The US has said it will impose fresh sanctions on Russia after determining it used nerve agent against a former Russian double agent living in the UK.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were left seriously ill after being poisoned with Novichok in Salisbury in March, though they have now recovered.
A UK investigation blamed Russia for the attack, but the Kremlin has strongly denied any involvement.
Russia has criticised the new sanctions as “draconian.”
In a statement released on Wednesday, the US state department confirmed it was implementing measures against Russia over the incident.
Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said it had been determined that the country “has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law, or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals.”
The British government has welcomed the move.
“The strong international response to the use of a chemical weapon on the streets of Salisbury sends an unequivocal message to Russia that its provocative, reckless behaviour will not go unchallenged,” a UK foreign office statement said.
The Russian embassy to the US hit back on Thursday morning, criticising what it called “far-fetched accusations” from the US that Russia was behind the attack.
Russia had become “accustomed to not hearing any facts or evidence,” it said, adding: “We continue to strongly stand for an open and transparent investigation of the crime committed in Salisbury.”
The new sanctions will take effect on or around 22 August, and relate to the exports of sensitive electronic components and other technologies.
The state department said “more draconian” sanctions will follow within 90 days if Russia fails to give reliable assurances it will no longer use chemical weapons and allow on-site inspections by the United Nations.
An official said it was only the third time that the US had determined a country had used chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals.
Previous occasions were against Syria and against North Korea for the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of leader Kim Jong-un, who died when highly toxic VX nerve agent was rubbed on his face at Kuala Lumpur airport.
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Israeli air strikes ‘kill woman and toddler’
Air strikes by Israel’s military on the Gaza border have killed three people including a pregnant woman and her toddler, the Gaza Health Ministry says.
Israel launched strikes on Wednesday after dozens of rockets were fired into Israeli territory by Hamas.
Several people in Israel have been hurt by the rocket attacks, local media say.
The Gaza Health Ministry say pregnant 23-year-old Enas Khammash and her 18-month daughter were killed in Jafarawi in central Gaza.
Her husband was reportedly injured.
A Hamas militant was also killed in one of the strikes, while at least 12 people in Gaza were reportedly injured, health officials said.
Israel has not commented on the reported casualties in Gaza yet.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the violence broke out after militants shot at an IDF vehicle in Gaza on Wednesday.
After Israel responded with tank fire, dozens of rockets were sent toward Israeli territory on Wednesday night.
Hamas’s military wing said it was behind the rocket attacks.
Earlier this week two of its militants were killed after Israel shelled a Hamas border post in northern Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces Twitter account said its fighter jets had targeted more 140 strategic sites, including a weapons manufacturing and storage facility.
“The Israeli strike was conducted in response to the rockets launched from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory over the course of the evening and night,” it said.
It said about 150 rockets had been launched from Gaza towards Israeli territory.
Israeli television broadcast images of damage to homes and cars in the town of Sderot.
The cross-border violence comes soon after a delegation of senior Hamas officials visited Gaza to discuss a ceasefire agreement with Israel proposed by Egypt and the UN.
On Wednesday, UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov condemned the Hamas rocket fire and called for both sides to step away from the brink.
The last four months have seen an upsurge in violence along the Gaza-Israel border.
More than 160 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces – most during weekly protests at which thousands of Palestinians have expressed their support for the declared right of Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel.
Human rights groups have accused Israeli troops of using excessive force at the protests, but the military said they only opened fire in self-defence or on people trying to infiltrate its territory.
One Israeli soldier has been shot dead by a Palestinian sniper during the same period, while incendiary devices attached to balloons and kites launched by Palestinians have sparked hundreds of fires in southern Israel, burning some 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of forest and farmland.
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Sky News Australia pulled from train stations over backlash
An Australian state has instructed train stations to stop broadcasting Sky News Australia, amid a widening backlash over a recent TV interview.
On Sunday, Sky News Australia hosted Blair Cottrell – a far-right figure with court convictions – in its studio.
It drew much public anger.
Many pointed out that he had once called for schools to display images of Adolf Hitler.
On Thursday, Victoria said that the channel would no longer be played at train stations in central Melbourne.
“Hatred and racism have no place on our screens or in our community,” tweeted Transport Minister Jacinta Allen.
