Hobbit takes third straight with at US Canad box office

NEW YORK: The last of Peter Jackson's three Hobbit films rode to a third straight weekend atop box office charts, selling an estimated $21.9 million in tickets at US and Canadian theatres.
Disney's film version of the dark Broadway musical Into The Woods claimed the No. 2 spot with $19.1 million, while the World War Two drama Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie, finished third with $18.4 million for the Friday through Sunday period.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies grabbed another $9.3 million from New Year's Day screenings for a four-day take through Sunday of $31.2 million, and has a domestic total of $220.8 million since its Dec 17 release, according to estimates from tracking firm Rentrak.
The new year's first weekend numbers spelled some welcome news for film studios, with total ticket sales up 8.4 per cent from 2014's initial weekend.
The weekend's sole new release, horror film The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, opened in fourth place with $15.1 million, while another sequel, Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb rounded out the top five with $14.5 million in ticket sales.
Unbroken, Jolie's second directorial effort, tells the real-life story of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini's two years as a prisoner of war in Japan.
Into The Woods, an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical that puts a spin on children's fairy tales, stars Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Johnny Depp and has grossed $91.2 million since opening on Christmas Day.
The Interview, the provocative comedy blamed for triggering a massive cyberattack on Sony's movie studio, which then canceled its wide Christmas Day release, took in $1.1 million at theaters after Sony nearly doubled the number of independent theaters showing it to 581.
The comedy about two journalists recruited by the CIA to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un starring Seth Rogen and James Franco grossed an estimated $2.8 million for its opening four-day holiday weekend a week ago, according to Sony.
Among other year-end limited releases, the Clint Eastwood drama American Sniper which stars Bradley Cooper as a Navy Seal sharpshooter, took in $640,000 playing in only four theaters and has earned a total of $2.2 million since its Dec 25 release. Cooper is considered a front-runner for a best actor Oscar nomination for the role.
Comcast Corp.'s Universal released Unbroken. Into the Woods was distributed by Walt Disney Co. Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. released The Hobbit. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb was distributed by Fox, a unit of Twenty-First Century Fox. Independent studio Relativity released The Woman in Black 2.

Bangladesh showdon as opposition leader locked off

 




 






 






DHAKA: Bangladesh faced a showdown Monday on the first anniversary of controversial elections, as the opposition leader called for mass anti-government protests despite being confined to her office.
Twelve months on from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's re-election in what was effectively a one-horse race, her arch rival Khaleda Zia has called for supporters to mobilise for “Democracy Killing Day”.
Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, has urged activists to take to the streets in their thousands as part of a campaign to force Hasina to hold fresh multi-party polls.
Amid sporadic violence in several towns and cities, authorities banned all protests from Sunday evening while Zia has been locked in her office since Saturday night, according to senior lieutenants.
The two-time former premier refused to take part in the elections on January 5, 2014, fearing they would be rigged in the absence of a neutral caretaker administration which had organised previous polls.
The boycott by the BNP and its allies meant a majority of members in the 300-seat parliament were returned unopposed, ensuring Hasina's Awami League party another five years in power.
In seats where there were contests, the only challenge came from independents or small parties which were loyal to Hasina.
Voting was overshadowed by firebomb attacks on polling booths and clashes between police and opposition activists, which left around 25 people dead.
Many of the BNP's top leaders have since either been detained or charged in connection with the election violence, hampering efforts to press their case for new polls.
Although Zia has not been officially arrested, police cordoned off her office in the capital's upmarket Gulshan district Saturday and prevented her from leaving as she tried to visit a sick colleague.
BNP headquarters in central Dhaka was padlocked by police at midnight on Saturday, with police vans barricading nearby roads.
BNP officials said at least 400 party supporters were arrested, including two senior party figures, ahead of the poll anniversary.
Scuffles broke out near Zia's office Sunday when a former president, Badruddoza Chowdhury, was turned away from meeting her.
“She is confined. It's an insult to democracy,” he said.
Zia's aide and lawyer Khandakar Mahbub Hossain did manage to meet her on Sunday, telling reporters afterwards that she had asked people to “continue protests until the government is toppled”.
The violence on election day last year was the culmination of the bloodiest year of political unrest in Bangladesh's short history, with tensions also heightened by the death sentences handed down to leading Islamists over their role in the 1971 independence war.
More than 500 people were killed in political violence in 2013, making it the bloodiest year since Bangladesh split from Pakistan.
While not on the same scale as a year ago, there were several eruptions of violence in towns over the weekend as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at hundreds of opposition activists.
At least 10 people were injured across the country, police said. In Dhaka more than a dozen vehicles were torched and damaged.
Some bus and ferry services heading to the capital were also suspended at the weekend in a move that is likely to reduce the number of protestors in Dhaka.

