On his second night hosting Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Trevor Noah admit he was disappointed with Isis for selling ancient artifacts throughout Syria and the Middle East.
“I’m not angry with you, I’m disappointed, because you sold out. And the most embarrassing thing is who you sold out to,” he said, referring to United States art collectors. The South African-born comedian slammed the terrorist organization for claiming their mass murders were out of religious conviction, when they are really "capitalist hypocrites" who make millions of dollars off stolen oil and artifact sales.
“You’ve got to admire someone who makes that much money… and still drives their s**t car to work every single day. They’re like the Warren Buffet of the terrorist organisations.”
A series of "massive" explosions rocked the southern Chinese city of
Liuzhou on Wednesday, killing at least three people and injuring more
than a dozen, state media reported.
A local police chief told state news agency
Zinhua that the 13 explosions hit locations including a hospital, a food
market and a bus station, state news agency Xinhua reported.
State-run broadcaster CCTV cited a police chief saying the blasts
were caused by "parcels containing explosives," without providing
further information.
Both CCTV and Xinhua said three people had been
killed and at least 13 injured. NBC News could not immediately confirm
that tally.
Images posted to Twitter by the Chinese media
outlets appeared to show partially collapsed buildings, rubble in the
streets, and at least one plume of smoke above the city.
The Taliban are widening their offensive in northern Afghanistan after government forces failed to take back Kunduz, the strategic city in the north, which on Monday was captured by insurgents. It is the largest Afghan city to fall to the Taliban in the 14-year war.
Despite claims from Afghan authorities that an airstrike had killed a prominent Taliban leader and more than 100 insurgents, it appears that the militants have dug in around the city.
According to local people, Taliban fighters are still walking the streets freely, assuring people they do not intend to harm civilians in an apparent attempt to win local support.
Ten years on Danish daily stands by Muhammad caricatures
Debate continues as ‘Jyllands-Posten’ newspaper and cartoonist unrepentant
On this day a decade ago, few outside Denmark noticed when the right-wing Jyllands-Posten daily published a dozen cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad.
The newspaper’s then culture editor, Flemming Rose, commissioned the cartoons as an experiment after hearing of a Danish author’s difficulty in finding anyone to illustrate a book about the life of Muhammad, given Islam’s ban on images of the prophet.
A few weeks later the Cartoon Crisis, as it came to be known, sparked violent protests in the Muslim world where angry demonstrators burned Danish flags and torched diplomatic offices.
A decade on, everything has changed for the Jyllands-Posten and its staff. Rose, now foreign editor, is flanked by bodyguards wherever he goes. In public appearances, angry verbal attacks or boycott calls are common. In Doha, he was dubbed a “Danish Satan”.
CHINA09/29/2015
Chinese cadets rush to defend ‘strange’ punishment
Lu Haitao
A group of Chinese students have been forced to carry out their compulsory military training wrapped in thick bed covers, as punishment for not tidying their rooms. After lying under the blazing sun in a blanket, students at southern China's Changsha University then did exercises with buckets on their head. While social media users and media outlets slammed the punishment for its absurdity, the victims themselves have rushed to defend it.
Instructors at Changsha University in China's Hunan province have inventive means of discipline. Photos published on Weibo - China's most popular social media network - and subsequently republished by several Chinese media outlets show the students carrying out their bizarre punishment. While Hunan roasted under a September sun that almost hit 30 degrees last week, around 20 or so students wrapped themselves in blankets, put a bucket on their heads and ran circuits while their classmates watched. According to Chinese media and students who were there, the spectacle lasted 10 minutes.
Several Chinese media outlets lashed out at the instructors. On Weibo, users were also quick to criticise. Yet in a bizarre twist, the teachers responsible for reprimanding them have found the unlikeliest of defenders: the students themselves.
Banksy's Dismaland theme park to be turned into shelters for migrants in Calais
Banksy'sDismaland, the "most disappointing" theme park in Britain, will be broken down and turned into shelters for migrants in France.
