Rockets from Syria kill girl in Turkey
REYHANLI, Turkey, Jan 31: A 17-year-old girl was killed in a Turkish border town on Wednesday by rockets launched from Syria, officials said, as Turkey presses its offensive against a Syrian Kurdish militia. Ankara began a cross-border operation dubbed "Olive Branch" supporting Syrian rebels with air strikes and ground troops in northern Syria against the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia and its western enclave of Afrin on January 20. Another individual was also hurt after two rockets hit Reyhanli in Hatay province from northern Syria, the district mayor Huseyin Sanverdi said in a statement. —AFP
HK lawmakers vote to ban ivory sales
HONG KONG, Jan 31: Hong Kong voted to ban ivory sales in a landmark move Wednesday to end the infamous trade in the city. Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted for the bill that will abolish the trade by 2021, following on the heels of China's complete ban on ivory sales that went into effect at the end of last year. "Shutting down this massive ivory market has thrown a lifeline to elephants," said Bert Wander of global advocacy group Avaaz in a statement. "Today is a great day for elephants. Hong Kong has always been the 'heart of darkness' of the ivory trade with a 670-tonne stockpile when international trade was banned in 1989," said Alex Hoffard of WildAid Hong Kong. AFP
French police detain Islamic scholar accused of rape
PARIS, Jan 31: French police on Wednesday detained prominent Swiss Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, a legal source said, months after two women filed rape charges against him. The Oxford professor was summoned for questioning to a Paris police station and taken into custody "as part of a preliminary inquiry in Paris into rape and assault allegations", the source said. Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement, has furiously denied rape allegations from two women that emerged late last year, as the Harvey Weinstein scandal unfurled in the US. Henda Ayari, a feminist activist, says Ramadan raped her in a Paris hotel room in 2012.—AFP
Quake rattles northern Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan 31 (AFP): A powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said, sending people in Kabul rushing into the streets and creating tremors as far away as Islamabad and New Delhi. The quake struck at 0707 GMT near Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 191 kilometres, the USGS said. Frightened residents ran out of homes and shops following the tremor in Kabul. No casualties were immediately reported. — AFP
European envoys urge Sudan to free protesters
KHARTOUM, Jan 31: European embassies in Sudan made a joint plea Wednesday for Khartoum to free dozens of people, including opposition leaders and human rights activists, detained while protesting against high food prices. "We condemn the violence used against peaceful protest, and continue to encourage those exercising their fundamental rights to do so peacefully," the embassies of European Union member states said in a statement.—AFP
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