BBC在线收听下载:美支持的军事力量对伊斯兰国发起全面进攻

Hello, I'm Eileen Mckue with the BBC News.

US-backed forces are continuing an all-out offensive to defeat hundreds of Islamic State fighters from their last hold out in northeastern Syria. IS militants are reported to be putting up fierce resistance. Sebastian Usher reports.

Air strikes by the US-led coalition and artillery fire have pummeled the IS position which measures about four square kilometres. The SDF, a Kurdish-led alliance believes it will shortly achieve a decisive victory. There may still be up to six hundred IS fighters in the area. Thousands of civilians have escaped but others are believed to remain. IS does still hold another scrap of territory in Syria and it continues to carry out dozens of attacks. Even if it loses every last fragment of its once-vaunted and self-declared caliphate, the group still poses a potent threat in both Syria and Iraq.

Trade and conflict will dominate discussions at the African Union Summit, which is getting underway in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Particular emphasis is being placed on the more than twenty million people who have been forced to flee their homes because of wars. Emmanuel Igunza reports from the meeting.

The UN Refugee Agency says Africa holds more than a quarter of the world's refugees and internal displace, a total of more than twenty million people. The leaders will also discuss efforts to integrate the continent's trade policies, following the signing last year of an European Union style free market agreement. The African Union has embarked on a series of reforms to streamline its operations and make it less dependent on international financial support. It hopes the changes can also help the AU shed its image of a body that has plans and ambitions but achieves little.

India says more than 1700 people have died in various incidents of human-elephant conflict in the past three years. In the same period, the Ministry of Environment says 373 elephants lost their lives due to electrocution and poaching. This report from Anbrathan Antirajon.

Wildlife expert say deforestation and expanding human settlements along space of forest used by elephants known as elephant corridors as the reasons for the high number of deaths of both humans and the animals. Farmers trying to chase away marauding elephants using firecrackers, drums and fire bombs have become a regular occurrence, particularly in states like Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Desperate farmers often put up illegal electric fences to stop the animals from destroying the crops leading to elephant deaths. India is home to the largest population of Asian elephants in the world and estimated twenty-seven thousand animals.

World news from the BBC.