Syria warns Israel after rockets hit air base
Large plumes of smoke rise over the capital with the Syrian army accusing Israel of targeting Mazzeh military airport.
The Syrian army has warned Israel of "repercussions" after rockets struck a major military air base outside Damascus.
Explosions were heard in the capital early on Friday and residents in city's southwest suburbs saw a large plume of smoke rising from the area.
Footage on social media showed flames leaping from parts of the Mazzeh military airport compound.
Trump risks 'war' with Beijing if US blocks access to South China Sea, state media warns
Threats by Rex Tillerson, would-be secretary of state, to stop access to islands are ‘mish-mash of naivety and shortsightedness’, says China Daily
The US risks a “large-scale war” with China if it attempts to blockade islands in the South China Sea, Chinese state media has said, adding that if recent statements become policy when Donald Trump takes over as president “the two sides had better prepare for a military clash”.
China has controversially built fortifications and artificial islands across the South China Sea. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, said China’s “access to those islands … is not going to be allowed”.
China claims nearly the entire area, with rival claims by five south-east Asian neighbours and Taiwan.
Burma: More than 65,000 Muslims flee alleged persecution in Rakhine state
The Burmese government denies ethnic Rohingya are being mistreated
More than 65,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Burma since a new flare-up in violence began, the UN has said, amid continued reports of the minority group suffering murder, rape and arson at the hands of the Burmese military.
A third of the refugees left in the last week alone as reports of the treatment of the Rohingya prompted a visit from the UN’s human rights envoy for Burma, Yanghee Lee.
The Burmese government denies any mistreatment of the Rohingya minority and, in an official commission's report, said there was no evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing taking place.
Brazil prison chief removed over collusion in massacre allegations
Letters from dead inmates accuse man of accepting money from gang behind murders
Tom Hennigan in São Paulo
The official in charge of a Brazilian prison where 56 inmates were murdered on New Year’s Day has been suspended from his job amid allegations he accepted money from the gang responsible for the massacre.
José Carvalho da Silva was removed after the discovery of letters written by two inmates in which they accused him of accepting money from the Família do Norte (Family of the North or FDN) drug trafficking gang in return for allowing it to smuggle drugs, mobile phones and weapons into the Compaj prison complex in the Amazonian city of Manaus.
In their letters the two prisoners – Alcinei Gomes da Silveira and Gezildo Nunes da Silva – also requested protection claiming they had received death threats. The letters were written 20 days before the massacre in which both men were murdered.
Times of iron and fire: The case of Pakistan's missing activists
SHAHAB SAQIB
In a letter to his mother soon after he was incarcerated by fascists in the 1920s, Antonio Gramsci, reflecting on the political and cultural age of his time, described it as the age of "iron and fire". This was not the moment for sentimentality and softness, he told her.
Gramsci was perhaps referring to the imminent threat of a fascist takeover of Europe. While he wrote it in an entirely different context, the phrase captures, to a certain extent, the essence of what we are witnessing right now in the Land of the Pure.
Number of activists and bloggers critical of the prevailing socio-political and religious discourse, and state policies, including the poet and academic Salman Haider, have been ‘mysteriously’ missing for the past few days.
A 12-year-old killed herself on live video. Facebook won’t take it down.
Live video has become increasingly controversial as social media sites have encouraged use of the tool but have struggled to monitor it.
The most prominent example was when four Chicago residents kidnapped and tortured a mentally challenged man in the beginning of January, broadcasting the whole thing on Facebook Live. It was eventually taken down by Facebook, but not before it had been shared and embedded by others.
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