Six In The Morning Tuesday August 4

Syria approaching de facto partition amid Assad military setbacks

Regime forces have been ceding territory to rebel fighters and Islamic State to regroup in western strongholds

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut

Tuesday 4 August 2015 05.00 BST

The growing anarchy and stalemate in Syria has brought the country closer to de facto partition, as the overstretched and exhausted army of the president, Bashar al-Assad, retreats in the face of a war of attrition that has sapped its manpower.

The regime’s military has sought to retain a footprint in far-flung areas of the country, from Deir Ezzor in Syria’s eastern desert to Aleppo in the north and Deraa in the south, attempting to consolidate its hold over state institutions and protect its officer corps by retreating in the face of overwhelming offensives and subjecting lost territory to relentless and indiscriminate aerial campaigns

EVGENY LEBEDEV

Giants Club: President lights the fire that puts Kenya at forefront of Africa’s battle against ivory poachers

Ensuring the survival of elephants is a pan-African problem, and Uhuru Kenyatta’s Giants Club commitment is a huge step towards beating the illegal trade in ivory

No visitor to Nairobi’s State House, a sprawling Palladian mansion designed by the Kent-born architect Herbert Baker more than a century ago, could be in any doubt about the symbolic power of ivory in this, the powerhouse of East Africa.

As I walked into the seat of authority of the Kenyan presidency – and the country’s most important building – two curling tusks, both 100lb at least, framed the entrance way through which all visitors, whether presidents or royalty, pass into its ceremonial rooms.

Ivory has a resonance in Kenya that goes beyond the merely symbolic, however. It illustrates the country’s precious natural inheritance, which includes some of the greatest wildlife on Earth. It is also the currency of an illegal and rampant industry worth billions: elephant poaching.

Pakistan executes Shafqat Hussain despite appeals

• 4 August 2015
 
• From the sectionAsia

Pakistan has executed Shafqat Hussain, convicted of killing a child in 2004, despite appeals from international human rights groups.

His lawyers say he was 14 when found guilty and his confession was extracted by torture, but officials say there is no proof he was a minor when convicted.

He met his family one last time before midnight, then was hanged shortly before dawn at a jail in Karachi.

Legal challenges saw his execution postponed four times this year.

But despite the postponements, legal challenges and intense lobbying, all his appeals for mercy were ultimately turned down.

The Pakistani government scrapped a moratorium on capital punishment in the aftermath of an attack on a school in Peshawar in December last years in which more than 150 school pupils and teachers were killed by the Taliban.

This American Life explains why school segregation still exists — and is so hard to change

by Libby Nelson 

School integration has shrunk steadily for nearly three decades: ever since 1988, the number of black students and white students who attend school together has decreased. And the achievement gap between black and white students has grown.

Sunday's This American Life provided a potent look at how hard it is to reverse that trend, and how strong the resistance to school integration still is. Nikole Hannah-Jonesof The New York Times Magazine reported from Missouri's Normandy School District, where Ferguson's Michael Brown went to school before he was shot by police officer Darren Wilson last August:

Mexico City: Why didn't slain journalist Ruben Espinosa seek protection?

More than 50 journalists have been killed or disappeared in Mexico since 2011.

By Whitney Eulich, Correspondent

MEXICO CITY — Under threat, Mexican photojournalist Rubén Espinosa fled the state of Veracruz, where he worked. His murder last week underscores not only the dangers journalists face in Mexico, but how little faith reporters here have in promises of government protection.

Mr. Espinosa, who worked for respected news outlets like the investigative magazine Proceso, fled in June after being harassed and telling others his home was under surveillance. He relocated to Mexico City, considered safe by many reporters and human rights defenders threatened in Mexico.

On Friday, Espinosa and four women – one a human rights activist – were found dead in an apartment in a middle class neighborhood. Their bodies showed signs of torture.

Two horrific killings of children put Israel at a crossroads

By Nic Robertson, CNN

Updated 0211 GMT (0911 HKT) August 4, 2015

Ori and Mika Banki did what no parent should ever face.

On Monday they buried their daughter Shira. She was just 16.

The girl they said was "charming, happy, lively and beloved" has been ripped from their lives.

"With no purpose but with stupidity, evilness and recklessness, her life came to an end," the family said in a statement. "Bad things happen to good people and the worst thing happened to our amazing child."

Their grief is fueling a wider discourse.

Israelis are familiar with sudden death. But this is different. Not just because Ori and Mika Banki's anguish is impossible for any parent to insulate against, but because Shira's brutal killing questions the very lives people live here.