JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel reopened Jerusalem's Noble Sanctuary-Temple Mount compound on Sunday, drawing a protest by Muslim religious authorities over the installation of metal detectors at entrances two days after a deadly shooting.
On Friday, three Arab-Israeli gunmen shot dead two Israeli policemen on the outskirts of the holy site, holy to Muslims and Jews, and were then killed by security forces. It was one of the most serious attacks in the area in years.
Israeli authorities then closed the compound, citing security concerns, hours before Muslim Friday prayers.
That move prompted anger among Muslim worshippers and was condemned by Palestinian religious and political leaders, Jordan and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Two of the nine gates to the site, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, were back in operation in what Israel described as a gradual reopening.
Leaders of the Muslim religious trust that runs the site urged worshippers not to pass through the metal detectors, describing them as a violation of a delicate status quo with Israel and held a prayer service next to the devices.
Palestinians pray as Israeli police officers look on by newly installed metal detectors at an entrance to the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City July 16, 2017.Ammar Awad
Several Palestinians ignored the call, while at the second entrance more people headed into the compound, Reuters photographers said. Police said 200 people had entered some 90 minutes after the reopening.
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The area, in the eastern part of Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 Middle East war, houses the Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock. It is adjacent to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews are permitted to pray.
The site has proved a tinder-box in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past. Under the status quo agreement, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged late on Saturday to continue to uphold, Jews are allowed to enter the compound under close supervision, but only Muslims are permitted to worship there.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they seek in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that has not won international recognition.
In a move promoted by an ultranationalist political party, an Israeli cabinet forum on Sunday approved a bill that would require any territorial handovers in East Jerusalem to be ratified by at least 80 of parliament's 120 members.
Legal analysts noted, however, that if the law is adopted by parliament - where it now goes for a series of votes - it can be overturned in the future by a majority of 61 legislators.
Reporting by Jeffrey Heller, editing by Louise Heavens
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's military has launched a major operation in its volatile tribal areas to stop the Islamic State making inroads into areas bordering Afghanistan, the military's spokesman said on Sunday.
Pakistan has long denied Islamic State has a foothold inside the nuclear-armed nation despite a series of attacks claimed by the group over the past two years, including a bombing in the northern town of Parachinar last month that killed 75.
Military spokesman Lieutenant General Asif Ghafoor said Islamic State - also known as Daesh - was growing in strength inside Afghanistan, prompting Pakistan to launch an operation in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
"This operation was necessary because Daesh is getting established there and we have to stop the influence of Daesh spreading into Pakistani territory through the Rajgal valley," Ghafoor said, referring to a valley surrounded by mountains reaching up to 14,000 feet.
He said that the "Khyber 4" operation, which would include the Pakistan air force, would focus on the border areas inside the Khyber Agency area, which is part of FATA.
Ghafoor said across the Khyber border there are safe havens for multiple "terrorist" organizations that are linked to recent attacks in Pakistan, including the Parachinar assault.
Northwestern Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun lands are awash with weapons and the area remains the most volatile region in the country despite the military's success in driving out many al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban militants.
Fighting had subsided in FATA in recent years and many internally displaced people have been sent back to villages reduced to rubble due to military operations against the Islamists over the past 15 years.
"Once this operation is completed, we will first secure the international border on our side and eliminate the hideouts of various terrorist groups," Ghafoor added.
Islamic State has had more success in neighboring Afghanistan, where it controls small chunks of land, but has also faced tough resistance from the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and local Afghan Taliban militants.
Pakistan is seeking support from Afghanistan to control the border but Ghafoor made it clear that it will not allow "foreign boots on the ground" in its territory.
Pakistan's military began building a fence along the 2,611 kilometer border with Afghanistan in May as part of its security program.
The change in AI-92 gasoline prices will support Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR in accelerating the modernization of the oil refining industry, SOCAR Vice President for Refining David Mammadov told AzTV channel.
