Six In The Morning

Afghanistan, U.S. disagree on culprits behind 'insider' shootings

　Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, surprises U.S. and NATO officials by blaming 'foreign spy agencies' for 'insider' shootings.

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
Afghanistan — A potentially serious rift has emerged in the way the Afghan and U.S. governments view "insider" shootings, instances of Afghan police and soldiers turning their guns on Western troops. Washington and NATO coalition officials have consistently said most of the shootings, which have claimed the lives of at least 10 U.S. service members this month alone, stem from personal disputes, stress, cultural differences and battle fatigue, with a small percentage of the assailants acting at the behest of the Taliban. This week, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, visited Kabul for talks mainly centered on the shootings and how to work together to halt the growing phenomenon.

Aleppo's poor get caught in the crossfire of Syria's civil war
Our writer meets the civilians who have been stranded on the streets by a brutal conflict

ROBERT FISK ALEPPO FRIDAY 24 AUGUST 2012
In Aleppo, the rich have already left, the middle classes stay at home and the poor suffer. You only have walk through the old French park beside Saadalah al-Jabri Square to meet them, three families of 19 souls, the women in black and sun-burnt, the children dark-skinned, mothers-in-law and nephews lying exhausted on thin carpets laid over withered grass. It is 37C. They lie under the shade of a scrawny tree, their only cover since they came here a month ago from the city suburb of Haderiyah. There is a father in his mid-forties who refuses to give even his first name but is prepared to tell their story.

How Young German Men Are Lured into Jihad
Young Muslim men in Germany are systematically trying to recruit their peers for jihad using sophisticated rhetoric and psychology and by targeting vulnerable youths who are searching for direction in life. Two men who have quit the scene tell their story to SPIEGEL, providing a rare look into a dangerous underground.

SPIEGEL
He worked at his uncle's falafel stand and read Immanuel Kant, and later Plato and Nietzsche. In the end, he became a radical Islamist, recruiting new talent for a Muslim holy war in the middle of the German city of Hamburg. Djamal was the hunter. Djamal is sitting on a cushion in the dim light of a basement bar in Hamburg. He sucks on a plastic tube, causing the water to bubble in his hookah, a water pipe made of delicate glass decorated with gold paint. His head is shaved, he has the broad back of someone who lifts weights, and he keeps his beard neatly trimmed. He blows the smoke from the orange-mint tobacco into the air above his head and passes the tube to Bora, a quiet young man sitting next to him.

Chinese donors embrace online charity


William Wan August 24, 2012
Nine months after Ma Chunhua's baby was born, bruises began appearing on her daughter's tiny frame. When doctors diagnosed it as leukaemia, Ma, a low-wage worker in Hubei province, grew desperate, knowing her family could not afford chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. So she turned to China's online masses, posting pictures and information about the family's plight. These days, when tragedy strikes, Chinese citizens increasingly depend on the microblog Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, for donations.

Mai Mai chief ready for war
Janvier Karairi, leader of a militia force in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, says that the government and the army have come begging his help in defeating a local Tutsi rebellion.

Sapa-AFP | 23 8月, 2012 15:07
Karairi's movement is formed of traditional fighters like many other Mai Mai groups, whose fierce reputation is based partly on their beliefs and practices. They believe they can dodge bullets if their hair is styled a certain way and sprinkle themselves with sacred water before battle. To reach the headquarters of Karairi's Alliance of the People for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), you must cross a rope bridge over a stream near Lukweti village in the volcanic hills of Nord-Kivu province north of the provincial capital Goma.

China eyes Japan with carrier name
Greater China

By Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - The first aircraft carrier for China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) is expected to enter service before October 1, the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). But what's still missing is a name for the steely monster that was originally bought as scrap from Ukraine and has since been refurbished in a Chinese shipyard in northeastern Dalian city. In the run-up to the once-in-a-decade transition of power in Beijing this autumn, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is being domestically criticized as weak in the country’s sovereignty disputes with its neighbors, particularly with arch-rival Japan, and a notion is emerging that the carrier's nomenclature could kill two birds with one stone.