Air Strike Reportedly Kills 57 In Rebel-Held Town As U.S. Envoy Visits Damascus

The strikes, identified as Russian by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, occurred as a U.N. envoy visited Damascus.

BEIRUT, Jan 9 (Reuters) - An air strike reportedly killed dozens of people in a rebel-held town in Syria on Saturday as a U.N. envoy visited Damascus to advance preparations for peace talks planned this month despite opposition misgivings.

Agreement was also reached for aid to be delivered on Monday to an opposition-held town besieged by pro-government forces where United Nations says there have been credible reports of people dying of starvation, sources said. Aid will be sent simultaneously to two villages blockaded by rebels.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 57 people were killed in the air strike, which hit a court house and prison in the town of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province. It identified the jets as Russian, and said the court house was operated by the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Russia has been staging air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad since September. The building was struck with four missiles. The dead included 23 members of the Nusra Front, three women and at least one child, the Observatory said.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The war has raged on since last month when the Security Council endorsed a plan for peace talks, a rare case of U.S.-Russian agreement over a conflict that has killed 250,000 people. The talks are due to begin on Jan. 25 in Geneva.

The Syrian government told U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday it was ready to participate but wants to know who would take part from the opposition, Syrian state media reported.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem also said it was important to see a list of groups that would be classified as terrorists as part of the new diplomatic process, flagging another potential complication.

Damascus views all the groups fighting to topple Assad as terrorists, including rebels who support a political solution and are represented in a recently formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations.

A statement from de Mistura's office described Saturday's meeting as useful and said the envoy had outlined preparations.

"The Special Envoy is looking forward to the active participation of relevant parties in the Geneva talks. He will be continuing his consultations in the region," it added.

Syrian rebels and opposition politicians have expressed doubts over whether the peace talks will begin as planned. Their concerns over the diplomatic bid include the absence of any mention of Assad's fate.

Earlier this week, they told de Mistura that before negotiations the Syrian government must stop bombing civilian areas, release detainees and lift blockades imposed on opposition-held areas.

AID DELIVERY AGREED FOR MONDAY

"Can the international community achieve the implementation of this pre-negotiation stage in the few remaining days? If it can, there is no problem. But I doubt they can," Riyad Naasan Agha, a member of the opposition council, told Reuters.

Another opposition official said on Friday the opposition would not name its negotiating team until the government did so. The outlook for the talks has been further clouded by increased tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which back opposing sides in the conflict. Tensions have risen since Saudi Arabia executed Shi'ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The aid deal agreed on Saturday will result in humanitarian supplies being sent to the opposition-held town of Madaya at the Lebanese border, and to two villages in the northwestern province of Idlib that are blockade by rebels.

Aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation in Madaya, where some 40,000 people are at risk. The United Nations said on Thursday that Damascus had agreed to allow access to all three areas, but did not say when the delivery would take place.

"Both date and time have been set. Aid will go to three towns on Monday morning, all at the same time," said a source familiar with the matter. A second, pro-Syrian government source confirmed the details.

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Kosovo Protesters Set Fire To Government HQ

Police used tear gas to drive back several thousand anti-government demonstrators.

PRISTINA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Demonstrators in Kosovo fought running battles with police and briefly set fire to government headquarters on Saturday in the latest violence in the young Balkan country over an accord with its former ruler Serbia.

The seat of government in the capital Pristina caught fire after it came under a hail of petrol bombs. Firefighters quickly doused the blaze and police used tear gas to drive back several thousand opposition demonstrators.

They were rallying against a deal brokered by the European Union to give Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority greater local powers and the possibility of financing from Belgrade.

Police pursued the protesters, who threw petrol bombs, stones and bottles and set light to an armored police car.

 

Kosovo, which is majority Albanian, declared independence from Serbia with Western support in 2008, almost a decade after NATO air strikes drove out Serbian security forces accused of killing and expelling civilians from the ethnic Albanian majority during a counter-insurgency war.

Serbia does not recognize its former southern province as independent, but both are under pressure from the EU to regularize their relations if they are to progress towards membership of the bloc.

Many Kosovo Albanians believe the accord with Serbia represents a threat to Kosovo's hard-won sovereignty, now recognized by more than 100 countries including the major Western powers.

