The race is on:Manufacturer sets sights on market for armed drones
By Keir Simmons and Gil Aegerter, NBC News
On a sprawling complex just outside Pretoria, South Africa, a government-owned arms manufacturer is preparing to test an armed drone that it hopes to begin selling soon to governments around the world.
The company, Denel Dynamics, says the armed version of the Seeker 400, which will carry two laser-guided missiles, will enable so-called opportunistic targeting at a range of up to about 155 miles.
“These are not combat systems, they are foremost reconnaissance systems,” Sello Ntsihlele, executive manager of UAV systems for Denel, told NBC News. He added: “(But if) you speak to any general, show him the capability, he will tell you, ‘I want to have munitions.’”
Britain considers ways to deny extremists publicity
Mosques could be made responsible for views expressed by some Islamic preachers
Extremist Islamic preachers could be barred from speaking in universities in Britain, while mosques could be made legally responsible for the views expressed by people they invite. Moreover, the home office is coming under pressure to impose a ban on declared extremists from appearing on television – similar to that imposed on Sinn Féin and the IRA in the 1980s.
So far ministers seem unlikely to opt for that if only because the media landscape has changed so much since then, but they are happy for TV stations to be forced to reflect before issuing an invite.
Former Labour home secretary Jack Straw said action should be taken to block websites carrying information about bomb-making or encouraging terrorist attacks. However, he said the IRA TV ban was “one of the most intolerant and least successful measures” used against it.
Berlin Under Fire for Tank Deal with Cairo
Berlin is once again in hot water over its arms export policy, having authorized the shipment of armored vehicles that were used to fatally crush peaceful demonstrators in Cairo. Tanks manufactured in Egypt under license by a German contractor have also ended up in war-torn countries.
On the night of Oct. 9, 2011, scenes of wanton brutality played out on the streets of Cairo. Shaky videos captured by mobile phones show images of peaceful demonstrators, including students and Coptic Christians, marching toward the Maspero building, which houses the Egyptian Radio and Television Union.
But then tanks rolled in and the masses panicked as the armored vehicles headed directly toward the crowds. Rather than slowing down, they accelerated and charged straight ahead. In the end, a dozen pro-democracy advocates lay dead, crushed by the tanks' steel armoring or run over by their solid-rubber tires.
Vietnamese blogger arrested in crackdown
May 28, 2013 - 11:03AM
Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
The prominent blogger and journalist has been critical of the communist government in Hanoi.
In a widening crackdown on dissent, Vietnamese police have arrested a prominent blogger and journalist who has been critical of the communist government in Hanoi.
Truong Duy Nhat, 49, faces up to seven years in jail on accusations of "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state", state-run media has reported.
As online dissent has grown in Vietnam, government agencies have this year convicted more than 38 activists and bloggers of anti-state activity.
AU urge ICC to transfer Kenyatta charges to Kenya
African leaders on Monday asked the International Criminal Court to transfer charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to the Kenyan legal system.
The African Union summit, which ended Monday in Addis Ababa, agreed to press the United Nations to move the charges against Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, to Kenya.
African leaders believe that the ICC prosecutions “have degenerated into some kind of race hunt” of Africans, African Union chairman Hailemariam Desalegn said Monday.
Kenyatta and Ruto both face trials later this year at the ICC in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity over allegations they helped orchestrate the tribal attacks that followed Kenya’s 2007 election, in which more than 1 000 people died.
28 May 2013 Last updated at 01:16 GMT
India Bihar families fight for 66 years over a plot of land
More than 300 litigants, 30,000 pages of charges and counter-charges, over a dozen lawyers, and 66 years in court.
That's how arduous and long the battle between two families in India over a nine-acre (four hectare) plot of land has been.
The court case began on 21 April 1947 - a few months before India became an independent country - when Biseshwar Singh of Ekauna village filed a case against fellow villager Har Govind Rai in a court in Ara town, in Bihar's Bhojpur district.
Both the families claim ownership of the land, sandwiched between the Ganges and Saryu rivers.
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