Israel has decided to call up 16,000 extra reservists to bolster its military as the conflict in Gaza continues.
The deployment brings the total called up by Israel to 86,000. Officials told Israeli media the call-up gave the military “room to breathe”.
The move comes as Israel pledged to investigate a strike on a UN-run school that killed at least 16 people.
In all, more than 100 people in Gaza were killed on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said.
The US and UN condemned the attack, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling it “unjustifiable”.
On Wednesday, Israel’s security cabinet met to approve the continuation of strikes against Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Israel has decided to call up 16,000 extra reservists to bolster its military as the conflict in Gaza continues
Operations would continue against suspected militants, suspected rocket sites and a network of tunnels discovered leading into Israel, the military said.
At least 19 air strikes were carried out overnight, officials said.
Israel began Operation Protective Edge on July 8. Since then at least 1,360 Palestinians have been killed. Most have been civilians.
Some 58 Israelis have been killed, 56 soldiers and two civilians. A Thai worker in Israel has also died.
The attack on the school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which was sheltering more than 3,000 civilians, took place on Wednesday morning.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “all available evidence” suggested Israeli artillery was the cause.
The US state department also criticized the attack on the school. It also condemned those who hid weapons in UN facilities, a spokeswoman said.
Also on Wednesday, an attack on a market in Shejaiya killed 17 people, while an Israeli air strike killed seven people in Khan Younis, Palestinian officials said.
Those attacks came during a four-hour humanitarian ceasefire called by the Israelis after the school incident.
However, Israel said the truce was only partial. Hamas rejected it as meaningless.
Israel said Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets from Gaza, with more than 50 launched on Wednesday.
The current conflict, now in its 24th day, is the longest between Israel and militants from Gaza.
Indian rescue teams are working to locate survivors of a landslide that has claimed at least 23 lives and buried up to 200 people near the city of Pune in Maharashtra state.
Ten people have been rescued from the wreckage in Malin village.
Teams worked through the night but rain was hampering efforts to search for scores of people presumed trapped under the mud and debris.
The landslide hit the village early on Wednesday while people were sleeping.
Landslides are common in some parts of India during the monsoon, which runs from June to September.
The landslide has claimed at least 23 lives and buried up to 200 people near the city of Pune in Maharashtra state
A large part of a nearby hill collapsed on Malin, and its population of 150 to 200 tribal people were covered with tonnes of loose earth, mud and rocks.
“Everything on the mountain came down,” said Suresh Jadhav, a district official, describing how a cascade of mud, rocks and uprooted trees swamped the area.
Rescue operations were disrupted on Thursday morning after “very heavy rainfall” in the area, Tripti Parule, a spokesperson for India’s National Disaster Response Force said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan told the Press Trust of India news agency that more than 160 people were believed to be trapped in 44 houses buried under the rubble.
The Indian Express newspaper reported that a 25-year-old woman and her six-month-old baby were among the 10 people who had been rescued from the site.
“The woman and her baby were trapped in their house under the thatched roof… The mother was tightly holding the baby in her arms,” Baban Kokane, the driver of the rescue vehicle, told the newspaper.
“We found them while removing the mud with the earth mover. Their house was wrapped in a thick layer of mud.”
PM Narendra Modi described the loss of lives in the landslide as “saddening”. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is travelling to Pune on Thursday to assess the situation.
Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo (BES) has reported a bigger-than-expected loss of 3.6 billion euros ($4.8 billion) for the first six months of 2014.
The troubled bank said “extraordinary events” had resulted in costs totaling 4.25 billion euros during the period.
The loss wipes out BES’s existing capital buffer of nearly 2.1 billion euros – cutting it to below the minimum level required by regulators.
The lender said it will begin a process to raise cash to meet capital rules.
“Over the course of the past few weeks, both shareholders and potential investors have shown interest in participating in a capitalization plan, some of them willing to take relevant stakes in the bank,” Chief Executive Vitor Bento said in a statement.
Banco Espirito Santo has reported a bigger-than-expected loss of $4.8 billion for the first six months of 2014
The larger-than-expected loss comes as BES – Portugal’s largest private bank – has been under increased scrutiny.
There have been concerns over the financial strength of the bank’s parent company and its ability to deal with its debt problems.
The fears were fanned after parent companies linked to the Espirito Santo family sought protection from creditors.
That has hurt the bank’s share price, which has slumped almost 40% in July.
The worries had also prompted the governor of Portugal’s central bank to issue a statement earlier this month aimed at reassuring depositors and investors about the health of BES.
The central bank had said at the time that investors had “no reason to doubt” the security of funds, and savers had “no need to be worried”.
The lender has also been trying to restructure its senior management.
Earlier this month, it accelerated the appointment of new executives, originally due to start at the end of July.
The Bank of Portugal ordered the changes to be fast-tracked after worries about the financial strength of the bank’s parent company hit global stock markets.
Speculation surrounding accounting regularities at the parent company of BES, Espirito Financial Group, led to three family members being replaced.
