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Flights Briefly Vanish From Austria Air Traffic Key flight data from high-flying aircraft mysteriously disappeared twice recently from controllers’ radar screens in Austria and some of its neighbors and the relevant EU agencies have been asked to investigate, Austria’s flight safety organization said Thursday. (AP) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
Kabul Beefs Up Security Afghan police and soldiers manned checkpoints at almost every intersection Thursday, searching vehicles and frisking drivers in a massive security operation ahead of elections to choose a new president to guide the country after international combat forces withdraw. (AP) SAO PAULO
Police and World Cup Protesters Clash in Brazil Protesters and Brazilian police clashed in Sao Paulo, and two other World Cup cities on Thursday. Just after the first match started, about 300 protesters demonstrating against the World Cup marched along Rio’s Copacabana beach. (AP)
Surviving a 700-Day Syrian Siege Pharmacist, 65, was one of few to stay in blockaded Old City Homs, Syria Over the course of the 700-day blockade, her world shrunk to her living room and her kitchen. She survived by eating plants and reading books. She refused to look in the mirror, because seeing her withered state might break her spirit. Zeinat Akhras, a 65-year-old pharmacist, still bears the effects of nearly two years trapped in her home, surrounded by rebel fighters during the government’s siege on the ancient quarters of the central Syrian city of Homs. She’s still a wispy 83 pounds, even after gaining eight pounds since the blockade ended in early May with the fall of the rebels in the city. “Every day, we said it will end
DUSAN VRANIC (AP)
In Brief
Zeinat Akhras, right, and her brother Ayman survived the siege in Homs, Syria.
tomorrow,” Akhras said. Homs’ Old City, a series of crowded neighborhoods, was under siege and bombardment in a campaign by government forces to starve out rebels. Government forces clamped the seal over the opposition-held
districts in early 2012. Most of the tens of thousands of residents of the areas had already fled. With the siege dragging on, rebels began deserting as hunger spread, and morale collapsed in late 2013. Finally, the last few dozen fighters were evacuated in May to areas
further north under a cease-fire. Akhras and her two brothers were among the few civilians who stayed until the end. As the blockade deepened, Akhras rarely left the building — perhaps six times during the 700 days, she estimated. “I used to come back sad from seeing the destruction. This area used to be full of life,” she said. Akhras initially didn’t know on May 9 that the blockade had been lifted and government troops had entered the neighborhood. In a rare outing to the well across her alleyway, she saw a man who told her, “The army is here.” Surprised, Akhras found a soldier and asked him for bread — still unaware of how skeletal she appeared. The soldier bought her two dozen pieces of pita bread. “I ate a whole piece of bread myself,” she said, her eyes shining. “It tasted like sweets.” DIAA HADID (AP)
Iraq Struggles to Contain Militants
Unemployed and Angry in Greece
PETROS GIANNAKOURIS (AP)
An al-Qaeda breakaway group has seized a large section of northern Iraq after previously taking much of northeastern Syria. The situation on the ground is changing rapidly, but some patterns and explanations are now emerging. (AP/ THE WASHINGTON POST )
BASED ON A TRUE STORY
Future Tony Award While embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford auditions for another term, musical theater actors will be auditioning to portray him next Monday. There’s an open casting call searching for actors to play Ford and his brother Doug for “Rob Ford The Musical: The Birth of a Ford Nation” in Toronto. (AP)
PROTESTERS IN ATHENS, GREECE, scuffle with riot police Thursday outside the Finance Ministry. The protesters were former ministry cleaning staff, who lost their jobs last year. They were angry at a court decision temporarily freezing a previous ruling in favor of their being re-hired.
$3M
Why is this happening now?
Why won’t Iraq’s forces fight back?
Is the U.S. going to do anything?
The group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is taking advantage of growing discontent among Iraq’s minority Sunnis toward Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiiteled government, which they accuse of discrimination.
Corruption and sectarianism are widespread problems in the security forces, with little sense of loyalty to the Baghdad government. Also, Islamic militants are terrorizing Sunni soldiers and police, in at least one case beheading an officer.
President Barack Obama said Thursday it is now clear Iraq will need help from the United States as the situation there deteriorates, adding that he wouldn’t “rule out anything,” including drone strikes and airstrikes, but not ground troops.
The amount spent by the U.S. on eight patrol boats for the Afghan police, according to an internal audit released Thursday. None of the boats ever made it to Afghanistan, which is a landlocked country, because they weren’t necessary, according to the report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. (AP)