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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/10/2015 4:09:28 PM
	Battle Tested, Ukraine Troops Now Get U.S. Basic Training By ANDREW E. KRAMERMAY 9, 2015 Ukrainian soldiers were drilled by American military trainers in Yavoriv, in the country’s west.Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times YAVORIV, Ukraine — The exercise, one of the most fundamental in the military handbook, came off without a hitch. A soldier carrying a length of rope and a grappling hook ran to within 20 feet or so of a coil of concertina wire and stopped. For a moment, he twirled the rope in his hands like a lasso, then threw the hook over the wire, and tugged hard, testing for explosives. When nothing happened he signaled two comrades, who ran up and started snipping the wire with cutters. Although this was a typical training exercise for raw recruits in an elemental soldierly skill, there was nothing typical about the scene. Far from enlistees, these soldiers were regulars in the Ukrainian National Guard, presumably battle-hardened after months on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. And the trainer was an American military instructor, drilling troops for battle with the United States’ former Cold War foe, Russia, and Russian-backed separatists. “It’s been a long time since I heard a target called an Ivan,” First Sgt. David Dzwik, one of the trainers, said in an interview out in the sunny forest, while observing the Ukrainians run through drills. “Now, I’m hearing it again.” The training included simulations of a suspect’s detention. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times The course on cutting wire is one of 63 classes of remedial military instruction being provided by 300 United States Army trainers in three consecutive two-month courses. Here in western Ukraine, they are far from the fighting, and their job is to instill some basic military know-how in Ukrainian soldiers, who the trainers have discovered are woefully unprepared. The largely unschooled troops are learning such basic skills as how to use an encrypted walkie-talkie; how to break open a door with a sledgehammer and a crowbar; and how to drag a wounded colleague across a field while holding a rifle at the ready. When the war began a year ago, the Ukrainian Army was all but worthless — rife with corruption and Russian spies, and made up largely of “skeleton” battalions of officers with just a few men. About 1 percent of the equipment was manufactured in the past decade. Needless to say, morale was dismal. One armored column in the early weeks of the civil war simply surrendered to a crowd of drunken local men rather than fight. At that point, the defense minister estimated that there were at best 6,000 troops from a rapid reaction unit who were actually prepared for combat, out of the 130,000-member army. Severely pressed, the government took to sending newly recruited National Guard soldiers into combat after only two months of training. They fumbled with their rifles, stumbled into traps and died from treatable wounds. “Some learn in the classroom, some on the battlefield,” Col. Sergei Moskalenko, the commander of the group no w retraining at this base, said in an interview. “We had no other choice.” From the earliest days of the war, the government in Kiev had asked for military help from the United States. Its request for a sophisticated antitank missile went nowhere, as Washington feared it would just encourage Russia to send more weapons and men to Ukraine. What eventually arrived was basic training. BELARUS 150 Miles POLAND RUSSIA Kiev Yavoriv Kharkiv Lviv SLOVAKIA LUHANSK UKRAINE Donetsk HUNGARY Dnieper River DONETSK MOLDOVA ROMANIA Sea of Azov CRIMEA Black Sea By The New York Times The wire-cutting drill was part of that. On a recent spring day two weeks into the course, other similarly low-tech tips were being passed on. Bewildered Ukrainian troops were being made to hoist one another on their backs, firefighter style, and run up a hill, part of an effort to improve the dismal mortality rate for the wounded. The American instructors barked simple orders — “Hurry up!” and “Keep moving!” — duly rendered into Ukrainian by interpreters. The training aims to remold the Ukrainian units by increasing the responsibilities of noncommissioned officers, fixing a Soviet legacy of an officer-heavy infantry. Without sergeants paying attention, basic mistakes were being made, the trainers said. Capt. Nicholas Salimbene, an American trainer, noticed with alarm that the Ukrainians were carrying their rifles with the safeties off. “It’s about the professionalism of the force,” he said. “We want them to look like soldiers.” “You see reports about the little green men,” he said, referring to theRussian soldiers who invaded the Crimean Peninsula last year in unmarked uniforms, “and they all walk around professionally, and carry their weapons professionally.” The Ukrainians should, too, Captain Salimbene said. The United States is also providing advanced courses for military professionals known as forward observers — the ones who call in targets — to improve the accuracy of artillery fire, making it more lethal for the enemy and less so for civilians. The training also included simulations of a home raid. