Russia tests Sineva ballistic missile successfully: report

Russia tested a Sineva ballistic missile from a submarine, reported Russian news agency Sputnik on Thursday.

The missile was fired from a nuclear submarine and Russian authorities claimed the test was successful.

“Russia's Delta-IV class Novomoskovsk strategic nuclear submarine conducted on Wednesday a successful test launch of a R-29RM Sineva ballistic missile from the Barents Sea,” Sputnik quoted the Defence Ministry.

"The simulated warhead successfully hit the designated target…confirming the high level of combat readiness in the Northern Fleet's submarine force," the statement said.

The ministry said that the submarine “launched the Sineva (Nato reporting name SS-N-23) missile from a submerged position targeting a designated area at the Kura testing range” on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

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Russia announces first Syria talks since US freeze

MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday announced the first international talks on the Syria conflict since Washington pulled out of bilateral ceasefire negotiations in protest at Moscow's bombing of Aleppo.

Russian Foreign Ministry indicated the possibility of talks, saying Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and United States (US) Secretary of State John Kerry agreed to sit down with top diplomats from “key countries in the region” on Saturday in Lausanne.

The meeting which Lavrov said "could include Turkey, Saudi Arabia and possibly Qatar" comes after Syria plunged into some of the worst violence it has seen as government forces backed up by Russian air-power push a brutal assault to take rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Despite the collapse in relations Lavrov told CNN in an interview on Wednesday that he hoped the weekend talks in Switzerland could help “launch a serious dialogue” based on the now-defunct US-Russian pact.

“We would like to have a meeting in this narrow format, to have a businesslike discussion, not another General Assembly-like debate,” Lavrov said.

The United Nations said that Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura had been invited to take part in the talks but hopes were low of a breakthrough to end the five-year conflict that has claimed some 300,000 lives.

Pope Francis also appealed on Wednesday for an immediate ceasefire in Syria, calling for “at least” a truce enabling civilians, especially children, to be evacuated, after Aleppo came under fierce air assault.

“It is with a sense of urgency that I renew my appeal, begging those responsible, with all my strength, for an immediate ceasefire to be imposed and respected,” Pope told his weekly audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.

The West has accused Moscow of potential war crimes over its bombing campaign, as acrimony surged after the US on October 3 pulled the plug on bilateral talks with Moscow after a truce deal unravelled.

The fallout from the collapse in diplomacy on Syria has seen some in the West call for punitive measures against Moscow, while Russia has responded by bolstering its forces in the war-torn country.

President Vladimir Putin has warned warned Western countries against imposing sanctions on Moscow over Syria, stressing that Russia would not let itself be isolated.

“We should not go down the path of pressure and blackmail but search for compromise,” Putin said on Wednesday at an investment forum in Moscow.

“I have said one hundred times that we are ready to search for these compromises. We would very much like that our partners treat us this way,” he added.

Putin earlier this week cancelled a long-planned visit to France over Syria, and on Wednesday slammed Paris for tabling a UN proposal on Aleppo at the weekend that Russia vetoed.

“They put forward the resolution knowing that it would not pass, in order to incite a veto,” Putin said.

“Why? It was aimed at inflaming the situation and fanning hysteria around Russia,” he added.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that Putin had cancelled his visit because he was “embarrassed” about Russia's bombing of Aleppo.

The United Nations has warned of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe taking place in besieged eastern Aleppo, saying that the rebel-held territory could be destroyed entirely by the end of the year.

Fresh air strikes and artillery fire in Aleppo on Wednesday left at least seven people dead, an international monitor said, a day after Russia was accused of stepping up its raids on the city.

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US military strikes Yemen after missile attacks on Navy ship

WASHINGTON: The United States military launched cruise missile strikes on three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a US Navy destroyer, officials said on Wednesday.

The strikes authorised by President Barack Obama represent Washington's first direct military action against Houthi-controlled targets in Yemen's conflict.

The Pentagon said initial US assessments indicated the radar sites were destroyed.

“These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships, and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

“The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic, as appropriate.”

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Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi poisoned at feast

Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and three of his top aides have fallen ill after being poisoned at a feast, Iraqi news agency WAAreports.

They have been shifted to an undisclosed location under strict measures, reports say. The lunch prepared for Baghdadi and three other Islamic State leaders was allegedly poisoned in Iraq’s Be’aaj district, it has been reported.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon warned Baghdadi that he would eventually “taste justice” as the US military continued to target the extremist group’s upper ranks. “We are hunting him, and we will find him,” military spokesperson Colonel Steve Warren said.

“Just like we found his mentor (Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi and killed him. Just like we found the grand master of terrorism, Osama bin Laden, we killed him. We are going to find Baghdadi, and he will taste justice,” he said.

Born in Iraq in 1971, Baghdadi emerged as the leader of an al Qaeda offshoot which later became Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), in 2010.

In 2015, Islamic State proclaimed its leader Baghdadi  as “caliph” – the head of the state.  Baghdadi aspires to establish a global caliphate with himself at its head.

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Turkey says suspends 12,801 police over alleged links with cleric Gulen

ANKARA: Turkish authorities have suspended 12,801 police officers from duty, police headquarters said on Tuesday, over their suspected links with the US based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his network, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed coup in July.

The move came after the Interior Ministry launched an investigation into the police force, broadcaster CNN Turk reported, and a day after the Turkish government extended a state of emergency for another three months.

Of the total number of police suspended across the country, 2,523 were police chiefs, the statement said.

Turkey's total police force numbers about 250,000.

