Six In The Morning Sunday December 7

7 December 2014 Last updated at 08:01

Typhoon Hagupit sweeps across Philippines

Typhoon Hagupit is sweeping across the eastern Philippines, toppling trees and power lines and threatening coastal areas with a powerful sea-surge.

More than half a million people have fled coastal villages in the area, which was still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan last year.

In Tacloban, where thousands were killed by Haiyan, roofs have been blown away and streets are flooded.

But Hagupit does not appear to have been as severe as many had feared.

So far there have been no reports of casualties.

The BBC's Jonathan Head in Legazpi, about 200km (125 miles) north of Tacloban, said Hagiput was clearly a powerful storm but nowhere near as powerful as Haiyan.

The authorities believed they were well prepared this time, he adds, but it could be some time before the extent of damage in more remote areas becomes clear.

Mexican students: first murder victim identified amid continued protests

DNA tests confirm burnt remains found at rubbish tip are those of Alexander Mora, 19, one of 43 believed killed by drug gang

• Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
• theguardian.com, Sunday 7 December 2014 08.31 GMT

One of the 43 students missing since they were attacked by police in southern Mexico 10 weeks ago has been confirmed dead following DNA tests on badly charred human remains found in a rubbish tip.

Alexander Mora was 19 at the time he disappeared with the other students in the city of Iguala in the state of Guerrero. The students, from a radical rural teacher training college about two hours away, had gone to the city to commandeer some buses.

Confirmation of Mora’s death coincided with the latest major protest sparked by the disappearance of the students. The march of thousands held in Mexico City on Saturday was headed by parents of the remaining missing who insisted the grim news about Alexander only made them more determined to press on with their demands for justice.

RUPERT CORNWELL

Sunday 7 December 2014

Eric Garner 'chokehold' death: A grand jury blind to the evidence before it

 

Out of America: The decision not to bring charges after the death of a black man in police custody suggests a fatal flaw in the system

At least Eric Garner has his epitaph. "I can't breathe," he gasped as he was forced to the ground and held by a New York police officer in the chokehold that caused his death. The phrase now serves not only as a chant by demonstrators in cities across the land. It will go down as history's shorthand for the persecution of black suspects by law enforcement and the judicial system across the US that seems virtually routine.

Anyone – not just black people sick and tired of racist victimisation by police – who has watched the video of Garner, father of six and 43 years old, being wrestled to the ground as if he'd just committed a murder, will be astonished that a grand jury declined to bring any charges against the officer last week – even though the medical examiner at Garner's autopsy ruled that the death was a homicide.

In fact, Garner, overweight and asthmatic, was suspected of selling loose blackmarket cigarettes ("loosies" as they are known in the trade). Given that taxes have pushed up the price of a packet of 20 to around $12 (£8) in New York City, such petty offences are understandably commonplace. But by any standard the police action was absurdly disproportionate.

Opinion: Bosnia is still Europe's black-hole of corruption

Nationalist politicians of all three population groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina are blocking any kind of progress. The EU wants to inspire a new start - but diplomacy isn't enough, says Benjamin Pargan.

Either the representatives of the European Union have the patience of saints, or they're politically and strategically blind. Or they actually don't have a choice. The Bosnian politicians argued in Sarajevo in the presence of EU foreign policy High Representative Federica Mogherini and Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn so uncontrollably that their talks had to be postponed. Nor was it any help that the meetings had been initiated personally by the foreign ministers of Germany and Britain, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Philip Hammond.

Over the past ten years, the EU's representatives have consistently made a fool of by the governing politicians of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And they have backed the wrong horse in the race - the more nationalist politicians with their feigned will to reform. They have repeatedly bought the hollow assurances about making the crisis-ridden Balkan country follow a European path from a corrupt political elite. But slowly it ought to be clear to every last representative of the Brussels bureaucracy that these politicians aren't capable of leading Bosnia into the EU. And don't actually want to.

Oil wars: Saudi Arabia makes enemies as prices tumble

December 6, 2014

Paul McGeough

Chief foreign correspondent

Washington: It really is a $US60 question. Oil prices are going through the floor and there is no sense yet of what the new petro-normal might be. But Saudi Arabia is punting that the market will "stabilise" at about $US60 a barrel.

However, if Riyadh is the only global oil producer with the capacity to turn on or off the spigots that match supply and demand and hence can vary the price up or down, it doesn't require a great analytical stretch to conclude that despite their reluctance to take a conventional military role in Middle East conflicts, the Saudi princes have opted for a ruthless oil war.

There's no shortage of enemies – Tehran, Damascus, Moscow, even Riyadh's best ally, Washington.

Can reforms change Mexico's corrupt police culture? (+video)

Police practices came under harsh scrutiny after the disappearance of 43 college students. Mexico's Congress is debating security reforms, including one that would put a state police command over local police forces. 

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Neito was in Guerrero this week for the first time since 43 students were kidnapped and likely murdered there more than two months ago.

Farther north, in Mexico’s capital, Congress spent the week debating security reforms, including a provision that would replace the most corrupt local police forces – like those brazenly involved with the students' disappearances – with ones under state control.

The reforms, part of a 10-point plan recently announced by President Enrique Peña Nieto, were in response to the Iguala case in Guerrero state, which displayed such extreme levels of corruption that demonstrations against the government have swept the nation for more than two months.