1. US airstrike kills 16 policemen by mistake A U.S. airstrike has mistakenly killed 16 Afghan policemen in Helmand province. The bombing happened during a U.S.-backed Afghan operation to clear a village of Taliban insurgents* in the Gereshk district on Friday, a police spokesman said on Saturday. It is believed the police were not in uniform, Helmand governor Hayatullah Hayat said. Two commanders were understood to be among the dead in the airstrike, which was reportedly carried out by a drone. 2. ‘100,000-ton message to the world’ U.S. President Donald Trump helped hand over the USS Gerald R. Ford to the U.S. Navy on Saturday and said the state-of-the-art* aircraft carrier will send a “100,000-ton message to the world” about U.S. military might when it is ultimately deployed*. The president and commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces likened the US$12.9 billion warship to “an incredible work of art” and boasted about the U.S. labor that went into building a vessel that eventually will house thousands of sailors and crew members. The U.S. Navy’s new aircraft carrier is said to be the most advanced in the world. 3. German runaway girl found in Iraq A German girl who ran away from home after converting to Islam has been found as Iraqi forces liberated the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State extremists, German and Iraqi officials said on Saturday. She is reported to be in good health and will be interrogated* by Iraqi officials. The 16-year-old teenager, only identified as Linda W. in line with German privacy laws, is getting consular* assistance from the German Embassy in Iraq, prosecutor Lorenz Haase said from the eastern German city of Dresden. 4. Former governor to be tried A former state governor from Mexico’s ruling party will stand trial for engaging in organized crime and handling funds of illicit origin after a judge reviewing evidence approved the case, the attorney general’s office said on Saturday. Javier Duarte, who until 2016 governed the gulf coast state of Veracruz for President Enrique Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has been accused by the opposition of siphoning* off millions of dollars during his six-year tenure. 5. French military chief resigns France’s military chief resigned on July 19 after he was rebuked* by President Emmanuel Macron for protesting defense spending cuts. The row between the president and General Pierre de Villiers, 60, blew up last week when the chief of the defense staff told a parliamentary committee he would not allow the armed forces to be “screwed” by plans to cut 850 million euros (US$980 million) from the budget. Macron replied later that “I am the boss,” adding in a newspaper interview on the weekend that if there was a difference of opinion, “it is the chief of the defense staff who will change his position.” 6. S. Korean police probe defector’s return Police in South Korea’s capital on July 19 began investigating how a North Korean woman who defected in 2014 and made South Korean TV appearances ended up back in the North. The woman known as Lim Ji-hyeon in South Korea had appeared on cable talk shows that aired until April. She left the country earlier this year for China and is the same woman who appeared in a North Korean propaganda* video that aired on Sunday, said an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. Police are planning to track her recent activities and interview her acquaintances. (SD-Agencies) | 