A van has crashed into dozens of people in the center of the Spanish city of Barcelona, killing over a dozen people, including foreign nationals, and injuring many others.

The city police described the incident on Twitter as a “massive crash,” in a statement released on Thursday, saying, “Huge collision on Las Ramblas in Barcelona by an individual driving a van, many injuries.”

Conflicting reports have been so far released on casualties following the attack. Cadena Ser radio, citing police sources, said at least 13 people had been killed in the attack, which has been called a terrorist attack by police in Barcelona.

Other media including El Pais said there were at least 10 dead. A police spokeswoman could not immediately confirm the number of casualties. Catalan police, however, says at least one person has been confirmed dead and 32 people injured following the attack, adding that 10 of those injured are in serious condition.

Hours after the attack, a Catalan government official said that there were 13 dead and around 100 injured in the attack. The Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on its Amaq propaganda website later on Thursday night.   The Spanish police noted that they were clearing the area after the incident, which has left a number of people injured.

The area around the incident was cordoned off, with several ambulances and police vehicles on the scene, an AFP correspondent said.  Barcelona’s emergency services asked people not go to the area around the city’s Placa Catalunya, requesting the closure of nearby train and metro stations.

A report by El Pais newspaper stated that the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot after mowing down dozens of people. A report by El Periodico newspaper indicated that two armed men had entrenched themselves at a bar in Barcelona’s city center after the van incident, noting that it was not immediately clear if the men were the drivers of the van.

A Spanish police source initially noted that a person suspected of driving the van into pedestrians was holed up at a bar. The unnamed source said, “One of the attackers is holed up in a bar,” adding that police were looking for a total of two suspects. Catalan police, however, later announced that there was nobody holed up in the bar, adding that they had arrested two men linked to Barcelona van attack.

Meanwhile, Catalan police said on Twitter that they shot dead a driver of a vehicle that ran over two police officers at a checkpoint in Barcelona following the van attack in the city center. Spanish media had earlier reported that at least one policeman was injured at the checkpoint. It was not immediately clear whether the incident was linked to the first attack in Las Ramblas avenue.

Within hours of the attack, Driss Oukabir, a 28-year-old man of Moroccan origin whom police said had rented the van used in the attack, reportedly turned himself in after seeing his photo being circulated online, claiming his documents had been stolen. But Lluis Trapero of the regional police of Catalonia said the driver of the van that mowed into the packed street was still on the run, adding that two other suspects – a Spaniard and a Moroccan – had been arrested.

Following the incident Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he was in contact with authorities, adding on Twitter that the priority was to attend to the injured. Police in Barcelona have announced that they are dealing with a “terrorist attack,” adding that they are searching for driver of the van.

Later reports indicated that a second van linked to Thursday attack in Barcelona had been found in the small town of Vic in Catalonia. The city council said that police had cordoned off the area and were inspecting the vehicle, .  In another attack just a few hours after the Barcelona rampage, six civilians and a policeman were injured after an assailant rammed his car into a crowd of people in the resort town of Cambrils, south of Barcelona.

Police initially said they had killed four “perpetrators” and injured another during an operation against the “terrorist attack” in Cambrils in the early hours of Friday morning. They later said the fifth suspect died of his wounds. Police officials also said a blast that killed a person and injured several others at a house in Alcanar Platja on Thursday morning was linked to the Barcelona attack.

Rajoy told reporters late on Thursday night that the country is “united in grief” after the terrorist attack in Barcelona. “Today the fight against terrorism is the principal priority for free and open societies like ours. It is a global threat and the response has to be global,” he told a news conference in Barcelona.

The prime minister added that he would ask Spain’s other political parties to reaffirm its anti-terrorism pact. Various European cities have already seen terrorist attacks on pedestrians mostly carried out by Daesh operatives using various kinds of vehicles as weapon.

On July 14, 2016, a 31-year-old Tunisian identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel plowed a 19-tonne truck into a Bastille Day crowd in southern French city of Nice, killing 86 people. The attack was later claimed by Daesh, which said Bouhlel was one of its followers.

On June 19, 2017, a 31-year-old Adam Dzaziri, who had sworn allegiance to Daesh, was fatally shot by the police when he rammed a car loaded with guns and a gas canister into a police van on Paris’ Champs-Elysees.

On August 9, 2017, a 36-year-old Algerian man, named Hamou B., drove a BMW into soldiers outside a barracks in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, injuring six. The attacker was then chased by police, who shot and wounded him.

On March 22, 2017, a 52-year-old British national identified as Khalid Masood mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge near parliament before stabbing a policeman, killing five people and injuring around 50. He was then shot dead by police. The attack was also claimed by Daesh. On June 3, London was once more shocked when three attackers stroke pedestrians with a van before going on a stabbing spree in the London Bridge area. Eight people were killed before the assailants are shot dead by police and the attack was claimed by Daesh.

Source: Presstv

The number of South Sudanese refugees sheltering in Uganda has reached one million, the United Nations says, marking a grim milestone for what has become the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis. Ugandan officials say they are overwhelmed by the flow of people fleeing South Sudan’s civil war, and the UN refugee agency urges the international community to donate more for humanitarian assistance.

