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Inside the 'terror tunnels' of Gaza

Israel announced the withdrawal of ground forces from Gaza on Tuesday for a temporary cease-fire, saying its troops had destroyed the network of tunnels used by Palestinian militants along the Israeli border.

"Mission accomplished," Israel Defense Forces said on its Twitter feed on Tuesday. "We have dismantled the underground terror network built by Hamas to infiltrate and attack Israel."

The 32 "terror tunnels" laid by Hamas had stoked fear among Israelis during the four-week conflict.

The Washington Post noted that Internet videos posted by the IDF showed "masked militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades crawling out of holes in the ground." One purportedly showed a mosque in the Gaza Strip "where two tunnel shafts, digging tools and several weapons were allegedly being protected by Hamas militants." Those, combined with social media-fueled claims that Israeli children could hear shoveling beneath their beds, spread that fear, the Post said.

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An Israeli soldier seen inside a tunnel built by Hamas militants leading from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israel, …

Hamas used tunnels to carry out at least three attacks against Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli military officials.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not pull ground forces out of Gaza until all tunnels into Israel were destroyed "with or without a cease-fire."

So what do the tunnels look like? Last month, Israeli soldiers gave members of the media a guided tour of one of them. Inside, rock and concrete walls were lined with a series of cables connecting Gaza to southern Israel.

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An Israeli army officer gives journalists a tour of a tunnel allegedly used by Palestinian militants for cross-border …

The web of tunnels constructed by Hamas has been dubbed “lower Gaza," forming a network akin to London's Underground or the New York City subway system.

But not all the tunnels are used for terror.

"To many Palestinians in Gaza," Anna Therese Day wrote on Mashable.com, "the primary objective of the tunnels, some of which are miles long, is less about military assaults and more about a connection to the outside world — a conduit through which groceries and other goods can enter the besieged Gaza Strip."

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Israeli soldiers walk through a tunnel discovered near the Israel-Gaza border, Oct. 13, 2013. (AP/Tsafrir Abayov, …

What the Gaza 'terror tunnels' looked like

Israel says its troops destroyed the network of tunnels used by Palestinian militants along the border.
Photos

Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone deployed troops to guard quarantined Ebola patients Tuesday as Saudi Arabia's first suspected case sparked fears of a possible global spread and British Airways cancelled flights to two west African countries.

A presidential aide in Sierra Leone told AFP the soldiers would "deter relatives and friends of Ebola patients from forcefully taking them from hospitals without medical consent".

Ebola, a deadly tropical virus that causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding, has claimed the lives of almost 900 people in four west African nations since the start of the year.

Sierra Leone has seen 646 cases, the highest number of any nation, and 273 deaths.

But the fight against its spread has been hampered by distrustful relatives discharging highly contagious patients from hospitals and taking them back to die in their villages, where countless individuals may have contact with them.

Many indigenous people living in the forested border areas that straddle Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea believe the virus was introduced deliberately by outsiders, or is a hoax fabricated by the West, designed to subjugate them.

The presidency did not give exact numbers or locations for the army deployment, but most of the country's Ebola clinics are in Kailahun and Kenema, the eastern districts hit hardest by the outbreak.

The announcement came after British Airways said it had suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of August "due to the deteriorating public health situation in both countries".

"The safety of our customers, crew and ground teams is always our top priority and we will keep the routes under constant review in the coming weeks," it said in a statement.

The threat of a spread outside of Africa was underlined as Saudi Arabia said doctors were testing a patient suspected of having contracted Ebola during a trip to Sierra Leone.

The health ministry said the Saudi man was admitted to hospital in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after showing Ebola-like symptoms upon his return.

Three foreign missionaries -- a Spaniard, a Congolese and an Equatorial Guinean -- tested positive for the virus in the Liberian capital Monrovia, the Spanish charity St John of God said Tuesday.

They were named as Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, 75, Chantal Pascaline Mutwamene of Congo and Paciencia Melgar of Equatorial Guinea.

- US Ebola patient home -

Also Tuesday, Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma toured health facilities being set up to combat Ebola in the capital Freetown.

A 20-bed treatment centre and laboratory under construction in the western suburb of Lakka will be the first in the city of 1.2 million, which reported its first Ebola case nine days ago.

Business returned to normal in the capital after a "stay at home" day called to give the authorities breathing space to reorganise the response to the outbreak.

Many shops were screening customers' temperatures with high-tech gadgets at their entrances while others provided chlorinated water and soap for customers to wash their hands.

