Monitor: 90 Christians abducted by ISIL in Syria
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says abductions took place after ISIL seized Assyrian villages from Kurdish forces.
Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have kidnapped at least 90 Assyrian Christians in northeast Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Wednesday.
The Observatory said the abductions took place on Tuesday after ISIL fighters seized two Assyrian villages from Kurdish forces in the province of al-Hasakeh, the Reuters news agency reported.
The villages are inhabited by the ancient Christian minority near the town of Tel Tamr, a mainly Assyrian town, in the western countryside of the city of Hasaka - a city mainly held by the Kurds.
After Isis: Kurds and Arabs return to old lives and new tensions
In Iraqi areas recaptured by peshmerga from Islamic State neighbours are turning on each other as population movement redraws the map
When Shvan, who is a Kurd, returned home to Zumar in north-west Iraqand saw his property had been reduced to rubble, he found an empty house belonging to an Arab and moved his family in.
Now, life is gradually returning to the town, which was seized by Islamic State in August 2014 then captured by Kurdish forces with coalition air cover in October. A schoolgirl with a satchel on her back walks home past shattered buildings while men sell meat and vegetables by the roadside. There are plans to restore water and electricity.
But it will prove harder to repair relations between Kurds and Arabs in what was a mixed town. Zumar shows how the demography of northern Iraq is changing in the aftermath of the Isis incursion and Kurdish and Shia counterattacks, turning neighbour against neighbour and redrawing the map.
Missing Syria schoolgirls: Turkey slams 'condemnable' British authorities for telling them about runaway teens 'three days too late'
Kadiza Sultana, 16, Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, lied to their parents and boarded a flight from Gatwick to Istanbul last Tuesday, with at least one travelling on the passport of an older sibling.
Yesterday Mr Cameron told MPs he was "horrified" by the case, involving the three "straight A students" from Bethnal Green Academy school in east London.
Donetsk separatists eye key port of Mariupol as determination grows
Ceasefire still in doubt as clashes continue and artillery stays at frontline
Daniel McLaughlin
After calling for a moment’s silence for militants who had died fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine, Sergei Ryazantsev made a vow to the crowd on Donetsk’s Lenin Square.
“We’ve wiped out plenty of those bitches, and we’ll wipe out more,” he said yesterday of Kiev’s troops. “Victory will be ours.”
The audience cheered and applauded and the sun shone on Defender of the Fatherland Day, which in Russia and several neighbouring states honours the exploits of the Red Army and, by extension, the Soviet Union.
It has never been a holiday in independent Ukraine but here, in the biggest city in separatist-held territory, it was celebrated with concerts, dances and calls for the “Russian world” to crush “fascist” Ukraine and repel its western backers.
FIFA task force recommends pre-Christmas winter World Cup in 2022
A FIFA task force has recommended that the 2022 World Cup of soccer be held in the winter. A final decision is to be taken at a meeting of FIFA's executive committee next month.
The recommendation announced by the task force on Tuesday, was expected to meet major resistance from Europe's major professional soccer leagues, including Germany's Bundesliga, the English Premier League, and Spain's La Liga, as it would cause major disruption to their domestic seasons.
Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa, the head of the Asian Football Confederation told reporters in Doha, where the task force met, that all options would be reviewed at next month's meeting of FIFA's executive committee in Zurich.
"Some people have concerns, but whatever decision you're going to take will have some questions about it," Sheikh Salman said."But... we need to look at the overall benefit of everybody."
He also said that the task force had proposed shortening the length of the tournament by a few days, but that there were no plans to cut the number of games (64) or teams (32) involved in the tournament.
Sri Lanka's new leaders grapple with release of political prisoners
February 24, 2015 - 3:58PMGardiner Harris
Colombo: Paintings in Temple Trees, Sri Lanka's White House, are still leaning against walls waiting to be hung, and the gated grounds are no longer teeming with guards and stewards who served the home's previous occupant like supplicants at a royal court.
However, more than a month after taking over the iconic home after a shocking electoral triumph by President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says he has been kept very busy.
Mr Wickremesinghe said he had managed to help reset relations with the United States, India and China and had just started to grapple with the issues of releasing hundreds of political prisoners and handing back thousands of hectares of land seized mostly from minority Tamils during this country's long civil war.
Mr Wickremesinghe, who was appointed by Mr Sirisena and took over Temple Trees from departing president Mahinda Rajapaksa, said his first two weeks in office were taken up by a visit from Pope Francis and the urgent need to produce a budget.
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