Six In The Morning

30 January 2013 Last updated at 01:37 GMT

Syria crisis: Brahimi warns horror is 'unprecedented'

The conflict in Syria has reached "unprecedented levels of horror", peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has told the UN Security Council.

The UN-Arab League envoy said Syria was being destroyed "bit by bit" with grave consequences for the wider region.

He was speaking hours after evidence emerged of a fresh massacre in the northern city of Aleppo.

At least 71 bodies were found by a river in the western Bustan al-Qasr district, opposition activists said.

Most had their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head.

Mr Brahimi has been trying to find a solution to the crisis based on a peace plan approved at an international conference in June 2012.

EGYPT

Egypt nearing collapse, warns army

Egypt's public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of mysterious "Black Bloc" members who have emerged during fatal unrest in recent days. Egypt's army chief has warned of state collapse if widespread strife drags on.

Egypt's state news agency MENA said Public Prosecutor Talaat Abdullahhas ordered police to bring before court members of a new black-clad and masked group opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood from which President Mohamed Morsi stems.

MENA said Abdullahhad accused the bloc of participating in "terrorist acts." The group - on its social network page - said it did not seek to destroy public buildings. "We are not against police, our battle is with the Brotherhood only," said the group, which reportedly modeled itself on anarchist groups of the same name in Europe and the United States.

Battling Big Oil: How Four Nigerian Villagers Took Shell to Court

By Nils Klawitter

Four Nigerian villagers from the Niger River delta have challenged mighty Shell in a Dutch court. They complain that the oil giant has caused environmental devastation and ruined their homes. A verdict in the unprecedented case is expected on Wednesday.

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser likes to talk about the good deeds his company performs worldwide. "Sustainable development and social performance is absolutely key in the way we do our business," says Voser, a Swiss national. The head of Shell feels a duty to pursue such noble objectives as observing human rights and protecting the environment.

Not everyone affected by his global business, however, would agree that he is particularly successful. Take, for example, Eric Dooh, a Nigerian.

Earlier this January, he once again returned to his fish ponds, or at least to what was left of them after they were exposed to Shell's oil in the Niger delta. This was once Dooh's home. 

Top Bolshoi ballerina 'flees Russia' amid threats

January 30, 2013 - 10:05AM
Svetlana Lunkina said threats related to her husband's business would keep her away from the Bolshoi Ballet for the season.

Moscow: One of the Bolshoi ballet's best known ballerinas has fled Russia for Canada after receiving threats, it has emerged, as the chief of the troubled company prepares to leave for Germany to receive treatment for wounds sustained in an acid attack.

Svetlana Lunkina told the Izvestia daily she had taken leave from the theatre until the end of the season over troubles stemming from a business dispute over a film in which her husband was involved.

Ms Lunkina said she had already been outside Russia for some six months and that there is no clear link between her problems and the acid attack this month on the Bolshoi ballet's artistic director Sergei Filin.

Mixed feelings south of the border on Senate immigration plan

An activist for Mexican migrants wonders if the proposal would encourage more to illegally go to the US, setting back a revival in rural Mexico.

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff Writer

MEXICO CITY

If anyone is an activist for the rights of Mexican migrants, it is Adriana Cortes, the head of the Community Foundation of the Bajio, a nongovernmental organization in the Mexican state of Guanajuato that focuses on local rural development.

So she hailed the new immigration proposal in the US Senate that would give special treatment to agricultural workers illegally in the US as the “just” product “of years of fighting,” Ms. Cortes says. But that doesn't mean she thinks it will necessarily be good for Mexico.

While the proposal is generally viewed as a score for Mexicans, who labor in American fields and food houses – and a blow to those seeking harsher penalties for illegal immigrants in the US – it is not entirely embraced from south of the border.

South Asia

Jan 30, 2013 Pakistan's graft chief confronts court By Syed Fazl-e-Haider  KARACHI - Pakistan's intensifying conflict between the judiciary and the civilian government took a further twist on Monday with the chief of the country's top anti-corruption body threatening to resign over alleged Supreme Court interference in his organization's investigations.  In a letter to President Asif Ali Zardari, admiral (retired) Fasih Bokhari, head of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), accused the Supreme Court of putting unnecessary pressure on NAB officials in high-profile investigations, particularly the rental power projects (RPPs) scandal that last week prompted the court to order the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. Bokhari's remarks follow the death on January 18 of Kamran Faisal, who was working on the RPP case, a US$5 billion scandal linked to awarding special power projects to alleviate the country's