Residents of the Gaza neighborhood of Khuzaa say they were blocked from fleeing during days of intense Israeli shelling last month. Human Rights Watch says the incident appears to be a war crime.

It had been three nightmare nights. Faten Qdeih and her six children had fled Israeli shelling of their home, but were trapped by tanks and soldiers that shot at the crowd trying to escape. Wherever they went, explosions followed.

And it wasn't over.

A mortar shell rocked the building where they had taken refuge on the third day. Ms. Qdeih, bleeding from shrapnel, rushed the family into the street. Dodging shells, they ran to another building. It was hit too. Her seven-year-old son Anas dashed outside in fear just as another strike landed. Qdeih followed him and found his lifeless body.

Her daughters screamed. Dizzy, Qdeih made a heart-wrenching decision: She left her dead son behind and ran with the living. "I would rather I had died than see what I've seen," she said later.

An exile Uyghur leader has claimed that at least 2,000 ethnic minority Uyghurs may have been killed by Chinese security forces following riots last week in a restive county in China's western Xinjiang region, far more than reported by the state media.

Citing "evidence" from the ground, Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), accused the Chinese authorities of a cover up of what she called a "massacre" of Uyghurs in Yarkand (in Chinese, Shache) county in Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture on July 28.

Chinese state media had at first said "dozens" of people were killed but revised upwards the death toll to 96 this week, saying the riots erupted after a "gang" of Uyghurs attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkand's Elishku township and that the authorities reacted with "a resolute crackdown to eradicate terrorists."

But Kadeer told RFA's Uyghur Service that information the WUC received from the area was "absolutely different than the accounts provided by Chinese official narrative."

"We have evidence in hand that at least 2,000 Uyghurs in the neighborhood of Elishku township have been killed by Chinese security forces on the first day [of the incident] and they 'cleaned up' the dead bodies on the second and third day during a curfew that was imposed," she said.

"We have recorded voice messages from the people in the neighborhood and written testimonies on exactly what had taken place in Elishku township of Yarkand county during this massacre," she said, adding that the victims were mainly from villages No. 14, 15 and 16 in the township.

"We can share these facts without releasing the source of the information as their security and safety is at risk," said Kadeer, who has been in exile in Washington since being released from a Chinese prison in 2005.

This year's first outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever virus Ebola started in February in the West African nation of Guinea. It then began spreading to Liberia and, for the first time, to Sierra Leone and now Nigeria. With the possible spread to England in attempts to trace 30,000 people who might have been exposed, and now an American death in Nigeria and two more Americans afflicted with it here in the US, Ebola has rapidly grown into what could become a global epidemic with a potential capacity to wipe out millions.

According to recent statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) released just last week, at least 672 people have died out of a total of 1,201 cases so far this year in West Africa. However, seven days later the number of fatalities has jumped to 887, a spike of over 200 deaths in just the last few days.

Because the incubation period may last ten days while the infected victim may not even be aware of any illness, the virus is highly contagious. Then what begins like typical flu symptoms of fever, later vomiting as the virus spreads rapidly inside the body causing people to succumb often within days of its onset. Victims literally die from internal bleeding that in the final stages can flow out of every orifice. It has the trappings of a ghastly zombie science fiction nightmare come true.

There is no standard treatment (other than isolating the infected and quarantining those at risk). Nor is there yet an official vaccine, although Reuters just announced that as early as next month the US government will commence testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on humans after positive results were found on primates. It has been reported that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) infectious disease unit and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be running vaccine trials "as quickly as possible."

The Department of Defense and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) classify the Ebola virus as a biowarfare agent. Reports of up to 90% of humans infected die within a very short time. Therefore, it is a very real, extremely potent potential weapon of mass destruction.

On July 10, the German government demanded the immediate departure of the head of the CIA mission in Berlin. Such demands are not unusual, even between ostensible allies. What is unusual is that it should be publicly announced, and with much fanfare. What accounts for what some are already calling an "unprecedented breach" in the very close relations after 1945 between the United States and the German Federal Republic?

It only took one day for the subject to become the occasion of two major articles, one an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times and the other a major story in Germany's Der Spiegel. Both are pessimistic that the unprecedented breach can be swiftly, if ever, repaired.

The op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, written by Jacob Heilbrun, was entitled "The German-American Breakup." The word "breakup" is unequivocal, or almost. After an overview of various German commentaries, Heilbrun ends with this admonition:

"If Obama is unable to rein in spying of Germany, he may discover that he is helping to convert it from an ally into an adversary. For Obama to say Auf Wiedersehen to a longtime ally would deliver a blow to American national security that no amount of secret information could possibly justify."

