Russia

Russia

July 16

Flowers are left in memory of victims of Tuesday's accident, in which three carriages derailed on a train during morning rush hour, at the entrance to a metro station in Moscow July 16, 2014. Russian state investigators said on Wednesday they had detained two Moscow metro workers suspected of safety breaches that may have caused an accident that killed at least 21 people

Nigeria

Nigeria
MAIDUGURI Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 26 people were killed when suspected Islamist Boko Haram militants stormed a village in northeast Nigeria and a government warplane opened fire to repel the attackers, local residents and a security source said on Tuesday.

The warplane strafed Boko Haram fighters fleeing in pick-up trucks after raiding Dille, near Lassa in the south of Borno State, for several hours on Monday. The attackers fired on inhabitants and burned homes and churches.

"I counted 26 corpses yesterday evening," one of the residents, Dauda Illiya, told Reuters.

Most of the deaths occurred during the raid but cannon fire from the government jet also killed at least six civilians - four women and two children, residents said.

"The pilot was just spraying bullets anywhere ... People were running here and there. Many people were injured from the bullets," said a local man, Suleiman Haruna.

Nigeria's defense headquarters in Abuja did not respond to a request for comment on the incident, but a security source in Borno State confirmed the deployment of the military plane.

The residents and the security source said 20 militants were killed by local vigilantes who fought back, but this could not be confirmed as witnesses said the raiders carried off their dead in their trucks.

Nigeria's armed forces are facing a fierce offensive in the northeast by the Islamist group Boko Haram, whose marauding bands of fighters have stepped up attacks against towns and villages after kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in April.

That abduction triggered an international outcry and increased support from Western governments for President Goodluck Jonathan's fight against Boko Haram, which has killed thousands and abducted hundreds since launching an uprising in 2009.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful", says it wants to set up an Islamic state in Nigeria, whose population is split between Christians and Muslims.

With the abducted schoolgirls still missing three months after their kidnap, Jonathan faces criticism at home and abroad over the deteriorating security situation in Africa's leading oil producer and biggest economy. [ID:nL2N0PJ0CP]

Authorities and military experts fear Boko Haram, which has claimed bomb attacks in recent months in the capital Abuja and in the coastal commercial hub Lagos, is seeking to push its insurgency into the more prosperous south. [ID:nL6N0PN09G]

BOMBING SUSPECT EXTRADITED

Nigeria's state security services said on Tuesday that a Boko Haram suspect and national army deserter, Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, who was sought for alleged involvement in April 14 and May 1 bomb attacks in the Abuja area that killed 94 people, had been extradited to Nigeria from Sudan.

"Yes, he's with us", State Security spokewoman Marilyn Ogar told Reuters. She said Ogwuche was arrested by the international police agency Interpol in Sudan on a warrant from Nigeria.
The suspected militants who on Monday attacked Dille, which is not far from the Cameroon border, were believed to have come from Boko Haram's Sambisa forest stronghold where at least some of the kidnapped girls are thought to be held.
On Monday, Jonathan promised that the missing 219 girls, snatched on April 14 from Chibok, also in Borno State, would soon return home, teenage Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai said after meeting him. [ID:nL6N0PP439]
Malala, who became a global celebrity after surviving being shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, was visiting Nigeria to support the international campaign for the release of the abducted Nigerian students.

Iraq

Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Residents of a town north of Baghdad found 12 corpses with execution-style bullet wounds on Monday following fighting between rival Sunni insurgents that could eventually unravel a coalition which has seized much of northern and western Iraq.

Cuba spy Base

Cuba

Moscow (AFP) - Russia has provisionally agreed to reopen a major Cold War listening post on Cuba that was used to spy on the United States, a Russian daily reported Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin visited the island last week.

Kommersant reported that Russia and Cuba had agreed "in principle" to reopen the Lourdes base, mothballed since 2001, citing several sources within Russian authorities. "The agreements were finalised while President Vladimir Putin visited Havana last Friday," the respected daily wrote.

Russia had closed the Lourdes spy base south of Havana on Putin's orders to save money and due to a rapprochement with the United States after the September 11 attacks.

But Moscow has since shown a new interest in Latin America and its Cold War ally Cuba and relations with the West have deteriorated amid the Ukraine crisis.

The base was set up in 1964 after the Cuban missile crisis to spy on the United States. Just 250 kilometres (155 miles) from the US coast, it was the Soviet Union's largest covert military outpost abroad with up to 3,000 staff.

A secret Russian listening station conducts it's activities October 18, 2001 in Lourdes some 18 mile …

It was used to listen in to radio signals including those from submarines and ships and satellite communications.
"All I can say is -- finally!" one Russian source told Kommersant of the reported reopening.
The defence ministry and military high command declined to comment on the report to Kommersant.
Ahead of Putin's visit to Cuba last week as part of a Latin American tour, Russia agreed to write off 90 percent of Cuba's debt dating back to the Soviet era, totalling around $32 billion.
Russia paid Cuba rent of $200 million per year to use the base in the last few years it was open.
A former head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, told the newspaper the base would strengthen Russia's international position.
"Lourdes gave the Soviet Union eyes in the whole of the western hemisphere," he said. "For Russia, which is fighting for its lawful rights and place in the international community, it would be no less valuable than for the USSR."

Afghanistan

Afghanistan

A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near a busy market and a mosque in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 89 people in the deadliest insurgent attack on civilians since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. (July 16)

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