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times Oleksandr I. Leshchenko, the deputy director for training in the National Guard, was somewhat skeptical about the value of the training, saying that “99 percent” of the men in the course had already been in combat. “I don’t see anything new,” in the American training courses, he said. “Just a different approach.” The Ukrainians, he said, had been squeezing a lot into their own two-month boot camp, where the days were “28 hours long.” Capt. Andrii Syurkalo, a Ukrainian officer, said it was commendable that the trainers were willing to use the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal as an element in a class on the Geneva Conventions. American officers described the course work as equivalent to the latter months of basic training in the United States. The courses will train 705 Ukrainian soldiers at a cost of $19 million over six months. The Ukrainian National Guard is rotating from the front what units it can spare for the training. American instructors intend to recommend top performers to serve as trainers within other Ukrainian units, and in this way spread the instruction more broadly. In the first two weeks of training, the Americans found the Ukrainians’ soldierly skills lacking, and the group generally in need of instruction. “I came into it expecting them not to know much of the basics,” said Sgt. Michael Faranda, who is teaching maneuvers. He was correct. Things “every soldier should know,” he said, they did not. Some even forgot their helmets on the first day of exercises. Still, Sergeant Faranda said, the Ukrainians’ willingness to go into combat was all the more notable for their lack of preparation for it. Shaking his head, Sergeant Faranda said had he asked one group about the Ukrainian procedure for handling a dud grenade. He was told none existed. “They said, ‘We just put it in our pocket, or throw it away.’” (The New York Times)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/10/2015 4:27:35 PM
	China paper slams Japan for lack of WW2 contrition 12 hours ago Wochit China Paper Slams Japan for Lack of WW2 Contrition Watch video BEIJING (Reuters) - German contrition over World War Two stands in contrast to Japan's failure to reflect on its past, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party said on Sunday, following war commemorations in Moscow. Related Stories China must guard against Japan's denial of history: army paper Reuters Japan PM Abe aims to improve ties with China Reuters Japan MPs visit shrine as Abe hopes to meet China's Xi in Jakarta Reuters Japan PM Abe meets China's Xi, says to work for better ties Reuters Japan says PM Abe will meet China's Xi in Indonesia Reuters Sino-Japan relations are plagued by China's bitter memories of Japan's occupation of parts of the country before and during World War Two. Ties have also chilled in recent years over territorial rows and mutual mistrust over Japan's bolder security policies and China's military assertiveness. A front-page editorial in the People's Daily praised German leaders for facing up to war crimes. "In the past several decades, Germany has never halted on the path of self-analysis and self-criticism of its own guilt," the paper said, citing former German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling at a Warsaw memorial in 1970 and current Chancellor Angela Merkel's past remarks that the country had an "everlasting responsibility" for Nazi crimes. "The German people's profound acknowledgment of war crimes stands in contrast to the dangerous trend in Japan's right wing," the paper said. China, which has repeatedly urged Japan to face up to its past, says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in the 1937 Nanjing massacre. A post-war Allied tribunal put the death toll at 142,000. View gallery Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), Mongolia's President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (3rd R), United … The editorial follows Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance at a military parade in Moscow on Saturday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. Xi sat with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the parade, an event that was largely boycotted by Western leaders over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis. In a speech to U.S. Congress in Washington last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed "deep repentance" over Japan's role in World War Two and upheld statements by his predecessors, but stopped short of issuing his own apology. Japanese leaders have repeatedly apologized for the suffering caused by the country's wartime actions, including a landmark 1995 apology by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. But remarks by conservative politicians periodically prompt critics to cast doubt on Tokyo's sincerity. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Alex Richardson) View Gallery
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/10/2015 4:38:14 PM
