have fled the fighting, crossing into Turkey, which is just a few hundred metres away. Reports from the Turkish side of the border, said smoke could be seen from the eastern side of the town on Saturday after what sounded like an explosion. Kurdish sources inside Kobani, where fighters had been preparing for street battles should ISIL manage to penetrate their defences, said they had been informed of the strikes in advance so they could pull back from some frontlines. Locals said the village of Alishera, held by IS and just a few kilometres from the border, had been hit by one of four strikes on Saturday morning. No US confirmation The US-led coalition did not say whether it had carried out air raids in the area. The US, backed by Arab allies, launched its first air strikes on IS targets in Syria on Tuesday after hitting hundreds of targets in neighbouring Iraq, where the group has also captured large swaths of territory. In Syria, the group has established its headquarters in the northern Raqqa province, which it fully controls. The group, which has declared an Islamic "caliphate" that has not been widely recognised, has killed hundreds of Syrian and Iraqi soldiers and also civilians, making gruesome beheadings their trademark killing method. Activists in Raqqa told Al Jazeera that the US-led coalition had hit several IS positions in the province on Saturday, killing dozens of fighters. Several attacks targeted the Tabqa air base, which the self-declared jihadists captured from the regime last month. An IS training camp was also hit, as well as one of the group's checkpoints, the activists said. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported strikes for the first time in Homs province, east of the desert town of Palmyra, famed for its ancient ruins. Source: Agencies
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CAIRO, September 27 -- An Egyptian court has postponed the verdict in the retrial of deposed president Hosni Mubarak on charges of corruption and killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising that toppled him. The court on Saturday said the ruling for the 86-year-old Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades, was postponed until November 29 due to the large amount of evidence. The verdicts for seven of his former police commanders, as well as for his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, accused of corruption, were also delayed. In August, Mubarak told the court that he never ordered the killing of protesters. "I, Mohammed Hosni Mubarak, who is standing before you today, never handed down orders for the killing of protesters. I never handed down orders for the killing of Egyptians," he said in his first speech to the court. "I exhausted my life fighting against enemies of the homeland. I would never hand down orders for the killing of a single Egyptian citizen under any circumstances. Or hand down orders to wreak chaos of which I had been warning. I would never hand down orders to cause anarchy or a political vacuum." In June 2012, Mubarak and former interior minister Habib el-Adly were sentenced to life in prison for failing to prevent the deaths of more than 800 protesters during the 18-day uprising that began on January 25, 2011. Youth leaders jailed But an appeals court overturned his initial life sentence on a technicality, and ordered a retrial. The case has since been adjourned a number of times. Mubarak's sons were acquitted on corruption charges due to the expiry of a statute of limitations. Mubarak's successor, Mohamed Morsi, was himself overthrown by the military and imprisoned along with thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters during a crackdown in June 2013. Youth leaders who spearheaded the anti-Mubarak revolt have been jailed for staging unauthorised protests by then-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was elected as president in May this year. Sisi has emphasised law and order at the expense of freedom to protest, a popular stance among Egyptians fed up with the chaos and economic ruin of their experiment with democracy. Source: Agencies MADRID, September 27 -- President calls for referendum on November 9, in defiance of Spain's insistence it would be unconstitutional. The president of Spain's Catalonia region, Artur Mas, has signed a decree calling an independence referendum on November 9, a vote the central government has said would violate the constitution and has vowed to block. The decree, signed on Saturday, comes as the long-standing pro-independence movement in the north-eastern region continues to gather momentum in the face of recent years of economic hardship. Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has called an special cabinet meeting on Monday to formalise his government's legal challenge to the vote in the constitutional court. The announcement comes a week after Scotland voted against breaking away from Britain in a referendum that some in Catalonia say inspired them to seek a similar poll. Source: Agencies NEW YORK, September 27 -- Tehran is determined to go ahead with cooperation with Moscow in the nuclear sphere, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said at a news conference in New York. He said the Islamic republic expected implementation of all agreements in this sphere. Sanctions against Iran must be lifted. The sanctions imposed against Iran will not yield any results and all of them must be lifted, Hassan Rouhani told . “Sanctions never prove a constructive instrument,” he said. “Any agreement must imply their full cancellation.” Rouhani pointed out that sanctions would not force Teheran to drop its nuclear program. “Iran will never abdicate its right to develop civilian nuclear power,” he said. Source: Agencies NEW YORK, September 27 -- EUR/USD has seemingly looked past a Hammer formation on the daily as the pair resumes its descent. Within the confines of a sustained downtrend the bullish candlestick formation would require a successive up day and close above 1.2850 to signal a shift in sentiment. In the absence of such a scenario the risks are skewed to the downside with the spotlight left on the November 2012 low near 1.2660. TOKYO, September 27 -- A volcano in central Japan erupted on Saturday injuring at least eight people and forced aircraft to divert flying routes to void the billowing ash cloud. The Meteorological Agency said Mt Ontake, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures, erupted at around 11:53 a.m., sending smoke down the mountain’s south slope for more than three kilometers. “Seven people were lightly injured and one person suffered serious injuries as a result of the eruption,” Makoto Hasegawa of the Nagano Prefecture fire department told Reuters. The eruption is still taking place, he said. “Aircraft are diverting their flying routes to avoid the ash cloud,” said Hasegawa. NHK public broadcaster showed footage of the 3,067-meter mountain sending thick, grey smoke into the air. Mt Ontake is located some 200 kilometers west of Tokyo. No nuclear power plants are located nearby. Source: Agencies WASHINGTON, September 27 -- The United States have carried out another series of airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS) positions on the Syrian territory, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Saturday, citing an anonymous US defense official. "I can confirm US air operations are ongoing in Syria," the official was quoted by the agency as saying.
The United States launched airstrikes against the IS fighters in Iraq back in August, following the jihadists' rapid advance in the country's North. The Sunni extremist group had earlier proclaimed an Islamic caliphate on the large areas it controls in Iraq and Syria. In September, US President Barack Obama outlined a strategy of fighting the IS and other terrorist groups in the Middle East. The plan implied the establishment of a multinational coalition to counter terrorism in the region. Since the beginning of the week, Washington and its Arab allies have been carrying out airtrikes against the IS and other insurgents on the Syrian territory, without any formal permission from Damascus. On Friday, the UK parliament approved the participation of the British military in the airstrikes in Iraq. Source: Agencies “อินชอนเกมส์” วันนี้ (27 ก.ย.) ชิง 24 เหรียญทอง ทัพไทยถึงคิวได้ลุ้นจาก “น้องณี” สุธิยา จิวเฉลิมมิตร ยิงเป้าบิน สกีตหญิง รวมถึงจักรยานมีโอกาสจากจันทร์เพ็ง นนทะสิน ปั่นสาวไทย เจ้าของเหรียญทองแดงครั้งที่แล้ว ที่จะลงชิงชัยประเภทถนน ไทม์ไทรอัลหญิง ขณะที่กรีฑา วันแรก “มิ้ว” จิระพงศ์ มีนาพระ ลงคัดเลือกวิ่ง 100 ม.