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BBC news 2014-08-17

BBC News with Maria Marshal. The BBC has learned that US military planed carrying out air strikes against Islamist militants in Northern Iraq to help Kurdish forces retake a strategic dam near the city of Mosul. Sources in Mosul say at least 11 militants have been killed. Tom Esslemont reports from Washington. “The air strikes began early on Saturday and said to be continuing. A defense official told the BBC that they would provide air cover to Kurdish Peshmerga  forces who had been trying to retake the dam. It was seized by Islamic state militants earlier in the month. The dam is the largest in Iraq and a major source of water and power to the north. If destroyed, experts say, it has the potential to cause mass devastation engulfing the city of Mosul and flooding parts of Baghdad. Kurdish forces have made repeated appeals to western countries for more ammunition to allow them to take on the Jihadist. The United States says it's already helping to arm them.”

The president of Syrian Opposition Coalition has called on the world to intervene in Syria to deal with the threat there of the militant group, the Islamic State in the way they have done in Iraq.  Hadi al-Bahra said the Islamic State and forces loyal to the president Bashar al-Assad had carried out massacres. It appealed the United Nations and United States to end, what he called, the suffering of the Syrian people.

The governor of the American State of Missouri Jay Nixon has signed an order declaring a state of emergency in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson as violent disturbances of looting continue a week after police shot dead an unarmed black teenager. The policeman in charge of security in Ferguson is Captain Ron Johnson.  “The governor then acted a curfew to allow us to provide safety for the citizens at Ferguson, but also to maintain the right of people. That curfew would start today. It would run from twelve midnight, it was a curfew would stop five in the morning. We will enforce that curfew in an effort to provide safety and security to the area.”

The Kenyan health authority has banned the entry of people arriving from the countries worst affected by the deadly outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa. As a result, Kenya Airways has said it would suspend flights to and from Serra Leone and Liberia because of the outbreak. But flights going in and out of Nigeria would continue. Will Ross reports from Lagos. “Kenya Airways had initially rejected calls to suspend the flights, but it had no choice after the government announced that it would not be allowing travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone into the country with the exception of returning Kenyan citizens and health workers. The flight suspensions will start on Wednesday. The fear that the virus could spread beyond West Africa is clearly growing. And the effected countries are slowly but surely being cut off from the rest of the world. It is getting harder for medical staff to reach the countries where they are so badly needed.”

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Reports from Nigeria say Chadian troops have rescued about 90 Nigerian villagers who were abducted early this week in a raid by Boko Haram militants. One report said that the Chadian troops stopped several buses carrying the villagers during a routine boarder check. Survivors of last Sunday's raid told the BBC that the militants killed at least 25 people and injured many others before taking the hostages away on boats across lake chad.

A group of victims from five decades of conflict in Colombia have, for the first time, joined left wing FARC rebels in government negotiators in peace talks that is taking place in Cuba.  Arturo Wallace reports on their visit. “Many see this visit by 12 victims of the Colombian conflict to the peace talks in Havana as powerfully symbolic. President Juan Manuel Santos called it a historic step. He said it was necessary if the country was to achieve peace. They are the first of 60 victims who’ll attend talks over the next few weeks. Among them are victims of the leftist guerrillas, but also of right wing Paramilitary group and the Colombia security forces. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay praised the move calling it uNPRecedented and a potential model for all the countries dealing with issues of justice based on reconciliation.”  

A pro-Russian militant leader in eastern Ukraine has said that some 1,200 fighters trained in Russia will soon join his separatist movement. However, Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minster of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, says these are volunteers, not Russian forces.

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of Turkey's Kurdish militant Group, the PKK, has suggested that the PKK's 30-year conflict with the Turkish authorities for more autonomy is coming to an end.  In a statement from his Island prison, Mr. Ocalan said the Turkey was on the verge of historic developments following presidential election earlier this month. BBC News.