11 July 2014 Last updated at 08:01
US prepared to broker Gaza ceasefire, says Obama
The US is prepared to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, President Barack Obama has said.
His comments came in a phone call with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr Netanyahu earlier said Israel's operation was progressing as planned with "more stages expected". The air strikes on Gaza, and militant rocket fire into Israel, continued overnight.
More than 90 Gazans have died since Tuesday, Palestinian officials say.
About half of those killed are civilians, the health ministry has said, with some 600 people - mainly civilians - injured.
‘The Austrian government . . . has allowed horrible attacks on persons and property in Bosnia’
Georges Clemenceau, who would lead France through the last years of the war, was editor of ‘L’Homme Libre’ in 1914. In this front-page editorial he discusses Serb/Austrian and Austrian/French tensions, after Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination – Lara Marlowe
... The bomb and revolver shots of Sarajevo could not have reverberated more cruelly through the entire expanse of the Empire. When massacres and looting veil themselves in patriotism, few would not protest violently. The Austrian government, which reproaches the Serbian government without reason for having failed to foresee the attack in Sarajevo, has allowed horrible attacks on persons and property in Bosnia, without attempting to intervene.
And since our [French] press has been unanimous in hoping that Vienna will not respond disproportionately to the findings of the investigation in Sarajevo, we have been maligned by certain Austrian newspapers inspired by Berlin, and even by the speaker of the Austrian parliament, who to my mind is not qualified to engage in diplomatic conversation.
Turkish parliament passes bill to make Kurdish peace talks legal
Turkey's parliament has approved a legal framework for peace talks with Kurdish militants. The move has been hailed as an important step towards ending a three-decade insurgency.
Turkey's parliament on Thursday passed a legal reform package meant to speed up and formalize a peace process with the Kurdish people in the country's southeast.
An estimated 40,000 people have been killed during the 30-year-old armed insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Talks with the government have taken place in recent years and led last year to the PKK declaring a ceasefire, which has largely held.
The new reform package, which still requires presidential approval, would assure immunity for state officials who engage in talks with the PKK - still banned as a terrorist organization by the Turkish authorities, the European Union and the United States. The new laws would also pave the way for amnesty for most PKK fighters and offer a chance to return to regular life if the peace process is successful.
A treasure map, assassination plot and kidnapping among dark secrets of Sri Lankan asylum seekers
July 11, 2014 - 2:52PM
Jason Koutsoukis
South Asia correspondent at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
- Waleed Aly: Harsh treatment of asylum seeker is same old story
- Medical advice ignored in case of asylum seeker who attempted suicide
Colombo, Sri Lanka: The 12-metre fishing vessel called the Sithumina left Batticaloa on Sri Lanka's east coast at 2.30am on June 12.
The 41 passengers on board had met the ship several hundred metres from the beach after being ferried there in two small boats powered by outboard motors.
Most of the passengers were men who have since freely admitted that they were simply looking for new jobs and a better life in safe and far away New Zealand. After only 14 days at sea they were picked up by the Royal Australian Navy.
Unaccompanied children not fleeing violence, says Guatemala's first lady (+video)
Really?
Guatemala’s first lady Rosa Leal de Pérez traveled to the US-Mexicoborder earlier this month to see how the US is dealing with the surge of migrant children, many from her nation.
She called the situation a “humanitarian crisis” and said she believed the kids were primarily traveling to the US in order to reunite with family members. Ms. Leal de Pérez blamed US immigration policies for keeping families apart and parents for putting their kids at risk. Something she didn't find responsible? Violence back home.
“I can’t say violence isn’t a problem in our countries,” she said, referring toCentral America’s northern triangle, which includes Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and from where the majority of these young migrants are fleeing. But she said violence wasn’t the reason kids were heading north.
Inside militants' secret tunnels in Pakistan
July 11, 2014 -- Updated 0732 GMT (1532 HKT)
Miranshah, Pakistan (CNN) -- In a tea shop in Miranshah, a dusty town in northeastern Pakistan, an empty kettle hangs on a hook waiting to be used, while flies hover over baskets piled high with sweetmeats drying out in the July sunshine.
The surrounding streets are unusually quiet -- no children playing, no old men selling fruit, no whir of machinery from local workshops. The buzz of life has been replaced by deathly silence in the largest town in Pakistan's troubled North Waziristan. Much of it now lies in ruin, its population nowhere to be seen.
In a rare visit organized by Pakistan's military, I was one of the few journalists transported into the region where the army has been waging a full-scale ground offensive against militants since mid-June. The operation has been named Zarb-e-Azb after a famous sword of the prophet Muhammad.
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