If Heilbrun seems to have little hope that his viewpoint will be heard in Washington, it pales before the lead article in Der Spiegel on the same date. The long article is entitled "Germany's Choice: Will It Be America or Russia?" One section of the article is entitled "The Last Straw." It cites not someone on the left or someone who has long advocated closer relations with Russia. It cites instead a conservative advocate of the free economy and of rocksolid relations with the United States, who chairs an organization called Atlantic Bridge. In a tone of desperation, he says: "If [the latest allegations about spying] turn out to be true, it's time for this to stop." Note that the article says it's time for it to stop, not that it's time for further discussions or negotiations about it. Just stop.

Charles Arntzen is the Regents' Professor and Florence Ely Nelson Presidential Chair of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. Dr. Arntzen is known as a pioneer in the development of edible plant-based vaccines, and he has also been a key collaborator on what appears to be a promising new Ebola drug.

The Washington Post recently reported that:

US cargo ship USNS PFC Dewayne T. Williams is expected to arrive in the small Norwegian village of Namdalseid on August 10, bringing heavy tanks, armored personnel carriers and landing crafts, the local Adresseavisen newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The cargo will include third-generation main battle tanks of the M1A1 Abrams type. This new, heavier equipment will replace trucks and personnel carriers which were previously stored in the mountain bunkers of Central Norway.

Local defense sources, cited by the Norwegian Aftenposten newspaper, say that the US' decision to change war equipment stored in Norway was made on the basis of experiences from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Ukraine crisis simmered Wednesday, if not with actual fighting, then with fighting words from the key outside players in the conflict: the United States and Russia, whose foreign minister accused Washington of "running the show" in Kiev.

In an interview with state-run RT, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented how he felt U.S. officials were quick to blame his nation for everything awry in Ukraine and to insist Moscow can unilaterally solve it all. Lavrov said that while those in Ukraine's east and south who defiantly oppose the Kiev-based government are "not puppets" of the Kremlin, such a characterization would describe the relationship between Ukraine's leadership in Kiev and the United States.

"(Americans) have, I think, overwhelming influence," he said. "They act in a much more open way, without any scruples, compared to the Europeans ... You cannot avoid the impression that they are running the show very much, very much."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is ready to help Russian human rights advocates to set up a humanitarian corridor which would allow the safe transit of sick children from Ukraine, Raisa Lukutsova, the head of the Russian Red Cross, said Wednesday.

"They said that they are studying this issue and will do everything possible to resolve it. It's not easy. It depends not only on the Red Cross, which has such mandate but of course it depends on authorities' response," Lukutsova said.

The Russian Red Cross is not alone in its efforts to facilitate the opening of a humanitarian corridor in Ukraine. Russian Human Rights Commissioner Ella Pamfilova and number of Russian human rights organizations have made the same appeals to the EU, the OSCE, Kiev authorities and people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his heart goes out to the people and government of India where a massive landslide on Wednesday killed at least 109 people in their sleep, according to the Kremlin.

"Putin expressed his sympathy to the Indian Republic's President Pranab Mukherjee and the Republic's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the loss of so many lives due to the floods in the state of Maharashtra," the Kremlin said in the official telegram.

Last week, a large part of a hill collapsed on the village of Malin after a heavy rainfall, covering a densely-populated area with mud and levelling some 40 homes. The latest death toll stands at 109 people, with at least 50 feared to still be trapped under the rubble, according to officials.

According to the Kremlin statement, the Russian leader also voiced his condolences to those bereaved and wished the affected to get well soon.

The situation in eastern Ukraine was described as a catastrophic, full-blown war by Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, during the latest UN Security Council meeting. Russia has also called for an international humanitarian mission to be launched.

Fighting between Kiev's army and self-defense forces intensified on Tuesday, with the Ukrainian military using heavy weaponry around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. According to witnesses, the Ukrainian army resorted to multiple rocket launchers, including Uragan launchers and cruise missiles, RIA Novosti reported citing local militia.

Cruise missiles were spotted flying over the city of Gorlovka on Tuesday, while Uragan launchers were seen near the town of Snezhniy, witnesses told the news agency. Explosions reportedly caused by airstrikes were also heard within the city of Donetsk.

Multiple twitter accounts from #Donetsk reported at least 2 air strikes in the city within the last 45 min. #Ukraine

- Natalia Melnychuk (@pravolivo) August 5, 2014