Geneva (AFP) - The United Nations warned Kenyan authorities Tuesday that closing the world's biggest refugee camp complex would have "extreme humanitarian and practical consequences" and would violate international law.

On Sunday, the Kenyan government said it had asked the UN refugee agency to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees from the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp by July in the wake of the Garissa University massacre claimed by Shebab insurgents from Somalia.

"We recognise the obligation of the government to ensure the security of its citizens and other people living in Kenya, including refugees," UNHCR spokeswoman Karin de Gruijl told reporters in Geneva, expressing shock at the April 2 attack that left nearly 150 people dead.

However, she said the UNHCR was deeply concerned that abruptly closing Dadaab, which houses 350,000 refugees and is considered the world's biggest camp, and forcing refugees to return to Somalia could have dire consequences.

Such a move "would have extreme humanitarian and practical consequences, and would be a breach of Kenya's international obligations," de Gruijl said.

"We are thus urging the Kenyan authorities to give the matter further consideration," she said.

Kenya hosts some 450,000 Somali refugees, most of them housed in Dadaab's vast complex of five camps.

The site opened in 1991 after the collapse of Somalia's hardline Siad Barre regime when the country plunged into chaos.

The Kenyan government had already sought the closure of Dadaab after the September 2013 Shebab attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that left at least 67 people dead, saying the camp was a breeding ground for Islamist militants.

In November that year, Kenya, Somalia and the UNHCR signed a joint deal to back the voluntary repatriation of Somalis.

Ramle (Israel) (AFP) - "Where will we go," asks eight-year-old Tiba Qeren, saying goodbye to the family home that, like those of many other Israeli Arabs, is condemned to demolition for failing to meet planning rules.

"I'm afraid," she tells AFP. "I know that they are going to destroy our home as they have others in Ramle," the mixed Arab and Jewish town where they live, about 18 kilometres (11 miles) from Tel Aviv.

"I'm annoyed because I tell myself: who gives them the right to destroy our house," she says, her young voice shaking with anger.

"The land is not theirs, it belongs to my family and the house is not theirs because it is my family who built it! "

The Israeli Arab community has its roots in the 160,000 Palestinians who stayed on their land after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Today they and their descendants number around 1.3 million.

While Israeli law guarantees them full equality with other citizens, in practice there are claims of discrimination in government funding and a raft of other issues.

Israeli Arab rights group Adalah says only 4.6 percent of new homes built in Israel are in Arab towns and villages although Arabs make up 20 percent of the population.

Jewish settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, who number around 580,000, receive four times as many housing units as Arabs in Israel, the group's website says.

View gallery

Two Arab Israeli women stand next to the rubble of a house that was demolished by municipality worke …

On Wednesday, five apartments in the Arab village of Dahmash, between Ramle and Lod, were demolished for having been built without construction permits, a villager told AFP.

On Monday, a home in the Galilee village of Kfar Kana -- biblical Cana -- was razed for the same reason.

In Ramle, 11 families last week received demolition notices.

Arab community leaders Wednesday called for a general strike in protest

Across the country the potential threat is huge, Arab former MP Hana Sweid said.

"About 25,000 Arab homes fall under the scope of demolition orders," he told AFP.

"Police came a week ago and told us that he must leave the house quietly, without resistance," said Tiba's father, Yusef Qeren, 49.

"I told them, there are 12 people living here."

He said that four times he submitted applications for building permits and four time he was rejected.

His son Abdelrahman, 14, does not believe his home could soon be rubble.

"If they destroy it, we shall rebuild it!" he vows.

Yusef Qeren is convinced that the local authorities are anti-Arab in their policy on planning permission.

"In Ramle the law only applied to Arabs," he said.

A local committee opposing the planned demolitions has set up a protest tent, with a large banner in Arabic and Hebrew.

"They are destroying Arab homes and building houses for settlers," it reads.

NowThis
Three Arrested In Spring Break Gang Rape Investigation

By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - A third man has been arrested in the gang rape of a woman who passed out on a north Florida beach, an incident captured on videotape and witnessed by scores of rowdy spring breakers, police said on Wednesday.

