North Korea 'will not use nuclear weapons' unless threatened
The leader of North Korea has said the country will not use nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is threatened, state media report.
North Korea first tested nuclear weapons in 2006, after withdrawing from an international treaty.
It has made repeated threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US.
But Kim Jong-un reportedly told the Workers' Party Congress in Pyongyang that he is willing to normalise ties with previously hostile countries.
A BBC correspondent in North Korea says Mr Kim tends to send mixed messages and movement observed at the country's nuclear site is consistent with preparations for another nuclear test.
The ‘Donald Trump of the East’ could be the next president of the Philippines
Rodrigo Duterte has publicly backed death squads
It seems to be the season for tough-talk politics.
As the United States adjusts to the rise of Donald Trump, the Philippines, a former colony and longtime ally, is observing the rise of its own populist phenom, presidential front-runner Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte, a motorcycle-riding, rape-joke-making mayor, is the favorite heading into the Philippines’ presidential vote Monday, commanding a solid but not certain lead over a pack of challengers with strong links to the country’s political and showbiz elite.
The election centers on domestic issues such as crime, corruption, poverty and transportation. At stake are years of solid economic gains under the current president, Benigno Aquino III.
The Austrian Malady: Turning Right in the Refugee Crisis
An Essay by Armin ThurnherThe far-right candidate from the Austrian Freedom Party won an unexpected 35 percent of the vote in the first round of the country's presidential election. The established parties are largely to blame.
During his apex, I briefly considered donating a votive plaque in Jörg Haider's name for all the work he unwittingly sent my way. As he drove the country into crisis, I got the chance to write about it. When Austria, a country of tired consensus, sleepily belched an extreme right wing movement into existence in the late 1990s, it grabbed the world's attention.
More recently, my gratitude has gone to Heinz-Christian Strache, Haider's present-day successor as leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), and to Norbert Hofer, the party's candidate for the presidency. Just over a week ago, the soft-speaking, staunchly conservative Hofer -- with his walking stick and the pistol he always carries with him -- won fully 35 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections. It was far more than the 24 percent pre-election surveys had predicted and once again, the world was rudely awoken.
US-funded Somali intelligence agency has been using children as spies
May 8, 2016 - 4:41PMKevin Sieff
Mogadishu: For years they were children at war, boys given rifles and training by al-Qaeda-backed militants and sent to the front lines of this country's bloody conflict. Many had been kidnapped from schools and soccer fields and forced to fight.
The United Nations pleaded for them to be removed from the battlefield. The United States denounced the Islamist militants for using children to plant bombs and carry out assassinations.
But when the boys were finally disarmed - some defecting and others apprehended - what awaited them was yet another dangerous role in the war. This time, the children say, they were forced to work for the Somali government.
The boys were used for years as informants by the country's National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), according to interviews with the children and Somali and UN officials. They were marched through neighbourhoods where al-Shabab insurgents were hiding and told to point out their former comrades.
How Malegaon’s innocent ‘terrorists’ lost 10 years of their lives
Harinder Baweja and Farhan Shaikh, Hindustan Times
Mohammad Zahid would have continued eking out a living earning a paltry Rs.1500 a month. He would have continued to remain a statistic, a faceless teacher at a madrasa in Yavatmal district’s Fulsawangi village, 450 km away from Malegaon, a mid-sized town in Maharashtra. No one would have known that Zahid had to subsist on just Rs.950 a month after paying for a room and water.
Yet, a few days after a bomb ripped through the Hamidia mosque, near Malegaon’s Bade Kabristan on September 8, 2006, Zahid was transformed from a poor teacher to a terrorist. It did not matter that he was 450 km away. Maharashtra’s Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) accused him of assembling a bomb, concealing it in a bicycle and parking it next to the mosque. Suddenly, Zahid became one of the bombers responsible for killing 37 and injuring over 100, mostly from their own community.
Meet Malegaon’s innocent ‘terrorists’ and hear their stories to know how they were framed and punished for a crime they never committed.
Factions trade blame after Gaza children burn to death
Three siblings were burned alive after their home was set ablaze by candles the family used due to electricity crisis.
Patrick Strickland, Ezz Zanoun |
Palestinian political factions have traded accusations of blame over three siblings who were burned alive after their home was set ablaze by candles the family was using due to the ongoing electricity crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Officials in the Gaza-based Hamas movement and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority have traded barbs over the deaths, with each accusing the other of bearing the responsibility.
More than 600 Palestinians came out on Saturday for the funeral of the three children, whose home was engulfed in flames a day earlier in the al-Shati refugee camp in the north of the coastal enclave.
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