Al-Jazeera journalists jailed for seven years in Egypt
Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed of Al-Jazeera English sentenced on terrorism-related charges
An Egyptian court has convicted three journalists from Al-Jazeera English and sentenced them to seven years each in prison on terrorism-related charges.
Australian correspondent Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian acting Cairo bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed, were sentenced on Monday. Mohammed was sentenced to three extra years on a separate charge.
Three other journalists who were tried in absentia were given 10-year sentences.
The trio were being tried alongside five students with links to Islamist protests, and the head of an Islamic charity, in an attempt to portray the journalists as the masterminds of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked plot to smearEgypt's reputation. In Egyptian media, the whole group is known as "the Marriott cell", after the hotel from where Fahmy and Greste were arrested. The journalists and students say they had never met each other before arriving at court for the first time in February.
Treaty makes land mines a weapon of past, group says
An estimated 4,000 people a year are still killed or wounded by land mines
Despite the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed uprising in Ukraine and turmoil in other hot spots in the Middle East and Africa, one of war’s most insidious weapons - anti-personnel land mines - have been largely outlawed and drastically reduced, a monitoring group said in a report released Monday.
In the 15 years since a global treaty prohibiting these weapons took effect, the use and production of the mines has nearly stopped, new casualties have plummeted, and more than two dozen countries once contaminated by land mines buried since old wars have removed them, said the report by the group, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
“The Mine Ban Treaty remains an ongoing success in stigmatizing the use of land mines and mitigating the suffering they cause,” said Jeff Abramson, project manager of Landmine Monitor, the group’s research unit.
The Mahdi Army: Turbans, Kalashnikovs and plans to 'slaughter'
A notorious Shiite militia is preparing to march on its rapidly-advancing ISIS enemy. In the past, the Mahdi Army was known for death squads, arbitrary shootings, kidnappings and bombings.
Baghdad hasn't seen anything like it for some time now: Shiite fighters marching in formation.
Bedecked in black training suits or flowing robes and turbans, they resemble Iraq's own army as they marched by the thousands through Sadr City over the weekend (22.06.2014). Sadr City's two million largely Shiite citizens make it Baghdad's largest district. They were ready to stand up to the terrorists, they cried. Everywhere, they could be heard: "We will slaughter them!"
Armed with rifles, pistols, grenades and Molotov cocktails, their first target is Samarra, where they plan to confront the largely Sunni militia Islamist State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and to protect their holy, Shiite mosque. The latter is proving a key point of contention.
Kenya massacres raise spectre of ethnic violence
Massacres on the Kenyan coast have once again brought political rivalries to the fore.
Six years after Kenya erupted into ferocious ethnic battles and post-election violence, security guard John Mboya is fearful once again, after twin massacres on the coast brought political rivalries to the surface.
“When the leaders argue, it is people like me who will suffer if a fight starts,” bemoaned Mboya, recalling the intensity of 2007-8 violence, when communities in his crowded slum in the capital Nairobi divided along tribal lines and turned on each other after disputed elections.
“People are very worried, they don’t understand what will happen,” he said.
Among Istanbul's birdsong lovers, an echo of Greek past
The sport of finch-keeping for cafe contests, where birds are ranked on the quality and quantity of their melodies, has its roots in Istanbul's multi-ethnic past.
ISTANBUL — When men gather to witness animals fighting for sport, adrenalin and bloodlust typically follow. The Istanbul tradition of kusculuk (‘finch-keeping’), however, is a more contemplative affair: men clink tea glasses, whisper softly, and listen to melodious strains of birdsong.
On a recent weekend, kusculuk connoisseurs assembled in a café in the leafy suburb of Pasabahce as their birds competed in a three-hour long series of singing matches.
The tradition, which participants say originated within the city’s Greek community, is a relic of a rich multicultural past that is now all but erased by decades of social upheaval and mass migration out.
Ukraine: Common history pulls in aid from west Russia
The town of Shakhty is less than an hour's drive from Russia's border with Ukraine.
The name means "mines" - a reference to the coalmines that once employed so many, but have now shut.
On the edge of town is a tiny, crumbling Soviet-era museum about the history of the coal industry and the glorious miners of the River Don.
Today, the museum has been turned into an aid centre. Inside there are volunteers packing clothes, food and medicines for people fleeing the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
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