Espirito Santo Financial Group, which holds a 25% stake in BES, previously said economist Vitor Bento would be the new chief executive of the bank from the end of July and Joao Moreira Rato, who heads Portugal’s IGCP debt agency, would become the chief financial officer.
Meanwhile, Jose Honorio becomes deputy chief executive officer.
The three replace the Espirito Santo family members, including its patriarch Ricardo Espirito Santo Salgado, who announced his resignation as chief executive of BES last month.
Santo Salgado, who ran the bank for 23 years, was arrested last week in connection with a money laundering and tax evasion investigation.
The House of Representatives has passed a resolution to sue President Barack Obama for allegedly exceeding his constitutional powers.
The 225-201 vote along party lines means House lawyers will now draft legal documents to launch a lawsuit.
Its supporters say Barack Obama exceeded his powers when he delayed an insurance deadline in his healthcare law.
Barack Obama himself has dismissed it as a waste of time.
“Everyone sees this as a political stunt,” he said.
“If they’re not going to do anything, we’ll do what we can on our own,” the president added.
The House of Representatives has passed a resolution to sue President Barack Obama for allegedly exceeding his constitutional powers
“And we’ve taken more than 40 actions aimed at helping hardworking families like yours. That’s when we act – when your Congress won’t.”
The action is reportedly the first time either the House or Senate has brought legal action against a president over the legality of his powers, although members of Congress have sued the president before.
Republicans in Congress have complained that Barack Obama has exceeded his constitutional authority on numerous occasions, in order to bypass Congress by issuing executive orders.
They object, for instance, to his order unilaterally easing deportations of some young illegal immigrants, and the prison exchange that won the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl held captive for five years by the Taliban.
“This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about defending the Constitution we swore an oath to,” Speaker John Boehner said during an impassioned debate in the House on Wednesday evening.
“Are you willing to let any president choose what laws to execute and what laws to change?”
At issue was Barack Obama’s decision to twice delay requirements in his 2010 healthcare overhaul that businesses over a certain size provide their workers with health insurance.
Barack Obama has been forthright about his intentions to circumvent the gridlocked Congress when possible, noting frequently that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has declined even to hold votes on Senate-passed bills on topics from immigration reform to gay rights.
As far back as January, White House aides began referring to the president’s “pen and phone” strategy – using his telephone to convene meetings at the White House and his pen to sign executive orders and changes to federal regulations.
Ratings agency S & P declared Argentina in default after the government missed a deadline for paying interest on $13 billion of restructured bonds.
Argentina has defaulted on its debt for the second time in 13 years after last-minute talks in New York with a group of bond-holders ended in failure.
So-called “vulture fund” investors were demanding a full pay-out of $1.3 billion on bonds they hold.
Argentina has said it cannot afford to do so, and has accused them of using its debt problems to make a big profit.
A US judge had set a deadline of 04:00 GMT on Thursday for a deal. The crisis stems from Argentina’s 2001 default.
Late on Wednesday evening, Argentina’s Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said the investors had rejected the government’s latest offer.
Argentina has defaulted on its debt for the second time in 13 years after last-minute talks in New York with a group of bond-holders ended in failure
“Unfortunately, no agreement was reached and the Republic of Argentina will imminently be in default,” Daniel Pollack, the court-appointed mediator in the case, said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
The fresh default is not expected to affect Argentina’s economy in the same way it did in 2001, when dozens were killed in street protests and the authorities froze savers’ accounts to halt a run on the banks.
“The full consequences of default are not predictable, but they certainly are not positive,” Daniel Pollack said.
Speaking at a news conference in New York, Axel Kicillof said Argentina would not do anything illegal.
The investors, also known as “hold-outs”, are US hedge funds that bought debt cheaply after Argentina’s economic crisis.
They never agreed to the restructuring accepted by the majority of bond-holders.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has described as vultures the minority bond-holders – including Aurelius Capital Management and NML Capital.
She accuses them of taking advantage of Argentina’s debt problems to make large profits.
S&P noted that it could revise the rating if Argentina were to find some way to make the payments.
The hedge funds are demanding Argentina make interest payments on debt which it defaulted on in 2001, even though it was bought at less than face value.
The US courts have blocked payments to other bondholders who agreed a separate deal with Argentina, until agreement with the “hold-outs” is reached.
Axel Kicillof said he planned to return to Argentina after the news conference, saying the country would do what is needed to deal with what he called an unfair situation.
An attack on Tor network may have unmasked users for five months, developers of software used to access the network say.
The Tor Project said that it believed the assault was designed to de-anonymize the net addresses of people operating or visiting hidden sites.
However, it said it was not sure exactly how users had been “affected”.
The project added that it believed it had halted the attack on July 4.
Tor allows people to visit webpages without being tracked and to publish sites whose contents does not show up in search engines.
The Tor Project said it believed that the infiltration had been carried out by two university researchers, who claimed at the start of July to have exploited “fundamental flaws” in Tor’s design that allowed them to unmask the so-called dark net’s users.