Protests against the deal have frequently turned violent over the past year and opposition MPs have repeatedly disrupted the work of parliament by releasing tear gas in the chamber.

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Turkish forces kill 32 Kurdish rebels in southeast

A group of street artists lie on a sign reading "To get Peace, stop the War! Make noise for Peace!" during a demonstration on January 10, 2016 in Istanbul, after Turkish security forces killed 18 militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (AFP Photo/Ozan Kose)

 

Diyarbakir (Turkey) (AFP) - Turkish security forces killed 32 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants over the weekend in fighting between the authorities and rebels in the country's east and southeast regions, the army and media reports said.

The security sources raided a home in eastern Van province after receiving intelligence that the PKK militants were planning a large-scale attack on government buildings, killing 12 rebels, Dogan news agency reported.

One policeman was killed and two others were injured in the ensuing clashes, Dogan added. 

"The terrorists came to Van to stage a big attack. Fortunately, we managed to prevent it," provincial governor Ibrahim Tasyapan told reporters, adding that dozens of hand granades and rifles had been seized in the raid.

The army said that a further 20 militants had been killed Saturday in southeastern towns of Cizre and Silopi in Sirnak province near the Iraqi border as well as the Sur district of Diyarbakir -- all subject to a blanket curfew. 

A soldier and a police officer were also shot dead in Diyarbakir -- the largest city in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, security forces said. The army says that that a total of 448 PKK members have been killed in the three towns since the current campaign started in mid-December.

Turkey wages an all-out offensive against the PKK, with military operations backed by curfews ongoing to flush out the rebels from several southeastern urban centres that have raised concerns of a humanitarian crisis. 

The operations mark a new escalation in five months of fighting with the PKK, which initially fought for Kurdish independence but now presses more for greater autonomy and rights for the country's largest ethnic minority.

According to Haberturk daily's website, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a closed-door meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that the operations and curfews in the southeast would end within a week, but "there was no deadline."

"We will pursue our fight against terrorism with great determination until these killers have been wiped out from our mountains, plains and towns," he told the meeting on Sunday in televised comments. In Istanbul, a group of street artists, actors and musicians marched on Istiklal Avenue to call for an end to violence, carrying placards reading "Make noise for Peace!," an AFP photographer said. 

Human Rights Foundation of Turkey said on Saturday that over 160 civilians, including 32 civilians, had so far been killed in curfew-hit towns.

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16 injured, mostly kids, in Bangkok shopping mall accident

BANGKOK (AP) — Sixteen people were injured, most of them children, at one of Bangkok's upscale shopping malls Saturday when a tent at an outdoor event came crashing down on them, officials said.

The accident at Siam Paragon shopping mall appeared to have been caused by strong winds that caused the tent to collapse, said Lt. Gen. Sanit Mahathaworn, Bangkok's acting police chief.

"Strong wind caused the tent to fly up, about one meter. Then wooden signs attached to the back of the tent flew off and injured nearby people," he said.

Among the injured were at least 12 children, aged 6 to 9, who were among dozens of people at an event called "Pokemon Day Dance Party" to celebrate Thailand's Children's Day, Sanit and other officials said.

"A mother and her child suffered broken legs. The mother was trying to protect her child from getting hurt," Sanit said. The injured were taken to a nearby hospital.

Siam Paragon issued a statement saying it "would like to regretfully apologize for the accident which injured a total of 16 people" on behalf of the event's organizers, which included other Thai companies. It said organizers sent all the injured to hospitals and by Saturday evening only two remained hospitalized.

Sanit said that police would press criminal negligence charges against the owners of the company that installed the tent. They could face up to three years in prison and a 6,000 baht ($165) fine.

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Toll in Russia raids on Qaeda-run Syria jail rises to 81: monitor

A large explosion, allegedly caused by rebel fighters, hits a Syrian army military outpost in Maarat al-Numan on October 14, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ghaith Omran)

 

Beirut (AFP) - At least 81 people, including 23 Al-Qaeda fighters, were killed in Russian strikes on a prison complex run by the jihadist group in Syria's northwest, a monitor said Sunday in a new toll.