"Coming soon ... Dismaland Calais," a statement on the park's website announced Monday. "All the timber and fixtures from Dismaland are being sent to the 'Jungle' refugee camp near Calais to build shelters. No online tickets will be available."
The sprawling art installation -- Banksy's dystopian send-up of Disneyland -- is being dismantled after its five-week run in the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare in southwest England.
George Pataki calls for Twitter to censor Edward Snowden's tweet, because America
Updated by Ezra Klein on September 29, 2015, 6:00 p.m. ET
Edward Snowdenjoined Twitter today, and cheekily made the National Security Agency his first follow:
In response, ex-New York Gov. George Pataki called for Twitter to censor Snowden's tweets, because that's what great Americans do — suppress speech they don't like:
Pataki, who is running for president as a Republican, is currently at 0.6 percent in the polls.
Indonesia 'needs time' to tackle haze - Joko Widodo
Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has said he needs time to tackle the forest-burning which creates a haze every year over South East Asia.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Mr Widodo said Indonesians were also victims of the haze, but it would take three years for results to be seen from efforts to end the huge annual fires.
He also said Indonesia was open to investment, promising to cut red tape.
And he dismissed criticism he had failed to deliver on election promises.
Illegal fires
Speaking to the BBC Asia Business correspondent Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta, Mr Widodo said the haze was "not a problem that you can solve quickly".
The pollution is caused by people in Indonesia's Sumatra, Kalimantan and Riau regions illegally burning large areas of forest and peat for planting, mostly with lucrative palm oil trees.
Afghan forces launch bid to retake Kunduz from Taliban
Afghan forces have begun an operation to retake the city of Kunduz, after suffering a major military reverse when it was seized by the Taliban on Monday.
Security forces have cleared the area around the central prison and the police headquarters, officials said.
The US said it carried out an air strike on the city early on Tuesday.
In one of their biggest assaults since 2001, the Taliban had forced Afghan troops and officials to retreat to the airport and freed hundreds from jail.
The attack on the northern city came as President Ashraf Ghani completed a year in office.
Kunduz is the first provincial capital seized by the Taliban since they lost power in the US-led invasion 14 years ago, and the Taliban's advance there will pile pressure on Mr Ghani's unity government.
'Refugees don't leave their conflicts behind'
Following reports of aggressive incidents in German refugee shelters, authorities are looking for ways to calm the situation. Suggestions include separate housing for Muslim and Christian asylum-seekers.
There are no official statistics, but aid organizations, social workers and volunteers note that ethnic, social, cultural and religious tensions are on the rise in Germany's overcrowded refugee shelters.
Separating refugees according to religion is now being mentioned as an interim solution to help alleviate the problems.
Up to one million migrants are expected to arrive in the country before the end of the year. The sudden surge in asylum demands this year has authorities scrambling for housing for refugees from war zones such as Syria, but also migrants from Albania and Kosovo. Often converted hotels, gyms, schools and tents are used as makeshift shelters.
Tempers flare easily at close quarters. In Leipzig last week, about 200 refugees wielding table legs and bed frames started a fight after they couldn't agree who got to use one of the few toilets first. It took a large police contingent to calm the situation.
Inside Kunduz: 'The Taliban have taken my city'
najib kunduz
In the early hours of Monday, Taliban insurgents overran Kurduz, a major city in northern Afghanistan. A local Afghan journalist spoke to us of the chaos and destruction that ensued.
France 24 spoke to this local journalist on Monday afternoon by phone. The conversation was interrupted by fighting that forced our Observer to seek shelter. This is what he told us:
Overnight, small groups of Taliban fighters – 15 or so men per group – entered Kurduz from different points and started attacking different spots across the city. The soldiers fled, so they easily took over all the official buildings, including the hospital and the prison, from which they freed hundreds of prisoners [Editor’s note: According to local authorities, these prisoners included many Taliban insurgents].
