Six In The Morning

Mexico's leading presidential candidate is handsome, popular and still a mystery

　

By Nick Miroff and William Booth, Published: May 14
ATLACOMULCO, Mexico — In his campaign for president, Mexico’s handsome front-runner, Enrique Peña Nieto, looks down from towering billboards with a movie-star smile. “Tu me conoces,” he says. You know me. With the July 1 presidential vote only weeks away, Peña Nieto holds a solid double-digit lead in the polls. But Mexican voters and U.S. observers confess that they do not really know what the candidate stands for. Nor are they sure how he would govern Mexico, a vital trade partner for the United States, Mexico’s ally in the fight against drug cartels.

Earth's environment getting worse, not better, says WWF ahead of Rio+20
Swelling population, mass migration to cities, increasing energy use and soaring CO2 emissions squeeze planet's resources

Erin Hale guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 May 2012
Twenty yearson from the Rio Earth summit, the environment of the planet is getting worse not better, according to a report from WWF. Swelling population, mass migration to cities, increasing energy use and soaring carbon dioxide emissions mean humanity is putting a greater squeeze on the planet's resources then ever before. Particularly hard hit is the diversity of animals and plants, upon which many natural resources such as clean water are based.

Nowhere to run: rebels trapped in Burma's escalating ethnic war
Pinned against the Chinese border, the isolated Kachin people fear a bloody end to a long conflict

Laiza Tuesday 15 May 2012
Ethnic Kachin fighters are locked in battle against Burmese forces after a government offensive on the border town of Laiza – where the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) is based – sparked fears that authorities are planning a final push to oust the rebels. Fighting has been escalating since mid-April, when several rounds of peace talks – forming part of the government's much-heralded moves toward reform – reached no tangible outcome.

Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit
After Greek voters rejected austerity in last week's election, plunging the country into a political crisis, Europe has been searching for a Plan B for Greece. It's time to admit that the EU/IMF rescue plan has failed. Greece's best hopes now lie in a return to the drachma.

By SPIEGEL Staff
There are many things Alexis Tsipras likes about Germany. The leader of Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) party drives his BMW motorcycle to work at the Greek parliament in the morning, Germany's über-leftist Oskar Lafontaine is one of his political allies, and when it comes to his daily work, his colleagues have noticed a certain tendency toward Prussian-style perfection. Tsipras could easily count as a friend of the Germans, if it weren't for the German chancellor. Greek magazines have frequently caricatured Angela Merkel dressed in a Nazi uniform, because she imposes her fondness for balanced budgets and austerity on the rest of Europe. The Greeks, says Tsipras, want to "put an end" to the Germans' requirements and their "brutal austerity policy."

Airlift of South Sudanese to begin in Khartoum
An airlift of up to 15,000 ethnic South Sudanese began on Monday from Khartoum, an AFP correspondent said.

Sapa-AFP
The first plane chartered by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) took off at 0615 GMT carrying around 160 South Sudanese, some of whom have spent their entire lives in the north. They are among a group of 12,000-15,000 South Sudanese who have been waiting for transport South from the Kosti way-station 300 kilometres (190 miles) from Khartoum. Kosti became home to the biggest single concentration of South Sudanese awaiting transport South, with many living in makeshift shelters or barn-like buildings for up to a year.

IAEA refuses Iran cooperation pact
Middle East

By Gareth Porter
Director Generalof the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano has signaled that there will be no agreement with Iran in meetings in Vienna on Monday and Tuesday on the terms for Iranian cooperation in clarifying the issue of alleged nuclear weapons work. Amano indicated in an interview with The Daily Beast on Friday that he intended to hold up an agreement on Iranian cooperation in responding to allegations of military involvement in its nuclear program until the IAEA was allowed to visit to Parchin, the military complex about 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran.