Indonesia ( Janitor on trial in Jakarta rape case- of kindergartner )

JAKARTA: A closed-door trial began Tuesday for the first of five janitors accused of raping a kindergartner in a bathroom at a prestigious international school in Indonesia that is facing a storm of controversy following more abuse allegations.
An American who taught at the Jakarta International School for 10 years killed himself earlier this year as the FBI was investigating evidence that he sexually abused scores of teen boys while working at 10 schools across four continents.
The custodians contracted to work at the school were arrested in April — five men accused of attacking the boy and a woman accused as an accomplice. Police said one man committed suicide while in custody after drinking bathroom cleanser.
A media horde surrounded Agun Iskandar, 25, as he entered the courtroom. The remaining four suspects were expected to appear in court Wednesday, and the men could face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty. The 6-year-old boy’s parents have sued the school, seeking $125 million in compensation.

Child survives stabbing attack by maid

A seven-year-old child who sustained stab wounds to the neck and hands after being attacked by his African housemaid in Asir is in stable condition.
Miteb Al-Amer, the child’s father, said he never noticed anything unusual about his Ethiopian maid.
Al-Amer said his son, Amer, was playing when the maid suddenly came from behind, put a knife to his neck and tried to slaughter him. 
“His mother and aunt rushed to the room after hearing his sister’s screams, only to find the boy resisting the maid, who froze with the knife in her hand,” he said.
The aunt had carried the victim to a hospital some 34 km from their home with the help of her nephew, who called an ambulance.
They were met by paramedics half way through the journey. 
The boy was taken to the Saudi German Hospital because there were no bed available in Asir Central Hospital. 
Medical personnel operated on the boy to make sure the arteries, veins and vocal cords were not damaged.
The father said his son left the operating room after midnight. The family has been reassured by doctors, but the attending surgeon admitted the boy to the intensive care unit to allow the wound to heal and his condition to improve.
We received word of the incident on Thursday evening, said Ahmad Ibrahim, Asir Red Crescent press spokesman. 
“A rescue team has been immediately dispatched,” he said.
Lt. Col. Abdullah Shathan, spokesman for the hospital, confirmed that the boy is still under observation.
The maid has been arrested and is being interrogated for motive.
Al-Amer said he could not hazard a guess for the motive behind the crime. “This maid was not the first I recruited and I never expected her to do such a thing,” said the father. “We treat her well and give her wages every month.”
The latest incident is one of many attacks perpetrated by housemaids on children left in their care.
Al-Amer called on the Labor and Interior Ministries to intervene and come up with dramatic solutions to spare children from such criminal behavior. 
“Resolving this issue does not lie with citizens. It should be dealt with by higher authorities,” he said.

Israeli airstrike kills mother, 4 children in Gaza

GAZA CITY: An Israeli airstrike killed a mother and four children from the same family in northern Gaza on Sunday, medics said.
The strike hit a home near Jabalia in the north of the Palestinian territory, emergency spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said, as Sunday’s death toll in Gaza reached at least 14.
Earlier strikes in the day killed a one-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, Qudra said. Several other air strikes brought Sunday’s death toll to at least 14 people, including six children.
The conflict, which erupted on July 8 when Israel launched its operation against the besieged coastal territory, has claimed more than 2,100 Palestinian lives and those of 68 Israelis, four of them civilians.
Israel also killed a top Hamas financial official in an air strike on Gaza City.
Mohammed Al-Ghul was an important Hamas actor, Israeli army spokesman Major Arye Shalicar claimed. The airstrike targeted a car in Gaza City, killing Ghul, the army said.
Palestinian medics in Gaza confirmed his death.

UN Warns of Possible Massacre in Shiite Town in Northern Iraq

BAGHDAD – The United Nations secretary-general’s special representative for Iraq on Saturday called for “immediate measures” to avoid the possible massacre of civilians in the town of Amerli, under siege by Sunni militants for two months.

In a statement, Nickolay Mladenov expressed alarm over reports of the “inhuman conditions” being endured by the roughly 18,000 inhabitants of that northern Iraqi town, mainly members of the Shiite Turkmen community.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant considers Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq, to be heretics.

“The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens,” Mladenov said.

Surrounded by towns and villages already captured by ISIL, Amerli, located 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, is cut off from supplies of food and water.

The envoy urged the Iraqi government to “do all it can” to ensure that Amerli’s residents receive “lifesaving” humanitarian aid or are “evacuated in a dignified manner.”

“Iraq’s allies and the international community should work with the authorities to prevent a human rights tragedy,” he said.

Earlier this month, the United States launched airstrikes to halt the advance of ISIL and facilitate the evacuation of and delivery of aid to a group of Yazidis, who practice an ancient religion that the jihadist group also considers heretical.

Thousands of Yazidis were stranded on a mountain after ISIL drove them from their homes in the northern town of Sinjar, but most were able to flee to safety thanks to the U.S. intervention.

Iraq has been wracked by an armed conflict with sectarian overtones since June, when Sunni insurgents led by ISIL launched an offensive in northern Iraq.

The militants captured Mosul, Iraq’s second city, and have proclaimed a caliphate in the parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria under their control, prompting the mobilization of numerous Shiite militias.