By the morning, the Taliban controlled about half the town. There were pockets of resistance from militiamen funded by the central government, but there were not enough of them. By this afternoon, the Taliban had taken over the whole of our city of Kurduz. Most of the city is deserted; all the stores are closed and most people are staying indoors. I saw them arresting some people and putting them in 4x4s. I don’t know where they’re taking them. Word is they’re looking for anyone belonging to the police or the army, or working with international organizations. These people are trying to hide. The Taliban don’t seem to be targeting anyone else; it seems they’re trying to behave well with ordinary citizens.
The copper rods tell their own tale of the trade in human beings: 28 to 37 copper rods would pay for a female slave, 38 to 48 for a male.
The view of the Calabar River from Government Hill is spectacular. It is easy to imagine that Consul Edward Hewett must have stood on the top floor of his house to watch the ships carrying palm oil as they left for Britain.
Hewett, a stern-faced man with a drooping moustache, was the first resident of what is now known as the Old Residency, a building prefabricated in Britain and then shipped to Calabar in 1884. The ground floor served as the headquarters of the expanding British Protectorate that would eventually become the southern part of the British colony Nigeria. With Nigeria’s independence in 1960, the colonial rulers left, but the Old Residency remained.
Its Scandinavian red-pine wood walls survived the Calabar climate (a 10-month rainy season), the Biafran War (when anything that could serve as firewood disappeared in Nigeria’s blockaded east), and dictatorial destructiveness (under the military rule of Ibrahim Babangida in the 1990s, a sister building some 100 metres away was torn down to make room for a concrete structure that, until now, serves as the presidential lodge).
Nepal accuses India of an economic blockade as border trade freezes up
India has made no secret it is displeased with Nepal's new constitution. An ethnic Hindu minority in southern Nepal has objected to the federal charter's structure.
ByBikash Sangraula, Correspondent
KATHMANDU, NEPAL — A week after adopting a landmark federal constitution, landlocked Nepal is facing what it calls an economic blockade by India as retribution for the new charter's treatment of an ethnic Hindu minority along the southern border with India.
India, a regional powerbroker, has made no secret that it believes Nepal’s constitution should give greater powers to the Hindu minority, known as the Madhesi. But it denies conducting a formal blockade, blaming the disruption of road transportation into Nepal on insecurity along the border.
Protests erupted here today against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who leads a Hindu nationalist party. Nepalese say India is trying to coerce a sovereign nation and unfairly aid a minority that shares its beliefs and interests. Public television officials today cancelled all India-based programming.
The man who would be king of Kurdistan
Decades after warrior-king Sheikh Mahmud's overthrow, Kurds keep on fighting for a homeland.
Sulaimania, Iraq - By the time Sheikh Mahmud Barzinji declared himself king of Kurdistan in 1922, over an area that included the city of Sulaimania and its environs, he had already fought dozens of battles; some alongside the British against the Ottomans, others against the British alongside the Arabs, and then several more against the Arabs.
From March 1923 to mid-1924, the British retaliated against Sheikh Mahmud's perceived insolence with aerial bombardment, and thus ended the Kurds' first attempt at full-fledged sovereignty.
In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne had dealt a definitive blow to Kurdish aspirations for self-determination in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire's disintegration. Three years earlier, the Treaty of Sevres stipulated that the oil-rich Mosul Vilayet be given to the Kurds. But at Lausanne, the British and the French changed their minds and drew up a very different map, which gave rise to the modern state of Iraq.
Each night, she eats enough for three people in front of a webcam watched by thousands of viewers. Critics say this bizarre trend is a symptom of widespread unhappiness and a rise of one-person households in South Korea. They believe it's also a consequence of the government's fanatic push to use food as a band aid after decades of conflict and colonisation.
But the country's love of food is also changing gender stereotypes. Cooking shows are inspiring men to enter the kitchen.
