Six In The Morning

Japan readies anti-missile defence for N Korea rocket



The BBC 23 March 2012
Japan has ordered missile defence systems to be prepared in response to the planned launch of a North Korean long-range rocket next month, Japanese Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka has said. Reports said the defence systems would be deployed near the island of Okinawa to shoot down the rocket should it threaten Japanese territory. North Korea says the rocket will put a satellite into orbit. But the US and its allies believe the launch is a pretext for a missile test. 'Grave provocation' Pyongyang said last week it was to mark the 100th birthday of its late Great Leader Kim Il-sung with the launch.

Adrian Hamilton: France is a deeply racist country, and Toulouse will only make that worse
The French have transferred their resentments from Jews to Arabs

Adrian Hamilton　　Friday 23 March 2012
Barely had Mohammed Merah leapt from his bathroom widow in Toulouse yesterday, still blasting away with his gun, than politicians and experts were analysing just what it might mean for the President and the other candidates in the coming election. It's unseemly. It's obscene. It has precious little to do with the facts of the case, the question of religion or the future of society in France. But it is what politics is now about, as much in France as the US.

Chinese lawyers told to pledge loyalty to party


Philip Wen March 23, 2012
THE Chinese government has moved to require practising lawyers to pledge loyalty to the ruling Communist Party, in a move branded by legal reformers as a backward step for the country's judicial system. The oath of allegiance, to be taken by all lawyers obtaining or renewing their professional licence, requires a promise to ''uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system'' as they perform the ''sacred duties of a socialist-with-Chinese-characteristics legal worker''.

Aids orphanage revives Swazi ghost town
Lost in the mountains of Swaziland, Bulembu became a ghost town when the local mine closed, cutting off its lifeblood. Now the town is coming back, centred on an orphanage taking in children whose parents have often died of AIDS.

Sapa-AFP | 23 March, 2012 07:56
"The babies are abandoned, maybe put in a plastic bag on the side of the road, maybe in the pit latrines," said Zanele Maseko, head of the nursery for the smallest orphans. "What the police told us, they found a baby who was buried alive. She is a big girl now." Swaziland has the world's highest rate of HIV infection, with at least one in four adults carrying the virus. A crushing financial crisis has left the tiny monarchy struggling to pay for medicines and for orphans' education.

'Beggars sitting on a sack of gold?' Ecuadoreans protest mining.
Indigenous from across Ecuador marched for 14 days into Quito to protest President Rafael Correa's plan to open large-scale mines on indigenous land.

By Irene Caselli, Correspondent
Six years after working to elect Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, the country’s indigenous population is now taking to the streets against the very government they helped bring to office. Hundreds of people from Ecuador's Andean and Amazonian indigenous groups marched into Quito today, after a 14-day trek across the country. Dressed in colorful traditional clothing, they are protesting against the government's large-scale mining projects, which they say go against Mr. Correa's electoral promise to protect the rights of nature, and could impact their access to clean water. “What we're asking is for the government to honor our democracy,” Humberto Cholango, head of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the largest indigenous group, told foreign reporters on March 21, the eve of the protesters' arrival into Quito.

Russia nudges Syria to move on
Middle East

By M K Bhadrakumar
The United Nations Security Council statement on Syria on Wednesday marks a turning point. The unanimity of opinion over the year-long crisis in Syria is appearing for the first time; why and how this happened needs to be understood. Russia finds itself in the driving seat in crafting the future of a key Middle East nation. This is unprecedented and it impacts the alchemy of ties between the presidency of Vladimir Putin and the West. Indeed, the Arab Spring won't be the same again. But first, Wednesday's statement itself. It "declassified" the initial six-point proposal submitted to the Syrian authorities by the joint special envoy for the United Nations and the League of Arab States, Kofi Annan. The endorsement by the permanent five of the UN Security Council - the United States, Russia, France, United Kingdom and China - implies that the Syrian government is expected to work with Annan.