Sunday 18 January 2015
If all right-thinking people are united against terrorism, where are the 'Je suis Nigeria' banners?
World View: Al-Qaeda-type jihadis killed 2,000 people in a few days, which the world largely ignored
President Obama is being criticised for not joining the 40 other world leaders at the mass march in Paris in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. But, by playing down rather than playing up the terrorist killings, Obama may have shown a surer instinct about how to deal with such attacks, however horrific, than those leaders who did turn up.
It is understandable that governments and people want to show solidarity against terrorism. But in many respects, the gargantuan size and overblown rhetoric of those responding to the murders of 17 people by three terrorists, treating the episode as if it was Pearl Harbour or 9/11, plays straight into the hands of al-Qaeda and its clones.
The three terrorists, Chérif and Said Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, were rather pathetic figures before 7 January, but have now achieved demonic status.
"Islamic State" releases hundreds of elderly Yazidis
Without warning, "Islamic State" has orchestrated a mass release of hostage Yazidis. Most of those let go were eldery or infirm and were likely a burden on the Islamist militia group, observers said.
The "Islamic State" (IS) terror militia group has released hundreds of Iraq's minority Yazidis on Saturday after holding them since August, officials and activists confirmed. Those freed were mostly elderly, disabled, or unwell, including some infants with serious illnesses.
The victims were freed on the edge of the city of Kirkuk and met by Kurdish peshmerga forces. Some were in wheelchairs and others were leaning on canes as Kurdish doctors and nurses ushered them to a health center for immediate medical attention. After moving from place to place for months, one of the freed Yazidis described being loaded in buses, where they were sure they would be executed, before being freed at the entrance of Kirkuk.
'They were a burden'
"IS must have decided that they could no longer feed them, look after them. They were a burden," Khodr Domli, a Yazidi rights activist, told AFP news agency from the Kurdish health center. Officials said the mass release, the largest of its kind, had taken them completely by surprise.
Executions a 'headache', but must go ahead, says Indonesian A-G
Jewel Topsfield
Fairfax foreign correspondent
Indonesia's Attorney-General hopes there won't be many more batches of executions in Indonesia this year, following the killing of five foreigners and an Indonesian on Sunday for drug crimes.
His comments come as the Netherlands and Brazil recalled their ambassadors in Indonesia to protest against the execution of their citizens.
The decision to kill Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, the first Brazilian to be executed overseas, "gravely affects relations", said Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders called the execution of Ang Kiem Soei, who was sentenced to death for operating two ecstasy factories in Tangerang, an "unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity".
Indonesian Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo told reporters he hoped there would not be many batches of executions this year as they "give us headaches".
Niger death toll rises after cartoon protests |
At least five more killed in capital Niamey on second day of protests against Charlie Hebdo cartoon.
Last updated: 18 Jan 2015 04:10
|
The president of Niger says at least 10 people have been killed in two days of violent protests over a French publication's cartoon depicting Prophet Muhammad.
President Mahamadou Issoufou said that five people died after demonstrations in the capital city of Niamey on Saturday. The victims were inside churches and bars that were set ablaze, he said.
The deaths came after at least five people were killed in the town of Zinder on Friday after prayer services there.
The violence erupted after the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published a new cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The issue, published on Wednesday, was the first following a January 7 attack on its headquarters that left 12 dead.
China Has a New Navy -- and It's Making the Neighbors Nervous
That headline alone was enough to send chills down the spines of American military strategists -- and of China's immediate neighbors, too -- when we first learned of China's progress in putting the Liaoning (PLAN CV-16) into service a few years back.
In short order, we began seeing reports of how Japan was building two new aircraft carriers (technically, "helicopter destroyers") to respond to China's perceived threat. And hearing how South Korea, India, Taiwan -- really, everybody who is anybody in Southeast Asia -- had embarked upon multibillion-dollar military spending plans in an attempt to keep pace with the Chinese military buildup.
Problem is, China is already the world's second biggest military spender. It's hard for smaller neighbors to keep up. Faster than you could blink, reports began filtering out that China was building a second aircraft carrier.
Then a third.
Poachers, Conservationists Use Drones and GPS in Wildlife Battle
BY SIGI DE VOS
L ONDON — It's a decades-old war, but conservationists and poachers alike are using 21st century technology like GPS and drones in their fight to protect endangered wildlife on the plains of Africa.
Now Namibia, an arid desert country on Africa's southwestern coast that holds half the world's remaining black rhino population, is turning increasingly to hi-tech conservation.
Ninety-six percent of the black rhino population has been wiped out since the 1970s. In Namibia, which has 79 conservation areas, no rhinos were lost to poachers between 2005 and 2010, and just one was killed in 2011. But in 2014 that number jumped to 24.
The rampant slaughter across the border in South Africa, where 1,250 rhinos were poached in 2014, has Namibia's Save the Rhino Trust worried that the country is "on the radar of syndicates."
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