South China Sea: US warship sails close to disputed island

A US warship has sailed close to a disputed island in the South China Sea claimed by China.
The USS Stethem sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, which is part of the Paracel Islands.
China called it "a serious political and military provocation" and responded by dispatching battleships and fighter jets to the island.
The incident happened just before leaders of the two countries were due to speak over the phone.
The US has repeatedly warned China against aggressive reclamation of islands in disputed waters, but Beijing says is within its sovereign rights to do so.
UN rules dictate that any territory can claim the waters up to 12 nautical miles from its coast. The sailing of a US ship within those limits would mean the US does not recognise those territorial claims.
In a statement late on Sunday, China's foreign ministry said it would take "all necessary means to defend national sovereignty and security".
It also accused the US of "deliberately stirring up troubles" in the region as China and South East Asian neighbours have "cooled down and improved the situation".
The tiny island is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. China has been embroiled in maritime disputes with several of its regional neighbours in recent years.
The so-called "freedom of navigation" operation is the second since US President Donald Trump took office. Mr Trump is due to speak to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a pre-arranged call on Monday.
In May, the USS Dewey sailed less than 12 nautical miles from an artificial island built by China called Mischief Reef, which is part of the Spratly Islands.
US Defence Secretary James Mattis said a few days later that the US would not accept China's militarisation of man-made islands in the region.

What is Freedom of Navigation?

  • The US Freedom of Navigation programme challenges "excessive claims" to the world's oceans and airspace
  • It was developed to promote international adherence to UN maritime rules
  • The US State Department says the programme operates through diplomacy, "operational assertions" by the US military, and consultations with other governments
  • In past years, the US conducted Freedom of Navigation operations against China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam
Rival countries have wrangled over territory in the South China Sea for centuries, but tension has steadily increased in recent years.
Its islets and waters are claimed in part or in whole by Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Beijing has been building artificial islands and military facilities on reefs, while also carrying out naval patrols in waters also claimed by these other nations.
Its activities have sparked accusations of militarisation, but China says the facilities are for civilian and defence purposes.
  • Sovereignty over two largely uninhabited island chains, the Paracels and the Spratlys, is disputed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia
  • China claims the largest portion of territory, saying its rights go back centuries . It issued a map in 1947 detailing its claims, but only recently began asserting its rights
  • The area is a major shipping route, and a rich fishing ground, and is thought to have abundant oil and gas reserves
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Europe migrant crisis: Italy threatens to close ports as ministers meet

Germany, France and Italy's interior ministers are to meet for crisis talks as Italy warns the influx of migrants into the country is unsustainable.
Italy has threatened to close its ports and impound rescue ships run by aid agencies carrying people from Libya.
It needs more support as people cross the Mediterranean from Africa in large numbers, the UN's refugee agency said.
More than 500,000 migrants have passed through Italian ports since 2014, and numbers are on the rise again.

Why is Italy under so much pressure?

Italy is the main destination for migrants attempting to reach Europe by sea, due to its proximity to Libya.
According to the UN, 83,650 people have reached Italy by sea since the beginning of the year - a 20% increase on the same period in 2016.
Numbers have been rising steeply, with about 12,600 migrants and refugees arriving last weekend alone.
Most migrants make the journey across the Mediterranean in rickety boats, and the UN estimates that 2,030 migrants have died or gone missing since the start of the year.


Libya is a gateway to Europe for migrants from across sub-Saharan Africa as well as the Arabian peninsula, Egypt, Syria and Bangladesh. Many are fleeing war, poverty or persecution.
The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, said that among the arrivals in Italy there was an alarmingly high rate of unaccompanied children or victims of sexual or gender-based violence.

Can Rome block rescue ships?

The Italian coastguard takes the lead in co-ordinating rescue operations but many of the vessels run by non-profit groups sail under the flags of other nations, including EU countries like Germany and Malta.
On Wednesday, Italy threatened to stop vessels from other countries from bringing migrants to its ports.
Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has accused other European nations of "looking the other way".
Speaking on Sunday, Interior Minister Marco Minniti said: "If the only ports refugees are taken to are Italian, something is not working."
"We are under enormous pressure," he added.
 It is not clear if blocking rescue ships would be legal.
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea dictates that any ship learning of distress at sea must assist regardless of circumstances, and that the country responsible for operations in that area has primary responsibility for taking them from the ship.

Are other EU countries helping?

