POLICE ARREST 2 SUSPECTED OF PLOTTING ATTACK IN BELGIUM
BRUSSELS: Belgian police arrested two men “suspected of planning an attack” in Belgium following raids late Friday ordered by an anti-terror judge, federal prosecutors said on Saturday. Belgium has remained on high alert following deadly March bombings claimed by the Islamic State group in Brussels and a wave of deadly attacks in the last month in France and Germany, some of them claimed by IS. The two men, identified as Noureddine H. and his brother Hamza H., were arrested following house searches in the French-speaking areas of Mons and Liege, a spokesman for the federal prosecutors said. The prosecutor’s office said there was for now no connection with the bombings on March 22 at Brussels airport and a metro station near the European Union headquarters that left 32 people dead. No weapons or explosives were found in the raids ordered by the judge specializing in counter-terror cases, it said.
2 INDIAN SOLDIERS AMONG 4 KILLED NEAR KASHMIR BORDER
SRINAGAR, India: near the disputed territory’s de facto border with Pakistan, the Indian army said Saturday. Colonel N. N. Joshi said the firefight occurred in Naugam sector, some 120 kilometers ( 75 miles) northwest of the main city of Srinagar, after soldiers intercepted the militants attempting to infiltrate the territory from Pakistan. “Two terrorists were killed and two soldiers attained martyrdom. One soldier was injured,” Joshi told Agence France- Presse. More than 50 people have been killed and thousands injured in weeks of unrest in Indian- administered Kashmir, sparked by the death on July 8 of popular rebel commander Burhan Wani in a firefight with government forces.
MIGRANTS END HUNGER STRIKE AT SERBIA-HUNGARY BORDER
BELGRADE: Around 90 migrants on Friday ended a days-long hunger strike they had staged at Serbia’s border with Hungary in a bid to be allowed to continue their journey across the closed frontier, the UN refuge agency said. The migrants, mostly young men from Afghanistan and Pakistan, arrived at the Horgos crossing at the weekend to protest against the closure of Hungary’s border and tough new measures introduced this month to tighten security. Last Friday, some 300 migrants set off on foot from the Serbian capital Belgrade, around 200 kilometers (124 miles) south. But only about 90 arrived at the border and went on hunger strike. According to their leader, some protesters had health problems due to the hot summer weather while also the “response to their demands was not what they have expected,” a spokeswoman for UNHCR in Serbia told Agence FrancePresse. The migrants were to be transferred to reception centers in Serbia later on Friday, she added.
US TIES 4 ZIKA CASES IN FLORIDA TO LOCAL MOSQUITOES
MIAMI, Florida: Four cases of Zika virus in Florida are likely the first transmitted locally by mosquitoes in the United States, officials said Friday, marking a new phase in the fast- growing pandemic. Until now, more than 1,600 cases of Zika— which can cause birth defects— have been recorded in the mainland United States but most were brought in by people who had become infected while traveling, with a smaller number transmitted by sexual contact. “As we have anticipated, Zika is now here,” said Tom Frieden, chief of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), speaking to reporters in a conference call. The Florida Department of Health said that over the past two weeks, investigators have determined “a high likelihood exists” that four suspected non- travel cases in Miami- Dade and Broward County “are the result of local transmission.”