Current World Issues (Hov.)

Gaza vows to respond to Israeli air strikes Palestinian armed groups have vowed to respond to Israel's attack on a tunnel in a southern town of the Gaza Strip late on Monday that left at least seven people dead and nine others wounded. "We will exercise our right to respond - this is our duty," Daoud Shehab, a leader in the Islamic Jihad movement, told Al Jazeera, adding that it is the legitimate right of the resistance groups to respond. Palestinian media said that the tunnel in Khan Younis had been hit by the Israeli air force. "Reports said Israel fired five missiles at the tunnel that was being dug east of Khan Younis and which Israel claims was leading to its territory," Palestinian news agency Wafa said. Israeli officials said that the tunnel near the border wall, which was in the process of being built, was blown up after being monitored for some time. The ministry of health in Gaza officially identified five of those killed as members of...

WHY DOES ISRAEL KEEP ATTACKING SYRIA? Over the weekend, cross-border violence between Israel and  Syria set off an exchange of heated threats between the two countries. On Saturday, the neighbors traded blame when  Israel  attacked Syrian artillery cannons, claiming it was responding to what might have been errant rocket fire that landed in the Israeli-occupied Syrian  Golan Heights . However, neither the cross-border violence nor the threats are new. There have been almost routine tit-for-tat attacks in the form of rocket fire, assassinations and air raids that have intensified since the war in Syria began in 2011. However, while the Israeli army has frequently shelled Syrian military positions and bases throughout the war, Syrian government forces have never directly retaliated - although Israel  speculates  that some of the stray fire is intentional. What types of attacks take place? The violence from the war in Syria, which started in 201...

(CNN)The President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, failed to clarify Monday whether his administration had officially declared independence from Spain and instead repeated his call for talks to resolve the ongoing constitutional crisis in the country. In a letter to the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Puigdemont asked for two months of dialogue over the status of the region in northwest Spain, which held a disputed independence referendum on October 1. Rajoy had set a deadline of 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) Monday for Puigdemont to say definitively whether an ambiguous speech he delivered to the Catalan Parliament last week in the wake of the referendum amounted to a declaration of independence. Catalonia had "earned the right" to become an independent republic, after 90% of voters in the October 1 referendum chose to split from Spain, Puigdemont told the Catalan Parliament. But he suspended the effects of the declaration to allow for talks. ...