ชาย ส่วนตะกร้อหญิงไทย เล่นรอบรองฯเจอเวียดนาม ด้านวอลเลย์บอลสาวไทยลงสนามรอบ 8 ทีม ช่อง 11 ช่อง 5 และทรูวิชั่นส์ ถ่ายทอดสด มหกรรมกีฬาเอเชียนเกมส์ ครั้งที่ 17 “อินชอนเกมส์” ที่เมืองอินชอน ประเทศเกาหลีใต้ วันนี้ (27 ก.ย.) เข้าสู่การแข่งขันวันที่ 8 มีชิงทั้งหมด 24 เหรียญทอง จากยิงธนู 4 เหรียญทอง กรีฑา 5 เหรียญทอง แบดมินตัน 1 เหรียญทอง จักรยาน 2 เหรียญทอง ยิงปืน 6 เหรียญทอง สควอช 2 เหรียญทอง และมวยปล้ำ 4 เหรียญทอง สำหรับทัพนักกีฬาไทย ได้ลุ้นจากยิงเป้าบิน ประเภทสกีตหญิง บุคคลและทีม ที่นำทัพโดย “น้องณี” สุธิยา จิวเฉลิมมิตร นักยิงช็อตกันเบอร์ 1 ของไทย ร่วมด้วยอิศราภา อิ่มประเสริฐสุข และนัชญา สุทธิ์-อาภรณ์ เริ่มเวลาไทย 07.30 น. รวมทั้งยังได้ลุ้นจากจักรยาน โดยมีโอกาสจากจันทร์เพ็ง นนทะสิน นักปั่นสาวไทย เจ้าของเหรียญทองแดงเอเชียนเกมส์ ครั้งที่ 16 “กวางโจวเกมส์” ที่เมืองกวางโจ ประเทศจีนในประเภทถนน ไทม์ไทรอัล แม้ร่างกาย และความฟิตจะน้อยกว่า 4 ปีก่อนอยู่พอสมควร แต่เรื่องของประสบการณ์มีอยู่เต็มเปี่ยม เริ่มแข่งขันเวลาไทย 09.30 น. ส่วนกรีฑา ลมกรดหนุ่มสาวไทย จะลงวิ่งรอบคัดเลือกวิ่ง 100 ม. โดยฝ่ายชาย จะมี “มิ้ว” จิระพงศ์ มีนาพระ เจ้าของเหรียญทองซีเกมส์ ครั้งที่ 27 ที่กรุงเนปิดอว์ ประเทศพม่า และรัตนพล โสวัน ลงสนามเวลาไทย 17.00 น. ส่วนฝ่ายหญิง มีทัศพร วรรณกิจ และเพ็ญพร ชัยพฤกษ์ เวลาไทย 16.30 น. โดยที่รอบรองชนะเลิศ และชิงชนะเลิศ จะมีขึ้นในวันที่ 28 ก.ย. “มิ้ว” จิระพงศ์ กล่าวว่า ยังปรับเวลาไม่ค่อยได้ เพราะก่อนมาแข่งไปเก็บตัวที่เยอรมนี 2 เดือน กลับเมืองไทย 2 สัปดาห์ แล้วเดินทางมาอินชอน ก็ต้องปรับเวลาอีกครั้ง ช่วงนี้คงต้องใช้เวลาอีกระยะก่อนเพราะยังรู้สึกง่วงๆ ช่วงซ้อมอยู่แม้จะพักผ่อนเต็มที่แล้วก็ตาม ส่วนสภาพร่างกายเวลานี้ถือว่าสมบูรณ์ โดยสถิติ 100 ม. ดีที่สุดคือ 10.31 วิ. คงต้องไปดวลกับจีน หรือกาตาร์ ที่โอนสัญชาติมาจากแอฟริกา หากไม่หลุดจากนี้ก็มีโอกาสไปวัดรอบชิงชนะเลิศ ส่วนสถิติ 4×100 ม. เป็นทีมใหม่ ยังไม่มีเวลามาตรฐาน แต่น่าจะมีโอกาสสอดแทรก สำหรับกีฬาอื่นที่น่าสนใจของไทย ซึ่งยังไม่ชิงเหรียญ ตะกร้อทีมชุดหญิง ทีมสาวไทย จะเล่นรอบรองชนะเลิศ พบเวียดนาม เริ่มเวลาไทย 12.30 น. ส่วนวอลเลย์บอลหญิง ทีมตบลูกยางสาวไทย ในฐานะทีมอันดับ 2 กลุ่มเอ จะลงสนามในรอบ 8 ทีม พบกับทีมอันดับ 3 กลุ่มบี เวลาไทย 15.00 น. โดยตลอดทั้งวัน โทรทัศน์รวมการเฉพาะกิจแห่งประเทศไทย (ทีวีพูล) จะถ่ายทอดสด ทางช่อง 11 เวลา 08.00-12.00 น. ส่วนช่อง 5 เวลา 13.00-18.00 น. และทรูวิชั่นส์ ถ่ายทอดสด 6 ช่อง ทั้งระบบเอชดี คมชัดสูงสุด และปกติ เวลา 06.00-22.00 น.
Protesters linked arms as police surrounded them with metal barricades with some chanting "civil disobedience" and "free the people". At least four people were carried off on stretchers with slight injuries. The scene marked the biggest escalation in street protests since Beijing's decision in late August. "We're still demanding universal suffrage," said Hong Kong Federation of Students leader Alex Chow. Al Jazeera's Rob McBride, reporting from the complex, said that some protesters were still inside the compound on Saturday morning, while thousands remain outside. Our correspondent said that the tense standoff continued and described the situation as "very fluid" with protesters reacting to the police moving their barricades forward. Tensions escalate The protest came after more than 1,000 school pupils rallied to support university students demanding full democracy for Hong Kong, capping a week-long campaign that has seen classroom strikes. Earlier on Friday, hundreds of school children, some barely in their teens and dressed in school uniforms, assembled in a park close to government headquarters sporting yellow ribbons and stickers saying "smash Chinese Communist Party dictatorship". About 200 students also camped outside the home of chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Thursday night after he ignored their 48-hour ultimatum to meet them to discuss the special administrative region's democratic future as tensions escalate. After work on Friday evening, thousands more people rallied to the side of the 1,500 or so secondary pupils who had skipped classes, bringing the week-long class boycott to a close. Source: Agencies BRUSSELS, September 27 -- Moscow has denied an entry visa to MEP Rebecca Harms regardless of the investigation over the Ukrainian citizen Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian army serviceman facing a trial in Russia for her wrongdoings. Vladimir Chizhov, the ambassador to the EU told a group of Russian reporters here Friday. He said Harms was on Russia’s tit-for-tat list of EU deputies