Six In The Morning

Assad's slaughter of the innocents

Newborn babies are among the latest victims of the Syrian government's brutal assault on Homs

Thursday 09 February 2012
Bashar al-Assad's bloody siege of Homs intensified yesterday as clear evidence emerged that his indiscriminate shelling of the restive town had started claiming innocent victims, including at least 18 premature babies and three entire families. The evidence came as civilians in the besieged city endured a fifth day of incessant shellfire – the worst yet, according to eyewitnesses – with dozens of other people being killed as the brutal assault continued. Last night, news footage was broadcast purporting to show a military convoy making its way to Homs.

Christchurch earthquake collapse building was substandard
Government enquiry finds CTV offices where 115 died were not built to minimum requirements of the past or present

Associated Press in Wellington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 February 2012 04.27 GMT
A six-storey building that collapsed and killed 115 people during last year's New Zealand earthquake did not meet construction standards, according to a government report. The report, which called it "technically inadequate", was contested by the building's designer. The Canterbury Television (CTV) building in Christchurch collapsed during the magnitude-6.1 earthquake on 22 February. It accounted for nearly two-thirds of the quake's 184 victims.

Russian city backs fines for 'promoting gay life'
St Petersburg to impose £100 penalties for spreading 'homosexual propaganda'

Moscow Thursday 09 February 2012
A law which outlaws "homosexual propaganda" has been approved by parliamentarians in St Petersburg – a move that has outraged rights activists in Russia and across the world. The bill, which passed a key second reading yesterday, now only needs to go through the formality of a third reading before becoming law.

Chinese, Russian arms fuel Darfur abuse: Amnesty
Chinese-made bullets and aircraft bought from Russia are used to commit rights violations in Sudan's Darfur under an ineffective UN arms embargo, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

Sapa-AFP | 09 February, 2012 07:14
The London-based rights watchdog aired similar concerns five years ago but its latest report comes after "a new wave of fighting" between opposition groups and government forces over the past year. "This has included targeted and ethnically motivated attacks on civilian settlements, and indiscriminate and disproportionate aerial bombings that have contributed to the displacement of an estimated 70 000 people from their homes and villages," Amnesty said.

Emails bare NRC's Fukushima chaos
Post-3/11 messages paint portrait of U.S. officials trying to make sense of 'fog of information'

By STEVEN MUFSON The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — In the confusion following the earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex last March, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was standing by to help. But a trove of emails posted on the NRC's website shows an agency struggling to figure out how to respond and how to deal with the American public while cutting through what one official called "the fog of information" coming out of Japan. "THIS IS NOT A DRILL," said an email from the NRC operations center early March 11, hours after the quake.

Falklands: more international support for Argentina after 'militarization' claim?
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said she will take her complaint that Britain is militarizing the Falklands before the UN Security Council.

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer
In the simmering dispute over the British-run Falkland Islands, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner urged Britain to “give peace a chance,” adding a new argument to the dispute that could resonate more widely with other nations. She said Tuesday she will formally take her complaint to the UN Security Council – saying that the modern warship sent by Britain dangerously ups the ante. "We have suffered too much violence already to be attracted to military games and wars," President Fernández said on Tuesday in a national broadcast. "No land should end up being a trophy of war."