Six In The Morning

Obama warns Pyongyang on missile



JoongAng daily
President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday urged North Korea to call off its plan to launch a missile next month, warning it is a violation of an international norm and will only deepen the country’s isolation. “Bad behaviors will not be rewarded,” Obama told a joint press conference after a meeting with Lee at the Blue House late yesterday. At the conference, Lee said the two countries will sternly deal with a North Korean provocation. The meeting between the presidents came a day before the start of the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, designed to deal with nuclear threats from non-state terrorists.

iPad smugglers face fresh pressures
Shipping Apple's tablets to the Far East can make big profits – but is threatened by tougher customs, mail costs and global rollout

Charles Arthur and agencies guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 March 2012 08.22 BST
Early on the morning of 16 March, Wong Tat joined a line of about 100 people waiting for the launch of the new iPad in a chilly rain outside an Apple store on the outskirts of San Francisco. When the doors opened, he was among the first to buy his quota of two iPads – the maximum Apple allows per person. Then, sporting a bright red cap for easy identification, Wong began to direct a stream of people toting their new tablets to a silver Mercedes 4x4 in the parking lot.

Inside the mind of Mohamed Merah
Confessions by the Toulouse gunman depict a killer who found 'infinite pleasure' in the slaughter

Monday 26 March 2012
The last testament of Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse gunman killed last week, suggests that he was a psychopath as much as a terrorist, someone who found an "infinite pleasure" in killing. Disturbing extracts from his boasts and confessions, recorded by police while he was under siege last week, were leaked to a newspaper yesterday. Merah, 23, remained calm and courteous throughout the 32-hour siege, but showed no remorse for killing seven people, including three small children.

Wade admits defeat in Senegal election battle


BATE FELIX AND DIADIE BA DAKAR, SENEGAL - Mar 26 2012 08:29
Senegal's long-serving leader Abdoulaye Wade admitted defeat in presidential elections on Sunday, congratulating his rival Macky Sall -- a move seen as bolstering the West African state's democratic credentials in a region fraught with political chaos. Thousands of residents of the capital Dakar poured onto the streets overnight, honking car horns, beating drums and singing in celebration after state television reported that Wade had telephoned Sall to concede the country's most contentious election in recent history.

Proving you're gay to the Turkish army
Military service is mandatory for all Turkish men - they can only escape it if they are ill, disabled or homosexual. But proving homosexuality is a humiliating ordeal.

By Emre Azizlerli BBC World Service
''They asked me when I first had anal intercourse, oral sex, what sort of toys I played with as a child..." Ahmet, a young man in his 20s, told officials he was gay at the first opportunity after he was called up, as he and other conscripts underwent a health check. "They asked me if I liked football, whether I wore woman's clothes or used woman's perfume," he says. ''I had a few days' beard and I am a masculine guy - they told me I didn't look like a normal gay man.''

Japan's Tepco shuts its last nuclear facility
One nuclear reactor left operating as country debates future of nuclear energy after tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis.

Last Modified: 26 Mar 2012 08:07
Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company [Tepco], the operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima power plant, has shut its last operating nuclear reactor, leaving the country with only one nuclear facility still operating. Tepco said on Sunday it shut down the number 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, the world's biggest nuclear power plant, raising concerns about a power shortage this summer. "We are currently closely studying the summer power supply situation. We will do our utmost to operate in a stable way and maintain our facilities," Toshio Nishizawa, Tepco president, said in a statement.