Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Six In The Morning Tuesday March 31
Nigeria election: Buhari 'ahead' in early counting
- 4 hours ago
- Africa
However, populous states such as Lagos and Rivers are yet to declare.
With just over half of Nigeria's states declared, Gen Buhari's All Progressives Congress (APC) was reported to be ahead by some two million votes.
More results were due to be announced after 10:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Tuesday.
Nigeria's election commission (Inec) suspended its declarations late on Monday night, after giving the results for 18 states and the capital Abuja.
President Jonathan's People's Democratic Party (PDP) gained 6,488,210 votes and Gen Buhari's APC party received 8,520,436 votes.
No room for 'snubbed' Japanese war veteran at Iwo Jima memorial service
Tsuruji Akikusa, one of only 1,000 Japanese soldiers to survive second world war battle, was told there was no space for him among Japanese contingent
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
One of only a handful of Japanese veterans who survived the battle of Iwo Jima – one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific war – spent a recent memorial service on the island alongside US veterans after being told there was no space for him among the Japanese contingent.
The memorial to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle, in which only 1,000 of 20,000 Japanese soldiers survived, was attended by the Japanese defence minister, Gen Nakatani, the families of fallen Japanese soldiers, as well as veterans, relatives and officials from the US.
But Tsuruji Akikusa, the only surviving Japanese veteran to attend the ceremony earlier this month, found himself unable to take his place alongside his compatriots – an apparent snub that caused consternation among US veterans, attendees told the Guardian.
Israel should kidnap Barack Obama and put him on trial like a Nazi, Ukip candidate says
Letter from New Delhi: Shocking examples of VIP culture exposed
Anger approaches outrage as whims of power elite become increasingly offensive
Rahul Bedi
Two leading Indian television news channels, supported by social and print media, have launched a campaign against the country’s oppressive “VIP culture” that confers incredible privileges on politicians, civil servants and other influential persons and their families.
Times Now and New Delhi Television frequently broadcast appalling examples of traffic being held up across India, often for hours at a stretch, to facilitate the travel of these VIPs on the specious grounds of ensuring their security.
Travelling in lengthy motorcades – India’s president Pranab Mukherjee has a minimum of 17 vehicles in his entourage – all such VIPs are surrounded by a phalanx of trigger-happy commandoes in full battle gear, further enforcing their exclusivity.
Singapore police arrest teen for online criticism of Christianity
A teenage boy who posted a video online of himself criticizing Singapore's founding father and disparaging Christianity, shortly after the leader's death last week, has been arrested for 'threaten[ing] religious harmony' in the tightly censored country.
SINGAPORE — A Singapore teenager, who criticized Lee Kuan Yew on social media soon after the former leader's death, has been arrested and will be charged with making "insensitive and disparaging" comments about Christians, police said on Tuesday.
Police did not give the teenager's name, saying only that he was 16, but Singapore's Straits Times newspaper and other media identified him as Amos Yee. The case has reignited concerns about censorship in the Asian financial hub.
In a widely viewed YouTube video, Yee celebrated the death of Singapore's founding father Lee, who died last week aged 91 and was cremated after a state funeral on Sunday. Yee also made insensitive remarks about Christianity in the video, which was seen by hundreds of thousands before it was taken down.
These are the plans for Russia's new third-generation tank
Russia is just about to unveil its latest armored platform, the T-14 tank.
The tank, called the Armata, has largely been kept under wraps although technical details about the platform have steadily been emerging. The Armata is planned to feature considerable upgrades to the armor, engine, and armaments of the vehicle over previous Russian and Soviet tank models.
Until the tank is actually seen in action, any claims as to the Armata's capabilities could be nothing more than propaganda, an overstatement reminiscent of Russia's improbable claims that it's working on a supersonic transport jet.
Still, the following graphic from the Kremlin Tass translated by US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office provides insight into the kind of vehicle that Russia wants to add to its arsenal.
Monday, March 30, 2015
War on Terror, War on Muslims?
US President Barack Obama is vowing to "degrade, and ultimately destroy" a terrorist group destabilising the Middle East he says could threaten Americans at home.
