Six In The Morning

Thousands displaced as Syrian authorities demolish Hama neighborhood


By Amir Ahmed, CNN October 1, 2012 -- Updated 0640 GMT
Syrian security forces are overseeing the systematic displacement of thousands and then demolishing their neighborhood in the western flashpoint city of Hama, residents told CNN. Tanks completely surround the Mesha Alarbaeen district in Hama -- once home to about 30,000 mostly poor residents as well as the hub of opposition activity in the city -- as bulldozers operate inside, tearing down homes. "So far they have razed 120 buildings," Osamah, a Hama resident who visited the neighborhood on Sunday, told CNN. The neighborhood had been "the main gathering place" for those "peaceful and militant" who oppose President Bashar al-Assad's government, according to Osamah.

Ai Weiwei firm to be closed down by Chinese authorities
Move is bittersweet for artist as it could mean he avoids paying the remainder of a 15m yuan tax fine

Tania Branigan in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 October 2012 08.13 BST
Chinese authorities are closing down the firm handling Ai Weiwei's affairs, the outspoken artist said on Monday, possibly saving him from paying the remainder of a 15m yuan (£1.5m) tax fine. The 55-year-old said he believed he and his team had lost the battle but won the war, after a court rejected his appeal against the charges last week. Officials said this weekend they were removing Fake Cultural Development's business licence because it had not met annual registration requirements. The company has been unable to do so because police confiscated all its materials and its stamp when they detained Ai last year.

These 'savages' created some of history's finest art
The Long View: It's true, I suspect, that "cultural" Islam, which includes a lot of Christian artists, is greater than the Islamic religion

ROBERT FISK Monday 1 October 2012
On sale outside the Louvre's spanking new exhibition of Islamic art this weekend was a magazine headline to engage any reader. "Les fanatiques," it read. The fanatics in question were not Texas pastors or Californian video-makers who burn Korans or insult the Prophet Mohamed. "Les fous de dieu" – the "madmen of God" as the French press usually calls them – are not the Midwest Christian Apocalypse-believers who support Israel and claim, if you believe the latest posters on the New York subway, that they are fighting "savages". Oh no, indeed, the fanatics, crazies and savages in question are the chaps who created the Islamic treasury of golden chalices and crimson rugs and silver vases and marble friezes and bronze lions and stone-paste roosters and vast, brass candlesticks beneath the golden "desert" roof of the Louvre's latest exhibition hall.

Georgia elects new parliament amid prison torture scandal
Georgians are electing a new parliament. Monday's poll follows a jail torture scandal that could undermine pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili's grip on power. His main challenger is the tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili.


The polls are expected to usher in a new political era for the mountainous Caucasus nation of 4.5 million people, with constitutional changes set to strengthen the power of the parliament and prime minister while reducing those of the president by 2013. An August poll by the US National Democratic Institute had recorded 37 percent support for Saakashvili's United National Movement against 12 percent support for the opposition Georgian Dream, led by the 56-year-old billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili. But 43 percent of the respondents said they could vote either way. That poll, however, was taken before a prison torture scandal sparked a political uproar in Georgia.

Frelimo splurges as poverty rules
It was billed as a celebration of socialist revolutionary triumph, but when the ruling Frelimo party marked its 50th birthday this week Marx came a distant second to money.

Reuters | 01 October, 2012 00:06
Reflecting their anti-colonial, revolutionary roots, Frelimo leaders pointedly chose a venue in the untamed corner of Southern Africa where half a century ago guerrillas launched the uprising that would lead to independence from Portugal in 1975. But, beyond the symbolism of the location, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, the obligatory use of "Comrade" and the AK-47 rifle that still adorns the national flag, everything at the party congress pointed to the huge wealth accruing to the political elite that holds sway in the fast-growing energy producer.

Venezuela poll rivals hold mass rallies
Probe launched into deaths of political activists as surveys predict tight race between president and challenger.

Last Modified: 01 Oct 2012 05:23
A huge crowd has filled the streets of Venezuela's capital cheering the opposition candidate, waving flags in a show of support one week before the country's tightly contested presidential election. Henrique Capriles waved from a lorry that rolled through the vast expanse of supporters in Caracas on Sunday. The crowd overflowed from Bolivar Avenue, the widest thoroughfare in the city's business district, which according to some estimates has a capacity to hold about 260,000 people. The authorities did not provide a crowd estimate. "Bolivar Avenue is too small for us," Capriles shouted to the crowd, which was the largest of any opposition gathering in recent years.