Deadly earthquake topples buildings in Taiwan city of Tainan
An earthquake has toppled buildings in the south Taiwanese city of Tainan, killing at least seven people.
Rescue teams have been trying to reach people trapped in rubble since the magnitude 6.4 quake struck just before 04:00 (20:00 GMT Friday).
A baby was among at least four people killed when a high-rise block collapsed. More than 300 people have been injured.
President Ma Ying-jeou promised an "all-out effort" to rescue people.
Shelters would be set up for those who had lost their homes in the city of two million people, he said when he arrived in the city.
Leaning ruins
Television pictures showed rescue workers frantically trying to reach people trapped in collapsed buildings, using ladders to climb over piles of rubble.
One of the worst affected was the 17-storey Wei Kuan apartment complex, home to at least 256 people.
The return of the dogs of war: what's it like to be a soldier for hire?
It’s one thing to pull the trigger for your country – quite another for a corporation. As a new report reveals how private military contractors have changed the face of conflict, they reveal how conflict has changed them
When you are a soldier in the military, and you’re firing at an enemy alongside several other soldiers, you don’t know if it was your gun, your bullet, that killed someone. “I’d rather not know,” says Stephen Friday, who spent 12 years in the British army before becoming a private military contractor (PMC) in 2008, working in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first time he ever shot somebody, and knew about it, “was as a PMC. The firefights were a lot closer, a lot more personal.” It was also more dangerous. As a soldier, he had once come under fire for seven hours in Baghdad, but as a PMC, “I would say it was worse. When you’re in the army, you’ve got an army behind you. As a PMC, you can’t call for back-up, you can’t call fire missions in. Certainly my worst incidents were as a PMC rather than in the military.” He was shot at by snipers, survived a handful of roadside bombs and a grenade attack, and once a bullet lodged in the bulletproof glass of his vehicle, inches from his head. “There was a stage in 2009, for a period of about three months, where we were probably losing guys every second or third day. It was violent, and emotionally difficult.”
Refugee crisis: Up to 20,000 Syrians massing at Bab al-Salam border crossing with Turkey, UN says
People have been pushed north as a Syrian army advance threatens to encircle Aleppo
Up to 20,000 Syrian refugees fleeing fighting in the north-western Aleppo province have gathered at a border crossing with Turkey, UN officials have said.
Turkey has been forced to shut the border for the second day in a row after being overwhelmed by the number of refugees fleeing an offensive by pro-Assad forces in the region in recent weeks.
The Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said they would continue to feed and shelter the refugees but did not say when or if they would be allowed in.
Inside the Peshmerga: the Kurdish fighting forces battling Islamic State
Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Sultan Abdullah, Iraq: Khamad's war is one of terrain - the Kurdish commander holds the high ground here and the Islamic State controls the villages that hug the Tigris river below.
The fighting is sporadic along a frontline where men sit in lawn chairs, helmets askew. Lunch is made, tea is served. And Khamad, who will only give his nom de guerre, says the IS militants are beyond his reach, their black flag only visible through ageing binoculars.
If his men are shot at, it is by tanks that fire from the western banks of the river, or by heavy weapons that have the range to hit his fortified positions. Just in case, however, his outposts are ringed with moats - a last ditch effort to stop any potential raiding parties that might come in the night.
But Khamad's most potent weapon is in the skies above. He motions upward with a crooked finger through scattered clouds, where the underbelly of two jets are visible, if only for a moment, before they bank and head south.
Trump's unwelcome support: White supremacists
Updated 0104 GMT (0904 HKT) February 6, 2016
New Hampshire voters may be stunned to hear the latest robocall asking for their vote; it's from white nationalists with a simple, disturbing message.
"We don't need Muslims. We need smart, educated, white people," according to the male voice on the calls, which began Thursday night and urge voters in New Hampshire to vote for Donald Trump.
Three white nationalist leaders have banded together to form their own super PAC in support of Trump, even though Trump doesn't want their support.
The American National Super PAC is funding the robocall effort, which is organized under a separate group called the American Freedom Party.
Opinion: Why China needs to rein in North Korea's hackers
If China blunts North Korea's increasingly aggressive hackers, and keep them from operating on its side of the border, that would go a long way toward improving security on the Korean Peninsula.
During Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Beijing last week, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi made clear that his country would not support increasing sanctions on North Korea after its recent nuclear test.
Yet Secretary Kerry remained determined to find some sort of response that is "nonpunitive to the people of North Korea but nevertheless effective." While both sides have discussed a number of options, one that needs much more attention is what China can do to blunt North Korea's advancing cyberwarriors.
North Korea’s cyber capabilities have developed unchecked and its hackers have found safe haven in China, leaving Beijing in a unique position to rein in the Hermit Kingdom's digital attacks aimed at disrupting the status quo.
No comments:
Post a Comment