Pakistan Charsadda: Deadly assault on university
A gun attack on a university in north-west Pakistan, has killed at least 19 people and injured 50, officials say.
Nearly three hours after the attack began, an army official said firing had stopped but troops were searching Bacha Khan University campus in Charsadda.
Troops say at least four attackers have been killed. It is not clear if others are at large.
More than 130 students were killed by Taliban militants at a school in the nearby city of Peshawar in 2014.
Charsadda is about 50km (30 miles) from the city.
The attackers struck at around 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT), reportedly climbing over the back wall, where a university guesthouse is located.
Intense gunfire and explosions were heard as security guards fought the attackers.
"I personally heard two explosions near hostel number one," an unidentified eyewitness told Pakistan's Geo TV.
Islamic State to halve fighters' salaries as cost of waging terror starts to bite
Extremists attempting to set up a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, complete with hospitals, government agencies and schools, hit by economic woes
The Islamic State jihadist group has announced plans to halve the monthly salaries of its members in Syria and Iraq as the economic reality of waging war on several fronts takes its toll.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists, medics, and fighters across Syria for information on Isis, published what it said was an official statement from the militant group announcing the cuts.
“Because of the exceptional circumstances that the Islamic State is passing through, a decision was taken to cut the salaries of the mujahedeen in half,” the Arabic statement said.
“No one will be exempt from this decision no matter his position, but the distribution of food assistance will continue twice a month as usual,” it said.
Burkina residents protest kidnapping of Australian doctor, wife
Residents from Djibo in northern Burkina Faso have been rallying in support of an Australian doctor and his wife who were kidnapped last Friday. The doctor, whose longstanding attachment to the town has led our Observer to call him "more Burkinabe than Australian", has been running a clinic there for more than 40 years.
The Australian couple are reportedly being held by jihadists belonging to the "Emirate of the Sahara", a branch of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Both the kidnapping and claims for its responsibility were announced barely hours after the bloody attack in the capital Ouagadougou against the Splendid Hotel and Cappuccino restaurant left at least 30 people dead. This attack was also claimed by jihadists belonging to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
According to reports, the doctor and his wife may have already been transferred to Mali by the jihadists.
The Australian couple are reportedly being held by jihadists belonging to the "Emirate of the Sahara", a branch of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Both the kidnapping and claims for its responsibility were announced barely hours after the bloody attack in the capital Ouagadougou against the Splendid Hotel and Cappuccino restaurant left at least 30 people dead. This attack was also claimed by jihadists belonging to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
According to reports, the doctor and his wife may have already been transferred to Mali by the jihadists.
The two hostages, Jocelyn and Ken Elliot, are originally from Perth in Western Australia. They opened a medical centre in Djibo more than four decades ago, back in 1972. Our Observer, Amadou Maiga, is the headmaster of Djibo's provincial high school. For two days now, he's been organising protests in support of the missing couple.
Dubai in United Arab Emirates a centre of human trafficking and prostitution
Thessa Lageman
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Imagine if you were told of well-paid work in a new country, far from your impoverished home. Once you arrived, you learned the only way to make the promised money was through prostitution. That's what happened to 24-year-old Ethiopian Tsega*.
She sits on a bar stool in a dark basement bar in the old quarter of Dubai, dressed in a short skirt. Her hair is bleached.
"I started working in a supermarket, but life is so expensive here," she says.
It is one of the many in the emirate where prostitutes offer their services openly, even though prostitution is strictly forbidden in the UAE and sharia courts can impose flogging as punishment.
South China Sea: Vietnam says China moved oil rig into contested waters
Updated 0736 GMT (1536 HKT) January 20, 2016
Vietnam has pressed China to withdraw an oil rig from disputed waters in the South China Sea, potentially leading to a re-run of a 2014 standoff between the two neighbors.
The country's foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said Tuesday that China had moved its Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig to an area outside the Gulf of Tonkin on January 16
"Vietnam requests China not to conduct drilling activities and to withdraw the HYSY 981 oil rig from this area," a statement from Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The oil rig was moved to "an overlapping area" between the two continental shelves of Central Vietnam and China's Hainan Island that had not been demarcated, it said.
When we spoke to Leila Alaoui on tackling taboos in art
Before her death, the French-Moroccan artist spoke to Al Jazeera about migration, racism and identity in her work.
Nahrain Al-Mousawi
NOTE: Leila Alaoui died while on assignment for Amnesty International in Burkina Faso on January 19, 2016 after she was severly wounded in a January 15 al-Qaeda attack on Splendid hotel and nearby Cappuccino Cafe.
Her death brings the death toll from the attacks to 30 people.
Al Jazeera interviewed Alaoui in July 2015.
Al Jazeera interviewed Alaoui in July 2015.
Marrakech, Morocco - Morocco's location on the Mediterranean Sea has made it a departure point for undocumented migrants in Africa hoping to cross to Europe.
These dangerous journeys have resulted in many migrants drowning and the Mediterranean earning the morbid nickname of "the sea cemetery", with a recent incident claiming 800 victims . Some who do not cross opt to settle instead in Morocco, where they have reportedly experienced abuse from the local population.
Moroccan-French photographer and video artist Leila Alaoui has attempted to tackle such issues through her art. At the Traces of the Future exhibit at the Marrakech Museum of Photography and Visual Arts, which runs until September, Alaoui's video installation Crossings showcases testimonies of sub-Saharan migrants against the backdrop of the Mediterranean.
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