Six In The Morning Sunday March 15

15 March 2015 Last updated at 09:17

First aid reaches Vanuatu islands ravaged by Cyclone Pam

The President of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, described Cyclone Pam as "a monster"

Aid is beginning to arrive in Vanuatu after the Pacific island nation was hit by a cyclone which President Baldwin Lonsdale described as a "monster".

Air force planes arrived with supplies from Australia and New Zealand, and other countries have pledged to help.

A communications blackout due to storm damage means little is known about conditions beyond the capital, Port Vila.

But aerial images from one aid agency show many houses completely flattened.

His voice breaking, President Lonsdale told the BBC that Cyclone Pam had destroyed most buildings in the capital Port Vila, including schools and clinics.

A state of emergency has been declared in the tiny state of 267,000 people, spread over 65 islands.

Pakistan faces global anger over bid to execute man jailed over killing aged 14

Move to hang Shafqat Hussain, convicted in 2004, defies international outcry and overturns government pledge to hold inquiry

Ed Vulliamy

Pakistan is preparing to execute a man convicted over a murder committed when he was 14, in a move likely to provoke a storm of international anger.

A juvenile cannot face the death penalty in Pakistan, but a so-called “black warrant” ordering the imminent hanging of Shafqat Hussain was announced suddenly last week, overturning government pledges to examine his case and age – in defiance of an international outcry and allegations that the boy was innocent and tortured into a confession.

On Monday lawyers for Hussain will file papers seeking to stay the execution, due on Thursday, until allegations of torture have been heard and Hussain’s age investigated – as promised by Pakistan’s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who suspended the sentence in January.

RUPERT CORNWELL

Sunday 15 March 2015

The US Secret Service are now more House of Cards than real the heroes of yesteryear

Out of America: They are under fire - and with a string of scandals and bungles in the past few years, it's not surprising

As a psychopathic would-be killer of the US president said to Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan: “You have such a strange job; I can’t decide if it’s heroic or absurd.” Those words, of course, are fictional, drawn from Wolfgang Petersen’s terrific 1993 thriller In the Line of Fire, featuring Clint Eastwood (who else?) as the ageing, guilt-torn Horrigan, the last agent still in service from the detail that failed to prevent John Kennedy’s assassination 30 years before.

But right now most Americans are asking themselves an identical question about the real Secret Service. Once its agents were heroes. Irritating they might be, with those give-away earpieces and that habit of talking into their wristwatches. But these were the guys who would take a bullet for the president – no idle risk in a country where in the past 150 years four presidents have been killed, and a dozen other assassination attempts have come close. Of late, however, the heroes have turned into a national joke (if joke is the right word when the stakes are so high).

Crimea - a year in Russian hands

It has been a year since Russia annexed Crimea. Now it is transforming the Black Sea peninsula into a military fortress. The biggest losers in this new situation are the Tatars.

When the weather is stormy in the Kerch Strait east of Crimea the ferry connection to mainland Russia can sometimes be interrupted for days. Traffic jams grow kilometers long, and the delivery of food and other goods to THE PENINSULA cannot be guaranteed.

Putin admits to preparing the annexation

When Russia annexed Crimea nearly a year ago the Kerch Strait became an important supply route. Moscow and Kyiv shut down all other connections - no planes flew, and no trains or passenger busses rolled. Those who wished to travel from Crimea to Russia, or the other way around, had to arrange private services, or walk. Kyiv shut off most of the water supply to THE PENINSULA. Energy and some food deliveries continued to flow in through Ukraine, however.

In a recent documentary film for state television, the Russian president shared details about the annexation of Crimea. Vladimir Putin admitted to having made the decision to "repatriate" the former Russian peninsula at the end of February 2014. The Kremlin chief named a poll in which 75 percent of Crimean citizens supposedly claimed to want to be part of Russia as justification for his actions. According to Russian sources, more than 96 percent of residents voted accordingly in a "referendum" held on March 16, 2014 and guarded by Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms. Ukraine, the UN General Assembly, and Western countries all condemned Russia's actions as a violation of international law.

On war-torn frontier, Israelis feel government has forgotten them

March 15, 2015 - 4:43PM

Ruth Pollard

Middle East Correspondent

Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha, southern Israel: A sculpture of rockets covers the centre pylon in Ein HaShlosha's machinery shed – a mere fraction of the number of homemade missiles fired by militants from the Gaza Strip at the tiny Israeli community over the last 14 years.

Its fields lie just 500 metres from the Gaza border, its houses around two kilometres. Tunnels built by Hamas militants were discovered on its farmlands months before last year's war even began.

People were very angry that the army did not discuss an evacuation program with us or give us any notice of ceasefires. 

This kibbutz, like many along Israel's southern border, has felt the terror of constant rocket attacks and the threat of the tunnels more than most. Six months ago it was overrun with Israeli soldiers and tanks, as Israeli forces pounded Gaza from the air, ground and sea for 52 days – the longest of all three of its wars with the Hamas-run enclave.

Nigeria: Boko Haram bomb factory uncovered in troubled northeast

By Faith Karimi and Radina Gigova, CNN

Updated 0428 GMT (1228 HKT) March 14, 2015

Nigerian troops discovered a Boko Haram bomb factory this week after they seized a northern town from the extremists, the military said. 

The factory was tucked inside a fertilizer company in Buni Yadi town in Yobe state, according to officials.

Islamist fighters took over the town in August, one of many seized in the troubled northeast. Troops have battled the militants for months to regain control, and said they recaptured it last week. 

Militants planted explosive devices along the highway on their way out, which delayed the soldiers' advance. Four soldiers were killed during the operation. 

Soldiers have been scouring the factory and have found suicide bomber vests and improvised explosive devices, the military said Friday.