Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Dhaka building collapse: Frantic effort to reach survivors


28 April 2013 Last updated at 07:42 GMT
Rescuers are frantically trying to save about nine people located in the wreckage of a collapsed factory complex in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan at the scene says it is a race against time before officials bring in heavy machinery. He says the smell of decomposing bodies is making some rescuers ill. More than 350 people have died since Wednesday's disaster and hundreds more are missing. On Sunday, two more people were pulled alive from the rubble of the eight-storey building in the suburb of Savar as the rescue operation entered its fifth day.

Sunday's Headlines:

Election favourite's daughter takes to the streets to win the heart of Punjab

Syria and sarin gas: US claims have a very familiar ring

North Korea set to stage major military drill

We are heading to Khartoum: Sudan rebels

U.S. role at a crossroads in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels

Election favourite's daughter takes to the streets to win the heart of Punjab
Maryam Sharif feels the love as she canvasses for her father, who is likely to become Pakistan's PM for a third time

Jason Burke in Lahore The Observer, Sunday 28 April 2013
The convoy slows. In front of the candidate's vehicle, men dance. Rose petals are hurled from the rooftops. Motorbikes swarm. "Look, look who is coming," supporters shout. A white tiger on top of a van yawns and stretches a paw. A small child and a 90-year-old party worker are hauled through the crowd to offer garlands. "It's a beautiful feeling to be loved," says Maryam Sharif, leaning back in the seat of her luxury SUV three days into her first election campaign. "My shoulders hurt from waving six hours a day. I need to learn to wave wisely."

Syria and sarin gas: US claims have a very familiar ring
Reports of the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons are part of a retold drama riddled with plot-holes

ROBERT FISK SUNDAY 28 APRIL 2013
Is there any way of escaping the theatre of chemical weapons? First, Israeli "military intelligence" says that Bashar al-Assad's forces have used/have probably used/might have used/could use chemical weapons. Then Chuck Hagel, the US Defence Secretary, pops up in Israel to promise even more firepower for Israel's over-armed military – avoiding any mention of Israel's more than 200 nuclear warheads – and then imbibing all the Israeli "intelligence" on Syria's use/probable use/possible use of chemical weapons.

N Korea set to stage major military drill


April 28, 2013 - 2:59PM
North Korea appears to be gearing up for a major military exercise, a report says, amid tensions over an expected missile test and South Korea's pullout from a joint industrial complex. Preparations are under way near the North's western port of Nampo for a combined live-fire drill involving artillery units and air force jets, the South's Yonhap news agency said on Sunday, citing a Seoul government source. "It appears that the scale of the drill will be quite big," the unnamed official was quoted as saying, voicing fears of military provocations against the South or a missile test by Pyongyang during the exercise.

We are heading to Khartoum: Sudan rebels
Sudanese rebels said they attacked five areas in North and South Kordofan states on Saturday, widening an anti-government offensive in one of their most audacious acts in years.

Sapa-AFP | 28 April, 2013 08:49
"This is a significant shift in the war in Sudan," Abdel Wahid Mohammed al-Nur, who heads a faction of Darfur's Sudan Liberation Army, told AFP. "We are heading to Khartoum," he said. "This is not a joke." A regional political expert said the attacks were timed to the "failure" of peace talks this week between South Kordofan rebels and the government.

U.S. role at a crossroads in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels


By Dana Priest, Sunday, April 28, 9:22 AM
MEXICO CITY — For the past seven years, Mexico and the United States have put aside their tension-filled history on security matters to forge an unparalleled alliance against Mexico’s drug cartels, one based on sharing sensitive intelligence, U.S. training and joint operational planning. But now, much of that hard-earned cooperation may be in jeopardy. The December inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto brought the nationalistic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) back to power after 13 years, and with it a whiff of resentment over the deep U.S. involvement in Mexico’s fight against narco-traffickers.