Islamic State bulldozers 'erasing history' in Nimrud, Iraq
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Archaeologists and officials have expressed outrage about the bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud by Islamic State militants in Iraq.
On Thursday IS - which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria - began demolishing the site, which was founded in the 13th Century BC, Iraqi officials said.
The UN cultural body's Iraq director, Alex Plathe,called it "another appalling attack on Iraq's heritage".
"They are erasing our history," Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani said.
IS says ancient shrines and statues are "false idols" that have to be smashed.
Nimrud lies about 30km (18 miles) south-east of Mosul.
Many of the artefacts found there have been moved to museums in Baghdad and overseas, but larger artefacts remain on site.
Death penalty in Indonesia: an executioner's story
A police officer who has been part of an Indonesian firing squad tells how he and his prisoners prepare for the death sentence, and how he hopes those who are killed find their peace
As Indonesia prepares to execute up to 11 prisoners, including two Australians, a Brazilian and a Nigerian national, amid international uproar, the spotlight has been thrown on the use of the death penalty in the country. There are dozens more prisoners on death row and the government has declared there will be no mercy for those convicted of drug offences, meaning more executions are likely.
The Guardian has spoken to a police officer who has been part of the firing squad which operates on the prison island, Nusa Kambangan. His story is one that reveals the grim reality of Indonesia’s justice system but also the conflicting emotions of those responsible for upholding it.
Pulling the trigger is the easy part, the officer says as he contemplates the executions which are to come.
The worst part is the human touch, he says, the connection with those who are about to die. The executioner has to lace the prisoner’s limbs, hands and feet to a cross-shaped pole with thick rope. It is that final moment of brutal intimacy that haunts.“The mental burden is heavier for the officers that are responsible for handling the prisoners rather than shooting them,” he says. “Because those officers are involved in picking them up, and tying their hands together, until they are gone.”
Jerusalem attack: Four policewomen hurt after driver rams car into pedestrians
German parliament to vote on quotas for women on company boards
Germany's parliament is due to vote on a hotly debated bill legislating a 30 percent quota for women on company boards. The long-awaited law would affect some of the nation's biggest listed companies.
Germany's Bundestag is expected to adopt a quota on Friday for women in the country's boardrooms.
The law will make it compulsory for the non-executive boards of at least 108 German companies listed on the stock market to be made up of at least 30 percent women. From 2016, these companies could be penalized if they do not comply with this quota.
The quota was negotiated near the end of 2013, but a formal accord among Germany's three-party grand coalition was not reached until a year later. Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approved the plan in December.
Small businesses will also be required to take steps to improve workplace equality, with the quota being introduced on a sliding scale in terms of the size of the company. From 2017, smaller companies and public services must report on their progress in increasing the number of women in leadership positions, but they will not be penalized if they do not meet the quota.
One line in Chinese Premier Li's speech hints at Beijing's battle to connect on social media
March 6, 2015 - 6:50PMPhilip Wen
China correspondent for Fairfax Media
Beijing: In a government work report which ran to 34 pages and took Chinese Premier Li Keqiang almost two hours to recite, there was one phrase that stood out.
The nuance gets lost in the official English translation: "It goes without saying that powers should not be held without good reason."
But in the original Chinese, it was a play on a viral phrase born from typically humorous Chinese internet slang which, very roughly, means "I'm rich; I can do whatever what I want", usually used with heavy irony. The key word in the phrase, renxing, can be translated as "capricious" or "arbitrary".
Mr Li's wordplay drew seemingly spontaneous laughter and applause from delegates of the National People's Congress on Thursday, in a pronounced departure from what is typically a staid State of the Union-style address, which touched on the economy, reform, and the environment.With less rain, farmers in Kenya quit food crops to cash in on legal drug
The government has struggled to come up with ways to make traditional farming more appealing as farmers in the north turn to growing miraa, a legal narcotic that needs little water and has a steady demand.
MARSABIT, KENYA — When Omar Kutara’s grandfather tended the family farm outside Marsabit, it was covered with fruit trees, and rows of barley and wheat waved in the wind. But today, the stiff branches of miraa plants cover a third of that space.
About two-thirds of Marsabit’s farmland is used for miraa, a plant chewed as a narcotic, according to Edin Ibrahim Yussuf, a local project coordinator with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which also does agricultural work. Miraa arrived from Ethiopia in the 1980s.
Years of water shortages have prompted farmers in this patch of northern Kenya, one of the only places in the arid region that can support agriculture, to abandon food crops in favor of miraa (known as khat in the Arab world). The hardy crop has flourished here.
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