MSF demands Kunduz war crimes probe
Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres is seeking to invoke a never-used body to investigate the US bombing of its hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz.
MSF said it did not trust internal military inquiries into the bombing that killed at least 22 people.
The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission was established in 1991 under the Geneva Conventions.
The US says last Saturday's bombing was a mistake. It came amid efforts to reverse a Taliban takeover of Kunduz.
On Tuesday, Gen John Campbell, US commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said the attack had been requested by Afghan forces who were in communication with American special operations troops at the scene.
Those US forces in turn were in contact with the AC-130 gunship that fired on the hospital, he said.
Smugglers tried to sell nuclear material to Isis
Investigation finds that Russian-linked gangs specifically targeted the extremist group
Smuggling gangs with suspected Russian links tried to sell nuclear material to Islamic extremists from Isis, an investigation has found.
In the backwaters of Moldova, authorities working with the FBI interrupted four attempts in the past five years by the gangs that sought to sell radioactive material to Middle Eastern extremists, The Associated Press news agency learned. The latest known case came in February this year, when a smuggler offered a huge cache of deadly cesium — enough to contaminate several city blocks — and specifically sought a buyer from Isis.
The smuggler, Valentin Grossu, offered the supply of cesium to what he thought was an Isis representative in exchange for €2.5 million, according to the investigation. The representative was in fact an informant.
Migrant truck deaths: the untold story of one man's desperate voyage to Europe
In August the decomposing bodies of 71 migrants were found in an abandoned truck in Austria. In the most complete account to date, we tell the story of one of the victims, Saeed Othman Mohammed, and how he came to die
Late in the evening of Monday 24 August, Saeed Othman Mohammed called home. He was in Hungary, Saeed told his family, and that night he hoped smugglers would drive him to Germany. Then he hung up.
It was the last time Saeed’s family heard from him. A month prior, Saeed had left home, 2,240 miles (3,600km) away in Iraqi Kurdistan. The grey-haired mechanic hoped to get to Germany to fix his diseased kidney. At frequent intervals throughout the journey, he had checked in with his relatives. But from this point on, they heard nothing.
Not even the smugglers seemed to know where he was. Four days later, Saeed’s brother Mohammed called the man who had organised the trip, Jamal Qamishi. “I swear, brother, I have no news,” Qamishi said. “When I get some news, I’ll let you know, 100%.”
Nigeria widens oil corruption probe
Nigeria has arrested the head of a major local oil firm only a day after the oil giant's former petroleum minister was arrested in the UK on corruption charges. The government has said it will clamp down on graft.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday put forward the names of a cabinet he has tasked to fight graft, as authorities arrested the chairman of a local oil firm a day after the UK said the country's former oil minister had been arrested on corruption charges.
The arrests come following a pledge by Buhari to "clean up" corruption linked to oil in Africa's largest economy , after he came to power earlier this year in the country's first democratic change of government.
Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested Atlantic Energy chairman Olajide Omokore on corruption and money laundering charges, and on Monday the UK arrested Diezani Alison-Madueke, the former oil minister on similar charges.
Nigeria has accused Alison-Maduke of siphoning off billions of dollars in oil revenue during her five year tenure as petroleum minister.
Debunked: Saudi authorities did not bulldoze bodies in Mecca
Team Observers
A few days after a deadly stampede killed more than 700 pilgrims in Mecca, this photo began stirring up a social media frenzy. Internet users said it showed bulldozers clearing away the bodies of dozens of victims. But is there any truth behind it? Our team investigates.
Sadly, such tragedies are not uncommon during the annual pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site, Mecca. But this was the worst stampede to hit in 25 years. It took place on September 24 on what's known in the Muslim calendar as Eid al-Adha, the festival of the sacrifice, in Mina, just a few kilometres from Mecca. More than 700 pilgrims died and over 900 were left injured when two large groups of pilgrims tried to push their way past one another from opposite directions.
In the photos taken by agency photojournalists after the catastrophe, dozens of dead bodies can be seen strewn across the ground. Many are covered with white blankets, whilst other pictures show rescue workers desperately working to get injured people onto stretchers amidst horrified crowds of onlookers.
CITE: The $1 billion city that nobody calls home
Updated 1042 GMT (1742 HKT)
In the arid plains of the southern New Mexico desert, between the site of the first atomic bomb test and the U.S.-Mexico border, a new city is rising from the sand.
Planned for a population of 35,000, the city will showcase a modern business district downtown, and neat rows of terraced housing in the suburbs. It will be supplied with pristine streets, parks, malls and a church.
But no one will ever call it home.
The CITE (Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation) project is a full-scale model of an ordinary American town. Yet it will be used as a petri dish to develop new technologies that will shape the future of the urban environment.
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