ISIS Suspected of Chemical Attack Against Kurds in Syria
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If verified, the use of chemical agents could increase pressure on the Obama administration to intervene in the war more forcefully.
Details of Kayla Mueller’s captivity, including her repeated rape by the leader of the Islamic State, were pieced together by American officials.
Adburasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 25, who admitted to plotting to provide material to the Islamic State terrorist group, could face up to 15 years in prison.
Three civilians have been killed in eastern Ukraine during what government forces said was record high shelling since the start of a fragile cease-fire in February.
KOS, Greece (Reuters) - Migrants desperate to get off the Greek island of Kos fought each other on Saturday while nearby a passenger ship chartered to house and process refugees lay empty 24 hours after it had arrived.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has given the U.N. nuclear watchdog information regarding its atomic past, a milestone in potentially meeting a condition for sanctions relief under an accord reached with world powers last month.
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CARACAS (Reuters) - Eight Venezuelan police officers have been arrested for the alleged murder of four men, the state prosecutors' office said, shortly after a video began circulating on social networks that appeared to show an execution.
The Italian navy says at least 40 migrants have died in the Mediterranean Sea and that an unknown number of others were rescued from what local media are describing as an overcrowded people smuggler's boat. A navy statement on Twitter said the rescue operation is ongoing on the boat, which is reported to be north of Libya. The circumstances that led to the deaths were not immediately clear. Europe has been flooded by a wave of desperate migrants fleeing poverty and armed conflicts...
Energy companies eager to export American crude oil scored a victory Friday when Washington agreed to allow them to trade oil with Mexico, in a further erosion of the four-decade ban on selling U.S. crude overseas.
U.S. intelligence agencies have evidence indicating Islamic State used mustard agent against Kurdish forces for the first time at least two weeks ago in fighting in Syria, a tactic the group may have repeated in two subsequent attacks in Iraq.
Iran has submitted documents and material about its past nuclear work on time, the U.N.’s nuclear oversight agency said, but it provided no assessment of how much clarity the new information shed.
The captain of an Italian navy vessel leading a rescue off Libya says victims were found "immersed in water and fuel".
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Anna Crepet, who works for medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said treating the thousands of men, women and children arriving in Italy feels “like working in a warzone”.
Speaking in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, where MSF medics work at boat landings and in reception centres, she told The Independent most migrants go untreated for potentially fatal injuries until they reach safety. 
Anna Crepet, an MSF doctor, said treating migrants was like 'working in a warzone'
Anna Crepet, an MSF doctor, said treating migrants was like 'working in a warzone'
“Sometimes it feels like we’re working in a warzone but here I think it’s even worse, because we see injuries that haven’t been treated for weeks,” Dr Crepet said.
“We see lots of fractures through beating, lots of gunshot wounds. We find bullets in muscles and under the skin.”
Read more: Palestinian boy's harrowing journey to Europe
Smugglers 'raped woman who was seven months pregnant'
At least 40 migrants found dead in hold of smugglers' boat
She recounted how one man arrived in Sicily with a hole through one thigh where a bullet had passed through and become embedded in his other leg.
But some injuries are harder to spot. Dr Crepet said almost all women who make the journey from their homes in Africa or the Middle East are raped along the way, often arriving several months pregnant.
Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe
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Migrants fleeing conflict
Desperate for entry to the EU, the group of migrants risked being washed away by the sea at Ventimiglia rocks, June 2015
Getty/AFP
“They tend to say very little about what they've been through but sometimes we see scars and wounds from rape,” she said.
“We know that most of the women who come here alone must have been raped - and a lot of women arrive on their own."
Dr Crepet likened some of the stories she had heard to torture, telling of migrants being gang-raped in front of their loved ones by their captors in Libya.
“Men or women, it doesn't matter,” she said. “We've seen 13-year-olds who have been raped."
Many migrants tell doctors similar stories of being kidnapped, held hostage and beaten in Libya by gangs demanding money.
But even before they get to the lawless country, where most smugglers’ boats are launched towards Italy, people coming from sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East are driven for weeks through the desert in overcrowded pick-up trucks.
