Six In The Morning

Afghan peace council head Rabbani killed in attack
The chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed in a bomb attack at his home in Kabul, officials told the BBC.
The BBC 20 September 2011
He was meeting two members of the Taliban at his home at the time of the blast, officials said. It is unclear if they were involved in the attack.

The High Peace Council leads Afghan efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.

Mr Rabbani is a former president of Afghanistan and also led the main political opposition in the country.

Unconfirmed reports say he may have been killed by a suicide attacker.

When the peace council was set up, Afghan President Hamid Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace.

Khamenei throws the gauntlet at the West

By Mahan Abedin
The hosting of an "Islamic Awakening" conference in Tehran over the weekend provided a suitable occasion for the Islamic Republic to advance its narrative on the so-called Arab Spring.

Attended by hundreds of intellectuals, spiritual leaders and political activists from the Islamic world and beyond, and addressed foremost by the leader of the Islamic Revolution Grand Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the conference was a major event and can be viewed as a significant statement of intent.

Japan's tsunami tragedy: already fading from sight?
More than six months after a quake triggered a devastating tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan, there is still much left to do – and a fear that no one’s listening.
By Gavin Blair, Correspondent
In the immediate aftermath of March 11, when Japan was struck by the most powerful earthquake and tsunami in its history, there was a feeling that the country had changed irrevocably. As images of entire communities being swept away were burned into the national consciousness, many believed this represented a "year zero" for Japan, a chance to break from decades of economic stagnation and political malaise.
Six months later, few still hold such high hopes and there is little sign of the promised rebuilding of homes and lives for those in the disaster zones. Some feel that the rest of the country, including the Tokyo political class, is already forgetting.

The Pope's Difficult Visit to His Homeland
Disillusioned German Catholics

One thing is already clear: The two men will be all smiles when they meet.

If all goes according to plan, German President Christian Wulff will greet the pope at 11:15 a.m. this Thursday in front of Bellevue Palace, the president's official residence in Berlin. Photographers and cameramen will be eagerly jostling for the best spots, security teams will be intently scanning the area, and Wulff will shake his guest's hand with the proper degree of decorum.
But what will happen next? What will the German head of state and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church talk about when they meet for the first time, shortly after Benedict XVI's landing in Berlin? Will they talk about the fact that Wulff, a practicing Catholic, divorced and remarried, a fact that, under the current rules of the Church, excludes him from receiving Communion?

Zambia's youth backs 'King Cobra' for president

CHRIS MFULA LUSAKA, ZAMBIA

Crowds of youths chanting "We want change, we want change" mobbed 74-year-old Sata as he visited a polling station in the capital, Lusaka, where long queues of people had to wait for hours for voting booths to open.

At one station, the frustration boiled over as the crowd went on the rampage, burning electoral materials and damaging five vehicles parked nearby. Police said they made four arrests.

Banda's Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, which has run the nation since the end of one-party rule in 1991, claims most of its support in the countryside where farmers have benefited from an agricultural subsidy scheme.

A future for drones: Automated killing

By Peter Finn, Tuesday, September 20,
One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp.

The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control.
After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look.