Egypt bombing: Security Forces kill 40 suspected militants

Tehran, Jan 8: Iran struck back at the United States for the killing of a top Iranian general early Wednesday, firing a series of ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops in a major escalation that brought the two longtime foes closer to war.

Iranian state TV said it was in revenge for the U.S. killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose death last week in an American drone strike near Baghdad prompted angry calls to avenge his slaying. A U.S. official said there were no immediate reports of American casualties, though buildings were still being searched.

Soleimani's killing and the strikes by Iran came as tensions have been rising steadily across the Mideast after President Donald Trump's decision to unilaterally withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. They also marked the first time in recent years that Washington and Tehran have attacked each other directly rather than through proxies in the region. It raised the chances of open conflict erupting between the two enemies, which have been at odds since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But in a tweet shortly after the missile launches, Iran's foreign minister called a ballistic missile attack a ``proportionate measures in self-defense'' and said it was not seeking to escalate the situation but would defend itself against any aggression.

Iran initially announced only one strike, but U.S. officials confirmed both. U.S. defense officials were at the White House, likely to discuss options with Trump, who launched the strike on Soleimani while facing an upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate,

Iran's Revolutionary Guard warned the U.S. and its regional allies against retaliating over the missile attack against the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq's western Anbar province. The Guard issued the warning via a statement carried by Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.

``We are warning all American allies, who gave their bases to its terrorist army, that any territory that is the starting point of aggressive acts against Iran will be targeted,'' The Guard said. It also threatened Israel.

After the strikes, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator posted a picture of the Islamic Republic's flag on Twitter, appearing to mimic Trump who posted an American flag following the killing of Soleimani and others Friday in a drone strike in Baghdad.

Ain al-Asad air base was first used by American forces after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and later saw American troops stationed there amid the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. It houses about 1,500 U.S. and coalition forces.

Two Iraqi security officials said at least one of the missiles appeared to have struck a plane at the base, igniting a fire. It was not immediately clear whether it was an Iraqi or U.S. jet. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the attacks, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they had no permission to brief journalists.

About 70 Norwegian troops also were on the air base but no injuries were reported, Brynjar Stordal, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Armed Forces told The Associated Press.

Trump visited the sprawling Ain al-Asad air base, about 100 miles or 60 kilometers west of Baghdad, in December 2018, making his first presidential visit to troops in the region. He did not meet with any Iraqi officials at the time, and his visit inflamed sensitivities about the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. Vice President Mike Pence also has visited the base.

Iranian state TV said the Guard's aerospace division that controls Iran's missile program launched the attack, which it said was part of an operation dubbed ``Martyr Soleimani.'' Iran said it would release more information later.

The U.S. also acknowledged another missile attack on a base in Irbil in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region.

``As we evaluate the situation and our response, we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend U.S. personnel, partners and allies in the region,'' said Jonathan Hoffman, an assistant to the U.S. defense secretary.

Wednesday's revenge attack happened a mere few hours after crowds in Iran mourned Soleimani at his funeral. It also came the U.S. continued to reinforce its own positions in the region and warned of an unspecified threat to shipping from Iran in the region's waterways, crucial routes for global energy supplies. U.S. embassies and consulates from Asia to Africa and Europe issued security alerts for Americans. The FAA also warned of a "potential for miscalculation or mis-identification" for civilian aircraft in the Persian Gulf amid in an emergency flight restriction.

A stampede broke out Tuesday at Soleimani's funeral, and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured as thousands thronged the procession, Iranian news reports said. Shortly after Iran's revenge missile launches early Wednesday, Soleimani's shroud-wrapped remains were lowered into the ground as mourners wailed at the grave site.

Tuesday's deadly stampede took place in Soleimani's hometown of Kerman as his coffin was being borne through the city in southeastern Iran, said Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency medical services.

There was no information about what set off the crush in the packed streets, and online videos showed only its aftermath: people lying apparently lifeless, their faces covered by clothing, emergency crews performing CPR on the fallen, and onlookers wailing and crying out to God.

``Unfortunately as a result of the stampede, some of our compatriots have been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions," Koulivand said, and state TV quoted him as saying that 56 had died and 213 had been injured.

Soleimani's burial was delayed, with no new time given, because of concerns about the huge crowd at the cemetery, the semi-official ISNA news agency said.

A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main avenues and side streets in Tehran. Such mass crowds can prove dangerous. A smaller stampede at the 1989 funeral for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least eight people and injured hundreds.

Hossein Salami, Soleimani's successor as leader of the Revolutionary Guard, addressed a crowd of supporters gathered at the coffin in a central square in Kernan. He vowed to avenge Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike Friday near Baghdad's airport.

``We tell our enemies that we will retaliate but if they take another action we will set ablaze the places that they like and are passionate about," Salami said.

``Death to Israel!'' the crowd shouted in response, referring to one of Iran's longtime regional foes.

