Six In The Morning Wednesday May 14

14 May 2014 Last updated at 07:14

Turkey coal mine explosion: Death toll rises

An explosion at a coal mine in western Turkey has left at least 201 workers dead and scores injured, officials say.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 787 people had been inside the mine at Soma in Manisa province when an electrical fault triggered the blast.

Rescuers worked through the night, but Mr Yildiz said hopes were fading of finding any more survivors.

Worried relatives have gathered near the privately owned mine, about 450km (280 miles) west of the capital Ankara.

Mr Yildiz confirmed the latest death toll on Turkish TV and said some 80 people had been injured.

He said that of the workers inside the mine at the time of the accident, only about 360 of them - including those killed - had been accounted for.

How a guerrilla who fought in the Mozambique bush is leading the fight to save it

Bernardo Jofrisse fought the colonial Portugese in the idyllic Gorongosa, where he is now a conservationist

Paddy Woodworth

Bernardo Beca Jofrisse is a trim 65-year-old with a military bearing and a reserved but gently courteous manner. Surprisingly gentle, perhaps, considering the things he must have seen in his lifetime.

I met him in the idyllic setting of the Chitengo camp in Gorongosa National Park,Mozambique. But when Jofrisse first encountered this remarkable landscape it was a very different, devastated place.

He was called up for military service in the Portuguese colonial army in 1969. He says he decided instead to join an army that was fighting to free his country, and not the one that was oppressing it.

Vietnam mobs set fire to foreign factories in anti-China protest

 

By Ho Binh Minh and Manuel Mogato34 minutes ago

Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to factories and rampaged in industrial zones in the south of the country after protests against Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, officials said on Wednesday.

The brunt appears to have been borne by Taiwanese companies in the zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces as rioters mistook the firms to be Chinese-owned. Vietnamese officials gave few details, but said gates to factories were smashed and windows were broken. Police said they were investigating.

A Singapore foreign ministry spokesman said the premises of a number of foreign companies were broken into and set on fire in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIP) I and II in Binh Duong. The spokesman said the Singapore government had asked Vietnam to immediately restore law and order, but gave no other details.

Will Brazil's World Cup showcase striking workers?

Bus drivers in Rio have already gone on strike, and teachers may do the same. Some say other groups - including the federal police - could strike as well amid World Cup attention and the leadup to elections.

By Julia Michaels, Guest blogger 

RIO DE JANEIRO

Perhaps the only group of workers who are sure not to strike here in the coming days are Rio’s trash collectors. During this past Carnival, with torrential rain in the offing, they pushed mayor Eduardo Paes to the wall andgot themselves a 37 percent pay hike.

Probably the Military Police will stay on the job. Back in 2012, they went on strike and got a pay raise in addition to an existing plan of increases and bonuses. Even so,they’re unhappy about having their days off canceled this month, in response to rising crime rates.

But the same cannot be said for Brazil’s Federal Police, counterpart of the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence. A group of Federal Police, from whose ranks José Mariano Beltrame rose to his current post of state Public Safety Secretary, demonstrated [Wednesday May 7] for a pay raise and other benefits, while Brazil’s soccer coach announced the makeup of the national team.

North Korea: Sanctions, luxury and aid

Pyongyang has been transformed with an influx of high-end goods, but most North Koreans still live in poverty. Fragkiska Megaloudi

Pyongyang, North Korea - It's rush hour and the once-empty streets of the North Korean capital now show signs of traffic congestion. Expensive cars with tinted windows occasionally pass crowded public buses and trucks crammed with soldiers, prompting traffic officers to raise their hands in a military salute.

In downtown Pyongyang, department stores are filled with goods from all over the world: Swiss chocolates, packets of Doritos, German sausages, Coca-Cola and Italian wine. Clothes from the Spanish Zara stores, Chanel makeup kits and perfumes, watches and jewellery stock the shelves. Chinese middlemen, who serve as brokers between North Korean trading firms and China-based companies, secure a continuous flow of goods and equipment into the country.

Mobile phones and elegant handbags lay on the tables of smartly dressed young women who sip drinks at Sunrise Coffee and Bakery on Changjon Street. Waitresses roam the tables with iPads, ready to place customers' orders.

14 May 2014 Last updated at 00:33

Why Nigeria cannot defeat Boko Haram

By Andrew WalkerNigeria analyst

Exactly a year after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a "state of emergency" in north-eastern Nigeria, it seems to have had little effect in curbing the Islamist insurgency.

Attacks by the Boko Haram group that provoked the move included an assault on a military barracks, detonating a bomb at a bus station in the northern city of Kano and the kidnap of a French family, including four children, which grabbed the world's attention.

The declaration would bring "extraordinary measures" to bear against the insurgents in order to "restore normalcy" to the region, the president said.

"The troops have orders to carry out all necessary actions within the ambit of their rules of engagement to put an end to the impunity of insurgents and terrorists," President Jonathan said.