Six In The Morning

Afghanistan suicide bomb 'kills top MP' at wedding

　A well-known Afghan politician and at least 20 other people have been killed in a suicide attack in the northern province of Samangan, police say.

The BBC
Ahmad Khan Samangani, an ethnic Uzbek MP, was attending a wedding party for his daughter in the provincial capital, Aybak, when the blast happened. The attacker, posing as a guest, embraced Mr Samangani before detonating his explosives, a witness said. A Taliban spokesman denied involvement in the attack. Ahmad Khan Samangani was a commander in the mujahideen militia during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1980s. He was known as a supporter of President Hamid Karzai and a rival of Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful civil war commander in the north and currently one of Afghanistan's most prominent Uzbek politicians, the BBC's Bilal Sarwary, in Kabul, says.

Terrified villagers tell of the horror of Tremseh
Chilling evidence of Syria's worst atrocity as bodies are packed into mass graves

BEIRUT SATURDAY 14 JULY 2012 Loveday Morris
Crammed into the Tremseh village mosque, women and children wailed prayers over row after row of corpses yesterday before the bodies were carried outside, packed into mass graves and buried. Overwhelmed by the scale of the slaughter, the tiny village about 25km outside the city of Hama had run out of traditional white burial shrouds, instead using curtains and tablecloths to wrap the dead. Videos posted online showed scores of bodies lined up in the mosque. Some purported victims were charred black by fire, another appeared to have had his throat slashed.

Dictator's daughter seeks the Blue House
Korea

By Steven Borowiec
South Korea's most popular politician, Park Geun-hye, announced on July 10 that she will run for the country's presidency in December's national election, when she could become Northeast Asia's first female head of state. If she does make it to the president's office, no one is sure what kind of leader she'd be, and the fact of her gender isn't having the type of political echoes one might expect. In her announcement speech, Park made the kind of fluffy political promises expected of someone in her position. She thanked supporters for giving her the strength to conquer life's challenges. "I was able to overcome all difficulties because of your support," she told the crowd.

10 Absurd Violations of Freedom of Association
Guest blogger Mary McGuire lists countries that have criminalized some of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By Mary McGuire
The right to form associations, clubs, and other groups, as well as to meet or talk with people individually without government interference, is identified as a fundamental freedom under Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is an essential component of any society. This freedom can be exercised by practicing one’s faith with fellow believers, forming labor unions and other civic groups, peacefully protesting unjust government policies, or simply forming human connections, in person or online, on issues of common interest. But in more than half of the world, this right is regularly infringed upon by governments, especially when it takes a form that antidemocratic regimes find threatening.

A Visit to the World's Deadliest Dive Site
It doesn't have the nicest coral formations nor the most fish. But the Blue Hole in the Gulf of Aqaba is a magnet for divers, primarily because of its reputation.

By Maik Grossekathöfer in Dahab, Egypt
Tarek Omar says that he doesn't know exactly how many bodies he has recovered. "I stopped counting at some point," he says. But he can still remember the names of the first two he pulled up from the depths of the Red Sea, bringing them back onto the Egyptian shore. "They were Conor O'Regan and Martin Gara. Irish. They were considered cautious divers. Both died here on Nov. 19, 1997. They were only 22 and 23. Sad." Omar is sitting under an awning on the edge of the desert, drinking tea with milk and looking out over the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba, which wash against the east coast of the Sinai. The nearest settlement, the resort town of Dahab, is 10 kilometers (six miles) to the south.

Ethiopia jails prominent blogger, opposition figures
Twenty Ethiopians, including a prominent blogger and opposition figures were jailed for between eight years to life on Friday on charges of conspiring with rebels to topple the government.

Reuters
Ethiopia, a major recipient of Western aid, has said it is fighting separatist rebel movements and armed groups backed by its arch-foe Eritrea. But rights groups say the Horn of Africa country, sandwiched between volatile Somalia and Sudan, is using broad anti-terrorism legislation to crack down on dissent and media freedoms. Addis Ababa denies the charge. Blogger and journalist Eskinder Nega, who was arrested last year and accused of trying to incite violence with a series of online articles, was jailed for 18 years.