Sound familiar? George W Bush made a similar vow, yet more than a decade after launching the so-called War on Terror, both the war and the terror are still raging.
Obama says the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) will be different than the two wars started by Bush. But Muslims looked at with suspicion around the world are wondering, how different will their treatment be?
What is the impact of increasing surveillance of Muslim communities, banning Islamic dress and equating a religion with a threat? Do the counter-terror measures adopted by the US, Britain and France erode the very democratic principles considered the pillars of a "free" society?
Malaysia's Woman Warrior
We follow the rise of Malaysia's first professional female mixed martial artist as she faces the fight of her life.
Ann Osman is counting down the minutes.
She has not eaten in five days - her head is spinning and a wall of photographers are blinding her with flashes as she punches and kicks the air with expert force.
And this is before she has even stepped foot in the cage.
101 East follows Malaysia's first professional female mixed martial arts fighter as she prepares to face Egyptian kickboxing champion Walaa Abbas.
Notorious for its brutality, this fierce sport is male dominated and often ends with blood splatters on the mat and knock-out blows.
But for Osman, a 28-year-old from Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Malaysia's Sabah state, it is a "beautiful art".
"Once you're in that cage, it actually reveals your true self," she says. "Are you a fight or flight kind of person? For me, I'm a fighter."
Six In The Morning Monday March 30
Iran nuclear talks: Intensive talks before key deadline
- 1 minute ago
- Middle East
Talks have resumed in Switzerland ahead of Tuesday's deadline for a preliminary nuclear deal with Iran.
Foreign ministers from six world powers are meeting their Iranian counterpart, amid hopes of a breakthrough after almost 18 months of negotiations.
They want to impose limits that would prevent Iran from producing enough fuel for a nuclear weapon within a year.
Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, wants to see crippling sanctions lifted in return.
Iranian and Western officials have said that a deal is possible, but that some issues are still to be resolved.
'No compromise'
The negotiations in Lausanne were expected to intensify on Monday, with foreign ministers from the so-called P5+1 - comprising the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany - meeting Iran's top diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif. The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is also there.
Blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh
Latest attack on country’s independent writers follows similar killing in February of American atheist blogger
A blogger has been hacked to death in the capital of Bangladesh, in the latest brutal attack on the country’s independent writers, a senior officer said.
Police have arrested two men over the murder, which comes weeks after an American atheist blogger was also killed in Dhaka, in a crime that triggered international outrage.
Speaking about Monday’s victim, local police chief Wahidul Islam told Agence France-Presse: “He was brutally hacked to death this morning with big knives just 500 yards [460 metres] from his home at Dhaka’s Begunbari area.”
Islam said the men were arrested immediately after the attack as they tried to flee the scene.
Sudden death of NSU case witness
A witness who gave evidence against the NSU extreme right-wing group has been found dead in her apartment. She had given her testimony in private as she said she felt "threatened."
A 20-year-old woman who testified against the National Socialist Underground far-right extremist group at a closed-door hearing was found dead in her apartment on Sunday, police said.
She had given evidence at the beginning of March to a special NSU investigation committee in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, where right-wing extremists are alleged to have killed a policewoman in 2007.
The witness was the ex-girlfriend of a man believed to have had connections to the NSU, known only as Florian H. He was a former neo-Nazi at the time of his death, which occurred under mysterious circumstances in autumn 2013.
Florian H. was found burned to death in a car on the same day he was due to be questioned by police, as he was thought to have known who had killed policewoman Michèle Kiesewetter.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders are terrorists, says Egypt's chief prosecutor
March 30, 2015 - 3:30AM
Cairo: Egypt's top prosecutor has named 18 Muslim Brotherhood members, including the group's leader and his deputy, as terrorists under the country's new anti-terror laws.
In a statement on Sunday, chief prosecutor Hisham Barakat said the decision follows a February court ruling that convicted Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie, his deputy Khairat el-Shater, the head of the group's political party Saad el-Katatni and others of orchestrating violence in 2013 that killed 11 people and wounded over 90 outside their office.
The clashes were at the start of mass protests against then-president Mohamed Mursi, also a member of the group, and days before the military ousted him.
Badie has already been sentenced to death, while other senior members have either been condemned to death or sentenced to life in prison. The sentences can be appealed.
How big a threat are the world's jihadi groups?
Sophisticated and lethal, growing in number, Islamic State and other extremist groups won't become a global force. Here's why.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN; DJIBOUTI CITY, DJIBOUTI; LONDON; AND WASHINGTON — Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim looked like any ubiquitous insurgent commander in southern Afghanistan. He had a sunbaked complexion, serried black beard, charcoal eyes, and the usual accessory – an AK-47 slung over his shoulder.
But there was something distinctive about him, which alarmed American officials. He had recently defected from the Taliban and joined Islamic State (known as both IS and ISIS), creating concern that the militant extremist group was expanding its footprint in South Asia.
So on Feb. 9, a US aircraft locked onto the vehicle he was traveling in near the village of Sadat in Helmand Province. It fired a missile, killing Mr. Khadim and five of his companions.
Nigeria votes: Forget the candidates, democracy was the real winner
Updated 0422 GMT (1122 HKT) March 30, 2015
They came in droves, men, women, young, old. Mothers with babies strapped tightly to their backs, pregnant women, the elderly, some who could barely walk unaided.
They waited patiently for sometimes seven, eight hours in the scorching sun. In parts of the country where it poured down with rain, they stood, barely shielded under makeshift umbrellas.
It was one of Africa's biggest elections and it didn't disappoint. There was high drama, violence and tensions but most of all an electorate determined to exercise their democratic right to vote. In northern Nigeria, women turned out in large numbers.
Some polling stations in Lagos opened on Saturday at around 8 a.m. and a queue of eager voters quickly formed. There was a palpable air of excitement.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
This Is How America's Warmongering Conservatives See Iran
Bill Kristol Claims Deal With Iran Will Only Make Things Worse In The Middle East
Nigeria's delayed elections
The partisan coverage of Nigeria's vote; plus, the 800 million Indians not deemed newsworthy by their country's media.
Nigerians finally vote on March 28 in a presidential election that has already been postponed once. The two leading candidates are the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari who was head of state in Nigeria in the 1980s after taking power in a military coup.
It is a battle that has been fought on the political stage and on the airwaves, with stations aligned with each side coming out in full force. For local journalists trying to cover the election there have been myriad challenges - from alleged government censorship, political pressure and the ever present spectre of Boko Haram.
With the growing backlog of journalist visas in the lead up to the vote, the primary challenge for foreign reporters has been getting into the country.
Six In The Morning Sunday March 29
Threat of ground incursion looms over Yemen
By Ben Brumfield and Hakim Almasmari, CNN
Updated 1003 GMT (1703 HKT) March 29, 2015
Oversized military trucks painted in desert beige hauled tanks in the same camouflage color down a dark highway late Saturday past glowing billboards in the Saudi Arabian town of Jazan.
With the border with Yemen little more than 20 miles away, the trucks captured on a video distributed by the news agency Reuters also carried a message: Suggestions of a ground incursion into Yemen, which is in the throws of a Houthi rebel uprising, may be more than just talk.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt have both spoken about the possibility of putting boots on the ground before. And on Saturday, Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen said he expected coalition troops to be in Yemen within days.
The warning signs straight-A student was on road to Syrian Isis stronghold
Twitter account in the name of radicalised medical student Lena Mamoun Abdel Gabir showed support for Charlie Hebdo killers and radical cleric Ahmad Musa JibrilMarga Zambrana, Mark Townsend and Emma Graham-Harrison
The warning signs were clear months before British medical student Lena Mamoun Abdel Gabir left for Syria to volunteer in Islamic State-controlled areas – if anyone had thought to look.
Between pictures of flowers and cupcakes, jokes about Nutella and getting married, a Twitter account, apparently run by the 19-year-old, had followed Isis-supporting accounts, re-tweeted her support for the Charlie Hebdo killers, and, last August, shared a video by a radical cleric hugely popular with European and North American jihadists.
The content was deceptively dull, a lecture on whether Muslims should vote in council elections. The real message was the desire to share the thoughts of Palestinian-American preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril. He has been identified as the leading online cheerleader for foreign jihadists in Syria, according to a pioneering academic study published by King’s College London, exploring how radical preachers inspire and guide British and other western Muslims who go to fight.
