NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
_1 Iraq fighting: Government forces have begun a new push to drive Islamic State militants from four neighborhoods in west Mosul. In a statement Sunday, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah said Iraqi special forces were advancing along with militarized federal police and regular army forces. The operation to retake Mosul began in October, and the city’s east was declared liberated in January. Iraqi forces opened the operation to retake the west the next month. In recent weeks, U.S.-backed Iraqi troops have slowly closed in on a small cluster of neighborhoods in the city’s west.
_2 Syria evacuation: Scores of rebels and their families began leaving a northeastern neighborhood of the capital Damascus for rebel-held areas in northern Syria on Sunday, state media and opposition activists said. The evacuations from Qaboun came a day after government forces and their allies captured most of the area from insurgents. State news agency Sana said hundreds of fighters boarded buses and departed for the province of Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 buses left Qaboun and more are expected to follow.
_3 Russia protest: Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Moscow on Sunday to rally against a bill to tear down Soviet-era low-rise apartment buildings. The measure is arguably Russia’s largest redevelopment project and would pull down entire neighborhoods of Soviet-era prefabricated blocks that were built under and named for former leader Nikita Khrushchev. City Hall has insisted the buildings, known as khrushchevki, are too dilapidated and outdated, while many residents and activists see the plans as a ruse to make way for highrises in some of Moscow’s leafiest neighborhoods.
_4 Nepal elections: Millions of Nepalese voted Sunday for representatives in municipal and village councils for the first time in two decades, a sign that the country’s fractious democracy may be stabilizing. Crucial local posts have been occupied by governmentappointed bureaucrats because elections could not be held amid a 10-year communist insurgency and years of delays in drafting a new constitution. One person was killed in police firing at a polling station, but an election official said voting was peaceful in the rest of the country. Two years ago, lawmakers passed a new constitution to replace the old system of monarchy and to lay out the rules for provincial and parliamentary polls.
_5 Palestinians vote: Results in Palestinian municipal elections in the West Bank show a weak performance by the ruling Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas, even though the rival Islamic Hamas movement stayed out of the race. The vote provided Palestinians a rare chance to cast ballots after more than a decade without presidential or legislative elections, and Saturday’s election was seen as a test for Abbas’ embattled party. In Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, Fatah won just seven of 15 seats. And in Nablus, another major city, Fatah won 11 of 15 seats, but only after forming an alliance with Islamist candidates. Fatah’s popularity has been hurt by a weak economy and stalled peace efforts.
_6 Earthquake: A strong 5.7-magnitude earthquake killed at least three people and injured 200 others in a remote area of Iran’s northeast, state TV reported Sunday. The quake that hit late Saturday jolted the town of Pishqaleh, a farming region close to the Turkmenistan border, about 500 miles northeast of the capital Tehran.