1 September 2014 Last updated at 08:26
Ukraine crisis: 'Clashes' near Luhansk airport ahead of talks
Ukrainian forces are battling pro-Russian rebels at the international airport of the eastern city of Luhansk, a Ukrainian military official has said.
The separatists earlier claimed they had seized the airport, but the army said the fighting was still ongoing.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has urged negotiators meeting later in Belarus to make an "immediate ceasefire" their priority.
Some 2,600 people have died in eastern Ukraine since fighting began in April.
The conflict broke out after Russia's annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula in March.
The rebels have been gaining ground on Ukrainian forces in recent days, in both the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and further south around the port of Mariupol.
Japan's annual dolphin slaughter begins at Taiji cove
Bad weather could delay killing on first day of controversial six-month dolphin hunting season, official says
The controversial six-month dolphin hunting season began on Monday in the infamous town of Taiji, but bad weather would delay any killing, a local official told AFP.
The annual catch, in which people from the southwestern town corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay and butcher them, was thrust into the global spotlight in 2009 when it became the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove.
“The dolphin hunting season started today and will last until the end of February,” said an official of the Taiji fisheries association, adding the season for hunting pilot whales, which also begins today, will last until April.
But bad weather on Monday meant there would be no hunting on the day, he said.
Barcelona demonstrates against ‘booze tourism’
Residents in parts of city angry over noisy tourists and offensive behaviour
Guy Hedgecoe
It’s an all-too-common sight in many Mediterranean cities and resorts: drunken foreigners noisily staggering through the streets while sober locals look on in disapproval. But in one district of Barcelona, the phenomenon has been particularly rife this summer and disgruntled neighbours are fighting back.
On Saturday, an estimated 2,000 people marched from the Barceloneta area that is the focus of the conflict to Barcelona’s City Hall, to express their opposition to the so-called “booze tourism” they believe is blighting their neighbourhood. It was the sixth demonstration of its kind in recent weeks.
“It’s not that we don’t want tourists, we just don’t want this kind of tourism, which is disrespectful,” Julia Antequera, a long-time resident of Barceloneta, told El Paisnewspaper.
Did Israel commit war crimes in Rafah?
Amid fear that Hamas had captured an Israeli soldier, the Israeli military sealed civilians in the Rafah area and began shelling on Aug. 1, 2014. The Israeli military confirmed that Rafah residents were barred from leaving the area, but declined comment on the war crime allegations.
RAFAH, GAZA STRIP — The first of August dawned as a day of promise for the Mahmoum clan and thousands of other Palestinians stuck in United Nations shelters in Rafah — thanks to a temporary cease-fire with Israel they could go home for three days.
But the expected respite quickly turned into one of the deadliest and most controversial episodes in the recent war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. After just two hours, amid fear that Hamas had captured an Israeli soldier, the Israeli military sealed off the Rafah area and began shelling. By the end of the next day, 190 Palestinians were dead, according to a list of names compiled by two Gaza human rights groups, including 14 members of the Mahmoum family.
The Rafah operation is almost certain to be a focus of U.N. investigators and rights groups looking into possible war crimes because it highlights a key concern: The treatment of civilians.
The horror of Brazil’s prisons
With more than 500,000 people currently incarcerated, Brazil's inmates continue to control the overcrowded prisons.
Gabriel Elizondo is an Al Jazeera staff correspondent based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Scenes of absolute horror, as hundreds of inmates at a prison in Cascavel, Brazil riot and decapitate twoinmates from a rival gang and take two prison guards hostage.
As I write this, it's a cold and tense standoff that has been going on for more than 30 hours as police try to negotiate to end it all.
There are reports the kidnappers are torturing their prison guard captives. Images show the guards stripped to their underwear on the prison roof, hands tied behind their back, surrounded by furious masked inmateswielding knives.
Other inmates who didn’t want to cooperate with the riot are reportedly being pushed off the prison roof.
As ugly as it is, it’s just a snapshot of a wider problem.
Right now there are about 574,000 people incarcerated in Brazil. Only the US, China, and Russia have more people jailed.
Perspective: The entire population of Iceland is 317,000 and the population of the US state of Wyoming is about 580,000.
Climate Hack? How Plastics Could Help Save Us From Greenhouse Gases
W hat's the fix for a warming planet? Just one word: Plastics.
As the world grapples with greenhouse gas emissions still rising despite years of political wrangling over how to combat global climate change, a technology to convert carbon dioxide and methane into plastic is emerging as one potential market-driven solution. To boot, the process can be less expensive than producing plastics from petroleum.
"You have a new paradigm where plastics are saving the economy a whole lot of money, they are replacing oil, and in the process we are actually sequestering carbon emissions that would otherwise go into the air," Mark Herrema, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Newlight Technologies in Irvine, Calif., explained to NBC News.
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