Six In The Morning Saturday July 4

The Tunisian town where ISIS makes militants

By Nima Elbagir, CNN

Updated 0108 GMT (0808 HKT) July 4, 2015

| Video Source: CNN

Western intelligence agencies believe Tunisians head the league table of foreign fighters swelling ISIS ranks, and Tunisian authorities identify the town of Kasserine as a veritable pipeline of recruits.

Once famous for its central role in the Tunisian revolution, Kasserine is now infamous as a source of radicalized young men flocking to Syria and Libya in their thousands.

So why? Why here?

Just 30 km (18 miles) from Tunisia's border with Algeria, Kasserine's geography makes it ideal as a meeting point for jihadis from both countries. And the ridges and crevices of the Chaambi Mountains provide perfect cover for terrorist training camps, in spite of the government's ongoing efforts to uproot them.

Gaza, a year on from Operation Protective Edge: Families still living among the rubble of 18,000 homes destroyed in a 50-day war

On 8 July last year, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, a campaign in Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire into the country by Hamas. The ensuing 50-day conflict left some 2,251 Palestinians dead, mostly civilians, including 551 children. Seventy-three Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed. Both sides have since been accused of possible war crimes by an independent UN Commission. In Gaza, where 18,000 homes were seriously damaged or destroyed, rebuilding has been slow, hampered by border restrictions and political infighting. In the first of a series examining the aftermath, Sam Masters reports from Gaza on the families who are still living among rubble a year later.

Spray painted in blue, eight letters and numbers are all that indicate K60-1-1009, a vast pile of concrete and twisted steel, was once a six-storey home. There, some 32 members of one family lived in what they thought was heaven.

The border town of Khuzaa, near Khan Younis, was smashed and obliterated by Israeli bombs during Operation Protective Edge – Israel’s response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip a year ago. And the homes like those across Gaza are still not rebuilt.

The blue numbers and letters are an attempt by Palestinian authorities to indicate ownership of land across Gaza in the unlikely event of them being reconstructed.

“This was my home,” says Fadda al-Najjar the matriarch of the family that lived in K60-1-1009. Limping slightly, she looks considerably older than her 63 years. “This was the sofa, that was the carpet,” she adds, pointing to tufts of material trapped beneath the rubble. She says Khuzaa was peaceful before the war started, and claims no rockets were fired into Israel from the area.

Taiwan marks WWII victory over Japan with military parade

Taiwan has staged a military parade to mark the defeat of Japanese troops in World War II 70 years ago. Taipei claims its soldiers were at the forefront of the military campaign.

Thousands of Taiwanese soldiers marched, veterans were honored, and military hardware was on display in the island nation's northern Hsinchu county on Saturday to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of imperial Japan.

The military parade was part of a campaign by Taipei's governing Nationalist Party to reinforce its claim that its soldiers, as opposed to the Chinese Communists, led the campaign that defeated the Japanese in World War II.

"The war of resistance was led by the Republic of China and Chairman Chiang Kai-shek was the force behind it," said Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in a speech after the parade, referring to the Nationalist government's longtime former strongman. Taiwan's official name is the "Republic of China."

Rape victim told to marry to become 'respectable'

July 4, 2015 - 12:00PM

Amrit Dhillon

New Delhi: Three words no woman who has been raped ever wants to hear have thrown a young woman in a remote part of India into turmoil ever since the idea was proposed by a high court judge last month.

Having tried to put the rape of 2008 behind her and to get on with raising the little girl born nine months later, 21-year-old Asha* has been troubled by memories and disturbed by the judge's shocking suggestion: marry your rapist.

"When the judge took his pen and wrote this, did he think even once of my plight?", she asked an Indian Express journalist in a video interview in the garden of her one-room home.

UK Muslims decry move to host Prophet Muhammad exhibit

UK-based anti-Sharia campaign group will host an exhibition featuring cartoons of the prophet of Islam in September.

Azad Essa | 03 Jul 2015 21:33 GMT

Muslim organisations in the UK have condemned a move by an anti-Sharia campaign group to host an exhibition featuring cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in London in September.

Azad Ali, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum based in London, told Al Jazeera on Friday the proposed "Muhammad Cartoon Exhibit" by UK-based Sharia Watch was an attempt to taunt the tolerance levels of British Muslims, and described the move as a cheap attempt to create disharmony in the UK.

"They keep on pushing the boundary, testing the levels and always upping the ante ... this is what this is about: getting a reaction from Muslims and looking for a justification to demonise us," Ali said.