North Korea ratchets up tensions after trading fire with South
Updated 1003 GMT (1703 HKT) August 21, 2015 | Video Source: CNN
North Korea is amping up tensions in the region after apparently firing artillery at South Korean loudspeakers that are blaring criticism of Kim Jong Un's regime over the border.
Kim, the supreme commander of the North Korean military, has ordered front-line units along the heavily fortified frontier to move to a war footing on Friday evening, state media reported.
His nuclear-armed regime, known for being both thin-skinned and fond of saber-rattling, has warned South Korea it faces military action if it doesn't turn off the propaganda loudspeakers by Saturday evening.
Chinese authorities investigate mass fish death near Tianjin explosion site
Photographs show thousands of dead fish floating in river only a few kilometres from scene of deadly explosion
Chinese authorities have denied that the deaths of thousands of fish near the scene of a catastrophic industrial disaster are linked to last week’s chemical explosions in Tianjin which killed at least 114 people.
Photographs showing the surface of the River Hai coated in dead sticklebacks spread on social media sites on Thursday, adding to fears that military clean up teams had failed to prevent chemicals leaking out of the blast site.
Authorities say around 40 types of chemicalswere being stored at the warehouse at the centre of the explosions including ammonium nitrate and large quantities of sodium cyanide.
However, Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said no toxic levels of cyanide had been found in the river during tests on Thursday afternoon. The fish were found around 6km from the blast site.
South Sudan journalist killed days after president Kiir issues warning
A journalist has been shot dead in South Sudan's capital, Juba. Just days ago, the country's president issued what sounded like a threat to the media. The US has called for a thorough investigation.
Peter Julius Moi, who worked with the independent New Nation newspaper in Juba, was shot as he was heading home after work on Wednesday evening, his colleagues said.
Residents in the area said Moi was shot with two bullets in the back, adding that none of his belongings, including his mobile phone, had been taken.
The shooting comes just days after South Sudan President Salva Kiir (pictured above) issued a warning to reporters before flying to Ethiopia for peace talks aimed at ending more than 18 months of fighting in the world's newest nation.
"Freedom of the press does not mean you that work against your country," Kiir told journalists Sunday. "If anybody among them does not know that this country has killed people, we will demonstrate it one day on them," he added.
'You are all responsible for our death', declare besieged Syrians
August 21, 2015 - 6:18PMRuth Pollard
Middle East Correspondent
"[The] Assad regime is killing us and destroying our city. You are all responsible for our death. Your silence is keeping him strong. Remember we only wanted to live in a free Syria."
This despairing "message to the world" from the people of Zabadani, a hill town near the Lebanese border that has been under siege since 2012, was posted on Twitter on August 15 as the seven-week battle between the Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters, and opposition rebel groups intensified.
Zabadani citizens have endured more than 600 barrel bombs - huge, improvised explosives dropped from Syrian air force helicopters - in the two months since June, in a wave of terror from the sky that was met with rockets and heavy mortars from rebel groups.
Meet the 'toilet man of India'
Dr Bindeshwar Pathak has built 1.3 million toilets in India where nearly half of billion plus people defecate in open.
Showkat Shafi |
According to the UN, around 595 million people, or nearly half of India's population, defecates in the open.
In his first Independence Day address on August 15, 2014, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the building of toilets in rural India, one of his government's major priorities.
A year later the Indian government claims that their "Clean India" campaign has since achieved the target of ensuring separate toilets for boys and girls in all schools across the country. They also claimed to have constructed around 800,000 toilets in rural India.
But according to some reports in local media, while the toilets may be getting built, many villagers have refused to change thir habits, and toilets are lying empty.
China's land reclamation in South China Sea grows: Pentagon report
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China has reclaimed more land in the disputed Spratly islands of the South China Sea than previously known, according to a new Pentagon report, which says Beijing is also completing construction of a runway on one of its seven man-made outposts.
Once the airstrip on Fiery Cross Reef is operational, China could potentially use it as an alternative runway for carrier-based planes, allowing the Chinese military to conduct "sustained operations" with aircraft carriers in the area, the report said.
China's sole aircraft carrier, a Soviet-era ship bought from Ukraine and refitted in China, has carried out exercises in the South China Sea but is not yet fully operational. Some experts believe China will deploy domestically built carriers by 2020 as part of plans to develop an ocean-going "blue water" navy.
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