At least 16 killed, 23 injured in attack on mosque in Pakistan

 The attack happened at 13:00 p.m. local time (08:30 a.m. GMT) at the Gul Muhammad mosque in a tribal area in the northwest of the country, local security official Gulab Khan said.

More than 200 people were participating in Friday afternoon prayers at a place of worship at the time of the attack, and it was feared that there could be more victims, said Khan.

The injured were taken to hospitals in the area, which is mountainous and has bad roads, he said, adding that an investigation into the attack had begun.

The attack came one day after Eid al-Adha (The Feast of the Sacrifice) ended in the Muslim country.

Two police officers died and four were injured on Tuesday on the first day of the feast in an explosion in Quetta, hours after a failed suicide attack against a Shiite mosque in the south of the country.

Despite such incidents, Pakistan has seen a fall in the number of terrorist attacks, which the government and army attribute to a military operation that was launched in June 2014 in the northwest of the country against the Taliban.

Palestinian man killed after alleged knife attack near settlement

A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers after he allegedly attacked one of them with a knife in the southern West Bank, military sources reported Friday.

The suspect had allegedly managed to injure a soldier in the face before being killed outside the Jewish settlement Tel Rumeida in the city of Hebron, officials said.

The incident occurred on the same day two other Palestinians and a Jordanian man were killed in what the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have termed "a wave of terror attacks."

The military report added the soldier had been taken to a Jerusalem hospital for treatment for his injuries.

Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank, with a population of around 150,000.

It has become the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past few years, and is divided into two sectors: H1, under Palestinian control, and H2, under Israeli military occupation.

The H2 sector is host to the Ibrahimi Mosque, Islam's fourth-holiest site _ after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque.

Police Officer, 5 Others Killed in Honduran Capital

TEGUCIGALPA – Gunmen killed at least six people, including a police officer, in a poor district of the Honduran capital, authorities said.

The multiple homicide occurred Wednesday in the Abraham Lincoln neighborhood of western Tegucigalpa while the victims were talking at a grocery store, a forensic spokesperson told EFE.

Eyewitnesses said between six and eight armed men arrived in two pickup trucks at the establishment and opened fire.

The victims included an off-duty police officer, two moto-taxi drivers and two woodworkers, Luis Osabas, spokesman for the Security Secretariat, which oversees the National Police, told reporters.

Investigators have not yet determined a motive, he added.

Criminal violence has been responsible for an average of around 14 deaths per day in Honduras thus far in 2016, authorities say.

Mexico - video of shooting at Prosecutor’s Office in Mexico

Iran - Trying to bulldog U.S again ( Get out of Persian Gulf )

(CNSNews.com) Sept. 14, 2016 – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy has a message for the U.S. Navy: Go to the Bay of Pigs; the Persian Gulf is our home.


Iran flexes muscles again ?

