The missing: the eight-year Iraq conflict looms large in Iran
With 8,000 Iranian soldiers still unaccounted for, our correspondent talks to a survivor whose unit sought out the nameless dead
“I still wake up in horror, remembering that night,” he says, his eyes hollow. The silo has been emptied of grain, and huge freezers have been brought in. Inside each lie half a dozen corpses. As the fridge doors are opened, men spray insecticide and sprinkle rose water to counter a stink penetrating every molecule of air. All he can smell is decomposed flesh, rose water and bug spray.
“A few bodies were unscathed, completely intact,” he says, “as if they had just lost life.” But most were deformed. Some looked like burned wood, others were bloated. Some were just fragments: a leg, a torso, a hand.
Disappearance of North Korean girl still a mystery, 4 years later
Updated 0319 GMT (1019 HKT) September 22, 2015
Four years ago, Mun Su Gyong's parents in Pyongyang received a letter from their daughter, colorfully decorated with pink hearts, embellished with cut-out photographs of her. Because the majority of the country doesn't have Internet access, North Koreans still mostly communicate the old-fashioned way, in pen and ink.
The letter is now one of their most precious possessions -- a keepsake in the way that an email never could be. It was the last they ever heard from their daughter.
In the letter, Mun, who was 20 at the time, told her parents she would be coming home soon. Three years before, they had been proud to hear that their daughter had been selected to work overseas in a North Korean state-owned restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
AFRIQUE DU SUD 09/21/2015
How photography helped get S. African teens off the streets
In one of Johannesburg's most crime-ridden neighbourhoods, a South African architect is helping transform young people’s lives by showing them how to use a camera. The project 'I was shot in Joburg' was launched back in 2009. Since then, it has helped more than a dozen black teens shun street violence and earn a living by teaching them a new art: photography.
'I was shot in Joburg' is a small company run out of Hillbrow, a poor neighbourhood plagued by violence in the heart of South Africa's economic capital. More than just a photo studio, it has become a workshop whose employees make products inspired by the photos snapped by the outfit's up-and-coming photographers, such as cushions, T-shirts and photo frames.
Six of the young people who have been trained at the centre are now employed full-time, while another eight work there on a part-time basis. And for a dozen more, the training program has served as a springboard to find more work or get back to studying.
'I was shot in Joburg' is a small company run out of Hillbrow, a poor neighbourhood plagued by violence in the heart of South Africa's economic capital. More than just a photo studio, it has become a workshop whose employees make products inspired by the photos snapped by the outfit's up-and-coming photographers, such as cushions, T-shirts and photo frames.
Six of the young people who have been trained at the centre are now employed full-time, while another eight work there on a part-time basis. And for a dozen more, the training program has served as a springboard to find more work or get back to studying.
Croatia’s killing fields now a refuge for thousands fleeing war
Twenty years after independence war migrants pass through still battle-scarred east
in Vukovar Croatia
The people of eastern Croatia cherish their swaying seas of corn, verdant orchards and modest vineyards spread out beside the Danube river, and they are glad these former killing fields can now give refuge thousands fleeing war.
“We understand completely what this means for these people, what it means to be a refugee,” says Robert Martinkovic, who was wounded three times leading a reconnaissance unit that lost eight of its men, in some the toughest battles of Croatia’s 1991-1995 war for independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
Twenty years on, Martinkovic now sees tens of thousands of migrants passing through a still battle-scarred eastern Croatia, where vivid memories of their own war are inspiring local people to help these victims of distant conflicts.
Burkina Faso army enters capital to disarm coup leaders
Mathieu Bonkoungou
Ouagadougou: Burkina Faso soldiers marched into the capital Ouagadougou without resistance late on Monday as army leaders began surrender talks with the elite presidential guard that staged a coup against the government last week.
Burkina Faso had been preparing to head to polls on October 11 for a vote aimed at restoring democracy after last year's overthrow of longtime leader Blaise Compaore, when the 1200-member unit took the interim president and several cabinet ministers hostage on Wednesday.
Military convoys from regional centres drove towards Ouagadougou on Monday, cheered along by residents opposed to last week's military coup. Some units entered the city centre while others remained on guard at strategic entry points, residents said.
Pope presses message to Cuba: Be willing to change
In an off-the-cuff encounter with young Cubans, Pope Francis encouraged them to dream big about what their life could be like, and not be "boxed in" by ideologies or preconceptions about others.
SANTIAGO, CUBA — Pope Francis marked the anniversary Monday of the day he decided as a teenager to become a priest by pressing a subtle message to Cubans at a delicate point in their own history: Overcome ideological preconceptions and be willing to change.
Francis traveled to Cuba's fourth-largest city, Holguin, and celebrated a Mass where Cuban rhythms mixed with church hymns under a scorching tropical sun.
Later in the day, he flew to Santiago for an evening visit to the shrine of Cuba's patron saint, and on Tuesday he will arrive in Washington for the U.S. leg of his first visit to the two former Cold War enemies.
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