World War 3 News and updates ... Sep 1

The countries in it, either in major or minor roles:
USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar,Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria,France with (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad ) Germany, Italy, Czech Republic,Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Japan,Republic of Korea, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Norway, The Netherlands, Luxembourg,Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Russia, Chechnya, Somalia, Iran,
India, South Korea, North Korea, Central African Republic, Kenya, Tunisia, ThePhilippines, Egypt, Albania, Serbia, China, Sudan, South Sudan, Bukina Faso, Palestine,Georgia, Chad, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Nepal, Congo, Uganda, Romania,Mexico, Gambia, Haiti, Cameroon, Chad, Algeria, Venezuela, Thailand, Argentina, Vietnam,Myanmar, Georgia, Burundi, Senegal, Macedonia, Armenia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala

From FirstLook
Yemen’s Hidden    War: How the Saudi-Led Coalition Is Killing Civilians
IN THE ISLAMIC CONCEPT of qadar, your divine destiny is inescapable. If you try to cheat death it will find you. For two women on a dusty road in mid-June on the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, their repeated attempts to dodge fate ended in tragic failure.
Leaving the war zone of Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on June 10, the women headed north in a Toyota Cressida driven by a male relative. The pair were escaping the violence that had already turned entire streets in Aden to rubble, left hundreds dead and thousands of civilians under siege, struggling to find food, water and medical care.
Driving ahead of them was a family of four in a Hilux pick-up truck, slowing at the numerous checkpoints along the road and weaving around potholes in the asphalt. Between 4:30 and 5 p.m., seemingly from nowhere, the first missile struck. The Hilux flipped into a cartwheeling fireball, killing the two children and their parents inside.
Before the women in the Toyota had a chance to compose themselves an ominous whistle........

A third explosion in China! Again at the chemical factory in Dongying City. And, all after devaluation and dumping. https://t.co/Cjgkz1KFKr

— Vera Van Horne (@VeraVanHorne) August 31, 2015

From Bangkokpost
19 killed, 123 hurt  as bomb blast rocks Bangkok tourist attraction
A bomb explosion inside one of Bangkok’s most popular tourist attractions killed at least 19 people and injured 123 others – mostly foreign tourists – on Monday. Of the 19 dead victims, 12 died at the scene. The figures were based on information released by the Royal Thai Police Office as of 11.20pm on Monday.....

From NPR
Thai Prime Minister Says 'Main Suspect' In Bangkok Bombing Arrested
Police in Thailand have arrested a second foreign man — who Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said is the main suspect — in connection with the deadly Bangkok bombing on Aug. 17, Michael Sullivan reports for NPR.
Prayuth told reporters the man arrested Tuesday was taken into custody in eastern Thailand, near the border with Cambodia, and that the suspect may have been attempting to flee the country, Sullivan reports.
"Prayuth said the man is not Thai and is believed to be the main suspect in the bombing" Sullivan says. But officials don't know whether he is the yellow-shirted man seen on surveillance video leaving a backpack at Bangkok's Erawan Shrine on the day of the bombing.

From VICE
VICE News Condemns  Turkish Government Over Detention of Its Journalists on Terrorism Charges
 A Turkish court leveled formal charges of terrorism at two VICE News journalists and their colleague on Monday, as global rights groups have called for the reporters to be released.
The two British journalists, Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury, have been detained since late Thursday evening local time in Turkey. The two were taken into custody in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir along with their fixer — a local journalist who serves as a translator and guide — and a driver. The driver has now been released.
Kevin Sutcliffe, VICE's Head of News Programming in Europe, condemned the detention of the journalists in a statement Monday.
"Today the Turkish government has leveled baseless and alarmingly false charges of 'working on behalf of a terrorist organization' against three VICE News reporters, in an attempt to intimidate and censor their coverage," he said. "Prior to being unjustly detained, these journalists were reporting and documenting the situation in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir......


Germany and EU's migrant problem


From CNN
ISIS claimed responsibility    for a car bomb attack that wounded at least 29 people in Cairo early Thursday, saying it was retribution for the execution of six men in May.
The car detonated near the National Security Building in the northern suburb of Shubra al-Kheemag, Egypt's Health Ministry said. The driver had parked it then was picked up by a motorcycle and fled before the explosives went off.
Among the 29 wounded were six police officers, the Interior Ministry said.
The blast echoed through the capital for miles, waking residents in predawn hours, London Times reporter Bel Trew told CNN.
Video revealed at least one building facade nearly defaced, cars mangled, and heavy concrete street barriers knocked over near the bomb site. ........

