Six In The Morning Friday July 31

Palestinian toddler killed in 'Jewish settler' arson attack

• 31 July 2015
 
• From the sectionMiddle East

A Palestinian toddler has been killed in an arson attack in the West Bank, suspected to have been carried out by Jewish settlers, Israeli police say.

The 18-month-old boy was killed in the night-time attack on two homes in the village of Duma. His parents, brother and another child were injured.

Slogans in Hebrew, including the word "revenge", were found sprayed on a wall of one of the firebombed houses.

Israel's prime minister called the attack "reprehensible and horrific".

"This is an act of terrorism in every respect. The State of Israel takes a strong line against terrorism regardless of the perpetrators," Benjamin Netanyahu said in a tweet.

German government accuses news website of treason over leaks

For the first time in more than 50 years journalists are facing treason charges, which is being denounced as an attack on the freedom of the press

Reuters in Berlin

Friday 31 July 2015 02.32 BST

Germany has opened a treason investigation into a news website a broadcaster said had reported on plans to increase state surveillance of online communications.

German media said it was the first time in more than 50 years journalists had faced treason charges, and some denounced the move as an attack on the freedom of the press.

“The federal prosecutor has started an investigation on suspicion of treason into the articles ... published on the internet blog Netzpolitik.org,” a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said.

She added the move followed a criminal complaint by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), over articles about the BfV that appeared on the website on 25 February and 15 April. It said the articles had been based on leaked documents.

Mullah Omar dead: Afghan Taliban struggles to maintain unity in the wake of leader's death – as exclusively seen letters apparently reveal

The terror group have named deputy leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as his successor, but the handover has exposed deep divisions among top commanders

BILAL SARWARY

 

KABUL

 

Friday 31 July 2015

The radio silence gave way to frantic conversations. Local Taliban commanders sought reassurance. Mullah Omar, the mujahedin commander of Kandahar, had finally been declared dead and along the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, confusion reigned. Listening to the hurried conversations in Kandahar on Wednesday night were the Afghan border police.

“What are our orders now?” one Taliban soldier near the Pakistan city of Quetta said. “We don’t know,” another replied. “Is Mullah Omar dead? Who is leading us?”

A border police officer, 32, who has lost six members of his family to Taliban attacks, told The Independent that district commanders of the Afghan Taliban were unsure whose orders to follow. “They don’t know who their leaders are,” the police commander said. “The Taliban are worried and confused. They are not fighting they are just talking on the radio.”

Textbook protest: Taiwanese students storm education ministry

July 31, 2015 - 2:29PM

 

Hundreds of students occupied the Taiwanese Ministry of Education compound on Friday, intensifying anti-China protests over textbooks they say are aimed at promoting Beijing's "one China" policy.

The protest came a day after one of the students, reportedly Lin Kuan-hua, a spokesman for the movement against a controversial high school curriculum revision, committed suicide.

About 700 students climbed barricades around the ministry and as of Friday morning about 200 students were encamped inside the ministry compound, demanding an audience with the island's Education Minister, police said.

"We have received orders not to remove the students," a police spokesman said.

Keisaburo Toyonaga helps Koreans and other non-Japanese atom bomb survivors

Though Japanese himself, he's spent decades aiding non-Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

By Takehiko Kambayashi, Correspondent

HIROSHIMA, JAPAN — Keisaburo Toyonaga fumed when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his speech here two years ago that Japanese are “the only people” to have suffered from an atomic bombing.

The hawkish leader’s words at the anniversaries of the 1945 US bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Mr. Toyonaga and others to lodge a strong protest. There were foreigners living in Japan at the time who also suffered, they said.

Mr. Abe did not use the phrase in speeches marking last year’s anniversaries.

Toyonaga, a longtime crusader for Korean survivors of the atomic bombings, says Abe’s remarks were insensitive because tens of thousands of Koreans and other non-Japanese living in those cities were also killed and injured.

Eritrea blames migrant exodus on human trafficking

Foreign ministry calls on UN to bring smugglers to justice, saying rights abuses not behind huge numbers leaving nation.

31 Jul 2015 07:54 GMT

Eritrea has urged the UN Security Council to help bring human traffickers to justice, saying smuggling groups, not human rights abuses, were causing an exodus of migrants to Europe.

About 5,000 people flee Eritrea each month, according to the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Thousands of migrants have been picked up in the Mediterranean trying to cross to Europe, and many say they are fleeing military conscription and rights abuses.

"The principal objective of this organised crime is to prevent Eritrea and its people from defending their sovereignty by dispersing and debilitating their human resources," Eritrea's foreign ministry said in a statement.