Salami praised Soleimani's work, describing him as essential to backing Palestinian groups, Yemen's Houthi rebels and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. As a martyr, Soleimani represented an even greater threat to Iran's enemies, Salami said.

Soleimani will ultimately be laid to rest between the graves of Enayatollah Talebizadeh and Mohammad Hossein Yousef Elahi, two former Guard comrades killed in Iran's 1980s war with Iraq. They died in Operation Dawn 8, in which Soleimani also took part. It was a 1986 amphibious assault that cut Iraq off from the Persian Gulf and led to the end of the war that killed 1 million.

The funeral processions in major cities over three days have been an unprecedented honor for Soleimani, seen by Iranians as a national hero for his work leading the Guard's expeditionary Quds Force.

The U.S. blames him for killing U.S. troops in Iraq and accused him of plotting new attacks just before he was killed. Soleimani also led forces supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad in that country's civil war, and he also served as the point man for Iranian proxies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Assad in Syria on Tuesday amid the tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Soleimani's slaying already has led Tehran to abandon the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as his successor and others vow to take revenge.

In Iraq, pro-Iranian factions in parliament have pushed to oust American troops from Iraqi soil following Soleimani's killing. Germany and Canada announced plans to move some of their soldiers in Iraq to neighboring countries.

The FAA warning barred U.S. pilots and carriers from flying over areas of Iraqi, Iranian and some Persian Gulf airspace. The region is a major East-West travel hub and home to Emirates airline and Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel. It earlier issued warnings after Iran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone last year that saw airlines plan new routes to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. Maritime Administration warned ships across the Mideast, citing the rising threats. ``The Iranian response to this action, if any, is unknown, but there remains the possibility of Iranian action against U.S. maritime interests in the region,'' it said.

Oil tankers were targeted in mine attacks last year that the U.S. blamed on Iran. Tehran denied responsibility, although it did seize oil tankers around the crucial Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's crude oil travels.

The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said it would work with shippers in the region to minimize any possible threat.

The 5th Fleet ``has and will continue to provide advice to merchant shipping as appropriate regarding recommended security precautions in light of the heightened tensions and threats in the region,'' 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Joshua Frey told The Associated Press.

Iran's parliament, meanwhile, has passed an urgent bill declaring the U.S. military's command at the Pentagon and those acting on its behalf in Soleimani's killing as ``terrorists," subject to Iranian sanctions. The measure appears to be in response to a decision by Trump in April to declare the Revolutionary Guard a ``terrorist organization.''

The U.S. Defense Department used that terror designation to support the strike that killed Soleimani.

New Delhi, Jan 14: The curative petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh, who were sentenced to death in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, was on Tuesday rejected by a five-judge Supreme Court Bench led by Justice N.V. Ramana.

In a three-page order, the Bench concluded, after an in chamber consideration that began about 1.45 p.m., that there was no merit in their pleas to spare them from the gallows.

“We have gone through the curative petitions and relevant documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra versus Ashok Hurra. Hence, the curative petitions are dismissed,” the court held.

Curative is a rare remedy devised by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in its judgment in the Rupa Ashok Hurra case in 2002. A party can take only two limited grounds in a curative petition - one, he was not heard by the court before the adverse judgment was passed, and two, the judge was biased. A curative plea, which follows the dismissal of review petition, is the last legal avenue open for convicts in the Supreme Court. Sharma was the first among the four convicts to file a curative.

The Bench also rejected their pleas to stay the execution of their death sentence and for oral hearing in open court.

Besides Justice Ramana, the Bench comprised Arun Mishra, Rohinton Nariman, R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

Curative petitions were filed in the Supreme Court by both convicts on January 9. The petitions had come just days after a Delhi sessions court schedulled the execution of all the four convicts in Tihar jail on January 22.

Sharma and Mukesh, in separate curative petitions, argued that there was a “sea change” in the death penalty jurisprudence since their convictions. Carrying out the death sentence on such changed circumstances would be a “gross miscarriage of justice”.

In his plea, Sharma said the Court had commuted the death penalty in several rape and murder cases since 2017, when it first confirmed the death penalty to the Nirbhaya convicts.

“fter the pronouncement of judgment in 2017, there have been as many as 17 cases involving rape and murder in which various three-judge Benches of the Supreme Court have commuted the sentence of death,” the petition contended.

The Supreme Court recently dismissed a review petition filed by Akshay Singh, another of the four four condemned men, to review its May 5, 2017 judgment confirming the death penalty. It also refused his plea to grant him three weeks' time to file a mercy petition before the President of India.

A Bench led by Justice R. Banumathi had said it was open for the Nirbhaya case convicts to avail whatever time the law prescribes for the purpose of filing a mercy plea.

Akshay (33), Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Sharma (24) had brutally gang-raped a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012. She died of her injuries a few days later.

The case shocked the nation and led to the tightening of anti-rape laws. Rape, especially gang rape, is now a capital crime.

One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar jail. A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.

The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests.

This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain superspreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants.