GOP opponents of nuclear deal couldn't find Iran on a map, says Rouhani
By Mick Krever, CNN
The Republican candidates for U.S. president who are attacking the nuclear deal with Iran could hardly find the country on a map, or know that Tehran is the capital, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Sunday.
"Sometimes when I would have time, some of it was broadcast live and I would watch it -- some of it was quite laughable. It was very strange, the things that they spoke of," he said through an interpreter.
"Some of them wouldn't even know where Tehran was in relation to Iran. Some of them didn't know where Iran was geographically, not distinguishing that one is the capital of the other."
"So what they spoke of was quite far away from the truth. So the people of Iran were looking at it as a form of entertainment, if you will, and found it laughable."
Shell abandons Alaska Arctic drilling Oil giant’s US president says hugely controversial drilling operations off Alaska will stop for ‘foreseeable future’ as drilling finds little oil and gas
Its decision, which has been welcomed by environmental campaigners, follows disappointing results from an exploratory well drilled 80 miles off Alaska’s north-west coast. Shell said it had found oil and gas but not in sufficient quantities.
The move is a major climbdown for the Anglo-Dutch group which had talked up the prospects of oil and gas in the region. Shell has spent about $7bn (£4.6bn) on Arctic offshore development in the hope there would be deposits worth pursuing, but now says operations are being ended for the “foreseeable future.”
Shell is expected to take a hit of around $4.1bn as a result of the decision.
Germany finds Rwandan rebel leaders guilty of war crimes
Ignance Murwanashyaka and his deputy Straton Musoni have been sentenced to 21 years in jail collectively by a court in Germany. Their four-year trial heard multiple cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Murwanashyaka was sentenced to 13 years behind bars for aiding and abetting war crimes, while Musron was given an eight year jail term, in a landmark case by a court in Stuttgart.
The pair who led the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) were arrested in Germany in 2009 and went on trial in 2011.
The court heard how their ethnic Hutu rebel group, which was formed in the 1990s, raped and massacred hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo as their fighters resisted an assault by the Congolese and Rwandan army in 2009.
Hutu militiamen terrorized civilians in the Kivu region of Congo while exploited the area's precious minerals. Several villages were attacked and many people were killed when their huts were set on fire.
Scientists worried about cold 'blob' in North Atlantic amid record hot spell
Chris Mooney
It is an extremely warm year for our planet.
Last week we learnt from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the first eight months of 2015 were the hottest such stretch yet recorded for the globe's surface land and oceans, based on temperature records going to 1880.
It's just the latest evidence that we are, indeed, on course for a record-breaking warm year in 2015.
Yet, if you look closely, there's one part of the planet that is bucking the trend. In the North Atlantic Ocean, south of Greenland and Iceland, the ocean surface has had very cold temperatures for the past eight months. What's up with that?
First of all, it's no error. Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at NOAA's National Centres for Environmental Information, confirmed what the map above suggests - some parts of the North Atlantic Ocean had record cold in the past eight months.
Israeli troops clash with Palestinians at Al-Aqsa
Soldiers storm the mosque compound and fight with Muslim worshippers who have barricaded themselves inside.
28 Sep 2015 08:21 GMT
Clashes have erupted for a second day in a row at Al-Aqsa, after Israeli security forces stormed the mosque and fought with Palestinian worshippers.
Witnesses on the ground in occupied Jerusalem told Al Jazeera that the Israeli police entered the mosque shortly before 7am local time (0400 GMT) on Monday.
Sources told Al Jazeera the officers used the al-Maghareba gate to enter the compound.
They reportedly fought with the worshippers, who have barricaded themselves at the mosque.
Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Jerusalem, said clashes continued and tensions "are high" as far-right Jewish groups prepare to enter the mosque compound.
He said several police officers were spotted at the roof of the mosque.
