28 September 2013 Last updated at 05:29 GMT
Up to 70 feared dead after boat with asylum seekers on board sinks off Java
‘United’ responseThe approval follows a recent call by Catalan president Artur Mas for a “united and consensual” response from the region’s parties to the refusal of Spain’s central government to countenance a referendum on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.
Foreign Islamists coming into Syria have been gathering in the relatively quiet north. But many of them are finding transit towns -- with good food, video games and smoking -- preferable to the front. When they do end up fighting, it's often with each other.
The once-sleepy smugglers' nest on the Turkish border has become a mecca for jihad tourists from around the world. A year ago, SPIEGEL reporters in Atmeh met with one of the first foreign fighters in Syria, a young Iraqi who said that he had come to overthrow the dictatorship. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 jihadists are staying in and around Atmeh, making it the densest accumulation of jihadists in all of Syria. Ironically, while war rages in the rest of the country, the foreign jihadists have made one of Syria's quietest spots into their base. Or perhaps they have chosen Atmeh precisely because it is so quiet. Once they arrive, many are reluctant to leave.
It was inevitable, perhaps, that its discovery last September would be followed by calls for the 15th-century monarch, immortalized by Shakespeare as a miserable, murderous wretch, to finally receive a proper interment, with the tomb, ceremony, and dignity usually afforded a king.
However, what’s happened so far has been short on dignity.
“It has got a bit grubby,” says David Grummitt, a specialist in late medieval and early Tudor history at the University of Kent. “I don't know if anyone has really thought about what Richard III himself would have wanted.”
Syria chemical weapons: UN adopts binding resolution
The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a binding resolution on ridding Syria of chemical weapons.
At a session in New York, the 15-member body backed the draft document agreed earlier by Russia and the US.
The deal breaks a two-and-a-half year deadlock in the UN over Syria, where fighting between government forces and rebels rages on.
The vote came after the international chemical watchdog agreed on a plan to destroy Syria's stockpile by mid-2014.
'Powerful diplomacy'
Speaking after the vote in New York, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the decision as "historic".
"Tonight the international community has delivered."
Java tragedy survivors claim Australian authorities ignored plight
Up to 70 feared dead after boat with asylum seekers on board sinks off Java
Survivors of a boat that sank off Java claim the Australian embassy ignored a distress call. Twenty-two asylum seekers have been confirmed as drowned but authorities in Indonesia fear that number may rise to more than 70.
"I called the Australian embassy; for 24 hours we were calling them. They told us just send us the position on GPS, where are you," one survivor, Abdullah, a man from Jordan, was reported as saying by Fairfax media. "We did, and they told us, 'OK, we know … where you are'. And they said, 'We'll come for you in two hours'.
"And we wait two hours; we wait 24 hours, and we kept calling them, 'we don't have food, we don't have water for three days, we have children, just rescue us'. And nobody come. Sixty person dead now because of Australian government."
Catalan parliament approves call for vote on independence from Spain
Resolution says date should be fixed by end of this year for ballot
Guy Hedgecoe
The Catalan regional parliament has approved a motion calling for a referendum on independence from Spain, despite staunch resistance to the plan in Madrid.
Yesterday’s resolution said a date should be fixed by the end of this year for the ballot and stated: “There is no norm or disposition within the current legal framework that prevents the celebration of a referendum by the citizens of Catalonia on its political future.”
The CiU coalition, which governs the region, voted in favour, as did the radical nationalists of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), the leftist CUP and the ICV Greens, easily clearing the 68 votes need for a majority.
‘United’ responseThe approval follows a recent call by Catalan president Artur Mas for a “united and consensual” response from the region’s parties to the refusal of Spain’s central government to countenance a referendum on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.
Video Games and Cigarettes: Syria's Disneyland for Jihadists
Foreign Islamists coming into Syria have been gathering in the relatively quiet north. But many of them are finding transit towns -- with good food, video games and smoking -- preferable to the front. When they do end up fighting, it's often with each other.
Atmeh looks like the set for a movie about al-Qaida. New arrivals pulling suitcases on wheels search for their emirs, Africans and Asians can be seen on the village streets, and long-haired men dressed in traditional Afghan clothing walk around wielding AK-47s. There are patrons at the local kebab stand whose northern English dialect is peppered with Arabic words and phrases. "Subhan'Allah, bro, I asked for ketchup," says one man. The many languages heard on the street include Russian, Azerbaijani and Arabic spoken with a guttural Saudi Arabian accent.
Guineans on the brink of first credible parliamentary polls
Guineans got to the polls in the first parliamentary elections for more than a decade in the troubled west African nation.
After months of delays and a campaign plagued by deadly unrest Guineans are finally going to the polls.
Voters have a choice of more than 1 700 candidates vying for 114 seats in a national assembly which will replace the transitional parliament that has been running the country since military rule came to an end in 2010.
The vote, originally due to have been held within six months of the swearing-in of President Alpha Conde in 2010, has been delayed numerous times amid disputes over its organisation, stoking deadly ethnic tensions that have dogged Guinean politics since the country's independence from France in 1958.
"These elections will allow us to emerge from a chaotic five-year transition," Conde told reporters on Friday, expressing the hope that the vote would signal a new era of prosperity in which Guinea would be free to profit from its vast mineral wealth.
Richard III: a maligned king's reburial becomes a sordid affair
The discovery of King Richard III's bones in a shallow grave started a tug-of-war over where he should be buried. And some now say the design for his tomb is not fit for a monarch.
The shallow dirt grave into which King Richard III's body was hurriedly tossed, and centuries later covered up by a concrete parking lot, must top the list of ignominious royal burials.
However, what’s happened so far has been short on dignity.
“It has got a bit grubby,” says David Grummitt, a specialist in late medieval and early Tudor history at the University of Kent. “I don't know if anyone has really thought about what Richard III himself would have wanted.”
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