UN says over 800 people killed in Iraq in August

BAGHDAD (AP) — More than 800 people were killed in Iraq in violence throughout August, the UN said yesterday. That was down somewhat from July, but still one of the highest monthly tolls in recent years.

Violence in Iraq has spiked following a deadly crackdown by the Shiite-led government on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq in April.

Attacks including waves of multiple coordinated car bombings, mostly blamed on al-Qaida’s local branch, target the military, police and Shiite civilians. The scale of the bloodshed is intensifying fears Iraq is heading back toward the widespread Sunni-Shiite sectarian killing that peaked in 2006 and 2007. Security forces have tried to ratchet up counterinsurgency operations in response, but do not appear to have made a major dent in the pace of attacks.

The UN mission in Iraq said it recorded 804 people killed in August, including members of Iraq’s security forces but not insurgents. The capital Baghdad was the part of the country worst affected, with 317 killed. The UN figure was lower than its July death toll, which stood at 1,057.

The report says a total of about 5,000 people were killed since the start of 2013.

The UN said that 716 of those killed in August were civilians and 88 were Iraqi security forces.

David Frost, known for Nixon interview, dies

LONDON (AP) — David Frost may be best remembered for his post-Watergate interviews with former President Richard Nixon, but the veteran British broadcaster was equally at ease as a satirist, game show host and serious political journalist.

In a television career that spanned half a century across both sides of the Atlantic, Frost interviewed a long list of the world’s most powerful and famous, including virtually every British prime minister and US president of his time. He also was a gifted entertainer, a born TV host, and his amiable and charming personality was often described as the key to his success as interviewer.

“Being interviewed by him was always a pleasure but also you knew that there would be multiple stories the next day arising from it,” former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Frost, 74, died of a heart attack on Saturday night aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, where he was due to give a speech, his family said. The BBC said it received the statement from Frost’s family saying it was devastated and asking “for privacy at this difficult time”. The cruise company Cunard said its vessel left the English port of Southampton on Saturday for a 10-day cruise in the Mediterranean.

Prime Minister David Cameron, one of the first public officials to send condolences, praised Frost for being an “extraordinary man with charm, wit, talent, intelligence and warmth in equal measure,” while BBC executives lauded him as “a titan of broadcasting.”

Frost was popular in Britain and just beginning to launch a career on US television when he became internationally known in 1977 with a series of television interviews with Nixon.

They were groundbreaking for Frost and the ex-president, who was trying to salvage his reputation after resigning from the White House in disgrace following the Watergate scandal three years earlier. At the time, it was the most widely watched news interview in the history of TV.

UN asks for accelerated testing of Syria samples

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The top UN spokesman says the secretary-general has asked the head of the UN chemical weapons inspection team to expedite the analysis of tests from samples collected from Syria.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke with the head of the team, Ake Sellstrom, earlier yesterday and asked him to accelerate the process.

Nesirky also says that two Syrian government officials are observing the process as mandated by the guidelines that safeguard the samples’ chain of custody.

The team collected samples from sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack on August 21. They will be sent today to laboratories around Europe to check them for traces of poison gas.

Strong quake hits Indonesia; no tsunami threat

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia yesterday, causing panic among residents in East Timor, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage and there was no danger of a tsunami.

The magnitude-6.5 quake was centred off Indonesia’s Maluku Baratdaya District, in Maluku province, at a depth of 132 kilometres (82 miles), according to the US Geological Survey.

Bayu Pranata of Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said the deep quake had no potential to cause a tsunami. He said the epicentre was about 222 kilometres (138 miles) northeast of the district islands of Maluku Baratdaya.

In Dili, the capital of the tiny half-island nation of East Timor, people poured out of houses and restaurants in panic after the quake struck. Those living near the coast rushed inland to higher ground.

“This quake was felt very strong,” said Dili resident Joao Araujo.

Indonesia is prone to seismic upheavals due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

A magnitude-9.1 earthquake in 2004 off Aceh, Indonesia’s westernmost province, triggered a tsunami, killing 230,000 people in 14 countries. In July, a magnitude-6.1 quake in Aceh killed at least 35 people and damaged more than 4,300 houses and buildings.

UN asks for accelerated testing of Syria samples

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The top UN spokesman says the secretary-general has asked the head of the UN chemical weapons inspection team to expedite the analysis of tests from samples collected from Syria.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke with the head of the team, Ake Sellstrom, earlier yesterday and asked him to accelerate the process.

Nesirky also says that two Syrian government officials are observing the process as mandated by the guidelines that safeguard the samples’ chain of custody.

The team collected samples from sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack on August 21. They will be sent today to laboratories around Europe to check them for traces of poison gas.

Nesirky declined to say when the results might be in, saying “We are not giving a timeline.”

Syrian opposition urges US Congress to vote ‘yes’

ISTANBUL (AP) — Syria’s opposition urged the US Congress yesterday to approve military action against President Bashar Assad, saying the legislators must make it clear that the use of chemical weapons will be punished wherever that occurs.

“Dictatorships like Iran and North Korea are watching closely to see how the free world responds to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people,” the Syrian opposition coalition said in a statement yesterday. “If the free world fails to respond to such an outrageous breach of international norms, dictators around the world will be encouraged in their efforts to follow the example set by Assad.”