Six In The Morning

15 March 2013 Last updated at 04:16 GMT

Syria conflict: EU to discuss arms ban as anniversary marked

As Syrians mark the second anniversary of the start of the nation's unrest, the EU is set to discuss lifting its arms embargo to allow supplying rebels.

The leaders of France and Britain will try to push other EU members to agree to the move at the Brussels summit.

Ties with Russia, one of Syria's key allies, will also be discussed. Moscow strongly opposes arming the rebels.

Up to 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began.

RELIGION

Dictatorship casts shadow over Bergoglio

Human rights activists are accusing Pope Francis of not having distanced himself enough from the Argentinean military dictatorship in the 1970s. But none of the charges have stuck.

It came as no huge surprise that Argentinean President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner reacted coolly in her tardy congratulations to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, former archbishop of Buenos Aires, on his new post as pope. After all, the populist-leaning president and the conservative religious leader were never political allies.

But there are others, however, who flat-out rejected Jorge Bergoglio as the new Pope Francis. "At first we thought it was a joke. For us, this is really no good," said Graciela Lois of Familiares, an organization that represents the relatives of people who were politically detained and disappeared during Argentina's 1970s military dictatorship.

Living Lab: Urban Planning Goes Digital in Spanish 'Smart City'

By Marco Evers

Cities around the world aim to become "smart cities," but in Santander, Spain, the goal has already become a reality. Thousands of sensors help alert residents to traffic jams, regulate the watering in city parks and dim the street lamps.

Cities all around the world have set the same goal for themselves. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Dubai, Helsinki, San Diego, Stockholm, Nanjing, Vienna, Yokohama -- they all share an aspiration to become "smart cities."

That sounds like an appealing aim, yet when urban planners try to explain more precisely how they plan to lead their cities into the digital future, their answers are less convincing, with each proposing a different plan. Despite the many symposiums that have been held on this subject, there is no consensus on how to pursue this ambition.

Burma's Suu Kyi heckled over copper mine

March 15, 2013 - 10:23AM

Thomas Fuller

Rangoon: Hundreds of angry farmers heckled and walked out on Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese politician and Nobel laureate, during a visit on Thursday to villages in central Myanmar that might be displaced by a copper mine.

The hostile reception, a stark contrast to the adoring crowds that greeted her after her release from house arrest more than two years ago, underscores the rockiness of her transition from international symbol to elected official.

Frustration with her has been building from groups in the country who say she often sides with the establishment, including the powerful military, that held her for most of two decades and brutalized the country for five.

Malawi: Red carpet for dead president

15 MAR 2013 00:00 - LIONEL FAULL

Malawi's politicians lied about the health of the country's former president as part of a failed bid to stop Joyce Banda from taking charge.

The decomposing corpse of Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika was flown to South Africa last year in a bizarre plot to buy enough time to prevent the then vice-president, Joyce Banda, from succeeding him, a commission of inquiry has found.

The Malawian commission's report, released last week, identified Mutharika's brother, Peter, as the mastermind behind the plot to subvert the Constitution.

Peter and 11 other alleged plotters – most of them senior political figures of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party – were arrested and charged with treason in a Malawi court this week.

Higgs boson confirmation boosts physicists to higher energy

By Miriam KramerLiveScience

An announcement Thursday confirming that a newfound particle discovered at the world's largest atom smasher last year is a Higgs boson — the theorized particle that could explain how other particles get their mass — has left physicists hopeful about the future of their research.

Although these newest findings confirming a Higgs — presented at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference in Italy — have not led to the frenzied storm of excitement created by the particle's initial discovery on July 4, 2012, the work has still energized researchers.

"There is better evidence now, but in some sense, it's also incredibly expected," Peter Woit, a physicist at Columbia University, told LiveScience.