Migrants sit on the open cargo of pick-up trucks, holding wooden sticks tied to the vehicle to avoid falling from it, as they leave the outskirts of Agadez for Libya (AFP)
Migrants sit on the open cargo of pick-up trucks, holding wooden sticks tied to the vehicle to avoid falling from it, as they leave the outskirts of Agadez for Libya (AFP)
Dr Crepet said the Sahara was “one of the deadliest parts of the journey”, with many migrants being murdered or dying in car accidents or of dehydration.
She met one Eritrean man with an amputated leg who was run over when he fell out of an open lorry and could not stand back up on the sand.
He survived and was treated for his severe injuries in Sicily but many others are lost, often with their deaths going unreported.
A 17-year-old Palestinian boy who journeyed to Italy from Gaza earlier this year told Save the Children workers how three people thrown off the truck he was in were left behind to die in the desert.
“They gave us water to drink out of a can but it was mixed with petrol,” Yusuf said. “We were allowed to eat once a day…some people died during this trip from hunger and thirst.”
Yusuf, 17, saw people die of starvation on the journey from Sudan to Libya
Another teenager, from Somalia, told the charity how he travelled through the desert with women who were raped and forced to perform sex acts on smugglers as they drove.
“One of the women who was raped was seven months pregnant,” Ismail said.
“When she came back to the group took a scarf and tried to strangle herself but luckily we stopped her.”
When he reached Libya, he and other migrants were kidnapped by uniformed men and imprisoned in an apartment until they paid an extra $300 (£200).
“We weren't able to speak amongst ourselves and we were constantly beaten without any motive,” he said. The teenager was held for a month before his mother wired the money they demanded.
Dr Crepet said injured migrants in Libya are too afraid of going to hospitals because of rumours that they will be killed or handed over to police and militias.
African immigrants gather outside a building used as a shelter at Janzur Port just outside Tripoli
“The people we see are survivors but many wouldn't survive because you need to be really robust and strong to be able to get through the desert, get through Libya and then get on a boat and be at sea with no leg or a bad injury, stuck for days on a boat,” she added.
“I’m always amazed to see how they survived but we don’t know how many have died along the way.
“In Libya they’re not treated like human beings, they’re treated like animals. There is a word in Arabic that the smugglers use, they call the migrants beasts.”
Dr Crepet treated one man with gashes on his arms who had been slashed by smugglers using him as an “example” of what would happen to other migrants if they did not pay up.
More than 200 migrants died when a boat capsized off the coast of Libya on 5 August
She has been working in Pozzallo since January and was previously based with MSF in the nearby port of Augusta.
Dr Crepet, who is Italian but trained at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and has worked at several NHS hospitals, estimated that she must have treated thousands of migrants.
She is one of dozens of MSF doctors stationed in Sicily checking people as they arrive in ports, then at reception centres and clinics, as well as educating them about infection control and hygiene.
The medic described her job as “intense” and extremely demanding, both emotionally and professionally, while overcoming language barriers and cultural differences.
“But the people you treat are amazing patients, they’re the best I could have,” Dr Crepet said.
MSF also has three boats helping search efforts in the Mediterranean, including one that rescued more than 200 people on Saturday.
A record number of migrants are expected to cross the sea to reach Europe this year and at least 2,000 have died making the voyage so far.
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Russian-backed rebel forces in Ukraine are building up to "full combat readiness" after an urgent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and some of his top military advisers. The announcement that the rebels were getting prepared in eastern Ukraine came hours after Putin called the defense meeting.
The situation on the ground in Ukraine has been tense lately. Violence has surged in recent months. Ukrainian officials have claimed that the pro-Russian forces have violated a peace treaty signed in February and have targeted Ukrainian troops with heavy weaponry.
The head of Ukraine's national security and defense council has said that the "shelling is carried out around the clock using large-calibre artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, prohibited by the [peace agreements]. During the day, the enemy carried out 153 artillery attacks." War, apparently, is imminent and soldiers in the area had their August vacation leave taken away following concerns that the violence might escalate more and result in an all out confrontation.
Also on Friday, it was reported that Russia and Finland might be preparing to go to war with one another. The two countries share over 800 miles of border. The reserve units in Finland on active duty jumped from 6,000 to 18,000 from last year to this year as tensions between Helsinki and Moscow have become increasingly strained.
Meanwhile, pro-Russian forces have begun claiming that the Ukrainian troops are fighting back with lethal weapons acquired from Italy and Poland. The allegations have been denied by Kiev, which has said that its efforts to unblock the flow of lethal weapons from its allies in the last 18 months have so far been thwarted.