The two security experts, Alexander Volynkin and Michael McCord, had been due to give a talk at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas next week. However, the presentation was cancelled at the insistence of lawyers working for their employer, Carnegie Mellon University.
“We spent several months trying to extract information from the researchers who were going to give the Black Hat talk, and eventually we did get some hints from them… which is how we started looking for the attacks in the wild,” wrote Roger Dingledine, one of the network’s co-creators, on the Tor Project’s blog.
Tor’s users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists, who use it as a way of communicating with whistle-blowers
“They haven’t answered our emails lately, so we don’t know for sure, but it seems likely that the answer to [whether they were responsible] is yes.
“In fact, we hope they were the ones doing the attacks, since otherwise it means somebody else was.”
A spokesman from Carnegie Mellon University declined to comment.
Tor attempts to hide a person’s location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several “nodes” – which, in this context, means using volunteers’ PCs and computer servers as connection points.
Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity.
To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain – known as an “exit relay” – rather than the person responsible.
Tor’s users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists – who use it as a way of communicating with whistle-blowers – as well as members of the public who wish to keep their browser activity secret.
But it has also been associated with illegal activity, allowing people to visit sites offering illegal drugs for sale and access to child abuse images, which do not show up in normal search engine results and would not be available to those who did not know where to look.
The Tor Project suggests the perpetrator compromised the network via a “traffic confirmation attack”.
This involves the attacker controlling both the first part of the circuit of nodes involved – known as the “entry relay” – as well as the exit relay.
By matching the volumes and timings of the data sent at one end of the circuit to those received at the other end, it becomes possible to reveal the Tor user’s identity because the computer used as an entry relay will have logged their internet protocol (IP) address.
The project believes the attacker used this to reveal hidden-site visitors by adding a signal to the data sent back from such sites that included the encoded name of the hidden service.
Because the sequence of nodes in a Tor network is random, the infiltrator would not be able to track every visit to a dark net site.
Tor also has a way of protecting itself against such a danger: rather than use a single entry relay, the software involved uses a few relays chosen at random – what are known as “entry guards”.
Even if someone has control of a single entry and exit relay, they should only see a fraction of the user’s traffic, making it hard to identify them.
However, the Tor Project believes the perpetrator countered this safeguard by using a second technique known as a “Sybil attack”.
This involved adding about 115 subverted computer servers to Tor and ensuring they became used as entry guards. As a result, the servers accounted for more than 6% of the network’s guard capacity.
This was still not enough to monitor every communication, but was potentially enough to link some users to specific hidden sites.
Several government agencies are interested in having a way to unmask Tor’s users.
The House of Representatives is voting to pass a resolution authorizing it to sue President Barack Obama for what Republican leaders describe as his overreach of authority.
The resolution is expected to pass the Republican-controlled chamber in a party line vote onJuly 30.
Its sponsors say Barack Obama exceeded his powers when he delayed an insurance deadline in his healthcare law.
The president himself has dismissed the lawsuit as a waste of time.
“Everyone sees this as a political stunt,” Barack Obama said while in Kansas on Wednesday.
“But it’s worse than that because every vote they’re taking… means a vote they’re not taking to help people.”
The House of Representatives is voting to pass a resolution authorizing it to sue President Barack Obama (photo Reuters)
Republicans in Congress have complained that Barack Obama has exceeded his constitutional authority on numerous occasions, in order to bypass Congress by issuing executive orders.
They object, for instance, to his order unilaterally easing deportations of some young illegal immigrants, and the prison exchange that won the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl held captive for five years by the Taliban.
Specifically at issue in the resolution, which was sponsored by Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas with the full backing of House Speaker John Boehner, was Barack Obama’s decision to twice delay requirements in his 2010 healthcare overhaul that businesses over a certain size provide their workers with health insurance.
Barack Obama has been forthright about his intentions to circumvent the gridlocked Congress when possible, noting frequently that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has declined even to hold votes on Senate-passed bills on topics from immigration reform to gay rights.
As far back as January, White House aides began referring to the president’s “pen and phone” strategy – using his telephone to convene meetings at the White House and his pen to sign executive orders and changes to federal regulations.
Every US president since George Washington has issued executive orders, and Barack Obama has not stood out in the modern era for the number he has signed.
In his six years in office Barack Obama has issued 183 executive orders, compared to 291 across George W. Bush’s eight years and 381 for Ronald Reagan, according to a study by the American Presidency Project at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Liberia is closing down all schools across the country to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Some communities would be placed under quarantine as well, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said.
Non-essential government workers will be sent home for 20 days and the army deployed to enforce the measures.
The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures.
Liberia is closing down all schools across the country to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus (photo AFP)
Treatment facilities have reportedly been overwhelmed in the Liberian capital Monrovia.
Some wards have already filled up, forcing health workers to treat some patients at their homes.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that Friday, August 1, would be a non-working day in Liberia to allow for the disinfection of all public facilities.
