BEIJING, May 26: (AFP) - A fire at a nursing home in central China has left 38 people dead and six injured, officials and reports said Tuesday.
The fire broke out on Monday evening in an apartment building at a privately owned old people's home in Pingdingshan, the state news agency Xinhua said.
Two of the injured were in critical condition in hospital, the work safety bureau of the central province of Henan said in a statement on its website. Pictures posted online showed a thick column of black smoke rising from behind a petrol station near the facility.
Another displayed the blackened frame of a building, with a charred wheelchair in the foreground.
State broadcaster CCTV said around 130 people were in the care home when the blaze broke out in an area for paralysed residents.
It was put out an hour later, China News Service said.Search and rescue operations were continuing, Xinhua said, and the cause of the fire remained unclear.
Industrial accidents and fires are common in China, where enforcement of safety standards can be lax, with some property and business owners paying off corrupt officials to look the other way.
A nine-year-old boy was detained in February after a shopping mall inferno killed 17 people in Huidong, in the southern province of Guangdong. Police said that blaze was "caused by a boy playing with fire at the mall".
A fire at a poultry plant in the northeast of the country killed 119 people in 2013. Reports at the time said that managers had locked doors inside the factory to prevent workers from going to the toilet, leading to the high death toll.
Nursing homes in the country, where care workers are often outnumbered several times over by sick and elderly residents, are also prone to accidents and abuses.
In 2013, 11 nursing home patients burned to death in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang after one of them set the facility on fire in a row over money.
In February this year, a worker in Hunan province killed three people and injured another 15 when he attacked residents and staff at a nursing home after a row with its owner.
Iraqi forces start military offensives against IS in Anbar, Salahudin provinces
BAGHDAD, May 26: (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Tuesday commenced two military offensives to drive out the Islamic State (IS) militants from Anbar's provincial capital city of Ramadi and the remaining parts of Salahudin province, official Iraqi television reported.
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N. Korea leader hails 'miracle' missile test
SEOUL, May 26: (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has hailed the recent test of a submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) -- which was viewed with wary scepticism outside the reclusive state -- as a miraculous leap forward.
The North's official KCNA news agency reported Tuesday that Kim hosted a gathering of the scientists and technicians who were behind the test that was announced with great fanfare earlier this month.
According to KCNA, Kim congratulated the participants for producing an "eye-opening miracle" and a "historical event" that had left North Korea with a powerful strategic weapon.
A fully developed SLBM capability would take the North Korean nuclear threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.
But experts have questioned the authenticity of the recent test, saying photos of the launch had been digitally manipulated and suggesting the missile was probably fired from a sunken platform rather than a submarine.
Although the North clearly is set on developing a working SLBM, the expert consensus was that it remains years from acquiring such a capability. North Korea has been ramping up its nuclear rhetoric of late, boasting last week of its ability to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile.
Australian mother abandons children to join IS
SYDNEY, May 26: (AFP) - A Sydney mother has abandoned her two children and fled to Syria for a new life under the Islamic State group, media reported Tuesday, becoming one of more than 100 Australians who have joined the jihadists.
The Australian government said it was deeply disturbed by the report and that it was monitoring the situation closely.
The Sydney Daily Telegraph said Jasmina Milovanov, a 26-year-old Muslim convert, left her children, aged five and seven, with a babysitter earlier this month and never returned. It cited her ex-husband as saying she sent a text message telling him she was in Syria.
"The only thing I can think about is my children. I can't believe she left these two beautiful children. My son was saying in the days afterwards that he hoped 'my mum is OK'," said the husband, who was not named.
"Before she (went) I talked to her (about her extreme Facebook posts). I said this is extreme, stupid. I was warning her about who she hangs out with."
Milovanov is Facebook friends with former Melbourne woman Zehra Duman, who is known in Australia as the "jihadi bride recruiter" and uses social media to entice women to join the militant group.
Duman's husband Mahmoud Abdullatif was reportedly killed fighting with the Islamic State group earlier this year.
Friends of Milovanov, cited by the Telegraph, said she had often talked about marrying a jihadi fighter. New South Wales state police confirmed its counter-terrorism unit was investigating.
"As the matter is a current investigation by NSW Police attached to the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, it is not appropriate to comment further," a spokeswoman said.
Michael Keenan, appointed this week as Australia's new counter-terrorism minister, said he was disturbed that a mother would abandon her children. "That report is obviously very disturbing. It does make you wonder what would motivate somebody to do that," he told reporters.
"Certainly any Australian who involves themselves in this conflict in any way is of great concern to the Australian government. Clearly we are monitoring that situation."
More than 100 Australians have fled to fight alongside jihadists in Iraq and Syria with more than 30 of them killed, the government has said. Like many countries, Canberra is grappling with the problem of its citizens becoming radicalised.
Several alleged terror plots have been foiled in the country this year with the government allocating more than a billion Australian dollars ($US 782 million) to combat the threat.
It has already introduced a series of national security measures, including criminalising travel to terror hotspots, and is considering a proposal to strip citizenship from dual nationals linked to jihadists.
Militants kill UN soldier in Mali's capital: security sources
BAMAKO, May 26: (AFP) - Militants opened fire on two United Nations peacekeepers in Mali's capital Bamako on Monday, killing one and wounding the other, security sources said.
