Six In The Morning

Signs of an Asian Arms Buildup in India’s Missile Test

　

By HEATHER TIMMONS and JIM YARDLEY
NEW DELHI — India’s successful test on Thursday of a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead is the latest escalation of an arms race in Asia, where the assertiveness and rising military power of China has rattled the region and prompted a forceful response from the Obama administration. By launching the Agni 5, a ballistic missile capable of reaching Beijing and Shanghai, India joined a small club of nations with long-range nuclear capability, including China, Britain, France, Russia, Israel and the United States. The missile was launched Thursday morning from a small island off India’s eastern coast, a day after the test had been scratched because of weather.

Murdered Briton spoke of 'empress'


Luke Heywood and Tania Branigan April 20, 2012
BRITISH businessman Neil Heywood privately confessed to friends that Gu Kailai - the woman now suspected of murdering him - was ''mentally unstable'' and behaved like an unforgiving ''empress''. In conversations in the three years before his death, Mr Heywood admitted that Ms Gu's behaviour had grown increasingly erratic. He told one friend that Ms Gu - wife of the leading Chinese politician Bo Xilai - was comporting herself ''like an old-fashioned Chinese aristocrat or empress''.

Makeover for Rio's favelas: What is at stake?
One of every five residents in Rio de Janeiro lives in a favela, and faces public security and health threats. But the city's plan to improve slums has been met with distrust, writes a guest blogger.

By Julia Michaels
Has anyone calculated the total number of people who have ever lived their whole lives in a favela? Since the first one, here in Rio, on the Morro da Favela, occupied in 1897? It’s surely more than six million [...L]iving under constant threat to one’s health, physical safety, mental balance, etc. [W]e are talking about generations of people who lived in ghettos. People long on the margin, limited in their capacity to fulfill their human potential.

Massacre Survivors Struggle to Overcome Trauma and Guilt
As the trial of Anders Breivik gets underway in Oslo, survivors of the massacre he perpetrated are using a range of sometimes unique therapy methods to overcome their trauma. But, for many of them, the hardest question remains: Why did I survive?

By Gerald Traufetter and Antje Windmann
Adrian Pracon, 22, is about to face his own shooting for the third time. This time, he wants to show his 28-year-old sister, Katharina, the place where he should have died. Adrian only saw the killer's black boots in the moments before the shot came, but he knew the man wanted to murder him, too. "It's so strange how I remember the situation," Adrian tells his sister, sitting beside him in his silver Alfa Romeo. "It all happens as if it were in slow motion."

Nicolas Sarkozy: Why is the French president so disliked?
If President Nicolas Sarkozy fails to win a second term, as many polls are predicting ahead of Sunday's first round of voting, perhaps the biggest factor will be the personal loathing that he elicits in so many of the French.

By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris
From the moment he took office in 2007, no French president in modern times has been the object of such blatant dislike. It is an animosity quite distinct from opposition to his actual policies. All leaders expect hostility for the things they do. Few get it in such measure for the things they are. "There is an irrational hatred of Nicolas Sarkozy among much of the public, and it is playing a major part in this election," says Jean-Sebastien Ferjou who edits the news website Atlantico.

Mali and me: Man from Microsoft who returned to run the country
The farm boy who became a Nasa scientist faces his biggest challenge yet – as prime minister

Daniel-Howden Friday 20 April 2012
A widespread and worsening hunger crisis, at least two competing rebellions that have cut the country in two, active Islamic jihadists, a military coup and massive population displacement are some of the items in the in-tray of Mali's leaders. If "rocket science" has become the popular shorthand for complexity then the situation in the West African nation demands a rocket scientist. Enter Cheick Modibo Diarra, Africa's first astrophysicist, formerly of Nasa, and now the acting Prime Minister of Mali.