The incident occurred in broad daylight last month at the peak of spring break in Panama City Beach, where some 300,000 college students have been flocking in March and April for around-the-clock parties.

After a raucous party ended in a shooting that injured seven last month, officials temporarily banned drinking on the beach, a measure previously rejected over concerns about spoiling a lucrative business for many hotels and bars.

But the ban came after a woman in town for spring break was raped after blacking out behind a popular beach bar and club, said the Bay County Sheriff's Office.

A video recording captured the mid-March assault taking place in front of hundreds of spring breakers. Sheriff Frank McKeithen called it "one of the most disgusting, repulsive, sickening things that I've seen."

On Wednesday, the sheriff's office announced the arrest of George Davon Kennedy, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, on charges of sexual battery by multiple perpetrators.

He was arrested in the Atlanta area, where he has family, according to the sheriff's office statement that did not identify his age.

Two students from Troy University in Alabama were arrested last week on the same charges. Delonte Martistee, 22, of Georgia and Ryan Calhoun, 23, of Alabama were suspended, a school statement said.

Law enforcement officials in the Florida Panhandle community are seeking to extend the ban on beach drinking beyond April 18, the traditional end of spring break season. This year, the parties appear to be continuing, the sheriff's office said.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Dana LaRue says she was a victim of sexual assault at 32,000 feet, alleging that she awoke on her flight to find a fellow passenger inappropriately touching her leg, and later her chest.

“I knew in my head I should scream, I should yell, I should do something, but I couldn’t get my body to react,” LaRue said.

'Worst' Airline Passengers Ever?

What Flight Attendants Really, Really Want You to Know

View gallery

Victims Endure Sexual Assault at 32,000 Feet (ABC News)

Such situations aren’t unheard of. Last year, a computer engineer, Thami Drissi, was deported after pleading guilty to groping a woman during a flight from Morocco to New York. Additionally, Rabbi Gavriel Bidany was sentenced in 2011 in Brooklyn to 60 days in federal prison for similar charges.

A sexual or physical assault on a flight happens each week in the New York area alone, according to the FBI. Sexual assaults are more likely to occur on overnight flights, authorities said.

“We’ve seen it often where the victim has taken some kind of anxiety medication, and they’re not responsive,” FBI agent Mark Palagiano said.

LaRue did not report her case to the flight crew during her flight, a regret that has led her to become an advocate for victimized passengers.

“I advise anyone who finds themselves in that situation to make a huge scene. Don’t be afraid,” she said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Anti-Semitic attacks surged worldwide in 2014, with the highest number of incidents occurring in France, according to an annual study published in Israel on Wednesday.

The report, by Tel Aviv University's Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, said 766 violent anti-Semitic acts, with or without weapons, were carried out around the world last year -- a 38 percent increase over 2013.

Arson, vandalism and direct threats against Jews, synagogues and other Jewish institutions were included in the figure, making 2014 the worst year for such attacks since 2009.

"The overall feeling among many Jewish people is one of living in an intensifying anti-Jewish environment that has become not only insulting and threatening, but outright dangerous," the study said, citing "alarming reports especially from Western Europe and North America".

Anger in Western Europe over Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip last July and August, as well as anti-Jewish caricatures in the media and social networks had helped to turn anti-Semitism into an "almost daily phenomena seen and felt in every sphere of life", the report said.

In France, the number of anti-Semitic attacks rose to 164 in 2014 compared with 141 in 2013. In January this year, four hostages were killed in a Paris kosher supermarket in violence that began when Islamist militants carried out a massacre in the office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly.

Britain registered 141 violent incidents against Jews in 2014 after 95 a year earlier. The number of anti-Semitic acts in Germany and Italy more than doubled, to 76 and 23 respectively.

In Western Europe in particular, the study said, "the issue is not only a matter of having more security means provided by the respective states, but rather the ability to lead a full Jewish life ... especially under heavy police and even army protection".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stoked controversy in February when he called for "mass immigration" of European Jews to Israel following a deadly shooting at a synagogue in Denmark.

Under Israel's Law of Return, anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent has a right of immigration to Israel and, once there, can receive Israeli citizenship automatically.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Crispian Balmer)