Shorter Question Everything

Yemen
That’s convenient, isn’t it? Guess it paid off.

• A U.S. military commander said on Friday the United States will more than double its nearly $70 million security assistance program for Yemen, where a crackdown is underway on al Qaeda militants believed to be behind a failed plot to blow up a U.S. airliner.

Afghanistan

• The UN special envoy in Afghanistan has said he is concerned about the mounting civilian death toll in the war-ravaged country. Kai Eide warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces “given that they often result in lethal outcomes for civilians.” The UN representative urged US-led NATO forces to make every effort to minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan. He was referring to the alleged killing of ten civilians at the hands of foreign troops on Sunday in northeast Afghanistan. The US military insists that the victims were armed militants. The UN however confirmed that Afghans slain in a US-led raid at weekend were Students. “Based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools.” Eide said. The victims, including eight school children, were dragged out of their homes in the Kunar province and shot to death.

Iraq

• Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge’s decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings. The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge’s decision as proof of what they’d long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law. “There is no justice,” said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. “I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square.” “I was not astonished by the verdict because the trial was unreal. They are using double standards and talking about human rights, but they are the first to violate these rights. They are killing innocents deliberately,” said Ahmed Jassim, a civil engineer in the southern city of Najaf.
• The Iraqi government will push to appeal a US court ruling dismissing charges of murder against five security guards of the private Blackwater firm, an official has told Al Jazeera. “This is very bad … for the overall look of the United States outside its borders. It’s very important for the Americans to realise that this will work against their interests in Iraq and other places.”

Venezuela

• The Venezuelan government is accusing the Netherlands of helping the United States prepare an attack from Dutch islands in the Caribbean. The Netherlands had earlier assured Venezuela that US troops were only on the islands of Aruba and Curaçao to combat the drugs trade. However, Venezuela is insisting its airspace has been violated by US military planes based on the Dutch islands.

Palestine and Israel

• Israeli warplanes and tanks have carried out attacks across the Gaza Strip, damaging residential areas and leaving four Palestinians wounded. The airstrikes which targeted residential areas in northern and central Gaza Strip, caused panic among children in the region, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday.