Gunmen storm Pigcawayan school: police
Police say soldiers engaged in gun battle with fighters who stormed a school near Pigcawayan town on Mindanao island.
Gunmen have occupied a school after storming a village on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, according to police.
Suspected members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) group were engaged in a gun battle with security forces at Malagakit, close to Pigcawayan town, Chief Inspector Realan Mamon said in a radio interview on Wednesday.
There were conflicting reports about whether civilians were trapped in the fighting or taken hostage. The Malagakit school is believed to had been closed at the time of the attack.
The US seems keener to strike at Syria's Assad than it does to destroy Isis
It is instructive that the West now expresses more outrage at the use of gas – it blames the Assad regime for this, of course – than at the continued cruelty of Isis
The extraordinary destruction of a Syrian fighter jet by a US aircraft on Sunday has precious little to do with the Syrian plane’s target in the desert near Rasafa – but much to do with the advance of the Syrian army close to the American-backed Kurdish forces along the Euphrates. The Syrians have grown increasingly suspicious in recent months that most Kurdish forces in the north of Syria – many of them in alliance with the Assad government until recently – have thrown in their lot with the Americans.
Indeed, the military in Damascus is making no secret of the fact that it has ended its regular arms and ammunition supplies to the Kurds – it has apparently given them 14,000 AK-47 rifles since 2012 – and the Syrian regime was outraged to learn that Kurdish forces recently received an envoy from the United Arab Emirates.
Vacationing in North Korea
Every year, thousands of tourists book trips to North Korea. But can tour organizers guarantee the safety of foreign tourists in a country notorious for grave human rights abuses? And are these trips even ethical?
US student Otto Warmbier, who died in June 2017 after having been released from a North Korean prison, had visited the Asian state as part of a New Year tour organized by Young Pioneer Tours, a China-based travel agency. He was arrested when the group was set to return to Beijing on January 2, 2016 for having stolen a propaganda poster from a hotel.He was one of a growing number of western tourists taking a guided tour to North Korea.
Markos Kern took part in a group tour of North Korea for the first time in June 2015. He said he had always wanted to visit the isolated communist state and see with his own eyes the country he had heard and read so many negative things about. Traveling is the passion of the 33-year-old German national.
Two Brazilians punish a boy by tattooing his forehead
Two men decided to punish a 17-year-old boy for allegedly stealing a bike by tattooing “I’m a thief and an idiot” across his forehead. The two men posted a video of themselves tattooing the boy online and were arrested shortly thereafter. This is not the first such case in Brazil, where some civilians prefer to take justice into their own hands.
The first video, which is a minute long, shows the teenager sitting on a chair. Off-camera, two male voices are speaking to him.
“It’s going to be very beautiful and you are going to suffer! What do you want [us to tattoo]?”
“Thief,” the teenager responds.
“Just that?” the two men guffaw.
Terrorism in Britain: How do you build bridges when 'enough is enough'?
BRIDGING DIVIDES A string of deadly attacks, the latest on a mosque in London Sunday, has frustrated both Muslim and non-Muslim Brits. In between them stand community groups and faith leaders who are trying to foster dialogue.
When British Prime Minister Theresa May responded to the London Bridge terrorist attack this month with the words “enough is enough,” it wasn’t just campaign rhetoric.
It sums up a wearing down of patience across Western Europe, which has born witness to over a dozen major terrorist attacks in 30 months.
Britain had been spared the barrage, much of it inspired by the so-called Islamic State, until it shifted to the British stage this spring, with four attacks since March. The first three were perpetrated by Islamist extremists in the name of religion, taking the lives of innocent victims commuting from work, out walking, dancing at concerts, or celebrating. The youngest was just 8 years old. The latest was carried out Sunday night against Muslims worshiping at a mosque during the holy month of Ramadan, confirming the dread that many have felt amid a fraying of nerves: that “enough is enough” will give way to the most violent forms of Islamophobia.
3 ways Senate Republicans can pass Obamacare repeal
And four ways they could fail.
Whatever health care bill Senate Republicans produce in secret will have to solve a very basic math problem: Can it add up to 50?
By all accounts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is agnostic about the actual policy of the bill his chamber is drafting. His only concern is whether it can get 50 votes, the bare majority it needs under the “budget reconciliation” rules Republicans are using to avoid a Democratic filibuster. He can lose only two of the 52 members of his conference.
The secretive drafting of the Senate’s plan has allowed speculation to flourish. The truth is we just aren’t sure yet what’s going to be in the bill or how it will differ from the House legislation that was projected to lead to 23 million fewer Americans having health insurance and $830 billion in Medicaid cuts.
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