The strikes on Saturday targeted an Al-Nusra Front building near a popular market in northwestern Idlib province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The complex in Maarat Al-Numan housed the group's religious court and a jail.

The dead included 23 Al-Nusra fighters and six non-jihadist rebels who were in the building. Another 52 people -- including civilians and prisoners in the complex -- were also killed. At least one child and two women were among the civilians killed in the strikes.

Russian warplanes have been conducting air strikes against the Islamic State organisation and "other terrorist groups" in Syria since September 30. Although Al-Nusra and IS are both jihadist organisations, they are fierce rivals and regularly clash in Syria.

Al-Nusra also has tense relationships with non-jihadist rebel groups that oppose its extreme interpretation of Islamic law. In Idlib, it heads a coalition of Islamist and rebel groups known as the Army of Conquest which has expelled regime forces from the province.

Syria's conflict first erupted with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011 but expanded into a war that has left more than 260,000 people dead.

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Mountain Lion Found With Teeth Growing Out Of Its Head

A hunter tracking an aggressive mountain lion made a startling discovery when the cat's body turned up with an extra set of teeth on top of its head, wildlife officials said. A photo of the deformed male juvenile, bagged outside Preston, Idaho, was released Thursday by the state’s Fish and Game department. 

"The mountain lion had an unusual deformity -- fully-formed teeth and what appears to be small whiskers were growing out of hard fur-covered tissue on the left side of the animal's forehead,” the department said in a release Friday.

 

A young male mountain lion was recently found in Idaho with teeth and what may be whiskers growing out of its head.

"Idaho Fish and Game cannot definitively explain why this abnormality developed on this mountain lion,” the department said.

One possible explanation for the teeth is that they could be the remains of a conjoined twin that died in its mother's womb and was absorbed into the surviving fetus. The deformity could also be a rare teratoma tumor, the department wrote.

“These kinds of tumors are composed of tissue from which teeth, hair, and even fingers and toes can develop,” it said. “Biologists from the southeast region of Idaho Fish and Game have never seen anything like this particular deformity before."

One possible explanation for the teeth is that they could be the remains of a conjoined twin that died in its mother's womb and was absorbed into the surviving fetus. The deformity could also be a rare teratoma tumor, the department wrote.

“These kinds of tumors are composed of tissue from which teeth, hair, and even fingers and toes can develop,” it said. “Biologists from the southeast region of Idaho Fish and Game have never seen anything like this particular deformity before."

It’s not clear what will happen to the cat’s body, though officials say the hunter is not required to turn it over for further analysis. Tyler Olson said the cat’s attack on his dog on Dec. 30 initiated the hunt.

“My first response was to scream and wave it off,” he told Fox 13, describing finding the cat just feet from his front door.

The dog suffered puncture wounds but survived the attack, Olson said. Still, concern that it could attack again pushed some neighbors to mount a hunt for the cat.

“They tracked it down and got it later in the afternoon, brought it to show us,” Olson said. "I did see that weird feature on its head and you know, handled it. It was pretty strange.”

Mountain lion hunting is legal in Idaho during set seasons and with appropriate licenses and tags, wildlife officials said.

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Boyfriend held in Ghana over British actress's murder

Arthur Simpson-Kent, boyfriend of former British soap actress Sian Blake, in Accra on January 10, 2016, after he was arrested on January 9 in Ghana over the murder of the actress and their two young sons (AFP Photo/Nana Boakye Tiadom)

 

Accra (AFP) - The boyfriend of former British soap actress Sian Blake has been arrested in Ghana over the murder of her and their two young sons, and now faces extradition to the United Kingdom, police said Sunday.

Investigators tracked Arthur Simpson-Kent to undergrowth near the seaside town of Butre, where he was taken into custody Saturday in connection with the death of the former EastEnders actress and their two children Zachary, 8, and Amon, 4.

"We are waiting for the British authorities to send a formal request for the extradition to begin," Prosper Ablor, head of the Ghana Police Criminal Investigative Department, told a news conference.

Simpson-Kent, hands shackled behind his back, sat in a chair and stared at the ground as police spoke.

Blake and the children were last seen on December 13 in their south east London neighbourhood, and Simpson-Kent was questioned three days later over their disappearance. 

