Six In The Morning Sunday June 22

Iraq crisis: rebranded insurgents gain whip hand on streets of Baghdad

The Mahdi army, now renamed the Peace Brigades, parades its power in the Iraqi capital as it prepares to do battle with Sunni rebels in the north

• Martin Chulov in Baghdad
• The Observer, Sunday 22 June 2014

For the past week the young and old of the Mahdi army had been preparing. New recruits, only children the last time the Shia militia all but ran Iraq, had been learning how to march and to clean weapons. Veterans of the insurgency against US forces and civil war that followed had been signing up cadres and receiving bodies from battlefields.

On Baghdad's streets, battered pickups shuttled weapons from depots to mosques where the rapid rearming has transformed the already militarised capital into a war zone in waiting.

With the mobilisation complete, the now battle-ready militia presented itself to Iraqis once more on Saturday, staging a series of parades in Baghdad and the south that made an emphatic statement of its readiness and intentions.

Syria civil war: Hundreds of radicalised fighters are already back in the UK, warns former MI6 chief

Fighters returning from Syria will ‘inevitably’ pose domestic threat, warns counter-terrorist report

JONATHAN OWEN

Sunday 22 June 2014

Hundreds of veteran fighters from Syria and Iraq are already back in Britain, among them radicalised jihadists intent on mounting terror attacks. And British intelligence services face an “impossible” task in trying to track them, a leading security expert warned last night.

The grim warning from Richard Barrett, the former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, who spent more than a decade tracking the Taliban for the United Nations, comes amid escalating fears over the threat posed by returning foreign fighters from the twin conflicts. Mr Barrett estimated that “possibly up to 300 people have come back to the UK” already.

The scale of the threat is placing an impossible burden on British intelligence, he said. “If you imagine what it would cost to really look at 300 people in depth, clearly it would be completely impossible to do that, probably impossible even at a third of that number.”

Sea disputes should be settled through direct talks, Chinese official says

June 22, 2014 - 12:50PM

China will be firm in upholding its territorial integrity and believes disputes in the region should be settled through direct talks with the countries concerned, the nation's top foreign policy official said.

"We will never trade our core interests or swallow the bitter fruits that undermine our sovereignty, security and development interests," Yang Jiechi said in a speech at the World Peace Forum in Beijing at the weekend. Dr Yang, a former foreign minister, held talks last week in Vietnam to defuse tensions over a Chinese oil rig in waters claimed by both countries.

China has intensified moves to assert its territorial sovereignty in the East and South China seas, ratcheting up tensions with the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan. China has refused international efforts to resolve the conflicts and this month reiterated that it doesn't recognise a United Nations tribunal investigating a complaint by the Philippines against China's claims over the Spratly Islands.

Why We Failed To #BringBackOurGirls

By Dr. Peregrino Brimah

From the headlines of June 18th: “hundreds of thousands of Iraqi volunteers have responded to calls by the country’s highest religious authority to fight militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).” You may read and view the video here...

This importantly highlights the failure of Nigeria’s executive leadership, ultimately and northern leadership in combating Boko Haram, a senseless menace that has plagued Nigeria’s north, largely unabated for four straight years.

In the four years of Boko Haram’s worst carnage, the terror sect has operated with minimal impedance from the Nigerian military and next to none so-ever from the communities where it rampages, rapes, abducts, kills and sets everything on fire. Over 80,000 have been killed, 3 million displaced and billions worth of farm lands rendered abandoned, potentially putting millions of Nigerians out of work and at risk of and dying of hunger.

Fear, shock among Sri Lankan Muslims in aftermath of Buddhist mob violence

By Iqbal Athas and Tim Hume, CNN

 Aluthgama, Sri Lanka (CNN) -- In the areas surrounding the southwest Sri Lankan town of Aluthgama, an idyllic coastal settlement popular with tourists, Muslims and Buddhists have lived side by side peacefully for generations.

But a wave of deadly communal violence that followed a rally Sunday by hardline Buddhist nationalist monks has changed that.

"The house I owned was burnt down. My family has nowhere to go," Muhsin Shihab, a father of eight children, told CNN Tuesday.

His family, which has been sheltering at a local mosque since being displaced by the rioting, hadn't eaten for a day and a half, he said.

Chinese dog-meat dilemma: to eat or not to eat?

By John SudworthBBC News, Shanghai

The Chinese pet industry is reportedly booming - like almost everything else associated with middle-class lifestyles in this country.

The veterinary and animal-grooming market is said to be worth well over $1bn (£1.7bn) a year and is predicted to grow rapidly.

The latest trend? Dogs with perms that make them look like pandas.

So no wonder then that the dog-eating festival due to take place in the southern city of Yulin this weekend is drawing more than a few negative comments.

The other thing associated with the rise of China's middle class is of course the rise of social media, with something not far off 400 million people now regularly accessing the internet via their smartphones.