Israel launches retaliatory strikes on Gaza militant targets

Israel has said it has launched retaliatory air strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip. Israel's defense minister said he held the Palestinian militant group Hamas responsible for two rockets fired at the Jewish state.

An statement released by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on Thursday provided little in the way of detail, saying only that the air force had carried out strikes on three militant targets in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Palestinian rocket attacks late on Wednesday, which hit open fields near Ashkelon and the town of Netivot.
"In response to this attack, the Israel Defence Forces struck three terror infrastructures in the Gaza Strip," the statement said.
Yaalon also blamed the rocket fire on Palestinian militant group Hamas, which effectively controls the coastal territory.
"We will hold Hamas responsible for everything that happens in the Gaza Strip and we will not tolerate any attempt to harm our citizens," he added.
Indications were, though, that it may well not have been members of Hamas who launched the latest rocket attacks on Israel.
The Reuters news agency cited a statement posted via Twitter by a radical Islamist group calling itself the Omar Brigades as claiming responsibility for the attack.
Hamas is said to have been trying to crack down on Islamist extremist groups in the territory, with AFP reporting that Hamas security forces had shot a Salafist miltant dead in a confrontation in Gaza City earlier in the week.
Concerns about possible escalation
The latest incidents of violence come just two days after German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the Gaza Strip, where he called on Israel to lift its blockade of the territory. He warned that a failure to break the current stalemate, nearly a year after 50 days of conflict in Gaza, could spur a military escalation. Steinmeier also said that it would only be possible for Israel to lift the blockade if all rocket attacks out of Gaza stopped.
pfd/msh (Reuters, AFP, dpa)

Poverty gap still a big issue in Africa, says World Bank

Africa’s biggest gathering of businesspeople, analysts and political leaders, the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa is underway in South Africa. DW spoke to the World Bank's chief economist on Africa.

DW: According to your organization, Africa's working age population is expected to double to one billion in the next 25 years. A huge number of Africans will be looking for work. Does it look as if there will be enough jobs to go around?
Francisco Ferreira: If you're thinking about formal jobs – the kind of jobs that you and I would like people to have – jobs with contracts, pensions and security, then the answer is most certainly not. We are aware of the fact that most employment in sub-Sahara Africa in the next foreseeable future will remain of an informal kind. Nevertheless, there has been enough growth in Africa, that even the quality of those informal jobs has been improving. Our key concern is making those jobs that exist better and better paid, so that the process of reducing poverty in Africa can continue.
How important is it for African governments to tackle inequality and narrow the gap between rich and poor?
The gap between rich and poor is a big issue. It's a political issue, but also an economic issue in the world. In Africa, there is a wide range of inequality issues. Eight out of the ten most unequal countries in the world are in Africa. All of those are in southern Africa or in island states. Elsewhere in the continent, the measured levels of consumption and income inequality are considerably lower. That said, there is also another important inequality between men and women, across different regions and between urban and rural areas. Most poverty in Africa remains rural and a lot of the emphasis reducing the poverty gap, has to be on agriculture and people living in rural areas.

Eight out of the ten most unequal countries in the world are in Africa, says Ferreira.

Foreign Direct Investment is instrumental in promoting growth in Africa, but do African governments still need to offer tax incentives to foreign companies in order to encourage it?
Each case is its own individual case and its hard to give blanket policy advice to a region that consists of 48 countries. That said, our general bias is against additional tax incentives for foreign direct investment. If anything, Africa collects very little of its revenues from taxation. At a time when oil prices have fallen and the fiscal revenues that come from oil and other resources are down, this has been reminding governments in Africa how important it is to have a domestic taxing system in place. So providing additional tax incentives runs the risk of generating a race to the bottom, where you are competing against your neighbor for investment from abroad. And we don't think that is what the region needs at the moment.
What are the essential ingredients for growth and prosperity?
The sources of growth are as diverse as the region. In many countries growth has been propelled by mining and extractives and oil and gas and by the investment that goes into those sectors and the infrastructure they need. But that's not true of the whole region. And some of the countries that have been making quite remarkable progress against poverty and furthering human development, like Ethiopia and Rwanda, have actually done that with growth in services and agriculture and not so much in resources.
What are the risks to that growth?
The primary risk is probably to do with natural resources and commodity prices. Oil prices have now stabilized and are rebounding a little bit but still at a much lower level than last year. That is a problem for countries like Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, a number of the big exporters of that commodity. Elsewhere in the continent there are other problems. South Africa, which is the second largest economy in the continent, has been struggling for a period with labor unrests , with difficulties in the electricity sector and a number of other issues, which has meant that its growth is lower than the African average.
Francisco Ferreira is the World Bank's chief economist for Africa.
Interview: Mark Caldwell

Sepp Blatter and Womens

Ireland FA chief executive John Delaney (right) claims Sepp Blatter recently stared at his girlfriend Emma English (left) for several seconds before saying he 'approved'. Delaney told the FIFA head to 'move on'

Sensational claims El Mundo's comments about Blatter and Shayk (pictured) - a guest of Prince Charles at a recent Buckingham Palace party - were being echoed across the world today

Revelation Sepp Blatter 79 reportedly 'had a relationship' with Russian beauty Shayk (pictured) at sometime between 2002 and 2014. 29-year-old Shayk dated Cristiano Ronaldo from 2010 until earlier this year

• Sepp Blatter is said to have 'had a relationship' with Irina Shayk after separating from tennis player Ilona Boguska

• Respected Spanish daily El Mundo made the sensational claim about the roving-eyed football chief and Cristiano Ronaldo's ex girlfriend (right) in a piece published yesterday titled 'All the women in Blatter's life'

• Sepp Blatter is said to have 'had a relationship' with Irina Shayk before meeting glamourous Linda Barras

• 

Shayk (left) dated Real Madrid and Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo (right) from 2010 until splitting this year