	2 Mississippi officers fatally shot; 3 suspects arrested 1 hour ago Local law enforcement officials investigate the scene of a shooting late Saturday, May 9, 2015, in Hattiesburg. Miss., that left two Hattiesburg police officers fatally wounded. (Jason Munz/The Hattiesburg American via AP) View Gallery HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — Two Mississippi police officers were shot to death during an evening traffic stop turned violent, a state law enforcement spokesman said Sunday. Three suspects were in custody, including two who are charged with capital murder. Related Stories Man, woman charged with murdering two Mississippi policemen Reuters Wake held for NYPD officer shot in the head while on duty Associated Press 'Exceptional' NYPD officer dies from gunshot wound to head Associated Press At New York officer's funeral, police reflect on tough time Associated Press The deaths of the officers are the first to hit the southern Mississippi city of Hattiesburg in three decades — and come amid a national debate on policing, race and the use of deadly force, following the recent killings of unarmed black men by police in Missouri, South Carolina and elsewhere. The officers' deaths also follow by a day the funeral of a New York City officer who was shot in the head while stopping a man suspected of carrying a handgun. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant released a statement saying he was "mourning" the loss of the officers. "This should remind us to thank all law enforcement for their unwavering service to protect and serve. May God keep them all in the hollow of his hand," Bryant said. Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, told The Associated Press that 29-year-old Marvin Banks and 22-year-old Joanie Calloway were each charged with two counts of capital murder. Banks was also charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and with grand theft for fleeing in the police cruiser after the shooting, Strain said. "He absconded with a Hattiesburg police cruiser. He didn't get very far, three or four blocks and then he ditched that vehicle," Strain said. Banks' 26-year-old brother, Curtis Banks, was charged with two counts of accessory after the fact of capital murder. Officers arrested the three Hattiesburg residents at different locations overnight following the fatal shooting of the officers Saturday evening, Strain said. View gallery Three people were arrested after two Mississippi police officers were shot to death during a traffic … "All three subjects were taken into custody without incident," Strain said, adding they were expected to face initial court appearances Monday. Because authorities said the three were being held at undisclosed jails in the state, they could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately known if they had acquired lawyers. Strain said the three suspects were traveling in a Hyundai vehicle when it was stopped and that shots were fired by "one individual" from the vehicle. He declined Sunday morning to say how many shots were fired or who had fired them. He also said any information about the officers' actions or what prompted the stop "would be premature to talk about" only hours into the investigation. The official said Marvin Banks was found at a hotel in the area after Calloway was arrested at a convenience store. He added that Curtis Banks was taken into custody at a Hattiesburg apartment. "At this point a weapon has not been recovered. However, warrants have been issued to search several properties in the Hattiesburg area. We are hopeful and believe that the murder weapon will be recovered," Strain added. "At this point, it appears to have been only one weapon." Strain said both officers died of their wounds at a hospital. Lt. Jon Traxler, a Hattiesburg Police Department spokesman, identified the officers who died as 34-year-old Benjamin Deen and 25-year-old Liquori Tate. Local reports identified Deen as a past department "Officer of the Year," and Tate was a newcomer to the force who Strain said was a 2014 graduate of the law enforcement academy. "All I know right now is that there was a traffic stop and someone started shooting at them and both of the officers were struck," Traxler said. The officers bodies were taken to a medical examiner's office in Jackson with autopsies pending, Strain said. After the shooting, law enforcement agents swarmed the area. Many emergency vehicles, their lights flashing, could be seen and police initial asked nearby residents to shelter indoors while they sought suspects. The state's chief law enforcement agency, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, has taken up the investigation, according to Strain. Earlier, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree told The Jackson Clarion-Ledger (http://on.thec-l.com/1GWpqRp) he lamented the deaths. "The men and women who go out every day to protect us, the men and woman who go out every day to make sure that we're safe, they were turned on (Saturday) night," DuPree said outside Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, where the officers were taken. The newspaper reported these are the first Hattiesburg officers to die in the line of duty in 30 years. Hattiesburg resident Tamika Mills was quoted by The Clarion-Ledger as saying some bystanders came upon the officers on the ground, and that one of the officers asked "... 'Am I dying? I know I'm dying. Just hand me my walkie-talkie,'" Mills told the paper. She added, according to the account, that seeing the officers down was "shocking and heartbreaking." The last Hattiesburg police officer killed in the line of duty was Sgt. Jackie Dole Sherrill, who died on New Year's Eve in 1984, according to police department records. Sherrill, 33, was gunned down as she attempted to serve a warrant on a suspect. ___ AP reporter Bill Cormier contributed from Atlanta.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

