Palestinians want pressure on Israel
Palestinians called on the U.N. Security Council on Monday to take urgent action to stop what they call an escalating military campaign by Israeli forces that has led to a dramatic increase in Palestinian casualties in recent days.
The Palestinian U.N. observer, Riyad Mansour, said in a letter to the council that at least 17 Palestinians have been killed since Friday and scores more have been wounded in a barrage of military attacks and “extrajudicial executions.”
Mansour told reporters that Arab nations will meet to decide what action they want the Security Council to take. Options range from holding an open meeting on the upsurge in violence to adopting a council statement or a resolution.
“The bottom line (is) the Security Council has to take steps and measures to bring pressure on Israel to stop its aggression against the Palestinian people,” Mansour told reporters after delivering the letter to the council president, China’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya.
JAKARTA, Indonesia
Separatists attack, battle soldiers
Separatist rebels armed with bows and arrows stormed a military post in Papua province, sparking a battle that killed two soldiers and two attackers, an official said today.
About 30 rebels attacked the post close to the Indonesian province’s border with Papua New Guinea on Monday as soldiers were operating a free health clinic for local villagers, said Maj. Gen. Sunarto, who goes by only one name.
Most of the assailants were armed with primitive weapons, including bows and arrows and axes, but one had an AK-47 assault rife, Sunarto said.
“This event is proof that there is a threat from separatists in the region,” said Sunarto. “The country must unite and fight them.”
Independence activists and a small band of rebels have waged a decades-long rebellion for a separate Papua state, which is one of Indonesia’s poorest regions despite abundant supplies of gas, timber, gold and copper.
ACCRA, Ghana
110 feared dead in boat disaster
An overloaded motorboat carrying about 150 passengers on a vast lake in this West African nation has sunk, and 110 people are missing and feared dead, police said Monday.
Only 40 people are known to have survived the sinking Saturday afternoon on Lake Volta, said Akwasi Anyidoho, a police official in the region. He said hopes for finding more survivors were slim.
The motorboat was carrying passengers across the world’s largest artificial lake to the mainland, where they were moving their homes after their island was designated a natural reserve.
The boat struck something in the water and sank, Anyidoho said by telephone. He said the boat had exceeded its legal passenger capacity.
In a vast continent with poor road and rail systems, water routes are often used to transport goods and people, and many Africans rely on rickety vessels.
Compiled from wire reports