Gaza team defuses live bombs and shells without protective suits

Some of the artillery shells his team collected on Thursday. Photo: Ruth Pollard

Ruth Pollard
Middle East Correspondent
Nuseirat, Gaza: Hazem Abu Murad and his team have none of the equipment you would expect in a unit of munitions disposal experts.

Theirs is one of the most dangerous jobs in Gaza but they have no protective suits, no robots and no portable X-ray systems.

Instead, they assess the situation – a potential unexploded mortar, shell or missile – on sight alone and work out the safest way to disarm and dispose of it as far from civilians as possible.

As his team examines a large missile dropped from an Israeli F16 into a field where crops of potatoes and tomatoes usually grow, Mr Abu Murad of Gaza’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal Police admits there have been some frightening moments in his 15-year long career. "There is one minute between life and death," he says. "If I move my fingers two millimetres the wrong way, I am gone." After pronouncing the one-tonne bomb safe to move, a bulldozer is summoned to the site, and it rumbles slowly along a narrow, sandy track and into the field.

Under the watchful eye of the family who were forced to flee their home 10 days earlier when the missile landed, the dozer driver lowers its tray and scoops up the enormous missile along with a large pile of dirt and lifts it high up into the air. The bulldozer then trundles out of the residential farming district.

Following 29 days of Israeli aerial, naval and tank bombardment in which the Israel Defence Forces say they struck 4762 sites across Gaza, the risk to civilians, especially children, of unexploded munitions has skyrocketed, experts warn. Read More  

Barack Obama authorises bombing of Islamist militants in northern Iraq

US President Barack Obama. Photo: Bloomberg

Nick O'Malley
US correspondent for Fairfax Media

Washington: President Barack Obama has authorised airstrikes in Iraq in defence of United States staff and of refugees who have been besieged by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant militants on the Sinjar mountains in the north.

Addressing the nation from the White House at 9.30pm in Washington, the President said the US had already begun dropping emergency aid to the besieged Yazidi community on the mountains.

Mr Obama said America’s top priority was the protection of US consulate and military staff who are based in the city of Erbil to advise Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIL. He said he had authorised targeted airstrikes against any ISIL convoys that approached the city.

Washington: President Barack Obama has authorised airstrikes in Iraq in defence of United States staff and of refugees who have been besieged by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant militants on the Sinjar mountains in the north.

Addressing the nation from the White House at 9.30pm in Washington, the President said the US had already begun dropping emergency aid to the besieged Yazidi community on the mountains.

Mr Obama said America’s top priority was the protection of US consulate and military staff who are based in the city of Erbil to advise Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIL. He said he had authorised targeted airstrikes against any ISIL convoys that approached the city. Read More

Top tablets compared - which is best for you?

Best tablet 2014: Our top 10 ranking

What's the best tablet for 2014? Today's latest tablets compared and rated - constantly updated

Tablets are taking the world by storm. Just a few years ago they were an unknown for many people, but nowadays you've got more choice than you can shake a mildly agitated badger at.

And with choice comes decisions - difficult decisions. Do you eschew Apple's high prices, join the Android brigade and find the best iPad alternative? Or jump on board Cupertino's lovetrain, and use one of the most popular tablets on the planet?

We've made it easy for you and pulled together the top 10 tablets of the moment available in the UK.

It's a difficult process divining which place each of these excellent tablets should occupy in our list, so we take into account multiple elements including performance, battery life, screen quality and more. Price plays a minor part, as does age: a tablet that's been replaced by a sequel will tumble down the rankings as you can get all the great features on a better slate.

If none of the top 10 tablets here take your fancy then head on over to our tablet reviews pages, where you'll find in-depth reviews for many more models.

Top 10 Mobile Phones In The World Today

Are you buying smartphones?. we guide what phone is best for you?

You want the best smartphone, right? We've whittled our constantly updated selection down to the 10 best handsets you can get your hands on right now - but after you've checked out number one, we've still got plenty of other options to feast your eyes on.

We've all got at least one mobile phone each, right? We've probably got about three or four nowadays, and that counts giving your old Nokia 3310 to your Mum a few years ago.

