Israeli police killed in attack near Jerusalem holy site

Two Israeli policemen have been killed and a third wounded in a shooting attack near a sacred site in Jerusalem.
They were shot by three Israeli Arabs close to the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary).
Police chased the attackers into the site and shot them dead.
There has been a wave of stabbings, shootings and car-rammings of Israelis predominantly by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since late 2015.
Two of the previous attackers were Jordanians.

Police say the three men who carried out Friday's attack were aged between 19 and 29 and came from the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm. Israel's Shin Bet security agency said that they were not previously known to the security services.
Police say the gunmen opened fire as they made their way from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif towards Lions' Gate, an opening in the Old City walls about 100ft (30 metres) away.
The attackers were then pursued back to the compound, where they were killed.

In the wake of the incident, police sealed off the site to search it for weapons. It is the first time in decades that the compound, which contains the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, has been closed for Muslim Friday prayers, which normally draws thousands of worshippers.
The site is administered by an Islamic authority (Waqf), though Israel is in charge of security there. Police are investigating how the attackers managed to smuggle in a handgun, sub-machine gun and knife.
The Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Hussein, who had urged worshippers to defy the closure, was detained by police, his aides said, though Israeli officials would not comment.
Elsewhere, a Palestinian was shot dead in clashes with Israeli forces at a refugee camp near Bethlehem on Friday, Palestinian sources said.
Barra Hamamdeh, 21, was killed during a raid by troops on the Dheisheh camp, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

'Severe event'

The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif is the holiest site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam and is one of the most politically sensitive sacred places in the world.

It is located in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war. Israel considers the entire city its sovereign capital, while Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their sought-after future state.
Israel's Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the attack was "a serious and severe event in which red lines were crossed", adding that security arrangements in and around the site would be reviewed.
No group has said it was responsible, though the militant Palestinian Hamas movement, which runs the Gaza Strip, praised the attack as a "natural response to the Zionist ongoing crimes".
The shooting comes weeks after an Israeli policewoman was killed in a knife and gun attack outside the Old City by three Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.
Forty-four Israelis and five foreign nationals have been killed in nearly two years of such attacks.
At least 255 Palestinians - most of them attackers, Israel says - have also been killed in that period, news agencies report. Others have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
Israel says Palestinian incitement has fuelled the attacks. The Palestinian leadership has blamed frustration rooted in decades of Israeli occupation.


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China villagers launch Dutch court bid to retrieve mummy

Chinese villagers are taking their fight to retrieve an allegedly stolen 1,000-year-old mummified monk to a Dutch court on Friday.
The monk's remains, which are inside a Buddha statue, were taken from a temple in the small Chinese village of Yangchun in Fujian province in 1995.
The villagers say a Dutch collector, whom they are suing, bought the statue in Hong Kong in 1996.
The statue was not seen until turning up at a show in Budapest in 2015.
In recent years, Beijing has vigorously tried to retrieve artefacts it says were stolen.
But so far there have been few successes via courts of law.
The latest case is complicated by the fact that the collector, Oscar van Overeem, is believed to have swapped the statue with another dealer, whose identity has been hidden, in exchange for several Buddhist artefacts in late 2015.
The statue's current whereabouts are not clear.
In this case, the Buddha statue, known as the Zhanggong Patriarch, had been in the villagers' temple for centuries, and was also worshipped by residents of the neighbouring Dongpu village.
The villagers had hidden the mummy in their homes and even buried it in fields during the destruction wrought by China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, reported the South China Morning Post.
A scan of the statue a few years ago showed it contained the remains of a monk, thought to be 1,000 years old.
The villagers were able to prove they were descendants of the monk, their lawyer, Jan Holthuis, told AFP news agency.
He said they would argue that, according to Dutch law, "a person is not allowed to have a known body in their possession.
"We also have enough evidence to prove that the statue is indeed the one that was stolen from the temple," Mr Holthuis added.
According to the state-owned China News Service, the Dutch collector is contesting the claim on the grounds that it was filed by village committees - entities he claims cannot be seen as legal plaintiffs under Dutch law.



