Libyan Soldiers Battle To Retake City From IS

Libyan forces have advanced deep inside the coastal city of Sirte - the stronghold of Islamic State's local affiliate, an army spokesman has said.

Soldiers loyal to the country's UN-brokered government of national accord are believed to be just three miles from the city centre.

They have already seized a major bridge in Sirte which extremists have used for hanging the bodies of their enemies, as well as at least two military camps.

However, fighting on Wednesday has killed at least six Libyan soldiers and wounded 30 more, according to local hospitals.

Sirte is strategically important to Islamic State, as it is the only city the self-styled caliphate holds outside of Syria and Iraq.

The Libyan forces in Sirte have reportedly encountered little resistance from IS fighters in recent days, but roadside bombs have been a threat.

Their advance has been supported by warplanes which have bombed IS positions and booby-trapped trucks left behind by the terror group's fighters.

An anonymous official has said soldiers are now planning to close in on the organisation's headquarters.

Islamic State has also encountered growing resistance in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, as well as the provinces of Aleppo and Raqqa in northern Syria.

The government of national accord is backed by Western powers who believe it has the best chance of defeating IS in Libya

Poll: Scots Would Reject Independence Again

A new opinion poll has found that a majority of Scots would reject Scottish independence, even if the UK votes to leave the European Union.

TNS surveyed over 18s with regard to the scenario of Britain leaving the EU, prompting another referendum on Scottish independence. 

The research found that 48% would vote 'No' to independence, 38% would vote 'Yes' and 14% didn't know.  

If the 'don’t knows' were removed, the poll would stand at 56% 'No' against 44% 'Yes' - almost identical to the 2014 referendum which returned a result of 55% versus 45%. 

Under 18s were not included in the survey. 

In the Scottish independence referendum, in September 2014, 16 and 17-year-olds were able to vote.

The research also found more than half of Scottish adults - 51% - back staying in the European Union, up 3% since the last similar TNS survey in April.

There was no change in the number saying they will vote to leave at 21%, while 29% said they did not know (down 2%).

If the ‘don’t knows’ are removed, the survey suggests 71% will vote to remain and 29% to leave.

The survey found that 71% of Scots said they were "certain to vote".   

Tom Costley, head of TNS Scotland said: "The level of support for the EU in Scotland has shown little change over the last few months and it looks likely that Scotland will vote to remain on 23 June.

"There is still the potential for a high turnout, suggesting that the Scottish public can see the importance of this decision. 

"The SNP has said that a UK vote to leave the EU could trigger a new referendum on Independence.

"However, on the basis of this latest poll it would appear that appetite for such a move is mostly limited to those who back independence rather than being shared by the public as a whole. 

"There is also little evidence that opinion towards independence has shifted significantly since September 2014, with support for a Yes vote, even in these circumstances, well below the 60% level that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has indicated she would be looking for before calling another vote." 

In the survey, people were also asked whether or not they thought there should be a new independence referendum in the event of a Brexit. 

In these circumstances, 43% backed a new referendum, 46% did not and 10% didn’t know. 

The highest support for a new referendum was among Yes voters (87%), compared to only 13% amongst No voters. 

Gove Warns Of 'Border-Free Zone' To Syria

Just a week ago, Michael Gove said he wanted to run a Leave campaign steeped in hope, not fear.

Today the Justice Secretary appeared to have changed his mind as he looked to break the deadlock in polls with just two weeks to go before the EU referendum.

Having spent a week telling workers they'd be better off and have better access to doctors and schools if they vote to quit the EU, Mr Gove used a speech in London to claim that Britons would be safer too.

Why? Because a vote to stay would mean that Turkey's 77 million citizens would have access to the UK with Ankara's accession "creating a border-free zone from Iraq, Iran and Syria to the English Channel".

He warned: "As things stand, the British people won't be given a vote in the future on Turkish accession.

"We were not offered a referendum when Bulgaria, Romania or 17 others joined. Your only chance to have a say on this is on 23 June."

A referendum on membership of the European Union is morphing into a referendum on Turkish - and Albanian and Serbian - accession to the club.

William Hague, the former foreign secretary and Conservative leader, stressed Turkish membership was "not on the cards" and said the possible accession of countries at some unspecified point in the future was "not the issue on which to decide how to vote in this referendum".

In the final couple of weeks, the Prime Minister and the Remain camp will try to pull the debate back to the economy, knowing that the risk to jobs, growth and investment is his best hope for securing success on 23 June.

But if Mr Hague sounded a bit rattled, it is because he is.

Since turning up the volume on immigration a week ago with proposals for an Australian-style points system, Vote Leave has picked up momentum in the polls. 

David Cameron will race to the finishing line, brandishing what he hopes is the trump card - the economic threat of Brexit to jobs, investment and growth.

The polls suggest the two arguments are finely balanced, but team Remain can take heart in one thing today.

It looks like turnout is going to be high, which means that the Prime Minister might have convinced unmotivated Remainers to cast their vote after all.

US F-16 Pilots Eject After Midair Collision

Two US airmen have ejected safely after an apparent midair collision over the US state of Georgia, military officials said.

The collision took place during a night training mission involving six F-16s attached to the South Carolina Air National Guard.

The two pilots parachuted to safety in a remote military operating area in Jefferson County, Georgia.

Colonel Nicholas Gentile said the airmen were back on base in South Carolina and were debriefed as part of the investigation.

He said the pilots, whose names were not released, are among the unit's most experienced airmen.

The collision occurred less than two weeks after two F/A-18 Super Hornets went down off the coast of North Carolina during a routine training mission.

Four airmen were rescued after that incident, which the Naval Air Force described as an "in-flight mishap".

