Six In The Morning

Blast rocks hotel in Libya's Benghazi
A car bomb has exploded near a hotel used by foreign diplomats in Libya's rebel-held city of Benghazi.
Last Modified: 02 Jun 2011
A huge car bomb has rocked a major hotel in Benghazi, the Libyan rebels' city in the east of the country, but caused no casualties, witnesses and police say.

Two cars were destroyed in the explosion, which occurred in the parking lot of the Tibesti hotel, used by rebel leaders, journalists and senior officials of the National Transitional Council (NTC), the main rebel administration in eastern Libya.

Hotel staff said there were no immediate reports of injuries and the cause of Wednesday's blast was not clear.

A police officer said a bomb was detonated in one car and the blast damaged a second car parked next to it.

Locked up for reading a poem
Ayat al-Gormezi, the woman who symbolises Bahrain's fight for freedom
By Patrick Cockburn Thursday, 2 June 2011
Bahrain's security forces are increasingly targeting women in their campaign against pro-democracy protesters despite yesterday lifting martial law in the island kingdom.


Ayat al-Gormezi, 20, a poet and student arrested two months ago after reading out a poem at a pro-democracy rally, is due to go on trial today before a military tribunal, her mother said. Ayat was forced to turn herself in when masked policemen threatened to kill her brothers unless she did so.

Hungary opposes EU corporate tax increase
The Irish Times - Thursday, June 2, 2011
DEAGLÁN de BRÉADÚN, Political Correspondent
TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán found common ground in their opposition to increased corporate taxation at a meeting in Government Buildings yesterday.

Both leaders are against any attempt to deprive EU member states of their right to set low corporate tax rates in an effort to attract foreign direct investment.

At a joint press conference with the Taoiseach after their meeting, Mr Orbán, whose government currently holds the presidency of the European Council said: “We did touch on the issue of tax competition within the European Union.

The Painful Evacuation of a Japanese Village
Poisoned Fields

By Cordula Meyer
Why on earth didn't she notice anything? It's a question that preoccupies Mieko Okubo. Why didn't she see the signs?


If she had only been more attentive, perhaps Fumio, her father-in-law, would still be alive today. He would be sitting with her at the table, gazing out at his rice fields through the open terrace door, just as he had done for years.

"Do we have to leave Iitate?" Fumio asked on April 11, when Japan's NHK television network reported that their village was probably going to be evacuated.

"If they say so on TV," she had replied off-handedly.

Zimbabwe police vow to hunt down 'traitors'

HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Jun 02 2011

In its latest bulletin, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network said observers in voting districts reported that bases have been re-established after calls by President Robert Mugabe for elections this year to end a troubled two-year coalition with the former opposition. Many of these bases were used by militants as "torture and coercion" camps during the violent and disputed 2008 elections, the group said.

It demanded the demolition of "these structures of violence which have created a culture of fear in communities" across the country.

Jerusalem Day: Why the Holy City is at the crux of the peace process
One capital city wanted by two nations
Ariel Zirulnick, Correspondent, Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer
Jerusalem already functions as Israel’s capital. The majority of the country’s government buildings are located in West Jerusalem, the part of the city that remained under Israeli control between its independence and the 1967 war. But in Judaism, Jerusalem is considered the “eternal and undivided capital” of the Jewish nation, and many Israeli politicians – from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat – have insisted on a unified national capital that includes East Jerusalem.