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Air Canada plane 'missed aircraft by 30m' at San Francisco airport

An Air Canada flight with 140 people on board came within 30m (98ft) of other aircraft at San Francisco's airport as it prepared to land, a report says.
Flight AC759 from Toronto was cleared to land on 7 July but the pilot "inadvertently" headed for a taxiway where four aircraft were due to depart.
The error was spotted by an air traffic controller, who ordered the pilot to pull up and make another approach.
The Airbus 320 then circled and landed safely. No injuries were reported.
As the plane approached the taxiway, which runs parallel to the runway, it is estimated that it flew just 30m above two aircraft waiting to depart, a preliminary report by Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said.
After receiving a warning, the pilot pulled up and the plane rose about 60m above a third jet and about 90m above a fourth, the TSB said.
Flight AC759 had already travelled almost 400 metres over the taxiway before aborting the landing, the board's report added.

'Where's this guy going'

An investigation into the incident by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ongoing. The FAA described the near-miss as "very rare".
Air Canada said that 135 passengers and five crew members were on the flight from Toronto.
It is not clear how many people were in the four planes on the taxiway.
The taxiway, which provides lanes for aircraft to travel between runways and terminals for both landing and takeoff, are distinguished by different coloured lights.
Earlier, an audio recording was released of what was said to be communication between air traffic controllers and pilots at San Francisco's airport on 7 July.
In it, a male voice believed to be that of the Air Canada pilot is heard saying that there are lights on the runway.
One of the air traffic controllers replies that there are no other planes there.
Another - unidentified - voice is then heard saying: "Where's this guy going? He's on the taxiway."
The air traffic controller then apparently realises the danger of the Air Canada plane crashing into the four aircraft on the ground, and orders the pilot to pull up and make another approach.
A pilot from one of the planes on the ground is heard saying: "United One, Air Canada flew directly over us."
An Air Canada spokeswoman, Angela Mah, said the airline was investigating the incident and was "co-operating with the authorities", local media report.


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Trump Jr meeting: Russia lobbyist confirms attendance

A Russian-American lobbyist also attended a meeting last year that has embroiled President Donald Trump's son in the Russia inquiry, it has emerged.
Rinat Akhmetshin told AP news agency he went to the meeting at which Donald Trump Jr was promised Kremlin-linked material about Hillary Clinton.
"I never thought this would be such a big deal, to be honest," Mr Akhmetshin told the AP.
Congress is asking the president's son to publicly testify about the meeting.
Emails show Mr Trump Jr, together with the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, met Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who had reported ties to the Russian government, on 9 June 2016.
Emails show the encounter was arranged under the premise that Ms Veselnitskaya would share damaging information about Mrs Clinton, Mr Trump's Democratic party rival for the White House.
Mr Trump Jr said it later became apparent that Ms Veselnitskaya wanted to discuss a suspended programme for Americans to adopt Russian children.
Congressional and federal investigators are scrutinising alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
Since he was elected, President Trump has been dogged by allegations that Russia tried to sabotage Mrs Clinton's campaign to help him win.
He has rejected any knowledge of this and Russia has also repeatedly denied interfering.
During a news conference in Paris, Mr Trump defended his son, saying he was merely attempting to collect opposition research and that "most people would have taken that meeting".
"Nothing happened from the meeting. Zero happened," Mr Trump insisted.
Mr Akhmetshin has previously denied reports that he worked for Soviet military intelligence, which he would have had to disclose when applying for US citizenship.
"I am an American citizen since 2009 who pays taxes, earned his citizenship after living here since 1994, and swore an oath of loyalty to the United States of America," he previously told Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in an email.
Mr Trump Jr's lawyer, Alan Futerfas, told the Hill, a Washington DC politics news outlet, that the lobbyist had been introduced during the meeting as a friend of Ms Veselnitskaya.
The lawyer said: "Basically he helped translate because Natalia's English is not that good.
"He's a US citizen. All I can say is Trump Jr. met him for the first time and learned his name minutes before the meeting and he was introduced as a friend."
Mr Futerfas denied the lobbyist worked for the Russian government.
The meeting at Trump Tower was set up by Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist for Russian pop star Emin Agalarov.
Mr Agalarov worked with Donald Trump Snr on staging the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.
Mr Goldstone emailed Mr Trump Jr to advise him that "two people" would attend the meeting to provide information that is "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr Trump".
Ms Veselnitskaya earlier this week told the New York Times she had been joined by a translator, without naming the person.


