The Iraqi Spy Who Infiltrated ISIS
The driver was sweating as his white Kia pickup truck sped along a rain-slicked Baghdad highway toward a neighborhood bustling with open-air markets.
With every jolt and turn, his pulse quickened. Hidden in the truck’s chassis was 1,100 pounds of military-grade explosives that the Islamic State planned to use in an audacious attack on New Year’s Eve shoppers in the Iraqi capital.
A reckless driver on Iraq’s notoriously chaotic roads might clip him, accidentally setting off the bomb. A clash at one of Baghdad’s frequent checkpoints could escalate into gunfire, potentially igniting one hellish fireball.
Face to face with ‘the Beatles’, the Isis torture squad
Ricardo Vilanova was imprisoned for eight months by the infamous British jihadists. The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville helped him confront two of the group, now being held in secret
Ricardo Vilanova never wanted to be part of the story. The Spanish photojournalist went to Syria in 2011 to cover the revolution brewing against Bashar al-Assad. But at the end of 2013 there was no firm ground in the war. The rebels he thought would offer protection did not and he was taken hostage by Islamic State. The fracturing landscape brought a flood of new foreign fighters.
The men who captured Ricardo were from west London, a gang of four who were known to their captives as “the Beatles” and would become notorious as torturers and killers. One, Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a drone strike in 2015. Another, Aine Davis, is doing time in a Turkish jail after being convicted on terrorism charges last year.
Populists on both left and right claim to be fighting for 'the people' – but who exactly are they?
Radical, inclusive politics should be much more than a critique of those at the top; it needs to be an ongoing debate over who ‘we’ are and how ‘we’ can be empoweredPeter Bloom
Populism is seemingly sweeping the globe, threatening the established status quo. Optimistically, it promises to bring about much needed change to what appears to be a corrupt political and economic order. More ominously, it is dangerously promoting racism, sexism, xenophobia, jingoism, and attacking basic human rights around the world.
It is therefore important not to blithely conflate different populist and grassroots movements. The left-wing movements championing greater inclusion are plainly very different from right-wing ones keen on reinforced or increased exclusion. But despite their profound differences, they have one thing in common: they claim to represent a supposedly victimised popular majority, “the people”.
The Country of HungerA State of Deep Suffering in Venezuela's Hospitals
Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world, but under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro, its hospitals lack equipment, medicines, food, anesthetics and even pens. The doctors who remain face a daily struggle to treat patients with little more than hope.
By Jens Glüsing
Little Joniel Briceño is much too small and too light for life. He's eight months old and weighs 5 kilograms (11 pounds), little more than many newborns. His mother has carried him here from their small village. It involved two hours of walking to the bus stop with her son in her arm and then a two-hour ride with the bus. Now, Joniel is here, in bed number two, under a Donald Duck decal that someone adhered to the wall.
Joniel isn't the only kid with an emaciated face, swollen legs and distended belly in the emergency room of the children's department of the Dr. Luis Razetti de Barcelona University Hospital in Barcelona, a large city located about 300 kilometers (200 miles) east of the capital of Caracas. The doctors and nurses call the department "Africa." Nowhere is the desperate situation the country finds itself in more clearly visible than in its hospitals.
On 'mission to touch the sun,' Parker Solar Probe has launched
Updated 0754 GMT (1554 HKT) August 12, 2018
Humanity's first visit to a star began this weekend. NASA's Parker Solar Probe will explore the sun's atmosphere in a mission that launched early Sunday. This is the agency's first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona.
After being delayed on Saturday, the probe successfully launched at 3:31 a.m. ET Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, one of the world's most powerful rockets.
Although the probe itself is about the size of a car, a powerful rocket is needed to escape Earth's orbit, change direction and reach the sun.
Can Aboriginal ecotourism save communities as companies eye land?
Cultural tourism can address issues such as suicide and unemployment, but corporations seek to mine resource-rich areas.
by Nick Rodway
Bart Pigram leads a group of tourists through a mangrove thicket, telling stories and discussing the landscape.
The group is a mix of Australian and international visitors, all having travelled significant distances to be here in Broome, the biggest township in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia.
On Pigram's "Narlijia Cultural Tours", guests are invited to learn about the culture of the Traditional Owners of the Broome area, the Djugun-Yawuru people.
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