Six In The Morning Sunday July 6

6 July 2014 Last updated at 08:03

Ukraine rebels regroup after losing Sloviansk

Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine are reported to be regrouping in Donetsk after government forces retook some of their main strongholds.

President Petro Poroshenko said the recapture of the rebels' stronghold of Sloviansk on Saturday was of "huge symbolic importance".

But he warned it was too early for celebrations.

Despite recent losses, the rebels still hold the regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk and other key areas.

Sloviansk had been considered a focal point of the rebellion, and was the military centre of the self-declared separatist People's Republic of Donetsk.

Fresh video shows faces of pair who may have killed Palestinian teenager
Footage appears to replicate video shot from another angle which the boy's family says depicts moment of his abduction

• Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
• theguardian.com, Sunday 6 July 2014 07.35 BST

Fresh video footage has emerged that for the first time shows the faces of the alleged suspects in the brutal abduction and murder of a Palestinian teenager, whose burned body was found dumped in woodland near Jerusalem last week.

The video, acquired by the website the Electronic Intifada, which champions Palestinian issues, appears to replicate exactly video shot from another angle which was acquired by the Guardian on Friday and which Mohamed Abu Khdeir's family says depicts the moment of his abduction.

The Palestinian teenager was kidnapped and murdered on Wednesday in what many suspect was a revenge killing by Israeli extremists in response to the murder of three Israeli teenagers. Abu Khdeir's killing prompted days of violent unrest in Palestinian neighbourhoods and Israeli-Arab towns.

PATRICK COCKBURN

Sunday 6 July 2014

Iraq crisis: As Shia shrines are targeted and Tikrit is strangled, the fiercest of wars lies ahead

A demoralised army is hoping that the US will step in with drones, but their use could bring devastating revenge attacks

The meltdown of American and British policy in Iraq and Syria attracts surprisingly little criticism at home. Their aim for the past three years has been get rid of Bashar al-Assad as ruler of Syria and stabilise Iraq under the leadership of Nouri al-Maliki. The exact reverse has happened, with Mr Assad in power and likely to remain so, while Iraq is in turmoil with the government's authority extending only a few miles north and west of Baghdad.

By pretending that the Syrian opposition stood a chance of overthrowing Mr Assad after the middle of 2012, and insisting that his departure be the justification for peace talks, Washington, London and Paris have ensured that the Syrian civil war would go on. "I spent three years telling them again and again that the war in Syria would inevitably destabilise Iraq, but they paid no attention," the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told me last week. I remember in the autumn of 2012 a senior British diplomat assuring me that talk of the Syrian war spreading was much exaggerated.

NSA Experts: 'National Security Has Become a State Religion'

Interview Conducted By Sven Becker, Marcel Rosenbach and Jörg Schindler

In a SPIEGEL interview, Edward Snowden's lawyer, Jesselyn Radack, and former NSA contractor Thomas Drake discuss the reasons behind the American spying agency's obssession with collecting data.

SPIEGEL: Germany's federal prosecutor has opened a formal inquiry into the surveillance of Angela Merkel's mobile phone, but he did not open an investigation into the mass surveillance of German citizens, saying that there was no evidence to do so. Mr. Drake, as a former NSA employee, what's your take on this?

Drake: It stretches the bounds of incredulity. Germany has become, after 9/11, the most important surveillance platform for the NSA abroad. The only German citizen granted protection by a statement by Barack Obama is Angela Merkel. All other Germans are obviously treated as suspects by the NSA.

SPIEGEL: Ms. Radack, do you have an explanation for the German federal prosecutor's position?

Radack: Of course. They don't want to find out the truth. Either they're complicit to some extent or they don't really care to investigate.

Curfew imposed after deadly clashes between Buddhists, Muslims in Myanmar

By Tim Hume, CNN

July 6, 2014 -- Updated 0643 GMT (1443 HKT)

Authorities have imposed a curfew in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, following nights of deadly communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims.

Two people have been killed and 14 injured since rioting erupted Tuesday, Col. Aung Kyaw Moe, Mandalay's Region border affairs and Security Minister tells CNN.

The rioting began when a mob began attacking a tea shop owned by a Muslim man accused of raping a Buddhist woman, and continued the following night.

Boko Haram Trades Terrorist Tactics With Somalia's Al Shabaab

BY SIGI DE VOS AND ALEXANDER SMITH

Boko Haram is trading tips with other terrorist groups as it plows on with a bloody campaign to carve out an Islamic state and deepens a crisis threatening to engulf central Africa in religious violence.

Emboldened by Nigeria’s failure to stamp out its al Qaeda-inspired insurgency, the militant group attained global infamy in April with the mass kidnapping of more than 300 schoolgirls. International attention was focused on the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls with Michelle Obama and teenage Taliban shooting victim Malala Yousafzai expressing their support. The U.S. and others stepped in to help track the girls down.