Turkish govt gives go ahead for first church in century

ANKARA: Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government has authorised the building of the first church in the country in nearly a century, officials said on Saturday.
The church is for the tiny Syriac community in Turkey and will be built in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Turkey’s religious leaders in Istanbul on Friday and said no faith that has lived in the country could be regarded as foreign.
“It is the first (new church) since the creation of the republic (in 1923),” a government source said. “Churches have been restored and reopened to the public, but no new church has been built until now,” he added. Turkey, which once had large Christian minorities, is now 99 per cent Muslim and critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have accused it of trying to Islamicise its officially secular society.

Boko Haram seizes 40 boys men in Nigeria

KANO: Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have kidnapped 40 boys and young men in a remote village in northeast Nigerian Borno state on New Year's Eve, residents who fled the isolated settlement said on Saturday.
Scores of Boko Haram militants stormed the Malari village and whisked away the males, aged between 10 and 23, into the nearby Sambisa forest, believed to be one of the Islamists' major bases.
The news of the abductions came out only days later, when residents who fled the village arrived in the state capital Maiduguri late on Friday.
“They came in pick-up trucks armed with guns and gathered all the men in the village outside the home of the village chief where they preached to us before singling out 40 of our boys and taking them away,” Bulama Muhammad told that
Malari village lies 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) from the Sambisa forest and close to the town of Gwoza, which the militants captured last June declaring it part of their caliphate.
“My two sons and three nephews were among those taken away by the Boko Haram gunmen and we believe they are going to use them as conscripts,” Muhammad said.
“When we heard of the kidnap of 40 boys in Malari by Boko Haram we decided to leave because we could be the next target,” said Alaramma Babagoni, who fled from the nearby village of Mulgwi.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from the military in Maiduguri.
Boko Haram is still holding in captivity more than 200 schoolgirls it abducted from their school in Chibok in Borno state last April.
The Islamists are believed to control large swathes of territory in Borno as well as several towns and villages in two other northeastern states, Adamawa and Yobe.
Boko Haram's five-year uprising in Nigeria has claimed more than 13,000 lives and has seen dozens of people, including women and children, kidnapped by the Islamists.

Chinese businessman jailed for 13 years over tiger fease

BEIJING: A Chinese businessman who bought and ate three tigers has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, state media reported on Tuesday.
The wealthy real estate developer, identified only by his surname Xu, has “a special hobby of grilling tiger bones, boning tiger paws, eating tiger meat and drinking tiger blood alcohol,” the official Xinhua news agency said in June when he went on trial.
Xu organised three separate trips last year for a total of 15 people, including himself, to Leizhou in the southern province of Guangdong, where they bought tigers for a “huge amount of money” that were killed and dismembered as they watched, the government-run news portal gxnews.com.cn reported on Tuesday.
One of them filmed the entire process of a tiger slaughter with his mobile phone. The footage was later obtained by police.
Police seized eight pieces of animal meat and bones from a refrigerator in Xu’s home, some of which were later identified as tiger parts, including a penis, the report said, adding that 16 geckos and a cobra were also found.
A court in Guangxi earlier this year convicted the 15 of “illegally transporting precious and endangered wild animal products” but the conviction was not reported at the time.
Xu was sentenced to 13 years in prison and a fine of 1.55 million yuan ($25,000), with the others jailed for terms between five and six and a half years, and given smaller fines.
They appealed and a higher court upheld the ruling on Monday, the report said.
Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body, and while they have been removed from its official ingredient list the belief persists among some.

Jennifer Lawrence joins Mokingjay co stars in Ebola awarness campaign

Actor Jennifer Lawrence appears in a public service announcement (PSA) about the Ebola virus with her The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 co-stars to raise awareness on the virus’ devastating impact in West Africa.
Mockingjay stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Jeffrey Wright, Julianne Moore, and Mahershala Ali to discuss hard facts about the outbreak.

