Philippines battered as Typhoon Koppu barrels in
Homes have been flattened, power lines toppled, and thousands of people have fled their homes as Typhoon Koppu swept into the northern Philippines.
The huge, slow-moving typhoon made landfall near the town of Casiguran on the island of Luzon on Sunday morning.
Koppu brought winds of close to 200km/h (124mph) and whipped up coastal surges 4m (12ft) high.
Three days of torrential rain has been predicted, triggering major flooding and possibly landslides.
Alexander Pama, head of the government's main disaster agency, said 10,000 people had been displaced in north-eastern Luzon but no casualties had been reported so far.
Crowdsourcing 'nodders' help spot illegal fires in Indonesia
Jewel Topsfield
Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax
Jakarta: This time Jimmy Liew has a personal reason for being part of an invisible global army of geo-geeks dedicated to … well, saving the world.
During work hours Mr Liew is a freelance project manager. In his own time, he spends countless hours poring over satellite maps, searching for wrongdoers.
From his home in Singapore, Mr Liew has spotted illegal fishing weirs wreaking havoc on the native fish population in the Persian Gulf and identified damaged homes and roads after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal.
But it is his most recent campaign that is particularly close to his heart – documenting the location of illegal fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan that cause the choking haze in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia every year.
SANCTUARY WITHOUT END THE REFUGEES THE WORLD FORGOT
Dadaab, Kenya
It's late morning as Mohammad Abdula fishes into a drawer and hands a couple of heavily worn shilling notes and a phone card to a customer through the bars of his corrugated iron shop.
Outside, women in brightly-colored abayas hustle down a dirt road lined with the rundown metal shacks containing local businesses, making last minute purchases before the oppressive midday heat settles in.
Tailors step on foot-pedalled Singer sewing machines, and barbers sit in salons under hand painted signs.
Butchers hang goat meat under metal awnings, and fresh goods arrive in giant trucks that carefully make their way under the tangle of electricity cables strung up on wooden poles.
Confused by Benghazi? Here’s a 4-minute explanation.
You've almost certainly heard the word "Benghazi" a lot. What you may not know is what actually happened on September 11, 2012 — the night that US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Benghazi — or what the deal is with the controversies that came afterward.by Zack Beauchamp and Carlos Waters
On September 11, 2012, a partially armed group of men stormed a US diplomatic outpost in the Libyan city of Benghazi. At the time, it was not clear who they were or why they'd attacked. But by the time the attack was over, four Americans, including US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, had been killed.
The attack ended by the early hours of September 12. But it has echoed in Washington ever since. The controversy has centered on Republican accusations that the Obama administration did not take heed of intelligence warnings before the attack, that during the attack it refused to call in available military support, and that after the attack it deliberately covered up what had happened.
Four hundred-year-old church re-emerges from beneath Mexican reservoir
Fishermen are making use of the re-appearance of the ruins to ferry curious passengers around its walls
The relics of a 16th-century church built by Spanish colonisers has emerged from a reservoir in the south of Mexico.
It is the second time the church, usually submerged on the reservoir bed, has been revealed in the state of Chiapas as a result of drought.
A water-level drop of at least 24 metres in the Grijalba river which feeds the reservoir exposed the 400-year-old roofless religious building, with its 10-metre high walls, 61-metre length and 14-metre wide hall.
The river was last this low in 2002, when visitors were able to walk about inside the church.
Why Russia Faces Another Islamic Terror Front: Afghanistan
by
MOSCOW — All eyes are on Russia's expanding military operation in Syria, but it is not the only place where President Vladimir Putin appears to be expecting trouble from terrorists.
Russia last week sent gunships to its biggest overseas military base — which is located in the ex-Soviet state of Tajikistan, close to the Afghanistan border.
The boost in firepower, along with the Taliban's recent advances in Afghanistan, has stoked fears that Central Asia — a impoverished and predominantly Muslim region — may become a second front for jihad.
"The situation there [in Afghanistan] is close to critical," Putin said Friday at a meeting with Central Asian leaders near Moscow, according to the Kremlin's website. "Various terrorists are gaining influence and don't hide their plans for further expansion."
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