Ah the Zombie smartphone user. While I'm sure what's on their phone is indeed quite interesting. But, is it so interesting that falling from a passenger ferry is worth the price?
At eight o’clock in the evening on Aug 27, passengers were boarding a ferry that would take them from Fukuoka Prefecture’s Hakata Wharf to Shikanoshima with a stop at Saitozaki along the way. Among the passengers was a 53-year-old businessman, Hisateru Soejima, who was in store for the ride of his life.
The entire trip was to take about 30 minutes, and roughly 20 minutes after the ferry set sail, the businessman went onto the deck in order to take some pictures of the beautiful twilight vista his coastal course provided. The combination of having had a few drinks and focusing too much on his smartphone caused him to accidentally topple overboard.
Since there were no witnesses at the time of the fall, it is unclear how far he swam, but he was probably attracted by the bright light beaming from Hashima (literally “End Island”) and headed in that direction. Unfortunately for him, its unmanned lighthouse and hundreds of trees were the only things on that island.
Imran Khan was sworn in as Pakistan’s new prime minister on August 18, but he is no ordinary politician. Before rising to power, he was a dashing cricket superstar. He lead the Pakistani cricket team to victory in the 1992 World Cup against England and became a global celebrity. He settled in England, where his popularity grew and where he was known as a bachelor.
He eventually resettled in Pakistan, where he shed his lady’s-man image and established the political career that lead him to become the head of Pakistan’s government. His strong anti-corruption message and opposition to the political dynasties that have ruled Pakistan for decades helped him ascend to power. But many have accused him of also getting help from Pakistan’s most powerful authority: the military. As Khan starts his tenure, we explore his rise to power and how Pakistan’s political climate might affect his term as prime minister.
The WTO was established to provide rules for global trade and resolve disputes between countries.
Mr Trump says the body too often rules against the US, although he concedes it has won some recent judgments.
He claimed on Fox News earlier this year that the WTO was set up "to benefit everybody but us", adding: "We lose the lawsuits, almost all of the lawsuits in the WTO."
Detention of Uighurs must end, UN tells China, amid claims of prison camps
Committee cites reports that ‘tens of thousands to upwards of a million’ Muslim Chinese are being held, as US lawmakers call for sanctions
Staff and agencies in Geneva and Beijing
United Nations human rights experts have called for China to shut down alleged political “re-education camps” for Muslim Uighurs and called for the immediate release of those detained on the “pretext of countering terrorism”.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination cited estimates that “from tens of thousands to upwards of a million Uighurs” may be detained in the far western Xinjiang province. Its findings were issued after a two-day review of China’s record, the first since 2009.
China’s foreign ministry has rejected the allegations, saying anti-China forces are behind criticism of policies in Xinjiang.
Trump administration ‘denying passports to US citizens living near Mexico border’
'They think we're all liars, including the lawyers,' one immigration attorney says
The Trump administration is increasingly cracking down on applications for passports by lifelong US residents who they suspect of being born outside the country, according to attorneys working near the US-Mexico border.
Lawyers for Hispanic Americans living near the border in Texassay their clients are increasingly being denied the documents, because the government suspects their birth certificates were falsified. These denials can put applicant’s entire citizenship status in jeopardy.
“I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention centre – US citizens,” attorney Jaime Diez told the Washington Post of clients who had recently applied for passports.
Is Qatar failing to deliver on its World Cup promises?
Qatar has come under immense criticism following the deaths of hundreds of foreign workers at FIFA 2022 World Cup venues. It has pledged reforms, but what's happening on the ground? Anchal Vohra reports from Qatar.
On a midsummer afternoon, workers are carving out a diamond in the desert; at least, that's what the Education City Stadium is designed to be. It is expected to host 40,000 football fans and be ready by 2019.
On July 28, DW saw more than a dozen workers laboring between 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., hours designated as a rest period by the state of Qatar between June 15 and August 31, the hottest time of the year.
Though experts argue there should not be any work during the day in the harsh summers — when temperatures can rise to 50 Celsius (120F) — Qatar itself has banned work during these three and a half hours. And, yet, DW witnessed a clear breach of law even during the tiny window of reprieve for the workers.
Dozens killed after days of clashes near Libyan capital
Violent clashes resumed late Thursday afternoon between rival militias south of the Libyan capital, just hours after a truce was announced to end fighting that has killed almost 30 people since Monday.
The fighting broke out on Monday in suburbs south of Tripoli and continued into Wednesday evening after a truce collapsed, despite an appeal by the United Nations for calm.