5/10/2015 5:00:54 PM

Special Report: Russian soldiers quit over Ukraine

By Maria Tsvetkova8 hours ago

View Gallery

Members of the armed forces of the separatist self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic drive a tank on the outskirts of Donetsk, Ukraine, in this January 22, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/Files

By Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW/DONETSK (Reuters) - Some Russian soldiers are quitting the army because of the conflict in Ukraine, several soldiers and human rights activists have told Reuters. Their accounts call into question the Kremlin's continued assertions that no Russian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine, and that any Russians fighting alongside rebels there are volunteers.

Evidence for Russians fighting in Ukraine – Russian army equipment found in the country, testimony from soldiers' families and from Ukrainians who say they were captured by Russian paratroopers – is abundant. Associates of Boris Nemtsov, a prominent Kremlin critic killed in February, will soon publish a report which they say will contain new evidence of the Russian military presence in Ukraine.

Until now, however, it has been extremely rare to find Russian soldiers who have fought there and are willing to talk. It is even rarer to find soldiers who have quit the army. Five soldiers who recently quit, including two who said they left rather than serve in Ukraine, have told Reuters of their experiences.

One of the five, from Moscow, said he was sent on exercises in southern Russia last year but ended up going into Ukraine in an armored convoy.

"After we crossed the border, a lieutenant colonel said we could be sent to jail if we didn't fulfil orders. Some soldiers refused to stay there," said the soldier, who served with the elite Russian Kantemirovskaya tank division. He gave Reuters his full name but spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he feared reprisals.

He said he knew two soldiers who refused to stay. "They were taken somewhere. The lieutenant colonel said criminal cases were opened against them but in reality – we called them afterwards – they were at home. They just quit."

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied that Moscow has sent any military forces to help rebels in eastern Ukraine, where clashes and casualties persist despite a ceasefire struck in February. Putin's spokesman has derided such allegations by NATO, Western governments and Kiev. Officials say that any Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine are "volunteers," helping the rebels of their own free will.

The former Russian soldiers who spoke to Reuters, as well as human rights activists, said some soldiers were fearful of being sent to Ukraine, were pressured into going, or disgruntled at the way they were treated after fighting there.

The former tank soldier from Moscow said he would not have gone to Ukraine voluntarily. "No, what for? That's not our war. If our troops were officially there it would be a different story."

He said he had been sent to fight in Ukraine last summer and returned to Russia in September when the first peace talks took place. His crew operated a modernized Russian T-72B3 tank, he said.

"(Back in Russia) we were lined up and told that everyone would get a daily allowance, extras for fighting and medals," he said. But he said that they did not get the extras they expected. "We decided to quit. There were 14 of us."

The names of nine soldiers who quit the Kantemirovskaya division are mentioned in an exchange of letters between Viktor Miskovets, the head of the human resources department of Russia's Western Military District, and Valentina Melnikova, who runs the Alliance of Soldiers' Mothers Committees, a group based in Moscow.

In the letters, seen by Reuters, human rights workers asked Miskovets to approve the soldiers' resignations – which one soldier told Reuters the military had been unwilling to do. The letters do not mention service in Ukraine.

The soldiers left the service on Dec. 12, according to a letter signed by Miskovets. He and his deputy did not answer calls.

Three soldiers from the list, contacted by Reuters, confirmed they had quit the service recently but declined to discuss Ukraine.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence declined to comment on soldiers quitting the tank unit or being sent to Ukraine.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES

In Russia, all men aged between 18 and 27 have to serve 12 months in the military. By law, these conscripts cannot be sent abroad. But according to human rights activists, military officials have been promising conscripts financial incentives to sign contracts that make them professional soldiers. The officials then push the soldiers into going to Ukraine.

Sergei Krivenko, head of a rights group called "Citizen. Army. Rights" and a member of a human rights council created by the Kremlin, has dealt with soldiers' rights since the early 2000s. He said military commanders are trying to find more people who will go to Ukraine voluntarily, "but this is still 'volunteers' in quotation marks, because there is harsh pressure."

Krivenko said commanders take a carrot-and-stick approach: They offer large financial rewards to contract soldiers willing to go to Ukraine. If soldiers refuse, they are told to resign, he said. "You can't criminally prosecute someone for not following the order, because the order itself doesn't exist on paper. It's only oral."

Since 2012, contract soldiers' pay has risen, said Krivenko, who traveled to Murmansk to meet soldiers, about 30 of whom told him they had been to Ukraine. "Now they receive 20, 30, 40,000 rubles a month depending on their rank. Some even get 60,000 a month."

The average wage in Russia is about 30,000 rubles ($580).

Resignation is not an easy decision for the soldiers, Krivenko said: "Just like others in Russia, they're paying off apartments, foreign-made cars... The question becomes where do they find the money to pay off debts, to feed their families?"

Reuters could not independently verify Krivenko's account.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence declined to comment on Russian involvement in Ukraine, but Putin has made his position clear. On April 16, the president said during a televised question and answer session: "I tell you directly and definitely: There are no Russian troops in Ukraine."

