Russia blames Ukraine for MH17 crash
On Wednesday, Russian investigators announced they had new evidence that a Ukrainian pilot was responsible for downing Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board. MH17 was airborne over eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian soldiers have been locked in conflict since April this year, when it crashed. The investigators claim they have identified a witness who was working at an airfield nearby and saw a warplane take off on July 17 with air-to-air missiles and return without them. Meanwhile, Dutch authorities who were entrusted with ascertaining the cause of the incident are still at work at the crash site.
Pakistan to raise 5,000-strong counterterrorism force
Pakistan’s National Action Plan Committee, set up by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Peshawar earlier this month, decided on Wednesday to raise a 5,000-strong specialist counterterrorism force. The country’s interior minister said they would be trained by the army and deployed in Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, according to Radio Pakistan. Sharif also said Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the military campaign being conducted in the north against members of the Taliban will be expanded to include the whole country.
Allow God to love you, says Pope during Christmas Eve mass
In his message to the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics on Christmas Eve, Pope Francis urged them to allow God to enter their lives and “help combat darkness and corruption”. Leading the mass for the thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Basilica, the 78-year-old Argentinian priest said the only question they needed to ask was if they had allowed God to love them. Hours before the service, he made a surprise telephone call to comfort Christian refugees in Ankawa, Iraq, who were fleeing persecution by Islamic State militants.
Suicide bomber kills 38 Awakening Council members
A suicide bomber killed 38 people and wounded 56 others in a town near Baghdad on Wednesday. He blew himself up among a group of people who had gathered to receive their pay checks from an organisation that supports Sunni Arab fighters who turned against the Al Qaeda in 2006. Called the Awakening Council, it has been credited with bringing down the levels of violence in Iraq. With the rise of the Islamic State in the region, however, they have increasingly become the targets for jihadists.
Scientist claims to have invented device to detect drug addicts from a mile away
Iran’s state-run news agency announced on Wednesday that a scientist had developed a radar that can detect drug addicts from a mile away. Its inventor, Seyed Ali Hosseini, said the “radar tracker was designed and built to detect drugs, explosives, bodies alive and dead under the rubble, addictive drugs and alcoholic beverages”. According to him, the device can also detect the level of addiction of inside human bodies. Despite its dubious description, many of the country’s lawmakers have taken the device seriously. Iran has hundreds of accused drug traffickers on death row.
source: scroll.in
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 