A banner bearing words to that effect was draped on the side of a new, Iranian-built warship unveiled in the port of Bushehr on Tuesday, at a time when the Pentagon has reported a jump in the number of Iranian provocations in one of the world’s most important waterways.
“This ship increases the deterrent power of Iran and will have an effect on the calculations of the enemy – particularly America,” Iranian media quoted Fadavi as saying.
“There is no reason for the presence of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf and we have always regarded and will regard it as a factor behind insecurity and evil acts,” he said, adding that the U.S. must leave the waterway.
The IRGC’s second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami, said the IRGC Navy was determined to confront Iran’s enemies as long as they hatch plots against Iran and against Muslims.
The “Bay of Pigs” reference on the banner derives from a taunting speech by supreme leader Khamenei last May, after a resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives warning that Iranian military activities were undermining stability in the Persian Gulf.
“The Persian Gulf is our home,” Khamenei said at the time. 
“They come here from the other side of the world to perform a military exercise? Well, look the other way, towards the Bay of Pigs,” he said.
In case the reference was lost on anyone, an official Khamenei website explained that the supreme leader was being “ironic.”
“It indicates U.S. military weakness that stems from their failed operation in the ‘Bay of Pigs’ in Cuba,” the website added, citing the failed U.S.-backed invasion by anti-Castro exiles in 1961.
The resolution Khamenei was responding to, introduced by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), cited the detention in the Gulf last January of 10 U.S. Navy sailors and two small patrol vessels, as well as subsequent incidents of Iranian warplanes flying in close proximity to U.S. Navy ships.
Since then, the number of incidents in the area has increased sharply.
“Since January 2016, surface elements from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGC-N) have harassed U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf thirty times, 50 percent more than during the same period last year,” U.S. Navy Commander Jeremy Vaughan wrote in an article for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy this week.
“In each case, the Iranian vessel or vessels approached within weapons range. On at least three occasions, they closed to a distance that could make a collision more likely or could render U.S. ships nearly defenseless to a boat packed with explosive charges,” Vaughan said.
Last Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said seven IRGC fast-attack boats had approached the USS Firebolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship operating in international waters, in an “unsafe and unprofessional” manner. The Iranian boats had their machine guns uncovered and manned, although not trained on the U.S. vessel.
Earlier incidents included one late last month in which a Iranian vessel approached two U.S. Navy ships. Crew on the USS Squall, also a Cyclone-class patrol ship, fired three warning shots into the water.
U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Joe Votel, said during a Pentagon press briefing a few days later that the main concern about the Iranian provocations was “miscalculation.”
“I am concerned about rogue commanders, rogue Iranian Quds force naval commanders who are operating in a provocative manner and are trying to test us,” he said.
Votel said that in each case the U.S. sailors involved “have made very, very good decisions, but ultimately if they continue to test us we’re going to respond and we’re going to protect ourselves and our partners.”

Iran- UN High commissioner for human rights: “my Office has been given no access since 2013.”

 Wednesday, 14 September 2016 17:38

• Print
• Email

NCRI - Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in his opening statement at 33rd Session of Human Rights Council,  which was held in Geneva on 13 September 2016, by referring to Iranian regime's behaviour of disregard and disrespect for international law stated:

“Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran, my Office has been given no access since 2013 – despite several years of good technical cooperation prior to that date. Our offers to begin a technical dialogue on the death penalty have been systematically overlooked, as have all other proposals of engagement. This is particularly regrettable given the reports we continue to receive of fundamental problems with the administration of criminal justice; continued execution of large numbers of people, including juveniles; allegations of discrimination and prosecution of religious and ethnic minorities; harsh restrictions on human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists; and discrimination against women both in law and practice.”

Brazil Photojournalists Protest Police Violence

SAO PAULO – Press photographers and videographers gathered in Sao Paulo on Wednesday to denounce police violence directed at media workers covering protests against the right-wing government of Brazil’s new president, Michel Temer.

Rio de Paz, a human rights NGO, organized the demonstration outside the Sao Paulo Museum of Art, located on the main thoroughfare of Brazil’s largest city.

Several of the participants held up a banner reading: “Free press: No to violence.”

“For being press and being with a camera in hand, one is a target for the police. And for being black one is a double-target,” free-lance photographer Vinicius Gomes told EFE.

“It was not by chance that they picked me from among five photographers who were there, to beat me and throw my camera on the ground,” he said. “They picked me for being a shaggy black guy who would not cause problems if he was beaten.”

Many of those present wore eye patches in tribute to photographer Sergio Silva, who lost his sight due to an injury suffered while covering a protest in 2013.

Police repression has grown worse since then, Gomes said, adding: “I only go to protests with a helmet and protective glasses.”

The media workers at Wednesday’s event demanded investigations of incidents such as a Sept. 4 police assault on a BBC journalist during a protest in Sao Paulo’s Pinheiros neighborhood.

In another case, a rubber bullet fired by police struck an EFE photographer, destroying the PC in his backpack.

Protests have intensified in Brazil since the Aug. 31 Senate vote to oust twice-elected President Dilma Rousseff over alleged budget irregularities, paving the way for erstwhile Vice President Temer to become head of state.

Last week, the office of the national ombudsman announced plans to monitor police conduct during demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.