Under a solidarity plan agreed in 2015, EU countries were meant to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers between them, to help relieve pressure on Italy and Greece.
The UK and Ireland were exempt from the plan, while Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary voted against accepting mandatory quotas.
So far, only about 20,900 of the 160,000 refugees have been relocated.
The Czech Republic has accepted only 12 of the 2,000 it had been designated, while Hungary and Poland have taken in none.
The EU has begun legal action against the three countries for ignoring "repeated calls" to take their share.
Some EU countries have taken large numbers of migrants separately, including Germany, which had an influx of more than 800,000 migrants in 2015.
Most of them were refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who arrived in Germany by land via the Balkan migration route.

What do the UN and EU say?

"What is happening in front of our eyes in Italy is an unfolding tragedy," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said.
"This cannot be an Italian problem alone," he added.
On Thursday, the EU's migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, promised more financial support for Italy, and urged member states to demonstrate greater solidarity.
A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.

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Ehud Olmert, Israel's jailed ex-PM, is released early

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been released from prison on parole after serving two-thirds of a 27-month sentence for fraud.
He was jailed in 2016 after being convicted of bribery and obstruction of justice while a trade minister.
Olmert was the first former Israeli head of government to be jailed.
He became prime minister in 2006 but resigned three years later when police recommended a series of charges against him.
The 71-year-old did not speak to reporters as he left Maasiyahu prison in central Israel.
Earlier, the Israeli parole board said Olmert had undergone a "significant rehabilitation process" in prison and his behaviour had been largely "impeccable".
He is however currently being investigated by the state attorney's office over suspicions he smuggled a chapter of a book he is writing out of prison, raising fears that it might compromise national security.
There had been calls for leniency after a leaked picture of him in a hospital gown looking gaunt circulated on social media last week.
He had been taken to hospital complaining of chest pains but was given the all-clear and returned to prison.
In 2014, Olmert was convicted of bribery in connection with a property development dating to his period as mayor of Jerusalem between 1993 and 2003.
He was also convicted of fraud, breach of trust and obstructing justice when a trade minister, in a series of separate trials, and acquitted of other charges.

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Girl killed as car crashes into teenagers in Croydon

A 16-year-old girl was killed and six other teenagers were injured when a car crashed into pedestrians in south London.
The red Audi A3 was being driven at speed when the driver lost control at a corner and hit the group on Pixton Way, Croydon, just before 01:30 BST.
The male driver, who possibly suffered a head injury, fled the scene after the crash and police are searching for him.
The Met do not believe the car was deliberately driven into the group.
The six teenagers who were hurt were taken to south London hospitals for treatment. Their injuries are not said to be life-threatening.
The 16-year-old girl's next of kin have been informed.
Detectives have appealed for the driver to contact police.
"There is evidence to suggest he suffered a head injury during the collision so he may need medical assistance," Det Sgt Jose Qureshi said.

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Russia behind cyber-attack, says Ukraine's security service

Ukraine says it has proof that Russian security services were involved in the cyber-attack that targeted businesses around the world earlier this week.
The country's security service, the SBU, said it had obtained data that points to a link with an attack on the nation's capital, Kiev, in December.
Ukrainian firms were among the first to report issues with malicious software on Tuesday, before the virus spread.
Moscow denied any involvement, adding that the allegations were "unfounded".
The virus, which disrupted IT systems across the globe, froze computers and demanded a ransom be paid in the digital currency Bitcoin, which is untraceable.
However, the attack also hit major Russian firms, leading some cyber security researchers to suggest that Moscow was not behind it.
But on Saturday, Ukraine's SBU said in a statement that - through data obtained from international anti-virus companies - it had established a connection with a previous attack involving the so-called Petya virus, which it alleges was not designed to secure ransom payments.
The SBU later said the ransom demand was a cover, adding that the attack was aimed at disrupting the operations of state and private companies in Ukraine and causing political destabilisation.
The lack of any real mechanism for securing financial payments, the SBU said, led the agency to this assumption.
Ukraine appears to have been particularly badly hit in the recent attacks.
The police received about 1,000 messages on intrusions in the operations of computer networks over a 24-hour period. A total of 150 companies filed official complaints with the police.
In December, the country's financial, transport and energy systems were targeted by what investigators judged to be a cyber-attack. The incident resulted in a power cut in Kiev.
The attack earlier this week comes two months after another global ransomware assault, known as WannaCry, which caused major problems for the UK's National Health Service.