and officials who were banned from entering Russia. “The situation is that Ms. Rebecca Harms, who is a member of European Parliament representing Germany and a co-chairperson of the Greens caucus, decided to go to Moscow and to take part in the court trial of Nadezhda Savchenko, a senior lieutenant of the Ukrainian Air Force charged with espionage and involvement in the activities that resulted in the death of Russian reporters,” Ambassador Chizhov said. “The fact that Ms. Harms used a German diplomatic passport while she was actually going to make the trip as a private individual she didn’t have a mandate from the European Parliament as far as I know - remains on her head,” he said. As a holder of a diplomatic passport, Harms did have the power to enter Russia without a visa and that is why she did not apply for it. “If she had used a different passport and had applied for a visa, she’d have received a denial,” Chizhov said. “Moscow has prohibited her entries of the Russian territory - without any connection to the Savchenko case but as a reciprocal measure introduced after the EU had placed a big enough group of members of the Russian parliament on its blacklists.” “On a purely human level, one can only regret Ms. Harms had to spend some time at Sheremetyevo /one of Moscow’s international airports - Itar-Tass/ before being put on a return flight but to tell you frankly, her stay there wasn’t very long, just three and a half hours,” the ambassador said. He pointed out an emotional reaction to the event on the part of the EU’s foreign policy service and the European Parliament including its President Martin Schultz who described the very facto of a denial of entry to a MEP totally inadmissible. “I can only say to this that the EU’s decision to ban entry visas to a group of members of Russian parliament is even more inadmissible because it was a bluntly political measure while the Russian stop list is a purely retaliatory step,” Chizhov said. “Some people ask why these lists haven’t been made public,” he said. “Well, that’s part of our practice in this case. But if Ms. Harms had asked me personally or members of my staff, we’d have recommended her to refrain from this trip. Source: Agencies BANGKOK, September 26 -- New prime minister slams TV soaps and threatens he will write them himself if their scripts do not improve. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has criticised television soap operas for promoting violence and divisions in society, and says he will write them himself if he has to. Prayuth, who is also army chief, staged a coup on May 22, overthrowing an elected government after six months of at times violent anti-government protests. "I have ordered that scripts be written, including plays on reconciliation, on tourism and on Thai culture", he told reporters on Friday. "They are writing plots at the moment and if they can't finish it I will write it myself", he said of a team of government-appointed writers. The military government has ruled unchallenged since taking over and has cracked down on pro-democracy dissidents and supporters of the ousted government of Yingluck Shinawatra. It has even warned academics that debate that might "cause misunderstanding" would not be tolerated. Scripts ordered Yingluck, Thailand's first woman prime minister, is the sister of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecoms tycoon who shook up politics by winning over poor voters with populist policies and challenging the royalist establishment. Prayuth bemoanded hugely popular television soap operas which he said encouraged violence rather than peace. "In our country, television dramas make people fight and they create divisions so we have much improvement to make in this area", he said. "I have ordered that scripts be written," he said. "One plot will be two foreign families come to visit Thailand, they meet each other and come to love each other." It is not the first time Prayuth has shown an interest in the arts. The straight-talking general also penned lyrics to a patriotic ballad - "Return Happiness to Thailand" - which is played by radio and television stations around the country. Source: Agencies VICE NEWS interview: How do you guys operate? Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi: Our campaign is called "Raqqa is being slaughtered silently," and it was launched in April, 2014. We wanted this campaign because ISIS commits a lot of crimes in the city, without anyone in the world knowing about it. So we launched this campaign to document all the crimes that ISIS is doing in the city. After we launched the campaign and posted a lot of crucifixions and executions on the news and Facebook and Twitter, they made three Friday sermons about us, saying we are infidels and we're against Allah and " we'll catch them and we'll execute them." We were 17 but unfortunately one of us got captured and executed by ISIS because he was caught with the videos and photos he was taking of executions. So because of that, we decided to use a new strategy to make sure not another one of us is captured. We are 12 inside the city and four outside. Before the 12 inside the city were posting on Twitter and posting on Facebook, and talking to journalists, but it's very dangerous. So we decided to use a "secret room," and the people in the city post all the photos, the news, and everything, and the four that are out, we are posting it on the internet, Twitter, and Facebook, and talking to journalists. We hide behind fake names and we don't trust anyone, so we don't get captured. So those of you that are out of Raqqa, where are you? There are three in Turkey, and I got out of Raqqa about two weeks ago, but I'm not in Turkey and not in Syria. I got out because they want to execute me but my family is still in Raqqa. Are you all from Raqqa? All of us are from Raqqa, and we were all in Raqqa our all lives. Were you guys fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad before ISIS came in? We were activists against the Assad regime when we started, but after our city was freed, and ISIS took over our freedom, we just decided to launch this campaign to expose all the crimes that ISIS do, and not just ISIS but all the extremist groups in the city. A video has recently gone viral of a woman using a camera hidden behind her niqab to film life in Raqqa and especially life for women. I saw the video. She has a camera, a very expensive camera, and a secret one. The problem that we have with our campaign is that we don't have cameras. We are just using our cell phones and it's very dangerous to take photos inside the city. First, ISIS put cameras all over the city, so they can know who is taking photos and there are a lot of checkpoints. Also, the internet in the city is very, very slow so we use internet cafes and it's very dangerous because all the internet cafes are monitored by ISIS. So we are risking our lives when we are taking photos of executions with our cell phones. The second thing, and it's the most difficult thing for us, is the Al-Khansa brigade. It's a female brigade from ISIS, all of them female. They have weapons, and they control women inside the city, they check if some of them didn't wear the niqab and things like that, they inspect them. Are these women Syrian or mostly foreigners? Most of them are foreigners. From where? All over the world. From the UK, from the US, Dutch, Shishan (Chechen). Do they all speak Arabic? Some of them don't and some of them just simple words. The bad thing for us is that when I'm an activist and I want to take a photo in the streets of Raqqa, there are a lot of women with veils, you know? And I don't know who's from Al-Khansa and who isn't. So when I get out my cell phone and I am taking photos of the city I don't know if any of them are looking at me or not, because they have the veil, and I don't know if they are Al Khansa. Because if you are taking photos and one of the women from Al-Khansa is looking at you, they will catch you immediately, and you'll be executed immediately. This is a big problem for us. What does Al-Khansa mean? It's just a name, there was a woman in ancient Islam, four of her sons were martyred in battles for Islam, so they call her Al-Khansa, it's the mother of a lot of martyrs. What are some of the things you documented when you were in Raqqa, showing the life of women there? We showed two women who were stoned to death. You know why? They said for sleeping with other men. Related article: Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (1/4) BERLIN, September 26 -- Russia wants