The clashes had paused on Thursday after a ceasefire agreement announced by officials from western areas, but by late afternoon the hostilities had resumed.
Residents in the Khellat al-Ferjan area reported the use of heavy weapons and rifle fire.
Former NBC producer who worked on Ronan Farrow's Harvey Weinstein reporting breaks silence
by Rob McLean and Brian Stelter @CNNMoneyAugust 31, 2018: 12:43 AM ET
Rich McHugh, who left NBC News' investigative unit recently, said in a statement provided to CNN that the orders not to run the story came from "the highest levels of NBC. That was unethical."
"At a critical juncture in our reporting on Harvey Weinstein, as we were about to interview a woman with a credible allegation of rape against him, I was told not to do the interview and ordered to stand down, thus effectively killing the story," McHugh said in the statement.
An NBC News spokesperson said in a statement that "the assertion that NBC News tried to kill the Weinstein story while Ronan Farrow was at NBC News, or even more ludicrously, after he left NBC News, is an outright lie."
Unpacking South Africa's fraught and complex land debate
Land reform a key issue before elections next year, experts say, turning up debate over legacy of apartheid.
Last week, US President Donald Trump ignited a firestorm when he decided to wade into the sensitive land debate in South Africa.
Trump wrote in a tweet that he had asked Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, to look into "land and farm seizures" and "large scale killings of white farmers".
Trump's comment came after he watched a six-minute segment on the issue on Fox News, a conservative US broadcaster. The president was immediately condemned by the South African government and his comments raised the ire of many South Africans, a majority of whom, 24 years after the end of apartheid, are still waiting for land reform to take place.
Donald Trump flew off to Singapore believing as only he can that he his fantastic personality and the Art of the Deal book (Not written by him.) would end in a loving embrace from Kim-Jong un and North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons. Somewhere along the way the fool failed to realize that his in artful attempts at diplomacy would lead to long and difficult negotiations. North Korea isn't, won't ever surrender its nuclear arsenal. Those weapons the key to that regimes survival.
Now the Orange Froot Loop is blaming China for his inadequacies as a leader as those talks have stalled. Negotiating with North Korea over its nuclear arsenal was never going to easy its just that Donald Trump was just to stupid to know it.
US President Donald Trump has lashed out at China for undermining its work with North Korea, as criticism over progress on denuclearisation mounts.
In a series of tweets he also said he saw no reason to resume the joint war games with South Korea that have angered North Korea.
Days ago his own defence secretary said military exercises might continue.
China has accused Mr Trump of "shifting blame" in his comments on its relations with North Korea.
A summit between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June ended with a pledge from the North to work towards "the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". Soon after Mr Trump announced there was "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea".
Young boxers at a Moroccan migrant-founded gym counter stereotypes that their neighbourhood is a 'hotbed of radicalism'.
"Life is a fight," says Mohamed Ma'alem, the founder of the Brussels Boxing Academy (BBA) in Molenbeek. "For everyone, for anyone."
But in 14-year-old Salma Ben Abdesselam, he thinks he has a fighter who might just be up to the challenge.
"She is a force," he says of the schoolgirl whose parents were born in Morocco and who considers herself both Moroccan and Belgian. "She has huge inner strength."
Salma trains every day at the BBA, a club with 600 members located in an old school gym, where her father, Hamid Ben Abdesselam, is one of her coaches.
It’s often assumed that the Chinese in Africa ‘bring their own’ and don’t hire locals. In Ethiopia, that’s not the case -- but will it lift the country out of poverty Words, video and images byJenni Marsh, CNN
Zhang Huarong points out of his office window to a bleak block of grey portacabins at the Huajian International Shoe City, in Addis Ababa. “That is what I lived in for six months when I came to Africa,” he says. “I am 60 years old. Back in China, I am a wealthy man -- my house in Dongguan even has a swimming pool. But I chose to come here and do something very difficult.”
In 2011, this self-made textile tycoon from Jiangxi province became one of the first Chinese entrepreneurs to heed the call of Ethiopia’s then-Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to open a factory in his country. Within three months, Huajian was producing footwear for giants such as Nine West, Guess and, later, Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, before it closed.
Demonetisation drive that cost India 1.5m jobs fails to uncover 'black money'
Costly banknote recall did not flush out untaxed wealth, as PM Narendra Modi had promised
More than 99% of the currency that India declared void in a surprise announcement in 2016 was returned to the country’s banks in subsequent weeks, according to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report.
