Six die in Indonesia after volcano erupts
MAUMERE, Indonesia – Hot lava from an erupting volcano killed six people sleeping in a beach village on a small island in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, after ash and smoke from the volcano shot about a mile into the air, officials said.
Mount Rokatenda in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted early Saturday morning, and nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from the area on Palue island, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. The volcano has been rumbling since last October.
The victims who died included three adults and two children, said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, adding that the age of the sixth person killed was unclear.
N. Ireland officers hurt as police decry anarchy
DUBLIN – Northern Ireland’s police chief vowed Saturday to hunt down and imprison scores of Protestant militants after they attacked and wounded 56 officers protecting a parade by Irish Republican Army supporters.
Friday night’s outbreak of violence in downtown Belfast could be just the first in a tense weekend involving disputed parades by both the Irish Catholic and British Protestant extremes of society.
Senior police said Protestant extremists encouraged by social-media messages rallied to block the parade on Royal Avenue, Belfast’s major shopping boulevard. Some wore British flags as capes or masks, and tore up scaffolding and pavement stones, to attack police girded in full riot gear.
Police responded by striking rioters with water cannons and 26 plastic bullets, which are blunt-nosed cylinders designed to deal punishing blows without penetrating the flesh.
Rwanda legalizes opposition party
KIGALI, Rwanda – Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s government has legalized an opposition political party that spent four years trying to get registered.
The Democratic Green Party, led by Frank Habineza, said late Friday it received a certificate of registration after years of attempts, during which time one of its vice presidents was murdered in 2010. It is not clear if the party will be able to participate in Sept. 16 parliamentary elections. The deadline for submissions is Monday. The party asked the National Electoral Commission to extend the deadline.
Rwanda has several political parties, but most are loyal to Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front. Habineza’s party is seen as a true opposition party.
Iraqi Kurdish leader vows to defend Kurds in Syria
BEIRUT – The president of Iraqi Kurdistan vowed Saturday to defend the large Kurdish population in neighboring Syria from al-Qaida-linked rebel fighters, highlighting the potential for Syria’s civil war to morph into a full-blown regional, ethnic and sectarian conflict.
The comments from Massoud Barzani follow weeks of clashes in predominantly Kurdish parts of northeastern Syria between Kurdish militias and Islamic extremist rebel factions that have killed dozens on both sides. The fighting in the oil-rich region near the Iraqi border has emerged as yet another layer in Syria’s increasingly complex and bloody civil war.
In a statement posted on the Kurdistan Regional Government’s official website, Barzani called for a delegation to visit Kurdish areas in Syria to verify the reports that “al-Qaida terrorists” are killing Kurds. If confirmed, then Iraqi Kurdistan “will make use of all its capabilities to defend the Kurdish women, children and citizens in western Kurdistan,” he said.
Militants killed in Egypt by Israeli drone mourned
CAIRO – Dozens of suspected militants openly joined a mass funeral procession Saturday for four slain Egyptian insurgents killed in an Israeli drone strike in the Sinai Peninsula, as Egyptian security forces watched them pass by.
A little known militant group, Ansar Jerusalem, said its men were the target of the drone strike in Egyptian territory that killed the four militants preparing to fire rockets into Israel. Meanwhile, Egypt’s military claimed that one of its helicopters carried out the strike, seeking to limit public criticism about allowing Israel to carry out strikes on its soil.
The attack was a rare operation that could indicate increased cooperation between Egypt and Israel against militants in northern Sinai after a coup ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last month. It also is likely to increase tensions in a border region that has seen other rocket attacks in the past.
Hundreds of people, including armed jihadis, tribesmen carrying weapons and family members of the dead took part in the funeral. The bodies of the dead were displayed in the back of pickup trucks draped by black flags inscribed with Islamic verses.
Associated Press