Russia denies hosting top Iranian commander
New Zealand Herald - 6 hours ago
MOSCOW (AP) " A senior Russian diplomat on Friday denied claims that an Iranian general visited Moscow in violation of United Nations sanctions banning travel. The reported visit last month by Maj. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds ...
Editorial: So much for 'snap-back'
Boston Herald - 10 hours ago
It was just a friendly little visit — by the head of Iran's paramilitary force to Moscow at the end of July — but it shows what a joke the whole Iran nuclear deal really is, especially its snap-back provisions in the event of violations. Maj. Gen ...
Russia Ready To Send Iran S-300 Missiles
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - 14 hours ago
Russia is ready to send S-300 long-range, surface-to-air missile systems to Iran and is working to have the sanctions against Tehran removed as soon as possible, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on August 14. The decision to supply the systems ...
Russia denies UN-sanctioned Iran general in Moscow 'last week'
Al-Arabiya - 18 hours ago
In this Friday, March 27, 2015 photo, commander of Iran's Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, sits in a religious ceremony at a mosque in the residence of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran. (AP) ...
Russia vows to block any UN sanctions resolutions against Iran
Tehran Times - 19 hours ago
MOSCOW — Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has said that Moscow would not let another sanctions resolution against Iran be passed in the United Nations. Last month, Iran and six world powers, including Russia and the United States, ...
Russia steps up demand for US to drop European missile shield
Arab News - 19 hours ago
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attend a meeting of the Security Council at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia on Wednesday. (AP). REUTERS. Published — Saturday 15 August 2015.
Russia Steps Up Calls to Dismantle European Antimissile System
Wall Street Journal - 22 hours ago
MOSCOW—Russia stepped up its calls Friday to dismantle the missile defense system being built in Europe by the U.S. and its allies, saying that the recent nuclear deal with Iran undercuts Washington's chief argument for the system. Russian Deputy ...
Coming back to Cuba, chemical weapons in Iraq, Soleimami's Moscow run
Washington Post - Aug 14, 2015
COMING BACK TO CUBA. The United States raised the flag over its embassy in Havana today for the first time in over half a century in a ceremony attended by Secretary of State John Kerry and dozens of others, the Washington Post reports. The ...
Russia urges US to scrap European missile shield plans
Times of Oman - Aug 14, 2015
Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov in Moscow on Friday. Lavrov last week said Barack Obama "was not telling the truth" in comments he made in 2009 linking the need for a missile shield to what the president called the "real threat" from Iranian ...
Russia: Top Iranian Commander Did Not Visit Moscow 'Last Week'
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - Aug 14, 2015
A senior Russian official has denied claims that an Iranian general visited Moscow in violation of a UN travel ban. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said General Qassem Soleimani -- the commander of foreign operations for Iran's Islamic ...
Russia denies Kerry's claims that leader of elite Iranian force visited Moscow
Jerusalem Post Israel News - Aug 14, 2015
commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, attending a religious ceremony in Tehran to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Fatima, the daughter of Prophet Mohammed.. (photo credit:AFP PHOTO).
Kerry raises 'concerns' with Russia over Iranian general's sanctions-violating ...
Fox News - Aug 14, 2015
Secretary of State John Kerry, in a conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, raised "concerns" about an Iranian leader's recent travel to Moscow in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to the State Department. The travel by Maj. Gen ...
Russia to US: Drop European Missile Shield
Newsweek - Aug 14, 2015
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, shakes hands with a representative of the Syrian opposition Haytham Manna. Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters. Filed Under: World, Russia, Missile Shield. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia urged the United States on Friday to ...
Russia says US should drop European missile shield plans after Iran deal
Daily News & Analysis - Aug 14, 2015
Since the July agreement under which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for an easing of UN, US and European Union sanctions, Moscow has stepped up its rhetoric against the missile shield. Russia flag File Photo. Russia urged the ...
Russia: US Should Drop Missile Shield
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - Aug 14, 2015
A senior Russian official has said the United States should scrap plans to station parts of its missile defense shield in Europe now that Iran has reached a deal with world powers to limit its nuclear program. "We don't see any reason to continue with ...
