Six In The Morning

7 January 2013 Last updated at 07:31 GMT

Delhi gang rape suspects appear in India court

Andrew NorthBBC News, Delhi

Five men accused of the abduction, gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi are in court for a preliminary hearing in a case that has shocked India.

Security outside the building is tight. The case is expected to be transferred to a new fast-track court for trial.

The hearing comes as four Indian policemen have been suspended over the handling of another suspected rape and murder case near Delhi.

The woman's body was found on Saturday.

The father of the alleged 21-year-old victim, a factory employee in the Delhi suburb of Noida, has told the BBC she was gang-raped.

HEALTH

More female foetuses aborted in Europe

It is not just a problem confined to China and India: more female foetuses are being aborted in Europe than previously thought, new statistics show - especially in the Balkans.

In Albania, 112 boys are born for every 100 girls. In Kosovo and Montenegro the figures stand at 110 and 109 boys per 100 girls respectively, according to a recent sturdy by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Analysts point to the persistence of archaic family models as the likely cause. Boys are often considered the family's heir, who are expected to carry on its name and traditions, while women leave the family when they marry.

Chinese journalists strike against censorship

January 7, 2013 - 3:12PM

John Garnaut

John Garnaut is The Age and Sydney Morning Herald's China correspondent.

Chinese journalists fed up with censorship have staged what may be the first walkout of its kind since the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989.

The strike marks a major escalation of a rebellion that was ignited last week at one of China's most credible and reader-oriented newspapers, Southern Weekend, by the ham-fisted intervention from propaganda officials.

It poses an early test of China's direction under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, who has made strong and seemingly contradictory calls for the country to press forward with reform while also returning to the revolutionary legacy of its Maoist past.

Ghana president to be sworn in after disputed vote

Sapa-AFP | 07 1月, 2013 08:39

Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama will be sworn into office on Monday following last month’s polls in a ceremony to be boycotted by the opposition, which has claimed fraud and challenged the results in court.

The 54-year-old Mahama, who initially became head of state after the death of his predecessor John Atta Mills in July, won December 7 elections with 50.7% of the vote compared to main opposition candidate Nana Akufo-Addo’s 47.7%.

Observer groups hailed the polls as another successful election in the country viewed as a stable democracy in turbulent West Africa, but Akufo-Addo’s party has alleged the vote was stolen.

The stakes were especially high in the election, with the newly elected president in charge of a growing stream of oil revenue.

West Africa’s second-largest economy and a longtime producer of gold and cocoa, Ghana started pumping oil in 2010, and now produces 105 000 barrels per day.

Turkey sees promise in pivoting north

With its attempts to join the EU stalled and its leadership role in the Middle East marred by Syria's conflict, Turkey is turning its attention to a less tumultuous border – the Black Sea.

By Catherine Stupp, Contributor / January 6, 2013

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Its protracted bid to join the European Union remains stalled and its "zero problems" policy in the Middle East is cracking over support for Syria's opposition. But one foreign policy front retains promise for Turkey: the Black Sea.

Nowhere is it more evident than the busy industrial city of Trabzon in northeastern Turkey, a regional trade hub because of its location on roads that connect it to both Istanbul and other cities to the east. The cobblestone streets of the city center are bustling with buses and private cars carrying passengers toGeorgia, only 125 miles to the northeast, as well as trucks shipping goods across the region via the highway that cuts through the city.

Scavanging for food, Syrian children witness war

By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN

January 7, 2013 -- Updated 0431 GMT (1231 HKT)

Bab al-Salam, Syria (CNN) -- It is a sight almost as surreal as it is disturbing: three boys, on the cusp of being teenagers, digging furiously with their hands and sticks. It is in some ways playtime, but there is little innocence left in this refugee camp sandwiched between Syria's north and an unwelcoming Turkish border.

Muhammad Zafir says their frantic excavations are in case "jets come and drop bombs," he said. "We put children here to hide them, but of course we will make it much bigger for 20 to 30."

It is a testament to their fast and unnatural path into manhood: Hours that should be spent idling or playing football are lost to digging an air raid shelter. Muhammad can explain the different noises made by jet missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns. The three boys are also digging peepholes into their structure, so they could see outside during any attack. It's rudimentary and made entirely of mud and finger marks, but it is all they have.

Chinese document from the 1950's: Senkaku islands are part of Okinawa

Jan 6, 2013 by John Stuart Translations

In an interview with well-informed sources on December 28, Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun discovered Chinese diplomatic papers created in 1950 used the Japanese nameSenkaku to identify the Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea. The same document also contained language recognizing the Senkakus as a part of Okinawa.

Currently China claims the islands are its territory as “a part of Taiwan.” Recognition by China in 1950 that the islands are a part of Okinawa is contradictory to its current claim and weakens the foundation of its present position.