“All non-essential staff – to be determined by the heads of ministries and agencies – are to be placed on 30 days’ compulsory leave” she added.
The US humanitarian organization Peace Corps said it was withdrawing 340 volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea because of the spread of the virus.
Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected, but patients have a better chance of survival if they receive early treatment.
The virus spreads through contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.
The Ebola outbreak – the world’s deadliest to date – was first reported in Guinea in February. It then spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Russia will face further economic sanctions if it continues to support rebels in Ukraine, G7 leaders say.
In a statement on Wednesday, the G7 group of economic powers said Russia had undermined “Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.”
The warning came after the EU added eight more Russians to its sanctions.
Earlier, Russia described new US and EU sanctions as “destructive and short-sighted”, and said they would lead to higher energy prices in Europe.
G7 leaders say Russia will face further economic sanctions if it continues to support rebels in Ukraine
The G7 group includes the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain.
Its leaders said Russia could still “choose the path of de-escalation,” but warned President Vladimir Putin that he would face greater economic costs if he continued to back Ukrainian separatists.
They also called on all sides to establish a ceasefire at the crash site of the Malaysian Airlines jet that was shot down on July 17 in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has come under increased pressure to end its support for the rebels, who Western governments believe were behind the downing of MH17, killing all 298 people on board.
Vladimir Putin has also been accused by the US and EU of supplying heavy weapons to the rebels – a charge his government has denied.
On Tuesday, the US announced new economic sanctions against Russia, widening their scope to include three key sectors of the economy – energy, arms and finance.
The EU is also expanding its sanctions, targeting the oil sector, defense equipment and sensitive technologies.
Details of new EU sanctions are due to be published on Thursday.
At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and 160 wounded in an Israeli strike that hit a fruit and vegetable market in Shujayea, near Gaza City, during a “humanitarian pause” unilaterally announced by Israel.
Hundreds of people were shopping in the market, a spokesman for the Gaza health ministry said.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, had rejected the truce as meaningless.
Meanwhile, Israel said three more of its soldiers had been killed in Gaza.
Palestinian doctors also said that another Israeli air strike after the partial humanitarian ceasefire was announced had killed seven people in Khan Younis.
More than 1,300 Palestinians and 58 Israelis have now died in Gaza Strip conflict
Earlier, the UN said Israel had attacked a UN-run school housing refugees in Gaza, despite warnings that civilians were there. Fifteen people were killed and dozens hurt.
The White House condemned the attack and said it was “extremely concerned” that Palestinians were not safe at shelters despite being told to evacuate their homes by Israel’s army.
More than 1,300 Palestinians and 58 Israelis have now died in the conflict. Most of the Palestinian deaths have been of civilians.
Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed along with two civilians. A Thai worker in Israel has also died.
The Israeli military said that the three soldiers killed on Wednesday died in a booby-trapped building.
Correspondents say many people in Gaza were unaware the partial ceasefire had been called.
Witnesses at the scene of the market strike in Shejaiya spoke of smoke billowing over the site, with ambulances racing victims to hospital.
A journalist who worked for a local news agency was reported to have been killed.
One witness, Salim Qadoum, told Associated Press: “The area now is like a bloodbath, everyone is wounded or killed. People lost their limbs and were screaming for help. It’s a massacre.”
The Palestinian al-Aqsa satellite TV channel quoted Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum as saying that the market attack required “an earth-shattering response”.
The Israeli military had said the ceasefire would last between 15:00 and 19:00.
However, it had warned that the truce would only apply to areas where Israeli soldiers were not currently operating, and it told residents not to return to areas they had previously been asked to evacuate.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri had rejected the truce as meaningless.
“The lull which Israel announced is media exploitation and has no value because it excludes the volatile areas along the border, and we won’t be able to get the wounded out from those areas,” he said in a statement.
Sirens continued to sound in southern Israel after the ceasefire, to warn of militant rocket attacks.
Israel said more than 50 rockets were fired from Gaza on Wednesday.
A massive landslide buried a remote village in western India on July 30, killing at least 17 people, officials said.
The landslide buried some 40 houses and trapped about 150 people in Malin village, near the city of Pune in Maharashtra, officials say.
Teams of emergency workers have so far rescued six people.
The landslide buried some 40 houses and trapped about 150 people in Malin village
Rescuers trying to reach survivors caught under the debris are being hampered by bad weather.
The landslide hit the village early in the morning while people were sleeping.
The whole village except its school has been washed away or buried.
Landslides are common in some parts of India during the monsoon rains, which run from June to September.
An official from India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) said hilly terrain was making rescue work difficult.
PM Narendra Modi described the loss of lives in the landslide as “saddening”. Narendra Modi said Home Minister Rajnath Singh would travel to Pune to assess the situation.
Economy Minister Axel Kicillof has returned to the negotiating table in a last-ditch attempt to prevent Argentina defaulting on its bonds.
Axel Kicillof’s talks with “hold-out” investors ended late on Tuesday night in New York without agreement.
They are demanding a full pay-out of $1.3 billion on the bonds they hold.
Argentina can’t afford to pay the so-called hold-out creditors and risks a new bond default (photo Reuters)
A US judge has ruled that the “hold-outs” must be paid by Wednesday night if no deal is agreed.
The government’s rhetoric has been clear.
The “hold-outs” are US hedge funds that bought debt on the cheap during Argentina’s darkest hours and never agreed to restructuring.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner calls them vultures, accusing them of taking advantage of Argentina’s debt problems to make a big profit.
What makes the problem worse is that if the “hold-outs” get their way, other bondholders who agreed to take cuts of up to 70% in what they are owed may also demand full repayment.
Despite the defiant tone of the government, many people seem resigned. Argentina has defaulted before and most probably will do it again.
The Louvre museum in Paris has called in the pest controllers after picnickers in its gardens encouraged an infestation of rats.
Startling photos and videos posted online in recent days show rats scavenging for food, singly or in groups, yards from snacking tourists.
The Louvre gardens are popular as a resting-place for the gallery’s tens of thousands of daily visitors.
Parisians also use the gardens as a lunching spot.
At the height of summer, museum authorities are having difficulties keeping the gardens – which consist of lawns intercut by lines of thick hedge and studded with early 19th Century statuary – clean.
Rubbish and scraps of discarded food accumulate beneath the hedges, whose interiors are occasionally used as a toilet. Crows peck among the detritus next to overflowing bins.
The Louvre museum in Paris has called in the pest controllers after picnickers in its gardens encouraged an infestation of rats
The rat alert was raised by photographer Xavier Francolon, who was taking pictures of the nearby Tuileries funfair when he got sidetracked by the more interesting story unfolding beneath his feet.
“It’s quite common to see rats in Paris at night,” he told Le Point magazine.
“But what was weird was seeing them in broad daylight. They were going right up close to the people picnicking.” In two days he saw more than 30 of the pests.
“A Dutchman with his family asked me what those animals were. The family must have been to Disneyland because when I told him, his children started shouting: <<Look, it’s Ratatouille!>>”
The Eurodisney theme park outside Paris has just opened a new attraction based on the exploits of the culinary rat.
According to a pest expert quoted in Le Parisien newspaper, there is now a “Ratatouille effect” which renders children almost friendly towards rats.
“In the Louvre gardens you even see people feeding the rats, which is the very last thing they should be doing,” he said.
The Louvre museum says it is aware of the problem, and has a regular program of rat clearance in the gardens. Following the latest sightings, pest controllers have been in again and for now the rats seem to have disappeared.
Various reasons have been put forward for this year’s proliferation at the Louvre. The mild winter will have encouraged reproduction (and with five litters a year of between five and 12 pups, rats breed fast).
The vast urban reconstruction project at Les Halles, which is nearby, may have displaced many of the animals. And recent rainstorms caused water to accumulate in sewers, bringing rats to the surface.
Above all it is the lack of cleanliness at the Louvre gardens which is at fault.
Frederic Devanlay of the pest-control company Avipur said: “There has been a steady increase in the number of rats in Paris going back eight years. They get used to human presence and as time goes by they come closer and closer to contact with people.”
According to an unofficial figure quoted in all the French press, it is reckoned there are now six million rodents in Paris – 2.5 per human inhabitant.
Israel attacked a UN school housing refugees in Gaza despite repeated warnings that civilians were sheltering there, the UN has said.
UN spokesman Chris Gunness said “the world stands disgraced” by the attack, in which 15 were reported killed.
The Israeli military said an initial inquiry suggested soldiers responded after militants had fired mortar shells “from the vicinity of the [UN] school”.
Some 1,200 Palestinians and 55 Israelis have been killed in the conflict.
Most of the Palestinian deaths have been civilians.
Some 53 Israeli soldiers have been killed along with two civilians. A Thai worker in Israel has also died.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after a surge in rocket fire from the territory.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it will not stop fighting until the blockade, maintained by both Israel and Egypt, is lifted.
Israel attacked a UN school housing refugees in Gaza despite repeated warnings that civilians were sheltering there
The current conflict is now the longest between Israel and militants from Gaza.
A 2012 offensive lasted for eight days, and the 2008 conflict went on for 22 days.
Chris Gunness from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said that Israel had been told 17 times that the school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was housing the displaced.
“The last time was hours before the fatal attack,” he said.
“Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school.”
He said there were “multiple deaths” including women and children, adding that the attack caused “universal shame”.
Images from the school showed large holes in the walls and roof.
Bob Turner, UNRWA’s Gaza director, said the UN was “confident” Israel was responsible.
He said UN workers had collected fragments of projectiles that suggested they were artillery shells fired from Israeli positions to the north-east of the school.
The Israeli military said the incident was under review.
The military said in a statement that its “initial inquiry suggests that militants fired mortars earlier this morning from the vicinity of UNRWA school in Jebalia”.
