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Weapons Convoys Seen Rolling in Eastern Ukraine

By Christian Lowe and Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW/ NOVOAZOVSK Ukraine (Reuters) - On Monday, a resident of Novoazovsk in south-eastern Ukraine said she saw a column of armored vehicles approach the town and start shooting.

"It all started at 8:00 this morning, tanks appeared, no fewer than seven of them," the woman, who gave her name only as Lyudmila, told Reuters by telephone. "Right now I can hear rumbling, explosions ... the residents are hiding."

In Kiev later that morning, Ukrainian officials said the column was an incursion by Russian troops which it alleges are fighting alongside pro-Moscow separatists, a claim Russia quickly dismissed as disinformation.

That is a now-familiar ritual: the five-month conflict over eastern Ukraine is one of claim and counter-claim by opposing sides, often centering on what role Russia is playing. With the battlefield mostly too dangerous for reporters to safely move around, verifying who is doing what is usually impossible.

On Tuesday, in a continuation of the pattern, Kiev said it had captured a group of Russian soldiers who had entered Ukraine on a "special mission", while Moscow said they were there by mistake.

However, the armored column that appeared on Monday in the far south-eastern corner of Ukraine, where it abuts the Russian border, was unusual because the spot was far removed from any territory held by the separatists.

It was therefore difficult to see how the column could have appeared in Ukraine without having come across the Russian border, unless it made an amphibious landing from the nearby Azov Sea which is improbable given the number of heavy vehicles witnesses said they saw.

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A crater made by a shell which, according to a fighter of the Ukrainian volunteer Dnipro battalion w …

A Reuters reporter was able to observe the situation in the area where the column was seen, first at the start of August and then most recently on Sunday afternoon, a few hours before the first sightings of the column were reported.

Those observations, combined with interviews with rebel leaders, Ukrainian soldiers, and other research, indicated two things.

First, that until late on Sunday there were no rebel formations within about 30 km (20 miles) of the area where the armored column first appeared, and had not been for weeks beforehand.

And secondly, that before the armored column appeared, the area had come under artillery fire at times when the nearest rebel positions were beyond the range of most types of weapon that could have delivered the strike.

It was not possible to establish whether the people driving the column and firing the artillery were Russian soldiers or separatist rebels. But there were strong indications that whoever it was doing those things operated out of Russian territory - something very unlikely to have happened without Moscow's consent.

The question of Russian involvement is at the core of Western governments' response to the Ukraine crisis, and could be crucial to how the conflict plays out.

The European Union and United States have already imposed sanctions on Russia in part based on allegations Moscow is arming the rebels. The West has warned of more sanctions if Russia provides further help.

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A fighter of the Ukrainian volunteer Dnipro battalion shows the remains of ammunition in front of a …

ARTILLERY FIRE

A Ukrainian national guard unit stationed on the outskirts of Novoazovsk, on the road towards the Novoazovsk-Veselo-Voznesenka border crossing, showed a Reuters reporter a crater left by an exploding munition near their position.

They said the artillery fire was coming from over the border inside Russia, about 10 km (six miles) to the east.

"There were about 500 salvos from Grad (multiple rocket system) and mortars. There have been and are no rebels here whatsoever. They're just firing straight from Russia," Roman, the commander of a Ukrainian national guard unit, said on Sunday, before the armored column appeared in the same area.

Reuters saw no direct evidence of this, and Russian officials have repeatedly denied that their military is in any way involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, between pro-Moscow separatist rebels and government forces.

A spokesman for the Russian border guard service, when asked to comment, said: "This is stupid. Russia doesn't fire at anyone." The Russian defense ministry did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

But with no rebel presence within range inside Ukraine, it was not clear what other source there could have been for the artillery fire.

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New volunteers of the Ukrainian interior ministry's special battalion "Sich" stand dur …

Even if rebels has somehow snuck into the area and fired the artillery, it seemed impossible they could have done that without using Russian territory to move about, given the distance from the nearest rebel-held locations.

CRATER

The crater seen by the Reuters reporter on Sunday, before the clashes with rebels, was in the corner of a field behind a defensive trench dug by the Ukrainian national guard unit. A metal fragment that appeared to come from a munition was found in the hole.

