QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I want to repeat that there are two options: political settlement through negotiations and the use of force.We are ready for both options.”
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov on the standoff between pro-Russian protesters and the government in several cities in eastern Ukraine Article, this page
Car bombs, mortar fire kill 34 in Iraq
BAGHDAD - Car bombs hit several mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and a town south of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, and along with a mortar attack killed at least 34 people and wounded dozens, officials said, the latest bout of violence ahead of the country’s first parliamentary elections since the 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal.
The deadliest of the day’s attacks took place in the town of Numaniyah, about 50 miles south of Baghdad, where a bomb first went off in a busy commercial area, followed by a car bomb that exploded as people gathered to help the victims from the first blast. In all, five people were killed and 17 were wounded, police said.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb in Baghdad’s central Nidhal Street killed four people and wounded 11, while five people died in a car bombing in the northern Kazimiyah district.
Car bombs also exploded in the areas of Shaab, Shammaiya, Karrada, Maamil and Sadr City, killing a total of 13 people and wounding 42, police officials added.
Later Wednesday, three more civilians died and eight were wounded when another car bomb struck Baghdad’s central upscale commercial area of Jadiriyah.
Mortars also fell on the village of Sabaa al-Bour, about 20 miles north of Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding 13, police said.
Ranking Israeli officials told to cut ties
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his ministers Wednesday to cut off contact with their Palestinian counterparts, an official said, the latest in a series of troubles in U.S.-brokered peace talks.
The move is retaliation for a Palestinian bid to join United Nations agencies, which the official said was a violation of the Palestinians’ commitment in the peace talks.
Under Netanyahu’s order Wednesday, Israeli Cabinet ministers and their ministry directors can no longer meet Palestinian counterparts, though lower-level contacts will continue, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The official said Israel’s chief peace negotiator, Tzipi Livni, would be exempt from Netanyahu’s order.
Charity scolds U.N.-run site in S. Sudan
The United Nations peacekeeping operation in South Sudan was severely criticized Wednesday by Doctors Without Borders, the emergency medical charity, over what it called a shameful indifference to the squalid living conditions of 21,000 displaced people forced to live in a flooded portion of a peacekeeping base in the capital, Juba.
The rebuke from Doctors Without Borders was unusual because the charity cooperates with the U.N. in many under served countries and has been a vital source of aid in South Sudan.
About 3.7 million people in South Sudan, a third of the population, are at risk of starvation as the rainy season looms, U.N. officials have said. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by internal conflict.
In a detailed statement, Doctors Without Borders said officials of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan had failed to respond to repeated requests by the charity to improve conditions at the Juba base, Tomping, where the displaced live in a low-lying area separated by a barbed-wire fence from empty, nonflooded space within the compound.
More Somalis exit Kenya amid roundup
NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya deported more than 80 Somalis on Wednesday as part of an ongoing security crackdown by Kenyan authorities after recent terror attacks, Kenya’s internal security minister said.
Police say the sweep has led to the arrests of more than 3,000 people in five days.
Interior Minister Joseph Ole-Lenku said those deported were in the country illegally or lacked proper documentation.
Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said the Somalis were voluntarily returning home.
Those sent back to Mogadishu, however, said they had been forced back. Speaking after landing at Mogadishu’s seaside airport, Halimo Abdi, a mother of five, said her family was forcefully deported despite having proper documentation.
Kenya police spokesman Masoud Mwinyi said Tuesday that 3,000 people have been detained and questioned by security agencies and that all but 447 have been released.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/10/2014