The Gaza fisherman who built his own reef - and was shot dead there by an Israeli gunboat
The 32-year-old fisherman had built up his own artificial rock with planks of wood, tyres, and bits of metal, seemingly well within the area in which he and his colleagues are allowed to operate. It was while he was adding to this pile that an Israeli gunboat opened fire, wounding him fatally.
Tawfiq and four other fishermen were in two boats that he owned. Both vessels were seized: two of the men were injured; two others arrested. “I told him not to go that day, because the Israelis were doing a lot of shooting; but those boats had cost him $50,000 [£34,000] and he had to EARN MONEY
to pay back the loan he had taken for them,” said his brother Mohammed, 29.
to pay back the loan he had taken for them,” said his brother Mohammed, 29.Spotlight on far right in French local election runoff
French voters are going to the polls to choose thousands of local councilors in run-off elections. The vote is being seen as a barometer of the far-right National Front's growing popularity.
The second round of balloting will see the election of 4,108 local councilors who have limited powers over roads, schools and social services
The vote is not normally the focus of much attention in France. This time, however, the challenge posed by the anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Front under Marine Le Pen (center in photo above) has made the election a litmus test for the popularity of the two main parties.
Although the conservative UMP party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to dominate Sunday's runoff after its victory in the first round last week, the National Front, which won 25 percent of the vote to come second last week, is thought likely to increase its growing hold on grassroots politics.
Eight candidates from National Front were elected in the first round, in comparison with the two councilor positions it currently holds, and an Ifop poll has suggested 100-120 more could be elected this time round. The party came in first in EU elections last year in France.
The Real Reason for China's Massive Military Buildup
Over several different articles, I have been exploring the dynamics of the budding U.S.-China security dilemma—a high-tech drama pitting anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) against what we used to refer to as Air-Sea Battle (ASB)—and have offered several different ways to lessen the possibility of such a dynamic from becoming cemented into the Asia-Pacific’s security architecture. However, China’s development and implementation of A2/AD clearly has various origins. One such origin that deserves to be explored is the “historical nightmare” of China’s subjugation at the hands of various colonial and Asian powers.
In many respects, China is trying to solve a centuries-old problem that never went away: how to defeat in battle military forces that are at least in a symmetrical sense superior to its own and will be for some time to come. If we alter our perspective and take a much longer view of Beijing’s own military obsolescence, a strategy that emphasizes anti-access makes tremendous sense.
Cyberbullying's Got a New Target: Big Companies
In the Wild West of the Internet, social media is often credited with giving a voice to the average citizen and helping to introduce democracy and activism to turbulent parts of the world. Yet on the flip side, online grievance campaigns have become an increasingly frequent phenomenon—with even big companies now tasting the wrath of angry swarms of web activists.
Cyberbullying isn't something normally associated with large corporations. However, in the last week alone social networking played a big role in humbling two culturally influential institutions: Starbucks and DC Comics. Both companies beat a hasty retreat from planned campaigns, and in the process learned a painful lesson in frontier Internet justice.
They join a gallery of big companies that have learned the hard way that hell hath no fury like a Twitter user scorned. So has social media ushered in the age of cyber-bullying of big companies?
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Six In The Morning Saturday March 28
Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz declared 'unfit to work,' officials say
Updated 0010 GMT (0810 HKT) March 28, 2015
Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was hiding an illness from his employers and had been declared "unfit to work" by a doctor, according to German authorities investigating what could have prompted the seemingly competent and stable pilot to steer his jetliner into a French mountain.
Investigators found a letter in the waste bin of his Dusseldorf, Germany, apartment saying that Lubitz, 27, wasn't fit to do his job, city prosecutor Christoph Kumpa said Friday. The note, Kumpa said, had been "slashed."
Just what was ailing Lubitz hasn't been revealed. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Lubitz suffered from mental illness and kept his diagnosis concealed from his employer.Saudis evacuate diplomats from Yemen as Houthis gain ground
Saudi Arabia's military has begun evacuating diplomats from Yemen's southern port of Aden. The move comes as Houthi rebels continued to advance on the city despite Saudi-led airstrikes.