Reuters showed the photographs of the crater to four European weapons experts who said the crater was either made by an artillery rocket, most probably a Grad, or by a shell from a self-propelled 122 mm gun.

According to one of the experts, Konrad Muzyka, Europe and CIS Armed Forces Analyst with IHS, a consultancy, the maximum range for the 2S1 Gvozdika, the Soviet-designed self-propelled 122 mm gun in use in ex-Soviet states, is 15.3 km. That is extendable to 21.9 km when rocket-assisted projectiles are used, he said.

Muzyka said the maximum range for the most commonly used Grad rocket, designated as 9M22U, was 20.33 km. He said other variants have ranges of up to 40 km, but they are less widespread.

The rebels' self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) says its forces are pushing south from their main stronghold in the city Donetsk, but the settlements they said they had taken by Monday which were closest to the Novoazovsk-Veselo-Voznesenka crossing were Telmanovo, about 30 km (20 miles) away as the crow flies, and Novokaterinovka, about 60 km (40 miles) away.

That may have overstated the rebels' reach: a Reuters reporter who drove through Telmanovo twice on Sunday saw no sign of a rebel presence in or near the town.

One of the experts who reviewed the photographs, British-based independent weapons researcher Eliot Higgins, said he believed the crater was caused by a Grad rocket. He said the shape of the crater suggested the munition was fired from the north-east, the direction of the border with Russia.

The Ukrainian unit said most of the artillery struck in the area between their post and the border. Reuters was unable to inspect the other craters left behind by the strikes because of the risk the artillery fire could start up again.

Members of the unit said Russian artillery had been landing on the Ukrainian side overnight from Thursday to Friday, and again on Friday night.

On a previous visit to the area, on Aug. 1. Ukrainian border guards at the crossing point between Russia and Ukraine showed a Reuters reporter broken windows and holes in the roof of their building.

They said the damage was caused by mortar rounds fired from Russian territory. "There isn't a single insurgent around here for 50 km," said one of the border guards, Artur Zakharov. "A mortar can travel 6 (km)."

Asked by Reuters on Monday how the rebels could fire artillery so far from their positions, Andrei Purgin, DNR deputy prime minister, said: "In the conditions of modern warfare, 20 km is no kind of distance for artillery."

"This is not a war of fronts, it's a civil war. Movements of troops can take place here practically instantaneously. All of us here are insurgents. You come home, you grab your weapons and you go and shoot."

(Additional reporting by Anton Zverev in Donetsk, Ukraine, Natalia Zinets, Richard Balmforth and Alessandra Prentice in Kiev, Tatiana Ustinova and Polina Devitt in Moscow, and Peter Apps in Washington; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Giles Elgood)

More than 10 million gallons of sulfuric acid from one of the world’s largest copper mines spilled into two major rivers—the Sonora and the Bacanuchi—in northern Mexico earlier this month, cutting the water supply of 20,000 people and closing 88 schools. Some locals even fear eating food.

“If [a cow is killed], we don’t know if we can eat it,” housekeeper and farm laborer Ramona Yesenia told AFP. “They say if the [cattle] drink just a little water [from the rivers], they get infected.”

Civil defense official Carlos Arias told The Associated Press that the spill in Sonora, Mexico, on Aug. 7 was caused by defects in new ponds that hold the acids used to filter metal. Residents discovered the reddened water, usually clear this time of year, the next day. Grupo Mexico, which operates the Buenavista mine, hadn’t told authorities.

Mine operators alerted the Attorney General for Environmental Protection almost a full day after the leak, which was within the 24-hour filing requirement, according to Arturo Rodriguez, the agency’s head of industrial inspection. He said that careless supervision, rains, and construction errors seem to have resulted in the spill—noting that operators should have discovered the leak before a huge amount of sulfuric acid flowed into the rivers. Arias said the overflow has arsenic and other pollutants above normal levels.

Local Jesus Sabori told AFP that the water has become “more and more red every day… It was only [Aug. 11] that they told us to keep our animals away.”

“We’re angry because they didn’t take the time to tell us either that the spill had happened or that they cutting off our water,” said resident Israel Duran.

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In this Aug. 14, 2014 photo, the contaminated Sonora river makes its way near the town of Ures, in t …

AFP reported that the mine’s executives simply blame “abnormal rains” for causing the acid to spill over from its tanks. They also claim to have notified the government by email, insisting that the acid is “not toxic in itself.”