"FIELD CONDITIONS"

Another soldier who said he quit the army over the Ukraine conflict is a 21-year-old who was a member of a Grad missile unit. The soldier, who asked that he and his unit not be identified, told Reuters that in the summer of 2014 his team took up position about 2 km (one mile) from the Ukrainian border in the Rostov region of southwest Russia. The operation appeared to be an exercise, though the men were ordered to prepare as if for real combat.

"We drove there without insignia. We took off all the buttonholes and stripes. We were told that we did not need them in field conditions."

In early September the men were ordered to fire their rockets at a target "about 17 km" away, "maybe less." It was possible the target was in Ukraine, he said. "I was hoping I did not aim at any people. Or at least that I missed the target."

He said his fellow soldiers told him another battery from his unit had crossed the border and spent 10 days in Ukraine. "I did not understand who was fighting and what for, and the point of it," he said.

While on leave in January, the soldier said, he was unexpectedly summoned back to his unit.

"We were moved to another (artillery) battery that was supposed to go to some exercises in Rostov region. They said they were really big exercises and very big forces were involved," the soldier said.

Although he offered no proof, he said he had no doubt it was related to the conflict in Ukraine. "Of course it was. Why else would we be called off from vacation?"

He and four others decided to quit the army rather than risk being sent to fight in Ukraine. After completing the necessary procedures, they left in March, according to the soldier's account and documents from human rights activists and military prosecutors.

SPOTTED IN DONBASS

Most Russian soldiers who fought in Ukraine last year – whether volunteers or not – came from Central Russia, the North Caucasus or the Volga region, according to soldiers' accounts, relatives and Russian media. More recently, Reuters reporters in east Ukraine spotted fighters from Siberia, thousands of miles away.

Their appearance lends support to claims that Russian troops from regions closer to Ukraine have become reluctant to join the conflict.

Early this year Asian-looking fighters were seen maneuvering armored vehicles and manning checkpoints in Donbass, eastern Ukraine. The fighters turned out to be Buryats, a Mongolian ethnic group from Russian Siberia near Lake Baikal, about 4,500 km from Ukraine.

Dorjo Dugarov, a politician from Buryatiya, a region in southeast Siberia, said a Siberian soldier who had returned from Ukraine had told him that "people from the western part (of Russia) didn't want to go. Their morale has fallen."

Yevgeniy Romanenko, a 39-year-old rebel fighter in east Ukraine, told Reuters that during battles near Debaltseve in February he drove a truck in a convoy that was accompanied by two tanks with Buryat crews. The tank crews provided cover for the truck convoy.

"One of them drove in front of the convoy and the second one behind," Romanenko said at a hospital in Yenakiyeve, where he was recovering from shrapnel wounds to his leg.

Asked if they were servicemen from Russia, Romanenko said: "Yes, that's for sure. The guys were from there. It was clear."

In February, a Buryat soldier also appeared in an interview on a TV station in eastern Ukraine. Popular singer Iosif Kobzon, who is a member of Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, was filmed visiting injured fighters in a hospital in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine's biggest city. Kobzon says he spoke to a soldier who said he was a member of a tank crew from Buryatiya. The Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta later identified the soldier as Dorji Batomunkoyev from military unit 46108 based in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatiya.

Rebels in Ukraine said the Buryat were not soldiers sent by Russia but volunteers. "We have volunteers from the Russian Federation," Vladimir Kononov, the Ukrainian rebel defense minister, told Reuters in early March. "This tankman could have left the army before he came here."

Reuters could not reach Batomunkoyev. His mother Sesegma, contacted by telephone, confirmed that her son had served in the army and been injured in Ukraine. She visited him in a hospital after he was transferred back to Russia. She declined to say whether he had been ordered to go to Ukraine or had volunteered.

"He did not say he was going," she said. "He called me on February 19 and shouted 'Mum, I got burnt in a tank.' And that's it."

