A bumpy 24 hours for Trump-backed health bill
Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiled their long-awaited draft healthcare bill on Monday night, amid hopes this was the first step on a road to keeping a key election promise.
Replacing the Affordable Care Act became a rallying cry among conservatives for years and here was the first attempt by the party to fashion an alternative.
But just 24 hours later and the mood in the party has changed, with the knives out for the American Health Care Act before it has even got to committee.
It's still a "work in progress", say Republicans who are behind the bill, but what happened within a few hours on Tuesday means that work may be harder than anyone imagined.
Mosul: Iraqi troops find Assyrian treasures in network of Isis tunnels
Archaeologists face race against time to save artefacts uncovered in crumbling labyrinths beneath the war-torn city
Deep under a monument destroyed by Isis in Mosul, Iraqi archaeologists have discovered carvings dating from almost 2,000 years earlier in a network of escape tunnels dug by the extremists.
Archaeologists in the west are avid for more news and better quality photographs of the carved stone reliefs, which appear to represent priests and religious ceremonies. The tunnels were dug under a high mound damaged in 2014 when Isis blew up a beautiful 12th-century mosque, believed to hold the tomb of the prophet Jonah.
The discovery of a previously unknown temple and possible palace entrance, dating back to the Assyrian period and probably carved in the 5th or 6th century BC, is a rare piece of good news in the context of so much deliberate destruction and looting by Isis of pre-Islamic archaeology.
Cannabis and prescription painkillers flooding Gaza Strip, Hamas warns
'They think Tramadol will change the reality and will make them feel at peace. They want to lose awareness and any feeling of reality', says a psychiatrist who works with people in the occupied territory
Drugs are flooding into the Gaza Strip at an unprecedented rate, forcing the ruling Hamas group to seek tougher smuggling penalties.
The quantity of marijuana and prescription painkillers such as Tramadol which were seized in Gaza in January was as much for the whole of 2016, officials said.
Eight major dealers were arrested in one of the biggest police stings to date in which they seized more than 100 kg (220 pounds) of marijuana, worth as much as £4m on the streets of Gaza, and 250,000 tablets of tramadol, which sells for between 130 and 170 shekels (£30-£40) for 10 pills.
China calls on North Korea to halt missile tests
Latest update : 2017-03-08
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on North Korea on Wednesday to stop nuclear and missile tests and for the United States and South Korea to stop joint military drills that the isolated North regards as preparation for war.
North Korea launched four ballistic missiles on Monday in response to the military exercises. Wang said those tests and the drills were causing tensions on the Korean Peninsula to increase like two "accelerating trains coming toward each other".
"China's suggestion is, as a first step, for North Korea to suspend nuclear activity, and for the U.S. and South Korea to also suspend large-scale military drills," Wang said at his annual news conference on the sidelines of the meeting of China's parliament in Beijing.
He said this "dual suspension" would allow all sides to return to the negotiating table.
Kasha Nabagesera: The face of Uganda's LGBT movement
By Bianca Britton, CNN
In Uganda, where homosexual acts are punishable by prison sentences, being openly gay requires an astounding amount of courage.
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera is not only incredibly open about her sexuality, she's made fighting for the rights of Uganda's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community her life's work.
And it hasn't been easy.
Call the 36-year-old's phone and you'll likely be screened by an automated system. Usually, Nabagesera will only answer if she knows the number.
The Earthquake Question
The general view is the Fukushima reactor meltdowns in
Japan in 2011 were caused by the tsunami that knocked out
back up power to the atomic plant. Nuclear engineers
say that's not the full story
Six years after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, engineers remain vexed by a key question: What damage did the massive earthquake cause at the atomic plant before it was hit by the subsequent tsunami?
The answer matters because of the potential implications for the earthquake safety standards of other nuclear reactors in Japan, which sits on the seismically unstable Ring of Fire around the Pacific. The area accounts for about 90% of the planet’s earthquakes, with Japan being shaken by 10% of them, according to the US Geological Survey.
Just three out of Japan’s 42 usable reactors are running at present, as operators seek to clear regulatory, safety and legal hurdles and overcome community opposition following the Fukushima calamity. Despite the obstacles, Japan still aims to derive between 20% and 22% of its power from nuclear sources by 2030.
Asylum seekers pay price for sheltering Edward Snowden
At least three asylum seekers who hosted the US whistle-blower in Hong Kong say they have been targeted.
By Dorian Geiger
Hong Kong - It was nearly midnight when Vanessa Mae Rodel, a Filipino asylum seeker living in Hong Kong, heard a knock at the door of her tiny apartment. She wasn't expecting any visitors, but opened the door to see her immigration attorney, accompanied by a stranger.
The stranger wore camouflage khaki pants and was carrying a blue plastic bag filled with clothes. He was young, slender, a 20-something American, whose glasses poked out from beneath the brim of a baseball cap. Rodel was particularly struck by the troubled look on this unknown visitor's face.
Little did Rodel know then but the visitor was Edward Snowden, fresh on the run from the US government. It was June 2013 and the American whistle-blower had just arrived in Hong Kong from Honolulu, the capital of the US state of Hawaii. Snowden, a former contractor with the US intelligence agency who had leaked classified information, was in desperate need of shelter while he plotted his next moves.
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