Grupo Mexico’s international relations vice president, Juan Rebolledo, told a local radio station, “There’s no problem nor any serious consequence for the population, as long as we take adequate precautions and the company pours lime into the river, as it is currently doing.”

Lime, or calcium, will deacidify the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers. “What you can’t get rid of are the heavy metals,” said Arias.

So far no serious injuries have been reported, but according to Centers for Disease Control guidelines, short-term exposure to sulfuric acid may irritate the eyes, nose, and throat. Direct contact with skin and eyes will cause severe burns, and inhaling the vapor may result in tooth erosion, sore mouth, and trouble breathing. Arsenic cancause cancer.

The Buenavista copper mine, which employs 9,000 people, hasn’t announced any plans to cancel or delay an upcoming expansion. By 2016, its output is expected to increase from 200,000 tons of copper to 510,000 tons.

Duran told AFP, “Even if [the mine] creates jobs, it would be better if they close it if they’re going to behave like this every time something happens.”

What do Syrian President Bashar Assad and the U.S. Congress have in common? President Obama is unlikely to ask either for a formal green light to expand the American air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from Iraq into Syria.

White House aides underline that the debate remains academic for now because the president has yet to decide whether he will order strikes on the brutal Islamist movement’s strongholds in Syria.

“We have not speculated about what sort of authority would be required from Congress if the president were to make a decision to authorize the use of military force in Syria,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.

But Earnest noted that Obama does not think he needs congressional approval for the airstrikes he launched on ISIL forces in Iraq on Aug. 7 or for the return of ground troops there to protect American personnel.

“The current military action that has been ordered in Iraq is vested in the powers of the commander in chief,” said the spokesman, who reaffirmed “our commitment to coordinating with Congress as we deploy that power.”

The White House has repeatedly trumpeted its “consultations” and “coordination” with lawmakers and its “notifications” to Congress about deployments against ISIL under the 1973 War Powers Act. That law, which presidents have never accepted as constitutional, was designed to limit the ability of the chief executive to send troops overseas absent a formal declaration of war. But top Obama aides have refused to commit to seeking congressional authorization as required by the law 60 days after American forces first enter into hostilities.

Asked on Aug. 8 whether Obama would abide by that stricture, Earnest sidestepped the question.

“The only thing I can speak to right now is this administration’s commitment to complying with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act,” he said.

For now, that’s just fine by Congress, which is poised to return after a month-long August recess.

The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker of Tennessee, and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who heads the committee's Middle East Subcommittee, have called separately for the Obama administration to secure congressional authorization.

But “no one is really clamoring for them (the administration) to come to us,” a senior Democratic Senate aide told Yahoo News.

There are “no plans at the moment” to call for a vote, said a senior Republican House aide.

On Monday, Earnest left open the narrow possibility that the administration might seek additional funds for operations against ISIL, also known as ISIS, or the Islamic State.

A top Senate Democratic aide told Yahoo News late last week that the president’s allies in Congress might find that the least politically toxic option. “A stand-alone War Powers vote is about Obama. A vote to fund the troops is about the troops,” the aide said. That might reduce the political danger of siding with the embattled president and buck the public’s largely anti-interventionist mood.

Earnest seemed to embrace that possibility.

“If additional resources are requested or needed, we’ll make that request,” the spokesman said Monday. “And we hope that we’ll see the kind of bipartisan support we’ve traditionally seen from Congress to ensure that our men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line to protect the country is adequately and consistently funded.”

But even that backdoor option drew a withering response from a top Democratic House aide.

“It's stupid to go for a vote. This is a stupid, stupid idea. There's no need for money, so this is just a stupid idea,” that official told Yahoo News. The official requested anonymity to speak candidly about the political situation.

Among the relatively small number of lawmakers who typically insist that presidents follow the requirements of the War Powers Act, those who want the United States to help Iraq take on ISIL are torn. They recall how Obama declared almost exactly one year ago that he had decided the United States should launch airstrikes against Assad’s forces, that he had the legal authority to do so with or without Congress but ultimately backed off when he could not get lawmakers’ approval.

