Six In The Morning Sunday October 12

12 October 2014 Last updated at 09:00

Cyclone Hudhud pounds India's Andhra Pradesh and Orissa

Cyclone Hudhud is pounding the eastern Indian coast, causing extensive damage and prompting the evacuation of some 300,000 people.

The cyclone, classed "very severe", brought winds of 205km/h (127mph), as it passed over the coast near the city of Visakhapatnam.

Hundreds of trees have been uprooted and power lines brought down in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states.

Three people have so far been reported killed in Andhra Pradesh.

It is feared a storm surge of up to two metres could inundate low-lying areas and hundreds of relief centres have been opened in the two states. Disaster relief teams have also been sent.

The authorities say the next five to six hours will be crucial.

The strength of the cyclone has been revised upwards since Friday, and the Indian Navy is on standby to assist.

Girls worldwide are ‘living in fear of abuse’

Plan International research in Asia, South America and Africa produces worrying findings of girls living in fear and enduring abuse

• Tracy McVeigh
• The Observer, Sunday 12 October 2014

Girls across the world face a future where they have no control over who they marry or when they have babies, according to a survey by children’s charity Plan International.

The Hear Our Voices research showed that 52% of girls surveyed felt they were unlikely to be able to decide for themselves whether or not they got pregnant, while 40% said they were unlikely to be able to choose their husband. Plan spoke to more than 7,000 adolescent girls and boys in 11 countries across Asia, South America and Africa – the charity claims it is the largest study of its type to date.

It found that despite improvements in girls’ rights in recent years, insecurity, abuse and fear is widespread; 80% of girls in one area of Bangladesh and 77% in one area of Ecuador said they “seldom” or “never” felt safe. More than a quarter didn’t feel safe going to school, and more than a third couldn’t use school toilets because of fear of assault. Around half of girls (51%) felt afraid to say what they thought in front of boys and men.

JOAN SMITH

Sunday 12 October 2014

Isis in Kobani: Why Turkey is allowing the town to fall

A history of appalling brutality between the Ankara government and the Kurds is the key to President Erdogan's priorities

In 1994, I was wandering around the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul when a bomb went off in the next street. At first I thought a cooking stove had blown up, but then heavily armed police and soldiers poured into the building and shouted at us to leave. Later in the day, I discovered that two people had been killed and many others injured. It was my first visit to Turkey, and a shocking introduction to the armed conflict between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Last year, the PKK's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called for a ceasefire. By then, the conflict had been going for almost 30 years and killed around 42,000 people; most of the dead were Kurdish insurgents or civilians but the fatalities included more than 6,500 members of the Turkish security forces. This is the background to the otherwise bewildering behaviour of Turkey, which has tanks stationed within sight of the besieged Syrian town of Kobani. Last week, as mainly Kurdish fighters fought street battles with Islamic State, also known as Isis, Turkish forces watched and did nothing.

Transcripts kept secret for 60 years bolster Oppenheimer's defence

October 12, 2014 - 2:57PM

William Broad

New York: At the height of the McCarthy era, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the government's top atomic physicist, came under suspicion as a Soviet spy.

After 19 days of secret hearings in April and May 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked his security clearance. The action brought his career to a humiliating close, and Oppenheimer, until then a hero of American science, lived out his life a broken man.

But now, hundreds of newly declassified pages from the hearings suggest that Oppenheimer was anything but disloyal.

Historians and nuclear experts who have studied the declassified material - roughly a tenth of the hearing transcripts - say that it offers no damning evidence against him, and that the testimony that has been kept secret all these years tends to exonerate him.

The fight to keep 'macho men' off election ballots in Bolivia

Two political scandals swept headlines in Bolivia recently, giving rise to protests and a campaign to publicize past misogynistic comments or policies by political candidates. Violence against women affects more than 50 percent of Bolivian females.

By Sara Shahriari, Correspondent

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA — In the lead-up to Bolivia’s Oct. 12 presidential election, stump-speech favorites like the economy and unemployment are being debated side-by-side with a slightly less conventional topic here: women’s safety. A handful of controversial statements involving male politicians this election season combined with a highly publicized series of murders, rapes, and kidnappings of females across the country have made violence against women a top issue as Bolivians go to the polls.

President Evo Morales, who is running for his third consecutive term in office, is expected to retake the presidency with roughly 59 percent of the vote. In the past he has come under fire for making sexist jokes, but has said little on the recent events. It's politicians running against him and for lower office who have inadvertently brought violence against women – which affects more than 50 percent of Bolivian women, but is rarely discussed by campaigning candidates – to the fore.  

Hong Kong's leader warns protesters as tent city sprouts up

 

By Donny Kwok and James Pomfret2 hours ago

 Hong Kong's embattled leader Leung Chun-ying vowed on Sunday to stay in office, warning students demanding his resignation that their pro-democracy movement was out of control.

Leung said the blockade of key parts of the Asian financial hub - now entering its third week - could not continue indefinitely.

Speaking in an interview with the local TVB television station, Leung said his government would continue to try to talk with student leaders but did not rule out the use of "minimum force" to clear the area.

The last few weeks had "proved that a mass movement is something easy to start, but difficult to stop," he said.