It said soldiers “responded by firing towards the origin of fire”.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using schools and civilian areas as bases to launch attacks.
Last week, another UN-run school was hit, with Palestinians saying at least 15 people were killed.
But the Israeli military denied the killings, saying a single “errant” shell had landed in an empty courtyard.
Israel stepped up the intensity of its strikes on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday, saying it had hit a number of tunnels dug by militants to attack Israel.
But the Israeli military said rockets continued to land in Israel from Gaza.
Palestinian officials said Gaza’s port had been destroyed on Tuesday and its only power plant had been put out of action.
Meanwhile, Palestinian factions Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad are expected to meet in Cairo later to discuss a ceasefire.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is expected to submit to questioning next week by the US Army general probing the circumstances that led to the his 2009 capture by the Taliban, his attorney said on Tuesday.
Freed prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl was introduced to the investigating officer, Major General Kenneth R. Dahl, and is expected to be questioned by him next week in Texas in an informal setting, said the soldier’s lawyer, Eugene Fidell.
“They’ve said hello to one another. It was literally a meeting to introduce themselves to one another,” said Eugene Fidell, a military law expert who lectures at Yale University.
Bowe Bergdahl was released in May in exchange for five Taliban prisoners who were transferred to Qatar from the Guantanamo Bay US prison in Cuba.
Bowe Bergdahl was introduced to the investigating officer, Major General Kenneth R. Dahl, and is expected to be questioned by him next week in Texas in an informal setting
Critics have questioned whether the Obama administration paid too high a price and whether Bowe Bergdahl had deserted his combat outpost in Afghanistan before his capture.
Bowe Bergdahl, 28, has completed counseling and a reintegration program and been assigned a desk job at a Texas military base as the Army investigates events that led to five years of imprisonment by captors whom Eugene Fidell has described as ruthless killers.
Eugene Fidell is to advise Bowe Bergdahl during the session with the Army general probing the case, and Kenneth R. Dahl is expected to have his own legal counsel present as well, he said.
The investigation was to be completed 60 days from the time of Kenneth R. Dahl’s appointment on June 16 but an extended deadline may be needed, Eugene Fidell said.
“There may be an extension in this case. It’s a complicated matter with a lot of witnesses,” he said.
A senior Army officer has said the purpose of the probe was to determine facts and circumstances surrounding Bowe Bergdahl’s disappearance up to the point of capture.
Kenneth R. Dahl’s finding and recommendations will be presented to the director of Army staff, who is not bound by the conclusions and who could issue his own determinations and recommendations.
Eugene Fidell said Bowe Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, is to remain under the Army’s authority pending the outcome of the inquiry.
Twitter reported a loss of $145 million during Q2 2014.
That is more than triple the loss Twitter reported during the same period a year ago.
The social networking service said it had 271 million monthly users – up 24% from a year ago – allaying investor fears that the service is not growing fast enough.
Shares in the company soared over 35% in after-hours trading.
Twitter reported a loss of $145 million during Q2 2014
“Our strong financial and operating results for the second quarter show the continued momentum of our business,” said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in a statement, noting the company’s strong user figures during the World Cup.
However, in an interview with CNBC, Dick Costolo said that it was not just the World Cup that drove user growth, in an effort to allay fears that the company would not be able to keep the users it gained during the sporting event.
Twitter said it added 16 million new users during the March to June period – 13 million internationally and 3 million in the US.
Advertising revenue grew 129% from the same period a year earlier to $277 million. Crucially for investors worried about shifting user habits, a majority of that advertising revenue came from mobile advertising.
Twitter said more than 78% of its users access the service on their mobile devices.
Driverless cars will be allowed on UK’s public roads from January 2015, the government has announced.
The UK’s government also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK’s road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialed on public roads by the end of 2013.
Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.
“Today’s announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society,” he said.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
Driverless cars will be allowed on UK’s public roads from January 2015
Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.
The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google’s driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan’s first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.
In Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 1,000 driverless cars – although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.
UK cities wanting to host one of the trials have until the start of October to declare their interest.
The tests are then intended to run for between 18 to 36 months.
A £10 million ($16 million) fund has been created to cover their costs, with the sum to be divided between the three winners.
Meanwhile, civil servants have been given until the end of this year to publish a review of road regulations.
This will cover the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales.
Two area will be examined by the review: how the rules should apply to vehicles in which the driver can take back control at short notice, and how they should apply to vehicles in which there is no driver.
In May, Google unveiled plans to manufacture 100 self-driving vehicles.
The search-giant exhibited a prototype which has no steering wheel or pedals – just a stop-go button.
Google has also put its autonomous driving technology in cars built by other companies, including Toyota, Audi and Lexus.
Other major manufacturers, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and General Motors, are developing their own models.
Most recently, the Chinese search engine Baidu also declared an interest, saying its research labs were at an “early stage of development” on a driverless car project.
However, concerns about the safety of driverless cars have been raised by politicians in the US and elsewhere.
