Merkel tours Israel’s Holocaust museum
AP, Jerusalem
German Chancellor Angela Merkel kicked off the second day of her two-day visit to Israel on Thursday with an emotional tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum.
Israel was established three years after the end of World War II, and the German government has paid billions in reparations to Holocaust survivors and positioned itself as a leader in combatting anti-Semitism. Under Merkel’s, it has been perhaps Israel’s strongest European ally.
British minister slams ‘pariah state’ Russia
AFP, Brussels
Britain’s defence minister on Thursday condemned Russia as a “pariah state” after London accused Kremlin spies of mounting a campaign of cyber attacks on civilian bodies around the world.
Cyber experts from the UK have identified operatives from Russia’s GRU military intelligence as being behind a string of high-profile incidents, including an attempted hack on the World Anti-Doping Agency in Switzerland last year.
US pulls out of int’l accord over Jerusalem embassy case
AFP, Washington:
The United States said Wednesday it was quitting an international accord related to the top UN court after the Palestinians challenged the US move of its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
It was the latest attack on the international justice system by the administration of President Donald Trump, who last month at the United Nations virulently rejected the authority of the International Criminal Court.
7 Turkish soldiers killed in blast
AP, Ankara
Kurdish rebels on Thursday detonated an explosive device on a road in southeast Turkey, killing at least seven soldiers, a senior official said. Two other soldiers were wounded in the attack.
The explosion occurred on a road near the town of Gercus in the majority-Kurdish province of Batman. Numan Kurtulmus, a deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling party, said the soldiers, who were inside an armored military vehicle, were on their way to protect a construction site in the region.
South Carolina shooting leaves one officer dead
Reuters, Carolina
Five law enforcement officers were shot, one of them fatally, near the city of Florence, South Carolina, on Wednesday, before a suspect was arrested, according to local media and emergency management authorities.
No official details on the shooting were immediately available. But the Florence County Emergency Management Department said on Twitter that an “active shooting situation” reported in the area was “over and the suspect is in custody.
