Six In The Morning

Syria conflict: UN says 200,000 have fled Aleppo battle

　Some 200,000 people have fled intense fighting in Syria's second city Aleppo in the past two days, the UN has said.

30 July 2012
UN humanitarian chief Baroness Valerie Amos said others were trapped in the city and needed urgent help. Government forces launched a ground assault on Saturday after a week of sporadic shelling and sorties by fighter jets. The BBC's Ian Pannell, in the Aleppo area, says residents are facing food shortages and power cuts. He says the rebels are outgunned by the army, but they are fighting an effective guerrilla war in the streets. Fighting has focused on the the Salah al-Din neighbourhood in Aleppo's south-west, where the rebels had embedded themselves.

Power cut hits northern India causing major disruption
A massive power cut has caused disruption across northern India, including in the capital, Delhi.


It hit a swathe of the country affecting more than 300 million people in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states. Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said 60% of the supply had been restored and the rest would be reinstated soon. It is unclear why supply collapsed, but states using more power than they were authorised to could be one reason. Mr Shinde said he had appointed a committee to inquire into the causes of the blackout, one of the worst to hit the country in more than a decade.

Pussy Riot trial over Putin altar protest begins
Trial of three band members over protest song highlighting church ties to Kremlin is politically motivated, say supporters

Reuters in Moscow guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 July 2012 03.00 BST
Three members of the band Pussy Riot, who staged a punk-rock protest against Vladimir Putin on the altar of Russia's main cathedral, went on trial on Monday in a case seen as a test of the president's tolerance of dissent. The trial, say observers, will reveal how much power the resurgent Russian Orthodox church and its head, Patriarch Kirill, wields. He has called the "punk prayer" blasphemy, casting it as part of a sinister anti-clerical campaign.

21st-Century torture: life under Europe's 'last dictator'
Opposition activists say two men executed for a bombing in Minsk in 2011 were forced to confess under duress. In a special report, John Sweeney experiences the torture they may have endured

JOHN SWEENEY MONDAY 30 JULY 2012
The secretary-general of Interpol, Ronald K Noble, may have thought he had little to fear from the Belarusian mother whose son was shot dead after he and a friend confessed to planting a bomb that killed 15 people on the Minsk underground system last year. But Lyuba Kovaleva is fighting a campaign that has raised grave questions about Mr Noble's judgment, and is lending weight to claims that the Belarusian secret police, the KGB, planted the device, rigged a show trial and tortured confessions out of the two suspects. The tale begins two days after the metro bombing in April last year.

Myths, Legends and the Making of Usain Bolt
Few would deny that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world -- but even fewer could say why. While his fans are happy to call him a miracle, the man himself is lost in a cloud of legends, hype and marketing.
Usain Bolt is coming to the London Olympics a defeated man, but apparently no one wants to believe it. Bolt recently lost his first 100-meter race in two years in Kingston, Jamaica. Afterwards, he was suddenly wide-eyed and shaking his head, as if he'd just woken up from a dream. He, the fastest man in the world, had crossed the finish line one or two meters behind his teammate, Yohan Blake. It was a balmy Caribbean night, the soft smell of grass was in the air in front of the stands, and an insurance broker from Brooklyn named Danny, who was running the PR effort for the Jamaican Olympic trials, was trying to contain the press at the finish line. The general consensus was that it couldn't possibly be true.
By Alexander Osang

Uganda fights to contain Ebola outbreak
Ebola has broken out in Uganda, killing at least 14 people as health officials battle to stem the spread of the deadly virus.

30 JUL 2012 07:14 - CLAR NI CHONGHAILE
Terrified patients fled from a hospital in western Uganda as soon as news broke that a mysterious illness that killed at least 14 people in the region was Ebola, one of the world's most virulent diseases. Ignatius Besisira, a parliamentarian for Buyaga East County in the Kibaale district, said people had at first believed the unexplained deaths were related to witchcraft. "Immediately, when there was confirmation that it was Ebola ... patients ran out of Kagadi hospital [where some of the victims had died]," he said "Even the medical officers are very, very frightened," he said.