From NYTimes
Saudis Said to Kill More Than 65 Civilians   in Yemen Bombing
Doctors Without Borders said that Saudi-led airstrikes killed more than 65 civilians early Friday in Yemen’s southwest province of Taiz, including 17 people from one family.
If confirmed, it would be one of the largest tolls from airstrikes by Saudi Arabia and its military coalition partners since they began bombing Yemen five months ago in a campaign to crush the Houthi insurgency in the country, the Arab world’s poorest.
A statement posted on the website of Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity that works in many conflict zones, said the bombings left extensive damage in the area, with a population of 600,000.
“Those who survived the bombings are searching through the rubble with their bare hands in the hope of finding survivors, as well as the bodies of victims of the attack,” Salah Dongu’du, the Doctors Without Borders coordinator in Taiz, said in the statement.
He said many survivors, as well as the charity’s staff, had been unable to reach the seven hospitals still functioning in the area, which originally had 20.
“These seven hospitals are totally overwhelmed with wounded patients and have run out of essential medication,” he said..........



From Guardian
Libya urges Arab allies    to launch air strikes against Isis
Foreign minister asks for arms but does not expect Britain or other western countries to intervene militarily in north Africa
Libya’s internationally recognised government is calling on fellow Arab states to carry out air strikes against Isis targets but it does not expect Britain or other western countries to intervene militarily, its foreign minister has said.
Mohamed al-Dayri requested arms supplies to help the Tobruk-based administration fight “barbaric terrorists” who have crucified and beheaded Libyans and Egyptians as the north African country continues to suffer “catastrophic violence” four years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
Dayri told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that he had asked Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, to expedite the delivery of ammunition and night-vision equipment, which are banned under the current UN arms embargo.........



From Reuters
Saudi-led warplanes   hit Yemeni port, aid group sounds alarm
Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition hit Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodeida on Tuesday, and officials there said the raids destroyed cranes and warehouses in the main entry point for aid supplies to the north of the country.
Hodeida, controlled by Iranian-allied Houthi forces, has become a focal point of efforts to resupply the impoverished Arab state, battered by five months of war that has killed over 4,300 people.

From AntiWar
Saudi Airstrike Hits  Yemen Neighborhood, Killing 17 Civilians
Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners are facing yet another round of condemnation today after an airstrike against northern Yemen’s Amran Province killed 17 civilians, including 13 teachers and four children. 20 other civilians were wounded in the strike.
The attack hit a building which houses the teachers union offices for the region, and staff were preparing make-up exams for students who had missed final exams because of the ongoing Saudi war. The children at the site were the children of teachers, who were playing outside when the strike hit.....

From SCMP
Ten days a fter Tianjin blasts, nine injured in explosion at chemical plant in eastern China
A chemical factory in a village in eastern Shandong province exploded on Saturday night, injuring nine people, local media and police reported.
The blast shattered windows of houses less than a kilometre away. ...........
The explosion occurred at about 8.50pm at a chemical plant owned by Ruixing Chemical in Dongfu village near Zibo city, the Qilu Evening News reported on Weibo.
Zibo city police said nine people were injured.
The incident occurred just 10 days after a series of blasts at a chemicals factory in Tianjin, 120km east of Beijing, resulted in 121 casualties, including 67 dead firefighters and 54 people still unaccounted for.

From CBSNews
Blast at U.S. Army depot   in Japan lights up night sky
An explosion at a U.S. Army depot outside of Tokyo set off a large blaze that lit up the night sky early Monday morning, but there were no reports of injuries.
The blast happened after midnight at the Sagami Depot in Sagamihara, a city about 25 miles southwest of Tokyo, Pentagon duty officer Navy Commander Bill Urban said.......

From CounterPunch
Ukrainians are Voting With Their Feet Against War and Economic Disaster
The people of Ukraine are finding new and innovative ways to avoid compulsory military service and the vigilante military recruiters who enforce it. Deepening resistance to the draconian measure is now a significant impediment to the very prosecution of the war.
Battle over public spaces
Recruiters are routinely raiding public spaces to hunt down and grab men of conscription age (20-26) who fail to answer the call to war. They block exits to shopping centers, transit vehicles, parks and other public spaces and then conduct identification checks. Those found to have dodged service or whose call-up dates are approaching are hauled away or given strict instructions of when and where to report for duty.
Vesti.com reports on the new phenomenon by Ukrainians of creating online maps to mark the public places where recruiters commonly hunt. Men and their families use the maps as a guide to public spaces to avoid.
The first map appeared in the city of Dniepropetrovsk, reports Vesti. The phenomenon has quickly spread across the country.......

