At least 60 people have been killed at a funeral in the mainly Shia Muslim Sadr City district of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. A tent where mourners were gathered was hit by two explosions, one of them a suicide car bomb.
A third explosion followed as police, ambulances and firefighters gathered at the scene, according to one report.
Officials reported that women and children were among the dead and that more than 120 people had been injured.
By Michael Martinez. Faith Karimi and Zain Verjee, CNN, September 21, 2013, updated 3:21 PM EDT
Members of Al-Shabaab -- the militant group linked to al Qaeda that's claimed responsibility for Saturday's deadly mall attack in Kenya -- tweeted that "there will be no negotiations whatsoever" at the mall.
Al-Shabaab also tweeted Saturday that "all Muslims inside #Westgate" -- referring to the Kenyan mall that was attacked -- "were escorted out by the Mujahideen before" the violence began.
By Nahal Toosi, The Associated Press, Sept. 19, 2013
[....] It's a remarkable trend in a nation where just 12 years ago the Taliban government barred girls from attending school and many educated Afghans were forced to flee. Some 7,870 students attended Afghan colleges before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001; today, the figure is up around 26-fold to almost 204,000, as many as a fifth of them women, according to the Ministry of Higher Education.
By Peter Nickeas & Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune, September 20, 2013, 2:35 a.m. CDT
Thirteen people, including a 3-year-old boy who suffered a gunshot wound to the head, were shot at a Chicago park in the Back of the Yards neighborhood Thursday night, authorities said [...] Police said later a total of 13 people were shot, the boy, two teens, and 10 adults, with the boy the most seriously wounded [....]
By Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran,Washington Post Guest Op-Ed, Sept. 19/20, 2013
[....] The world has changed. International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities [....]
By Martin Lukacs, Suzanne Goldenberg & Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 19 September 2013
Russia is pushing for next week's landmark UN climate science report to include support for controversial technologies to geoengineer the planet's climate, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.
MUQDADIYA, Iraq — The orange archway at the entrance to this farming community welcomes visitors in “peace [....] For generations, Shiite and Sunni families worked the land, earning a living from their sheep and cows, their wheat fields and lemon trees.
On a recent morning, though, the only talk was of how to stop them from killing one another.
Experts from the United Nations cultural agency have confirmed that nearly all the collections of the Malawi National Museum in Upper Egypt have been looted following last month’s unrest.
The mysterious "conference call" of al Qaeda leaders that led the United States to close its embassies around the Middle East in August was deciphered by a low-ranking enlisted man in the Air Force, who alerted his senior officers after finding clues about the ominous communication in the course of his regular duties.
Dubai -- Turkey has shot down a Syrian helicopter raising border tensions, buffered by Russia which has stepped in to prevent a possible UN-sanctioned military attack on Syria in the future.
Turkey scrambled its F-16 fighter jets on Monday to shoot down Syria’s Russian-built Mi-17 helicopter, claiming that it was forced to take the decision after the helicopter intruded two km inside Turkish airspace.
POLICE commandos and army tanks have surrounded an Austrian farmhouse after a gunman allegedly shot dead three policemen and a paramedic, apparently in cold blood.
The man was holed up in his house at Grosspriel near Melk, some 90 kilometres west of Vienna, police spokesman Johann Baumschlager said.
The gunman reportedly has large amounts of ammunition and a powerful hunting rifle able to pierce protective clothing. Baumschlager called the situation "terrible and very explosive".
By Alasdair Blaverstock, The Atlantic, Sept. 16, 2013
Astrid de la Rosa was left bedridden for two years after her liquid silicone buttock injections migrated into her spine, paralyzing the supporting muscles.
“We are trying to educate Venezuelan girls about the dangers of these procedures before they are 12 years old,” she said. “We have to get to them early, as parents tend to offer these injections as 15th birthday presents”.
By Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch/Dispatches, Sept. 16, 2013
[....] The experts’ mandate does not allow them to say who was responsible for the deadly barrage. But if you read between the lines, it isn’t difficult to figure it out.
A US-Russian plan to remove Syria's chemical weapons is a "victory" that averts war, a Syrian minister said, as Washington warned that the threat of US force "remains real".
"On one hand, it helps the Syrians emerge from the crisis and on the other it has allowed for averting war against Syria...," Ali Haidar, minister of state for National Reconciliation, told Russian news agency Ria Novosti on Sunday.
"It's a victory for Syria that was achieved thanks to our Russian friends." [....]
By Joy Wilke and Frank Newport, Gallup, Sept. 13, 2013
PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans' trust and confidence in the federal government's ability to handle international problems has reached an all-time low, with 49% saying they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence, two percentage points below the previous low of 51% recorded in 2007.
, this may be another John XXIII here.