"No handshakes please," read a poster on display at a bank in the central business district.

Health officials have been forced to issue warnings over the danger of excessive use of chlorine, however, following reports of people sipping solutions of the poisonous chemical and washing with it.

"It is detrimental to the user's health and can cause serious internal injury," health ministry spokesman Yahya Tunis said in a public announcement broadcast on television and radio.

"People should return to the traditional hygiene practice of hand-washing with soap."

An American woman infected with Ebola -- the second US patient evacuated from the growing outbreak in west Africa -- arrived Tuesday in the United States for treatment.

After landing at a military air strip aboard a small medical evacuation plane, Nancy Writebol, 60, was transported by ambulance to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

Television crews followed the ambulance by helicopter, and images showed a patient wrapped in a white protective suit being transported on a stretcher to the hospital entrance.

"As anticipated, a second American patient with Ebola virus has been transferred from an overseas location to a special isolation facility in Emory University Hospital for treatment," the hospital said.

The patient's colleague, missionary doctor Kent Brantly, 33, is also receiving care at a special containment unit at the same hospital.

Both Writebol and Brantly worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia and were infected with Ebola while caring for patients in Monrovia.

In Sierra Leone on Tuesday, a former youth and education minister, Lansana Nyallah, told state television he has lost nine members of his family to Ebola and warned: "To those who still believe that Ebola does not exist, please take heed."

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As of August 1, 2014, the cumulative number of cases attributed to EVD in the four countries stands at 1,603 including …

Sierra Leone deploys troops to Ebola clinics

Well-meaning gestures by friends and relatives of patients have added to the outbreak's potency.
646 cases within nation

Moscow may force European airlines to fly around Russia

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev threatened on Tuesday to retaliate for the grounding of a subsidiary of national airline Aeroflot because of EU sanctions, with one newspaper reporting that European flights to Asia over Siberia could be banned.

Low-cost carrier Dobrolyot, operated by Aeroflot, suspended all flights last week after its airline leasing agreement was cancelled under European Union sanctions because it flies to Crimea, a region Russia annexed from Ukraine in March.

"We should discuss possible retaliation," Medvedev said at a meeting with the Russian transport minister and a deputy chief executive of Aeroflot.

The business daily Vedomosti reported that Russia may restrict or ban European airlines from flying over Siberia on Asian routes, a move that would impose costs on European carriers by making flights take longer and require more fuel.

Vedomosti quoted unnamed sources as saying the foreign and transport ministries were discussing the action, which would put European carriers at a disadvantage to Asian rivals but would also cost Russia money it collects in overflight fees.

Shares in Aeroflot - which according to Vedomosti gets around $300 million a year in fees paid by foreign airlines flying over Siberia - tumbled after the report, closing down 5.9 pct compared with a 1.4 percent drop on the broad index.

At the height of the Cold War, most Western airlines were barred from flying through Russian airspace to Asian cities, and instead had to operate via the Gulf or the U.S. airport of Anchorage, Alaska on the polar route.

European carriers now fly over Siberia on their rapidly growing routes to countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, paying the fees which have been subject to a long dispute between Brussels and Moscow.

Vedomosti quoted one source as saying a ban could cost airlines like Lufthansa, British Airways and Air France 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over three months, but industry experts said that figure was probably too high.

Putin Orders Russia Gov't Response To Sanction …Play Video

Avoiding Russian airspace would probably be 25-50 percent more expensive than paying fees for transit, said Russian aviation consultant Boris Ryabok, estimating European airlines would lose around $100-200 million per year, less than the cost to Russia of the lost fees.

Lufthansa said it operates about 180 flights a week through Siberian airspace but declined further comment, as did British Airways.

The EU has widened its sanctions after last month's downing of a Malaysian airliner over territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Moscow rebels, with the loss of 298 lives.

MISERABLE SUMMER

The suspension of the airline flying to Crimea prevented Russians from taking cheap holidays on the Black Sea peninsula at resorts such as Yalta. This has added to a miserable summer during which a series of Russian travel companies have gone under as the economy flirts with recession and the rouble falls.

Itar-Tass reported on Tuesday that the IntAer travel operator had become the latest to fold, stranding about 500 holidaymakers abroad. The company blamed "a sharp fall in demand and purchasing power and the rise in the exchange rates of foreign currencies and the negative political situation".