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Qatar-US terrorism funding deal insufficient, Saudi-led bloc says


The four Arab states leading a boycott of Qatar say it will continue despite a deal between Washington and Doha to combat the financing of terrorism.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt said the deal brokered by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday was "not enough".
Qatar's government "cannot be trusted", they added, citing previous agreements.
The four have accused the emirate of supporting terrorist groups across the region. It has denied any wrongdoing.
Qatar was presented with a list of demands two weeks ago that included shutting down the Al Jazeera news network, closing a Turkish military base, cutting ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and downgrading relations with Iran.
But after receiving what they called a "negative" response last week, the four states said they would take further "political, economic and legal measures".
Mr Tillerson flew to Doha on Tuesday to sign a memo of understanding between the US and Qatar on terrorism financing that was proposed when President Donald Trump attended the Arab Islamic American Summit in the Saudi capital in May.
"The agreement which we both have signed on behalf of our governments represents weeks of intensive discussions between experts and reinvigorates the spirit of the Riyadh summit," Mr Tillerson told a joint news conference with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani.
"The memorandum lays out a series of steps that each country will take in coming months and years to interrupt and disable terror financing flows and intensify counter-terrorism activities globally," he added.
Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar was the first country in the region to sign such an agreement with the US and called on the "siege" nations to follow suit.
Qatar has acknowledged providing assistance to Islamist groups designated as terrorist organisations by some of its neighbours, notably the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hamas movement. But it has denied aiding militant groups linked to al-Qaeda or so-called Islamic State.
Later on Tuesday, the Saudi-led bloc issued a joint statement saying that while it appreciated US efforts to combat terrorism, more needed to be done.
"It must be stressed that this step is not enough and the four countries will closely watch how serious the Qatari authorities are in their fight against all forms of funding, supporting and embracing terrorism," the statement said.
The Qatari authorities needed to do show their "seriousness in getting back to the natural and right path" and "comprehensively implement the just demands" of its neighbours, it added.
Mr Tillerson, who has said the demands must be "reasonable and actionable" and called for "constructive dialogue", held talks on Wednesday with the foreign ministers of the four states in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.


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Nabila Rifo: Chile court cuts jail term of attacker


Chile's Supreme Court has sparked an outcry after reducing the sentence of a man who gouged out his partner's eyes in a notorious case.
Mauricio Ortega had his term shortened from 26 to 18 years.
The court ruled he was not attempting to kill Nabila Rifo when he attacked her.
He beat Ms Rifo until she passed out. Then he gouged out her eyes and left her in the street, where she suffered hypothermia.
The ruling sparked a protest outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday and the story has been trending on Chilean social media, with thousands drawing attention to what they see as an unjust decision.
The Minister for Women's Rights and Gender Equity, Claudia Pascual, told reporters she accepted the court's decision, but did not agree with it.
"When one person strikes another with injuries as serious as is the case of Nabila, it is difficult to think that there was not an intention to kill," she said.
The attack on Ms Rifo in southern Chile last year became a huge symbol of the country's uphill battle against domestic violence.
After she was found in a bloodied heap on a road in Coyhaique, shocked neighbours held a protest calling for "respect and justice".
News spread and soon there were sister demonstrations, 1,500km (900 miles) further north in the capital, Santiago.
President Michelle Bachelet visited her in hospital and when Ortega was sentenced in May 2017, she said justice had been served. "It is fundamental that the country defends women against violence," she tweeted.
Ortega was found guilty of causing serious injury and "attempted femicide" (a legal term in the country, meaning the killing of a woman because of her gender).
However, his defence lawyer, Ricardo Flores, then launched a fight for a retrial in order to reduce the sentence.
Mr Flores said last month: "From the legal point of view, it would have been simpler to have killed her than simply to have left her alive."
President Bachelet tweeted on 21 June: "Outrageous statements from the lawyer of Nabila Rifo's attacker. They stem from deep violence. This can not be tolerated."
The court rejected the appeal for a retrial, but reduced the jail time after overruling the prosecution for "attempted femicide".
During the trial, Ms Rifo, then 28, told the court: "He harassed me for every little thing, for the food that I cooked 'badly'. He told me I was a whore. Sometimes he even dragged me down the stairs."
Ortega is the father to two of her four children.
She told the Chilean press she had shared her story as an example to others.
In a Facebook video statement before the Supreme Court's decision was made, she thanked people for their support and expressed a wish for an outcome that showed women were valued as much as men.
n Twitter, some people expressed frustration that the story was being overshadowed by news that Chilean footballer Alexis Sánchez had a new girlfriend.
The verdict is not open to appeals.


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