The FBI warned that driverless cars could be used as lethal weapons, predicting that the vehicles “will have a high impact on transforming what both law enforcement and its adversaries can operationally do with a car”.
Pussy Riot’s former members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are suing the Russian government over their imprisonment for a protest in a Moscow cathedral.
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova say their prosecutions amounted to torture.
They have filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Russia, seeking compensation.
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are demanding 120,000 euros each in damages, plus 10,000 euros court costs.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikov’s father, Andrey, said the pair should have asked for greater compensation.
“What can I say? Good girls! But, in my opinion, the requested amount is too small,” he said.
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are suing the Russian government over their imprisonment for a protest in a Moscow cathedral
“They should have requested 250 million euros, not 250,000 euros,” he told the popular Russian newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets.
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were among five Pussy Riot members who donned balaclavas in February 2012 and tried to perform their song Mother of God, Drive Putin Out, in the Christ the Savior Cathedral, near the Kremlin.
The performance was interrupted by staff at the cathedral and they were arrested along with a third member of the group.
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were sentenced to two years in prison each after being convicted of hooliganism.
They both served 21 months in prison and pre-trial detention.
Their story was covered widely, and they were viewed sympathetically in western countries.
Their actions were seen as blasphemous by many Russians, and were condemned by the Orthodox Church.
The two Pussy Riot members opened their action at the ECHR in June 2012, while their own cases in Russia were still ongoing.
They argued that their detention and trial had violated European Convention of Human Rights articles which prohibit torture and guarantee freedom of expression, security and liberty, and a fair trial. Russia is a signatory to the convention.
A massive water main break on Los Angeles’ iconic Sunset Boulevard has caused flooding at the UCLA campus, local officials say.
The main burst on Tuesday afternoon, sending a 30-feet jet of water into the air and opening a hole 10 feet wide in the street.
Local roads were inundated and water poured into underground car parks.
Three motorists had to be rescued from flooded cars.
A massive water main break on Los Angeles’ iconic Sunset Boulevard has caused flooding at the UCLA campus
The broken main dates from 1921 and carries water from reservoirs in the San Fernando Valley to the city of Los Angeles.
People were stranded by rising water shortly before 3:30 p.m. when the water main burst near Sunset Boulevard from Marymount Place to Westwood Plaza, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. It complicated the rush-hour commute for scores of drivers.
The 90-year-old water main was shut off four hours after it ruptured, but not before wasting 8 to 10 million gallons of water, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said.
It took several hours before the flow was halted in the early evening. Pipes had to be closed slowly to avoid further damage, Los Angeles Water and Power spokeswoman Michele Vargas said.
Police discouraged anyone from trying to surf down streets flooded with ankle-deep water, after some people came to the area with boogie boards.
“That is probably one of the most dangerous things you can do,” said Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Jaime Moore.
“For somebody to try and boogie board in this, it’s just going to be an asphalt bath.”
At least five people were rescued from an underground parking structure near the Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion, LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey said. Four swift-water rescue teams were in two underground parking garages evaluating the structures and checking for any stranded people.
ESPN sportscaster Stephen A. Smith has been suspended for a week because of his comments about domestic abuse.
Stephen A. Smith suggested women should make sure that they don’t do anything to provoke an attack.
His comments occurred during a discussion on ESPN2’s First Take on July 25 about the NFL’s two-game suspension of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice following charges he assaulted his now-wife. The remarks attracted widespread attention, including a stinging rebuke online from a fellow ESPN personality.
Stephen A. Smith issued an on-air apology on July 28, saying it was the most egregious mistake of his career.
A day later, ESPN took action. The network’s chief executive, John Skipper, told ESPN’s staff in a memo it was done after a “thoughtful discussion” about appropriate actions with men and women in his company.
Stephen A. Smith has been suspended for a week because of his comments about domestic abuse (photo ESPN)
“I believe his apology was sincere and that he and we have learned from what we’ve collectively experienced,” John Skipper said.
Stephen A. Smith will not appear on First Take or ESPN radio until August 6, ESPN said
During the Rice discussion, Stephen A. Smith alluded to women in abuse cases when he said: “Let’s make sure we don’t do anything to provoke wrong action … we got to also make sure that you can do your part to do whatever you can do to make, to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Shortly after his remarks, colleague Michelle Beadle responded on Twitter that: “I was just forced to watch this morning’s First Take. A) I’ll never feel clean again B) I’m not aware that I can provoke my own beating.”
Michelle Beadle, host of ESPN2’s SportsNation, continued with a series of tweets. She said that “Violence isn’t the victim’s issue. It’s the abuser’s. To insinuate otherwise is irresponsible and disgusting.”
During his apology, Stephen A. Smith said it wasn’t his intention to say that women could be responsible for their own abuse.
“It was not what I was trying to say,” he said.
“Yet the failure to clearly articulate something different lies squarely on my shoulder.”
He didn’t explain the point that he was trying to make.
ESPN frowns upon its personalities attacking each other on social media or other forums. But it did not announce any punishment for Michelle Beadle.
Die Hard actor James Shigeta has died at the age of 81.
James Shigeta was one of the first prominent Asian-American actors in the early 1960s.
He made his debut in 1959 as a detective in The Crimson Kimono and starred in Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptation Flower Drum Song in 1961.
James Shigeta’s career later focused on the small screen, appearing in dozens of shows.
He is probably best remembered for his role in Die Hard as Mr. Takagi, the ill-fated boss of the Nakatomi corporation.
James Shigeta was one of the first prominent Asian-American actors in the early 1960s
After refusing to give up the security code to his company’s bank vault, the executive met a grisly end at the hands of villain Hans Gruber, played by Alan Rickman.
Born in Hawaii, James Shigeta studied acting at New York University before joining the Marines where he entertained troops during the Korean War.
He became a singing star in Japan before making his big screen debut, a talent which helped land him the lead role of Wang Ta in Flower Drum Song.
James Shigeta won the Golden Globe for most promising newcomer in 1960, sharing it with George Hamilton, Troy Donahue and Barry Coe.
Other films he appeared in the early 1960’s included Walk Like a Dragon opposite Jack Lord and Cry for Happy alongside Glenn Ford.
After bit parts in TV series such as I Spy, Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible and Ironside, James Shigeta secured a recurring role as a doctor on drama Medical Center from 1969 to 1972.
He later appeared mainly as a character actor in shows including Kung Fu, Little House on the Prairie, Airwolf, Magnum PI and Dragnet, as well as the 1982 TV movie The Renegades opposite Patrick Swayze.
James Shigeta last appeared on screen in 2009 indie film The People I’ve Slept With.
His publicist Jeffrey Leavitt announced James Shigeta died in Los Angeles, but did not give the cause of death.
The world’s first malaria vaccine could be approved for use in 2015, experts say.
Reporting in PLOS Medicine, researchers found that for every 1,000 children who received the vaccine, an average of 800 cases of illness could be prevented.
In continuing trials it went on to provide protection some 18 months after the injections were given.
GlaxoSmithKline have now applied for regulatory approval – making this the first vaccine to reach this step.
Malaria affects millions of people worldwide and results in 800,000 deaths each year – the majority in children under five who live in sub-Saharan Africa.
The world’s first malaria vaccine could be approved for use in 2015
In the most advanced trial to date, involving several African countries, 1,500 infants and children were given the RTS,S vaccine.
Revisiting them 18 months after the last injection, researchers found that in young children the vaccine almost halved the number of cases of malaria.
For infants, who were aged six to 12 weeks at first vaccination, the drug reduced episodes of malaria by a quarter.
Though the effectiveness of the vaccine was seen to wane over time, the report suggests it may have the largest impact in areas with high rates of disease.
For example, in some Kenyan cities, 2,000 cases of clinical malaria were prevented for every 1,000 children who received the drug (people in this area are at risk of repeated infections).
GSK has now asked the European Medicine’s Authority to approve it for global use.
The drug-makers say together with other preventative measures such as bed nets and insecticides, this could represent a huge step forward in malaria control.
Scientists are investigating whether a booster could further improve the chances of success.
GSK is developing RTS,S with the non-profit Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative, supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone is ready to pay a German bank 25 million euros ($34 million) to settle a court case against him, his lawyers have said.
Bernie Ecclestone, 83, went on trial in Munich in April, charged with bribery and incitement to breach of trust.
He is accused of paying a German banker 33 million euros to ensure a company he favored could buy a stake in F1.
If found guilty, Bernie Ecclestone could face a 10-year jail term and the end of his decades-long dominance of motor racing.
On Tuesday, Bernie Ecclestone’s defense team called for proceedings to be stopped because of a lack of evidence and said the F1 chief was prepared to pay a settlement fee.
Bernie Ecclestone is ready to pay $34 million to settle the bribery case
Sven Thomas, one of Bernie Ecclestone’s lawyers, was reported as saying that state prosecutors were open to the proposal but said they would have to review it in detail.
Under German law, prosecutors may withdraw charges during certain criminal trials if all parties agree to a settlement.
In a statement, the court said talks between prosecutors and the defense team “on a potential early end to the proceedings have not yet reached a conclusion”.
It did not confirm details of Bernie Ecclestone’s settlement offer.
Gerhard Gribkowsky, the BayernLB banker Bernie Ecclestone is alleged to have paid, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2012 for accepting bribes.
The prosecutors say Bernie Ecclestone wanted to ensure the F1 stake was bought by a company that he favored so he would remain in charge of the sport.
Bernie Ecclestone says the payment was given to Gerhard Gribkowsky after he threatened to make false claims about the F1 boss’s tax status.
He has run the sport for almost 40 years, turning it into a huge global commercial success.
Bernie Ecclestone is the long-time commercial rights holder of F1, but sold off a majority of the ownership in the 1990s.
