Six In The Morning

Business booming for the dog smugglers of the Mekong



By Peter Shadbolt, CNN January 25, 2012
Chinese New Year is a dangerous time for pet dogs in Thailand. Traditionally the time of peak demand for dog meat in Vietnam, the dog smugglers of the Mekong work deep into the night shipping thousands of animals -- sometimes dozens to a cage -- across the river border with Laos to be trucked on to the dinner tables of the nouveau riche in Hanoi. "I'd say about 98% of them are domesticated -- a lot of them are stolen pets," says John Dalley of the Phuket-based Soi Dog Foundation. Soi is a Thai word meaning backstreet or alley. "They've been trained and respond to commands, some of them are even still wearing collars," he says.

Fishing rules must cover EU vessels in foreign waters, campaigners say
WWF says reform of fishing policy must ensure that European vessels exploit stocks in international waters sustainably

Press Association guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012 06.00 GMT
New rules are needed to make sure all European fishing vessels fishing outside of EU waters operate in a sustainable way, campaigners urged on Wednesday. The current reform of the common fisheries policy, which governs the EU fleet, must make sure that vessels exploiting fish stocks as far away as the Indian Ocean and the southern Atlantic conform to the same standards as in Europe's waters.

We've been here before – and it suits Israel that we never forget 'Nuclear Iran'
The Ayatollah ordered the entire nuclear project to be closed down because it was the work of the devil

Robert Fisk Wednesday 25 January 2012
Turning round a story is one of the most difficult tasks in journalism – and rarely more so than in the case of Iran. Iran, the dark revolutionary Islamist menace. Shia Iran, protector and manipulator of World Terror, of Syria and Lebanon and Hamas and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad, the Mad Caliph. And, of course, Nuclear Iran, preparing to destroy Israel in a mushroom cloud of anti-Semitic hatred, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz – the moment the West's (or Israel's) forces attack.

Erdogan Slams 'Racist' France Over Genocide Bill
The French Senate has passed a bill making the denial of genocide -- including the massacre of Armenians in 1915 -- a crime. The Turkish reaction has been furious. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced what he called a "racist and discriminatory" attitude towards Turkey.

Spiegel
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has slammed a controversial French bill, which makes denying that the 1915 massacre of Armenians was a genocide a crime, for its "racist and discriminatory" attitude towards Turkey. The Turkish prime minister also threatened to implement unspecified sanctions against France if the bill is signed into law, "step by step, with no retreat." Whilst Turkey recognizes the deaths of Armenians in 1915 during the break up of the Ottoman Empire, it refuses to accept they amounted to genocide -- contrary to the position of most historians. But with the French Senate having approved the bill on Monday, it now only needs the signature of President Nicolas Sarkozy to become law.

Chinese fire on Tibetan protest


Philip Wen, Beijing January 25, 2012
TENSIONS have escalated in the sensitive Tibetan region of south-west China after security forces opened fire on ethnic Tibetan protesters, killing at least one and injuring more than 30 others on the first day of the Chinese New Year. The shootings happened in Luhuo, in the western reaches of Sichuan Province, near the Tibetan border. The dead man has been identified as 49-year-old Norpa Yonten, according to Free Tibet, a London-based advocacy group.

Struggling Nigeria weakened by violence
The assault bore the hallmarks of long-term planning: Cars loaded down with heavy explosives and driven by those willing to die

JON GAMBRELL KANO, NIGERIA
The coordinated attack in Nigeria's second largest city by the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has shown its metamorphosis from a group that sent out lone motorcycle-riding gunmen to one that deployed scores of killers who moved with military precision. Nigeria's ill-equipped police and military have been unable to confront this growing threat to peace in Africa's most populous nation. "Nigeria has never seen anything like this before," said Elizabeth Donnelly, a London-based think tank Chatham House analyst. "It's something so diffuse, so amorphous. It's very nimble and really hard to understand and pin down."