Mexico and Texas hit by deadly storms
- 2 hours ago
- Latin America & Caribbean
At least 13 people have been killed by a tornado that hit the northern Mexico border city of Ciudad Acuna.
Hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed in the city, in Coahuila state, just across the border from Del Rio, Texas.
The US state has had big floods, with at least three dead and 12 missing.
Images from Mexico showed cars and buildings badly damaged. Many people have been injured and there are fears the death toll could rise.
Coahuila Governor Ruben Moreira, on a visit to the stricken area, said 10 adults and three children had died and a baby was missing. Another 150 people had been taken to hospital, he said.
Marikana survivors sue Zuma to force release of official report into massacre
South African president has refused to say when he will publish report of official inquiry into the 2012 shooting of striking mineworkers by police
Survivors of the Marikana mine massacre are taking the South African president, Jacob Zuma, to court in an attempt to force the release of an official investigation into the killings.
The shootings by police in August 2012 left 34 mineworkers dead and more than 78 injured on what has been described as South Africa’s darkest day since the end of apartheid.
Zuma immediately announced a judicial commission of inquiry which duly sat for 293 days, hearing evidence including that police planted weapons on some of the dead bodies to fit a false narrative. The commission submitted its report to Zuma at the end of March.
No access granted to Iran trial of Washington Post reporter
Jason Rezaian (39) said to be facing four charges including one of espionage
Ignoring foreign requests for court access, the Iranian judge presiding over the espionage case against Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter imprisoned for 10 months, has barred everyone except the defendant and his lawyer.
Mr Rezaian’s brother said that not even the reporter’s mother and wife, who as of last week had been led to believe they would be allowed to attend, will be permitted in the courtroom.
Mr Rezaian (39) was scheduled to appear Tuesday in the Tehran Revolutionary Court branch of Judge Abolghassem Salavati, known as “the judge of death” for tough sentences and a reputation that led the European Union to place him on a blacklist in 2011 for human rights abuses.
China set to step up offshore military capabilities
China has announced a change in military strategy, which will see it boost its naval capacities farther beyond its shores. This comes amid tensions in the South China Sea, where there are competing territorial claims.
A policy white paper unveiled by China's Cabinet, the State Council, on Tuesday, said that in future, the People's Liberation Army would place a greater emphasis on "open seas protection" as opposed to "offshore waters defense" alone.
It also said China's air force would shift its focus "from territorial air defense to both defense and offense," while at the same time the army would implement measures to increase its global mobility. Artillery forces are also to increase their capabilities to launch "medium and long-range precision strikes."
The paper was unveiled at a time when Beijing and Washington have been at loggerheads over China's land-reclamation projects in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The archipelago has long been the subject of a territorial dispute, as not only China, but also the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei claim it as their own.
North Korea’s Real Life Hunger Games
My second day at the detention center, I was sent to weed the rice fields. The task was exhausting, slogging for hours through the flooded rows of dirt, pulling at the weeds and digging down with my fingers for the grub-white roots. Around noon, we marched under a hot sun back to the detention center for lunch. Not knowing the routine, I simply followed everyone else, trying not to stick out. After we ate our meager portions of corn noodle soup, the guard, a lean teenager with an angry face, yelled: “It is your break time.” I watched as the other boys lay down and fell asleep instantly. I could tell how precious this time was by how fast they dropped to the floor.
When a famine struck our region of North Korea in 1995, I was five years old and living with my father, mother, and older sister Bong Sook in the province of North Hamgyong. In the difficult years that followed, my father died of starvation and illness, my mother was arrested for trying to cross the border into China, and Bong Sook was either sold into sex slavery or bought as a wife by a Chinese man — I never found out which. After my family scattered, I spent my early teenage years as one of the many Kkotjebi, or “wandering swallows,” homeless children who begged in the marketplace and slept wherever they could. Some had been abandoned by parents who couldn’t feed them; others had watched their family disintegrate under the pressure of the famine, as mine had. In the summer of 2005 — a year before I escaped to China, and two years before I made it to the United States — the Saraocheong, the government branch that oversees minors, placed me in the detention center for three months for not attending school.
India: One year after change of the political guard
Narendra Modi and his ruling BJP government receive a mixed response on the delivery of pre-election promises.
Baba Umar | |
Varanasi, India - Millions of Indian voters helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi rise to power last May when he promised to overhaul the economy, end corruption, and create jobs in the country.
Modi sought a mere 60 months to bring about vast changes that he said Congress - the former ruling party - was unable to deliver over the 60 previous years.
On Tuesday, the one year anniversary of a Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, many of these voters are evaluating Modi's performance.
In the sweltering summer heat of Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world, boatman Chidan Nisad and silk weaver Mohammad Iliyas remember Modi's visit last year to launch the "Clean India" campaign.
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