Six In The Morning Monday February 16

16 February 2015 Last updated at 08:55

Egypt 'bombs IS in Libya' after beheadings video

Egypt says it has bombed Islamic State targets in Libya, hours after the group published video showing the apparent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians.

State TV said the dawn strikes had targeted camps, training sites and weapons storage areas.

It did not give further details but witnesses reported air strikes in the port city of Derna, held by militants.

A video emerged on Sunday showing a group wearing orange overalls being forced to the ground and decapitated. 

IS militants claim to have carried out several attacks in Libya, which is in effect without a government.

The kidnapped Egyptian workers, all Coptic Christians, were seized in December and January from the coastal town of Sirte in eastern Libya, under the control of Islamist groups.

Two men charged with aiding Copenhagen attacker

Danish police say men gave advice to 22-year-old attacker killed following deadly attacks on synagogue and cafe.

16 Feb 2015 08:30 GMT

Danish police have charged two people with aiding the man suspected of shooting dead two people in attacks in Copenhagen at the weekend.

The two men were charged after being arrested on Sunday following attacks on a synagogue in Krystalgade and a free-speech event in Krudttonden.

"The two men are charged with helping through advice and deeds the perpetrator in relation to the shootings at Krudttonden and in Krystalgade," the police said in a statement on Monday, referring to the attacker who was shot dead by the police hours after the twin attacks.

Kayla Mueller: Boyfriend of US hostage 'tried to free her' while she was being held by Isis

Alkhani said he posed as her husband in the hope that the Isis militants would free her

ROISIN O'CONNOR 

 

 

Monday 16 February 2015

The boyfriend of US hostage Kayla Mueller has told of how he made an effort to free her while she was being held in Syria by Isis.

Mueller, 26, was taken in August 2013 after driving into the northern Syria city of Aleppo with boyfriend Omar Alkhani, after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital where he had been working.

Her colleagues received subsequently received a proof-of-life video, showing her wearing a hijab and begging for her life.

Mueller was kept as a hostage by Isis militants, while Alkhani was released a couple of months later after being beaten and interrogated about his work as a photographer, his religion and his relationship to Mueller, he said. 

Burmese army clashes with rebels cast doubt over ceasefire hopes

Some 50 government troops and police officers reported killed in the attacks

Clifford Coonan

Fifty government troops and police officers died in clashes last week with ethnic minority insurgents in Shan state, Burma (Myanmar) near the border with China, state media reported, as the military carried out air strikes against the rebels.

Kokang ethnic rebels in a group called the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in the northeastern state attacked a military headquarters, a local administration office, a prison, a police outpost and an army base in Laukkai, capital of the self-administered Kokang zone last week.

Some 73 troops and soldiers were injured in the attacks, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported. Soldiers found 13 bodies of rebels and seized 98 small weapons and ammunition near Laukkai. The region is about 800km northeast of the country’s biggest city, Rangoon.

Indian newspaper editor Shirin Dalvi in hiding after publishing Charlie Hebdo cartoon

February 16, 2015 - 4:50PM

Neha Thirani Bagri

Mumbai: The Charlie Hebdo slaughter in Paris has reverberated into the multi-religious ethnic sprawl of Mumbai, where an Urdu newspaper has closed and its editor faces charges and death threats for having reprinted a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad from the satirical French weekly.

The prosecution of the editor, Shirin Dalvi, has focused attention on limits of freedom of the press in India, where news coverage often conflicts with the government's efforts to protect religious groups from insult and disrespect.

All the employees of the daily newspaper, Avadhnama, were dismissed in the days after January 17, when it published a 2006 cover from Charlie Hebdo showing Muhammad weeping. That image was part of the newspaper's coverage of the aftermath of the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices on January 7 by Islamist militants, who said they were avenging Muslims offended by the French newspaper's cartoons.

Over 15,000 rally to reject Greece's bailout terms

Two polls this week showed that over three-quarters of Greeks support Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's motions to cancel Greece's bailout program, which had stipulated harsh cuts to the country's social programs in exchange for aid from wealthier neighbors.

By Editors, Associated Press

ATHENS — About 15,000 people have gathered in central Athens to support the newly elected government's push for a better deal on Greece's debt.

Protesters are carrying banners denouncing economic austerity and Greece's creditors.

Similar rallies are taking place in several Greek cities and about forty other solidarity gatherings are planned across Europe and in Australia, Brazil and the US.

The Greek government has enthusiastically welcomed these rallies while insisting that they are spontaneous affairs, organized through social media.

On Monday, a gathering of Eurozone finance ministers will consider Greece's proposal for short-term "bridge FINANCING" without the onerous terms previously imposed on the country, until a longer-term solution to Greece's crushing debt is found.