BBC news with Jonathan Izard.
President Obama has said the US military will conduct further air strikes on Sunni Jihadists in northern Iraq if necessary. In a televised address, he again rejected the idea of sending US combat troops back to the country, saying that the militant group Islamic State could only be defeated by a unified Iraqi government that involved all of the country's minorities.
“We continue to call on the Iraqis to come together and form the inclusive government that Iraq needs right now. Vice President Biden has been speaking to Iraqi leaders and our team in Baghdad is in close touch with the Iraqi government. All Iraqi communities are ultimately threatened by these barbaric terrorists; and all Iraqi communities need to unite to defend their country.”
Mr. Obama emphasized that the United States would continue efforts to help thousands of Yazidi men, women and children stranded on the remote mountainside in northern Iraq. He said American aircraft will position to strike Islamic State fighters there to help forces in Iraq break the siege.
There's been no sign of a let-up to the fighting in Gaza as it continued for a second day since a temporary ceasefire expired. The BBC’s Kevin Connolly reports from Gaza.
“By the groomed standard of recent weeks, it was a relatively quiet day in Gaza, but only relatively. That is Israeli air strike on a Hamas training facilities on the water front in Gaza City to be heard from miles around and sent a huge column of black and grey smoke boiling into the Mediterranean sky. Several rockets were launched in Gaza into Israel, and Israel attacked other targets, too, including a mosque where it says a senior member of the military wing of Hamas was killed.”
There've been big protests in Britain and South Africa against Israel's assault on Gaza. In London, tens of thousands marched to demand an end of the violence and an arms embargo against Israel. The rally in Cape Town was one of the largest since the end of apartheid in South Africa. It was called by the national coalition Palestine which includes religious groups, trades unions and political parties.
A day after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a global emergency, several African nations have begun to take further preventative measures. Richard Hamilton reports.
“Although Africa's most populous nation Nigeria has the seriousest of the recorded cases of Ebola, it seems to be taken the WHO's concerns very seriously by creating more isolation centers on a public information campaign. The health ministry in Guinea says it’s closed its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia. The outbreak first occurred in Guinea back in March and its two neighbors have already closed their borders with it. Further afield, Zambia said it would restrict the entry of travelers from countries affected by Ebola and not allow Zambians to go there.”
BBC news.
The Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko has said he's ready to consider allowing humanitarian assistance to be taken into the rebel-held area of eastern Ukraine. But he said any such mission must be international and unarmed, and could enter only through Ukraine-controlled checkpoints, escorted by Ukraine forces. His statement followed repeated Russian calls for humanitarian assistance for eastern Ukraine. The United States, Britain and Germany have warned Russia against going ahead with any unilateral intervention in the region.
Venezuela has announced it will close its border with Colombia every night, starting on Monday to prevent larger scale smuggling. The authorities in Venezuela said more than 40 million liters of petrol and 20,000 tons of food have been smuggled into Columbian this year. The goods are heavily subsidized by the Venezuelan government and sold at much higher prices in Colombia. Ian Rado Rosher has more.
“The left-wing government of Nicolás Maduro subsidizes petrol and many food staples, such as milk, rice and pasta, which are sold at controlled prices. But he says that up to 40% of the goods produced in Venezuela end up on the other side of the border, in Colombia, where they are sold at much higher prices. Venezuela says the decision to close the border was agreed last week in a summit between Mr. Maduro and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos.”
An anti-government cleric in Pakistan has accused police of shooting dead seven of his supporters in Punjab province. The authorities said two people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces including one police officer. The violence took place as supporters of the cleric Tahirul Qadri made their way to the provincial capital Lahore for a planned demonstration on Sunday.
China's state news agency Xinhua says a bus carrying tourists has veered off a cliff in Tibet. 44 people were killed and 11 others wounded. Reports said the bus left the road after colliding with a car and a truck.