News In Brief
Air Algerie crash: 2nd black box found
Afp, Bamako
UN experts investigating the Air Algerie plane disaster in Mali have recovered the second black box from the doomed plane, a spokesman of UN peacekeepers in the country said yesterday. All 118 people on board of the McDonnell Douglas 83 plane, which had taken off from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and was bound for Algiers, died when it crashed on Thursday.
South Sudan food crisis worst in the world: UN
Afp, United Nations
South Sudan's food crisis is now the worst in the world, the UN Security Council said yesterday as it called for urgent funding to step up deliveries of desperately-needed aid. Some 3.9 million people -- a staggering one in three people throughout the country -- are going hungry as the fighting in South Sudan continues, according to UN officials.
Iraq jihadists dynamite Shiite shrine in Mosul
Afp, Mosul
Sunni militants from the Islamic State group that controls large parts of Iraq have blown up a Shiite shrine in the city of Mosul, an official and witnesses said yesterday.
Jihadists destroyed the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul, the de facto Iraqi capital of the "caliphate" proclaimed last month by Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Seth is revered in Christianity, Islam and Judaism as the third son of Adam and Eve.
Vatican sends emergency aid to persecuted Christians in Iraq
Afp, Rome
The Vatican has given $40,000 (30,000 euros) in emergency aid to Christians in Iraq displaced by a jihadist onslaught, religious news agency imedia said Friday.
Most of the money will go to help those from the northern city of Mosul, where Islamic State insurgents last week ordered the hundreds of Christian families to convert to Islam, pay tribute, or leave the city, prompting thousands to flee.
India FM meets Nepal leaders
Afp, Kathmandu
India's foreign minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday met with Nepal's top leaders during a visit to expand New Delhi's engagement with a neighbourhood increasingly drawn to China. Swaraj's trip, which follows a visit last month to Bangladesh, is part of an ongoing campaign by India's new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to renew neglected ties as Beijing makes deeper forays into South Asia.
Norway partially closes airspace over terror alert
Afp, Oslo
Norway closed part of the airspace over its second city Bergen and tightened border checks yesterday, police said, two days after the country upped security following a terror alert.
Norway has been on high alert since Thursday, when its intelligence service (PST) said it had "recently received information that a group of extremists from Syria may be planning a terrorist attack" in the country.
US evacuates Libya embassy amid clashes
Afp, Tripoli
The United States evacuated its Libyan embassy staff under air cover yesterday as they faced a "real risk" from fierce fighting around Tripoli airport, Secretary of State John Kerry said. The announcement came just hours after the country's interim government warned that the clashes between militia vying for control of the strategic airport were threatening to tear Libya apart.
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