Mahershala points out in the video that in some parts of West Africa, only two out of every 10 patients infected with Ebola have survived.
Without access to the same resources as Americans — such as I.V. fluids, electrolytes, food, fully-equipped modern hospitals, well-trained medical professionals — chances of survival are immensely reduced.
All eight Americans who had contracted Ebola and received treatment in US hospitals survived.
That makes the survival rate in America 100 per cent, as compared to the 20 per cent in West Africa.
Moore says: “Ebola is not a death sentence.”
“What would happen if you got Ebola?” Josh Hutcherson asks Jennifer Lawrence in the video.
After a brief pause, she responds: “I’d be fine.”
“You have a lot of doctors,” Hutcherson then points out in the clip.
The video also shows statistics pointing out that there were 19,648 confirmed Ebola cases worldwide from December 6, 2013, to December 22, 2014, with 19,643 of them in West Africa.
While there is no proven treatment available for Ebola, supportive care such as rehydration and treatment of specific symptoms improves survival, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The virus foung which works in conjunction with the United Nations supporting community-based groups fighting the disease in Liberia and Sierra Leone, has utilised the power of Hollywood before. Whoopi Goldberg, Alicia Keys and Idris Elba, among other celebrities, teamed up with the organisation in October to produce a PSA with a similar message.

Canada police say mass murder claims nine lives

  EDMONTON: Nine people, including seven adults and two young children, were found dead at three separate crime scenes in what Edmonton's police chief, on Tuesday, called the city's worst mass murder.
Police Chief Rod Knecht told a news conference the killings were the result of domestic violence.
The victims included a woman found, Monday night, by officers who were responding to a weapons complaint at a south Edmonton home.
The bodies of three more women, two men, a boy and a girl were discovered a few hours later at a home in the northeast part of the city where officers had checked on reports of a depressed, suicidal male earlier in the evening.
None of the victims was identified, but Knecht said the public was not in danger. “It is a tragic day for Edmonton,” he said.
“This series of events are not believed to be random acts. These events do not appear to be gang-related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence.”
A man matching the description of the suicidal male was found dead in a restaurant in the Edmonton bedroom community of Fort Saskatchewan on Tuesday morning, Knecht said.
“Our homicide investigators have established associations and linkages between these homicides,” he said.
Police would not elaborate on the connection between the deaths. “It's a really complex case involving multiple locations and police have yet to identity the suicide victim so police cannot yet say with 100 percent accuracy what the connection is,” said police spokesman Scott Patterson.
In Edmonton, a city of 878,000 people, mass murders are extremely rare.
Knecht said the case was the worst mass killing in the city since at least 1956, when six people were murdered.
John Etter Clark, a provincial politician who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for four years, killed his wife, son, three daughters and an employee of their family farm before taking his own life in 1956.
Clark had been suffering from frequent nervous breakdowns in the years before the killings.

Welcome refugees and reject racism Merkel says

BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to turn their backs on a growing grass-roots movement of anti-Muslim protesters, calling them racists full of hatred, and said Europe's biggest economy must welcome people fleeing conflict and war.
In an unusually strongly worded New Year address that also condemned Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Merkel said it was essential for Germany to help the children of persecuted people to grow up without fear.
Many Germans are worried about a flood of asylum seekers, many from Syria, pouring into the country. A new movement, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA), is holding weekly rallies in the eastern city of Dresden.
Referring to protests that took place before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel said, “Today many people are again shouting on Mondays: 'We are the people'. But in fact they mean: You do not belong - because of the colour of your skin or your religion.
“So I say to everyone who goes to such demonstrations: Do not follow those who are appealing to you! Because too often there is prejudice, coldness, even hatred, in their hearts.”
Partly in response to its Nazi past, German asylum rules are among the most liberal in the world. Asylum granted elsewhere had helped many opponents of the Nazi regime to survive.
The number of asylum-seekers arriving in Germany has surged to about 200,000 this year, four times the numbers in 2012. Net immigration has hit a two-decade high.
Consequently, immigration has moved up on the political agenda. Some members of Merkel's conservative bloc worry that they risk losing support if they do not respond to voter fears.
Growing support for PEGIDA's marches - a week ago more than 17,000 attended - and the popularity of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party since it shifted its focus from euro-scepticism to immigration is causing shockwaves in Berlin.
Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, also reiterated that Russia had questioned the foundation of Europe's peaceful order - self-determination - with its actions in Ukraine. She said Europe would not allow Russia to abuse human rights.

Palastinian resolution fails at UN security council

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council failed Tuesday to adopt a resolution on Palestinian statehood that was strongly opposed by the United States.
China, France and Russia were among the eight countries that voted in favor of the text, but the resolution fell short of winning the nine “yes” votes necessary for adoption in the 15-member council.
Australia and the United States voted against, and five other countries abstained, including Britain.
The resolution drafted by the Palestinians and backed by Arab countries would have paved the way to a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
It set a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the Palestinians and called for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories by the end of 2017.
Security Council member Jordan had requested the vote despite opposition from the United States, which argued that the resolution did not address Israel's security concerns and set arbitrary deadlines.
“This resolution sets the stage for more division, not for compromise,” US Ambassador Samantha Power told the council. “This text addresses the concerns of just one side.”
Power defended the US position in favor of direct talks, saying “peace will come from hard choices and compromises that must be made at the negotiating table”. US Secretary of State John Kerry had lobbied in the days leading up to the vote, calling 13 foreign ministers to explain the American opposition.
Washington was not, however, compelled to resort to its veto power to block the measure — a move that could have undermined US standing in the Arab world.
A US veto risked angering key Arab allies, including partners in the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.
Argentina, Chad, Chile, Jordan and Luxembourg joined China, France and Russia in supporting the resolution.
Lithuania, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Korea abstained, along with Britain.
Diplomatic sources said Nigeria had been expected to support the resolution and changed its stance at the last minute.

France votes ‘yes’

France's envoy said he backed the resolution because of an “urgent need to act” and vowed to continue pressing for a UN role in reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
“Our efforts must not stop here. It is our responsibility to try again, before it's too late,” said Francois Delattre.
International alarm is growing over the ongoing violence and the failure to restart negotiations that last broke down in April, when Kerry led a push for peace.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the vote underlined the “urgency” for Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace negotiations.
She vowed a renewed EU effort to achieve a two-state solution “now more than ever”. On Tuesday, a Palestinian teenager was seriously wounded by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank, according to family members. The army said he had thrown a suspected explosive device at troops.
The vote capped a three-month campaign by the Palestinians at the United Nations to win support for a resolution that sets a timeframe for ending the Israeli occupation.
Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour accused the council of failing to shoulder its responsibilities and vowed to seek other venues to gain recognition.
“The Palestinian people and the world can no longer wait. That message, despite the regrettable outcome today, is especially clear,” he told the council.
Mansour said the Palestinian leadership will meet Wednesday to decide on the next steps.
The Palestinians have said they are prepared to join the International Criminal Court to launch legal action against Israel and use other international fora to press their case if the resolution fails.
Israel — represented by the mission's number three Israel Nitzan — delivered a terse, four-sentence address to the council.
“I have news for the Palestinians — you cannot agitate and provoke your way to a state,” he said. “I urge the council to stop indulging the Palestinians and put an end to their march of folly.”

Sydney spetacular leads global New Year celebration

SYDNEY: A dazzling display of fireworks lit up Sydney Harbour on Thursday as Australia's biggest city welcomed the New Year in spectacular style, defying terrorist fears days after a deadly siege.
From Hong Kong to London and New York to Rio, millions around the world will celebrate when the clock ticks past midnight, ringing in 2015 with massive fireworks displays, concerts and light shows.
In Sydney, rocked by deadly drama just before Christmas when an Iranian-born gunman with a history of violence and extremism took 17 hostages in the city's financial hub, tonnes of fireworks exploded over the harbour watched by a crowd estimated at more than one million.
“We are celebrating that we are a multicultural, harmonious community but we will be thinking about what happened,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said in reference to the incident in which two hostages and the gunman died.
In the aftermath of the siege, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said security agencies had picked up a heightened level of “terrorist chatter” and warned that “the terror threat remains high and... at this level, an attack is likely”.
But the fireworks display went ahead without incident. Brilliant bursts of colour lit up the harbour in spectacular fashion in the midnight showpiece, with fireworks cascading off the Harbour Bridge, shooting off the Opera House and streaming across the sky in one of the world's first major celebrations to ring in 2015.

