Advancing Ukraine troops take fight to heart of pro-Moscow rebellion
DONETSK Ukraine/BERLIN (Reuters) – A gun battle broke out in the center of the rebel-held Ukrainian city of Donetsk and residents ran for cover from artillery fire on Tuesday, taking a government military offensive into the heart of the retreating pro-…
Migrant rape victim denied abortion in Ireland: paper
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A migrant who said she was raped in her homeland before traveling to Ireland gave birth by Caesarean section when she was 24 weeks pregnant after Irish doctors rejected her request for an abortion on the grounds of…
Nigeria former anti-graft tsar defects to scandal-hit, ruling PDP
YOLA Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria’s former anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu has defected to the ruling People’s Democratic Party to contest a state election, in a filip for President Goodluck Jonathan, whose PDP has been reeling from high profile corru…
Pope Francis grieving for relatives killed in Argentina crash
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Pope Francis was deeply grieved, the Vatican’s official broadcasting service said on Tuesday, after the deaths of three relatives killed when their car slammed into the back of a truck on a highway in central Argentina.
Liberia fights Ebola in capital, West Africa toll tops 1,200
MONROVIA/GENEVA, Aug 19 (Reuters)- Liberia battled on Tuesday to halt the spread of the Ebola disease in its crowded, run-down oceanside capital Monrovia, recording the most new deaths as fatalities from the world’s worst outbreak of the deadly virus r…
Exclusive: Hamas fighters show defiance in Gaza tunnel tour
GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas fighters, clad in black and armed with assault rifles, navigated the dimly lit tunnel with ease, saying they felt at home in their network of underground passages in the Gaza Strip.
Former Iraqi VP urges role for Saddam loyalists, criticises U.S. action
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Former dictator Saddam Hussein’s Baath party must play a role if a political solution is to be found in Iraq, ex-vice president Tarek al-Hashemi said on Monday, warning that U.S. air strikes would do nothing to end the violence.
Russia tests surface-to-air missiles in military exercises: RIA
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday tested surface-to-air missiles during army exercises in the southern Russian province of Astrakhan, a defense ministry spokesman was quoted as saying, in a move to show its military might as fighting rages in neighb…
Kurd shot dead in clash over statue with Turkish forces
DIYARBAKIR Turkey (Reuters) – A Kurdish protester was shot dead and two others were wounded in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday as they clashed with security forces dismantling a newly erected statue of a prominent Kurdish militant.
‘No’ from one Iraq villager triggered Islamic State mass killings
DOHUK Iraq (Reuters) – When Islamic State militants stormed into a northern Iraqi village and ordered everyone to convert to Islam or die only one person refused. But that did not satisfy the Sunni insurgents who are even more hardline than al Qaeda.
