Left to the mercy of the Taliban
Interpreters who worked with US forces in Afghanistan are being hunted down by the Taliban. Thousands have emigrated to the US but others have been blacklisted, refused a visa, and left in grave danger.
In spring this year, two men rang Nader's doorbell so hard they pushed it half way through the wall of his mud-brick house. He came to the door, they coaxed him outside and then dragged him to the village graveyard.
"When I realised they were taking me somewhere to be executed I started yelling and fighting," he says.
"My brother came out to find me, but by the time he'd come they'd shot me, I just lay down and they left."
If Nader had not struggled he would have been shot in the head. Instead, as the militants hurried to get away, they only managed to shoot him in the leg.
Nader's village, about an hour's drive north of Kabul, is hostile territory for the Taliban. It was home to some of the bloodiest fighting during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and the local mujahideen force that protected the area then has remained firmly in control ever since.Younger sister of Kim Jong Un takes senior North Korea post
State media says Kim Yo Jong now vice director of department within Workers’ Party
The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has assumed a senior position in the ruling Workers’ Party, state media reported on Thursday, consolidating a third generation of Kim family rule in the secretive state.
Kim Yo Jong, who is believed to be 27, had previously only been named as a party official, but was rumoured to have a managerial role in her brother’s government.
She has now been identified as a vice director of a department within the powerful Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party in a report carried by state news agency KCNA.
The link between cash, obesity and cancer
A global study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer suggests obesity leads to cancer - to the tune of half a million cases per year. DW speaks to IARC's Dr Melina Arnold.
DW: This is the first global study of the links between obesity and cancer, and you've found that the number of cancer cases is higher in developed countries than in less developed countries. How big is the difference?
Dr Melina Arnold: We know, for example, that in males in very highly developed countries, there's about 3-3.2 percent of all cancer cases that are related to obesity and being overweight. And in low-developed countries we see it's close to zero - it's about 0.3 percent - that was our estimate for the low human development index (HDI).
Where do you see the biggest problems? But also, where are the biggest problems developing - where do we have to watch out?
Swing Sets and Death in Syria: A Visit to an Aleppo Playground
Every day, children from the Salaheddin district of Aleppo meet at the local playground. They play war as the real one rages just a few meters away. But the graves are slowly encroaching.
Majid, what are you doing? "I'm watering mommy." Majid drags a large, blue bucket -- so full that he can hardly carry it -- across the withered grass. But why are you watering your mother?
The 13-year-old looks puzzled, as though it were the kind of idiotic question that only outsiders might ask. "Because she's right here," he says and pours the water onto a mound surrounded by a few stones meant to mark the site as a grave. An old pine tree offers a bit of shade, but so far, nothing seems to have taken root at the place where Majid's mother is buried. "I have to water it. Then something will grow for sure," he says with a steady voice as he heads back to refill his bucket.
Majid's mother died in the summer, but nobody in the family had enough money for a proper gravestone or even a border for the site. She died "because of her heart," Majid says "in her mid-30s." He can't be more precise than that; nobody in Aleppo really asks anymore why someone is dead. Majid drags a third bucket-full to the grave, as though seeking to atone for something he played no part in, as if he could score a tiny victory against all the dying.
Lights out by 10pm: Life in a terror training camp
Tom Whitehead
London: A rare insight into life in a terrorist training camp – including a strict edict to be in bed with lights out by 10pm – has been made public after two brothers became the first Britons to be jailed for offences related to the war in Syria.
Mohommod Nawaz, 30, and Hamza Nawaz, 23, both from Stratford, East London, were identified as jihadists after they returned from a Syrian training camp because they were so desperate to brag about where they had been, a court was told.
The Old Bailey heard how one of the brothers had gone to Syria only to try to "force" his then girlfriend to marry him.
Taiwan election: Wild, wooly, and partly a referendum on China (+video)
The Taipei mayor's race is the most watched, but there are 10,000 offices to fill on Nov. 29. The races are marked by mud-slinging and new debates over Chinese nationalism and Taiwanese identity.
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwan’s young democracy puts down deeper roots with every election cycle, and the island holds an important vote this weekend with 20,000 candidates for more than 10,000 offices.
The most watched election is for mayor of Taipei, where candidate Ko Wen-je is causing panic in Taiwan's ruling party and making Chinese leaders in Beijing nervous.
A newcomer to politics, Mr. Ko has become a lighting rod for debates over national identity and traditional values in Taiwan. The independent candidate is receiving prominent media coverage, which he has been using to step outside mainstream politics and challenge the establishment.
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