Worldwide revelry

Across Asia, millions will be partying with Hong Kong's dazzling skyline along Victoria Harbour set to light up during an eight-minute pyrotechnic display.
In China, Beijing's bid to stage the 2022 Winter Olympics was to be the theme of celebrations, with concert pianist Lang Lang to be the star performer at an extravaganza at Olympic Park.
The Chinese capital has held New Year countdowns at the historic Temple of Heaven since 2011, but has moved the event to the site of the 2008 summer games to raise the profile of its winter Olympics bid.
In Taiwan the landmark skyscraper Taipei 101 will be at the centre of celebrations, with performances by pop singers and a firework display at midnight expected to attract hundreds of thousands.
And in Japan, the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo brought out stocks of lucky charms and set up large offertory boxes as it prepared to welcome a huge wave of worshippers overnight.
The huge shrine expects three million visitors in the first three days of the new year.
In Malaysia, a sombre mood prevails across the country after the crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 carrying 162 people in Indonesia and flooding in the nation's northeast which has displaced almost 250,000 people.
Year-end countdown celebrations have been cancelled, with many companies instead launching fundraising campaigns for flood victims.
In Afghanistan, the last French troops in the country held a ceremony in Kabul to mark the end of their deployment after NATO combat operations closed down as a new “train and support” mission takes over.
The end of another era will be remembered in Berlin with “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff joining a huge open air concert in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where he famously sang for freedom after the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago.
In Paris, the Champs-Elysees will be reserved for pedestrians to let them watch a visual spectacle projected onto the Arc de Triomphe 15 minutes before the start of the new year.
The ticking of the clock past midnight will be significant for Lithuania as it adopts the euro. Another small Baltic state, Latvia, takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union, putting it on the front line of negotiations with neighbouring Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
In Spain, millions of revellers will descend on Madrid's Puerta del Sol to eat the traditional 12 grapes for each stroke of midnight while in Barcelona a massive fireworks display will be held.
London stages New Year's Eve fireworks along the Thames and Edinburgh will be holding its traditional Hogmanay street party along the Royal Mile with tens of thousands expected.
Marking 2015 on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, more than two million people are expected to attend a huge fireworks show that will open celebrations marking 450 years since the founding of the city.
And in New York about one million revellers are expected to descend on Times Square to watch the New Year's Eve Ball Drop.

US working with India to prevent like Mumbai attacks

WASHINGTON: The United States has been working with India, Britain and other partners to prevent a Mumbai-like terrorist attack, says the US State Department.
On Monday, The New York Times reported that the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, which killed 166 people, could have been prevented if there was better coordination among Indian, British and American intelligence agencies.
“Over the last six years, the intelligence community here in the United States has worked with all of our partners to make sure we’re best positioned to stop attacks like Mumbai before they ever happen again,” US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters in Washington.
The official, however, noted that it’s always challenging to put together all the puzzle pieces from various agencies and depict a comprehensive picture.
She pointed out that after the Mumbai attack US, British and Indian intelligence agencies and their partners had taken steps to improve their ability to prevent these kinds of attacks.

PK the most important movie of the year

If I were to judge PK based purely on its merits as a film, I would give it a score of 3.5/5. It’s good, but not great. The strong premise and intriguing script by Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi provide a foundation for a promising examination of contemporary values and the manner in which opportunists and 'godmen' twist them.
But Hirani's penchant for emotional manipulation removes nuance in favour of simplistic philosophy. In order to keep the focus on the message, he ignores many other aspects of the movie.

IS downs warplans over Syria

BEIRUT: The Islamic State group on Wednesday shot down a warplane from the US-led coalition over northern Syria, a monitoring group said, with the jihadists claiming to have captured a Jordanian pilot.
“We have confirmed reports that IS members took a (non-Syrian) Arab pilot prisoner after shooting his plane down with an anti-aircraft missile near Raqa city,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The IS branch in Raqa published photographs on jihadist websites purporting to show its fighters holding the captured pilot, with a caption identifying him as Jordanian and giving his name.
Several photographs were released, including one showing the pilot, wearing only a white shirt, being carried from a body of water by four men.
Another showed him on land, surrounded by about a dozen armed men.
The jihadists claimed to have shot down the warplane with a heat-seeking missile.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria, had no further immediate information.
There was no immediate reaction from authorities in Jordan.
Jordan is among a number of countries that have joined the US-led alliance carrying out air strikes against IS after the jihadists seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain are taking part in the air strikes in Syria alongside the United States.
Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France and The Netherlands have joined the raids in Iraq.
The Sunni extremist IS has committed widespread atrocities in areas under its control, including mass executions of captured soldiers and public beheadings of hostages including Western journalists and aid workers.
Coalition warplanes have carried out regular strikes around Raqa, which IS has used as the headquarters for its self-proclaimed “caliphate”.