Russia Denies Reports of Iranian General's Visit to Moscow
New York Times - Aug 14, 2015
MOSCOW — Russia has rejected statements by the United States that a senior Iranian general subject to a United Nations travel ban visited Moscow in late July, a senior Foreign Ministry official told reporters on Friday. Sergei A. Ryabkov, the deputy ...
Russian official denies reports of Iranian general's secret visit
Washington Post - Aug 14, 2015
MOSCOW – Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Friday denied reports that a sanctioned Iranian military commander had secretly visited Moscow recently, a development that threatened to embolden opposition to the Iran nuclear deal ahead ...
Russia Calls on US to Drop Missile Shield Plans
The Moscow Times (registration) - Aug 14, 2015
Patrick T. Fallon / ReutersThe US Army Avenger Air Defense System (AN/TWQ-1) used to fire Stinger missiles is displayed with two test missiles during "Black Dart", a live-fly, live fire demonstration of 55 unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, at Naval ...
US raises concern about Iranian's reported visit to Moscow
Washington Post - Aug 13, 2015
Secretary of State John F. Kerry raised U.S. concerns about a reported visit by the head of Iran's paramilitary Quds Force to Moscow last month in a conversation Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the State Department said. The Quds ...
Kerry complains to Moscow about Iran general's visit
Ahram Online - Aug 13, 2015
US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to express concern about a visit to Moscow by the commander of Iran's covert forces, a senior State Department official said. General Qassem Suleimani, head of ...
US Protests Blacklisted Iranian General's Visit To Moscow
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - Aug 13, 2015
The United States says it will raise the issue at the United Nations of a recent visit to Moscow by a senior Iranian general who is targeted by a UN travel ban. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed on August 12 that General Qassem ...
US to raise sanctions-hit Iran general's Moscow visit at UN
Ahram Online - Aug 13, 2015
The United States said it would raise the issue of a recent Moscow visit by a senior Iranian general at the United Nations, saying it violated UN resolutions on Iran. General Qassem Suleimani's visit to Russia, reportedly in late July, had not received ...
US Says Iranian Military Figure's Visit to Russia Violates UN Ban
New York Times - Aug 12, 2015
WASHINGTON — The State Department said Wednesday that a recent visit to Moscow by the head of Iran's paramilitary Quds force had violated a United Nations travel ban that has been imposed because of concerns about Tehran's nuclear and ballistic ...
US Complains to Russia About Iranian General's Visit
Wall Street Journal - Aug 12, 2015
WASHINGTON—The U.S. has complained to senior Russian officials about an Iranian general's recent trip to Moscow, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. The U.S. will also raise its concerns at the United Nations and pursue the matter through the ...
US tries to protect Cuba and Iran from Russian influence
Pravda - 1 hour ago
The United States must compensate Cuba for multimillion-dollar losses that the country has incurred as a result of the American policy of sanctions, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, said as he turned 89 years old yesterday. Can this be ...
Sergei Ryabkov: Sale of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran based on ...
APA - 5 hours ago
Baku. Turbet Baghirova – APA. A third party is not being considered and demanded as to the sending of s-300 missile systems to Iran,” Russian Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov told a press conference, APA reported citing RIA Novosti. He said related technical ...
Russia pledges to veto any anti-Iran sanctions resolution
News.Az - 9 hours ago
Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has pledged to block any future attempts by the UN to hit Iran with fresh sanctions. "When Resolution 1929, the last series of sanctions resolutions, was adopted… we made ...
Russian Federation Counts on US Congress to Approve Iran Deal
Dispatch Times - 9 hours ago
Moscow has long opposed the plan, which it sees as a threat to its nuclear deterrence, and vowed to retaliate if it is carried out. Secretary of State John Kerry, in a conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, raised “concerns” about an ...
Russian Federation denies Iranian general's visit to Moscow
Junior College - 9 hours ago
Soleimani's visit to Moscow came just 10 days after the comprehensive nuclear agreement was struck between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, in Vienna on July 14. Meanwhile, a visit to Russian Federation late last month by General ...
Russian Federation denies hosting top Iranian commander
<a href="http://Jewocity.com" rel="nofollow">Jewocity.com</a> (press release) (blog) - 10 hours ago
Moscow informed Washington last week that Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was not in Russia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has said. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, had ...
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