war-torn Afghanistan hit record high: UN
AFP, Kabul
The number of Afghan civilians killed in the country’s long-running conflict hit a record high in the first six months of 2018, UN figures showed Sunday, with militant attacks and suicide bombs the leading causes of death. The toll of 1,692 fatalities was one percent more than a year earlier and the highest since the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) began keeping records in 2009.
Netanyahu, Trump discuss Syria, Iran
Reuters, Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he discussed Syria and Iran with U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the latter’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In remarks to the Israeli cabinet, Netanyahu said he spoke by phone on Saturday with Trump and that the U.S. president reiterated his commitment to Israel. In Helsinki on Monday, Trump will meet Putin, Damascus’ big-power backer and a regular interlocutor with Tehran.
Maoist rebels kill 2 Indian soldiers
AP, Patna
Maoist rebels in eastern India ambushed a unit of government forces on Sunday, leaving two soldiers dead and another wounded, police said.
The rebels attacked paramilitary soldiers after they were returning from a counterinsurgency operation in a forested area in the Kanker district of Chhattisgarh state, said police officer K.L. Dhruve.
Haiti PM resigns
AFP, Port-au-Prince
Embattled Haiti Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant resigned on Saturday following deadly violence and looting sparked by a now-abandoned plan to raise fuel prices, triggering a fraught process to form a new government. “I submitted my resignation to the president of the republic,” who has “accepted my resignation,” Lafontant said in the lower house of Haiti’s legislature.
Myanmar landslide death toll rises to15
Xinhua, Yangon
A massive landslide has killed at least 15 people with 45 others injured in Hpakant mining region, Myanmar’s northern Kachin state, the Information Ministry said on Sunday. The landslide occurred due to the collapse of pit wall of a disused jade mining site owned by Mahar Asa Pahtama Company, burying jade scavengers Saturday afternoon.
Laden bodyguard arrested in Tunis
AFP, Tunisia
A man who allegedly worked as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard has been detained in Tunisia as part of a terrorism probe after his expulsion from Germany, a prosecution spokesman said Saturday.
Known as Sami A. by German authorities and Sami Idoudi in his home country, the Tunisian “has been taken into custody following a judicial decision by the prosecutor of Tunis,” said spokesman Sofiene Sliti.