An average of 1,800 South Sudanese citizens have been arriving daily in Uganda over the past 12 months, the UNHCR said in a statement. Another one million or more South Sudanese are sheltering in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Congo, and the Central African Republic.

The number of people fleeing jumped after deadly fighting again erupted in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, in July 2016. “Recent arrivals continue to speak of barbaric violence, with armed groups reportedly burning down houses with civilians inside, people being killed in front of family members, sexual assaults of women and girls, and kidnapping of boys for forced conscription,” the statement said.

“With refugees still arriving in their thousands, the amount of aid we are able to deliver is increasingly falling short.” A fundraising summit hosted by Uganda in June raised only a fraction of the $2 billion that Ugandan officials have said is needed to sufficiently look after the refugees and the communities hosting them.

Most of the refugees are women and children fleeing violence, often along ethnic lines, since the world’s newest country erupted into violence in December 2013. Ugandan refugee officials have repeatedly warned the influx is straining the country’s ability to be generous to the refugees, who often are given small plots of land for building temporary shelters and planting crops when they arrive. The largest of the settlements hosting refugees from South Sudan, Bidi Bidi, is roughly 230 square kilometers.

The World Food Program cut food rations for some refugees amid funding shortages in June. The UN says at least $674 million is needed to support South Sudanese refugees in Uganda this year, although only a fifth of that amount has been received.

The money is needed to provide basic services, including stocking clinics with medicines and putting up schools. Aid agencies say classroom sizes in the few available schools often exceed 200 pupils, and other children have dropped out because the nearest schools are located miles away.

“The funding shortfall in Uganda is now significantly impacting the abilities to deliver life-saving aid and key basic services,” the UNHCR statement said. Fighting persists in parts of South Sudan despite multiple ceasefire agreements. Rebel forces said Tuesday they had reclaimed their stronghold of Pagak in the northeast, less than a week after being pushed out by government forces.

Both sides have committed serious rights violations, including murder and rape, against civilians, according to UN investigators.

(Source: AP)

Two more senior executives quit US President Donald Trump’s business advisory panel, after Trump failed to immediately denounce white supremacists over a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a strong rebuke to Trump, first the leader of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and then the CEO of an athletic gear company and finally the chief executive of a $170 billion tech giant resigned from a business panel led by the president.

“America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which runs counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal,” tweeted Merck & Co Inc CEO Kenneth Frazier on Monday. Trump in response swiftly tweeted that at least Frazier will now “have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”

According to the Executive Leadership Council, Frazier is a highly respected executive and one of only four African Americans to head a Fortune 500 company. Within hours, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank resigned from the same panel, saying his company “engages in innovation and sports, not politics.” Although Plank did not specifically mention Trump or Charlottesville, he said his company will focus on promoting “unity, diversity and inclusion” through sports.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich however urged leaders to condemn “white supremacists and their ilk,” saying many in Washington “seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.” Under heavy bipartisan pressure, Trump finally declared that “racism is evil” and singled out white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan for a violent rally in Charlottesville.

“Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” Trump said Monday from the White House. The three CEOs are not the first executives to resign from advisory councils serving Trump.

In June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk resigned from the manufacturing council and after US withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger resigned for the same reason from the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum. William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he could not “think of a parallel example” of any president responding as viciously as Trump to a CEO departing an advisory council.

“Usually, certain niceties are observed to smooth over a rupture,” said Galston, who served as a domestic policy aide in the Clinton administration. “We’ve learned that as president, Mr. Trump is behaving exactly as he did as a candidate,” Galston said. “He knows only one mode: When attacked, hit back harder.”

On Saturday, thousands of white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally. The march soon turned violent when a 20-year-old man plowed a vehicle into a group of anti-hate demonstrators protesting against the white supremacist rally, killing a woman and injuring 19 others.

Trump came under fire for initially blaming the violence on “many sides.” Democrats and Republicans alike called on the president to “call the evil by its name.” In his remarks on Saturday, Trump had failed to mention white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan or any other groups that participated in the rally.

Source; Presstv

Saudi Arabia’s state television says the kingdom could shoot down the Qatari airliners potentially violating its airspace. Al Arabiya recently broadcast a short animation showing a missile strike by a Saudi warplane against a Qatari airliner.

Citing “international law,” a voiceover accompanying the production said, “A state that bans flights from entering its airspace has the right to deal with the violating plane in any way it wishes.” “The options in this case either take the form of deploying a fighter jet that forces the plane to land whereby the flight crew are then tried on several charges,” it said. “International law also allows states to shoot down any flight that violates a state’s airspace, classing it as a legitimate target, especially over military areas.”

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates cut their diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism. Doha rejects the claim. The boycotting countries also closed their airspace to flag carrier Qatar Airways. The airline has stopped using the airspace of those countries ever since, rerouting flights and using alternative paths, including through Iranian skies. The Saudi-led embargo has had an economic impact on Qatar. Trying to make up for lost revenue, Doha has said it would allow the citizens of 80 countries to travel to the country visa free.

Interior ministry official Mohamed Rashed al-Mazroui said the 80 countries had been selected on the basis of security and economic considerations, including for the buying power of their nationals. Doha says it would press the sanctioning countries to compensate for the economic damages arising from the embargo, but has also said it has enough financial resources at its disposal to weather the bans.

Source: Presstv