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Trump defends his use of social media in a series of tweets

US President Donald Trump has defended his use of social media in a series of tweets, following a row over comments he made about two MSNBC TV presenters.
"My use of social media is not presidential - it's modern day presidential," he tweeted on Saturday.
Earlier in the week, the president launched a crude personal attack on Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.
His tweets were condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike, despite the White House springing to his defence.
Mr Trump's aides have previously expressed concern over his tweets.
But the president said on Saturday that social media gave him the opportunity to connect directly to the public, bypassing the mainstream media, whose content Mr Trump regularly labels as "fake news".
"The FAKE & FRAUDULENT NEWS MEDIA is working hard to convince Republicans and others I should not use social media," he tweeted, adding: "But remember, I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches and social media."
Mr Trump also stepped up his attack on CNN after the US news network retracted an article alleging that one of the president's aides was under investigation by Congress.
"I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It's about time!"
The story that caused the upset, which was later removed from the website following an internal investigation, resulted in the resignations of three CNN journalists: Thomas Frank, investigative unit editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Lictblau and Lex Harris, who oversaw the investigations unit. 

Mr Trump has repeatedly called CNN "fake news" and has previously labelled Buzzfeed a "failing pile of garbage". At a news conference in February, the president was introduced to the BBC's North America editor, Jon Sopel, to which he responded: "Here's another beauty."
Meanwhile, addressing military veterans at the John F Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington on Saturday, Mr Trump promised that America would "win again", prompting cheers from the crowd as he attacked media outlets.
"The fake media is trying to silence us, but we will not let them," he said at the Celebrate Freedom Rally. "The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I'm president, and they're not."
The US president has more than 33 million followers on Twitter. Although it is becoming seemingly more difficult for the president to shock this audience, his 140-character posts have been condemned by both politicians and commentators.
Some consider the language used by Mr Trump as unsuitable for the holder of the highest office. On Friday, the New York Post published a three-word editorial on Mr Trump's tweets: "Stop. Just stop." 

It followed the president's tweets on Thursday mocking MSNBC Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, saying she had been "bleeding badly from a facelift" when he saw her six months ago.
He also verbally attacked her co-host and partner, Mr Scarborough, describing him as "psycho Joe".
Ms Brzezinksi and Mr Scarborough hit back, accusing the president of an "unhealthy obsession" with them". They alleged the White House had tried to blackmail them into apologising for their show's negative coverage of President Trump.

Senator Lindsey Graham said Mr Trump's remarks were "beneath the office" of president, while fellow Republican Ben Sasse said "this isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office".
Despite the criticism, President Trump stepped up his attack on Ms Brzezinksi on Saturday, calling her "dumb as a rock".

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Syria conflict: Damascus bomber strikes after car chase

A suicide bomber has launched an attack in the Syrian capital, with reports saying at least 19 people were killed.
Syrian police had been chasing three suspected car bombers that were trying to enter the capital, state TV said.
Police stopped and detonated two of the vehicles, but the third driver entered Tahrir square in the east and blew himself up after being surrounded.
Syria is in the midst of a six-year-long civil war, with Damascus still mostly under government control.
At least 12 people were injured in Sunday's blast, reports said.
State TV said the attackers had planned to bomb crowded areas in the capital on the first working day after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
"The terrorist bombings killed and wounded several civilians and caused physical damage to the area," a police official told state news agency Sana.


A local resident told AFP he heard "gunfire at around 06:00 (03:00 GMT), then an explosion which smashed the glass of houses in the neighbourhood".
No group has said it carried out the attack.
More than 300,000 people have lost their lives in the Syrian war, which began with anti-government protests in 2011.
The UN's refugee agency says that since the conflict began about 5.5 million people have left the country, and another 6.3 million have been left internally displaced.
Damascus has remained mostly under the control of President Bashar al-Assad, and avoided much of the fighting.
However, the capital has experienced a number of suicide bomb attacks.
In March, two bomb attacks in the capital killed more than 40 people - the majority of them Iraqi pilgrims visiting the Bab al-Saghir cemetery, which houses Shia mausoleums. A jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaeda claimed that attack.
A few days later, an attack on the capital's main court complex killed at least 31 people. That attack was claimed by the Islamic State militant group (IS).
Such attacks may become more common as IS loses its territory and resorts to its tactic of striking soft targets in cities to sow instability, the BBC's Arab affairs editor Sebastian Usher reports.
The army is still fighting rebels in the eastern suburban areas of Jobar and Ain Tarma.
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Apple to scan iPhones for child sex abuse images

  Apple has announced details of a system to find child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on customers' devices. Before an image is stored on...