Shiite militiamen opened fire in an Iraqi Sunni mosque during Friday prayers in the eastern province of Diyala, killing some 70 worshippers.

The United Nations condemned the attack and expressed concern about the “impact such acts of sectarian violence will have ... on the political process aimed at establishing a unified government capable of confronting the threat” posed by ISIL.

WASHINGTON ( China playing " Top Gun " with United States )

Washington Denounces “Dangerous” Encounter Between U.S., Chinese Warplanes

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government said Friday that a Chinese jet fighter carried out dangerous maneuvers near an American Navy aircraft when both planes were flying in international airspace over the South China Sea.

The encounter took place Tuesday as a Navy P-8 Poseidon was flying a routine patrol mission about 135 miles (217 kilometers) east of China’s Hainan Island, the Defense Department spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, told reporters.

The Chinese plane approached the Poseidon three times and the wingtips of the two aircraft were only 20 feet (6 meters) apart at one point, the admiral said.

“The Chinese jet also passed the nose of the P-8 at 90 degrees with its belly toward the P-8 Poseidon, we believe to make a point of showing its weapons load,” Kirby said.

“We have registered our strong concerns to the Chinese about the unsafe and unprofessional intercept, which posed a risk to the safety and the well-being of the air crew, and was inconsistent with customary international law,” the Pentagon spokesman said.

The intercept represents “a deeply concerning provocation,” Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, said Friday during a briefing in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where President Barack Obama is spending his vacation.

“What we’ve encouraged is constructive military-to-military ties with China, and this kind of action clearly violates the spirit of that engagement,” Rhodes said.

Possible suspect ( In American journalist James Foley homicide )

British rapper L Jinny is a leading suspect in the barbaric beheading of American journalist James Foley.

British rapper a suspect in ISIS beheading

He recently tweeted a photo of himself holding up a severed head.

nyp.st

Israeli strikes kill family of 5, destroys 2 mosques in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza on Saturday, killing five Palestinians from the same family, two of them children, as the war between Israel and Hamas entered a 47th day.
Eighty-one Palestinians and a four-year-old Israeli boy have been killed and nine Israeli civilians wounded since Tuesday, when truce talks collapsed ending nine days of calm.
Israel has vowed no let-up until it can guarantee the safety of its civilians, while Hamas insists that Israel must end its eight-year blockade of the territory as part of any truce.
The Israeli military said it had carried out more than 20 air strikes over the Gaza Strip on Saturday and that at least three rockets or mortar rounds had hit southern Israel.
Witnesses and Palestinian officials said two mosques were destroyed in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza, while a third, in the Shati refugee camp, which had already been damaged, was bombed again.
The deadliest Israeli air strike on Saturday levelled a home in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, killing a couple, their sons aged three and four, and a 45-year-old aunt, medics said.
Another seven Palestinians were wounded in an Israeli strike that struck a house in Zeitun, east of Gaza City, medics said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Friday that the army would exact harsh retribution for the killing of a four-year-old child by shrapnel that tore through his home in kibbutz Nahal Oz in southern Israel.
Daniel Tragerman was the first Israeli child killed since the current conflict began on July 8.
srael said militants had fired the deadly mortar round from next to a school in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City.
Netanyahu said “Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack,” his spokesman Ofir Gendelman said on his Twitter account.
The army and the Shin Bet security agency would “intensify ops against Hamas,” he added.
At least 2,097 Palestinians have been killed since July 8, 70 percent of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
On the Israeli side, 68 people have died, all but four of them soldiers.
It is the deadliest fighting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 2005 end of the second intifada, or uprising.
On Friday, Hamas executed 18 people it accused of collaborating with Israel a day after three of its top commanders were assassinated in Israeli air strikes.
Hamas gunmen grabbed six of them as worshippers left midday prayers at Gaza’s biggest mosque, witnesses told AFP.
Another witness saw 11 people shot dead in a square near the remains of Gaza police headquarters, bombed by Israeli warplanes.
An 18th person was shot in front of bystanders in a separate incident.
The Western-backed Palestinian president and Hamas’s exiled leader urged the United Nations on Friday to draw up a “timetable” for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories to end, Qatar state media reported.
President Mahmud Abbas and Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal issued the appeal during talks in Doha, hosted by the Qatari emir, a key backer of the Islamist de facto rulers of Gaza.
The two Palestinian leaders have been holding talks since Thursday, but little has filtered out.
Britain, France and Germany have advanced key points of a new UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate and sustainable cease-fire, and the lifting of Israel’s blockade.
Diplomats said the text was aimed at advancing efforts to reach agreement within the 15-member council after a draft resolution from Jordan met with resistance from Israel’s US ally.
Washington has wielded its veto powers at the Security Council repeatedly in the past on behalf of Israel, although the now 46-day war has strained relations between the allies.
The new resolution proposes a mechanism to monitor the cease-fire and supervise the movement of goods into Gaza to allay Israeli security concerns.
It also calls for Abbas’s Western-backed Palestinian Authority to take back control of Gaza, seven years after his loyalists were driven out of the territory by Hamas.