"Armed men that we have not yet identified shot at two peacekeepers who were on board a UN vehicle on Monday night. One of them was killed and the other seriously wounded," a Malian security source told AFP.
"We are seeking clarification and details. This has to be viewed as a terrorist act. The perpetrators are the enemies of peace," the source added. A source from MINUSMA, the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali, told AFP the two UN soldiers were Bangladeshi.
He said the peacekeepers had been travelling from Bamako airport towards the south of the city when they were shot at by assailants from a car.
With more than 40 peacekeepers killed since its inception in 2013, the 11,000-strong MINUSMA is considered the most dangerous UN mission in the world.
It is regularly targeted by militants in the north and, while attacks in the capital are rare, Monday's ambush came just five days after a militant opened fire on a UN residence in the city's Faso Kanu neighbourhood.
The unidentified gunman shot and wounded a civilian guard and hurled two grenades which failed to explode in the early hours of Wednesday last week, but no troops were hurt.
The country's northern desert has been plagued by violence by jihadist groups that seized control of the region from Tuareg rebels before being routed by a French-led international intervention that began in 2013.
- Upsurge in violence –
Despite peaceful elections after the French operation, the country remains deeply divided and the north has seen an upsurge in attacks by pro-government militias and the Tuareg-led rebellion known as the CMA.
The government and several armed groups signed a peace accord on May 15 in a ceremony in Bamako attended by numerous heads of state but missing the crucial backing of the CMA.
France's defence ministry announced last week special forces had killed Amada Ag Hama, known as "Abdelkrim the Tuareg", who claimed the kidnapping and murder of two French journalists in Mali in 2013.
He was a leader of an Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) battalion and a former lieutenant of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, one of the AQIM commanders killed fighting the French army in northern Mali in February 2013.
Abdelkrim was among four jihadists killed in the raid on Monday last week, along with another key figure, Ibrahim Ag Inawalen, known as "Bana".
The French defence ministry said the men were "two of the main leaders" of AQIM and Ansar Dine, another jihadist outfit linked to Al-Qaeda.
No group has claimed responsibility for either attack on the UN in Bamako, but they come at a time of strained relations between the government and MINUSMA, which has complained that its impartiality has been "regularly called into question".
S.Korea, U.S., Japan to hold talks on DPRK nuke program
SEOUL, May 26: (Xinhua) -- Top negotiators of South Korea, the United States and Japan plan to meet in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear program and ways of resuming the long-stalled six-party talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
Bilateral talks would be held Tuesday among the three diplomats, who represent their respective countries in the six-party talks, according to South Korea's foreign ministry.
On Wednesday, they would hold a trilateral dialogue to discuss how to resume the aid-for-disarmament talks that have stalled since late 2008. The six-way dialogue also includes the DPRK, China and Russia.
The trilateral meeting came after the DPRK said on May 9 that it had successfully test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile. On May 20, the DPRK's National Defense Commission said that it had a capability of miniaturizing and diversifying nuclear warheads to mount them onto ballistic missiles.
During the Seoul meeting, the nuclear envoys would have in- depth consultations on various ways for substantive progress in the DPRK's nuclear issues at all levels, including deterrence, pressure and dialogue, the ministry said.
The negotiators involved Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs along with Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for the DPRK policy and Junichi Ihara, Japanese foreign ministry's director- general for the Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau.
The two negotiators of South Korea and the United States would reportedly fly to China right after the trilateral meeting to meet with Wu Dawei, Chinese special representative for the Korean Peninsula affairs.
Kenyan police missing, feared dead after Shebab attack
NAIROBI, May 26: (AFP) - Thirteen Kenyan police are missing following an overnight ambush by suspected Shebab militants in the northeast of the country close to the border with Somalia, a police spokesman said Tuesday.
Local officials said more than 10 officers may have been killed in Monday night's ambush near Garissa -- the scene of last month's university massacre -- while Kenyan media reported the number of dead could be as high as 20.
"There was an ambush on officers who were on patrol and as a result, 13 officers are missing," police spokesman George Kinoti said. "Two others sustained injuries and have been taken to hospital." "More police officers have been dispatched to look for those missing and the attackers," he said.
The attack in Garissa county came just days after extra Kenyan security forces were deployed in the area to strengthen security after a series of raids by gunmen from the Somali-led Al-Qaeda branch.
The officers were ambushed as they went to assist other police who had been targeted by an explosive device, believed to be a landmine or roadside bomb.
"The area is on the remote side of Garissa not far from the border, that is why we are having a problem getting information instantly," said a police officer based at the county headquarters. "What we however know is that several officers have been killed."
Garissa County has remained volatile with numerous attacks since last month when four Shebab militants stormed Garissa University College, killing 142 students and 6 security forces during a day-long siege.
Security sources said the officers were attacked close to the village of Yumbis, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Garissa and the scene of a clash between the Shebab and Kenyan security forces last week. Also last week Shebab militants briefly took control of a mosque in Garissa, delivering a hardline sermon to captive worshippers, before leaving.
Once a Somalia-focussed insurgency Shebab has in recent years turned its attention to Kenya, demanding it withdraw soldiers that were deployed to Somalia in 2011, and launching a series of attacks including the 2013 assault on Nairobi's Westgate mall that killed at least 67 people.RSS
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