Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Occupy Oakland and News Media Coexist Uneasily
By SHOSHANA WALTER Published: November 12, 2011
Immediately after a man was shot to death Thursday afternoon near the Occupy Oakland encampment, Randy Davis, a cameraman for KGO-TV, turned his lens on a group of protesters helping the victim. Then part of the crowd turned on him. Protesters formed a chain around the victim. About a dozen men — some shouting, “No cameras!” and “No media!” — punched Mr. Davis in the head and pushed him to the ledge overlooking a BART station stairwell before other protesters intervened, witnesses said. The attack, one of at least two against journalists that night, highlighted the growing tensions between Occupy Oakland and the news media after a week of largely negative coverage of problems at the encampment.

Life and death in Rio's drug wars
Gelson Domingos' death came on the eve of what may prove one of the biggest military operations in Rio's recent history

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 November 2011
The call came in the early hours of last Sunday; police Special Forces were preparing to raid a shantytown on the western outskirts of Rio. Gelson Domingos and Ernani Alves scrambled from their beds and braced themselves for another day at war. By 4am Domingos, a veteran news cameraman and Alves, a TV crime reporter, had clocked-in at their newsroom. By 5am they were racing out of town behind a column of flashing red sirens.

Inside the twisted remains of Fukushima nuclear plant
Yesterday, reporters travelled for the first time to the centre of Japan's radiation catastrophe, the still-dangerous power plant devastated by March's earthquake and tsunami. This is what they saw

SUNDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2011
About three dozen journalists sat on two buses. We wore protective suits, double gloves, double layers of clear plastic booties over shoes, hair covers, respirator masks, and carried radiation detectors. As we drove to the Fukushima plant, we passed through a police checkpoint, and saw three towns – Naraha, Tomioka, Okuma – empty of all inhabitants. Among the abandoned homes was a flower shop with plants, withered and dead, still on display. As we approached the plant, radiation readings rose: 0.7 microsieverts per hour in Naraha, near the edge of the restricted zone.

Boy genius of the art world
He loves to paint, and he has used that rare gift to buy his family a house, writes Patrick Barkham.

November 13, 2011
Maroon tie flying from his blue school shirt, nine-year-old Kieron Williamson hurtles along the lane outside his new home wearing a pair of hand-me-down inline skates. It is not how you might expect to find an artistic prodigy with a waiting list of 6000, as Americans, Chinese and Germans clamour for a Kieron original. Paintings he sold for £2000 ($3100) have been resold for £10,000. His fifth exhibition opened on Friday at his local gallery in the pretty market town of Holt and sold out in 10½ minutes, one painting fetching £15,595.

AU troops in Somalia face funding shortfall
KATHARINE HOURELD NAIROBI, KENYA - Nov 13 2011
Senior commanders said on Saturday that the lack of cash is hampering recent advances against the Islamists, discouraging countries from sending troops and may have cost lives. The shortfall comes as AU troops have taken control of the Somali capital from the Islamist al-Shabaab militia for the first time since their mission began in 2007. Last month Kenyan troops crossed the border and opened a second front against al-Shabaab, which has been weakened by a famine in its southern strongholds.

Cold war-style blacklists? Wide ripples from Russian lawyer's death in prison.
Two Russian generals have reportedly called off a US visit after senators asked for a review of their visa requests. A proposed Senate bill would restrict visas for 60 Russians allegedly linked to the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

By Fred Weir, / Correspondent /
Sergei Magnitsky was just one statistic among more than 4,000 people who die each year after being consigned to Russia's overcrowded and brutality-plagued prison system. But the story of the dedicated corporate lawyer who died under suspicious circumstances in pretrial custody two years ago, after being arrested by the very police officers he had testified against in a major corruption case, has shocked the world and led to a wave of repercussions that could undo the tenuous "reset" that has thawed US-Russian relations since President Obama took office. The US Senate is considering a bill that would impose visa restrictions and financial penalties on 60 Russians allegedly involved in Mr. Magnitsky's imprisonment and death, while the State Department has already put less sweeping measures in place. Russia has retaliated with its own list of 11 US citizens, mainly associated with the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, who may not enter Russia.