30 October 2014 Last updated at 05:10
Ebola crisis: Kaci Hickox fights quarantine in Maine
A nurse who cared for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone is fighting the US state of Maine over its right to quarantine her against her will.
In a test case for returning US health workers, Kaci Hickox has vowed to leave her home on Thursday if the state does not lift the restrictions.
President Barack Obama has been sharply critical of isolation being forced on people he says are "American heroes".
Almost 5,000 people have died from the Ebola virus, mostly in West Africa.
On Thursday, US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power is expected to call for a stronger international response when she meets EU officials in Brussels.
She has been visiting the countries most affected - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - to show US support, as well as Ghana, where the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response is based.
In bomb shelters, homeless of Donetsk prepare for cruel winter
Little help is being given, by rebels or by Kiev, to those driven from homes
Daniel McLaughlin
The last rays of the autumn sun warm a small crowd standing outside Donetsk’s ruined School 106, but underground it is already winter.
There, 18 mostly elderly people spend their nights in an unheated, candlelit, Soviet-era bomb shelter that has been without electricity and water for months, since missiles fired by the Ukrainian army wrecked local power lines and plumbing.
“Winter is on its way and I’ve no idea what we’ll do,” says Irina Peredery (50), who worked as caretaker in a school that now stands windowless and shrapnel-scarred on the front line between government forces and separatist rebels.
New Alignments: The Kurds' Lonely Fight against Islamic State Terror
By Ralf Hoppe, Maximilian Popp, Christoph Reuter and Jonathan Stock
The terrorist group PKK represents the West's last hope in the fight against Islamic State. Their lonely resistance to the advancing jihadists will result in lasting changes to the region. Some developments are already well advanced.
The headquarters of one the world's mightiest terrorist organization is located in the mountains northeast of Erbil, Iraq. Or is it the nerve center of one of the Western world's most crucial allies? It all depends on how one chooses to look at the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
All visits to the site in northern Iraq's Qandil Mountains must first be authorized by PKK leaders, and the process is not immediate. But after days of waiting, our phone finally rings. "Get ready, we're sending our driver," the voice at the other end of the line says. He picks us up in the morning and silently drives us up the winding roads into the mountains. At one point, we pass the burned out remains of a car destroyed by Turkish bombs three years ago, killing the family inside. The wreckage has been left as a kind of memorial. The driver points to it and breaks his silence. "Erdogan has gone nuts," he says.
Egypt starts demolishing homes to create Gaza buffer zone
October 30, 2014 - 2:32PM
Cairo: Egypt has begun demolishing houses along its border with Gaza to set up a buffer zone to prevent alleged militant infiltration and arms smuggling following a wave of deadly attacks.
The move, which will result in about 800 homes being razed, comes after a suicide bomberkilled 30 soldiers in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which borders the Palestinian territory, last Friday.
It also comes two days after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi enacted a decree allowing military trials for civilians suspected of attacking state infrastructure, as he promised a tough response to what he called the "existential threat" posed by the militants.
Japan's gotta have baseball back in the Olympics! Tokyo 2020 squeeze play?
With 12 Japanese MLB players having appeared in the World Series – Nori Aoki of the Kansas City Royals is the latest – avid baseball fans across East Asia want the sport restored after two Olympic shutouts.
TOKYO — Japanese baseball fans are some of the world’s most diehard. Cities across Japan, including Tokyo, now regularly slow down during the World Series in October to watch homegrown players hit and pitch in the United States. Last year Japanese watched Boston closer Koji Uehara, and this year Nori Aoki, who plays for Kansas City is hammering out hits. In all, 12 Japanese players have appeared in the MLB fall classic.
So with Tokyo hosting the Summer Olympics in 2020, Japan is already lobbying – hard – to have baseball restored to the Games. The sport was shut out of the 2012 London Olympics and won’t make an appearance in the2016 Rio de Janeiro Games in Brazil.
A decidedly avid Japanese and Korean lobby is working for an affirmative decision on men’s baseball and women’s softball at a Dec. 8 meeting in Monaco of the International Olympic Committee.
As Shiites mark key holiday next week, Baghdad braces for more violence
McClatchy Washington Bureau
BAGHDAD — Sitting behind a counter heaped with glistening mounds of baklava and other sugary confections, Abbas Abdul Rasoul lamented that the streams of people wending by to the Khadamiya shrine to mark the Islamic new year are thinner than in recent years.
“This year there will be fewer pilgrims,” predicted Rasoul, 24, whose shop sits on a broad avenue normally thronged by worshipers bound for the gold-domed mosque during Muharram, the sacred first month of the Islamic calendar. “You can see there are smaller crowds than usual because of the explosions.”
The panic ignited by the Islamic State’s midsummer charge from the northern city of Mosul to the capital’s doorstep has eased as Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militias, Iraqi army remnants, police and U.S.-led airstrikes have rallied to slow the extremist Islamist group’s approach. There no longer is rampant fear that the Sunni fanatics are poised to storm the capital imminently.
Beware teen braggers: Why Australia's tough new terror laws could misfire
October 30, 2014 -- Updated 0632 GMT (1432 HKT)
Editor's note: Dr. Clarke Jones is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University with research interests in terrorism, radicalization and prison reform. He previously spent 15 years working for the Australian government in national security, within the military, police and intelligence operations.
Canberra (CNN) -- The Australian prime minister's hard-line plan to throw foreign fighters and ISIS supporters into maximum security prison is finally coming to fruition.
The country's parliament passed the controversial Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill on Thursday, which will make it easier for police and security agencies to apprehend alleged terrorist suspects (and supporters) and detain them without explanation, potentially leading to lengthy prison sentences.
The new legislation is designed to inhibit would-be fighters from traveling overseas to join conflicts. It will also subject foreign fighters and individuals who have been in conflict areas to a range of controls upon their return to Australia. The laws will also incarcerate individuals who "advocate terrorism."
No comments:
Post a Comment