Boko Haram kills 79 people in three recent attacks in northeast Nigeria, local militia and residents say. http://t.co/OF6lwUp2ur

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) August 31, 2015

From VICE
What We Learned  While Embedded With Kurdish Forces Clearing the Islamic State From Hasakah
Everyone was silent as we watched the flare spiral slowly to the ground, burning brightly, high above the smoke, noise, and flame of the burning oil refinery on the flat horizon. The Kurdish fighters then seemed to waken suddenly, shouldering their weapons and firing bursts of hot red tracer into the Islamic State (IS) positions just ahead.
Six weeks earlier the jihadist group had launched a shock offensive on the city of Hasakah, northeast Syria, capturing almost half of it and initiating a bloody three-way struggle between IS, the Syrian regime and the Kurdish YPG forces, as well their allied militias. On this August night, however, the next few hours would see IS finally expelled from the city, and the YPG in almost total control of their first provincial capital in Syria.

Hasakah is the commercial and political center of the northeastern governorate of the same name, one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse in Syria. Thinly populated before French colonial rule in the early 20th century, the flat and dusty region is home to the majority of Syria's Kurdish population, as well as Assyrian and Syriac Christians, and Sunni Arab tribes, many of whom were planted in the region in the 1960s and 70s by the Syrian regime in an act of colonial settlement to dilute the region's Kurdish majority.........

From VICE
Tens of thousands   of Malaysian protesters turned out in the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak following the discovery of millions of dollars worth of clandestine deposits made to his personal bank accounts.
An internal probe uncovered more than $700 million that had been deposited into Razak's accounts from entities linked with the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). .........

From RT
'Make it a revolution!’   : Lebanon protesters give 72-hour ultimatum to government
Thousands of street protesters in Beirut are demanding the resignation of two government ministers, after hundreds were injured in a similar demonstration last week. RT's Paula Slier reports that violence has again broken out.
The organizing movement behind the street protests, ‘You Stink!,’ said it would “escalate” its public protests unless the interior minister responsible for alleged police brutality was replaced along with the minister of the environment who is in charge of the ineffectual rubbish collection service that has left the streets of Beirut lined with trash. Its spokesman Rasha Halabi went further, however, telling a crowd that the movement will be pushing for new national elections.......


Trouble brewing in Guatemala which might erupt into a civil war.  Note that the present criminal of a president has been there from the Reagan era and supported by the US govt. 


From AP
One-day record for migrant rescues in sea near Libya: 4,400
 Italy's coast guard says it coordinated the rescue of some 4,400 migrants in a single day, a record-setting number, as smugglers took advantage of ideal sea conditions off Libya to launch a fleet of overcrowded, unseaworthy boats.
The coast guard on Sunday said 22 rescue operations were carried out a day earlier for motorized rubber dinghies and fishing boats, all crammed with migrants desperate to reach Europe's southern shores.
Italian coast guard, navy and border police boats pitched in, as did Norwegian and Irish naval vessels deployed in a European patrol-and-rescue force. Boats in distress use satellite phones to call coast guard rescuers or are spotted by patrolling Italian military aircraft.
So far this year, some 110,000 migrants have been rescued off Libya and brought to southern Italian ports........

From PressTV
At least 30 killed   in huge explosion near hospital in Syria’s Rif Dimashq
Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in a huge bomb explosion targeting pro-government forces in southwestern Syria.
The bomb attack on Wednesday hit a hospital in Harasta, a town located around 10 kilometers from the capital Damascus in Rif Dimashq, killing at least 30 people and injuring tens of others, Sky News Arabia reported.........

From JapanTimes
EU-bound refugee   wave rolls through Macedonia, Serbia, threatening bloc’s ‘soul’
PRESEVO, SERBIA – Thousands of migrants, mostly Syrian refugees, traveled through Macedonia and Serbia on Sunday toward Western Europe, as Italy’s foreign minister said the escalating crisis threatened the bloc’s “soul.
More than 7,000 men, woman and children crossed into southern Serbia from Macedonia overnight Saturday to Sunday alone, the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said, with many more still expected to arrive.
The mass movement came after Macedonian police on Saturday finally reopened the border with Greece after three days of trying to hold back streams of migrants.

