Iraq-Kurdish force of 25,000 'to retake Mosul from IS'
A joint Iraqi-Kurdish military force of up to 25,000 fighters is being prepared to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State (IS), a US official says.
The senior military official has said that the operation to recapture the northern city would probably take place in April or May.
Iraq's second largest city was currently being held by 1,000 to 2,000 IS militants, the official added.
Mosul, which was home to more than a million people, fell to IS last June.
The unnamed official told reporters that no decision had been made on whether a small group of US military advisers would be needed on the ground to direct air support.
The official said all of the fighters in the force would have gone through training by the US.
'We want our sons back': fears grow for Egyptians missing in Libya
Cairo launched air strikes against Isis in Libya after the militants killed 21 Egyptians. But families of others believed to be held captive say more must be done to bring their loved ones home
In late August, armed, masked men stopped a car carrying Egyptian workers near the Libyan city of Sirte. Identifying each passenger by religion, the gunmen took the four Christians prisoner: three brothers and their cousin. The others – all Muslims – went free.
“The driver tried to negotiate, but they pulled a gun in his face,” Wagih Matta Hakim told the Guardian in an interview in Cairo this week. Another Egyptian worker, who managed to return home, told him that his brothers had been captured.
The four captives – Jamal Matta Hakim, Ra’if Matta Hakim, Rumana Matta Hakim, and their cousin, Adel Siddiq Hakim – were construction workers living in Tripoli, who had been in Sirte en route back to Egypt. They too had been trying to return home.
Iraqi and Kurdish offensive expected to retake Mosul
City is currently held by up to 2,000 Islamic State militants, US believes
An Iraqi and Kurdish military force of some 20,000 to 25,000 troops is being prepared to recapture the city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters, probably in the April-May time frame, an official at the US Central Command said on Thursday.
The official said Mosul was currently being held by 1,000 to 2,000 Islamic State fighters. No decision has been made on whether small numbers of US military advisers might need to be on the ground close to Mosul to direct close air support, the official told a group of reporters on condition of anonymity.
Mosul, which had a population of over a million people, was captured by Islamic State fighters in June and is the largest city in the group’s self-declared caliphate, a stretch of territory that straddles the border between northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
Ancient traditions protect the environment in East Timor
Indepedent since 2002, East Timor is one of the world's newest nations. But when it comes to protecting the environment, it has a unique and ancient tradition to draw upon - the practice of tara bandu.
In the village of Irabere, in the remote highlands of the Uato-Carbau district of East Timor, a group of around 40 villagers wades through a river catching fish. Using small nets cast by hand, they make their way upstream in the shadow of the surrounding hills. Joining them, a handful of energetic local children play in the water, leaping at the chance to untangle a fish caught flailing in the nets.
The scene appears ordinary enough, but in fact it is part of "tara bandu," a three-day ritual to protect the river's ecosystem.
"Tara bandu is a practical environmental governance by our ancestors," explains Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, advisor to the state secretary for environment, and co-founder of Haburas, one of East Timor's leading environmental organizations.
Do Amaral de Carvalho been at the forefront of combining traditional practices like tara bandu with government-led environmental initiatives.
Hunter S. Thompson's freakish legacy lives on in Aspen
February 20, 2015 - 5:24PMMurray Johnson
Aspen, Colorado: Ten years after the death of iconoclastic American writer Hunter S. Thompson, his "political DNA" still runs deep in the Rocky Mountains town he called home.
Thompson is best remembered for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his account of a drug-addled road trip "to the heart of the American dream" and Hell's Angels, the 1966 result of a year he spent "embedded" in a San Francisco bikie gang.
Like many of his era Thompson "dropped out" of mainstream society when he bought Owl Farm at Woody Creek in the hills above Aspen with his Hell's Angels royalties in the late '60s.
Ailing physically and creatively, Thompson ended his life there on February 20, 2005, at the age of 67.
Back in 1970 he famously ran for sheriff of Pitkin County in Aspen, shaving his head so he could disparage his "long-haired opponent" who sported a buzz cut. He only lost by a few hundred votes.
Freed journalist in Egypt says Al-Jazeera partially to blame for ordeal
Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy said it would be 'naive' and 'misleading' to see the case purely as a crackdown on press freedom, because it was complicated by Al-Jazeera's 'negligence.'
CAIRO — Al-Jazeera English journalist Mohamed Fahmy, who is out awaiting retrial after more than a year behind bars in Egypt on terrorism-related charges, said his Qatar-funded EMPLOYER
is partially to blame for his grinding ordeal.
is partially to blame for his grinding ordeal.
Fahmy said it would be "naive" and "misleading" to see the case purely as a crackdown on press freedom, because it was complicated by Al-Jazeera's "negligence" and Qatar's use of the outlet to "wage a media war" against Cairo.
"I am not losing sight of who put me in prison," he said, referring to the Egyptian prosecutors, who failed to present any evidence related to the terror charges in a trial widely condemned by rights groups and major media outlets.
"However, Al-Jazeera's epic negligence has made our situation harder, more difficult, and gave our captor more firepower," Fahmy said in an interview at his family home in a Cairo suburb.
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