Six In The Morning Saturday January 10

10 January 2015 Last updated at 07:17

Charlie Hebdo attack: France police hunt accomplices

Police in France are hunting for any accomplices of the gunmen who killed 17 people in two days of terror attacks.

One key figure is Hayat Boumeddiene, the partner of Amedy Coulibaly. He was killed when police stormed a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday.

She was said to be with Coulibaly when a policewoman was killed and is described as "armed and dangerous".

Two gunmen who carried out Wednesday's deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine were killed by police on Friday.

President Francois Hollande praised the police but also warned of further threats.

He thanked the security services for their "bravery and efficiency", saying the week's violence was "a tragedy for the nation".

Trading justice for money: Prisoners on Pakistan's death row can pay off their victims' families in exchange for freedom

Introduced in 1990, the Qisas and Diyat Ordinances enshrined in law the practice of blood money. This includes the right for the victim's next of kin to pardon those on death row 'for the sake of God' and for financial compensation in lieu of eye-for-an-eye punishment

ELLIOTT GOAT

 

 

Saturday 10 January 2015

Sylvia Pershaad sits waiting for her son to die. On the first Monday of each month, she gathers what little belongings she has and makes her way from her tiny apartment on the outskirts of Lahore to visit her son on death row.

Although the prison is only 10 miles away, it takes her four hours to make the journey, a journey so expensive she can only afford to make it once every four weeks. Her son, Ubeid, was only 16 when he was convicted as an accomplice in the brutal stabbing of a woman and her two sons. He has remained on death row, pending appeal, for 12 years. His situation is bleak.

Death row cells, measuring no bigger than 10ft x 8ft, are occupied by, on average, eight to 10 prisoners. Legally it is meant to be one inmate per cell. While wealthy prisoners can bribe guards for a larger cell, amenities and more time outside, the average prisoner is allowed outside only twice a day, for 40 minutes in the morning and evening. The lack of space means inmates are forced to sleep in shifts, head to toe.

East German Stasi archive goes online

A quarter century after it was rescued from destruction, multimedia material document secret police methods

Derek Scally

A quarter century ago, officers of East Germany’s Stasi secret police worked around the clock to destroy decades of files. When the overworked shredders began to melt, they tore up papers by hand.

Angry civil rights protesters halted their work in January 1990 when they stormed the Stasi headquarters in Berlin to secure the archive. Now that archive has gone online, offering a unique insight into the workings of the secret police dubbed the “sword and shield” of East Germany’s ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED).

“For us this is about giving people, particularly the younger generation, a chance to interact with the Stasi and SED dictatorship with documents and files from the archive,” said Roland Jahn, a former civil rights activist and now the third custodian of the Stasi files.

Assad's Secret: Evidence Points to Syrian Push for Nuclear Weapons

By Erich Follath

For years, it was thought that Israel had destroyed Syria's nuclear weapons capability with its 2007 raid on the Kibar complex. Not so. New intelligence suggests that Bashar al-Assad is still trying to built the bomb. And he may be getting help from North Korea and Iran.

At 11 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2007, 10 F-15 fighter bombers climbed into the sky from the Israeli military base Ramat David, just south of Haifa. They headed for the Mediterranean Sea, officially for a training mission. A half hour later, three of the planes were ordered to return to base while the others changed course, heading over Turkey toward the Syrian border. There, they eliminated a radar station with electronic jamming signals and, after 18 more minutes, reached the city of Deir al-Zor, located on the banks of the Euphrates River. Their target was a complex of structures known as Kibar, just east of the city. The Israelis fired away, completely destroying the factory using Maverick missiles and 500 kilogram bombs.

The pilots returned to base without incident and Operation Orchard was brought to a successful conclusion. In Jerusalem, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his closest advisors were in a self-congratulatory mood, convinced as they were that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was seeking to build a nuclear weapon and that Kibar was the almost-completed facility where that construction was to take place. They believed that their dangerous operation had saved the world from immense harm.

Aung San Suu Kyi supporters undeterred by law blocking the leader from presidency

January 10, 2015 - 6:26PM

Lindsay Murdoch

South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media

Bangkok: The political party of Myanmar's opposition leader and democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi says it will continue to push for her to become her country's next president despite a constitutional clause barring her from being appointed, a party spokesman says.

Myanmar's military-dominated government has refused to abolish the clause despite intense lobbying, disappointing millions of Ms Suu Kyi's supporters who want her to become president after elections later this year.

"We, the NLD, will continue doing everything that a political party should do, and we will try by all means, until the end, for amendments to the constitution," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told the Irrawaddy newspaper.

House of Saud divided: Generational shift seen in royal succession battle

The deteriorating health of King Abdullah, a son of the founding monarch Ibn Saud, has Saudi royals preparing for a succession battle that will focus mostly on who will be the next crown prince.

By Taylor Luck, Correspondent

AMMAN, JORDAN — The deteriorating health of King Abdullah is casting a shadow over Saudi Arabia, where a growing dispute over succession is dividing the House of Saud and threatening to paralyze Riyadh at a time of mounting internal and external crises.

With 91-year-old Abdullah’s hospitalization with pneumonia Jan. 2, all eyes in Saudi Arabia immediately turned to Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, the king’s 79-year-old half-brother and a former defense minister.

Yet due to Salman’s own deteriorating health – those close to the palace say the crown prince is suffering from the early stages of dementia – a campaign is growing within Riyadh to bypass Salman and give the throne toDeputy Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, 69, another of the king’s half brothers, should Abdullah be deemed unfit to rule.