About 100,000 people in the military, civil service, police and judiciary have already been sacked or suspended in a post-coup crackdown, and some 32,000 people have been arrested for their alleged role in the abortive putsch.

President Tayyip Erdogan said last week Turkey would benefit from an extension to the three-month state of emergency declared after the failed July 15 coup, saying more time was needed to hunt down those responsible. He suggested it may last for more than a year.

However, the crackdown has raised concerns from rights groups and Western allies who fear Erdogan is using the failed coup as a pretext to curtail all dissent and to intensify his actions against suspected Kurdish militant sympathisers.

Turkey wants the United States to extradite Gulen and prosecute him on charges that he masterminded the attempt to overthrow the government. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies any involvement

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Russia keeps up Syria bombing as UN urges Aleppo evacuations

MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday said it would press on with a bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring US threats, as the United Nations pleaded for medical evacuations from the war-ravaged city of Aleppo.

Speaking at the UN Security Council, aid chief Stephen O’Brien said that Aleppo had now descended into a “merciless abyss of humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria”.

The United States has threatened to pull the plug on any more talks with Russia if it does not halt the attack on Aleppo as acrimony seethes between the two powers after the collapse of a truce deal.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that despite “unconstructive” rhetoric from Washington, Moscow was still interested in seeing the tattered deal, meant to see the US and Russia eventually coordinate strikes on jihadists, work out.

He blamed the surge in violence on Washington’s fail­­­­ure to control rebel groups fighting in Aleppo and insisted that Syrian forces were battling “terrorists”. “Moscow is continuing its air operation to support the anti-terrorist actions of the Syrian armed forces,” he said.

‘Special responsibility’

But Moscow — which has been flying a bombing campaign in support of Assad for a year — was facing fresh calls to help halt the bloodshed in Syria that has claimed some 300,000 lives since 2011.

Assad opponents German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after speaking by phone that Russia has a “special responsibility to calm violence and give a political process a chance” in Syria.

“The latest offensive by the Syrian regime against Aleppo — supported by Russia — has made the suffering of the civilian population yet worse,” the two leaders agreed, according to a statement released by Merkel’s office.

The UN envoy for Syria meanwhile said there was little prospect of an imminent restart of any negotiations to try to end the raging conflict as the violence continues. “At the moment, when bombs are falling all over, it is very difficult to justify resuming talks,” Staffan de Mistura told AFP after he met Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Medical evacuations

In a sign of how desperate the situation is on the ground inside besieged eastern Aleppo, the United Nations warned on Thursday that “probably hundreds” of people needed medical evacuation.

“Utmost on our mind is the need to address the very concerning medical situation” in the east of Aleppo, UN deputy envoy for Syria, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, told reporters in Geneva.

“The bombing must stop. Civilians must be protected. And the cessation of hostilities must be restored,” Ramzy insisted.

His comments came a day after two of the largest hospitals in the city’s east were bombed, prompting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to describe that attack as a war crime.

Dozens of civilians have been killed, residential buildings have been reduced to rubble and residents of east Aleppo are facing severe shortages.

Unicef said at least 96 children have been killed and 223 wounded since Friday in eastern Aleppo.

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Turkey closes 20 TV and radio stations in post-coup emergency decree

ISTANBUL: Turkey has ordered the closure of 20 television and radio stations, including one that airs children's programmes, on charges they spread “terrorist propaganda”, adding to fears that emergency rule is being used to stifle the media.

An official at the Radio and Television Supreme Council, the state watchdog, confirmed 20 stations were being closed.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants a three-month state of emergency, imposed after a failed coup attempt in July, to be prolonged past October so authorities can eradicate the threat posed by a religious movement blamed for the attempt, as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

The banned channels are owned or operated by Kurds or the Alevi religious minority, according to Hamza Aktan, news editor at IMC TV, a news broadcaster slated for closure. He cited a copy of the decision obtained by his channel, which was based on powers given the government in a decree issued in July.

Aktan and other IMC staff continued airing segments on Friday while waiting for police to arrive at their offices. Other stations on the closure list were raided and sealed off on Thursday, newspapers and CPJ said.

IMC, founded in 2011, has faced other punitive measures. In February, its satellite feed was cut while prosecutors investigate if it supports the PKK.

Aktan denied any links between IMC and the militants, citing the channel's principles of objectivity.

“This has nothing to do with the coup. It is an effort to silence the last independent media covering the Kurdish issue and violations committed by the state,” Aktan told Reuters.

IMC has aired reports looking at security forces' conduct during 14 months of military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has killed thousands.

Among the 12 shuttered television channels are Govend TV, which plays folk music, and Zarok TV, which airs Kurdish-language children's cartoons.

“Turkey is targeting a wide swath of cultural and political expression by shuttering minority broadcasters,” said Robert Mahoney from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“When the government sees even children's programming as a threat to national security, it is clearly abusing its emergency powers,” he added.

Erdogan argues the state of emergency is helping authorities swiftly root out supporters of the military uprising by bypassing parliament to enact laws and suspend rights.

Turkey blames U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen for masterminding the coup in which 240 soldiers, police and civilians were killed trying to stop rogue troops who had commandeered fighter jets and tanks to bomb parliament and shoot protesters. Another 100 people behind the putsch were killed.

Some 100,000 state employees suspected of links with the Gulen movement have been purged, and 32,000 people are in jail for their alleged role in the coup. However, Gulen denies any involvement in the coup attempt.

Authorities have also targeted the media, arresting dozens of members of the press to make Turkey the world's biggest jailer of journalists and shutting down scores of media outlets.

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