The news of the evacuation effort was first reported by Saudi Arabia's state broadcaster on Saturday.
"The Saudi Royal Navy implemented an operation called 'Hurricane' to evacuate dozens of diplomats, including Saudis, from Aden," read a news ticker on the television news station.
This came as Shiite Muslim Houthi fighters continued to gain ground in the south and east of Yemen. The Reuters news agency cited local residents who said that the rebels had established their first foothold on the country's Gulf of Aden coast on Friday, seizing the port of Shaqra, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Aden.
This came despite a second day of Saudi-led airstrikes against the Houthi forces in several parts of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, which the rebels control, as well as their northern stronghold of Saada.
Living with a bomb: life after the Gaza war
March 28, 2015 - 3:47PM
Ruth Pollard
Middle East Correspondent
Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip: Half a dozen carefully placed pieces of wood cover the hole in the floor shattered by the one-tonne bomb that for seven months lay beneath Fadel Nasser's family home in the devastated Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
It crashed through the roof and all three storeys and sat, unexploded and buried in the earth, the most dangerous reminder of Israel's 50-day war with Gaza last year.
The extended family of 20 - including Nasser's wife and children, his brother's family and their father - were forced to live above the missile, terrified that at any moment it might explode.
"We cannot afford to live anywhere else, so we must live with the bomb instead," Nasser said as he introduced Fairfax Media to the second team of experts who had begun the delicate, dangerous mission of finding and disposing of the explosive.
For families of missing Mexican students, answers remain elusive
What really happened in Iguala six months ago when 43 students disappeared? Many in Mexico are still determined to find out, despite government calls to move on.
MEXICO CITY — Six months after the grisly disappearance of 43 teachers' college students in the troubled Mexican state of Guerrero, friends and family of the missing SPREAD out across the United States and Mexicoto remind the world that the search isn’t over.
out across the United States and Mexicoto remind the world that the search isn’t over.
Marches took place throughout Mexico, and three caravans made up of the family and friends of the students and activists are traveling to at least 30 US cities to raise awareness about the case and ongoing disappearances here.
“Nothing will change if we stop fighting,” says Omar Garcia, who was with his classmates in Iguala before they disappeared on Sept. 26.
With big projects, Ethiopia shedding famine stereotype
By ELIAS MESERET15 hours ago
Ethiopia's planned new airport on the outskirts of the capital is still years from becoming a reality but Tewodros Dawit can already envision how grand it will look.
"The airport we are planning to build is going to be huge. Very huge," Tewodros said one recent afternoon as he examined project plans in his office in Addis Ababa. "It will be one of the biggest airports in the world. I don't know what other countries are planning in this regard for the future but no country has created this much capacity so far in Africa."
Ethiopia, once known for epic famines that sparked global appeals for help, has a booming economy and big plans these days. The planned airport is one of several muscular, forward-looking infrastructure projects undertaken by the government that have fueled talk of this East African country as a rising African giant.
Polls open in Nigeria presidential elections
Voters head to polls in election held against a backdrop of violent attacks by armed group Boko Haram in the north east.
Kano, Nigeria – Polling stations have opened in Nigeria, the electoral commission said, as voters prepare to elect a new president in what is being seen as the closest contest in the country's history.
"Polling stations have opened. Accreditation has started," INDEPENDENT National Electoral Commission spokesman Kayode Idowu said, despite reports of delays to the 8am (0700 GMT) start.
The process had not started at some locations in Kano, Lagos and Abuja because of delays in the arrival of INEC officials and election materials, reported the AFP news agency. Voting proper is due to start at 1:30pm.
National Electoral Commission spokesman Kayode Idowu said, despite reports of delays to the 8am (0700 GMT) start.The process had not started at some locations in Kano, Lagos and Abuja because of delays in the arrival of INEC officials and election materials, reported the AFP news agency. Voting proper is due to start at 1:30pm.
Saturday's election, delayed for six weeks while security forces attempted to subdue the armed group Boko Haram in the country's northeast, will be the fifth since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999.
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