Refugee crisis: France clears part of Calais 'Jungle'
French police fire tear gas canisters at protesters as demolition workers pull down shacks in makeshift refugee camp.
| Human Rights, Humanitarian crises, Europe, United Kingdom, France
Clashes have erupted between French riot police and refugees and migrants as authorities began destroying makeshift shelters in the makeshift camp on the edge of Calais known as the "Jungle".
On Monday night, police lobbed tear gas canisters at residents of the camp who protested against the raid as about 20 demolition workers moved in to start pulling down the shacks by hand.
As night fell about 150 of the camp's inhabitants threw rocks and struck vehicles heading for England on a port road which runs next to the sprawling camp, as some were wielding iron bars, an AFP news agency reporter said.
Police also fired tear gas in clashes with activists who had formed a security cordon to protect the tear-down operation.
US accuses North Korea of using detained student 'for propaganda'
Otto Warmbier, accused of stealing a political banner, sobbed in front of cameras in Pyongyang saying he had made ‘the worst mistake of my life
The US has accused North Korea of parading a detained American college student before the media “for propaganda purposes” as his parents pleaded for his release.
Otto Warmbier, a third-year economics student at the University of Virginia, on Monday made a stage-managed confession to “severe crimes” against the North Korean state after he was held for allegedly stealing a political banner from a hotel.
John Kirby, a US state department spokesman, told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency: “As a general practice, North Korea arrests and imprisons people for actions that would not give rise to arrests, let alone imprisonment, in the United States, and there’s little doubt that North Korea uses detention as a tool for propaganda purposes.”Iran elections: Inside the city that wants no reform, despite moderates' stunning victory
After Iran’s vote for change, with moderate conservatives and reformists combining to squeeze out hardliners in much of the country, Kim Sengupta reports from Qom, the ‘Shia Vatican’, where many feel the Islamic Republic is at risk
The stunning victory of the reformists in the Iranian elections has been the source of celebrations in the capital, Tehran, and much of the rest of the country. There is hope of a freer and more prosperous future and excitement that Iran will open itself again to the outside world.
The mood in Qom, however, is very different. Here, in Iran’s Shia heartland, the results are seen not as a harbinger of better days, but a grim sign that the very legacy of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is being betrayed.
While one reformist paper heralded the results of the election “a turning point in the history” of the country, fundamentalists in this city were discussing how they could counter moves which, in their eyes, would endanger the Islamic Republic. Shrouded by religious and moral certainty, the hardliners, who had vehemently opposed President Hassan Rouhani’s nuclear deal with world powers, simply had not seen the defeat coming.
Chaos and desperation at the Greek-Macedonian border
Tensions are rising in Idomeni with more than 7,000 refugees - mainly from Syria and Iraq - trapped between Greece and Macedonia. When refugees hurled stones and broke a fence, police fired tear gas.
There are no longer words to describe the atmosphere in Idomeni - a small village of less than 150 people perched on the Greek-Macedonian border - other than desperation, tension, anger, chaos.
"What is going to happen to us? I cry every day; I have a wife and my baby is sick," says Mohammed who has been stranded at the borders for eight weeks. "My number is 65, I am next but how long are we going to wait?" he continues.
Although it was announced that 500 people will cross daily, on Saturday, less than 220 were accepted, on Sunday 305, and on Monday just 50. People are fed up and this has already started to show. On Saturday, the first protests started, but they were calm and peaceful. The first demonstration was planned for 10:30 in the morning, but as the people dispersed, they already started to prepare for the next one scheduled for noon.
Hong Kong booksellers 'confess to illegal trading in China’
Four of the five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing in October appeared on Chinese television confirming for the first time they’d been detained for “illegal book trading” in mainland China.
The five booksellers - including a British and Swedish national - had been linked to the same Hong Kong publisher and bookstore that specialised in scandalous books on the private lives and power struggles of China’s Communist Party leaders.
The disappearances have prompted fears that mainland Chinese authorities may be using shadowy tactics that erode the “one country, two systems” formula under which Hong Kong has been governed since its return to China from British rule in 1997.
Four of the men, Gui Minhai, Lui Por, Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kee, gave details of their alleged offences to Phoenix Television on Sunday night.
A different honour
BINA SHAH
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s record second win at the Oscars for her short documentary A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness is proof that lightning can actually strike twice. Hardly four years ago, Chinoy was standing at the same stage in Los Angeles, accepting an Oscar for her documentary Saving Face, about Pakistani victims of acid attacks. Chinoy’s current Oscar winner examines a no less painful subject, honour killings in Pakistan.
The story centres around 18-year-old Saba, who fell in love with a man of her own choice; her father shot her in the head and threw her in a river to avenge the family’s ‘honour’. Saba incredibly survived her ordeal and went to court against her family. Today, she stands as a powerful witness against these abhorrent crimes as one of the few to actually escape death at the hands of a family intent on avenging their slighted honour with a blood sacrifice.
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