'Thank you for being alive': South Korean family prepares for what might be a last reunion
Lee Su-nam knows what he will say to his North Korean brother, who he hasn’t seen in nearly 70 years
The most powerful emotions Lee Su-nam ever felt were on the afternoon of 25 July. He was sitting in his living room talking to his daughter who was visiting when his phone rang. The conversation lasted only a minute, but Lee discovered his older brother, long presumed dead, was alive and living in North Korea.
The last time Lee saw his brother, Lee Jong-seong, was August 1950, a day he remembers for the heat and ripeness of the peaches on the trees. As the North Korean army approached Seoul, Lee’s parents decided to send their eldest son away for fear he would be conscripted into the communist militia if he remained. He was captured on the road and the family spent the next 68 years assuming he died in the 1950-53 Korean war.
Israel's Supreme Court doubles sentence of border police officer who shot dead unarmed Palestinian teenager
Ben Dery was originally sentenced to only nine months behind bars for killing 17-year-old who posed no immediate threat
Israel’s Supreme Court has doubled a nine-month prison term given to a border police officer who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian teenager.
Two of three judges voted to increase Ben Dery’s sentence for killing Nadim Nuwara, 17, at a protest near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah in 2014.
Dery was jailed in April for causing death through negligence, a charge that was downgraded from manslaughter under a plea agreement. He was also fined 50,000 shekels (£10,700).
Anti-Ortega protests in Nicaragua: Torture, blacklists and job dismissals
As protests against President Daniel Ortega enter their fourth month, the scars of the bloody government crackdown are as fresh as ever for students and doctors, priests and musicians. Sandra Weiss reports from Managua.
We had to postpone our meeting twice. The first time it was because gunmen in civilian clothes — auxiliary police officers according to President Daniel Ortega; paramilitaries from the point of view of opposition critics — detained and robbed the author of this text. The second time it was because the police were conducting raids to try and find the leaders behind the protests of the past weeks. It is only on the third attempt that we both make it to our meeting place in a cafe.
Gabriela looks around nervously. The 21-year-old student studying social work has been out of jail for two weeks. Paramilitaries had intercepted her at a roadblock, she recounts, and held her for three days, beating her, torturing her, and scratching her skin with knives. Three of them raped her, she says. She recounts how she had to undress and how she wasn't given anything to eat. She never saw her tormentors, only heard them. They kept a hood over her head the whole time, she explains.
Gabriela looks around nervously. The 21-year-old student studying social work has been out of jail for two weeks. Paramilitaries had intercepted her at a roadblock, she recounts, and held her for three days, beating her, torturing her, and scratching her skin with knives. Three of them raped her, she says. She recounts how she had to undress and how she wasn't given anything to eat. She never saw her tormentors, only heard them. They kept a hood over her head the whole time, she explains.
White House rejects Turkey's offer for pastor's release: report
Updated 0632 GMT (1432 HKT) August 20, 2018
The White House has rejected a Turkish offer to release an American pastor in exchange for forgiveness of billions of dollars in US fines on a Turkish bank, expressing that other matters would be considered only after Andrew Brunson is released, a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal.
The rejection could lead to the US imposing additional sanctions against Turkey sometime this week, the Journal reported. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that the United States is willing to do so if Brunson isn't released.
Deadly cattle raids in Zamfara: Nigeria's 'ignored' crisis
Hundreds killed and thousands displaced as cow thieves murder and kidnap, but state and media focus on other conflicts.by Eromo Egbejule
Besides Boko Haram attacks in northeastern Nigeria and the pastoralist crisis across the central region's lush vegetation belt, a lesser-known conflict is brewing in the northwest, and casualties are rising.
Cattle thieves are carrying out daily killings and kidnappings in Zamfara state.
Hundreds have died this year alone.
Greece emerges from eurozone bailout programme
Greece has successfully completed a three-year eurozone emergency loan programme worth €61.9bn (£55bn; $70.8bn) to tackle its debt crisis.
It was part of the biggest bailout in global financial history, totalling some €289bn, which will take the country decades to repay.
Deeply unpopular cuts to public spending, a condition of the bailout, are set to continue.
But for the first time in eight years, Greece can borrow at market rates.
The economy has grown slowly in recent years and is still 25% smaller than when the crisis began.
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