Terror in North Africa: are Westerners pulling the strings?
English-speaking jihadis seen in Mali, as a Canadian is reported to have co-ordinated Algeria attack
Canada is investigating an allegation by the Algerian Prime Minister that one of its citizens co-ordinated the terror raid at the Saharan gas plant in which dozens of hostages were killed.
Westerners, including a man with blond hair and blue eyes, are believed to have been among the Islamist militants who launched last week’s attack on the Tigantourine complex near Algeria’s border with Libya.
A French jihadist, previously unknown to authorities, and two Canadians are suspected to have been involved in the hostage-taking, and reports also claim that a man with a Western accent was among the extremists who lured terrified gas workers from their rooms during the hostage crisis.
The Irish Times - Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Rajoy moves to defuse fallout from party's 'shady' bonuses
GUY HEDGECOE in Madrid
The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has presented a series of anti-corruption measures as he desperately seeks to defuse the crisis sparked by a scandal related to the finances of his Partido Popular (PP).
Mr Rajoy told the national executive committee of the PP yesterday that the party would carry out an internal investigation into its financial activities stretching back to its founding in 1989, to then be reviewed by an external audit. In addition, he will propose a multi-party pact against corruption.
These measures follow last week’s revelation that a former PP treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, who is being investigated for corruption and stepped down in 2009, had kept a Swiss bank account containing up to €22 million.
Shun US 'tiger' and Japanese 'wolf', Chinese colonel warns
January 22, 2013 - 6:39PM
John Garnaut
China correspondent for Fairfax Media
BEIJING: A Chinese military officer has warned Australia not to side with the United States and Japan if war breaks out in the East China Sea.
Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu said the US and Japan had provoked the ire of the Chinese people for "violating the security, peace and stability of the Asia Pacific".
America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia's wolf, and both are now madly biting China.
China was a peace-abiding nation but would fight "to the death" if sufficiently provoked, he said.
Colonel Liu's warning raises the nightmare possibility of Australia having to choose between its dominant economic and security partners as a territorial contest between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands, also known as the Diaoyu Islands, continues to escalate.
Arab League encourages Israeli Arabs to get out the vote
Arab voter turnout in tomorrow’s elections is expected to drop below 50 percent – one of the worst showings since 1949. Low turnout would diminish the Arab check on Israel's rightward shift.
By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / January 21, 2013
On the eve of Israeli elections, the Arab League has taken the unusual step of intervening in Israeli politics, urging Israel’s Arab minority to flock to the polls. Otherwise, they warn, the country will be taken over by a far-right government that will increase discrimination toward Arab citizens and step up settlement expansion in the West Bank, where their Palestinian brethren have long sought a state of their own.
Arabs make up a significantly larger voting bloc in Israel than Hispanics in the US – 14 percent of eligible voters, compared with 9 percent for Latinos. But while US politicians conscientiously woo Latinos, Arabs enjoy no such courtship. Though their numbers have steadily grown since being absorbed into Israel when it declared independence in 1948, they have not been able to translate their numerical clout into the political and economic equality they are entitled to on paper but rarely enjoy in practice.
22 January 2013 Last updated at 00:35 GMT
Lost indigenous language revived in Australia
An Aboriginal language crushed under the weight of European colonisation in Australia has been revived, thanks to the dedication of researchers and the vision of 19th Century German missionaries.
The Kaurna language once thrived and was spoken by the original inhabitants of Adelaide. But it began to disappear from daily use in South Australia as early as the 1860s.
Ivaritji, an elder who was thought to be the last fluent speaker of Kaurna, died in the late 1920s. More than 80 years later, its unique sounds have been brought back to life.
"It is about self-identity and cultural identity as well," explained Vincent "Jack"' Buckskin, who runs evening courses for both Aboriginal and non-indigenous students.
COLUMN ONE
Congo's chairmen of the boards
Owners of the wooden bicycle known as a chikudu couldn't be much prouder of the primitive vehicles, which carry massive loads and put food on the table.
January 21, 2013
GOMA, Congo — It's an ungainly beast of a machine: a wooden bicycle with handlebars like great bull's horns, two runtish wooden wheels, a chunky frame like a squashed triangle and no pedals. There's no seat either, just a kneepad fixed to the frame, made from a spongy Chinese flip-flop.
The Congolese chikudu looks like it rolled right off the pages of a child's drawing book and onto the rutted roads of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Uzima Bahati, 18, was a child himself when he became achikudu operator. He left school when he was about 12, and has spent the last six years pushing astonishing loads on the surprisingly sturdy contraption, his whole body bent to the task.
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