Suicide bomber kills 21 in attack on anti-IS fighters in Iraq:

A suicide bomber blew up himself on Wednesday among a group of pro-government, anti-Islamic State group Sunni militias near Baghdad, killing at least 22 people, a latest bold attack by militants seeking to undermine government efforts to fight extremists.
The attacker managed to mingle with the militiamen who gathered at a military base in the town of Madain to receive their monthly payment, two police officers said.
At least 15 of the dead were Sunni militiamen and the rest were soldiers, while 55 others were wounded, they said. The town is located about 20 kilometers (14 miles) south of Baghdad.
The group, known as Sahwa or the Awakening Councils, is made up of Sunni militiamen who joined US troops in the fight against Al Qaeda during the height of Iraq's insurgency in 2007 and 2008. They are viewed as traitors by the Sunni militants.
Three medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release information to the media.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bore the hallmark of the Islamic State group, which captured large swaths of western and northern Iraq in a summer blitz.
The militant group's onslaught has be become Iraq's worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of US troops.

Curfew in Indian state after tribal miliants kill 56

GUWAHATI: India imposed a curfew in parts of the northeastern state of Assam on Wednesday after suspected tribal guerrillas killed 56 people in a series of attacks in retaliation for an offensive against them.
Assam has a history of sectarian bloodshed and groups fighting for greater autonomy or secession from India.
Tuesday's attacks in four places by militants of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland within the space of an hour were the deadliest in months.
Villagers told police the rebels came on foot, armed with assault rifles and wearing military uniforms.
“The militants first came and asked for water. Suddenly they opened fire with their AK-47 rifles,” a witness, who fled into jungle, later told reporters.
The guerrillas say they are fighting for a separate homeland for indigenous Bodo people. They complain that the tea-growing state has been flooded with outsiders.
Indian security forces launched a campaign last month against the rebels in their remote hideouts, prompting a threat from them to target settlers.
“They didn't even spare women and children,” said a police officer, adding there were at least 10 women among the dead in Tuesday's violence. At least 13 children were killed.
Lalit Gogoi, deputy commissioner of the worst-affected Sonitpur district, said the army had been put on standby and a dusk to dawn curfew imposed.
The single hospital in Sonitpur was crowded with scores of people with gunshot wounds.
Assam is one of seven states in India's northeast, a region bounded by China, Myanmar, Bhutan and Bangladesh. For long, residents have accused the federal government of plundering its natural resources and ignoring development.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to accelerate the development of roads and railways in the area.

Child rapist latest prisoner executable in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Monday beheaded a child rapist, adding to what activists say is one of the world's highest execution tolls.

The Interior Ministry said Suleiman bin Abdullah had been found guilty of kidnapping a male child, tying him up “and performing the obscene” act.

Authorities carried out the sentence against him in Buraydah city, northwest of Riyadh, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

He was the latest of 84 Saudis and foreigners to be executed in the kingdom this year, according to an 

Rape, murder, drug trafficking, apostasy and armed robbery are punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic Shariah law.

Saudi Arabia had the third-highest number of recorded executions in 2013, behind Iran and Iraq, Amnesty International said in a report released in March.

US may not target Mullah Umer after this year

WASHINGTON: The United States has said that after Jan 2, US forces in Afghanistan will not target Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders unless they posed a direct threat to the US.

“Being a member of the Taliban doesn’t mean that the United States is going to prosecute operations against you for that reason alone,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a recent news briefing in Washington.

But he also drew a line between combatant and non-combatant Taliban, saying that those who continued to fight would not be spared.

“We’ve also concurred that a member of the Taliban who undertakes missions against us or our Afghan partners — by that act alone, renders himself vulnerable and liable to US action,” Rear Admiral Kirby said.

In his year-end news conference on Friday, President Barack Obama assured the American nation that he would fulfil his pledge to end the US-led war in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

“And in less than two weeks, after more than 13 years, our combat mission in Afghanistan will be over,” he said.

President Obama, however, has authorised this force to fight the militants if they posed a direct threat to them or caused a major threat to official Afghan forces.

At the Pentagon briefing, journalists asked Mr Kirby to further explain the policy and also asked him if US forces would continue to pursue Taliban leader Mullah Omar after 2014 as well, as they did in the past.

Mullah Omar was Afghanistan’s head of state from 1996 until the US forced him from power in 2001. He has been on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme since Oct 2001, for harbouring Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. The reward for his capture is $10 million.

“Is Mullah and the other people on this list, are they no longer liable for their past acts in Afghanistan?” a journalist asked.

