News in Brief(2023-09-06)

Australian lawmakers head to US to lobby
against efforts to extradite Assange
CANBERRA, Sept 05: A group of Australian lawmakers said Tuesday they would travel to Washington this month to lobby the United States to abandon its efforts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The delegation includes former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and five other lawmakers from across the political spectrum. Their trip is timed to draw attention to the issue ahead of a planned visit to the White House in late October by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Ryan said Assange was in poor health which made the matter more pressing. —AP
Palestinian man killed in Israeli raid
JERUSALEM, Sept 05: Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man during an army raid in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials said, the latest incident in a yearlong wave of violence that has surged to levels unseen in the territory in some two decades. Israel has pressed on with near-nightly raids in the West Bank and amid a spike in attacks by Palestinians against Israelis in recent weeks, including a car-ramming at a major West Bank checkpoint and a shooting at a car wash. The military said troops destroyed an explosives stockpile in the Nour Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Tuesday. —AP
Cluster munition deaths in Ukraine pass Syria
AIN SHEEB, Sept 05 (AP): More than 300 people were killed and over 600 wounded by cluster munitions in Ukraine in 2022, according to an international watchdog, surpassing Syria as the country with the highest number of casualties from the controversial weapons for the first time in a decade. Russia's widespread use of the bombs, which open in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets or submunitions as they are called, in its invasion of Ukraine - and, to a lesser extent, their use by Ukrainian forces - helped make 2022 the deadliest year on record globally, according to the annual report released Tuesday by the Cluster Munition Coalition, a network of non-governmental organizations advocating for a ban of the weapons. —AP
Severe rainstorm triggers flooding in Greece
ATHENS, Sept 05: Greek police ordered vehicles off the streets of the central town of Volos and the nearby mountain region of Pilion on Tuesday as a severe storm hit the area, turning streets into flooded torrents. The ban, which covers all except emergency services and roadside assistance vehicles, will remain in place until the storm subsides, police said. The fire department said one man was killed in Volos when a wall buckled and fell on him, while another man was reported missing, believed to have been swept away by floodwaters. —AP