In 2009, the Japanese Ministry of Justice (MoJ) was set to pass legal reforms that would help foreign law firms expand their businesses in Japan. It was an exciting moment for people like James Lawden, a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, who had been fighting for years for such liberalisation. But before the law was passed, things went sour. A group of “benrishi” (patent attorneys) went to the Diet to lobby for the elimination of the bill. “I don’t know why they were upset,” says Lawden, “but I think they had some problems in America trying to get registered as patent attorneys in California.” Whatever the cause, the law passed — but with massive restrictions that rendered it almost entirely useless.
Such are the setbacks of the foreign law community in Japan, whose members argue that rules and restrictions here are discriminatory and outdated. Take, for example, the legislation that effectively bans foreign legal firms from forming corporations. Rika Beppu, partner at Hogan Lovells and chairman of the EBC Legal Services Committee, explains that, in Japan, one must form a “hojin,” or corporation, to establish branches across the country. “At the moment, a firm is a gathering of foreign-qualified lawyers on their own, [and] we have to all be in one location. There’s no branch. So if you have ambitions to have an office in Osaka, Fukuoka, etc. we’re prohibited,” she says.
We examine whether the UN achieved its Millennium Development Goals, and the diamond industry's attempts to bounce back.
Fifteen years ago, leaders from across the world gathered at the United Nations in the biggest anti-poverty campaign in history.
Pledging to "spare no effort to free men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty," the UN tabled eight ambitious goals to be completed by September 2015.
They sought to cut of the number of people living in extreme poverty by half; bring primary education to all; promote gender equality; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases; promote environmental sustainability; and help develop better working relationships between governments and NGOs.
The media versus the rise of anti-establishment politics; Plus, Syria's TV dramas soldier on.
Jeremy Corbyn's landslide victory as the Labour Party’s new leader on September 12 left the UK's media baffled.
Considered an eccentric, leftist outsider by some just a few months ago, Corbyn's appointment and sudden success defied the mainstream media's hostile stand, which initially deemed him unelectable.
The new leader's media strategy, which on the one hand appears free of spin, and on other, antagonist, forced news outlets, including even liberal news outlets, to re-evaluate the way they report on Westminster.
And the story in the UK seems to reflect a larger trend. On the other side of the Atlantic, Bernie Sanders, a fringe presidential candidate on the left, has similarly burst onto the media scene.
While his media strategy appears more sophisticated, he has more than just a hostile media to face - competing for airtime with the press-circus of his Republican rival, Donald Trump.
France has carried out its first air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria.
The president's office said that French planes struck targets identified during reconnaissance missions conducted over the past fortnight.
France co-ordinated with regional partners for the operation, a brief statement said.
French jets have previously carried out air strikes against IS targets in neighbouring Iraq.
"Our country thus confirms its resolute commitment to fight against the terrorist threat represented by Daesh," the French Presidency said, referring to the militant group by another of its acronyms.
"We will strike each time that our national security is at stake," the statement added.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Saudi Arabia should apologise for Hajj deaths
Iranian supreme leader calls on Saudis to accept responsibility for deadly stampede where the number of pilgrims killed could exceed 1,000
Reuters
Iran’s supreme leader has said Saudi Arabia should apologise for a crush outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca that killed 769 worshippers performing the annual hajj pilgrimage, Khamenei’s website said on Sunday.
“This issue will not be forgotten and the nations will pursue it seriously,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. “Instead of accusing this and that, the Saudis should accept the responsibility and apologise to the Muslims and the victims’ families.”
“The Islamic World has a lot of questions. The death of more than 1,000 people is not a small issue. Muslim countries should focus on this,” Khamenei said.
Immigrants made the US what it is, but this is being forgotten by Republicans calling for changes to the constitution
Out of America: Little hope for today’s huddled masses
As even those who’ve never seen a baseball game in their lives will be aware, Yogi Berra died last week. He was as famous for his mangled pearls of wisdom (“It ain’t over till it’s over”) as for his superlative play. Then there was that funny name, derived from his contemplative pose while waiting his turn to bat, which would be pinched by a certain cartoon bear.