An aide to one Democratic senator in that position told Yahoo News that the lawmaker generally believes Congress should weigh in.

“Problem is, he also wants the U.S. to act. What if, like with Syria last time, Congress balks and the U.S. steps away again? It's a tough call,” the aide said.

But Earnest emphasized that “the situation a year later is markedly different.”

“The goal of the mission from last year was aimed squarely at the Assad regime and was in response to the intel(ligence) assessment that they had used chemical weapons” against Syrian civilians, he said.

“What we’re talking about now is confronting a terrorist group that has sought safe haven in Syria,” Earnest said. “This is a group that poses a threat to Americans in the region and could potentially down the line pose a broader threat to American interests and our allies around the globe.”

In fact, the administration has laid the groundwork since the very early months of 2014 for unilateral action on the grounds that ISIL could eventually threaten America directly.

In January and February, top intelligence officials compared Syria to Yemen and suggested ISIL had found safe haven in areas beyond Assad’s reach.

In June, when Obama announced plans for limited military action in Iraq against ISIL, top aides told reporters on a White House-arranged conference call that the United States might pursue the group into Syria.

“We don't restrict potential U.S. action to a specific geographic space,” one official said.

According to several media outlets, Obama has already given the green light to U.S. surveillance flights over Syria, a possible prelude to an American military campaign.

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Luke Baker

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Tuesday to an Egyptian-brokered plan to end the fighting in Gaza after 50 days of combat in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, 64 Israeli soldiers and five civilians in Israel were killed.

Following are the broad parameters of the agreement, which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been working on through indirect talks in Cairo over recent weeks.

As part of the deal, both sides have agreed to address more complex issues dividing them - including the release of Palestinian prisoners and Gaza's demands for a sea port - via further indirect talks starting within a month.

IMMEDIATE STEPS

* Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza agree to halt all rocket and mortar fire into Israel.

* Israel will stop all military action including air strikes and ground operations.

* Israel agrees to open more of its border crossings with Gaza to allow the easier flow of goods, including humanitarian aid and reconstruction equipment, into the coastal enclave.

* In a separate, bilateral agreement, Egypt will agree to open its 14 km (8 mile) border with Gaza at Rafah.

* The Palestinian Authority, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to take over responsibility for administering Gaza's borders from Hamas. Israel and Egypt hope it will ensure weapons, ammunition and any "dual-use" goods are prevented from flowing into Gaza.

* The Palestinian Authority will lead in coordinating the reconstruction effort in Gaza with international donors, including the European Union.

* Israel is expected to narrow the security buffer along the inside of the Gaza border, reducing it from 300 meters to 100 meters if the truce holds. The move will allow Palestinians more access to farm land close to the border.

* Israel will extend the fishing limit off Gaza's coast to six miles from three miles, with the possibility of widening it gradually if the truce holds. Ultimately, the Palestinians want to return to a full 12-mile international allowance.

LONGER TERM ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED

* Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners rounded up in the West Bank following the abduction and killing of three Jewish seminary students in June, an attack that led to the war. Hamas initially denied involvement in the killings, but a senior Hamas official in exile in Turkey last week admitted the group did carry out the attack.

* President Abbas, who heads the Fatah party, wants freedom for long-serving Palestinian prisoners whose release was dropped after the collapse of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

* Israel wants Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza to hand over all body parts and personal effects of Israeli soldiers killed during the war.

* Hamas wants a sea port built in Gaza, allowing goods and people to be ferried in and out of the enclave. Israel has long rejected the plans, but it is possible that progress towards it could be made if there are absolute security guarantees.

* Hamas wants the un-freezing of funds to allow it to pay 40,000 police, government workers and other administrative staff who have largely been without salaries since late last year.

* The Palestinians also want the airport in Gaza - Yasser Arafat International, which opened in 1998 but was shut down in 2000 after it was bombed by Israel - to be rebuilt.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; writing by Luke Baker; editing by Larry King)

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CHICAGO (AP) — Federal appeals judges bristled on Tuesday at arguments defending gay marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin, with one Republican appointee comparing them to now-defunct laws that once outlawed weddings between blacks and whites.

As the legal skirmish in the United States over same-sex marriage shifted to the three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, more than 200 people lined up hours before to ensure they got a seat at the much-anticipated hearing.

