Six In The Morning Friday January 2

2 January 2015 Last updated at 06:46

AirAsia QZ8501 underwater search to begin

The search for AirAsia flight QZ8501 which crashed into the sea on Sunday is set to move underwater, with the arrival of specialist equipment.

A French crash investigation team will use sensitive acoustic detection devices to try locate the plane's "black box" flight recorder.

The Airbus A320-200 was flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board when it vanished.

No survivors have been found and the cause of the crash remains unknown.

Several more bodies were located on Friday, bringing the total found to 16.

One person has been identified as passenger Hayati Lutfiah Hamid - her funeral was held in Surabaya on Thursday.

Brothers of Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste demand Egyptian President sends him home

AGENCY Friday 02 January 2015

The brothers of an Australian Al-Jazeera journalist held in Egypt for more than a year say their lawyers are pinning their hopes on a new law which could see him sent home at President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's command.

An Egyptian appeal court yesterday ordered the retrial of three Al-Jazeera English journalists including Peter Greste, 49, held on terror-related charges, a ruling their lawyers hoped was a step towards resolving a case that brought a storm of international criticism of Egypt's government.

Mr Greste's brothers Michael and Andrew, speaking at a press conference in their home town of Brisbane, said the family's hopes were pinned on a presidential decree made in November that created a deportation option for bringing him home

Obama Envoy John Allen: No 'Short-Term Solutions' for Stopping Islamic State

Interview Conducted By Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark

In an interview, US General John Allen, Washington's special envoy for countering the Islamic State, discusses why he believes the recent military campaign has reversed the terrorist group's momentum but warns the battle to stop its ideology could take years.

General John Allen, 61, has served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS) under US President Barack Obama since September. He previously served for three years as the deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Allen uses the Arabic term "Daesh" when referring to IS in order to prevent having to say the word "state".

China demands answers after Shanghai's deadly stampede

January 2, 2015 - 5:08PM

Fayen Wong

Shanghai: Chinese state media and the public criticised the government and police on Friday for failing to prevent a New Year's Eve stampede in Shanghai that killed 36 people and dented the city's image as modern China's global financial hub.

The official Xinhua news agency said the government could not duck responsibility for what happened. It asked why there were apparently so few police on duty for the tens of thousands thronging Shanghai's famous and historic riverfront, known as the Bund.

"It was a lack of vigilance from the government, a sloppiness," the news agency wrote. Xinhua noted that the crush happened not far from a much-trumpeted new free-trade zone described as the "pride of the country".

'A living hell' for slaves on remote South Korean islands

 

By FOSTER KLUG, JUNG-YOON CHOI and KIM TONG-HYUNG3 hours ago

He ran the first chance he got.

The summer sun beat down on the shallow, sea-fed fields where Kim Seong-baek was forced to work without pay, day after 18-hour day mining the big salt crystals that blossomed in the mud around him. Half-blind and in rags, Kim grabbed another slave, and the two men — both disabled — headed for the coast.

Far from Seoul, the glittering steel-and-glass capital of one of Asia's richest countries, they were now hunted men on this tiny, remote island where the enslavement of disabled salt farm workers is an open secret.

"It was a living hell," Kim said. "I thought my life was over."

Lost, they wandered past asphalt-black salt fields sparkling with a patina of thin white crust. They could feel the islanders they passed watching them. Everyone knew who belonged and who didn't.

Report says Iraqi civilian deaths roughly doubled last year, driven by ISIS

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

(CNN) -- It's been a bloody year in Iraq, where ISIS militants have seized swaths of territory and remain on the offensive. And the latest figures from the Iraq Body Count monitoring project show that civilians, as so often in war, are paying a heavy price.

At least 17,049 civilians were recorded killed in Iraq during 2014, Iraq Body Count said, roughly double the number recorded in 2013 -- which in turn was about double that of the previous year.

The shocking rise in deaths in 2014 is due in large part to the ISISoffensive and the military response to it by Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led international coalition, the group said.