Last week, a Blue Angels pilot was killed after his F/A-18 crashed during a practice session in Tennessee.

A day earlier, a Thunderbirds pilot ejected safely before his F-16 crashed in Colorado after a flyover of the US Air Force Academy commencement ceremony.

Ads on Accelerated Mobile Pages: Where Faster is Better

When the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) team set out to help make mobile experiences great for everybody, the objective wasn’t just to improve a user’s engagement with content. We knew the experience people had with ads was equally important to help publishers fund the great content we all love to read.

The AMP team laid out four core principles that would guide the innovation on the AMP ads roadmapand get us to a world where ads are as fast and engaging as the content we value.

• Faster is better
• ‘Beautiful’ matters
• Security is a must
• We’re better together

We recently took a moment to review the progress made and see how ads on AMP are doing. We compared ad performance on AMP and non-AMP mobile pages across 150 publishers (large corporations and small businesses in different geographic regions) on our programmatic platforms. The preliminary results are encouraging.

Compared to non-AMP pages, ads on AMP have led to:

• 80%+ of the publishers realizing higher viewability rates
• 90%+ of the publishers driving greater engagement with higher CTRs
• The majority of the publishers seeing higher eCPMs (Impact and proportion of lift varies by region and how optimized the non-AMP sites are)                                                                                We have also received positive feedback from a number of publishers with varying mobile web advertising business models:
  
  

  'So far, AMP has performed well against a number of metrics for advertising effectiveness and revenue. One encouraging stat is that we have seen an increase in viewability of ads within the AMP environment. As the industry moves more towards this as a measurement tool it is important we focus on optimizing for this metric.  We are encouraged by the open approach to both publishers and our tech partners and look forward to what’s to come'  

  — Noah Szubski, Chief Product Officer, DailyMail and EliteDaily 

  ‘It is still very early days, but AMP has performed well to date from both direct and indirect monetization sources. We've been able to extend all of our custom ad products to AMP and have enabled it within our premium ad marketplace, Concert. We see AMP as a perfect intersection of two core tenets of Vox Media - fast mobile web experiences and ads that perform. We are encouraged by all of the metrics and are looking forward to continuing to grow this important channel” 

  — Joe Alicata, Vice President of Revenue Products & Operations, Vox Media 

  “We’ve seen a 90% decrease in page latency, 96% decrease in unfilled
  impressions, 65% increase in ad engagement and 32% increase in eCPM. Perceived load time improved from approximately 17 seconds to 2-3 seconds.” 

  — Conor Beck, Director of political news network TownHall Media

  
  
  While this makes for a promising start, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible with ads in AMP. There’s much work ahead for us and the rest of the industry — including our third party ad tech partners — to make advertising experiences on the mobile web as great as content experiences with AMP. We’re both committed to and excited by that.

  
  

  If you’re curious about what lies ahead for the broader AMP project, check out the AMP roadmap.
  
  
  Posted by:

  Craig DiNatali, Director, Global Partnerships Google

  Nitin Kashyap, Product Manager, Google

  
  

EU Vote: Corbyn To Face Live Sky News Audience

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will make his only live set-piece television appearance of the EU referendum campaign on Sky News in the final week of the campaign.

The leader of the opposition will face questions from a live studio audience made up of a representative selection of young people at an event which I will be chairing.

The event will take place on the evening of Monday 20 June, less than three days before the EU referendum polls open.

The Labour leader expressed some views sceptical of the European Union during his victorious leadership campaign and had a history of voting with eurosceptics as a backbencher.

Mr Corbyn has been keen to express a separate Labour view for the future of the EU, and a number of figures in his party have publicly called on him to have a greater presence in the campaign.

His TV appearance follows live Sky News events featuring Prime Minister David Cameron and leading Leave campaigner Michael Gove, which provided some of the key moments of the campaign so far.

Both men faced a tough grilling from the Sky News audience, with the PM accused of running a "scaremongering" Remain campaign.

Mr Cameron was also accused of "waffling"  by student Soraya Bouazzaouiwhen he tried to outline his stance on Turkey joining the EU.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove faced questions over the Leave campaign's economic case for Brexit - declaring that he was "glad" no major economic authorities backed his side.

He also accused his boss Mr Cameron of delivering a "depressing" and "scary" message to voters.

Head of Sky News John Ryley said: "After the success of the our programmes featuring David Cameron and Michael Gove at the start of the campaign, we are delighted that Jeremy Corbyn will take part in a Sky News event on 20 June. 

"We believe these programmes play an important role in scrutinising the arguments of both the Remain and the Leave campaigns."

Further details of the programme will be announced in due course.

:: Apply here for the chance to be part of the audience and to put your EU referendum question to Mr Corbyn

Crimes against humanity in Eritrea since 1991: UN

A UN investigation reports various crimes committed in Eritrea since 1991, including enslavement, rape and murder.

The Eritrean government have been committing widespread crimes against humanity for the past 25 years, UN investigators said.

The crimes include, enslavement, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killing, rape and murder, according to the UN inquiry that was released on Wednesday.

One of the main human rights violations is the forced labor of military conscripts.

One witness said that Air Force conscripts were made to work in a plantation that belonged to the Air Force chief. The conscripts were not paid and were sent to detention facilities if they refused to work.

The governement also operates a shoot-to-kill policy to stop people fleeing the country, according to evidence collected by the UN inquiry.

These acts were perpetrated to terrify and control the civilian population, while crushing opposition, the Commission of Inquiry said.

"There is no genuine prospect of the Eritrean judicial system holding perpetrators to account in a fair and transparent manner," Mike Smith chair of the commission said.

So, the Commission of Inquiry recommends that the international community and the International Criminal Court get involved.