Six In The Morning

  28 May 2012 Last updated at 08:22 GMT

 Annan to visit Syria as UN condemns Houla massacre

Special envoy Kofi Annan is to visit Damascus on Monday, the day after the UN condemned Syria for its use of heavy weaponry in the town of Houla, where at least 108 people were killed. 

 Forty-nine children and 34 women were among Friday's dead, the UN said.

Syria's ambassador to the UN rejected what he called a "tsunami of lies" from some Security Council members.
Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague is going to Russia, which views Syria as a vital ally in the region.
The BBC's Daniel Sandford, in Moscow, says Mr Hague will argue that this could be the last opportunity to secure a "political transition" in Syria and avoid all-out civil war.
Russia and China have blocked previous attempts to impose UN sanctions on Syria.

 

 

Robert Fisk: The going price of getting away with murder... would $33m be enough?

The Long View: Are the Pakistanis being so dastardly when they lock up a national who has helped in a murder?

Monday 28 May 2012

 

La Clinton hath spoken. Thirty-three million smackers lopped off Pakistan's aid budget because its spooks banged up poor old Dr Shakeel Afridi for 33 years after a secret trial. And, as the world knows, Dr Afridi's crime was to confirm the presence of that old has-been Osama bin Laden in his grotty Abbottabad villa.
Well, that will teach the Pakistanis to mess around with a brave doctor who is prepared to help the American institution that tortures and murders its enemies. Forget the CIA's black prisons and rendition and water-boarding, and the torture of the innocents in the jails of our friendly dictators.

PNG tension rises as judge arrested

 May 28, 2012 - 4:59PM

 A second judge of Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court has been arrested on charges of sedition as police call for an end to political tensions.
Justice Nicholas Kirriwom was arrested at Waigani national court today.
It is understood he was quietly led by police into his chambers, where he is now being interviewed.

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Police spokesman Dominic Kakas said Justice Kirriwom, one of three judges who ruled today for a second time that Sir Michael Somare is the nation's legitimate prime minister, is likely to be charged with sedition.

Sudan, S.Sudan to meet for crisis talks after fighting

 By AFP
Posted  Monday, May 28  2012 at  09:31

Sudan and South Sudan are due to restart African Union-led talks in the Ethiopia Tuesday in the first face-to-face meeting since bitter border fighting took the foes to the brink of all-out war.

International pressure has pushed both sides to return to the long-running talks stalled by the fighting last month, when Southern troops seized an oil field from Khartoum's troops for ten days as Sudan launched repeated air strikes.

Tensions remain high, but Southern President Salva Kiir stressed ahead of the talks that "amicable dialogue on the outstanding issues with Khartoum is the only option for peace," according the South Sudan government website.

Israel curbing Arab enrollment in medical schools, activists say

The rising ranks of Arab medical students have caused alarm and led to rules to d

iscourage non-Jewish applicants, critics say. Schools dispute the assertion.

 By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times

May 28, 2012, 12:34 a.m

 Israeli medical student Mohammad Hijazi seems the ideal candidate to alleviate the country's looming doctor shortage.

He graduated first in his high school class, scored in the top 5% of Israel's version of the SAT and rounded out his resume by founding a grass-roots organization that encourages blood donation.

.Yet for the four years he applied to all five of Israel's medical schools, Hijazi was repeatedly rejected. Officials told him he kept failing the pre-admission personality interview, but the 25-year-old Arab Israeli suspects another reason: He believes that recent changes in the enrollment process are designed to discourage non-Jewish applicants.

"And it works," said Hijazi, 25, who is now pursuing a medical degree in Poland.

U.S. officials among the targets of Iran-linked assassination plots

By Joby Warrick, Monday, May 28, 10:35 AM

 In November, the tide of daily cable traffic to the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan brought a chilling message for Ambassador Matthew Bryza, then the top U.S. diplomat to the small Central Asian country. A plot to kill Americans had been uncovered, the message read, and embassy officials were on the target list.
The details, scant at first, became clearer as intelligence agencies from both countries stepped up their probe. The plot had two strands, U.S. officials learned, one involving snipers with silencer-equipped rifles and the other a car bomb, apparently intended to kill embassy employees or members of their families.