At least 22 people have died in a fire, which broke out at an apartment building in the settlement near the Changshu county-level city of Chinese eastern province of Jiangsu
SEOUL, July 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea may propose inter-Korean military talks as early as this week to follow up on President Moon Jae-in's offer to stop all acts of hostility on the border, a government official said Sunday.
The unification, military and other relevant ministries are discussing the plan one day after Pyongyang first reacted to Moon's suggestion, according to the official who asked not to be named de to sensitivity of the issue.
During his speech in Berlin on July 6, Moon laid out his vision for bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula, including a proposal to mutually halt acts of hostility along their tense border as of the July 27 anniversary of the armistice treaty that ended the three-year Korean War in 1953.
He also offered to hold reunions of families torn apart by the war on Oct. 4, Korea's lunar fall harvest holiday and the 10th anniversary of the second inter-Korean summit.
The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling party, carried a commentary by a private writer, on Saturday saying it seemed "fortunate" as Moon included his government's committment to the landmark joint declarations signed at the inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007. The two declarations aim to foster cross-border cooperation, exchanges and reconciliation.
The newspaper emphasized that the first step to improve relations should be the resolution of the fundamental issue of military confrontation.
This computer generated image shows South Korea and North Korea shaking hands. (Yonhap)
The Seoul official said the argument seemed to correspond with Moon's plan of scrapping hostile acts. But experts said there could be a difference.
"With the words, the South Korean government may mean suspending propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts or anti-North Korean leaflet drops, but the North could demand halt of joint military drills between South Korea and the United States," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University in Seoul.
Seoul also plans to propose Red Cross talks to North Korea to hold reunions of separated families. The last reunions were held in October 2015 at a resort at Mount Kumgang on North Korea's east coast.
But experts said the resumption of the event may take a bumpy road since the communist state continued in the commentary to demand South Korea repatriate 12 female North Koreans who worked at a Pyongyang-run restaurant in China and defected to Seoul en masse last year.
This photo, taken on July 6, 2017, shows South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivering a speech in Berlin over his vision for bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 16 (Yonhap) -- The board of directors at South Korea's nuclear operator that recently voted for a temporary suspension of construction of two nuclear power plants is opposed to the permanent halt of the projects, one of its members said Sunday.
Cho Sung-jin, professor in the department of energy science at Kyungsung University and a non-permanent member of the board at the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP), said the opposition to the permanent suspension was "unanimous."
Last Friday, the board was in favor of the decision to temporarily halt the construction of the Shin-Kori 5 and 6 reactors under construction in Ulsan, 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The suspension will be for three months, with board members to hold another meeting later to decide the fate of the reactors.
Among six permanent members and six non-permanent members, Cho was the only one to vote against the idea.
The KHNP board's decision came after President Moon Jae-in's declaration last month that he will pursue clean and renewable energy and that he will halt construction of all new reactors while shutting down old facilities that reach their max life cycle. The policy has raised controversy and questions about a potential spike in electricity prices and even power shortages moving forward.
This photo taken on July 14, 2017, shows the headquarters of
the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province.
Cho said based on his research, he found the government policy "unacceptable."
"I heard that the KHNP board will decide on the permanent suspension," Cho added. "I asked KHNP President Lee Kwan-sup and other board members which side they will take on the issue, and they all said they'd oppose the permanent halt."
Cho also said his fellow non-permanent board members were actually against the temporary suspension but only voted for the idea because they felt powerless and knew they wouldn't get their wish anyway.
Following the KHNP's board's decision last Friday, the government said the temporary suspension will allow for debate and formation of public opinion on the matter.
The KHNP, in charge of the country's nuclear and hydro-electric power plants across the country, has insisted the final halt of work will only be implemented following close consultations with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. It has said every aspect of the move will be considered so as not to affect the lives of ordinary people and the national economy as a whole.
Unionized workers at the KHNP have threatened legal action against the company for breach of trust and business malpractice.
Samsung C&T, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction and Hanwha Engineering & Construction have formed a consortium to build the two reactors that were about 29.5 percent complete as of the end of June. The Shin-Kori site currently hosts two reactors -- units 1 and 2 -- which began operating in 2011 and 2012.