“I don’t know if I can answer that question. As the recognised leader of the Taliban to the degree the Taliban still poses a threat or poses a threat to us or to our allies, they will continue to be prosecuted by US military operations,” Admiral Kirby said. “I can’t really make it any more simpler than that.”

The Pentagon spokesman explained that from January 2nd, the US policy in Afghanistan would change.

But “what changes fundamentally, though, is (that) … on January 2nd, just by being a member of the Taliban doesn’t make you an automatic target,” he explained.

“So, beginning January 2nd, it will be up to the Afghans to go after someone like a Mullah Omar?” asked a journalist.

“That’s correct, unless there is a direct threat that’s posed,” Mr Kirby said.

Afghanistan forces launch operation areas bordering Pakistan

ASADABAD: Afghan security forces have launched an operation against militants in an eastern province seen as a rear base for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which carried out the Peshawar school massacre last week, officials said Monday.

COAS Gen Raheel Sharif met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul in the aftermath of the school attack in Peshawar which killed 149 people, mainly children.

The army chief sought Ghani's support in defeating the TTP.

TTP leader Mullah Fazlullah is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan's Kunar province, which borders Pakistan's restive tribal areas.

Kunar has been the scene of fierce fighting between local forces and the Afghan Taliban for the past 10 days.

“Afghan security forces have launched a joint anti-militant operations in several parts of Dangam district of Kunar province,” Dawlat Waziri, deputy defence ministry spokesman, told AFP.

“So far in the operation, 21 armed insurgents have been killed and 33 others wounded,” Waziri said, adding that seven security personnel were wounded.

Kunar governor Shujaul Mulk Jalala said more than 1,500 Afghan Taliban fighters attacked remote villages in Dangam.

Jalala said TTP and Lashkar-e-Taiba militants were also battling Afghan security forces in Dangam.

Pakistan has repeatedly asked Afghanistan to capture and hand over Fazlullah.

Each nation has long accused the other of allowing militants to shelter in the border region and launch bloody attacks that threaten regional stability.

The Afghan Taliban have stepped up their attacks as Nato wraps up its combat operations, which end on December 31.

A follow-up mission of about 12,500 US-led Nato troops will stay on to train and support Afghan security forces.

Kurds wrest areas from IS as US strikes found militants

WASHINGTON: Kurdish forces backed up by US-led warplanes have recaptured a large area in Iraq near the Syrian border in an offensive this week against Islamic State jihadists, a US commander said on Thursday.

More than 50 air strikes in recent days have allowed the Kurds to recapture some 100 square kilometres of ground near Sinjar, said Lieutenant General James Terry, head of the US-led campaign against the IS group.

Kurdish peshmerga forces said earlier they had captured several villages and were rolling back the IS militants around Sinjar in the country’s northwest.

It was the seizure of Sinjar by IS jihadists in early August and the plight of the mostly Yazidi minority population there that President Barack Obama cited when he first announced US military intervention in Iraq four months ago. US and allied aircraft have carried out 1,361 raids against the IS group since bombing began on August 8, Terry told reporters. The strikes were extended into Syria on September 23.

Coalition bombing near Sinjar marked a spike in air raids in Iraq this week, and Kurdish officers said that fresh strikes were carried out on Thursday north of Tall Afar.

The advance of the IS militants, who seized vast swathes of territory in Iraq earlier this year, had been stopped and the group was having difficulty moving and communicating as a result of the air raids, Terry said.

“My assessment is that Daesh has been halted . . .and is attempting to hold what they currently have,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the militant group.

“I think they’re having a hard time in terms of communicating right now, in terms of resupply”. He said Iraqi security forces had cleared parts of Ramadi in the west but the east and northeast sections of the city were “still contested. “Some areas in and around Baiji — north of Baghdad — remain the focus of fighting between Iraqi government forces and the militants.

The general said the pace of the air strikes was appropriate at the moment, despite appeals by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi for more air power and heavy weapons.

“I think we’ve got it just about right,” Terry said. “The key here is building the capability inside the Iraqi security forces, give them an offensive mind set, and we’ll continue to strike. “Asked about plans to arm and train Sunni tribes in Anbar province to fight the IS group, he said “the conditions are getting better for that every day”. “I see the current prime minister at least moving in that direction and we’ll continue to support them and encourage them to bring the rest of those that want to come to the side of the government of Iraq, support them to bring those around,” he said.

