What's in the water? Pollution fears taint Rio's picturesque bay ahead of Olympics
Untreated sewage and viruses in Guanabara Bay have led UN to advise athletes to spend as little time in the water as possible
There can be few more beautiful city sights in the world than that from the Marina da Gloria, where the Rio 2016 Olympic sailing events will be launched this weekend.
Look out from the quayside across Guanabara Bay and the panorama takes in Sugarloaf mountain, the Niteroi bridge and the distant hills of the Serra dos Orgãos national park, while behind you are the palm trees of Flamengo Park and the state of Christ the Redeemer.
But this treat for the eyes – which will make it the perfect backdrop for TV sports broadcasts – is sometimes so polluted with untreated human waste that it can also be an assault on the nose and the immune system, prompting a recommendation from the United Nations that competitors and spectators should spend as little time in the water as possible.
South Africans head to the polls in key municipal elections
Polls have opened in hotly contested South African municipal elections. The elections are regarded as a key barometer on the nation's mood ahead of the 2019 general elections.
South Africans began lining up Wednesday, waiting to cast their votes in local elections that are expected to present a tough challenge for a political party that's dominated since the end of Apartheid.
Opinion polls suggest that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party could lose in some major cities for the first time since it came to power with the end of apartheid rule 22 years ago. South Africa's economic hub of Johannesburg, the capital city of Pretoria and the coastal town of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province (also known as Nelson Mandela Bay) are all predicted to be highly contested battlegrounds in the polls.
The country's largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has been gaining ground in many areas due to disappointment in President Jacob Zuma's leadership. The radical leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) under the leadership of one of Zuma's former close allies, Julius Malema, is also expected to challenge the ANC's absolute majority held in many parts of the country
A Hungarian mayor makes a show of "migrant-hunting"
OBSERVERS
In the small Hungarian town of Ásotthalom, migrants are regularly being photographed on their knees, hands on their heads, displayed like hunting trophies, with armed militiamen standing by. The mayor of the town is behind the hate-filled hunt for undocumented migrants. According to our Observer, this is just another example of the xenophobic, law-and-order policies in Hungary.
Beneath a photo published in June on the Facebook page of Toroczkai Laszlo, the mayor of Ásotthalom, a village of 5,000 on the Serbo-Hungarian border, the caption reads, "Violent invaders 0 – Citizen militia 1." The image shows three migrant men lying face-down on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs. In another photo, shared more than 300 times, a thickset man in camouflage poses in front of five young men, captured while illegally crossing the border.
Chinese activist Hu Shigen jailed for
subversion
Beijing: In the second act of the Communist Party's four-day political show trial of lawyers and legal rights campaigners, veteran dissident and democracy activist Hu Shigen has been sentenced to 7½ years in jail for subverting the Chinese state.
The highly stage-managed trials – the first since a sweeping nationwide crackdown on China's legal community began more than a year ago – have seen the government double down on its invective.
The courts have sought to portray those on trial as having actively conspired with "foreign hostile forces" to foment a "colour revolution" aimed at ultimately overthrowing the government.
'We are dead souls in living bodies': Australia accused of abusing refugees
Updated 0849 GMT (1649 HKT) August 3, 2016
Australia is deliberately abusing refugees in an offshore detention camp to try to stop people seeking asylum in their country by boat, human rights groups claim in a new report.
Daily violence, suicide attempts and children left without medical treatment were among some of the allegations documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch during a visit to Australia's detention center on the remote Pacific Island of Nauru in July.
Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division senior counsel Michael Bochenek was one of two researchers who visited the island with a legal visa, but without notifying authorities directly of his intent or who he worked for.
Abe picks revisionist Inada as defense minister in cabinet reshuffle
By Linda Sieg and Elaine Lies
POLITICS
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appointed conservative ally Tomomi Inada as defense minister on Wednesday, which risked upsetting China and South Korea, as part of a limited cabinet reshuffle that left most top posts unchanged.
Inada, previously the ruling party policy chief, shares Abe’s goal of revising the postwar, pacifist constitution, which some conservatives consider a humiliating symbol of Japan’s World War II defeat.
She also regularly visits Yasukuni Shrine for war dead, which China and South Korea see as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
Japan’s relations with Beijing and Seoul have often been frayed by the legacy of Japan’s military aggression before and during World War Two.
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