Lost Homes and Dreams at Tower Israel Leveled
GAZA CITY — The men of Zafer Tower No. 4 sit in the shade across the street from the wreckage.
Somewhere in there is Dr. Mohammad Abu Rayya’s stethoscope. Buried, too, is a hard drive filled with 15 years of articles, photos and notes by Hisham Saqalla, a journalist and blogger. And a three-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower that Faraj Shorafa, a 72-year-old lawyer, brought from Paris in 1999.
Nobody was killed in Israel’s destruction of the tower, the first of three high-rises felled in the finale of this summer’s fighting with Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement that dominates the Gaza Strip. But about 500 people lost more than their homes. “They have destroyed our dreams,” said Dr. Abu Rayya, 38.
Ilovaisk bloodbath leaves Ukraine’s volunteers feeling like cannon fodder
The Russian army stands accused of killing hundreds of Ukrainian fighters
Daniel McLaughlin
The streets of Ilovaisk are lined with rocket-gouged apartment blocks, their shattered windows staring down at the charred carcases of cars, buses and armoured vehicles. The town’s railway station is a bomb-blasted shell, its tracks filled with mangled wagons still linked obediently together.
If Ukraine ever gets to write its own history, and if it teaches its children the truth, generations will shudder at the story of Ilovaisk.
Already, as government forces and Russian-backed rebels continue to die during an official ceasefire, Ilovaisk has become a byword for the brutality of this war, and for the incompetence and alleged treachery that dog Kiev’s bid to win it.
Photos reveal China building on reefs in disputed waters
September 15, 2014 - 3:06PM
Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
Spy photographs obtained by Fairfax Media reveal that China is rapidly building artificial islands on reefs in fiercely disputed areas of the South China Sea.
For centuries they were dots in turquoise waters, home only to sea birds. But the latest images show that land reclamation and construction is underway on Kennan and Burgos islands in the heart of the Spratly Islands and on its eastern and western extremes, as China aggressively presses territorial claims in the resource-rich waters.
The United States warned last week that China's accelerated land reclamation work had proved "intimidating and worrisome" for other regional countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam.
From IS-controlled Raqqa, tales of the group's resilience
The jihadis of the Islamic State beheaded another hostage on video this weekend in Syria, as the US and other western states vowed to destroy the group. But the militants are well dug in.
AKCAKALE, TURKEY — In a hospital bed in southern Turkey, lies a Syrian volunteer rescue worker who had his kneecap blown off in an airstrike in Raqqa, the Syrian bastion of the self-styled Islamic State (IS).
His story - and that of others who have made their out of Raqqa - sheds light on what life is like under the group's rule, and of how difficult it will be for a US-led coalition that President Barack Obama insists will "destroy" IS to make headway with airstrikes alone. The Syrian government's use of airpower so far, according to survivors, has killed many civilians while leaving the jihadi group largely unscathed.
“The situation in Raqqa is tragic,” says a pale Zakharia, in pain after several operations on his knee and a fractured right arm. “The hospitals are out of supplies. It is hard for people to leave Raqqa and flee to Turkey. We don’t have the means to house and feed ourselves here. The nearest border crossing is closed.”
Drug addicts stage mass breakout in Vietnam |
More than 400 people break free in country where UN has recommended drug rehabilitation centres be closed.
Last updated: 15 Sep 2014 07:44
|
More than 400 Vietnamese drug addicts have escaped from a rehabilitation centre where they had been detained so that they could to receive compulsory treatment, a local official said.
The detainees, many wielding sticks, broke free from the centre near the port city of Haiphong in northeast Vietnam late Sunday.
"More than 400 inmates fled after breaking the door and threatened the guards of the centre with sticks," Nguyen Huy Hoang, an official from Thuy Nguyen district - where the centre is located - told the AFP news agency.
US-based Human Rights Watch has denounced the conditions in Vietnam's rehabilitation centres and a UN expert has recommended they be closed.
HRW says the treatment centres are "forced labour camps" where inmates do not receive proper healthcare and are often subjected to physical violence.
Police found some of the addicts back at their homes, while around 30 others voluntarily returned to the treatment centre.
Remember #BringBackOurGirls? This Is What Has Happened In The 5 Months Since
On the night of April 14, 2014, hundreds of schoolgirls at the Chibok boarding school in northeastern Nigeria awoke to the sound of gunfire. They saw men in camouflage approaching and thought soldiers were coming to save them from a militant attack, according to survivors' accounts.
Instead, more than 270 of the schoolgirls found themselves in the clutches of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Their abduction sparked global outrage and a huge campaign calling for their rescue, partly propelled by the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
Sunday marks five months since the girls were kidnapped. Here's what has happened since.
Not one student has been rescued
In the first days after the abduction, 57 of the girls managed to escape from their captors. But not one has escaped or been rescued since then.
No comments:
Post a Comment