In a departure for the US government, the American general used the Arabic acronym “Daesh” when referring to the jihadists who have declared a “caliphate” on seized territory in Syria and Iraq.

Until now, US officials have used an English acronym ISIL, for the so-called “Islamic State” group. Terry said allies in the region had requested Washington use the Arabic acronym, Daesh.

“And I would just say that our partners, at least the ones that I work with, ask us to use that, because they feel that if you use ISIL, that you legitimise a self-declared caliphate, and . . . they feel pretty strongly that we should not be doing that”.

Eight children found dead at Australian property

SYDNEY: Eight children aged between 18 months and 15 years have been found dead at a home in the Australian city of Cairns, police said Friday, reportedly after a gruesome mass stabbing.

“Cairns detectives have established a crime scene and begun an investigation into the death of eight children this morning,” police said.

“During an examination of the residence police located the bodies of the children, all aged between 18 months and 15 years.”

A woman, 34, was injured in the incident in the suburb of Manoora, 10 minutes from the city centre. She is in a stable condition in hospital and assisting detectives with their inquiries, police said.

Cairns is a tropical city with a population of more than 150,000 people and is popular with international tourists as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, one of Australia's biggest tourist sites.

The Australian Associated Press cited the injured woman's cousin, Lisa Thaiday, as saying the children were all siblings and the woman was their mother.

It said another sibling, a 20-year-old man, arrived home to find his brothers and sisters dead inside the house. “I just can't believe it. We just found out (about) those poor babies,” Thaiday said.

Reports widely said the children had been stabbed while the Cairns Post reported they were also suffocated, although police did not immediately confirm this.

Sky News, whose news anchor broke down in tears as the story was breaking, said a stepfather was known to live at the house, but his whereabouts were unknown.

Community reeling

Who killed the children remains unclear with Cairns Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar saying there was no need for the public to be worried, suggesting no one was on the loose.

“As it stands there's no need for the public to be concerned about this other than the fact that this is a tragic, tragic event,” he told a media conference.

“The situation is well controlled at the moment. There shouldn't be any concern for anyone else out of this environment.” He added that it was too early to know the chain of events.

“We need to do a lot more work as you can imagine,” he said.

“The crime scene is being locked down and that includes from me. Nobody goes in there until our forensic people have finished and until we have done that we're not going to be able to clearly establish any relationships.”

Cairns Post reporter Scott Forbes, who is on the scene, said the area where the bodies were found has a large indigenous population.

“All of the people here are actually related to the people who were involved in this incident,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of those who live on the same street.

“So they're all reeling at the moment. But telling us that she was a very, very protective, very proud mother who loved her children dearly.”

A couple who live around the corner said they did not feel safe in the area and it was not uncommon to hear fighting and drinking at night.

“It's pretty scary. Oh my God,” the man, who did not want to be named, told reporters.

The tragedy came a day after a Melbourne man, Charles Amon Mihayo, was jailed for life for smothering to death his two daughters, aged three and four, in a move the judge said was aimed at punishing his ex-wife.

And it follows hard on a dramatic siege in Sydney in which two hostages and a gunman were killed in an incident that sparked an outpouring of grief in Australia.

Mumbai attack master mind Kakhvi under detained

ISLAMABAD: Alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi who was granted bail by an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad yesterday has been detained under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) at Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail.

A senior government source told Dawn that the government has also decided to appeal against the approval of Lakhvi's bail in superior courts.

The ATC had ordered the release of Lakhvi after his post-arrest bail plea was accepted and Judge Syed Kausar Abbas Zaidi had set Lakhvi’s bail at Rs1 million. The decision drew a sharp reaction from India and surprised many with its unfortunate timing, coming just days after one of the deadliest terror attacks the country has ever seen.

Lakhvi is among the seven persons charged with planning and helping carry out the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The six other men facing trial in Adiala Jail for their alleged involvement in Mumbai attacks are Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Younas Anjum, Jamil Ahmed, Mazhar Iqbal and Abdul Majid.

At the time of the attacks, Lakhvi was believed to be the operational head of the banned Laskhar-i-Taiba (LT) that has been accused by India of carrying out the attacks in India's financial capital.

Lakhvi along with Zarar Shah was allegedly the key planner of the attack that killed 166 people.

The acceptance of his bail plea had come as Pakistan was mourning the deaths of school children and other victims of Tuesday Taliban massacre  and New Delhi had made a visible effort to show solidarity with Islamabad.

The massacre and the reaction to it was followed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's.