The figures suggest prime minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation policy, which likely wiped at least 1% from the country’s GDP and cost at least 1.5m jobs, failed to wipe significant hordes of unaccounted wealth from the Indian economy — a key rationale for the move.
Modi shocked Indians in November 2016 when he announced on live television that all 500 and 1000-rupee notes, equivalent to about £6 and £12, would be banned in four hours’ time.
Trump blames China for stalled North Korea talks and threatens to relaunch South Korea war games
'The President can instantly start the joint exercises again with South Korea, and Japan, if he so chooses'
Donald Trumphas accusedChina of scuppering peace talks with North Korea in retaliation for its ongoing trade dispute with the US, threatening to revisit war games with South Korea if sufficient progress cannot be made.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday night, Mr Trump primarily took aim at Beijing, accusing China's Xi Jinping of putting North Korea's Kim Jong-un "under tremendous pressure" not to work with the US.
"At the same time, we also know that China is providing North Korea with considerable aid, including money, fuel, fertilizer and various other commodities," Mr Trump said, adding: "This is not helpful!"
Women increasingly drawn to right-wing populist parties, study shows
Right-wing populists are often depicted as angry white men. A new study, however, has found that women are increasingly supporting right-wing populist parties, and they are often more radical than their male peers.
Aggressive far-right protesters took to the streets of Chemnitz this week demanding authorities take a tougher stance on migrants in Germany. Most of those in attendance were male, but a few women could occasionally be spotted in the crowd.
Indeed, most people tend to picture the prototypical supporter of Germany's far-right PEGIDA movement and right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as angry white men. But that's not entirely accurate, according a new study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), which is affiliated with Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party. The report, which examines right-wing populist voters in Germany, France, Greece, Poland, Sweden and Hungary, found that women are increasingly drawn to right-wing populist parties.
Rohingya crisis: Myanmar leader Suu Kyi 'should have resigned'
The outgoing UN human rights chief says Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi should have resigned over the military's violent campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority last year.
Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein told the BBC the Nobel Peace prize winner should have considered returning to house arrest rather than excusing the military.
Armed with a photo from Interpol, a Latvian filmmaker travels to Malaysia to find her disappeared millionaire father.
Self-made banker Boriss Osipovs achieved quick success immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he fled Latvia to avoid arrest for illegal operations.
Fifteen years later, his family receives a photograph from Interpol of an elderly gentleman with the same name who resides in a Malaysian psychiatric hospital. Could it be him?
Despite the reservations of her family, his daughter, filmmaker Ieva Ozolina embarks on a journey to find out the truth about the man in the photograph
Human rights activists in Iran have said they are worried about a man on hunger strike who was reportedly jailed for protesting against rules requiring women to wear a hijab.
Farhad Meysami, 48, a doctor and publisher before becoming a civil activist, was arrested in his office in July and taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
After a wave of hijab protests, Iranian authorities cracked down on activists. Meysami was accused of possessing badges stating: “I am against the compulsory hijab.”
Rohingya crisis: Myanmar rejects UN investigators' report on genocide because it didn't let them into country
Myanmar says report into atrocities against Rohingya must be 'false' because UN fact-finding mission did not visit the scene of the alleged crimes, but it was Myanmar itself that denied investigators access
The government of Myanmar has rejected a new UN report that called for its crackdown on Rohingya Muslims an act of genocide, and for its top generals to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A government spokesman said the report was flawed because investigators had not visited the affected region in northern Myanmar. It was the Myanmar government itself that prevented them from doing so. "That's why we don't agree and accept any resolutions made by the [UN] Human Rights Council," said Zaw Htay, the main government spokesman.
German state official: Fake news fueled Chemnitz riots
Officials in Chemnitz said that fake news items spread on social media fueled the riots. There are two suspects in custody and police are still looking for at least ten men who were seen making the illegal Nazi salute.
We have to acknowledge that mobilization on the internet was stronger than in the past," said Michael Kretschmer, state premier of Saxony, where the violence took place.
The death of a 35-year-old German man in the early hours of Sunday - allegedly at the hands of two asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria - has sparked two days of protests that were partially fueled by the false claim the victim had intervened to protect a woman. Also, internet users were exposed to fake reports that another man had been killed.
Brazil deploys army to border as Venezuela crisis deepens
Brazil said it was sending armed forces to keep order near the Venezuelan border area, while Peru declared a health emergency, as a regional crisis sparked by thousands of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse escalated on Tuesday.
LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS groups are calling on Google to cancel its plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, which they said would violate the freedom of expression and privacy rights of millions of internet users in the country.
A coalition of 14 organizations — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, Access Now, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, PEN International, and Human Rights in China — issued the demand Tuesday in an open letter addressed to the internet giant’s CEO, Sundar Pichai. The groups said the censored search engine represents “an alarming capitulation by Google on human rights” and could result in the company “directly contributing to, or [becoming] complicit in, human rights violations.
Hong Kong is the most expensive housing market in the world. It has been ranked as the least affordable housing market on Earth for eight years in a row, and the price per square foot seems to be only going up. The inflated prices are forcing Hongkongers to squeeze into unconventionally small spaces that can affect their quality of life.
Tens of thousands of Hongkongers are living in spaces that range from 75 to 140 square feet. To put that in perspective, the average parking space in the US is about 150 square feet. And in the most extreme cases, Hongkongers have resorted to homes the size of a coffin.
In the darkness of the Kigali night, Eric walks through a maze of cement homes crowned in corrugated metal. Using his phone he lights the road under his feet, a path of compressed red earth still drying out from the rainy season.
After nearly an hour of walking through a series of dizzying hills that make up the Rwandan capital, he reaches his safe house. Eric -- whose name has been changed for his safety -- says he's being watched by the government.
Staying more than one night is too risky. Tomorrow he'll move again.
'National shame': 147 Indigenous people die in custody in Australia in a decade
Calls for action after Guardian Australia publishes damning analysis
Australia’s shocking treatment of Indigenous people has been laid bare with the publication of new figures by the Guardian showing 147 Indigenous people – some of them children – have died in custody in the past 10 years.
Opposition parties have declared it a “national shame” and Aboriginal groups have demanded the government immediately allow independent monitoring of all detention centres, with Indigenous prisoners as the priority.
Just 2.8% of the Australian population identifies as Indigenous. Yet Indigenous people make up 27% of the prison population, 22% of deaths in prison custody and 19% of deaths in police custody.
Malaysian court postpones lesbian couple's caning punishment for 'technical reasons'
'A few agencies will be involved in the punishment, and there are some technical issues that have yet to be resolved'
The caning of two lesbian women by a religious court in Malaysiahas been postponed amid outcry from human rights activists.
The women had pleaded guilty to charges of having lesbian sex, in a country where strict Islamic laws forbid "sodomy" as a crime and a threat to the Muslim-majority country's conservative values.
The couple was sentenced to a fine and six strokes of the cane, but the punishment - scheduled to take place on Tuesday - was postponed by a religious court in Terengganu due to "technical reasons".
Violence in Chemnitz as leftist and far-right protesters clash
Neo-Nazis and leftist protesters took to the streets of Germany's Chemnitz after a murder involving migrants. Saxony police mostly managed to cope with sporadic violence, although the protests caught them by surprise.
The eastern German city of Chemnitz was gripped by a febrile atmosphere on Monday night as several thousand people took to the streets to demand foreigners leave Germany. At the same time, roughly 1,000 opposing demonstrators collected in a small park opposite far-right protesters to call on "the Nazis" to get out of the city.
The evening began calmly enough, as a heavy police presence kept the two sides apart and the groups confined themselves to jeering at each other beneath the gaze of Chemnitz's colossal Karl Marx monument. But by around 9 p.m., when the demonstrations began to move, six people were injured by fireworks and rocks thrown by members of both camps who were wearing the customary black hooded tops, gloves, face coverings and dark glasses.
Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of kung fu and famous home of the fighting monks, has raised the Chinese national flag for the first time in its 1500-year history.
A flag raising ceremony on Monday was attended by officials from the United Front Work Department, which oversees religious groups in China because of the Communist Party's fear they may be a threat to its rule.
A new rule requiring religious venues to raise the Chinese flag at religious festivals was introduced on July 31. Shaolin Temple abbott Shi Yongxin said Shaolin should "take the lead", and held the ceremony at its gate on Songshan Mountain, a statement said.
Yemen conflict: UN experts point to possible war crimes by all parties
UN human rights experts believe war crimes may have been committed by all parties to the conflict in Yemen.
In their first such report, they allege Yemeni government forces, the Saudi-led coalition backing them, and the rebel Houthi movement have made little effort to minimise civilian casualties.
They point to the bombing and shelling of schools, hospitals and markets, in which thousands of people have died.
The coalition's air and naval blockade may also be a war crime, they warn.
The experts will present their report to the UN Human Rights Council next month.
