Six In The Morning

US drones provoke outrage in Iraq

Officials say use of unarmed aircraft an affront to nation's soverignty

By ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
A month after the last American troops left Iraq, the State Department is operating a small fleet of surveillance drones here to help protect the United States Embassy and consulates, as well as American personnel. Senior Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the program, saying the unarmed aircraft are an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. The program was described by the department’s diplomatic security branch in a little-noticed section of its most recent annual report and outlined in broad terms in a two-page online prospectus for companies that might bid on a contract to manage the program. It foreshadows a possible expansion of unmanned drone operations into the diplomatic arm of the American government; until now they have been mainly the province of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Dalai Lama and west 'distorting Tibetan protests'
Exiled Tibetan leader is eager to stir up trouble so as to garner support from the west, according to China Daily

Reuters in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 January 2012 06.28 GMT
The Tibetan government-in-exile has colluded with western governments to distort a recent string of police shootings in Tibetan areas of China in a bid to discredit the government, an official Chinese newspaper said on Monday. Protests by ethnic Tibetans, who accuse Chinese authorities of stifling their traditions and religious freedoms, have gathered pace in the mountainous frontiers of southwestern Sichuan province that border on Tibet proper since last Monday.

Extreme close-up: German film brings the spread of neo-Nazi gangs into focus


Berlin Monday 30 January 2012
For a film that has touched a raw nerve in Germany with its portrayal of neo-Nazi violence, the opening of Kriegerin, or Combat Girl, is deceptively benign: the camera pans to a 10-year-old girl on a lonely Baltic beach weighed down by a heavy load on her back. "Can I stop now grandpa?" the girl asks the kindly looking pensioner who greets her with open arms. "Of course you can, my darling," he replies with a smile as he removes her rucksack. It proves to be full of wet sand. "You've done well, my little Kreigerin," he tells her.

Jailed Rwanda journalists launch Supreme Court appeal
Two Rwandan journalists imprisoned for insulting President Paul Kagame and denying genocide will appear before the country's Supreme Court on Monday to argue for their freedom.

Jan 30 2012 08:17
The fate of Agnès Uwimana and Saïdati Mukakibibi, who are supported by an international team of lawyers and British human rights groups, has become a test case for free speech in the Central African state. The ban on denial of the country's 1994 genocide, which claimed as many as 800 000 lives, is being exploited as a legal weapon to silence political opponents, it is alleged. Rwanda insists the law is no different to those in Europe outlawing denial of the Holocaust.

The toughest place to be a binman
Jakarta and the surrounding metropolitan areas are home to 28 million people, and the Indonesian city is struggling to cope with all the rubbish it generates. What's it like for the binmen?

By Eamonn Walsh BBC News 30 January 2012
Each day soon after sunrise, Imam Syaffi sets off with his hand-pulled cart to collect the rubbish from some of the more desirable residences in Jakarta. With his cheery cry of "Sampa!" (rubbish), he lets the residents in their gated homes know that he has arrived. The spacious houses and leafy streets of Guntur, close to the financial district are a stark contrast to the cramped conditions elsewhere in Jakarta where many millions live in poverty.

After Egypt, Tunisia, Libya overthrows, Arab upheaval begins to settle
Egypt quietly moves into another phase of voting, while the monarchs in Morocco and Jordan have stabilized their rule through reforms.

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer, Nicholas Seeley, Correspondent, Kristen Chick, Correspondent
Tumult. Tragedies. Victory. Exulta­tion. That was 2011 in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, where longstanding dictators were swept away by popular revolts that are still reshaping the Arab world. "We started the revolution, but we're still completing it," says Ahmed Salah of Cairo, who quit his job at a stock exchange last year to help unite revolutionary forces. Indeed, 2012 is the year of what comes next, of deep breaths after a furious sprint, of political strategizing, building on gains made, and repairing economies damaged by a year of almost unprecedented upheaval.