Spying Issue: Cold War Among Berlin, Washington, Moscow and Markus R.

Spying Issue: Cold War Among Berlin, Washington, Moscow and Markus R.

For this year's Independence Day bash the U.S. embassy in Germany picked the historic Tempelhof airport where an allied air lift 66 years ago kept Berlin's citizens from starving during Soviet leader Josef Stalin's blockade.

After a year scarred by the revelations of mass U.S. spying on Germans, the Americans had hoped to toast U.S.-German friendship with rock music, ribs, burgers and beer.

But that morning news had broken that Germany's Federal Prosecutor had arrested Markus R., a 31-year old employee of Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND), on suspicion of spying for the Americans........

 Gaza is on Fire:Thousands of Gaza civilians flee after Israeli warning

(Reuters)

Thousands fled their homes in a Gaza Strip town on Sunday after Israel warned them to leave before it attacked rocket-launching sites, on the sixth day of an offensive that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 160 people.

Militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza kept up rocket salvoes deep into the Jewish state as the worst bout of Israel-Palestinian bloodshed in two years showed no signs of abating, and Western foreign ministers said a ceasefire was an urgent priority.......

Heavy fighting breaks out in Libya seven dead:Burning Tripoli!

Heavy fighting breaks out in Libya  seven dead:Burning Tripoli .

www.iaz24.blogspot.com

Smoke rises near buildings after heavy fighting between rival militias broke out near the airport in Tripoli July 13, 2014.

 Heavy fighting broke out between rival militias vying for control of Libya's main airport on Sunday, killing at least seven people and forcing a halt of all flights in the worst fighting in the capital for six months.............

A gunman  shoots: Three dead, two wounded in Pasadena, California.

Three people were killed and two wounded in a shooting late on Saturday afternoon in Pasadena, California before the gunman surrendered, police said.

Police responded to multiple 911 calls from residents about shots being fired and found a man barricaded in a home after “shooting indiscriminately" at people passing by, said Lt. Vasken Gourdikian of the Pasadena Police Department. The man also fired heavily upon officers arriving at the scene, he said..............

Metalworkers' Union of South African  is going to call a  wider strike

www.iaz24.blogspot.com

South Africa's metalworkers' union NUMSA rejected the latest pay offer from engineering and steel sector employers on Sunday, saying black workers were still underpaid, and threatened to widen its two-week old strike.

Industrial action by 220,000 NUMSA members, which followed on the heels of a crippling five-month strike in the platinum sector, has already forced General Motors to close its assembly plant in the southern city of Port Elizabeth..................