Daily News Roundup

WEDNESDAY, June 26

Three children have died in a house fire at Singleton in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

Two girls, believed to be twins, were taken to hospital but died a short time later and the body of a boy aged 11 or 12 was later found inside the house

A 31-year-old woman and an eight-year-old boy escaped from the house and have been treated for smoke inhalation.

Police were first on the scene and found the house well alight about 3.30am.

Neighbour Brock Forbes and his family tried to fight the fire until emergency services arrived.

“Me and me family just woke up from a big bang and [we heard] just smashing and screaming so we ran out and grabbed the hose,” he said.

“I was trying to put the fire out and trying to save them and fire fighters came and got it under control.”

###

A WW11 bomb dropped on Germany by the Allies has exploded under a cornfield near the town of Limburg leaving a large crater and registering as a minor earthquake.

The 250-kg bomb bomb, which self-detonated, is believed to have been meant for a nearby railway station during the air raid..

The explosion left a crater 10 metres in diameter and four metres deep

Residents reported hearing the sound of a large explosion and tremors on Sunday afternoon.

PHOTO: Aerial images of the crater were taken by a drone. (Presseportal: Polizei Westhessen)

The explosion, which German television program Hessenschau said registered as a magnitude-1.7 tremor, was later discovered to have left a crater 10 metres in diameter and four metres deep in the Ahlbach cornfield.

Drones took aerial images of the site but initial investigations could not determine the cause of the explosion.

However, by Monday afternoon bomb disposal experts confirmed it was caused by a 250-kilogram World War II dud bomb.

According to Hessenschau, a chemical long-term detonator triggered the explosion.

A Limburg city spokesman told Hessenschau the discovery of a dud bomb was not unusual, given a railway depot in the area used to transport German soldiers was an Allied target during World War II.

There have been a number of bombs defused and extracted from Germany in recent years, including an unexploded World War II bomb in Berlin last year, which resulted in the evacuation of the city’s centre.

Local official Guido Martin said despite the latest incident, unexploded World War II bombs did not pose a big risk to Germans.

“The danger is less than being struck by a lightning bolt,” he said.

###

The war of words between the US and Iranian leaders shows no let up with US President Donald Trump threatening to obliterate parts of Iran if it attacked “anything American”.

He posted the aggressive twitter after Teheran condemned the latest US sanctions and called White House actions “mentally retarded”.

Mr Trump on Monday signed an executive order imposing largely symbolic economic sanctions against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior figures, with punitive measures against Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expected later this week.

Iran shot down a US drone last week and Mr Trump said he had called off a retaliatory air strike with minutes to spare, saying too many people would have been killed.

It would have been the first time the US had bombed the Islamic Republic in four decades of mutual hostility.

In rhetoric similar to the kind of harsh words he used to aim at North Korea, Mr Trump tweeted: “Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”

In a televised address on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the new sanctions against Mr Khamenei would have no practical impact because the top cleric had no assets abroad.

Mr Rouhani, a pragmatist who won two elections on promises to open Iran up to the world, said the White House’s actions were “mentally retarded” — an insult that other Iranian officials have used in the past about Mr Trump, but a departure from Mr Rouhani’s own comparatively measured tone over the years.

“Tehran’s strategic patience does not mean we have fear,” said Mr Rouhani, who with his cabinet runs Iran’s day-to-day affairs while Mr Khamenei, in power since 1989, is the country’s ultimate authority.