to resolve the gas pricing dispute with Ukraine and has made a number of constructive proposals to tackle the problem which have been rejected in Kiev, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in newspaper comments on Friday. Asked whether there were chances for a compromise, Novak told Germany's largest business and finance daily, Handelsblatt: “We are interested in it anyway.” The minister said the parties already had eight rounds of talks on the dispute and Russia made some constructive proposals for pricing and the settlement of Ukraine’s debts. “But Ukraine rejected them all,” Novak was quoted as saying. Russia-Ukraine-EU gas talksRussia, Ukraine and the European Union are scheduled to hold a trilateral gas meeting in Berlin on September 26. Taking part in the consultations will be the EU outgoing energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan. The focus will be made on Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and issues of energy security, a spokesman for the EU commission representation in Berlin told ITAR-TASS. The key task of the talks is to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies both to Ukraine and the European Union in the coming winter. Previous discussions, launched on May 2, that involved the energy officials from the EU, Russia and Ukraine, ended on June 16 with no result. Ukraine’s Naftogaz and Russian energy giant Gazprom later filed mutual claims to the Stockholm Arbitration Tribunal. The Naftogaz oil and gas company stopped paying for the consumed Russian natural gas since March 25. As of August 1, the overall debt of Naftogaz to Gazprom for supplied gas totalled about $5.296 billion (excluding debts under “take or pay” contractual obligations). Source: Agencies LOS ANGELES, September 26 -- Radiohead singer Thom Yorke on Friday released an album via BitTorrent, the British rocker said, marking the first time the online file transfer system often associated with piracy has been used to sell music. "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes," Yorke's first solo album in eight years, features eight songs and was produced by longtime collaborated Nigel Godrich. Users will be charged $6 to have access through software company BitTorrent to a "paygated" bundle of files known as a torrent, which breaks the files up into small pieces which are downloaded from one or more peer-to-peer sources, Yorke and Godrich said. Torrents have been touted as a more efficient way to download large amounts of data using less bandwidth, but some torrent-hosting sites have been targeted by authorities as the means to illegally distribute copyrighted material. "It's an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around," Yorke and Godrich said in a statement. "If it works well, it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to the people who are creating the work," the statement added. Yorke and his band Radiohead have experimented with alternative distribution models in the past, releasing their 2007 album "In Rainbows" first as a download on their website where customers could pay whatever price they wanted. Radiohead's 2011 album "The King of Limbs" was also self-released online before physical copies were released. The music industry has suffered a steep drop in album sales since the beginning of file sharing and online sales in the late 1990s. Year-to-date album sales are down 15 percent compared with last year. THE HAQUE, September 24 -- The Dutch economy grew by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2014, compared with the first, the national statistics office CBS said on Wednesday. In August, the CBS put the growth figure at 0.5%, quarter on quarter. The upward revision is due to higher estimates for consumer spending and more investment by industry. Year on year, the Dutch economy grew by 1.1%, not 0.9% as the CBS said earlier. Nevertheless, the government's deficit has increased sharply compared with 2013. Lower income and higher spending pushed the state debt to €9.4bn. This means the national debt was around 3% of GDP by July, the maximum permitted under eurozone regulations, the CBS said. Definitive figures will be published at the end of March next year. Source: Financieel Dagblad |
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