While judges often play devil's advocate during oral arguments, the panel's often-blistering questions for the defenders of the same-sex marriage bans could be a signal the laws may be in trouble — at least at this step in the legal process.

Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, hit the backers of the ban the hardest. He balked when Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson repeatedly pointed to "tradition" as the underlying justification for barring gay marriage.

"It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry — a tradition that got swept away," the 75-year-old judge said. Prohibition of same sex marriage, Posner said, derives from "a tradition of hate ... and savage discrimination" of homosexuals.

Attorneys general in both states asked the appellate court to permanently restore the bans, which were ruled unconstitutional in June. Its ruling could affect hundreds of couples who married after lower courts tossed the bans and before those rulings were stayed pending the Chicago appeal.

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Supporters of gay marriage in Wisconsin and Indiana attend a rally at the federal plaza Monday, Aug. …

Gay marriage is legal in 19 states as well as the District of Columbia, and advocates have won more than 20 court victories around the country since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the federal government to recognize state-sanctioned gay marriages last year.

The Supreme Court has yet to take up a case, but Utah and Oklahoma's cases were appealed to the high court and Virginia's attorney general also has asked the justices to weigh in. Appeals court rulings are pending for Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, while appellate court hearings are scheduled next month for Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and is expected soon in Texas.

Posner, who has a reputation for making lawyers before him squirm, cut off Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, just moments into his presentation and frequently chided him to answer his questions.

At one point, Posner ran through a list of psychological strains the children of unmarried same-sex couples suffered, including having to struggle to grasp why their schoolmates' parents were married and theirs weren't.

"What horrible stuff," Posner said. What benefit to society in barring gay marriage, he asked, outweighs that kind of harm to children?

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George Sloan, from Chicago, holds his son Sloan D'Souza on his shoulders as they attend a rally …

"All this is a reflection of biology," Fisher answered. "Men and women make babies, same-sex couples do not... we have to have a mechanism to regulate that, and marriage is that mechanism."

Samuelson echoed that, telling the hearing that regulating marriage — including by encouraging men and women to marry — was part of a concerted Wisconsin policy to reduce numbers of children born out of wedlock.

"I assume you know how that has been working out in practice?" Judge David Hamilton responded, citing figures that births to single women from 1990 to 2009 rose 53 percent in Wisconsin and 68 percent in Indiana.

While the judges seemed to push defenders of the bans the hardest, they also pressed the side arguing for gay marriage to say just where they themselves would draw the line about who could and couldn't marry.

Would they argue in favor of polygamy on similar grounds, by pointing to the emotional toll on children in families with multiple mothers or fathers, asked Judge David Hamilton, a President Barack Obama appointee.

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Joseph Klein, left, and Matt Antoncyzk blow bubbles as a bus carrying gay couples and their supporte …

"If you have two people, it's going to look like a marriage," said Kenneth Falk of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. "If you have three or four, it doesn't. ... There's no slippery slope."

Among those following the arguments in court was plaintiff Ruth Morrison, a retired Indianapolis Fire Department battalion chief. She said that because Indiana won't recognize the woman she married in another state as her wife, she wouldn't be able to pass on pension and other benefits if she dies.

"Now Indiana tells us our promises are only good if our spouses are of the opposite sex," Morrison, wearing a fire department uniform, said during a rally ahead of the hearing Monday night.

A voter-approved constitutional amendment bans gay marriage in Wisconsin. State law prohibits it in Indiana. Neither state recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The lawsuits that led to Tuesday's hearing in Chicago contend that the bans violate the U.S. Constitution's equal protection guarantee.

Despite the seriousness of the hearing, there was some levity.

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Rev. Melody Merida, of the Life Journey Church, hands out signed heart-shaped cards to Greg Hasty, l …

At one point, a visibly uncomfortable Samuelson struggled to offer a specific reason for how gay marriage bans benefit society. He then noted a yellow courtroom light was on signaling his allotted time was nearly up.

"It won't save you," Judge Ann Claire Williams, a Bill Clinton appointee, told him, prompting laughter in court.

Samuleson smiled, and said: "It was worth a try."

___

Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm

Judges blast Indiana, Wisconsin gay marriage bans

A federal appeals panel fires blistering questions at defenders of same-sex marriage bans.
'What horrible stuff'