But one other thing must be mentioned at this moment when immigration, or rather how to keep immigrants out, is the burning political issue here. Berra was born to Italian immigrant parents. He grew up during the Great Depression in a hardscape St Louis neighbourhood scornfully referred to as Dago Hill. Yet America ended up loving him as no other.
Syria refugee child's drawing leaves German police 'speechless'
A drawing by a Syrian refugee child has shocked Germany. The picture, presented by the girl to a police officer, shows bloodshed in Syria on one half and hearts and the German flag on the other.
"The picture emerged from the thoughts in the mind of this girl," police spokesman Thomas Schweikl said, referring to the child's drawing.
Police said the illustration was made by a girl in the Passau refugee registration center , where officials had laid out paper and color pens for children to paint while they were waiting with their parents.
The girl who made the drawing apparently presented it to a policeman, who pinned it on a board with other children's pictures. A police spokesman thought the girl's illustration was interesting and posted a photograph of it on Twitter.
Since then, the drawing has been retweeted nearly 7,000 times. Police posted it with the hashtags #sprachlos and #Fluechtlingskrise - or "speechless" and "refugee crisis."
Jakarta's skies are both bluer and dirtier
Joe Cochrane
Jakarta:The young woman sat on a bench at a bus terminal here one recent morning, listening to her iPod beneath a bright blue sky. But despite the sunshine and a light breeze, the woman, Fety Dwiyanti, wore a face mask. She did not have the flu or a cold, though, she was just worried about what was getting into her lungs.
"It's because of the air pollution and dust," she said. "Every time I go outside, I put it on."
Jakarta, a sprawling city of 10 million, has long had a problem with air pollution. To address it, authorities phased out the use of leaded gasoline 10 years ago, among other measures. But as the economy has grown at a rapid clip over the last decade, the number of vehicles in the capital has soared, with more people able to afford them. And air quality has got worse.
The galaxy, with the very clunky name of SAGE0536AGN, was discovered with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Scientists think it's about 9 billion years old.
Why Russia's Vladimir Putin Is Standing by Syria's President Assad
SEP 26 2015, 4:55 AM ET
byALEXEY EREMENKO
MOSCOW — When Russia's Vladimir Putin addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, all ears will be attuned to one issue: Syria. From this high-profile pulpit, Putin will have the chance to defend the Kremlin's staunch support for Syria's President Bashar Assad, who has not only been fighting a four-year civil war but been battling Western attempts to topple him.
Russia's determination to stick by Assad may seem baffling to some, but experts say Putin has deep-rooted — and personal — reasons for backing the dictator. NBC News reached out to Russia's leading foreign policy experts to help explain Moscow's commitment to Assad, and why the Kremlin is not letting Syria go.
Fear of Islamism
ISIS, which has conquered swathes of Syria as well as neighboring Iraq, is not a direct threat to Russia — yet. Russia's security service FSB estimates that about 2,400 Russians fight for the terror group, most of them veterans of Russia's own Islamist insurgency in Chechnya.
Sepp Blatter: And now the stench of Fifa clings to Platini, too
Platini is favourite to succeed Blatter yet has nothing to say about the alleged cesspit of backhanders, bungs and offshore accounts
Taxi for Platini, you have to say. We have known ever since the day in June when Sepp Blatter – recalcitrant and unapologetic to the bitter end – told us he would be stepping down as Fifa president that the FBI or the Swiss Attorney General would soon have their hands on his collar. It was simply a matter of which. But it looks like Platini is going all the way down with him.
What sullied the stinking reputation of football administration most was not the Swiss stating their suspicion that Blatter has criminally misappropriated funds but that Platini, his long-time minion and one-time “football adviser” was suspected of being a recipient of more than £1.5m of them.
