Australia to deploy special forces in Iraq
CANBERRA, Australia – Australia will soon deploy 200 special forces troops in Iraq to advise and assist Iraqi security forces a month after the Australians were sent to the Middle East.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement from Baghdad on Monday that she had secured the necessary legal guarantees to go ahead with the deployment of the elite troops.
The Australian special forces arrived a month ago in the United Arab Emirates to participate in the coalition put together to battle the Islamic State group.
At the same time, Australia also sent six F/A-18F Super Hornet jet fighters which are flying almost daily combat missions against Islamic State targets in northern Iraq.
President of Liberia notes costs of Ebola
MONROVIA, Liberia – Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Ebola has killed more than 2,000 people in her country and has brought it to “a standstill,” noting that Liberia and two other badly hit countries were already weakened by years of war.
Appealing for more international help, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate described the devastating effects of Ebola in a “Letter to the World” that was broadcast Sunday by the BBC.
“Across West Africa, a generation of young people risk being lost to an economic catastrophe as harvests are missed, markets are shut and borders are closed,” she said.
In neighboring Sierra Leone, emergency food rations were distributed for a third day Sunday to give a nutritional lifeline to 260,000 residents of an Ebola-stricken community on the outskirts of the capital, Freetown.
Students clean up after pumpkin mayhem
CONCORD, N.H. – Keene State College students quickly cleaned up from a chaotic weekend Sunday, after violent parties near the city’s annual pumpkin festival led to destruction, dozens of arrests and multiple injuries.
The parties around the school coincided with the annual Keene Pumpkin Festival, where the community tries to set a world record of the largest number of carved and lighted jack-o-lanterns in one place. The violence prompted police in riot gear to use tear gas as they tried to control crowds.
Mallory Pearce, a sophomore and vice president of the student body, said she saw a car flipped over in a parking lot, another car being destroyed and people being pepper-sprayed.
While Pearce was extremely disappointed in the violence, she said her faith was restored when enough volunteers showed up Sunday morning to clean up the campus that they finished their work in less than an hour.
Associated Press
