Islamic State fighters have used chemical weapons to attack an Iraqi town for the second time in four days, officials say.
Taza was hit early on Saturday following the first assault on Wednesday, in which three-year-old Fatima Wais was killed.
Around 600 people have been injured by chemical-carrying rockets and hundreds more have fled.
An official spoke of fear and panic among women and children, and there are calls for the government to "save them".
The wounded suffered infected burns, suffocation and dehydration - eight have been transferred to Baghdad for more treatment, according to a nurse.
Earlier this week it was announced US special forces had captured the head of an IS unit that is developing chemical weapons.
The suspect, who has been named as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, was thought to have been held in a raid in Tal Afar, northern Iraq last month.
He formerly worked on chemical and biological weapons programme for toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Experts say the jihadist group's ability to launch a large-scale chemical weapons attack is currently limited.
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Is the ICC biased against African countries?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was set up to prosecute war criminals and human rights violators, who proponents argue would otherwise go free.
In recent months, however, African countries have threatened to pull out, citing what they consider a bias against the continent.
Critics point to the fact that of the nine countries the ICC has opened inquiries into, eight are in Africa.
So, is the ICC obsessed with targeting only African countries? And, just how effective is the court?
ISIS Chemical Attacks Wound 600, Iraqi Officials Say
(BAGHDAD) — Iraqi officials say the Islamic State group has launched two chemical attacks, killing a three-year-old girl and wounding some 600 people near the northern city of Kirkuk.
Security and hospital officials say the latest attack took place early Saturday in the small town of Taza, which was struck by a barrage of rockets carrying chemicals three days earlier.
Helmi Hamdi, a nurse at the Taza hospital, says the wounded are suffering from infected burns, suffocation and dehydration. Eight people were transferred to Baghdad for treatment.
The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said U.S. special forces captured the head of the IS unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq.
Six Dead And Several Missing In Alps Avalanche
A large avalanche in the Italian Alps has killed six skiers and several others are missing, Italian media are reporting.
The avalanche happened on Monte Nevoso (snowy mountain) near the Austrian border and as many as 10 people could be buried.
At least two of those killed were attempting to make their way to the summit at the time.
Three helicopters carrying search teams were dispatched to the area but the high altitude meant that the aircraft were forced to fly with minimal fuel to reduce their airborne weight, hampering the operation.
"Rescue operations are ongoing. The assessment is incomplete," said Italy's alpine rescue service, according to the AGI news agency.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera is reporting that a group of around ten skiers were heading to the summit of the mountain at 3,358 metres.
Witnesses reported seeing the group make their way to the peak when the avalanche began.
One of the survivors is helping with the relief efforts and trying to trace the location of his companions.
The warm temperatures have increased the risk of avalanches to level three out of five, where five indicates a strong risk.
Monte Nevoso is the second highest peak in the Rieserferner mountain range along the Italy-Austria border.
Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr calls for Baghdad sit-in
Powerful Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called for a sit-in starting next Friday at the gates of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to put pressure on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to deliver on political reforms.
The cleric said last month that Abadi had 45 days to deliver on his pledge of a technocrat cabinet, or face a no-confidence vote in parliament.
In a statement on his website, Sadr on Saturday called for a sit-in starting on March 18 until the end of the 45-day period, which falls at the end of the month.
The Green Zone houses government offices, parliament, foreign embassies and international organisations.
The statement came a day after tens of thousands of protesters heeded a call by Sadr to take to the streets of the Iraqi capital for the third week in a row to demand a political overhaul.
In a pre-recorded speech aired during the demonstration, Sadr said: "I urge Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi to press on with plans to form an independent cabinet of technocrats, to fight graft despite political pressure to desist.
"I want the prime minister to continue his reform plan with no fear of political pressure."
Last month, Abadi, now a year and a half into his four-year term, said he wanted to replace his ministers with technocrats to challenge the system of patronage that encourages graft by distributing posts along political, ethnic and sectarian lines.
Sadr and his supporters have held regular demonstrations demanding reforms to tackle corruption, which is eating into Baghdad's resources even as it struggles with falling revenues due to a slump in global oil prices and high spending caused by the costs of war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
Google AlphaGo Computer Beats Go Grandmaster
A Google computer has beaten a grandmaster of the popular board game 'Go' for the third time in a row, marking a significant breakthrough for artificial intelligence over humans.
South Korea's Lee Sedol, one of the world's best Go players, went head-to-head with Google's AlphaGo programme to decide the best of five matches of the Chinese board game.
In the highly anticipated showdown in Seoul, Google developers deployed software programmed to approach the complex mathematical tasks associated with the 3,000-year-old game in a "human-like" way.
Some Go professionals commented that AlphaGo displayed unorthodox, dubious moves that initially befuddled humans but made sense in hindsight.
Players in the game place black and white stones on a board while trying to remove their opponent's pieces. Because there are so many combinations of moves, the game is said to be harder for a computer to master than chess.
AlphaGo uses two sets of "deep neutral networks" that allow it to crunch data in a more human-like fashion - ignoring millions of potential moves that humans would instinctively know were pointless.
It also employs algorithms that allow it to learn and improve from previous games, and predicts winning the game from each move, something co-creator David Silver describes as "more akin to imagination".
"AlphaGo played consistently from beginning to the end while Lee, as he is only human, showed some mental vulnerability," said one of Lee's former coaches, Kwon Kap-Yong.
Despite losing the series, Lee is scheduled to play twice more against AlphaGo, today and on Tuesday.
Clinton 'Sorry' For Nancy Reagan Aids Gaffe
Hillary Clinton has apologised after angering Aids activists by saying Nancy Reagan helped start a "national conversation" about the disease.
Many campaigners remain bitter at former President Ronald Reagan for a perceived slow response to Aids in the 1980s.
But Mrs Clinton told an interview with MSNBC: "Because of both President and Mrs Reagan, in particular Mrs Reagan, we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it. Nobody wanted to do anything about it."
A short time later the Democratic presidential hopeful performed a climbdown on Twitter.
"While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and Aids," she wrote. "For that, I'm sorry."
Reports of the disease surfaced in 1981 but President Reagan did not make a public speech about it until 1987.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates LGBT rights, tweeted: "While I respect her advocacy on issues like stem cell and Parkinson's research, Nancy Reagan was, sadly, no hero in the fight against HIV/AIDS."
Many campaigners remain bitter at former President Ronald Reagan for a perceived slow response to Aids in the 1980s.
But Mrs Clinton told an interview with MSNBC: "Because of both President and Mrs Reagan, in particular Mrs Reagan, we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it. Nobody wanted to do anything about it."
A short time later the Democratic presidential hopeful performed a climbdown on Twitter.
"While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and Aids," she wrote. "For that, I'm sorry."
Reports of the disease surfaced in 1981 but President Reagan did not make a public speech about it until 1987.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates LGBT rights, tweeted: "While I respect her advocacy on issues like stem cell and Parkinson's research, Nancy Reagan was, sadly, no hero in the fight against HIV/AIDS."
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