Egypt: school bus-train collision...[ 2994 ]

At least 49 children die in Egypt school bus-train collision
Published November 17, 2012//  EFE

At least 49 young children died when the school bus in which they were riding collided Saturday with a train in the southern Egyptian province of Asyut.

Egypt's Health Ministry said in a statement that 18 other children aged four to six were seriously injured and taken to local hospitals for treatment.
The driver of the vehicle and two chaperones also were killed in Saturday morning's accident in the district of Manfaloot, 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Cairo, the Mena state-run news agency reported.

Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi accepted the resignation of his transportation minister, Mohammed Rashad al-Metini, in the wake of the accident and called for a thorough investigation and compensation for the victims' families.

The head of the state railway authority, Mustafa Qanaui, also resigned.

Several Cabinet members were coordinating the investigation at the accident site, where rescue workers were still recovering the bodies of the victims.

Distraught relatives held a demonstration at the site and demanded the death penalty for those responsible for the accident, prompting local authorities to intervene and seek to calm tensions.

Railway and auto accidents are common in Egypt due to the poor condition of vehicles and roads, imprudent drivers and poor road signage.

Egypt's worst railway tragedy occurred in 2002, when 376 people died in a massive fire on a passenger train traveling from Cairo to Luxor. EFE

At least 49 children die in Egypt school bus-train collision

Published November 17, 2012

EFE

At least 49 young children died when the school bus in which they were riding collided Saturday with a train in the southern Egyptian province of Asyut.
Egypt's Health Ministry said in a statement that 18 other children aged four to six were seriously injured and taken to local hospitals for treatment.
The driver of the vehicle and two chaperones also were killed in Saturday morning's accident in the district of Manfaloot, 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Cairo, the Mena state-run news agency reported.
Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi accepted the resignation of his transportation minister, Mohammed Rashad al-Metini, in the wake of the accident and called for a thorough investigation and compensation for the victims' families.
The head of the state railway authority, Mustafa Qanaui, also resigned.
Several Cabinet members were coordinating the investigation at the accident site, where rescue workers were still recovering the bodies of the victims.
Distraught relatives held a demonstration at the site and demanded the death penalty for those responsible for the accident, prompting local authorities to intervene and seek to calm tensions.
Railway and auto accidents are common in Egypt due to the poor condition of vehicles and roads, imprudent drivers and poor road signage.
Egypt's worst railway tragedy occurred in 2002, when 376 people died in a massive fire on a passenger train traveling from Cairo to Luxor. EFE

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/11/17/at-least-4-children-die-in-egypt-school-bus-train-collision/#ixzz2CUkA7cxd

Palestinians.missile short-lived advantage..[ 2993 ]

Fajr-5 missile gives Palestinians rare if short-lived advantage

Use of Iran-developed rocket that can reach Israel's civilian heartland points to scale of arms smuggling into Gaza

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• 
• • Ian Black, Middle East editor
  • The Guardian, Friday 16 November 2012 18.23 GMT

Israeli Defence Forces' image shows what it says is an underground Fajr-5 missile launch site in Zeitoun, Gaza City. Photograph: Israeli Defence Forces/EPA

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In a straight fight between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip there is no question who has the upper hand. Israel's armed forces are among the world's most sophisticated. Their ability to mount a drone strike of the kind that killed the Hamas military leader Ahmed Jaabari on Wednesday attests to a deadly combination of precise weaponry and accurate intelligence.
But in the latest round of the conflict the Palestinians have used a weapon which gives them a rare if short-lived advantage – a rocket which can strike at Israel's civilian heartland. This is the Fajr-5, developed by Iran and also supplied to Hezbollah, Tehran's Lebanese ally. It has a range of up to 46.6 miles (75km), which means it can hit Tel Aviv and elsewhere in the heavily populated conurbation in central Israel.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, announced on Wednesday that Israel had destroyed most of these missiles in air attacks during the first hour of its continuing offensive. But Islamic Jihad, another militant Palestinian faction, said on Thursday that it had launched a Fajr-5 at Tel Aviv, triggering the city's first air raid alert since it was hit by Iraqi Scuds during the 1991 Gulf war. Barak went on TV to warn that Gaza would pay "a heavy price for this escalation".
The missile is not a game-changer, but it does even out the stakes.
Moshe Yaalon, Israel's deputy prime minister, signalled on Friday that the Palestinian arsenal was now more or less depleted. "I don't know if they still have one or two missiles left," he said. "But they don't have a stockpile that can threaten central Israel."
Firing those that remained, suggested the global intelligence analyst Stratfor, was a "use it or lose it" strategy.
The Fajr ("dawn" in Arabic) is in a different league from shorter-range rockets like the homemade Qassam – built in workshops in Gaza – with ranges of up to a dozen or so kilometres. Qassam variants have repeatedly hit towns in southern Israel since 2005. Missiles that hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday were described as Qassam M75s. Grad missiles, also thought to have been supplied by Iran, have a range of up to about 20km.
It was striking that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, singled out the Iranian-made weapon in a speech in Beirut on Thursday. "The firing of Fajr-5 rockets on Tel Aviv shows the maturation, the wisdom and strength, and the courage of the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip," he said. "The Israeli enemy was surprised and forced to acknowledge that its capital had been hit."
Exactly how the Fajr-5 reached Gaza is not known. But its parts were probably smuggled in through the tunnels that link the blockaded enclave to the outside world. In October 2011 international observers in Sinai reported that one had been test-fired in the desert.
Israel has devoted considerable diplomatic, military and intelligence resources to halting the flow of weapons of all kinds into Gaza, but especially those supplied by Iran. In January 2010 presumed agents from the Mossad murdered in Dubai Mohammed Mabhouh, the Hamas arms procurement liaison with Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The previous year Israel warplanes attacked a large convoy in Sudan. Only last month Israel was accused of bombing the Yarmouk arms factory in Khartoum, said to be owned by Iran. It all but admitted that it was responsible.
Israel has made no secret of its concern that weapons have also flowed from Libya, via Egypt and Sudan, into Gaza, since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi last year. These are mostly SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, less significant militarily than the Fajr-5.
In May the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen, called Libya "a new gate to hell", because of the weapons reaching Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza. Israel has tried in recent months to persuade Egypt, far less friendly since Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government replaced Hosni Mubarak, to choke off these supplies.