It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech.

Follow latest updates on the Covid-19 pandemic here

Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.

What is clear, they said, is that people should consider minimizing time indoors with people outside their families. Schools, nursing homes and businesses should consider adding powerful new air filters and ultraviolet lights that can kill airborne viruses.

What does it mean for a virus to be airborne?

For a virus to be airborne means that it can be carried through the air in a viable form. For most pathogens, this is a yes-no scenario. HIV, too delicate to survive outside the body, is not airborne. Measles is airborne, and dangerously so: It can survive in the air for up to two hours.

For the coronavirus, the definition has been more complicated. Experts agree that the virus does not travel long distances or remain viable outdoors. But evidence suggests it can traverse the length of a room and, in one set of experimental conditions, remain viable for perhaps three hours.

How are aerosols different from droplets?

Aerosols are droplets, droplets are aerosols — they do not differ except in size. Scientists sometimes refer to droplets fewer than 5 microns in diameter as aerosols. (By comparison, a red blood cell is about 5 microns in diameter; a human hair is about 50 microns wide.)

From the start of the pandemic, the WHO and other public health organizations have focused on the virus’s ability to spread through large droplets that are expelled when a symptomatic person coughs or sneezes.

These droplets are heavy, relatively speaking, and fall quickly to the floor or onto a surface that others might touch. This is why public health agencies have recommended maintaining a distance of at least 6 feet from others, and frequent hand washing.

But some experts have said for months that infected people also are releasing aerosols when they cough and sneeze. More important, they expel aerosols even when they breathe, talk or sing, especially with some exertion.

Scientists know now that people can spread the virus even in the absence of symptoms — without coughing or sneezing — and aerosols might explain that phenomenon.

Because aerosols are smaller, they contain much less virus than droplets do. But because they are lighter, they can linger in the air for hours, especially in the absence of fresh air. In a crowded indoor space, a single infected person can release enough aerosolized virus over time to infect many people, perhaps seeding a superspreader event.

For droplets to be responsible for that kind of spread, a single person would have to be within a few feet of all the other people, or to have contaminated an object that everyone else touched. All that seems unlikely to many experts: “I have to do too many mental gymnastics to explain those other routes of transmission compared to aerosol transmission, which is much simpler,” Marr said.

Can I stop worrying about physical distancing and washing my hands?

Physical distancing is still very important. The closer you are to an infected person, the more aerosols and droplets you may be exposed to. Washing your hands often is still a good idea.

What’s new is that those two things may not be enough. “We should be placing as much emphasis on masks and ventilation as we do with hand washing,” Marr said. “As far as we can tell, this is equally important, if not more important.”

Should I begin wearing a hospital-grade mask indoors? And how long is too long to stay indoors?

Health care workers may all need to wear N95 masks, which filter out most aerosols. At the moment, they are advised to do so only when engaged in certain medical procedures that are thought to produce aerosols.

For the rest of us, cloth face masks will still greatly reduce risk, as long as most people wear them. At home, when you’re with your own family or with roommates you know to be careful, masks are still not necessary. But it is a good idea to wear them in other indoor spaces, experts said.

As for how long is safe, that is frustratingly tough to answer. A lot depends on whether the room is too crowded to allow for a safe distance from others and whether there is fresh air circulating through the room.

What does airborne transmission mean for reopening schools and colleges?

This is a matter of intense debate. Many schools are poorly ventilated and are too poorly funded to invest in new filtration systems. “There is a huge vulnerability to infection transmission via aerosols in schools,” said Don Milton, an aerosol expert at the University of Maryland.

Most children younger than 12 seem to have only mild symptoms, if any, so elementary schools may get by. “So far, we don’t have evidence that elementary schools will be a problem, but the upper grades, I think, would be more likely to be a problem,” Milton said.

College dorms and classrooms are also cause for concern.

Milton said the government should think of long-term solutions for these problems. Having public schools closed “clogs up the whole economy, and it’s a major vulnerability,” he said.

“Until we understand how this is part of our national defense, and fund it appropriately, we’re going to remain extremely vulnerable to these kinds of biological threats.”

What are some things I can do to minimize the risks?

Do as much as you can outdoors. Despite the many photos of people at beaches, even a somewhat crowded beach, especially on a breezy day, is likely to be safer than a pub or an indoor restaurant with recycled air.

But even outdoors, wear a mask if you are likely to be close to others for an extended period.

When indoors, one simple thing people can do is to “open their windows and doors whenever possible,” Marr said. You can also upgrade the filters in your home air-conditioning systems, or adjust the settings to use more outdoor air rather than recirculated air.

Public buildings and businesses may want to invest in air purifiers and ultraviolet lights that can kill the virus. Despite their reputation, elevators may not be a big risk, Milton said, compared with public bathrooms or offices with stagnant air where you may spend a long time.

If none of those things are possible, try to minimize the time you spend in an indoor space, especially without a mask. The longer you spend inside, the greater the dose of virus you might inhale.