18 June 2014 Last updated at 08:25
Sunni militants pound Iraq's biggest oil refinery
Islamist-led militants have attacked Iraq's biggest oil refinery with mortars and machine guns, reportedly attacking from two directions.
Smoke billowed from a spare parts warehouse on the site at Baiji, 210km (130 miles) north of Baghdad, security and refinery sources told Reuters.
Government forces have made new air strikes on militants advancing towards the capital.
Fighting is also reported in the western city of Ramadi.
The government is battling to push back ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and its Sunni Muslim allies in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, after the militants overran the second city, Mosul, last week.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared on television with Sunni Muslim and Kurdish leaders on Tuesday to issue a call for national unity in the face of the advance - they demanded that non-state forces lay down their arms.
As Greece questions its identity ‘the only thing uniting us is conflict’
Greek Letter: amid ever greater political uncertainty, what it means to be Greek is up for debate
Richard Pine
Greek people are inured to uncertainty. The Greek word abebaios means “without a foundation, unsafe”. It suggests that uncertainty emanates from a lack of structure in the Greek world. Question marks settle themselves on almost all social issues.
Perhaps only those who have emigrated and – with spectacular success in some cases – made new lives elsewhere, found something more certain.
All this is by way of a preamble to the fact that Greece hasn’t known this degree of uncertainty for many years.
'My colleagues are killed with impunity'
With over 140 murdered journalists since 1986, the Philippines is one of the most dangerous places for journalists. Filipino reporter Malu Cadelina Manar on the struggle to stop the killing.
Investigative journalist Nilo Baculo was killed by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle on Monday (09.06.2014), after his bid to seek court protection was ultimately rejected by the authorities. According to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Baculo is the 25th journalist killed in the Philippines since 2010. With over 140 murdered journalists since 1986, the Philippines is said to be among the top 10 most dangerous countries for media representatives.
Journalist Malu Cadelina Manar, an investigative journalist with more than 20 years of experience, knew Nilo well. She herself has received numerous death threats.
DW: Why do you think Nilo Baculo was killed?
Malu Cadelina Manar: According to professor and lawyer Harry Roque, one of the counsel for the families of the victims of Maguindanao Massacre, Nilo's application for protection order stated under oath that locally elected officials engaged in the illegal drug trade are out to kill him - meaning some locally elected officials in his town in Calapan Oriental Mindoro. But investigators refused to name the perpetrators.
Who is the man found behind Picasso's masterpiece 'The Blue Room'?
June 18, 2014 - 10:01AM
Brett Zongker
Scientists and art experts have found a hidden painting beneath one of Pablo Picasso's first masterpieces, The Blue Room, using advances in infrared imagery to reveal a bow-tied man with his face resting on his hand. Now the question that conservators at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, hope to answer is simply: Who is he?
It's a mystery that's fuelling new research about the 1901 painting created early in Picasso's career while he was working in Paris at the start of his distinctive Blue Period of melancholy subjects.
Curators and conservators revealed their findings for the first time to The Associated Press last week. Over the past five years, experts from The Phillips Collection, National Gallery of Art, Cornell University and Delaware's Winterthur Museum have developed a clearer image of the mystery picture under the surface. It's a portrait of an unknown man painted in a vertical composition by one of the 20th century's great artists.
Egypt releases detained Al Jazeera journalist
After 10 months the news agency's Abdullah Elshamy, who was on hunger strike for nearly five months in protest of his detention, has been set free.
Egypt on Tuesday released Al Jazeera journalist Abdullah Elshamy, who has been on hunger strike for nearly five months in protest over his detention.
Elshamy, who works for the main Arabic channel of the Qatar-based network, was arrested on August 14 when police dispersed supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi in Cairo, sparking clashes that left hundreds killed.
The journalist has been on hunger strike since January 21, according to his family. On Tuesday, Elshamy, dressed in a white prison uniform and looking frail, walked out of a police station in Cairo’s neighbourhood of Nasr City, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent at the scene, a day after the prosecutor general ordered his release due to his health condition.
How to end the conflict in Ukraine? Build a wall in the east
A Ukrainian oligarch has offered $136 million to build a six-foot high wall to keep Russian support from flowing through Ukraine's porous border.
KIEV — Ukraine’s leaders are puzzling over how to cut off Russian support for a separatist rebellion in the east of the country but one of its richest men thinks he has the answer.
Billionaire businessman Ihor Kolomoisky has suggested building a wall along the almost 1,200-mile land border with Russia to prevent fighters and weapons flooding in.
The idea may sound absurd but Kolomoisky has offered to stump up $136 million to fund the six-foot high, 10-12 inch thick wall of reinforced steel, complete with electronic alarms, trenches and minefields.
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