Six In The Morning Wednesday June 3

Interpol issues six wanted person alerts over FIFA case

Two former FIFA officials, including Jack Warner, and four corporate executives wanted over racketeering and corruption.

03 Jun 2015 09:12 GMT | Sport, Europe, Football, FIFA, Sepp Blatter

Interpol has placed six people, including two former FIFA officials and four corporate executives, on its most wanted list on racketeering and corruption charges at the request of US authorities.

The former FIFA officials are ex-vice president Jack Warner and former FIFA executive committee member, Nicolás Leoz.

The Red Notices issued by Interpol are not international arrest warrants.

However, they are used by the organisation to inform its member countries that an arrest warrant has been issued for an individual by a judicial authority and who seeks the location and arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition or similar lawful action.

Japanese robot cat Doraemon helps ease diplomatic tensions with China

An animated film featuring the popular Manga comic book figure is playing to packed cinemas in mainland China

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Wednesday 3 June 2015 06.44 BST

Just a few months ago, Chinese media denounced him as a counter-revolutionary.

Now, though, Doraemon – Japan’s beloved robot cat – is easing diplomatic tensions between Tokyo and Beijing, and breaking box-office records in the process.

The 3D animated film Stand By Me Doraemon brought in 30m yuan ($4.8m) in receipts on its opening day last Thursday, and repeated the feat the following day.

As parents and children packed out Chinese cinemas, receipts surged to 85m yuan and 88m yuan on Saturday and Sunday, surpassing the previous single-day record for animated movies, held by the US film Kung Fu Panda 2.

Syria civil war: The harrowing testament of a five-year-old victim of this endless conflict

Sahar Qanbar lost her mother and brother as civilians and government soldiers fought side by side after being surrounded by brutal Islamist fighters. Robert Fisk visited her in Latakia

ROBERT FISK 

 

LATAKIA

The only thing as heartbreaking as Sahar Qanbar’s smile is her story. Simple and terrible, it leaves any visitor to her grandmother’s home with an unfathomable question: how much can a five-year-old girl understand when she says of her brother Hashem and her mother Asma, quite literally: “Hashem was martyred. Mummy was wounded. Both of them were martyred.”

“Martyrdom” is a word which Arabs use of the dead without affectation. In the West, we might say that loved ones “lost their lives”. But can Sahar, holding a child’s notebook of her drawings of flowers and trees and butterflies – yes, and guns – truly comprehend the end of her family’s life? The tragedy of Sahar Qanbar begins and finishes in the nondescript Syrian town of Jisr al-Shugour on the Orontes River, on the edge of Idlib province, which is almost entirely lost to the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. 

Teaching peace to protect young Nigerians from hate

03 JUN 2015 00:00 CHIKA ODUAH

Boko Haram had used Islamic schools to promote their violent ideology to youth, now these schools are trying to make a change by teaching peace.

Children remain anxiously awake with artillery fire cracking through the air as Nigerian troops battle Boko Haram fighters in this city once known as the “home of peace”.

Hundreds of the armed group’s members recently stormed into Maiduguri near the Giwa Barracks, the largest army base in northeastern Nigeria.

Since the launch earlier this year of a multinational military force with troops from Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon, Boko Haram fighters have retreated from areas it once controlled, huge swaths of territory almost the size of Belgium.

Attacks have begun to hit Maiduguri recently, including a deadly one on Saturday by a suicide bomber who blew himself up at a mosque.

International coalition united against ISIS, but not everyone wants the same thing

The US-led International coalition against the Islamic State met in Paris on Tuesday to share intelligence and discuss future stability in the region.

By Lori Hinnant, Associated Press Jamey Keaten, Associated Press

PARIS — The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State is doubling down on its strategy to fight the extremists, despite the radical group's recent conquests on both sides of the border between Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pressed his case Tuesday for more support from the 25 countries in the coalition at a one-day Paris conference on fighting the militant group, organized within weeks of the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra.

The coalition has mustered a mix of airstrikes, intelligence sharing and assistance for Iraqi ground operations against the extremists. Al-Abadi said more was needed – his country reeling after troops pulled out of Ramadi without a fight and abandoned U.S.-supplied tanks and weapons.

'Wolves of the sea': The vanishing fishermen of Greece's Paros island

By Barry Neild, CNN

Updated 0118 GMT (0818 HKT) June 3, 2015

"Wolves of the sea" isn't the friendliest of nicknames, but the weather-beaten fishermen who ply the blue waters around the Greek island of Paros are unlikely to care.

"They're a special kind of human," said Austrian photographer Christian Stemper, who has spent five years documenting their lives. "For them, it's just the boat and the sea and the fish.

"Nothing else."

Stemper began taking photos of the Paros "wolves" in 2010 after several years of vacation visits to the Aegean island.

At first he focused on their caiques, traditional wooden boats that are barely big enough to hold a single fisherman and his catch, let alone their nets.