Six In The Morning Friday April 10

Obama: China 'using muscle' to dominate in South China Sea

• 6 hours ago
 
• From the section China

The US is concerned China is using "sheer size and muscle" to strong-arm smaller nations in the row over the South China Sea, Barack Obama says.

The US president's comments came amid heightened focus on Beijing's construction of artificial islands in disputed areas of the sea.

On Thursday a US think tank released images showing land reclamation work on a reef claimed by the Philippines. 

China says the work is needed to safeguard its sovereignty.

China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea, resulting in overlapping claims with several other Asian nations including Vietnam and the Philippines. 

They say China is illegally reclaiming land in contested areas to create artificial islands with facilities that could potentially be for military use. 

Images have emerged of work in multiple areas in the Spratly islands, which several nations claim.

Chinese broadcaster apologises for Mao Zedong insults

Bi Fujian, host of China Central Television’s talent show Avenue of Stars, had been filmed calling country’s former leader a ‘son of a bitch’

Staff and agencies

Friday 10 April 2015 09.15 BST

One of Chinese state TV’s top broadcasters has apologised for insulting Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, at a private dinner.

Bi Fujian, host of China Central Television’s talent show Avenue of Stars, issued the apology on Thursday night via his microblog, which has 1.3 million followers, and said he would be more self-disciplined.

“I feel extremely guilty, and my heart aches,” Bi wrote. “I sincerely expressed my deep apology to the public.”

In a home video that circulated widely online before censors removed it this week, Bi apparently was seen singing a revolutionary song about communist party-led soldiers battling bandits in northeastern China in the 1940s.

Yazidi sex slaves 'gang-raped in public' by Isis fighters, harrowing accounts reveal

Disturbing stories have emerged after 200 were released this week

HEATHER SAUL 

 

 

Friday 10 April 2015

Yazidi women released by Isis this week were gang-raped in public by fighters and tortured by their captors, according to distressing accounts of their ordeals.

Hundreds of women and children were abducted from the town of Sinjar, in northern Iraq, and held hostage by Isis for over eight months. Some were sold to fighters as sex slaves or given as ‘prizes’. Many were beaten and forced to convert to Islam.

More than 200 were released by fighters in Himera, near Kirkurk, earlier this week. They have told harrowing tales of the physical and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of their captors. 

Malaysia toughens sedition law punishments

Lawmakers in Malaysia have approved tougher penalties for sedition, saying it's to prevent racial conflict. The move has been criticized by the UN while Malaysia's opposition has called it a "black day" for free speech.

Lawmakers in Malaysia have approved tougher penalties for sedition, saying it's to prevent racial conflict. The move has been criticized by the UN while Malaysia's opposition has called it a "black day" for free speech.

The strengthened Sedition Act was approved early Friday by Malaysia's parliament after more than 12 hours of debate and efforts by the opposition to have the changes scrapped.

Amendments included extending the maximum jail term to 20 years from the current three and introducing a minimum three-year sentence for certain cases, as well as making it illegal to propagate sedition over the internet - sparking fears of online censorship.

Bombing Yemenis? You bet. Fighting IS in Iraq? Not so fast

April 10, 2015 - 6:50PM

Paul McGeough

Chief foreign correspondent

Washington: To be sure, there's a lot of suffering in Yemen. Since March 19, the World Health Organisation estimates that more than 600 Yemenis have been killed and more than 2000 injured. The longer-term conflict since 2011 has seen more than 250,000 Yemenis leave the country and more than 330,000 internally displaced.

Yet this war is still what Americans like to call a teachable moment – think of it as an opportunity to learn the difference between window dressing and true grit in the Middle East.

Exhibit A: A murderous insurgency runs amok in Syria and Iraq, committing unspeakable acts of violence – beheadings, mass executions and the sexual enslavement of women. It makes a third of each country its "caliphate" and declares that it will expand its borders. The so-called Islamic State is the biggest threat to the region since its borders were redrawn by Britain and France during and after World War I.

Homicides in El Salvador reach record as gang violence grows 

March was the deadliest month in El Salvador in 10 years. The government record 481 murders, or more than 15 a day.

By Marcos Aleman & Alberto Arce, Associated Press

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR — El Salvador had more homicides in March than any other single month in a decade, a dark milestone that some attribute to the collapse of a gang truce and one that could mark a trend of greater violence to come.

Data from the National Civil Police show 481 homicides recorded last month, or more than 15 a day. April's start is no better, with 73 killings reported in the first five days. At this rate, El Salvador is on pace to surpass Honduras as the deadliest peace-time country in the world.

Gang-on-gang violence, as well as attacks on police and Salvadorans in general is spiking in what authorities say is an attempt by gangs to pressure the government to negotiate issues raised as part of a two-year truce that fell apart in 2014. Others see it as a reaction to the new government's iron-fist approach to the country's two major gangs, Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street.