21 September 2014 Last updated at 00:00
Alan Henning's wife appeals to IS to release him
The wife of a British taxi driver being held hostage by Islamic State has pleaded with the militants to "see it in their hearts" to release him.
Alan Henning, from Eccles in Salford, was seized while on an aid mission to Syria last December.
In a statement released via the Foreign Office, his wife Barbara said he had been driving an ambulance stocked with food and water at the time.
Mrs Henning said she had sent messages to IS but had received no response.
The militants issued their threat to kill the 47-year-old in a video released last Saturday which showed the killing of another British man, David Haines.
'Selfless man'
The full statement released from the Henning family read:
"I am Barbara Henning, the wife of Alan Henning.
Scientists reveal ‘fair system’ for countries to tackle climate change
Rich nations should make biggest commitment to ensuring that temperatures are held to a 1.5C rise by 2025, says study
Rich nations should make the deepest emission cuts and provide most money if countries are to share fairly the responsibility of preventing catastrophic climate change, says a major new study.
Calculations by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) scientists andFriends of the Earth suggest the UK would need to make cuts of up to 75% on 1990 emission levels by 2025 and would also need to transfer $49bn (£30bn) to developing countries. The US would have to cut slightly less, but transfer up to $634bn to make a fair contribution.
But in a fair system of shared responsibility, most developing countries would be net receivers, says the report, released on ahead of Ban Ki-moon’s climate summit in New York on Tuesday. Kenya would receive $2bn, and be allowed to increase its emissions by more than 50%, while Peru would be allowed to double its emissions and receive $6bn. South Africa would only have to cut emissions marginally, but would receive $13bn, and the Philippines would be given $6bn, although it would have to cut emissions by up to 46%.
If the United States and its allies want to combat the Islamic State jihadists (IS, formerly known as Isis) successfully, they should arrange a ceasefire between the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the non-IS Syrian opposition. Neither the Syrian army nor the “moderate” Syrian rebels are strong enough to stop IS if they are fighting on two fronts at the same time, going by the outcome of recent battles. A truce between the two main enemies of IS in Syria would be just that, and would not be part of a broader political solution to the Syrian crisis which is not feasible at this stage because mutual hatred is too great. A ceasefire may be possible now, when it was not in the past, because all parties and their foreign backers – the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran – are frightened of the explosive advance of the Islamic State. US Secretary of State John Kerry told the US Security Council on Friday that there is room for everybody “including Iran” in an anti-IS coalition.
Ghana goes green with bamboo bikes
A young female social entrepreneur has vowed to bring change to the world - one bamboo bike at a time. The 19-year-old employs about 30 girls to produce bikes in Ghana and has received numerous awards for her work.
Winifred Selby, 19, is a young social entrepreneur who is determined to fight for a carbon-free and greener planet. She founded Ghana Bamboo Bikes in 2009 - and her business model took off immediately. She currently employs about 30 young women and her bikes made from bamboo are becoming more popular day by day. Selby says the company creates a turnover of about $10,000 (7,720 euros) a month by exporting some of its bikes.
She started her enterprise at the age of 15. Money was always tight in the family. She says she was motivated by the challenges she and her family were facing.
"When I was six things were so tight that we sometimes had to sell [items] during [school] vacations, because where are the school fees going to come from?" Often she would sell toffee or other small items to earn a little bit of money.
Middle East
The Middle East and its armies
By Brian M Downing
By Brian M Downing
Recent events have shown the ineffectiveness of armies in the Middle East, from Libya to Iraq, and extending beyond the region into Afghanistan. Training missions can teach troops to shoot and march and salute, but not to hold up under fire. Several armies have struggled or collapsed in recent conflicts, despite superior armaments, training, and numbers. Only a few have acquitted themselves well in battle.
The Libyan army collapsed in the face of lightly-armed rebels and a measure of NATO air support. The Syrian army has been driven from most of the country by a miscellany of rebel forces and can only maintain a stalemate with the help of Hisbollah and Iranian
advisers. The Iraqi army was sent fleeing by a few thousand Islamic State (IS) troops and is only slowly regaining ground with outside help. And of course Saddam Hussein's army was devastated in a matter of a few days by the US and allies in 1991 and 2003.
The Libyan army collapsed in the face of lightly-armed rebels and a measure of NATO air support. The Syrian army has been driven from most of the country by a miscellany of rebel forces and can only maintain a stalemate with the help of Hisbollah and Iranian
advisers. The Iraqi army was sent fleeing by a few thousand Islamic State (IS) troops and is only slowly regaining ground with outside help. And of course Saddam Hussein's army was devastated in a matter of a few days by the US and allies in 1991 and 2003.
Watching the Eclipse
Ambassador Michael McFaul was there when the promise of democracy came to Russia—and when it began to fade.
BY DAVID REMNICK
I n January, 2012, Michael McFaul, a tenured political scientist from Stanford and President Obama’s chief adviser on Russia through the first term, arrived in Moscow with his wife and two sons to begin work as the United States Ambassador. In Palo Alto and Washington, D.C., the McFauls had lived in modest houses. In Moscow they took up residence at Spaso House, a vast neoclassical mansion that was built by one of the wealthiest industrialists in imperial Russia. Spaso features a vaulted formal dining room and a chandeliered ballroom, where William C. Bullitt, the U.S. Ambassador in the thirties, used to throw parties complete with trained seals serving trays of champagne and, on one memorable occasion, a menagerie of white roosters, free-flying finches, grumpy mountain goats, and a rambunctious bear. One guest, Mikhail Bulgakov, wrote about the bash in his novel “The Master and Margarita.” Another, Karl Radek, a co-author of the 1936 Soviet constitution, got the bear drunk. The bear might have survived the decade. Radek, who fell out with Stalin, did not.
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