Republican attempts to replace Obamacare fail
Republican efforts to find a replacement for President Obama's healthcare system have collapsed.
Two Republican senators said they opposed their party's proposed alternative, making it impossible for the bill to pass in its current form.
The party has been divided on the issue, with moderates concerned about the effects on the most vulnerable.
President Trump has now called for repeal of Obamacare, so Republicans can start "from a clean slate".
That task falls to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
"Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful," Mr McConnell said.
UN influence in Myanmar at a low after Aung San Suu Kyi cold shoulders envoys
Fears grow of terminal decline in relations as top UN official is denied access to area at centre of alleged human rights abuses and stonewalled by government
There is growing concern that the influence of the UN in Myanmar is in serious decline, as confusion surrounds what is being done to tackle the “glaringly dysfunctional” mission there.
According to Guardian sources, it is now clear that during a key visit in May, a senior UN official and his delegation were snubbed by the Myanmar government, which is under fire after allegations of human rights abuses in its troubled Rakhine state.
The “disastrous” trip, led by Miroslav Jenca on behalf of the UN secretary general, was followed within weeks by the announcement that the UN’s top official in the country was being removed from her post.More than just revenge: Why Isis fighters are being thrown off buildings in Mosul
Last Days of the Caliphate: In the latest in his special series on the fall of Mosul, Patrick Cockburn examines why the number of extrajudicial killings has been so high in the recent conflict
Iraqi security forces kill Isis prisoners because they believe that if the militants are sent to prison camps they will bribe the authorities in Baghdad to release them. “That is why Iraqi soldiers prefer to shoot them or throw them off high buildings,” says one Iraqi source. A former senior Iraqi official said he could name the exact sum that it would take for an Isis member to buy papers enabling him to move freely around Iraq.
The belief by Iraqi soldiers and militiamen that their own government is too corrupt to keep captured Isis fighters in detention is one reason why the bodies of Isis suspects, shot in the head or body and with their hands tied behind their backs, are found floating in the Tigris river downstream from Mosul. Revenge and hatred provoked by Isis atrocities are motives for extrajudicial killings by death squads, but so is distrust of an Iraqi judicial system, which is notoriously corrupt and dysfunctional.
Turkish court orders human rights activists held on terror charges
Six people, including a German human rights consultant and an Amnesty director, will land behind bars in pre-trial detention. Four others were released. Amnesty called the decision a "crushing blow" for human rights.
The court did not provide details as to which terror organization the six individuals allegedly were associated with when it made its ruling on Tuesday morning.
Four other activists whose fates had hung in the same balance were allowed to walk free.
Those detained include German national Peter Steudtner. A human rights trainer who has worked across Africa for such for organizations such as Bread for the World, Steudtner had only loose ties to Turkey, the website of the German weekly magazine Spiegel reported.
As one of the organizers of a human rights workshop that had been in progress for two day, he was taken away by police on July 5 when they stormed the hotel where the event was taking place. His co-organizer, the Swede Ali Gharavi, was also detained.
Dirty water, cholera and malnutrition: deadly mix afflicting Yemeni children
Ahmad Algohbary
More than 10,000 civilians have died in the war that has torn Yemen apart since it started in 2015. The country is now engulfed wide-scale humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 2.2 million children suffering from severe malnutrition and much of the population reduced to drinking dirty water. As a result, starting last May, Yemen has been experiencing the “worst cholera epidemic in the world,” according to the United Nations. It’s a situation proving deadly for children, the most vulnerable victims of this conflict.Close to 300,000 people in Yemen have contracted cholera, of whom 1,700 died, according to numbers reported in June. This epidemic has, in large part, been caused by the poor quality of the country’s drinking water, which is often contaminated with fecal matter. Moreover, wartorn Yemen lacks the resources to purify the water. And, when people fall ill, they often have no access to medical care. This disease, which is easy to treat, is most deadly when contracted by vulnerable people, like the elderly and, especially. children.
CAIR: Hate crimes against Muslims spike after Trump win
Advocacy group says Islamophobic abuse rose 91 percent in first half of 2017, compared to same period last year.
The number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States rose 91 percent in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2016, according to a leading Muslim advocacy and civil rights group.
In a report published on Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said hate crimes have spiked since 2016, which was the worst year on record for anti-Muslim incidents since the group began its documenting system in 2013.
The number of bias incidents in the first half of 2017 also rose by 24 percent compared to the first six months of 2016, CAIR said.
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