Six In The Morning Wednesday August 26

Curfew in Ahmedabad as caste protests turn violent

Police reinforcements deployed after 500,000 Patels protest in Indian city over job and college quotas.

26 Aug 2015 08:11 GMT 
India has deployed paramilitary forces and imposed a curfew in Ahmedabad, the capital of the Gujarat state, after violence broke out at a protest led by a powerful caste to demand more government jobs and college places.

The Gujarat state government imposed a curfew in parts of Ahmedabad and four other cities and towns across the western state and called in paramilitary reinforcements on Wednesday after members of the affluent Patel caste protested in the city.

Stone-throwing Patels torched cars, buses and police stations over the arrest of their leader, Hardik Patel, who had hours earlier on Tuesday led a massive protest in Ahmedabad, senior police officers said.

9/11's 'Dust Lady' Marcy Borders dies of cancer

World Trade Centre worker was captured in an iconic photograph on the day of the al-Qaeda attacks

ROSE TROUP BUCHANAN 

 

 

Wednesday 26 August 2015

The woman photographed fleeing the World Trade Centre in one of the most iconic and enduring images of the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks has died from cancer.

Marcy Borders, 42, known as the ‘Dust Lady’, had attributed her stomach cancer - diagnosed in April 2014 - to the after-effects of the attack in 2001 which claimed 2,753 lives.

The mother-of-two, who is believed to have died on Monday night according to her family's social media posts, blamed her illness on inhaling dust particles: “I’m saying to myself ‘Did this thing ignite cancer cells in me?

UN threatens action if South Sudan president leaves peace deal unsigned

The UN Security Council says it would "act immediately" if the South Sudanese president does not sign a long-awaited peace deal. Salva Kiir is due to sign it on Wednesday but is said to have reservations.

The UN Security Council said it would take immediate, unspecified action if President Salva Kiir (above left) does not sign a deal to end a 20-month civil war in South Sudan.

Kiir is expected to sign the power-sharing agreement alongside regional leaders in the capital, Juba, on Wednesday, but has voiced hesitation through a presidential spokesman.

Spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said Kiir would express reservations over the agreement, which rebel leader Riek Machar (above right) signed a week ago. Ateny said Kiir was unhappy about demands that Juba be demilitarized, among others.

"We will take immediate action if he does not sign, or if he signs with reservations," said the current UN Security Council president, Nigerian Ambassador Joy Ogwu.

Why Islamic State prefers US servers for its online propaganda

Arab hacktivists dedicated to 'taking down' the jihadists' sites say US laws and bureaucracy impede their work, making US-hosted sites attractive to the Islamic State.

By Taylor Luck, Correspondent

AMMAN, JORDAN — Hacker-activists across the world have launched an online war against the so-called Islamic State, targeting the web-savvy jihadists’ vast Internet network of supporters and suspected sleeper cells.

But bureaucracy at a wary FBI and stringent US laws against hacking are slowing these efforts to take down the IS web forums and social media accounts, experts and analysts say. As a result, they say, the jihadists are opting to base their web operations on US-hosted sites in order to take advantage of US legal protections.

Various groups of anonymous citizen hackers are taking on the jihadists, including Ghost Security, an alliance of 12 like-minded hackers with military and intelligence backgrounds. Known as GhostSec, the group seeks to monitor and flag various web forums and social media accounts allegedly used by the group to communicate to its followers.

Can water from Turkey help reunify Cyprus?

BY ALTAY ATLI on AUGUST 25, 2015 in ASIA TIMES NEWS & FEATURES, MIDDLE EAST

A recently completed pipeline crossing beneath the Mediterranean will carry 75 million cubic meters of fresh water annually from Turkey to the northern i.e. Turkish part of the divided island of Cyprus. While this is certainly a positive development for the isolated Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is suffering not only from severe droughts but also from an international embargo since its unilateral declaration of independence in 1983, the important question is what effect it is going to have with regard to prospects of reunification of the island. Will the water coming from Turkey through the pipeline, which is named Barış Suyu (Peace Water) by Turks, live up to its name and bring the two communities living on Cyprus closer together, or will it have the opposite effect by turning the Turkish part of the island into a dependence of Turkey?

One thing is for certain: Turkish Cypriots desperately need the water coming from Turkey. Rainfall and groundwater fall short of meeting the Turkish Cypriots’ demand which is projected to rise to 200 million cubic meters by 2020, with 70% of the amount to be used for irrigation and the rest for households. TRNC’s water storage capacity of 17 million cubic meters and its minuscule desalination capacity contribute little to the needs of the economy and a steady flow of water from the mainland is a must.