Macedonia had on Thursday declared a state of emergency and sealed off its border to halt the influx, leaving thousands stranded in no-man’s land.
After a tense standoff on the border, hundreds of stranded refugees, many carrying small children, forced their way through barbed wire fences in dramatic scenes on Saturday as police hurled stun grenades.
By Saturday evening, border guards stood aside to allow 1,500 migrants through unhindered, with many heading straight for Serbia, the next stop on their journey to reach the European Union.........

From Reuters
Rockets fired   by Houthi militiamen killed 14 civilians, most of them children, as fighting intensified for control of Yemen's third largest city, Taiz, residents said on Monday.
The Saudi-led coalition opposing the Houthis also launched air raids on military bases and Houthi positions in the southwestern city during the fighting, residents said, but no casualties were reported.
Fighters loyal to Yemen's exiled government have been contesting control of Taiz - Yemen's cultural capital - with the Houthis since April. Hundreds of combatants and civilians have been killed..........

From ICRC
Yemen: ICRC office  in Aden attacked
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) strongly condemns an attack which has taken place on its offices in the city of Aden in Yemen. Unidentified gunmen stormed the building on Monday (24 August, 2015) and held staff at gunpoint. Cars, cash and equipment were subsequently stolen. As a result, fourteen international staff members have been relocated.
"This is not the first time that we have had a security incident in Aden," said the ICRC's head of sub-delegation in the city, Samer Jarjouhi. "There have been at least ten such incidents recently. This is not acceptable and we have relocated staff until the situation improves."
It is not clear who the gunmen were but the security situation in Aden has deteriorated in recent months. The ICRC will remain in contact with the authorities in the city to discuss safety considerations.........

🇷🇺 Russia has begun its military intervention in #Syria, deploying an aerial contingent to a permanent Syrian base pic.twitter.com/us1Z1SS5Tt

— Cold War 2.0 (@coldwar20_en) August 31, 2015

From Anadolu
Germany, Turkey 'coordinated'   Patriot's withdrawal
Germany has denied reports that its withdrawal of Patriot anti-missile system from eastern Turkey is due to Turkish military strikes against PKK
Germany has denied reports that its decision to end its deployment of Patriot anti-missile systems in southern Turkey is a reaction to recent Turkish military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Defense Ministry spokesman Ingo Gerhartz said Monday that Germany’s decision to end its contribution to NATO's Patriot system in Turkey was taken after a review within the alliance in June, which concluded that the threat against Turkish territories by Syrian ballistic missiles was very low........

From AlMonitor
Oman’s diplomatic  bridge to Syria
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem’s recent visit to Oman signals Damascus’ heightened interest in negotiating an end to its 4½-year-old civil war, an interest rendered more urgent by a series of on-the-ground setbacks for the Syrian army.
Moallem met Aug. 6 with his Omani counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi in Muscat, Oman, to discuss “constructive efforts” aimed at ending the Syrian crisis. Syria’s state-run news agency reported the two diplomats “agreed to continue cooperation and coordination to achieve the shared goals of their peoples and governments.” Moallem’s visit, which came at Muscat’s invitation, marked his first trip to a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011.
As early as 2011, Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said hosted American and Iranian officials for talks, which laid the groundwork for last month’s historic nuclear agreement. Since the six world powers and Tehran signed the deal, numerous actors have signaled greater interest in pursuing diplomatic steps to resolve the Syrian crisis and in working together to counter the Islamic State (IS).........

FromTelegraph
Nato launches  largest airborne drills in Europe since end of Cold War
5,000 troops from 11 Nato allies are taking part in exercises across Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania
 The US said Tuesday it has launched the biggest allied airborne drills in Europe since the Cold War ended, as fighting involving pro-Russian separatists escalated in eastern Ukraine.
Nearly 5,000 soldiers from 11 Nato allies are taking part in four weeks of "simultaneous multinational airborne operations" across Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania that began on Saturday, the US army said in a statement.
"Swift Response 15 is the largest Allied airborne training event on the continent since the end of the Cold War," according to the statement from the US army in Grafenwohr in southern Germany. ..........