The bodies of the boys and their mother were discovered earlier this month in the garden of their home.

Blake is best known for her mid-1990s role on EastEnders, which follows the lives of neighbours in a fictional borough of London.

Simpson-Kent flew to Ghana just days after he was questioned by investigators in Britain. 

"While escaping from the United Kingdom, (Simpson-Kent) travelled to Glasgow in Scotland, from where he flew to Ghana via Amsterdam on December 19, 2015," police told reporters. 

Authorities said "intelligence gathered on the ground" led them to Simpson-Kent, but did not elaborate. He was arrested after being "smoked from a thicket" and was armed with a knife.

Detective Chief Inspector Graeme Gwyn of London's Metropolitan Police told the press conference in Ghana: "Our thoughts continue to, and always remain with Sian's family and the boys.... We are here to get justice for them."

He added in a statement: "I would like to pass on my extreme thanks to the Ghanaian Police for their valuable assistance in this matter."

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Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney Had Sex on a Canvas for V Magazine and Also ‘For Peace’

 

Lady Gaga had sex on a canvas splattered with paint with Taylor Kinney for the cover of V Magazine for peace, which is pretty cool, though honestly how much of an excuse do you need to do any of that? In a photo posted to Twitter, Gaga shared her (or rather Kinney's, he's the one holding the camera) post-coital selfie and announced that all of the proceeds from the cover's sale would go to her charity, the Born This Way Foundation.

Gaga is V's guest editor for the issue and she also included cover photos of Karl Lagerfeld and Hedi Slimane, among shots of other friends. Inside, she revealed that Kinney has wanted to do the nasty on canvas for a long time. "Years ago, when we were secretly living in San Diego and crashing on the floor of a beach shack," she wrote, "We never wore shoes. He told me he wanted to make love to me on a canvas."

And as for the performance's political dimension, Gaga wrote that the lovemaking is supposed to be a defiant act amid violence across the world. "We made love on the canvas on a Sunday in Chicago. We made love amidst chaos. We talked about shootings. We made love amidst terrorism. And we talked about how people’s hearts are also suffering all over the world as they watch and witness a swell of violence. We made love amidst violence." That's not necessarily our first choice for pillow talk, but whatever works for you.

And in an interview with James Franco inside the issue (currently only in print), Gaga spoke to James Franco about her upcoming studio album, which is expected to drop later this year. She talked about the way her role on American Horror Story gave her "clarity," and promised that the upcoming release will be a little calmer compred to her previous work. "I have a little less of an instinct to be reckless with my music now because I'm reckless in other places," Gaga said, "So now I'm thinking more about what it is I want to say and what I want to leave on Earth. It's less an expression of all my pain." Sounds like the new album is going to be less ARTPOP and more Tony Bennett. Sorry, all five of you ARTPOP stans.

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Woman raped by five men in New York City park, police say

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Five men took turns raping a woman in a Brooklyn park after forcing her father at gunpoint to flee the scene, New York City police said.

The 18-year-old woman was with her father in a park just after 9 p.m. on Thursday night when five men approached them, police said. One pointed a gun at the father and told him to leave.

After the father left, the men each assaulted the woman, police said. They fled when her father returned a short while later to the park, accompanied by two officers.

The woman, whose name was not made public, was treated at a local hospital and released, police said.

Police released surveillance video taken in a nearby bodega that they said showed the five suspects prior to the attack. The video depicts a group of black men in jackets and sweatshirts talking and laughing inside the store.

Police have asked for the public's help in identifying the suspects.

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4 police, 2 soldiers, 6 militants killed in Bayelsa supplementary election

There were several cases of violence, ballot snatching, and voting disruption during the Bayelsa supplementary elections of Saturday, most especially in the Southern Ijaw LGA. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had scheduled the supplementary poll for January 9, after the December 5, 2015 gubernatorial election in the state failed to produce a winner between Timipre Sylva of the All Progressives Congress and Seriake Dickson of the Peoples Democratic Party. 

Over 12 people were reportedly killed across the local governments during the governorship poll.