But while you used to be able to just bank on the new Nokia or always get the next Sony Ericsson because it had a half-decent camera, there are now so many great options out there from loads of manufacturers.

The trouble is, how do you decide which is the best one for you?

Well, this is where we make it easy: we've played with nearly every device on the market and have found the ten best you can spend your money on. It needs to be good, after all, given it will reside in your pocket for the next two years.

Our ranking of the best mobile phones available in the UK today celebrates the brilliance of the smartphone: we love handsets that add in functionality to enrich our lives in so many different ways.

We also partially take into account the price of the phone too - meaning a low-price handset doesn't always need to have high-spec functions to be in our top 10. Read More

Why West Africans keep eating bush meat, which could be Ebola's bridge from animals to humans

A woman in Ivory Coast dries bush meat near a road in March. Photo: Reuters

Abby Phillip

To the foreign eye, it looks like a flattened, blackened lump of unidentifiable animal parts. To many Africans, however, bush meat - the cooked, dried or smoked remains of a host of wild animals, from rats and bats to monkeys - is not only the food of their forefathers, it is life-sustaining protein where nutrition is scarce.

And as it has been during past Ebola outbreaks, bush meat is once again suspected to have been the bridge that caused the deadly disease to go from the animal world to the human one. All it takes is a single transmission event from animal to human - handling an uncooked bat with the virus, for example - to create an epidemic. Human-to-human contact then becomes the primary source of infection.

"If you know that the Ebola virus is introduced in one area, it's probably an extra good time to stop eating bush meat," said Daniel Bausch, an associate professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

What is bush meat? It varies. It can be a chimpanzee, gorilla or monkey. It could also be a rat, deer or fruit bat. The animals come from the wild and are captured and sold for sustenance where other sources of protein from domesticated animals are scarce or prohibitively expensive.

West Africans say they have been eating bush meat for longer than anyone can remember. And even where it is outlawed and frowned upon by conservationists who decry the killing of protected primates and other animals, you can still find it readily available in markets and on street corners.

"Life is not easy here in the village," Guinean Sâa Fela Léno told the Guardian. Authorities and aid groups "want to ban our traditions that we have observed for generations. Animal husbandry is not widespread here because bush meat is easily available. Banning bush meat means a new way of life, Read more 

Gaza ceasefire gives pause to assess destruction

Palestinians in a car with their belongings drive past a destroyed house in Rafah's.

Ruth Pollard

Gaza City: Amidst the vast moonscape of grey rubble, the bloated carcasses of dead animals and the occasional splash of colour from a child’s toy, Gazans returned to what was left of their homes as another 72-hour ceasefire began.

Between 16,000 and 18,000 housing units have been severely damaged or totally destroyed, the United Nations Development Program estimates, leaving tens of thousands not just homeless, but with nothing left but the clothes they were able to evacuate with.

On a wider scale, almost every piece of critical infrastructure, from electricity to water to sewage, has been seriously compromised by either direct hits from Israeli air strikes and shelling or collateral damage.

As many as 520,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in Israel’s nearly four-week long military campaign and with this temporary ceasefire, many are only now able to fully grasp the extent of the devastation in their neighbourhoods.

Shocked families wordlessly picked through the rubble of their houses in northern towns of Shujaiya and Beit Hanoun, where the smell of death still hangs in the air.

Rescue workers are still pulling bodies from under rubble – after successive humanitarian ceasefires broke down over the last week, there has been little access until now to some of the worst-affected neighbourhoods.

There was no celebration of the ceasefire – the first to have lasted more than a few hours since this conflict began on July 8 – or of the fact that Israeli ground troops had withdrawn from Gaza after announcing they had destroyed 32 Hamas tunnels and significant weapons caches.

Instead, Gaza was blanketed in grief and loss.

Gaza officials say that 1834 Palestinians have died in the conflict, most of them civilians, including more than 400 children. Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed since fighting began on July 8. Read more

Man arrested for hoax bomb threat on plane escorted by fighter jet to Manchester Airport

A Qatar Airways aircraft is seen surrounded by emergency.Photo: Reuters

Andrew Yates

Manchester: British police have arrested a man on suspicion of making a hoax bomb threat after two fighter jets escorted a Qatar Airways plane into Manchester Airport. The pilot had reported a possible explosive device was on board.

