The Hong Kong outcasts who gave up their beds for Edward Snowden
Updated 0744 GMT (1544 HKT) October 6, 2016
Vanessa Rodel didn't realize she was sheltering the most wanted man in the world until the morning after he showed up unexpectedly at her door.
Her houseguest from the United States had requested a newspaper. She discovered his high-profile identity when she recognized Edward Snowden's face on the front page of the Hong Kong daily.
"I said 'oh my God,'" Rodel told CNN. "The most wanted man in the world is in my house!"
Why would we need a hit squad? Philippines police chief denies state killings
Director general Ronald Dela Rosa says allegations by a senior officer interviewed by the Guardian are untrue
The chief of the Philippine national police has issued a vehement denial of allegations of secretive state sanctioned death squads revealed by the Guardian.
Ronald Dela Rosa responded to questioning about the report based on an interview with a senior officer in the force who claimed he led one of 10 special operations teams, each with 16 members, tasked with killing suspected drug users, dealers and criminals.
The officer claimed the hit squads are composed of active police officers and that the murders are conducted in such a way as to make them appear to be perpetrated by “vigilantes” to deliberately obscure police involvement and investigation.UN 'nowhere near ready' to deal with up to 1.5 million people set to be displaced from Mosul by battle with Isis
Aid agencies sound alarm bells as Iraqi forces prepare to push Isis out of Mosul
The United Nations and aid agencies say they are “nowhere near” ready to cope with up to 1.5 million people who could be displaced from the Iraqi city of Mosul when an offensive to retake it from Isis begins.
A US-coalition backed operation to take the city back from Isis could start as soon as mid-October, but humanitarian response planning has been woefully underfunded to deal with the scale of the impending manmade crisis, several agencies confirmed to The Independent.
“The scope of the required response is something we can’t handle,” Sandra Black, Communications Officer for the Iraqi branch of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said. “It’s simply too little, too late.”
Opinion: Afghanistan's sweet poison
With its dependence on international aid, Afghanistan is struggling to establish security and prosperity on its own. Bernd Riegert writes from the donor conference in Brussels.
When United States armed forces were deployed against al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban regime exactly 15 years ago, no one could have imagined how this operation would turn out. After the attacks of September 11, the goal at the time was to hunt down the terrorists and take away their base of operations. Today, 15 years later, this goal has been only partially achieved. Parts of Afghanistan are still controlled by the Taliban. A new terrorist group called the "Islamic State" has established itself in the Hindu Kush, and terrorists based in the neighboring country of Pakistan still operate in Afghanistan.
The international community realized that the threat of terrorism could only be averted when, as well as against fighting militias, the state of Afghanistan could be organized in such a way that people there had a future. What followed was a massive military operation and an unprecedentedly expensive development program. More than $113 billion (100 million euros) were invested in state infrastructure, security and humanitarian aid.
EU launches new border force to stem migrant flow
Latest update : 2016-10-06
The EU's beefed-up version of its struggling border force goes into operation Thursday, as the squabbling bloc struggles to find a unified strategy to tackle its worst migration crisis since World War II.
European Union officials were due to inaugurate the new task force at the Kapitan-Andreevo checkpoint on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, the main land frontier via which migrants try to enter the bloc to avoid the dangerous Mediterranean sea crossing.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCG) will have at the ready some 1,500 officers from 19 member states who can be swiftly mobilised in case of emergency such as a sudden rush of migrants.
Brussels hopes the revamped agency will not just increase security, but also help heal the huge rifts that have emerged between western and eastern member states clashing over the EU's refugee policies.Oromo protests: Ethiopia unrest resurges after stampede
Bloggers arrested, internet shut down periodically, and foreign firms attacked as anti-government protests continue.
Often violent protests in which rights groups say hundreds of people have been killed by security forces have flared again in Ethiopia, with a US citizen among the latest deaths.
Protests reignited in the Oromia region - the main focus of a recent wave of demonstrations - after at least 55 people were killed in a stampede at the weekend, which was sparked by police firing tear gas and warning shots at a huge crowd of protesters attending a religious festival.
Fifty-five is the official death toll given by the government, though opposition activists and rights groups say they believe more than 100 people died as they fled security forces, falling into ditches that dotted the area. Ethiopian radio said excavators had to be used to remove some of the bodies.
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