Six In The Morning Friday August 15

How a Polish student's website became an Isis propaganda tool

An information-sharing website run from a bedroom in Poland has become part of the militants’ slick public relations operation

Carmen Fishwick

Friday 15 August 2014 07.00 BST

The rapid advance of the militant Islamic State movement in Syria and Iraq this year has been notable not just for its barbarity and brutality but for its deft and chilling social media operation.

Operations are routinely accompanied by grim images and videos of the atrocities perpetrated by the extremists. At the same time, Isis also takes care to document the donation of toys to children and TVs and fans to civilians in the battle for hearts and minds.

Twitter has very recently started cracking down on accounts used by Isis, and other mainstream organisations may follow. But the propagandists are web savvy, and can exploit the internet just like anyone else.

India Independence Day: Modi tells mothers and fathers – 'Don't bring your sons up as rapists'

ANDREW BUNCOMBE 

 

DELHI

 

Friday 15 August 2014

India has been 'shamed' by a recent flurry of high-profile sexual attacks, its new leader Narenda Modi has said.

Delivering his first Independence Day address, Modi said girls in India were repeatedly asked questions by their parents while boys were not.

“When we hear about these rapes our heads hang in shame,” said Mr Modi, speaking without notes from the ramparts of the 17th Century Red Fort in Delhi.

“Young girls are always asked so many questions by their parents, such as ‘where are you going?’.  But do parents dare to ask their sons where they are going?”

He added: “Those who commit rape are also someone’s sons. It’s the responsibility of the parents to stop them before they take the wrong path.”

Ukraine vows to block Russian convoy unless terms are met

Red Cross wants more details from Russia as top pro-Moscow rebel Strelkov quits

Daniel McLaughlin

A controversial aid convoy of Russian military trucks halted near a rebel-held stretch of Ukraine’s border last night, as Kiev continued to insist on strict terms for its entry and pounded the strongholds of pro-Moscow separatists.

The convoy of almost 300 trucks, hastily painted from army green to white before their departure from near Moscow on Tuesday, parked in a field where a camp had been prepared, about 30km from the Ukrainian frontier.

Kiev refused to let the trucks enter Ukraine through government-controlled Khar- kiv region after Russia said it had no plans to transfer the aid to vehicles provided by the Red Cross, which would distribute it in Luhansk region.

Israel braces for war crimes inquiries on Gaza

August 15, 2014 - 3:17PM

Isabel Kershner

Jerusalem: The fighting is barely over in the latest Gaza war, with a five-day ceasefire taking hold on Thursday, but attention has already shifted to the legal battlefield as Israel gears up to defend itself against international allegations of possible war crimes in the month-long conflict.

Israel has excoriated the United Nations Human Rights Council over the appointment of William Schabas, a Canadian expert in international law, to head the council's commission of inquiry for Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip.

The broader struggle will be over what some experts describe as Israel's "creative" interpretation of international law for dealing with asymmetric warfare in an urban environment. More than 1900 Palestinians were killed in the recent fighting, a majority of them believed to be civilians. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians were killed.

15 August 2014 Last updated at 00:57

Panama Canal at 100: A tale of growth and development

By Katy WatsonBBC South America business reporter

The Panama Canal opened 100 years ago. It was a feat of engineering that revolutionised global trade. More than a million ships have passed through the 80km (50 mile) canal in the past century, but what do the next 100 years hold for the waterway and the small Central American country?

If the number of skyscrapers is a marker of a country's ambition, then Panama has set its sights high - Panama City's skyline is full of towering apartment blocks, and newer high-rises are continually going up.

It is sometimes called the Dubai of Latin America, but while Dubai saw its ambitions come crashing down in 2009 after it failed to pay its debts, Panama came out of the global financial crash relatively unscathed.

Japan imposes asset freeze on North Korean shipping firm

 

3 hours ago

Japan on Friday froze the assets of the operator of a North Korean ship seized for smuggling arms, the Foreign Ministry said, just as Tokyo is engaged in talks with Pyongyang to return Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago.

The sanction against Ocean Maritime Management, which operated the ship detained near the Panama Canal a year ago carrying Soviet-era arms, follows similar steps by the United States and U.N. blacklisting of the North Korean firm in July.

It is not immediately clear how much assets, if any, Ocean Maritime Management holds in Japan, the Finance Ministry said.