Six In The Morning

ASIA-PACIFIC

North Korea warns of 'simmering nuclear war'

Communist state also announces it is cutting all direct military contact with South Korea.

Last Modified: 27 Mar 2013 08:12

North Korea has again threatened war against South Korea and the United States, saying conditions "for a simmering nuclear war" have been created on the peninsula.

The communist state's foreign ministry said it will inform the UN Security Council of the latest situation, as tensions continue to simmer on Wednesday.

"Upon authorisation of the Foreign Ministry, the DPRK openly informs the UN Security Council  that the Korean Peninsula now has the conditions for a simmering nuclear war," the statement said. "This is because of provocation moves by the US and South Korean puppets".

As this developed, the North announced it was cutting a military hotline with the South, meaning that all direct inter-government and military contact has been suspended after it previously cut a Red Cross link.

"From now, the North-South military communications will be cut off," the North Korean state news agency quoted a military official as saying.

South Sudan's Red Army comes of age

In a landmark transition from warfare to welfare, former child soldiers in the Red Army are establishing a foundation aimed at addressing social problems in South Sudan

• Andrew Green
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 March 2013 07.00 GMT

In the early 1980s, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) recruited and began training boys as young as 12 to fight in its battle for independence from Sudan. The child soldiers were called the Red Army. According to a 1994 Human Rights Watch report (pdf), some of the children fought alongside the SPLA.

"In the first few years, the Red Army fought and was always massacred," one military officer told the human rights organisation. Participants say that, at its height, the Red Army numbered in the tens of thousands.

Adam Jaafer Manoah did not need to be recruited. When he was 13, he trekked for nine months from his home in Yirol, in what is now centralSouth Sudan, to a military training camp in neighbouring Ethiopia.

Cypriots panic as rumours swirl of more bank closures after €10bn bailout

CHARLOTTE MCDONALD-GIBSON , SHAUN WALKER

 

 

WEDNESDAY 27 MARCH 2013

Anger at a deal aimed at saving Cyprus from bankruptcy spilled into the streets today with thousands of students and finance workers demanding answers after the government said banks would remain shut for two more days and details of strict capital control measures emerged.

The central bank governor, Panicos Demetriades, stressed that “superhuman” efforts were being made to open Cypriot banks on Thursday as he sought to quell fears that the nation’s largest lender, the Bank of Cyprus, was about to be shut down. Today its chairman offered to quit and hundreds of its employees marched to the central bank building to protest against potential job losses. The chairman’s offer was later rejected by the bank’s board.

Spy in Cell 15: The Real Story Behind Israel's 'Prisoner X'

Mossad agent Ben Zygier was found hanged in his cell and his case made headlines around the world. New information shows that Zygier, once a passionate Zionist, had become a turncoat who delivered sensitive information to Hezbollah. By SPIEGEL Staff

The guards found the Mossad agent at 8:19 p.m., his lifeless body hanging from a moist sheet. The sheet was tied to the window above the toilet in his prison cell.

The cell in which Ben Zygier died was divided into two sections, one containing a bed, a seating area and a kitchenette, and a separate shower room with a toilet. There were three cameras monitoring the prisoner, but none of the security officers noticed that there had been no signs of life from Zygier in more than an hour. When the guards found him in the shower room, his body had already begun cooling. It was an undignified death for a Zionist who had set out to defend Israel's future. "Our job was to isolate him, not to keep him alive," one of the guards later said.

'Brutal' violence erupts in Myanmar

March 27, 2013 - 7:49AM

Muslim homes have been targeted with "brutal efficiency" in deadly new unrest in Myanmar, a UN envoy who has just been to the troubled country says.

Envoy Vijay Nambiar said "incendiary propaganda" had been used to stir unrest between Buddhist and Muslim communities which has erupted again in recent days.

Mr Nambiar has just been on a visit to Myanmar during which he met President Thein Sein and was taken to Meiktila, where mosques were burned and charred bodies left in the streets in violence that started last Wednesday.

Can Mexico's vigilante militias trade ski masks for police badges?

Guerrero state Gov. Aguirre announced he would submit a bill to the local legislature to create a legal framework for the militias.

By Lauren Villagran, Correspondent / March 26, 2013

MEXICO CITY

Some townspeople in southern Mexico who have taken up arms in the name of self-defense may be given a chance to trade in their masks for official uniforms.

Bucking the federal government’s statements decrying impromptu militias, the governor of Guerrero has proposed legitimizing the armed groups in the tradition of the state’s autonomous community police forces. It’s a controversial proposal that could create friction as authorities wrestle with the emergence of armed groups whose origins are not always clear. The move could influence how officials respond to similar movements in neighboring states.

Organized crime and drug trafficking have hit far-flung rural towns especially hard, where official security forces are often weak, ineffectual, or co-opted by criminals.