Cottrell used his interview to call on Australia to reduce immigration, protect itself from “foreign ideologies” and to “reclaim our traditional identity.”
Sky News Australia has said it was “wrong” to interview Cottrell on The Adam Giles Show.
It has since suspended the programme.
Last year, Cottrell was one of three men found guilty by a magistrate of inciting contempt of Muslims, after the men staged a mock beheading to protest against the building of a mosque.
He was previously convicted of other offences, including arson and burglary.
Many critics of the interview pointed out this history.
But much anger centred on comments he had made on social media, especially about Nazism and women.
“Blair Cottrell is a far right-wing fascist who’s a self confessed Hitler fan. He’s boasted about using ‘violence and terror’ to manipulate women,” tweeted one critic, Laura Jayes, a Sky News Australia presenter.
The backlash intensified when Jayes posted a screenshot of a tweet by Cottrell, in which he talked about hypothetically raping her on air.
One commentator, Craig Emerson, said he would no longer appear on the network, while brands American Express, Specsavers and Huggies all pulled advertising.
Ms. Allan described the interview as “the final straw” for the network, telling local radio 3AW: “There have been a number of interviews that had started to go down a slippery slope.”
She cited one recent interview in which a senator was accused of making sexist slurs.
Although Ms. Allan’s announcement was welcomed by some observers, others suggested it may have gone too far.
Other commentators said it was an act of “censorship.”
New South Wales, which also broadcasts Sky News Australia at train stations, has said it will not follow Victoria’s move.
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US suspect was ‘training children to commit school shootings’
A man arrested after 11 malnourished children were found in a remote desert compound was training them to commit school shootings, US media report.
According to prosecutors’ documents, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was teaching some of the children, who are aged one to 15, how to use weapons.
Mr. Wahhaj was one of two armed men arrested at the scene on Friday in New Mexico.
Three women were also arrested.
Police say the remains of a boy were also discovered at the compound.
Found on Monday, the remains are those of Mr. Wahhaj’s missing three-year-old son, Abdula-Ghani Wahhaj, the Taos News reports.
Mr. Wahhaj is suspected of abducting the boy from his Georgia home in December, and it was the search for him that led to the arrests.
The toddler suffered from seizures according to the missing person’s report filed by his mother.
But Mr. Wahhaj believed the boy needed to be exorcised, say court papers.
Prosecutor Timothy Hasson filed the documents on Wednesday, but did not discuss the accusations in court, the Associated Press reported.
Mr. Hasson requested that Mr. Wahhaj be held without bail.
“He poses a great danger to the children found on the property as well as a threat to the community as a whole due to the presence of firearms and his intent to use these firearms in a violent and illegal manner,” Mr. Hasson wrote in court documents.
CNN reports the legal filings also warn that if “released from custody, there is a substantial likelihood defendants may commit new crimes due to their planning and preparation for future school shootings.”
The complaint cites a foster parent of one of the 11 children as saying Mr. Wahhaj “had trained the child in the use of an assault rifle in preparation for future school shootings,” US media say.
All five adults arrested at the compound last week face child abuse charges.
Lucas Morton was the other man arrested at the scene.
Three women, believed to be the children’s mothers, were also “arrested without incident” and booked into the Taos Adult Detention Center, according to the sheriff’s office.
Police have not explained what connection the women – named as Jany Leveille and Subhannah Wahhaj, both 35, and 38-year-old Hujrah Wahhaj – have to each other.
The officers who discovered the children said they looked “like Third World country refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing.”
Authorities had raided the site after receiving a message from someone that read: “We are starving and need food and water.”
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Police said they had been aware of the compound for some time but had to wait for a search warrant before entering, as the occupants were “most likely heavily armed and considered extremist of the Muslim belief.”
Mr. Wahhaj was armed with an AR-15 rifle and four pistols when they encountered him, they said.
According to New York media, Mr. Wahhaj’s father, Imam Siriaj Wahhaj, is a prominent Muslim leader in Brooklyn, who has been called “one of the most admired Muslim leaders” in the US.
He reportedly testified as a character witness at the trial for Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was later convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
In 1991, he became the first Muslim to lead an opening prayer before the US House of Representatives.
