UN says civilians main victims of South Sudan crisis

The United Nations says civilians in South Sudan have been subjected to human rights abuses such as rape, arbitrary arrest, and torture in the country’s ethnic violence.

The UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a report prepared for the UN Security Council released on Friday that civilians have been the main target of deadly violence in the country since December 2013.

“It is clear that civilians bore the brunt of much of the fighting and that gross violations of human rights were committed,” the report said.

South Sudan’s four states of Jonglei, Central Equatoria, Unity and Upper Nile, where most of the clashes have taken place are the focus of the report.

Cmdr:No country can trespass on Iran waters

Commander of the Iranian Navy Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari says the country’s naval forces will never allow any country to violate Iranian territorial waters.

Transregional countries have a presence in open seas; but, we do not allow entrance into our territorial waters,” Sayyari told reporters in the northern Iranian port city of Bandar-e-Anzali on Thursday.

He went on to say that Iranian naval forces do not violate the territorial waters of other countries, stressing that world countries are entitled to have their forces sail on high seas.

February 20, 2014 in Kiev

    

South Sudanese

South Sudanese

South Sudanese internally displaced people walk in the Tongping UNMISS (United Nations Mission in South Sudan) base, where over 27,000 people seeked refuge, on February 19, 2014, in Juba.

Mortar attack against Iraqi town kills 22

Five mortar rounds are fired into a busy market, a residential building and a parking lot in a town south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 50 others.

The attack took place at around 7 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Thursday against the town of Musayyib.

Police said it appeared the rounds came from the nearby town of Jurf al-Sakhar.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iraqi officials lay the blame on al-Qaeda-linked militants, who had carried out similar attacks in the past.

On Tuesday, a parked car bomb in the town killed five civilians and wounded 13 others, authorities said.

Also on Tuesday, several explosive-laden cars detonated across Baghdad, targeting the city's Shia districts.

One of the bombs ripped through a bus station in the capital's neighborhood of Baiyaa and another went off in a commercial area in the affluent district of Karrada.

US Congress mulls sanctions against Israel boycotters

A bill has been introduced in the US House of Representatives that would cut federal funding to American academic institutions that boycott Israel.

The bipartisan legislation was introduced by Representatives Peter Roskam (R-Illinois) and Dan Lipinski (D-Illinois) in early February and is US lawmakers’ first effort at federal level against higher learning institutions that choose to boycott Israel, Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

A similar bill was also introduced by lawmakers in the state of New York and passed the state’s Senate earlier this year but stalled in the New York Assembly when three committees did not discuss or vote on the legislation.

Bahraini forces nab member of opposition group

Security forces in Bahrain have arrested a member of the nation’s main opposition group, al-Wefaq

Hussein Sehwan, who has been a representative of the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, was arrested ahead of a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.

The meeting between the UN envoy and Bahrain’s civil society groups was scheduled for Thursday evening.

Al-Wefaq has condemned the arrest, blaming the regime for targeting what it calls the freedom of opinion and expression. The group says Sehwan has been arrested for participating in the February 15th anti-government rallies.

Syrian army launches operation to retake town

The Syrian army has launched an offensive in the strategic Qalamoun region to retake the town of Yabrud from al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Security sources say the army is advancing around the town and is expected to take control of it soon.

Yabrud has been under the control of militants since 2011.

It is the last major town in the Qalamoun region, which the army is fighting to retake.

Rebels behind Syria chemical attack: Europeans captives

Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin and Italian journalist Domenico Quiric, both of whom were abducted and held hostage for several months in Syria, say they overheard in an exchange between their captors that foreign-backed militants were behind the recent chemical attack.

Four rockets fired at Israeli occupied territories

Sirens have been heard in the occupyed territories after rockets, reportedly fired from Lebanon, hit the area.