BBC news 2014-08-24 加文本

BBC news 2014-08-24

BBC News with Stuart Mcintosh.

A militia alliance in Libya says it's captured Tripoli's international airport after heavy fighting with a rival armed group. The alliance said it's seized the airport despite airstrikes against it which it blamed on Egypt and United Arab Emirates. Tripoli's airport has been closed for more than a month because of fighting between rival armed groups that emerged from the revolution that toppled Colonel Gaddafi in 2011. Rana Jawad reports from Tripoli.

Rival militias have been locked in battles over the airport and their camps for 5 weeks and an alliance of armed groups which include Islamist forces have now overrun what's left of Tripoli's international airport. Pictures show militia forces from the western city of Misrata cheering atop of wrecked planes amidst the debris. This airport was shut down more than a month ago after a group of militias attacked their rivals there who've been manning it for nearly 3 years.

United Nations officials in Iraq are warning that a massacre could take place in a town where thousands of members of the Shiite Turkmen minority are besieged by Islamic State militants. Jim Muir reports from northern Iraq.

The situation of the thousands of people besieged in Amerli by the militants of the Islamic State is by all accounts extremely dire, with little food, water or medical supplies. Only small amounts of aid have been taken in by Iraqi army helicopters, but nothing like enough. But beyond the hardship is the fear of what could happen. Religious minorities in areas overrun by the IS have been lucky if they escaped with their lives, and many, especially among the Yazidi sectors in Sinjar were killed. The UN is calling on the Iraqi government and the international community for immediate action to prevent a possible massacre.

And an Israeli airstrike has demolished a 12-storey apartment block in Gaza city. Reports say at least 10 people were injured. A military official was quoted as saying that Hamas militants used the block as a command center. The owner of the building Salah Abu Samhadana said more than 30 families were left homeless.

We were informed about half an hour before the shelling took place. Istara has 12 floors and 32 families were living there. The minute we evacuated, the place was hit by a warning rocket. And immediately after that, the F16 fighter jets fired 2 rockets, the building collapsed completely, all families are now in the streets. God help us all.

More than 300 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors have issued a public statement, condemning what they termed Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people, the statement placed as an advertisement in the New York Times newspaper called for the blockade of Gaza to be lifted and Israel to be boycotted. The signatories expressed alarm of what they called the racist and dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society.

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Thousands of people in the United States have marched through the New York Borough of Staten Island to protest the death of an unarmed black man by a white police officer last month. The man's widow  Esaw Garner urged the crowd to march in peace. A New York coroner ruled that Eric Garner was killed by the stranglehold of a policeman. His death which was filmed by an onlooker caused an outcry because he could be heard on film, saying he couldn't breath.

Iceland has closed part of its air space after strong indications that a volcano has erupted under the country's biggest glacier. If the lava reaches the surface, it can send huge ash clouds high into the atmosphere and the European Air Safety Agency, Euro control has upgraded its continent-wide alert. Prof. David (Ratheri) a lecturer in planetary geo-sciences says the threat of disruption is low. 

There is nothing visible up the surface yet, if it does break through the ice, it's unlikely but there will be a high ash column. If there is a very high ash column, but when at the moment, it's going to blow it over the Europe. So we are not going to have to repeat of the 2010 crisis, because also we have less stringent rules about way can fly. In 2010, if there was any ash in the sky, you couldn't fly through it. 

The parliament in Sierra Leone has passed legislation prescribing a 2-year jail term for anyone knowingly harboring a person infected with Ebola. A government official said the move was aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. In another development, Ivory Coast has closed its land borders with Liberia and Guinea.

One of the most celebrated names in the French wine industry, Philippe de Rothschild has died at the age of 80. Baroness Rothschild oversaw a big international expansion of the famous Bordeaux brand after inheriting the family estate in 1988. Before that she had a 30-year career as a actress, using the stage name Philippine Pascale.

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