Iraqis flee IS-held Mosul for war-torn Syria

At a refugee camp in Syria’s Al-Hawl, 11-year-old Jawaher limps from a wound she sustained in an Islamic State group mortar attack while she and family were fleeing Iraq’s Mosul.
Her family are among the thousands who fled the city just before the October 17 start of an offensive by the Iraqi army and the US-led anti-IS coalition to retake the city from jihadists.
She was crossing from Iraq into Syria, seeking refuge in the war-torn country, when she came under fire.
“I was sitting with my friends, I just saw a shell land between us and I passed out,” she whispers, her head covered in a pink veil.
“My foot still hurts from the from the shrapnel, but I’m feeling a bit better now.”
Around her, white tents are lined up in the desert, battered by dust.
Men and women wander around the makeshift camp, some carrying a child, or boxes of supplies, others hauling stuffed backpacks or heavy luggage.

Trump’s rigged election comments a ‘gift to dictators’ – Africans

If Donald Trump is interested in rigged elections, Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti says he could teach him a thing or two. Biti was arrested for treason and detained for a month after daring to suggest his party had defeated President Robert Mugabe in a vote in 2008.
“They denied me food. They beat me up. They put me in leg irons. They beat me in the private parts,” Biti, a lawyer who later served as finance minister in an eventual unity government, told Reuters. “That’s real election rigging.”
To opposition figures in Africa, and in other parts of the world that lack the 240-year U.S. history of peaceful transitions of power, Trump’s assertion that November’s U.S. presidential election will be “rigged”, and his declaration that he may not accept the outcome, are dangerous words.
“Donald Trump is a gift to all tin-pot dictators on the African continent. He is giving currency and legitimacy to rigging because if it can exist in America, it can exist anywhere,” Biti said.
“He has no idea what he’s talking about, absolutely no idea,” said Biti, who speaks from the

Syria army urges residents to quit Aleppo as ceasefire begins

Flyers reportedly distributed by the government encouraging people to leave a rebel-held area in the northern embattled city of Aleppo are seen lying in the street on October 20, 2016. A “humanitarian pause” in the Syrian army’s Russian-backed assault on Aleppo took effect but despite a drop in violence there was little sign residents were heeding calls to leave.AFP/Karam Al-Masri

A “humanitarian pause” in the Syrian army’s Russian-backed assault on Aleppo took effect Thursday, but despite a drop in violence there was little sign residents were heeding calls to leave.
The UN said it hoped to carry out the first medical evacuations from Aleppo on Friday, after getting clearance from all warring parties and a pledge from Russia to extend the truce until Saturday.
The unilateral ceasefire began at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) and was to last at least 11 hours, with the aim of allowing civilians and fighters to evacuate the city’s opposition-controlled east.
Gunfire and artillery exchanges erupted around a crossing point near the rebel-controlled Bustan al-Qasr district shortly after the pause began, an AFP correspondent said.

Palestinian stone thrower shot dead by Israeli troops

Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank shot dead a Palestinian teenager who hurled rocks at a patrol, the army said.
The incident occurred in the Beit Ummar area near the city of Hebron.
The Palestinian health ministry named the slain Palestinian as 15-year-old Khaled Bahar.
“Rocks were hurled at the soldiers, wounding one of them lightly,” a spokesperson told AFP news agency, adding that the soldiers first fired warning shots “and then [fired] towards the suspect, resulting in his death”.
Violence since October 2015 has killed 235 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.
Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out alleged knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.
Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians, as well as Israeli and international rights groups, say Israeli forces have, in some

Police officer dies after far-right shooting in Germany

A police car is pictured on October 19, 2016 in Georgensgmuend, southern Germany, in front of a house of a member of the so-called Reichsbuerger movement. Four German police officers were wounded, some of them seriously, when a member of the shadowy far-right group "Citizens of the Reich" opened fire during a raid, authorities said.AFP/dpa/Nicolas Armer

A police officer has died after being shot during a raid at the German home of a far-right extremist.
The 32-year-old officer was part of an armed response unit which was sent to seize firearms from a member of the Citizens of the Reich.
The group does not recognise the legitimacy of the German republic and believes in the continued existence of the pre-war German empire.
Police said the officer was shot through the shoulder as he entered the suspect’s home in Georgensgmuend, Bavaria.
The gunman, who shot another police officer in the arm, was detained.
Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said the attack was “unbearable and unacceptable”.
Police spokeswoman Elke Schoenwald said the officers were sent to confiscate more than 30 weapons from the gunman because he had been ruled psychologically “unsound”.
He had previously refused to allow officials access to check his arsenal and take away the