Six In The Morning Saturday February 1

1 February 2014 Last updated at 08:28

Mohammed Morsi trial over Egypt protesters' deaths to resume

Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has arrived in court in the capital, Cairo, for the resumption of one of the four trials against him.

Mr Morsi and 14 other figures from the Muslim Brotherhood are charged with inciting the killing of protesters near the presidential palace in 2012.

At a hearing in another trial four days ago, a defiant Mr Morsi shouted that he was still the legitimate president.

He was deposed by the army last year after huge crowds rallied against him.

He is now facing four separate criminal trials on various charges.

They are:

• Inciting supporters to commit violence and murder as they tried to break up an opposition protest in Cairo in December 2012
• Conspiring with foreign organisations to commit terrorist acts, with prosecutors accusing Mr Morsi of forming an alliance with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah
• Murdering prison officers in a jailbreak in 2011 during the uprising against the then-President Hosni Mubarak
• Insulting the judiciary

Catholic priest who ran right-wing death squad arrested in Colombia

The Rev Oscar Albeiro Ortiz was convicted in absentia last year for organising ruthless militia made up of former paramilitaries

• Associated Press in Bogotá
• theguardian.com, Saturday 1 February 2014 03.15 GMT

Colombian officials have announced the capture of a fugitive Catholic priest who was convicted in absentia last year of organising a killer far-right militia made up of members of a dismantled paramilitary bloc.

For nearly a decade from 2003, the Rev Oscar Albeiro Ortiz formed and ran an organisation engaged in murder, extortion and forced displacement, according to his sentencing document.

From his pulpit in San Antonio de Prado, a village near Medellín, Ortiz had accompanied members of the paramilitary bloc, then recruited them after the bloc was ostensibly disbanded under a peace pact brokered by the government of then-president Alvaro Uribe.

'We have been here longer than a thousand years': Kurdistan's fight for nationhood

RICHARD HALL 

 Saturday 01 February 2014

The frontiers of Kurdistan, as they were proposed at the Paris Peace conference in 1919, "begin in the north at Ziven, on the Caucasian frontier, and continue westwards to Erzurum, Erzincan, Kemah, Arapgir, Besni and Divick. In the south they follow the line from Harran, the Sinjihar Hills, Tel Asfar, Erbil, Süleymaniye, Akk-el-man, Sinne; in the east, Ravandiz, Başkale, Vezirkale, that is to say the frontier of Persia as far as Mount Ararat."

Almost 100 years later, the boundaries of a state for the Kurdish people exist only in the hearts and minds of those who live within them. Twenty-five million Kurds live in these invisible borders today. They are the world's largest stateless minority, and although they are divided by nationality, dialect, custom, allegiances and religion, they share a common desire: to be able to express their ethnic identity and to govern themselves in the areas in which they live.

West ‘appalled’ by Ukraine violence as military urges action

Police seek to arrest activist who was “beaten and tortured”

Daniel McLaughlin

 

Members of Ukraine’s armed forces have called on President Viktor Yanukovich to take “urgent measures to stabilise the situation in the country”, as the European Union and United States said they were “appalled” by the apparent kidnapping and torture of a prominent opposition activist.

“Servicemen and employees of Ukraine’s armed forces . . . have called on the commander-in-chief to take urgent measures within the limits of existing legislation to stabilise the situation,” the defence ministry said in a statement yesterday.

The armed forces “regard as unacceptable the seizure of state offices”, the statement said, adding that “further escalation of the confrontation threatens the country’s territorial integrity.”

UNESCO to help restore Islamic museum in Cairo

01 FEB 2014 10:18 SAPA-AP

Unesco has expressed shock and concern after seeing the destruction caused by a bomb blast at a Cairo-based museum dedicated to Islamic history.

UNESCO pledged Friday to help restore a renowned museum dedicated to Islamic history in Cairo that was devastated by a bomb last week, with officials expressing "shock" at the scale of the damage.

The Museum of Islamic Art was across the street from the truck bomb that targeted the Egyptian capital's security headquarters on January 24. It killed four people and caused damage to buildings for hundreds of meters around, smashing the museum's facade and sending debris crashing onto exhibits.

Egypt's Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said that 164 of the 1,471 items on display were damaged, of which 90 could be reassembled or restored. Most of the 74 irreparably damaged items were glass and porcelain, smashed to powder.

How Choco Pie infiltrated North Korea's sweet tooth

By Madison Park, Frances Cha and Evelio Contreras, CNN

The first time the South Korean factory owner watched his North Korean employees nibble on a Choco Pie, they appeared shocked -- even overwhelmed.

He summed up their reaction to the South Korean snack in one word: "Ecstasy."

Much like what Twinkies are to Americans, South Korea's Choco Pies -- two disc-shaped, chocolate-covered cakes, sandwiching a rubbery layer of marshmallow cream -- are ubiquitous, cost less than 50 cents and are full of empty calories.

But on the other side of the Korean border, the snacks are viewed as exotic, highly prized treats, selling on North Korea's black markets for as much as $10, according to analysts. Their rising popularity in the north reveals an unexpected common ground between the two Koreas, despite their fractious relationship -- a shared sweet tooth.