Six In The Morning

Syria links troop pullback from cities to 'security'

Syrian troops will stay in residential areas of cities until "peace and security" prevail, the government says

31 March 2012
A foreign ministry spokesman made the announcement after the UN's peace mission to Syria called for troops to be withdrawn as a good faith gesture. President Bashar al-Assad has nominally accepted a peace plan proposed by UN envoy Kofi Annan. However fighting has continued between government and opposition forces, with 40 people reportedly killed on Friday. The UN believes at least 9,000 people have died in the year-long revolt against Mr Assad's rule. Many victims are said to have been civilians killed by government shelling.

Scoop! The curious world of Edward Trevor, the ace reporter who never was
He's the News of the World reporter, now under investigation, who scooped Fleet Street with tales of sleaze. But the most incredible thing about his stories? The author never existed

Ian Burrell Author Biography Saturday 31 March 2012
Of all the veteran reporters working for the News of the World during the period being investigated by Scotland Yard, one in particular will certainly never be arrested. That is because Edward Trevor doesn't exist. But that didn't stop his byline appearing on nearly 300 stories published in the ill-fated Sunday tabloid. Edward Trevor might have been a fiction but the work published under this strange sobriquet is being studied by detectives from Operation Weeting, which is investigating phone hacking and other potential criminality at the defunct newspaper.

Rush to judgment dividing US in Trayvon Martin murder case
AMERICA: For some George Zimmerman is a murderer; for others he is just a regular neighbourhood watch volunteer who fired in self defence

LARA MARLOWE The Irish Times - Saturday, March 31, 2012
IF YOU are a Republican and watch Fox News, you probably refer to the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, nearly five weeks ago, as a “tragedy” and believe George Zimmerman, who shot Martin in the chest, was a “neighbourhood watch volunteer” who fired in self defence. Most likely you support the “stand your ground” gun law under which police refused to arrest Zimmerman. If you’re a Democrat who gets your information from MSNBC, you call Martin’s death a crime and may have joined the million people who signed an online petition calling for Zimmerman’s arrest, or marched in the dozens of rallies – 20 last Monday alone – across the country this week demanding “Justice for Trayvon”. You regard “stand your ground” laws as a licence to kill. Zimmerman’s family say they have received death threats. A group calling itself the New Black Panthers has offered $10,000 for Zimmerman’s arrest.

The lady returns
Her national hero father was assassinated and she has spent much of the past 20 years under house arrest. But now certain to win a parliamentary seat in Sunday's byelections, Aung San Suu Kyi is set to play a key role in building a more democratic Burma

Lindsay Murdoch March 31, 201
FOR 30 years, journalist Thiha Saw was hounded by Burma's pervasive Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, which censors the country's media. In 2010, the editor and founder of the Open News Weekly Journal published a photograph of a crowd greeting pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi when she was released after 15 years of house arrest. ''I was punished … they suspended my editorship for six months,'' he says.

US woman to be retried in Rwandan genocide case
A New Hampshire woman accused of lying about her role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide to win asylum in the United States will face a second trial on immigration fraud charges following a mistrial.

Reuters | 31 March, 2012 09:40
Federal prosecutors on Friday notified a court in Concord, New Hampshire, that they would not drop charges against Beatrice Munyenyezi, 41, whom they accuse of helping to organise mass killings and rapes in the southern Rwandan town of Butare 18 years ago. A jury deadlocked in the case this month. The new trial is set to begin in September. Munyenyezi’s husband and mother-in-law were arrested more than a decade ago and put on trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania, where they were sentenced to life in prison on genocide charges.

Israel shields public from war risks with Iran
Middle East

By Gareth Porter
TEL AVIV - The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling Israelis that Israel can attack Iran with minimal civilian Israeli casualties as a result of retaliation, and that reassuring message appears to have headed off any widespread Israeli fear of war with Iran and other adversaries. But the message that Iran is too weak to threaten an effective counter-attack is contradicted by one of Israel's leading experts on Iranian missiles and the head of its missile defense program for nearly a decade, who says Iranian missiles are capable of doing significant damage to Israeli targets.