The cash was in return for services rendered between 1999 and 2002, yet it wasn’t paid until 2011, say the Swiss. Nine years is a very long time to wait for a million. There were some very big questions floating around last night and there was the most deafening silence from Platini and his entourage.
Syria rebels agree truce with Hezbollah in key areas
The Shiite Hezbollah movement, allied to the Syrian regime, has confirmed a six-month truce deal with Sunni rebels in three Syrian towns. The deal entails the transfer of thousands of civilians across the frontlines.
Iran played a key role as a mediator during the UN-backed talks, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday.
Under the conditions of the deal, rebels besieged by government forces in the town of Zabadani would be given safe passage to other rebel-controlled areas.
In return, rebel leaders would allow "the evacuation of 10,000 civilians from the villages of Fuaa and Kafraya to zones controlled by the regime," Nasrallah told Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.
Sunni rebels attacked the two villages after government forces laid siege to Zabadani in July.
"There will be no more fighters in Zabadani," Nasrallah said on Friday.
Low on ammo
Militant cleric Abdullah al-Muhaysini, who is linked to the rebel Nusra Front , said Sunni militants would leave Zabadani with their weapons.
Mexico seeks new DNA tests in missing students case
Latest update : 2015-09-26
Mexican authorities are sifting through nearly 60,000 bone fragments to see if any can be tested for a DNA match with 43 students who vanished last year, officials said Friday.
Independent forensic experts from Argentina are helping government investigators to find any remains that could be sent to Austria's Innsbruck University for lab tests, said Eber Omar Betanzos, a human rights prosecutor.
The attorney general's office sent 17 charred remains to the university last year, but only one student was positively identified while only a partial match was found of a second one.
Officials said in November that the 17 remains were the only ones linked to the case that could potentially be tested for DNA.
But the government has ordered new forensic tests on all the bones amid new doubts over the official investigation's conclusions.
Betanzos told reporters that the nearly 60,000 bone fragments are "of different sizes and characteristics" and that most are charred.
Pakistani's marijuana-growers brace for the brutal reality of conflict
Tim Craig
For decades, Taj Muhammad Afridi has been growing some of Pakistan's finest marijuana. By now, at his family homestead in the Tirah Valley in Pakistan's tribal belt, hundreds of marijuana plants should be full-grown, some as tall as a one-storey house. Usually, at this time of year, he would be ready to produce a sought-after range of hashish. But Afridi's crops - and those of others nearby that produce eye-popping amounts of marijuana - have been abandoned, and are in danger of becoming another casualty of Pakistan's decade-long war against terrorism and Islamist militancy.
After Mr Afridi planted his marijuana seeds in February, the military began a series of military operations on Taliban fighters who had found refuge in the Tirah Valley. The operation displaced Mr Afridi and a quarter-million other residents, many of whom are still waiting to go home. "We know that our crops are still there," said Mr Afridi, 65, noting the region's moist climate allows marijuana to grow with little maintenance. "But I don't know what the future will be. Will the military allow this?" Many say security forces are targeting Pakistan's lucrative hash industry to try to establish more government control over the historically lawless border region.
Switzerland bans sale of Volkswagen Group models
Ban also includes Seat, Skoda and others VW Group brands which may have devices designed to tricking emission tests.
26 Sep 2015 06:35 GMT
Switzerland has banned sales of Volkswagen Group car models which may have been outfitted with devices designed to tricking emission tests.
The ban - announced on Friday - is on all cars with diesel engines in the Euro 5 emissions category, including VW, Seat, Skoda and other brands in the VW group.
Thomas Rohrbach, spokesman for the Swiss federal office of roadways, said the move could potentially affect 180,000 vehicles that have 1.2-litre, 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre diesel engines.
But the ban does not include the cars that are already in circulation.
Matthias Mueller, who was appointed as CEO of the embattled German car maker on Friday to deal with the emissions scandal, pledged to do everything to win back the trust of the public.
