Russia says no plans to install new missiles unless US deploys them
Reuters, Moscow
Russia will not deploy new missiles as long as the United States shows similar restraint in Europe and Asia, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said on Sunday, after Washington’s withdrawal from a Soviet-era arms pact.
The United States formally left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia earlier this month after accusing Moscow of violating the treaty and deploying one banned type of missile, allegations the Kremlin denies.
UN blasts Libyan force’s strikes on airport
AP, Cairo
The U.N. mission in Libya has condemned airstrikes by the self-styled Libyan National Army on a militia-run airport west of the capital, Tripoli, saying the facility had no military targets.
Last week, the Libyan force under commander Khalifa Hiftar said it bombed the Zuwara airport because it allegedly housed Turkish-made drones belonging to the militias allied with the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli.
Indonesian police shoot suspected militant after officer slashed
Reuters, Jakarta
A suspected militant has launched an attack on an Indonesian police station in the country’s second-biggest city, slashing one officer with a sickle, before being shot and taken into custody, police officials said on Sunday.
The 30-year-old suspect entered the police station in Surabaya in East Java on Saturday afternoon – Indonesia’s Independence Day – and attacked the officer on duty, according to a police intelligence report confirmed by East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera.
Airstrikes on Syrian rebel stronghold kill family of 7
AP, Beirut
Government and Russian airstrikes pounded the southern edge of a rebel stronghold in Syria’s northwest on Saturday, killing at least seven members of one family, activists and a war monitor reported.
The intense airstrikes were coupled with fierce ground clashes as the government, backed by Russia, pushed ahead with a months-old offensive seeking to chip away at territory on the periphery of the rebel enclave.
US murderer
executed after
choosing electric chair
AFP, Washington
A man put to death in the US state of Tennessee on Thursday for murdering a woman and her daughter chose in his final hours to be electrocuted rather than executed by lethal injection, prison officials said.
Stephen West, who was convicted in the two killings more than 30 years ago, waited until Wednesday to choose his method of execution-one day after Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee refused his request for clemency.
