Kenya Garissa students 'taken hostage' by gunmen
- 21 minutes ago
- Africa
Gunmen have taken students hostage and killed four people at a university in north-eastern Kenya, near the Somali border, aid workers and police say.
About 30 wounded after gunmen stormed Garissa University College. Troops have surrounded the campus and are engaging the attackers.
Witnesses spoke of the gunmen firing indiscriminately and there are fears the casualty toll could rise.
Islamist al-Shabab militants from Somalia have regularly targeted Kenya.
Garissa and other border areas have often been attacked.
Exchange of fire
Some five masked gunmen are said to have stormed the university.
A policeman at the scene told Reuters news agency that some students had been taken hostage.
"We can't tell how many but they are many since the college was in session," the unnamed policeman is quoted as saying.
Iraq and Syria are 'finishing schools' for foreign extremists, says UN report
The number of foreign fighters joining al-Qaida and Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and other countries has spiked to more than 25,000 from more than 100 countries
Iraq and Syria have become “international finishing schools” for extremists according to a UN report which says the number of foreign fighters joining terrorist groups has spiked to more than 25,000 from more than 100 countries.
The panel of experts monitoring UN sanctions against al-Qaida estimates the number of overseas terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71% between mid-2014 and March 2015.
It said the scale of the problem had increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters was “higher than it has ever been historically”.
Kim Jong-un reinstates 'pleasure troupe' harem of young women
Colorado fights to keep millions in marijuana tax refund madness
Jack Healy
Denver, Colorado: In the state Capitol, they are calling it Refund Madness.
A year after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, millions of tax dollars are rolling in, dedicated to funding school construction, marijuana education campaigns and armies of marijuana inspectors and regulators. But a legal snarl may force the state to hand that money back to marijuana consumers, growers and the public - and lawmakers do not want to.
The problem is a strict anti-spending provision in the state Constitution that touches every corner of public life, like school funding, state health care, local libraries and road repairs. Technical tripwires in that voter-approved provision, known as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, may require Colorado to refund nearly $US60 million ($79 million) in marijuana taxes because the state's overall revenue estimates ended up being too low when the marijuana tax question was put to voters.
Lawmakers are scrambling to figure out a way to keep that money, and they are hoping Colorado voters - usually stingy when it comes to taxes and spending - will let them. In rare bipartisan agreement on taxes, legislators are piecing together a bill that would seek voters' permission to hold on to the marijuana money.
South Africans scrutinize US coverage of Trevor Noah (+video)
Trevor Noah’s new role as host of 'The Daily Show' has given South Africans a rare moment of shared pride. But they also wonder if Americans can handle his international brand of comedy.
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — South Africa has a new national hero: Trevor Noah.
Since Comedy Central's Monday announcement that Mr. Noah would be the new host of “The Daily Show," it has been a week of collective fist pumps and “ProudlySA” hashtags on social media.
Noah, a mixed-race stand-up comedian, will be replacing broadcast veteran Jon Stewart on one of America’s most revered political and comedy institutions. And the fact that a massive media franchise wants Noah’s talent, voice, and perspective has created a united sense of national pride in South Africa not seen since Oscar Pistorius won GOLD
at the London Paralympics in 2012.
at the London Paralympics in 2012.Why so many Russians like Stalin again
KYIV, Ukraine — He killed or imprisoned millions of his own people and lorded over one of the most repressive regimes in recent history. He’s also been dead more than 60 years.
But none of that has stopped Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s public approval boost in Russia, where patriotic sentiment has been on the rise under President Vladimir Putin.
Some 45 percent of Russians now say the sacrifices borne by the Soviet population during Stalin’s rule — read: the Gulag, the “Great Terror” and mass repressions — were justified, according to fresh figures from the Levada Center, a respected pollster. That’s up from 25 percent in 2012.
A similar Levada survey in January found that more than half the population thinks the mustachioed strongman played a “positive” historical role.
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