Six In The Morning Monday July 28

28 July 2014 Last updated at 08:30

Gaza crisis: UN calls for immediate ceasefire

The UN Security Council has called for an "immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza.

An emergency session backed a statement calling for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr "and beyond".

Both the Palestinian and Israeli envoys to the UN criticised the statement, for different reasons.

Gaza had its quietest night in weeks after a weekend punctuated by brief truce initiatives offered by both Israel and Hamas.

More than 1,030 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 43 Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians have been killed. A Thai national in Israel has also died.

The Gaza health ministry on Sunday revised the number of Palestinian dead down by 30 after some relatives found missing family members.

South Korea ferry disaster: students testify in captain's murder trial

Survivors say they were told to stay put as water rushed into their cabins in disaster that killed more than 300 people

• Agence France-Presse in Ansan, South Korea
• theguardian.com, Monday 28 July 2014 09.31 BST

Student survivors of South Korea's Sewol ferry disaster, testifying in the murder trial of the captain and crew, recalled being repeatedly told to stay put as the ship was sinking.

"They kept saying the same thing over and over," one said, describing how she and classmates obeyed the order until the ferry had listed so far that the door to their cabin was above their heads.

Another described watching a wave sweep her classmates back inside the sinking boat.

The trial is taking place in the southern city of Gwangju, but the judges and lawyers decamped to a court in Ansan city, south of Seoul, for a special two-day session with the 17 students who agreed to testify.

Eugene de Kock: Apartheid’s sadistic killer that his country cannot bring itself to forgive

The debate rages in South Africa over whether Eugene de Kock should ever be released from jail

PETER POPHAM 

 

 

Monday 28 July 2014

He has already served 18 years in prison, but the chances of Colonel Eugene de Kock, better known to millions of South Africans as “Prime Evil” ever getting out remain doubtful.

The former police officer responsible for thousands of deaths in apartheid’s final years is a model prisoner and, by all accounts, a reformed man. Public opinion began to change after he went before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, confessed to many more killings than the number for which he had been convicted, and wept on meeting relatives of some of his victims. His struggles with guilt and remorse were recently the subject of A Human Being Died That Night, a play hailed by The Independent’s Paul Taylor as “a profoundly searching duologue about guilt and forgiveness”.

Under Spain's 'Google fee' law, news aggregators must pay publishers

July 28, 2014 - 2:02PM

Mariana Marcaletti

Spain has passed a law requiring news aggregators such as Google News to pay publishers a fee if they link to their content. Supporters of the law, nicknamed the ''Google Fee'', say it will prevent copyright infringements. But opponents argue that it limits freedom of expression.

Spain was where the "right to be forgotten" began, with the European Commission recently ruling that individuals can demand Google remove unfavourable links about them from search results. Now a new copyright law is stirring controversy in the country.

Aggregators that don't compensate publishers for using their content could be fined €30,000 to €300,000 ($43,000 to $430,000). Spanish websites risk being blocked if they do not comply with the law, passed last week, even if they are hosted in other countries.

Boko Haram kidnap wife of Cameroon vice PM

28 JUL 2014 07:46 TANSA MUSA

Boko Haram has stepped up cross-border attacks into Cameroon in recent weeks, including a number of high-profile kidnappings.

Nigerian Boko Haram militants kidnapped the wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister and killed at least three people on Sunday in a cross-border attack involving more than 200 assailants in the northern town of Kolofata, Cameroon officials said.

A local religious leader,Seini Boukar Lamine, who is also the town’s mayor, and five members of his family were also kidnapped in a separate attack on his home.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Boko Haram, an Islamist group which made international headlines with the abduction of 200 Nigerian schoolgirls in April, has stepped up cross-border attacks into Cameroon in recent weeks. Cameroon has deployed troops to its northern region, joining international efforts to combat the militants.

No show for North Korean defector artist in China

 

2 hours ago

An art exhibition in China by a North Korean defector has been cancelled, gallery staff said Monday, with reports saying the show had been dismantled on official orders.

Sun Mu, who slipped out of North Korea in 1998 and uses a pseudonym because of concerns for his safety, paints satirical imitations of Pyongyang's propaganda imagery.

An exhibition of his works had been due to open at the Yuan Dian gallery at the weekend, but China is nuclear-armed Pyongyang's key diplomatic backer and aid provider, even if their relationship has been strained by the antics of leader Kim Jong-Un.

"Chinese police blocked people from entering the museum," South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, adding that officers "removed his paintings and ad banners hung around the museum".