(Additional reporting by Thomas Grove; Edited by Richard Woods and Sara Ledwith)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/10/2015 5:10:47 PM
	Yemen truce efforts gather pace as rebel heartland hit By Jamal al-Jabiri1 hour ago A Yemeni tribesman looks out of a vehicle during a gathering in the southern city of Taez to join fighters loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi on May 9, 2015 (AFP Photo/Abdel Rahman Abdallah) View Gallery Sanaa (AFP) - Yemen ceasefire efforts gathered pace Sunday after more than six weeks of Saudi-led air strikes, with rebels saying they would respond "positively" and their allies accepting a US-backed truce plan. Related Stories Saudi-led raids pound Yemen rebels after truce offer AFP Saudi-led coalition launches wave of air strikes on Yemen Reuters Houthis accept five-day truce in Yemen proposed by Saudi Arabia Reuters Saudi proposes five-day Yemen ceasefire AFP Saudi considering bombing pauses for Yemen aid delivery AFP The renegade troops, who helped the Shiite Huthi rebels seize much of the country, said they had agreed to the five-day humanitarian truce that Riyadh has offered starting Tuesday. The rebels did not refer explicitly to the Saudi offer, but expressed "readiness to deal positively with any efforts, calls or measures that would help end the suffering". Amid the truce moves, a ship chartered by the UN's World Food Programme docked in the western port of Hodeida, bringing precious fuel to boost aid deliveries. The delivery aimed at "opening up a new humanitarian lifeline for civilians impacted by the conflict" in Yemen, where drastic fuel shortages have hurt aid operations, the WFP said. The MV Amsterdam brought 300,000 litres of fuel and supplies for humanitarian organisations, while a second vessel would bring an additional 120,000 litres later on Sunday. View gallery A woman and child holding her national flag rest during a rally protesting the Saudi-led airstrikes … The WFP's Yemen director Purnima Kashyap said the fuel will mean aid can reach "hundreds of thousands of people in need of urgent food assistance". The United Nations has expressed deep concern about the civilian death toll from the bombing campaign and the humanitarian impact of the air and sea blockade that Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed on Yemen. - 'Civilians trapped' - Coalition warplanes pounded the Huthi stronghold Saada in the northern mountains for a second straight night Saturday after declaring the whole province a military target despite aid agency pleas. "Many civilians are effectively trapped in Saada as they are unable to access transport because of the fuel shortage," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes van der Klaauw, said in a statement. View gallery A Yemeni tribesman from the Popular Resistance Committees supporting forces loyal to Yemen's Sau … "The targeting of an entire governorate will put countless civilians at risk. The indiscriminate bombing of populated areas, with or without prior warning, is in contravention of international humanitarian law (IHL)." Warplanes also launched twin strikes on the Sanaa residence of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is accused of orchestrating the alliance between renegade army units and the rebels. The renegade units, who remained loyal to Saleh after he was forced from power in early 2012, played a major part in the Iran-backed rebels' capture of swathes of the country beyond Saada in the mainly Shiite northern highlands. "Following mediation from friendly countries to establish a humanitarian truce... we announce our agreement," said Colonel Sharaf Luqman, spokesman for the army defectors. The defectors' bases have been a major target in the coalition campaign in support of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. View gallery Armed Yemeni tribesmen gather in the southern city of Taez as they declare their intention to join f … The United Nations says the conflict has killed more than 1,400 people, many of them civilians, since late March. The rebels welcomed efforts by "friendly countries to end the aggression and the suffering of the Yemeni people". - Conditional ceasefire - That was an apparent reference to Russia, which unsuccessfully put a ceasefire proposal to the UN Security Council earlier this month and has pressed constantly for a halt to the air war. Saudi Arabia has stressed that its ceasefire offer is conditional on the rebels reciprocating and not exploiting it for military advantage. View gallery Fighters loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi patrol a main street in … The offer is firmly backed by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said that the truce could be extended provided the rebels did not abuse it "to reposition for military advantage". Saleh's political party, the General People's Congress said it hoped the proposal would minimise the "impact of the aggression that has burdened the Yemeni people with unprecedented suffering and an unparallelled blockade". The ousted strongman, who ruled for more than three decades, was not believed to have been in Sanaa when his residence was attacked early Sunday. The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on both Saleh and his son for their support for the rebels and their undermining of the transition since his ouster following a bloody year-long uprising. Coalition aircraft had given civilians in rebel-held Saada province until Friday evening to flee. But the Doctors without Borders (MSF) group said it had been "impossible" for Saada's entire population to leave in just hours, and called on the coalition to avoid hitting residential areas. Riyadh said the rebels had crossed a "red line" with deadly shelling of populated border areas of the kingdom last week. Residents reported at least 15 raids across the province. Rebel chief Abdul Malik al-Huthi's home town of Marran was again among the targets.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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