Six In The Morning

Yemen says al-Qa'ida-linked cleric Awlaki killed

Friday, 30 September 201

Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric linked to al-Qa'ida's Yemen-based wing, has been killed, Yemen's Defence Ministry said today.

"The terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed along with some of his companions," it said in a statement sent by text message to journalists, but gave no details.

A Yemeni security official said Awlaki, who is of Yemeni descent, was hit in a Friday morning air raid in the northern al-Jawf province that borders oil giant Saudi Arabia. He said four others killed with him were suspected al-Qa'ida members.

It was not immediately clear if Yemeni forces had carried out the raid or if Awlaki had been killed by a US drone strike. A US drone aircraft targeted but missed Alwaki in May.

Obama: A disaster for civil liberties
He may prove the most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties.
By Jonathan Turley, The L.A. Times
September 29, 2011

Protecting individual rights and liberties — apart from the right to be tax-free — seems barely relevant to candidates or voters. One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States.
President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them. The earliest, and most startling, move came quickly. Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture. In his first year, Obama made good on that promise, announcing that no CIA employee would be prosecuted for torture. Later, his administration refused to prosecute any of the Bush officials responsible for ordering or justifying the program and embraced the "just following orders" defense for other officials, the very defense rejected by the United States at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.
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Burma dam: Work halted on divisive Myitsone project

30 September 2011

Burma's president has suspended construction of a controversial Chinese-backed hydroelectric dam.

In a letter read out in parliament on Friday, Thein Sein said the $3.6bn (£2.3bn) Myitsone dam was contrary to the will of the people.

The project fuelled fighting between the army and ethnic Kachin rebels, and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi recently joined the anti-dam campaign.

The suspension is being seen as a rare victory for social activists.

The BBC's South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey says it appears to be further evidence of the new leadership's desire to seek legitimacy by being more open to public opinion.

Civil servants block Greek ministries

irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Friday, September 30, 2011

Angry civil servants blocked Greek government buildings for a second day this morning, disrupting the debt-laden country's talks with international lenders on a lifeline bailout payment.

At the transport ministry, several dozen government workers gathered to prevent senior members of an international inspection team from meeting the minister, Yannis Ragousis. Reporters saw the inspectors' car turn and drive away.

After a three-week breakdown in negotiations that unnerved financial markets, Greece and inspectors from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund resumed talks yesterday on an €8 billion aid tranche, which the country needs to avoid running out of cash next month.

Humanitarian disaster looms in Gaddafi's hometown

WILLIAM MACLEAN TRIPOLI, LIBYA - Sep 30 201

Interim government forces on Thursday recaptured the airport in Sirte, where Gaddafi loyalists have been using sniper, rocket and artillery fire to fight off full-scale assaults and retain one of their last two main bastions.

But the prolonged fight for Gaddafi's hometown has raised mounting concern for civilians trapped inside the city of about 100 000 people, with each side accusing the other of endangering civilians.

"They're shelling constantly. There's indiscriminate fire within individual neighbourhoods and from one area to another," Hassan, a resident who escaped the city, told Reuters.

Hugo Chávez tries to silence health rumors with his usual flair

Hugo Chávez assembled reporters to his palace and played ball, after a Miami-based newspaper suggested the spirited Venezuelan President was on his last legs.


By Girish Gupta, Correspondent / September 30, 2011
As rumors circulated all over the Internet that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had been rushed to the hospital with kidney failure, the great PR man had the world’s press in the palm of his baseball glove at his Miraflores presidential palace.

While his other hand theatrically threw a baseball up and down, President Chávez read out every word of anEl Nuevo Herald article that the previous night had suggested he was on his last legs.

“We must stop the speculation,” Chávez said, clad in a red tracksuit as he then tossed the ball back and forth with aides. "It is morbid and inhumane.”

Girls' Generation lead K-pop invasion of Japan

South Korean bands sweep 'cute' J-pop idols from charts to conquer world's second largest music market

• Justin McCurry in Tokyo
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011

The language is unmistakably Japanese, the lyrics delivered in familiar high-pitched tones over a backdrop of electronica. But the wave of pop music sweeping Japan is not the sugar-coated homegrown variety that has long clogged the airwaves.

Japanese teens and twentysomethings who once had ears only for J-popare now transfixed by K-pop, a phenomenon from South Korea that is taking the world's second-biggest music market by storm.

Korean pop culture's first foray into Japan was led almost a decade ago by Bae Yong-joon, a TV and film actor whose legions of mainly middle-aged, female devotees nicknamed him Yon-sama, or the Honourable Yon.