According to unconfirmed reports, out of the 12 deceased persons, four were policemen, two were soldiers while six are suspected to be militants. Also, two people were said to have been hit by stray bullets from shootings in Ogoibiri area of Southern Ijaw, and their corpses were allegedly taken to Oboro community in Bomadi, Delta State. 

In Olodiama II in Southern Ijaw, men in military uniforms reportedly took away election materials meant for five polling units in the area. In the Ekeremor home town of the Minister of Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri, the Peoples Democratic Party alleged that the election was rigged in favour of the All Progressives Congress.

Ballot boxes with result sheets were snatched just as voting was disrupted by thugs at polling units in Amassoma and Gbarain. Dozens of youths went round parts of Amassoma looking for the thugs snatching ballot boxes. Meanwhile, in Akaibiri Ekpetiama, Yenagoa, a senior electoral officer complained that hoodlums made several attempts to hijack electoral materials from polling units in the area. 

According to the electoral officer, the timely intervention of the police and military personnel saved the materials from being forcefully taken by the election thugs. Governor Dickson, speaking through his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, accused APC chieftains of masterminding the killing of innocent Bayelsans in Brass, Ekeremor, Nembe and Southern Ijaw. 

Dickson also accused the security agencies of being partisan, by providing cover for the APC to carry out violent acts and rig the election.

“To achieve their sinister plot, APC militants hijacked election materials and wrote results in many wards of Southern Ijaw, Brass, Ekeremor town, Brass while election was disrupted in parts of Yenagoa and in a polling unit in Otuokpoti, Ogbia Local Government.”

However, Senator Lokpobiri denied the claims that there were shootings in Ekeremor, noting that the election was peaceful, orderly and without violence in the area. Speaking through one of his aides, Preye Amba, the Senator said the reported killing of security personnel in Ekeremor was callous and wicked. 

“Election in Ekeremor went on peacefully and the resort to this by the PDP is just a way of laying the foundation to cancel the supplementary poll so that whatever advantage it had before now will be sustained. No shooting whatsoever in Ekeremor,”the minister said.

“Rather, it was the PDP, in concert with one Major Umar from 5 Battalion, Warri, which came to carry away electoral materials from Ekeremor to Egbema Angalabiri. We have it on record that the said major is on the pay roll of a known ex-militant leader bent on bringing down the APC in Bayelsa State.”

“We call on the military authorities to investigate the role of the said major because he took away the materials without any other escort provided either by the police or the DSS.”

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Tension rises as residents clash with members of strange sect in Osun

Residents of Kelebe Community in Olorunda Local Government Area of Osun State on Sunday clashed with members of a sect whose religion is considered strange by the people. Our correspondent gathered that members of the community, armed with placards with various inscription stormed the worship centre of the sect recently built in the area and asked them to relocate. 

The sect known as Toriqat Satia Organisation is said to combine Christianity with Islam and Traditional Religion in their mode of worship. This is said to be unsettling the residents, who accused the sect of being ritualists. The protest which involved the young and the old in Kelebe community was targeted at the time members of the sect gathered for their own worship. 

It was gathered that some of the protesters had searched the worship centre obviously to find things to link the sect with human rituals but none was found. The ransacking of the place of worship was said to have angered one of the sect leaders who engaged some of the residents in a shouting match. The timely intervention of policemen at the scene prevented the place from being razed down by some youths who were angered by the effrontery of the sect members to challenge them. 

The Chairman of Kelebe Community, Alhaji Ismail Adeniyi, was quoted to have told the policemen who stormed the scene that the presence of the sect was a threat to the residents who considers their religion strange. Adeniyi said the community had written petition against the sect to the police, the Department of State Service, Christian Association of Nigeria and Muslim leaders. 

He said that resident of Kelebe would seek all lawful means to ensure the relocation of the sect from the area. The Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Folasade Odoro, did not pick calls put across to her telephone by our correspondent. 

She had yet to respond to the inquiry sent to her through text message as of the time of filing this report.

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Tragedy struck as gunmen kill police corporal, friend in Lagos

Gunmen on Sunday shot dead a police corporal, David Sunday, and his friend, identified as Taiwo Balogun, in the Agege area of Lagos. 