The incident, which prompted the authorities to close the northern England airport for 25 minutes, briefly raised fears of a terrorism attack.

Qatar Airways said the Airbus A330-300 plane was flight QR23 from Doha to Manchester with 269 passengers and 13 crew on board.

A Reuters photographer saw armed police remove a handcuffed male passenger dressed in baggy trousers and a sports shirt from the plane.

Police say a 47-year-old man from the north-west of England has been arrested on suspicion of making a bomb hoax and remains in police custody for questioning.

A full search of the aircraft found nothing suspicious on board. Read more:

World Health Organisation Meets as Ebola Fears Grow

The World Health Organisation began a two-day emergency meeting on West Africa's Ebola epidemic, with the UN agency deciding whether to declare it an international crisis.

The closed-door session is tasked with ruling whether the outbreak constitutes what is known in WHO-speak as a "public health emergency of international concern".

The meeting comes as Nigeria reported its second death and Saudi Arabia said a man who had visited Sierra Leone and had returned with Ebola symptoms died at a hospital in Jeddah.

Taking the form of a telephone conference between senior WHO officials, representatives of affected countries, and experts from around the globe, the WHO meeting is not expected to made its decision public until Friday.

To date, the WHO has not issued global-level recommendations - such as travel and trade restrictions - related to the outbreak which began in Guinea and has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

But the scale of concern is underlined by the WHO emergency session itself - such consultations are relatively rare.

The UN agency this year held such meetings on polio and last year on the mysterious Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

But before that, the last emergency meeting had been during the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak.

Nigeria on Wednesday confirmed five new cases of Ebola in Lagos and a second death from the virus, bringing the total number of infections in sub-Saharan Africa's largest city to seven.

"Nigeria has now recorded seven confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVB)," Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.

Read more , AFP, Washington Post

Muslim Minister Of UK Resigned Over Gaza Tragedy

British Foreign Office minister Syeeda Warsi

LONDON: A Muslim British Foreign Office minister, Syeeda Warsi, who was also the first Muslim to sit in the UK cabinet, has resigned over the UK government’s policy on Gaza, TheNewsTribe reported.

Her resignation was made public through twitter when she wrote on Tuesday that, “With deep regret I have this morning written to the Prime Minister (David Cameron) & tendered my resignation. I can no longer support Govt policy on #Gaza.”

Warsi was the first Muslim to handle as a full cabinet minister. Cameron had appointed Warsi as chair of the Conservative Party and minister without portfolio in May 2010.

It should be noted that the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has drawn criticism as his coalition partner Labor party has also been blamed for its silence and for not taking a tougher stance against Israel over its military attacks and atrocities on children of Gaza. Read More

Israel Withdraws Ground Forces From Gaza Before 72-Hour Ceasefire

Israeli soldiers from the paratroop battalion return to Israel . Photo: AP

Jerusalem: Israeli ground forces will completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip before a 72-hour Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which began at 3pm on Tuesday (AEST), a military spokesman said.

"The Israel Defence Forces will be redeployed in defensive positions outside the Gaza Strip and we will maintain those defensive positions," Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said.

Citing briefings from the military, Israel Radio and Army Radio also announced that ground forces have completed their main war mission of destroying cross-border tunnels dug by Palestinian militants.

At least 32 of the underground passages – and dozens of access shafts – were located and blown up, Israel Radio and Army Radio said.

Just hours before the ceasefire started, the Gaza conflict arrived in deadly form in Jerusalem. In two separate attacks, a Palestinian man killed an Israeli while overturning a bus with a construction vehicle in West Jerusalem and a few hours later a gunman wounded a soldier in an attack in East Jerusalem. Both attacks appeared to be a backlash against Israel's Gaza war.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility but a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, said: "We praise the heroic and brave operations in Jerusalem, which come as a natural reaction to the crimes and massacres by the occupation against our people in Gaza." Read more 

A man at a funeral in Beit Lahiya carries the body of a girl from the Abu Nejim family, whom medics said was killed along with eight other family members by an Israeli air strike. Photo: Reuters