US air strike kills 8 Afghan policemen
LASHKAR GAH: A US air strike killed as many as eight Afghan policemen outside the embattled provincial capital of Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, as security forces, supported by US strikes, battle resurgent Taliban militants.
An initial air strike late on Sunday killed one policeman, while a follow-up strike killed at least seven, said Rahimullah Khan, commander of the unit.
The US military command in Kabul confirmed its warplanes had conducted an air strike, but said they targeted “individuals firing on, and posing a threat to” Afghan national security forces.. – Reuters
Russia-China joint drill
ZHANJIANG: Chinese and Russian naval forces yesterday concluded their joint military exercise in the waters off the southern province of Guangdong, pledging to enhance practical co-operation.
Addressing the closing ceremony of the drill, which ran from September 13 to yesterday, Wang Hai, deputy commander of the Chinese Navy, said the exercise had improved the actual combat capabilities.
Alexander Fedotenkov, deputy commander of the Russian Navy, said the two navies would maintain close co-operation. – Xinhua
General flays envoy
CAIRO: Libya’s powerful General Khalifa Hifter, who answers to parliament, has criticised the UN envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, saying the diplomat is “meddling” in Libyan affairs.
It came in an interview with Egypt’s state-run daily Al-Ahram, published yesterday.
Hifter said Kobler was “meddling” after he allegedly sought a meeting “to discuss the make-up of the Libyan army”.
Hifter said Tripoli, where the UN-brokered government was seated, had been “hijacked” by armed gangs. – Reuters
18 drown on boat trip
BANGKOK: Searchers in Thailand have recovered 18 bodies and are still looking for 12 people missing from a heavily loaded boat that sank in a river at the weekend, officials said.
The two-deck boat was carrying more than 100 Muslims on a holiday excursion when it sank on Sunday on the Chao Phraya River 80km north of Bangkok. The boat evidently ran up a riverbank then took on water, sinking in less than two minutes just a few metres offshore. Bodies were still being retrieved yesterday, with 18 recovered so far. – AP
Clinton woos youth
WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton is wooing younger voters in Philadelphia as her campaign acknowledges they need to do more to get millennials on board.
Communications director Jennifer Palmieri says Clinton used yesterday’s event at Temple University to “speak directly to millennial voters about how they have the most at stake in this election”. The campaign recognised it must “do more”.
They are sending out popular surrogates like President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to woo them. – AP
CAR fighting claims 6
DAKAR: Six people were killed last week in Central African Republic in fighting between rival armed groups, the country’s UN peacekeeping mission and the government said, revising down an earlier toll.
The violence on Friday pitted fighters from the mainly Muslim Seleka group against the Christian anti-Balaka militia in Ndomete and Kaga Bandoro.
The anti-Balaka formed in 2013 in response to the toppling of thenpresident Francois Bozize by the Seleka. – Reuters
Sex issues blocked
NEW DELHI: Top search engines Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will block advertisements related to prenatal sex determination services following an order by India’s Supreme Court.
Government lawyers told the court that the search engines had enabled a system called “autoblock,” which would stop such ads, broadcaster NDTV reported.
The companies had identified 22 key words, including “sexdetermination,” that would be harder to include in searches. – dpa