Our correspondent learnt that the policeman, who is attached to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja, was driving in his car with Balogun at about 2pm, when the duo were attacked and shot by the assailants.

It was gathered that another occupant of the car, identified as Raheem Suleiman, was injured by the gunshots, but survived and was receiving treatment in a general hospital.

Our correspondent learnt that the identities of the gunmen had yet to be known as they fled the scene after the attack. It was learnt that the corpses of the police corporal and Balogun had been deposited at a public morgue in Yaba. 

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Joe Offor, who confirmed the killings, said the case had been transferred to the State Department of Criminal Investigation, Yaba, for further investigation.

He said, “The corporal and his friend were attacked by gunmen, and they were shot dead. The third victim is receiving treatment in a hospital in Ikeja. The case is under investigation at the SCID, Yaba.

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Shittes, rival Muslim youths clash in Jos

Shitte members and rival Muslim youths have clashed in Jos leaving one person dead.

The Shitte members were said to be protesting the continued  detention of their leader El-Zakzaky, his wife and some other members before the incident. Media and Communications Officer of the Special Task Force, also known as ‘Operation Safe Haven’, Capt. Ikedichi Iweha, while confirming the incident to our correspondent in an interview on  Sunday said one person was killed. 

Iweha said the Commander of the task force, Maj. Gen. Tagbo Udeh, had ordered a ban on all forms of processions and rallies in the state, adding that such rallies or procession must get the tacit permission of the police. Hundreds of Shi’tte women, clad in all black, had staged a protest in Jos on Saturday, demanding the release of Zakzaky, his wife and members of the movement that were arrested when they clashed with the army on December 12 in Zaria for proper medical attention. 

They had also demanded the corpses of their members who were allegedly killed by the soldiers for proper burial according to Islamic tradition. Iweha told our correspondent that many members of the movement were also arrested when the otherwise peaceful procession turned violent at Bauchi road, leading to the death of one person. 

He said the incident had created tension around Bauchi road, Rikkos, Angwan Rogo, Dilimi, Nasarawa Gwom and many other Hausa dominated areas, leading to a clash between some rival Muslim sects. He said the timely intervention of security operatives saved what would have been a very urgly situation, stressing that the commander had also ordered all-round patrol and surveillance by operatives of the task force. 

The media officer said many of those arrested were being interrogated to ascertain their level of culpability in the incident, adding that at the end of the interrogation those found innocent would be released. On Sunday, security men and tanks were seen at strategic places in the metropolis, while there were heavy security presence around virtually all the churches and other worship centres in Jos and its environs. 

The security men wore combat uniforms, a situation that raised a lot of curiosity around Jos metropolis.

Iweha said, “The procession by the women later turned violent as rival Muslim youths clashed along Bauchi road as the Shi’tte members were proceeding to the Central Mosque and the commander has ordered round the clock security surveillance and patrol and we would not want to take chances.

“He has also ordered a ban on all forms of rallies, protest or procession in Jos and such rallies must get the permission of the police upon application,” he added.

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24 soldiers cry out to Buratai over dismissal

A group of soldiers numbering 24 who were recently dismissed from the service in December 2015, have cried out to the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, for intervention. The soldiers who belong to the 118 Task Force are alleging that they were wrongfully dismissed from the Army by their commanding Officer, a colonel. 

Counsel for the soldiers, Mr, Johnson Oyewole, stated that the soldiers were dismissed from service without a board of inquiry by their Commanding Officer for allegedly staying away from duty without orders, which he said contravened military law.

The petition dated January 6, 2016 and addressed to the Chief of Army Staff copied the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin and the minister of Defence, Dan Ali. He said that the travails of the soldiers started when their battalion was sacked by the Boko Haram insurgents while they were on their way to Damasak, towards the end of 2015.

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Indian teen gang-raped, shot, dumped in well

An Indian teenager held captive for two weeks by a gang of men said in an interview broadcast Sunday that she was repeatedly raped before being shot twice and dumped in a well on the outskirts of New Delhi. The victim, reportedly aged 14, was allegedly abducted on November 22 while walking to a market in western Delhi, in the latest case of sexual violence in the Indian capital. 

Speaking of her ordeal to the NDTV news network, the teenager said she was held in a “dark room” where three attackers took turns to rape her over a two-week period.

