Six In The Morning

China sends patrol ships to disputed East China Sea islands

　Chinese state media says two patrol ships have been sent to islands disputed with Japan, which has sealed a deal to purchase the islands.

The BBC 11 September 2012
The ships had reached waters near the islands - known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China - to "assert the country's sovereignty", Xinhua said. Japan confirmed on Tuesday it had signed a contract to buy three of the islands from their private owner. Tension has been rumbling between the two countries over the East China Sea. Japan controls the uninhabited but resource-rich islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan. Some had been in the hands of a private Japanese owner but the government says it has now signed a purchase contract.

Conspiracy theories as China's heir disappears
September 11, 2012 - 3:21PM

John Garnaut, Beijing
The credibility of China's opaque and rigid political system is again on trial as the nation waits with bated breath for any sign of president-in-waiting, Xi Jinping. Mr Xi has been mysteriously absent from the public stage for eight days, just weeks before a crucial Party Congress where he was expected to inherit the leadership of the Communist Party from President Hu Jintao. His absence, against a backdrop of apparently febrile factional manoeuvrings, has fuelled rumours ranging from a sore back to an assassination attempt.

After years of calm, Mob war returns to Naples
Police swoop on dozens of drugs suspects after brother of gang boss is shot dead in café

MICHAEL DAY TUESDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 2012
Naples, the evocative but crime-plagued southern port, fears the bloodiest mob turf war in recent Italian history is set to resume on the city's streets. The first sign was the seaside assassination of 48-year-old mobster Gaetano Marino on 23 August. He was gunned down in his swimming trunks in front of terrified bathers at the Terracina resort half way between Rome and Naples. Then in the early hours of Sunday morning came the response: the killing of Raffaele Abete, 41, in a bar in the Camorra-riddled Scampia area of the city.

Ethiopia frees two Swedish journalists
An official had said earlier that the pair were to be released as part of a mass pardon traditionally granted by the president to coincide with the Ethiopian New Year. There was no immediate reaction from the government but the Swedish Union of Journalists hailed the decision to release the pair. The journalists were convicted under Ethiopia's anti-terror law, which critics have called vague and indiscriminate.

By AFP Posted Tuesday, September 11 2012 at 02:04
Ethiopia on Monday pardoned and freed two Swedish journalists who were arrested last year in the rebel Ogaden region and had been serving an 11-year jail sentence for "supporting terrorism". The pardon was approved by the late prime minister Meles Zenawi before his death last month and comes days after Sweden's foreign minister attended his funeral in Addis Ababa. "Yes, they are already released," foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told AFP of reporter Martin Schibbye and photographer Johan Persson. He said the pair, who have been held in an Ethiopian jail since their arrest on July 1, 2011, were freed Monday.

Syria’s rebels counting on captured anti-aircraft guns to defeat air force


By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers
Most of the civilians already have left this city of about 30,000, and many of those who remained could be seen Saturday piling trucks with their belongings. Abu al Dahour is the closest city to a military airport that bears the same name. Now it’s become the setting for a strategic confrontation that rebels hope will undercut the military’s dominance of the air, an advantage that’s all but halted rebel advances in nearby Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and allowed the military to move men and materiel where rebels’ roadside bombs have made land travel dangerous.

Mexico: Presidential runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to found new party
Mr. Lopez Obrador, who declared fraud and protested his loss in the past two presidential elections, announced he will create a new party called the Movement for National Regeneration.

By James Bosworth, Guest blogger
Having lost two national elections in a row while refusing to recognize the winning candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) announced that he is leaving the PRD and forming his own social movement or party called Morena (The Movement for National Regeneration). Most of the rest of the PRD, including Marcelo Ebrard [Mexico City's mayor and someone many say will serve as the PRD's next presidential candidate], will recognize Peña Nieto as president. It's hard to say what Morena will accomplish because AMLO often fails to follow up on his promises. Remember that in 2006 he named himself "legitimate president" and promised to serve out a six year term with a shadow government to contrast Calderon?