Russians have been increasingly taking holidays in countries such as Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Egypt. However, the rouble has fallen 9 percent this year against the dollar due to the slowing economy and the effects of the crisis in relations with the West, forcing up the cost of foreign trips.

Around 15,000 tourists are stuck abroad following the collapse of the larger Labirint holiday firm, although industry officials have promised customers will be compensated from insurance policies which the companies had to take out.

A Greek tourism official said the country expected 1.1 million Russian tourists this year, down from 1.35 million in 2013. Arrivals from Ukraine, where government forces are battling the rebels in the east, are down 50 percent.

Andreas Andreadis, who heads the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises, expected this would cost the country 300 million euros ($400 million). Greece still aimed to boost numbers of Russian visitors to 2.5 million a year by 2021, he said, but added "Things look like they will be getting worse before they get better."

While the mass travel market suffers, sanctions imposed by the United States have targeted individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Billionaire Gennady Timchenko said U.S. company Gulfstream had stopped servicing his private plane. "Gulfstream has ceased to fulfil its contractual obligations, grounding my jet which had been purchased from it for a lot of money," he told ITAR-TASS news agency in an interview.

Gulfstream had been banned from any contact with Timchenko, he said, and could no longer supply spare parts. Pilots had also been banned from using the jet's navigation system.

However, Timchenko said Russia's business elite would not put pressure on Putin to change tack on Ukraine due to the sanctions which would only strengthen support for his policies.

($1 = 0.7452 Euros)

(Additonal reporting by Katya Golubkova, Victoria Bryan, Sarah Young and Renee Maltezou; Editing by David Stamp and Peter Graff)

Moscow threatens to force fly-around for airlines

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warns of retaliation for European Union sanctions.
The flights potentially affected

Four years after a BP oil rig exploded and flooded the Gulf of Mexico with an estimated 170 million gallons of oil, scientists have discovered further evidence of coral communities affected by this environmental disaster.

Scientists at Pennsylvania State University, in State College, Pa., found coral communities that show signs of damage from 2010's Deepwater Horizon oil spill more than 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the disaster site. The new findings suggest that the oil spill's footprint is both deeper and wider than was previously thought.

"This study very clearly shows that multiple coral communities, up to 22 kilometers [13.7 miles] from the spill site and at depths over 1,800 meters [5,905 feet], were impacted by the spill," Charles Fischer, a professor of biology at Penn State and co-author of the study, said in a statement.

To locate additional coral communities that may have been affected by the spill, Fischer and his team used 3D seismic data from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. They identified 488 potential coral habitats within a 25-mile (40 km) radius of the spill site, and from that list selected 29 sites that may have been impacted by the 2010 disaster. [Images of Coral Damaged by Deepwater Horizon Spill]

Using a specially designed digital camera, called a tow system, as well as a robotic submarine, the researchers captured underwater images of the ocean floor. Wherecoral sites were found, the team used a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to collect high-resolution images of the corals.

The researchers then compared images of new coral communities with previously collected data of a coral community affected by the 2010 spill. These older coral images served as a model "fingerprint" for gauging the impact of the spill on newly discovered coral.

"With the camera on board the ROV we were able to collect beautiful, high-resolution images of the corals," Fischer said. "When we compared these images with our examples of known oil damage, all the signs were present providing clear evidence in two of the newly discovered coral communities of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill."

Unlike other organisms whose remains sink to the ocean floor and quickly disappear, corals form a mineralized skeleton that can last for years after the organisms die, according to the researchers.

"One of the keys to coral's usefulness as an indicator species is that the coral skeleton retains evidence of the damage long after the oil that caused the damage is gone," Fischer said.

In their search for coral communities affected by the 2010 oil spill, the researchers also found two coral sites entangled with commercial fishing lines. This discovery serves as a reminder that, in addition to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, marine species in the Gulf of Mexico continue to be harmed by a wide range of human activities, the researchers said.

The study was published online July 28 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo on Twitter @techEpalermo, Facebook or Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Original article onLive Science.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — At Russia's request, the U.N. Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine.

The open session will be held late Tuesday.

Britain holds the Security Council presidency this month and its U.N. Mission said John Ging, the director of U.N. humanitarian operations, will brief council members.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has repeatedly warned of a growing humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine.

Fighting reached the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Tuesday as pro-Russian separatists and government troops exchanged rocket fire in neighborhoods on the edge of the city. The spread of fighting into the city could result in an alarming escalation in the humanitarian crisis gripping the country's easternmost regions.