“After a fortnight of repeated abuse, one night they said they will let me go. They put me in the car and drove to a store to buy alcohol and then parked the car near a well,” the girl said in the interview.

“They told me they will let me go but as I took a few steps back, they fired two shots. The first bullet hit my bone. I didn’t feel a thing, my body just went numb. But after the second one I fainted.”

She woke shivering and wet inside the well where she said she had been left for dead.

“When I regained consciousness… I could see a bullet in my chest, so I just yanked it out,” she said, showing a wound on her chest.

Nearby villagers pulled her out on December 6 after hearing her screams, before she was rushed to hospital.

Several men have been arrested over the attack, according to local media reports.

“I want the rapists to be hanged. No one should go through what I did,” she said.

The fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012 shone a global spotlight on frightening levels of violence against women. It also led to major reform of India’s rape laws including speeding up of trials and increasing penalties for offenders, but high numbers of assaults persist.

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Killing Boko Haram is not sin against God – Cleric

Killing of a member of the dreaded Boko Haram sect on a battleground is not a sin against God, the Chaplain of Maimalari Cantonment, Lt. Col. Cosmas Nwankpa said on Sunday.

Nwankpa, a Catholic Reverend Father, while delivering a sermon with the theme: “Our Fallen Heroes” at an inter-denominational service in Maiduguri to mark this year’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day, said the instruction in one of the ten commandment that ‘thou shall not kill,’ is excused in warfare and no Christian should feel he has broken the Lord’s commandment when he is called upon to kill at warfront.

He said: “The commandment ‘thou shall not kill’ does not apply to Boko Haram, your conscience should not prick you when you kill them, it is even a sin to spare them and allow them to perpetuate doom on the people and the nation.”

He referred to soldiering as the noblest of all professions, asking, “what is nobler than dying or laying down ones life for a country?.”

On why the wife of a soldier or widow of a dead soldier should feel proud, Nwankpa said; “It is nobler to associate with a noble man,” insisting that “the families of soldiers are nobler than them (the soldiers).”

He argued that it does not matter when we die but for what we die for, noting that “our heroes have given their lives so that our nation remains undivided.”

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Six feared killed as Dickson’s victory party turns bloody

The victory celebration by supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate, Governor  Seriake Dickson, has turned bloody with six persons feared killed. The six persons were reportedly shot dead in a post-election gun battle between supporters of two political parties in Peremabiri community of Southern Ijaw area of the state. 

Spokesman for the State Police Command, Asinim Butswat, confirmed that the police had received report on violence in the area. He, however, could not confirm information on number of casualties. Also shot and left in a critical condition was the Paramount Ruler of the community, Chief Progress Neverdie. He was said to be shot in the head.

A cousin of the shot monarch, Mr. Alfred Olotu, alleged that a prominent ex-militant leader from the community led armed men in the bloody battle.

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Tragedy struck as 75-year-old man burnt to death in Osun

Residents of Isale- Aro area of Osogbo, capital of Osun State, watched helplessly as a 75-year-old man, Lamina Ishola, was burnt to death. An eyewitness told our correspondent that the neighbourhood had noticed thick flame coming out of one of the rooms in the mud house where Ishola lived at about 9pm on the fateful day. 

He explained that some residents of the area had made frantic effort to put out the inferno before fire fighters arrived the scene. But Ishola, a father of two- a ten-year-old and a girl, aged 7-was unlucky as the fire had burned him to death before help came his way. 

71-year-old brother of the deceased, who identified himself as Ademola Oseni, said the fire was caused by a  kerosene lantern. Oseni said Ishola, who was not in good mental condition owing to an injury he sustained in an accident, could had mistakenly hit the lantern while asleep, igniting the fire that consumed him. 

The Public Relations Officer of the Osun State Police Command, Mrs Folasade Odoro, said the police were not aware of the fire incident.

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Victims of the Bayelsa gov rerun election

Senator Ben Murray-Bruce has expressed his fears over the election violence recorded at Southern Ijaw in Bayelsa state during the governorship rerun election which took place yesterday January 9th. See his tweets and more pics after the cut..

 

 

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