Six In The Morning Friday September 19

19 September 2014 Last updated at 08:07

Scottish referendum: Scotland votes 'No' to independence

Scotland has voted to stay in the United Kingdom after voters decisively rejected independence.

With the results in from all 32 council areas, the "No" side won with 2,001,926 votes over 1,617,989 for "Yes".

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond called for unity and urged the unionist parties to deliver on more powers.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said he was delighted the UK would remain together and said the commitments on extra powers would be honoured.

Mr Cameron said the three main unionist parties at Westminster would now follow through with their pledge of more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

"We will ensure that those commitments are honoured in full," he said.

Eight bodies found in village latrine after attack on Guinea Ebola education team

The group, which comprised of local administrators, medical officers, journalists and a preacher, had been abducted by locals armed with rocks and knives in the southeast of the country.

HELENA WILLIAMS 

 

 

Friday 19 September 2014

Eight bodies were found in a village latrine in rural Guinea after an attack on a team trying to educate locals of the risks on Ebola, a government spokesperson said on Thursday.

“Three of them had their throats slit,” Damantang Albert Camara told the Reuters news agency.

This latest figure differs from previous reports that the seven bodies of nine missing people had been found.

Speaking on state television late Wednesday, Guinea’s Prime Minister Mohamed Said Fofana said that the authorities had arrested six people following the incident, which took place on Tuesday.

Botched Execution: The Death that Could Kill Lethal Injection

By Markus Feldenkirchen

The horrific execution of Clayton Lockett by lethal injection this spring in Oklahoma took an astonishing 43 minutes to complete. Together with other botched killings, the incident has focused attention on the inexperience and incompetence that now accompanies many executions in America.

On the afternoon of April 29, 2014, a vehicle arrived in the courtyard of the prison in McAlester, Oklahoma to pick up Clayton Lockett. The driver parked in the shadow of the white prison walls. His wait, it turned out, would be longer than anticipated. The vehicle was a hearse.

Behind the wall, at 4:40 p.m., prison guards removed Clayton Lockett's handcuffs and leg irons and forced him to get undressed so that he could take a shower. This is stipulated by the "Procedures for the Execution of Offenders Sentenced to Death." The shower is adjacent to the execution chamber: The purpose of the procedure is to ensure that the execution is clean -- in all respects.

Islamic State captures 21 villages in northern Syria as Kurds issue a call to arms

September 19, 2014 - 4:24AM

Tom Perry and Laila Bassam

Beirut: Islamic State fighters besieged a Kurdish city in northern Syria on Thursday after seizing 21 villages in a major assault, prompting a call to arms from Kurds in neighbouring Turkey, who urged followers to go and help resist the group's advance.

The attack on the city of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish, came two days after the top US military officer said the Syrian opposition would probably need the help of the Syrian Kurds to defeat Islamic State.

With the United States planning to expand military action against Islamic State from Iraq to Syria, a surveillance drone was spotted over nearby Islamic State-controlled territory in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

As Asian Games kick off, will North Korea flip its way into S. Korean hearts? (+video)

North Korea is participating in the Asian Games, due in part to South Korean financial support. As athletes arrive, met by high-security escorts, there's debate in the South over their inclusion. 

By John Power, Correspondent

INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA — There is little to distinguish the North Korean delegation’s living quarters from among the two-dozen apartment blocks that make up the athletes’ village of the Asian Games opening this week in South Korea.

Hanging from the balconies of one tower, nine national flags provide the only obvious sign of Pyongyang’s participation in Asia’s biggest sporting event.

For many South Koreans, the competition that kicks off Friday is more than a mere sporting event. It doubles as the latest in a long list of attempts at engagement with the North, and has been a flashpoint for tension over how to best interact with the South's oft-unruly neighbor.

Why The Spanish Are So Angry About Scottish Independence

 

By Mike Bird

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has issued perhaps the most vicious attack on Scottish independence from a foreign national leader, calling the referendum in Scotland “a torpedo to the waterline of the European Union” in domestic newspaper El Mundo.

The Spanish minister for European affairs, Inigo Mendez de Vigo, has also been on the offensive. This week he rejected the idea that Scotland could rejoin the bloc quickly after independence on the BBC’s Newsnight show. De Vigo said a unanimous agreement from all countries and a protracted negotiation would be required, taking around five years.

De Vigo added that Scotland would not get the same opt-out from joining the euro that the UK currently enjoys.   

“I don’t see in the future, for any member state to be granted that possibility."

But why such a big fuss from Spanish politicians?