The KHNP said 164 construction-related contracts worth 4.9 trillion won (US$4.3 billion) have already been signed, and added the suspension could cost about 100 billion won.
Unionized workers of the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) protest the KHNP board's decision to temporarily halt the construction of Shin-Kori 5 and 6 reactors in Ulsan on July 15, 2016. (Yonhap)
KIEV, July 16. /TASS/. Coalminers of the Kapustina mine in Kiev-controles Lugansk regions are refusing to leave the mine and go to the surface demanding wage arrears repayment, leader of the Ukrainian Independent Coal Miners Trade Union Mikhail Volynets said on Sunday.
"Miners have been staying inside the mine for the second day running. Yesterday, miners of the first shift refused to leave the mine while the following shifts go down. They demand repayment of delayed wages starting from 2015," he wrote on his Facebook account.
Apart from that, according to Volynets, the miners demand Ukrainian TV journalists be granted access to them.
Currently, as many as 54 miners are staying inside the mine. Wage arrears amount to 96 million hryvnias (3.7 million U.S. dollars). "Other state-run mines also have wage arrears. In case delayed wages are not repaid by the Coal Miner’s Day, such strikes are inevitable across entire Ukraine," he stressed, adding he hopes the sum of 280 million hryvnias (10.8 million U.S. dollars) that was allocated on Thursday by amendments to the budget to support the mining sector would go to repay wage arrears.
The Kapustina mine is owned by the Lisichanskugol company which also operates three more coal mines.
Using actual data from the New Horizons spacecraft, mission scientists created dramatic flyover videos with spectacular new perspectives of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.
The many unusual features that were discovered are shown from a vantage point even closer than the spacecraft reached itself.
“The exciting flight over Charon begins high over the hemisphere New Horizons saw on its closest approach, then descends over the deep, wide canyon of Serenity Chasma,” NASA said on YouTube. “The view moves north, passing over Dorothy Gale crater and the dark polar hood of Mordor Macula. The flight then turns south, covering the northern terrain of Oz Terra before ending over the relatively flat equatorial plains of Vulcan Planum and the “moated mountains” of Clarke Montes.”
Friday marked the two-year anniversary of New Horizons’ fly-by of Pluto and its system. The spacecraft took nine-and-a-half years to get there.
It’s now possible for a series to release new episodes for viewers around the world, and the result is a global watercooler – a shared media culture that transcends national boundaries. READ MORE»
(ANSA) -Rome, - Italy is the global leader for the number of properties inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list following the addition of its primeval beech forests and 15th-17th century Venetian works of defence. The latest additions, decided at the 41st session of the World Heritage Committee that closed in Krakow on Sunday, take the number of inscribed Italian properties to 53. China ranks a close second with 52 properties, and has the resources and motivation to present a serious threat to Italy's global cultural leadership in future. In Europe Italy comes well ahead of the pack, trailed by Spain, France and Germany respectively with 46, 43 and 41 inscribed sites. India follows with 36 sites, then Mexico with 34, Russia with 27, the United States with 23, Japan and Brazil with 20 and Greece with 18. Currently the UNESCO World Heritage List contains a total of 1,072 properties in 167 countries. The properties are divided into cultural sites (831), natural sites (206), mixed sites (35), cross-border sites (37) and endangered sites (55). Germany's Dresden Elbe Valley and the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman were deleted from the list respectively in 2009 and 2007. The last Italian properties to be inscribed on the World Heritage list were Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalú and Monreale and the vineyard landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato in the northern Piedmont region. Next year the committee is set to consider the candidature of two more Italian properties, the 20th-century industrial town of Ivrea in Piedmont and the Prosecco hills. In 2019 the rules will change to allow countries to present only one candidate site each to a total of 35 worldwide. Due to the high number of properties already inscribed on the list in the event of 'oversubscription' Italy would see its proposals examined last. photo: fortifications at Palmanova, part of the Venetian works of defence
