Thursday, March 17, 2016

Six In The Morning Thursday March 17

Ankara blast: Kurdish group TAK claims bombing


  • 17 March 2016
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  • From the sectionEurope
The Kurdish militant group TAK says it carried out Sunday's deadly attack in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
In an online statement it said the attack, which killed 37 people, was in revenge for military operations in the mainly Kurdish south-east.
TAK, an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), had already said it was behind another bombing in Ankara last month.
Authorities in Turkey have blamed the latest attack on the PKK.
The suicide car bomb exploded in a busy commercial district and transport hub in the city centre on Sunday evening.
Dozens of people wounded in the blast remain in hospital.





Release of tapped phone calls between Lula and Rousseff sparks mass protests in Brazil

Calls secretly recorded by investigating judge suggest president gave her predecessor a government role to avoid prosecution on corruption charges

In the latest of a series of explosive revelations that could bring down the Brazilian government, a secretly recorded phone call between former president Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, suggests his appointment to a ministerial position on Wednesday was motivated by a desire to avoid prosecution in Brazil’s worst-ever corruption scandal.

Judge Sergio Moro, the lead prosecutor in Operation Lava-jatoa two-year investigation into corruption at the state-run oil company, Petrobras, released nearly 50 audio recordings to the media on Wednesday evening, prompting chaotic scenes in congress as opposition deputies demanded Rousseff’s resignation.


Iran just passed an innocuous law that's actually a big step towards gender equality

The Iranian government is going to extend the concept of 'blood money' to female car accident victims


A piece of seemingly innocuous insurance legislation could be a step towards gender equality in Iran.
The top legislative body of the strictly conservative Shia Islamic state has ratified a bill which will rule that female victims of car accidents should receive the same compensation as male victims.
The Guardian Council, a 12-member committee which ensures legislation conforms to Sharia law, gave the green light to the Third Party Insurance Bill.
In Iranian Sharia law, insurance is covered by the concept of ‘blood money’. This is a form of compensation which is paid to the victim of a crime or accident, or to their family in the case of death. 

Angola's trash pile-ups verging on 'health catastrophe'



OBSERVERS




Rubbish is piling up everywhere in Angola’s sprawling capital Luanda. Filth and nauseating smells have overwhelmed the city ever since the local authorities admitted that they'd run out of money to pay the garbage collectors. While yellow fever ravages the country - killing an estimated 250 people since December - residents now fear that these unsanitary conditions could further spread disease.

Since mid-2015, mountains of rubbish have piled up across the city, home to some 6.5 million residents. With the city teetering on the verge of a health catastrophe, Angola's government has appointed a new governor in Luanda province, Higino Carneiro, to oversee the process of cleaning up the city's streets. One of his first moves was to announce the creation of an ‘urban command post' to fight the trash crisis. He also warned that if the situation worsens, he may be forced to declare a 'sanitary catastrophe' in the city.

Big-mouthed clown? China reacts to Donald Trump's rise

Updated 0316 GMT (1116 HKT) March 17, 2016


For months, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted China on the campaign trail, pledging to put tariffs on goods produced overseas and bring things like iPhone production back to the United States.
Trump has even used a broken-English accent at a campaign rally to mock the negotiating style of Chinese businessmen.
Beijing had previously downplayed any impact Trump's rhetoric could have on U.S.-China relations, reducing it as a mere "disturbance."
But this week, that all changed.
With Trump securing major victories on the road to the White House, China issued a scathing criticism of the U.S. election process and the candidate who has "opened a Pandora's box in U.S. society."

Iranian war photographers: what makes them click

UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATIONS 
To get to the front lines of Iran's conflicts in Syria and Iraq, war photographers must overcome the fact that hardly anyone wants them there.



The young Iranian war photographer can’t keep track of the close calls he’s had on the front lines in Syria.
“It’s always scary, when bullets are coming from everywhere, from left and right and from the sky,” says Ali Khara, a freelancer who has made 11 trips to Syria and has a taste for the trenches. “The only place bullets don’t come from is the ground.”
Rockets have landed close to Mr. Khara and killed his friends. A grenade aimed by an Islamic militant bounced off a window grate beside him and exploded in an alley below. And the shooting – and the special challenges of being an Iranian photographer covering Iran’s wars in Syria and Iraq – never seems to stop.












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