'Gates of hell' ..[ 2992 ]

Gaza rocket fire kills three Israelis, violence escalates

 

The rocket hit the top floor of the building in Kiryat Malachi
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Three people have been killed as rockets fired from Gaza struck southern Israel, amid escalating violence.

They died when a four-storey building in the town of Kiryat Malachi was hit.
It marks the first Israeli fatalities since Israel killed Hamas' military chief in Gaza on Wednesday.
Eleven Palestinians - mainly militants but also children - have been killed in the ensuing Israeli operation. Since then, more than 130 rockets have been fired into Israel, police say.
Hundreds of rockets were fired into Israel by militants in Gaza, and Israel carried out numerous air strikes as cross-border violence soared in recent weeks.
Israel said the head of Hamas' military wing, Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari, who died when his car was hit in Gaza City, was responsible for all attacks from Gaza in the past decade.

“Start Quote

If the shooting doesn't stop, Israel will also target [Hamas leader] Ismail Haniyeh”

Israel Katz Israeli Transport Minister

Hamas militants have been running Gaza since 2007.

In a separate development, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas reportedly cut short his trip to Switzerland and was returning to his base in the West Bank to deal with the growing crisis.
'Gates of hell' The three Israelis - two women and a man - died when a rocket hit the top floor of the building in Kiryat Malachi, about 25km (15 miles) north of Gaza.
Three other people - a four-year-old boy and two babies - were injured, Israel's foreign ministry said.
The building's residents were warned by sirens about the impending attack, but did not have enough time to flee the building, reports said.

Meanwhile, three Palestinian militants were killed in Israeli air strikes on Thursday, Palestinian medics said.
After a relatively quiet night, violence picked up again in the morning the BBC's Jon Donnison in Gaza City says.
He says vapour trails from rockets being fired by Palestinian militants can be seen, and intermittently large mushrooms of smoke appear from Israeli air strikes.
Reports in Israel's media say that a rocket hit a house in Ashdod without causing injuries and another rocket landed close to a school in Beer Tuvya. There were also reports of rockets landing in Ofakim and Ashkelon.
Hamas on Thursday said it had fired missiles at Tel Aviv - but the claim was denied as "psychological propaganda" by the Israel Defence Forces.

The BBC's Jon Donnison says Gaza have been filled the sounds of militant rockets taking off and Israeli missiles landing

So far the violence does not appear on the same scale as the last Gaza war almost four years ago when hundreds of Palestinians were killed on the first day of Israel's operation, our correspondent adds. Thirteen Israelis also died in that conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that his country is prepared to extend its operation against Hamas.
Israeli Defence Ministry spokesman Joshua Hantman told the BBC that about one million Israelis across the country were now under fire from the militants.
He added that a ground offensive was "an option if we need to".
Meanwhile, Israeli Transport Minister Israel Katz told the BBC that "if the shooting doesn't stop, Israel will also target [Hamas leader] Ismail Haniyeh".
Responding to Wednesday's strike, Hamas warned that the killing of 52-year-old Jabari would "open the gates of hell" for Israel.
In Gaza City, large crowds gathered for his funeral, vowing revenge attacks.
Among those killed in the Israeli air strikes in the last two days was the 11-month-old son of a BBC Arabic Service cameraman in Gaza City. The child, Omar, died in hospital of severe burns, while his brother and uncle remain critically injured

Sheldon Glacier...[ 2991 ]

View of Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre

View of Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background, seen from Ryder Bay near Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica. A new NASA/British Antarctic Survey study examines why Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change over the past two decades.
Image credit: British Antarctic Survey

Syria ...[ 2990 ]

Syria. Atrocitties-