Two India 'sedition' students surrender to police
- 24 February 2016
- India
Two Indian students accused of sedition for helping organise a protest at Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), have handed themselves into police.
Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya were among several wanted by police.
The arrest of JNU student union head Kanhaiya Kumar earlier this month led to protests and clashes across India.
The 9 February protest over the 2013 hanging of a Kashmiri man allegedly saw the chanting of anti-India slogans.
After Mr Kumar was arrested the other students named in connection with the protests went missing but they resurfaced at JNU on Sunday night.
Police did not enter the campus but late on Tuesday night Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya left university premises of their own accord and handed themselves over. Police cannot enter without permission from university authorities, reports say.
The Black Fish: undercover with the vigilantes fighting organised crime at sea
Illegal fishing controlled by organised crime is a growing menace, offering big rewards for low risk. But the seaborne raiders have a new force to contend with. An army of amateur sleuths are spending their holidays fighting backOn 2 August, a flotilla of white-hulled fishing boats assembled in Sant’Agata di Militello, a port in northern Sicily, in the late afternoon sun. As a brass band played, a holiday crowd gathered along the quay. A float bearing a statue of the Virgin Mary, crowned with a halo of gold and decorated with white flowers, was loaded onto one of the craft. With the priest and the brass band on board, the vessel, decked out in palm fronds, puttered out into the bay. As the Madonna was borne over the waves in the annual ritual to bless the sea’s harvest, onlookers crowded onto the other boats, which began to follow in the vessel’s wake, their lights winking on in the dusk.
While the crowd’s eyes were fixed on the Madonna, a clean-cut, compactly-built man with neat blond hair joined the melee and crossed a gangplank onto one of the boats. As the skipper cast off, his craft now filled with revellers, the blond man slipped below deck, unseen. The stowaway, a Dutchman named Wietse van der Werf, was a former ship’s engineer and knew his way around boats. He soon found what he was looking for: an orange nylon driftnet neatly folded under a tarpaulin. Known as “curtains of death” for the indiscriminate destruction they visit on whales, seabirds, dolphins and sharks, such nets – which can be 20km long and the height of a 10-storey building – are subject to strict international controls. As guests on deck watched fireworks bursting above the bay, Van der Werf filmed the driftnet on his phone.
Amnesty report: Global refugee situation 'disastrous'
Amnesty International's latest annual report paints a bleak picture of human rights around the world. The international organization has also criticized Europe's handling of the refugee crisis.
"I feel that humanity is dead," a Yemeni woman says, as she stands amid the ruins of what was once a school, gesturing at the rubble. "For a place of learning to be hit in this way, without warning."
Yemen - along with Syria, Libya and other Middle Eastern and African states - features prominently in Amnesty International's annual report, released Wednesday. Armed conflicts in those countries have killed thousands of people and driven millions from their homes, sparking a refugee crisis with global ramifications.
"Probably 2015 is one of the worst years in recent times that I can recall," Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty said in an interview with DW from London.
"The very system which was created to protect human rights - a system which has been built up over the last 70 years - is itself under threat."
Hopes and ‘honour’ killings
RAFIA ZAKARIA
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently watched A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Oscar-nominated documentary about ‘honour’ killings. In a statement following the screening, he told Ms Chinoy and his audience that there is no ‘honour’ in murder.
In the days since it has been announced that the government will move to plug holes in laws that currently allow killers (often family members) to go unpunished. Ms Chinoy has expressed the hope that her film would help put an end to honour killings in Pakistan.
It would be wonderful if her wish came true. The reasons it will not are the ones that the government needs to address if it truly wishes to tackle the problem.
Is China installing a high-tech radar system in the South China Sea?
A US think tank says satellite images show China building a new high-frequency radar system in the Spratly Islands, a move intended to boost their control of the region.
A report released Monday by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative says overhead images of the artificial island above Cuarteron Reef from January to mid-February show two probable radar towers and a number of 65-foot poles.
CSIS warns this could be a significant step in a long-term Chinese plan to assert control over the air and sea lanes of the disputed South China Sea.
S. Korea dismisses China warning on US missile system
AFP
South Korea Wednesday dismissed China's warning that the planned deployment of a US missile defence system could damage ties, stressing that it was to counter "growing threats" from North Korea.
"The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system (THAAD) is a measure of self-defence against growing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea," presidential spokesman Jeong Yeon-Guk said.
Jeong said the issue would be "decided in accordance with security and national interests," adding that "China will have to recognise the point."
The remarks came after Chinese ambassador Qiu Guohong Tuesday warned that installation of the THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula could "destroy" relations between Beijing and Seoul.
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