Six In The Morning

Syrian military bombards rebel strongholds

　Attacks reported in Damascus, Aleppo and Homs province, as US confirms defection of Syria's ambassador to UAE.

Last Modified: 26 Jul 2012 06:53
The Syrian military is continuing to use planes and helicopters to bombard areas where opposition fighters are mounting strong resistance. There was report of government forces attacking rebel positions in the capital Damascus, the city of Aleppo and areas of Homs province on Wednesday. Syrian troops and rebels sent reinforcements to the intensifying battle in the second city Aleppo, as the US said fresh defections from the regime showed President Bashar al-Assad's "days are numbered". Clashes raged on Wednesday in Aleppo's central al-Jamaliya neighbourhood, near the local headquarters of the ruling Baath party. In Kalasseh in the south of the city, rebels set a police station ablaze, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Yes, there's violence, but some Syrians think it's time to return
There has been a rebel surge – but most of the country is still under Bashar al-Assad's iron rule

ROBERT FISK THURSDAY 26 JULY 2012
A Syrian friend calls me early. "Just to let you know we're going back – things are OK now in the Mezzeh area." I wonder. Then a Lebanese colleague tells me that three Syrian friends of hers have just called to say goodbye, they're going back to Damascus with their families now that the fighting has died down. Then the same woman calls to tell me that she spoke to a friend in Aleppo on Tuesday night to check on his welfare. "He was in a packed restaurant in the centre of the city – it was difficult to hear what he was saying over the noise." The lines of posh Syrian cars outside Beirut restaurants last weekend – belonging to supporters of the regime taking a brief "holiday" from Syria – have suddenly vanished from the streets.

Seoul takes aim at Internet critics
Korea

By James Pearson
A 23-year-old South Korean photographer looks set to start dominating local headlines again over the next three months as he faces his final court appearance for violating the controversial National Security Law. Park Jung-geun, who inherited the family business from his father, jokingly likened the acquisition of his business to North Korea's leadership transition between the late Kim Jong-il and his son, Kim Jong-eun. Tongue firmly in cheek, Park re-tweeted a series of anti-South posts from the official North Korean Twitter account and posted a doctored photo of himself in front of the Northern flag cradling a bottle of whisky with a sad look on his face. Not seeing the funny side, South Korean authorities arrested Park for allegedly disseminating Northern propaganda.

After 20-year battle, protests over Italian high-speed train derail
Farmers lost the battle against a high-speed train they see as serving the economic interests of the Italian elite and causing harm to the environment.

By Giorgio Ghiglione, Contributor
Luca Abba, a farmer from Val di Susa, a valley that connects Italy to France, was electrocuted last February while climbing a high voltage pylon during protests against the construction of a new High Speed Railway Line (TAV) between Italy and France in a desperate attempt to resist expropriation. He survived, though severe health problems persist. But the tragic incident was evidence of the tensions that have been rising for almost two decades between the valley’s local communities and the central government, culminating in violent clashes between protestors and contractors since construction finally began last summer. The project has become emblematic of a public works culture that is driven far more by politics than local need: the current rail connection is underused and environmental problems could arise.

US says Rwanda's Kagame may be charged with aiding war crimes
The head of the US war crimes office has warned Rwanda's leaders they could face prosecution for arming groups responsible for atrocities in the DRC.

26 JUL 2012 06:14 - CHRIS MCGREAL
Stephen Rapp, who leads the US office of global criminal justice, told the Guardian the Rwandan leadership – including President Paul Kagame – may be open to charges of "aiding and abetting" crimes against humanity in a neighbouring country – actions similar to those for which the former Liberian president Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years by an international court in May. Rapp's warning follows a damning United Nations report on recent Rwandan military support for M23, an insurgent group that has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes since April as it seized territory in the eastern DRC.

The 20-year odyssey of Eva Peron's body
Three years after Eva Peron's death in 1952, her embalmed corpse disappeared, removed by the Argentinian military in the wake of a coup deposed her husband, President Juan Peron. It then went on an international odyssey lasting nearly two decades, before it arrived back in Buenos Aires in 1974.

By Linda Pressly BBC Radio 4
Tall, silvery-haired and precise, Domingo Tellechea has a worldwide reputation for the restoration of art, antiquities - and human remains. In 1974 he was the expert chosen to make the body of Eva Peron presentable for public display. These were violent times in Argentina - government death squads targeted radicals, and guerrilla groups attacked so-called "agents of the state". So when he was approached in a bar, alarm bells rang. "I was talking to a young man who worked there when two guys all dressed in black came in," he recalls.