According to sources, the document titled “Summary Draft Relating to Problems and Assertions with Territorial Clauses in the Treaty of Peace with Japan” was created in May 1950. Officials who carefully examined a copy believe it to be authentic.
The document, which treats the Senkakus as a part of Okinawa, states, “(The islands) are exceedingly close to Taiwan, it is necessary to consider whether or not to include them as (a part of) Taiwan.”
Source: Sankei

This was translated by the person whose byline appears above. The original article was published in the Sankei Shinbun on December 28.


China has come into dispute not only with Japan over which country has sovereignty over several island groups in the South China sea but almost every country  in South East Asia. All these disputes involve natural resources which are needed for China's continued  economic development Expect that China is acting like the imperial powers of the late 19th and early 20th century believing that it is their inherent right to these natural resources as they lie within its sphere of influence.   

Six In The Morning

6 January 2013 Last updated at 06:54 GMT

India and Pakistan in Kashmir border skirmish

Indian and Pakistani troops have exchanged fire across the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan said Indian troops had raided a military post in the Haji Pir sector of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, killing a soldier and injuring another.

An Indian army spokesman said Pakistan had "initiated unprovoked firing" at Indian military posts.

Kashmir is claimed by both nations in its entirety and has been a flashpoint between them for more than 60 years.

Exchanges are not uncommon but rarely result in fatalities.

'Small arms'

The Pakistani military's public relations office said the two sides were still exchanging fire in the area.

It said Indian troops had "physically raided a checkpost named Sawan Patra".

Ex-officer is first in CIA to face prison for a leak

John Kiriakou emailed the name of another operative to a reporter who did not use it

By SCOTT SHANE

updated 1/5/2013 7:25:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON — Looking back, John C. Kiriakou admits he should have known better. But when the F.B.I. called him a year ago and invited him to stop by and “help us with a case,” he did not hesitate.

In his years as a C.I.A. operative, after all, Mr. Kiriakou had worked closely with F.B.I. agents overseas. Just months earlier, he had reported to the bureau a recruiting attempt by someone he believed to be an Asian spy.

“Anything for the F.B.I.,” Mr. Kiriakou replied.

Only an hour into what began as a relaxed chat with the two agents — the younger one who traded Pittsburgh Steelers talk with him and the senior investigator with the droopy eye — did he begin to realize just who was the target of their investigation.

Wildfires tear through Tasmania

Australia's heatwave is devastating its southern island

CHARLOTTE PHILBY 

 

HOBART

 

SUNDAY 06 JANUARY 2013

Thousands of people have been evacuated and hundreds of homes destroyed as wildfires continue to tear across Tasmania. Flames devouring trees, scrub and communities, and a heatwave which has pushed the temperature beyond 41C, have turned the island state into a furnace fanned by brisk and unruly northerly winds.

Common sense tells even a visiting Briton that these fires are not to be trifled with. So does history: all who live and visit here are well aware that 173 Australians died in the fires that struck Victoria four years ago. But nothing prepares you for being caught in the jaws of these flames. The fear here has to be experienced to be believed.

On Friday, my husband and I drove with our two-year-old daughter to a tourist precinct of log cabins at the family-friendly resort of Bicheno Bay, two hours north-east of Hobart, the island's capital. By the time we arrived, the weather had soared from that of a mild Tasmanian summer to a stifling 35C. 

SYRIA

Assad to make rare speech as rebels edge closer

The isolated president of Syria is to deliver a speech Sunday. Bashar Assad has not spoken publicly for months while the opposition eroded his military and diplomatic position.

Syria's estranged president Bashar Assad is due to deliver a rare speech on Sunday as rebels try to encroach further on the capital Damascus and Turkey's NATO partners begin to install Patriot air defence missiles units along the Turkish border with Syria.

"President Bashar Assad will deliver a speech on Sunday morning on the latest developments in Syria and the region," said Syria's state media. It gave no further details.

Reprisal fears cloud Libya probe into US consulate attack

Sapa-AFP | 06 January, 2013 09:55

Libya is pushing forward with its investigation into the deadly September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, but fear of retaliation by Islamist extremists has proved a hurdle.

Security reports point to the possible involvement of an al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in the attack that killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, a source close to the case told AFP.

"Therefore the case frightens local investigators, especially given the increased pace of assassinations targeting military and police officers in the east of the country," said the source in the criminal investigations department.

The case has now been passed to a judge based in the capital.

"Judge Khaled al-Turki from Tripoli was appointed last week to complete investigations into the case," said a senior justice ministry official.

• Environment
• Coral

Robots find Barrier Reef coral at extreme depths, amazing ocean scientists

Living coral found at 125 metres, four times deeper than scuba limit

• Tracy McVeigh
• The Observer, Sunday 6 January 2013

Robots have found living coral on the Great Barrier Reef at a depth four times greater than most scuba divers can reach and far beyond the depth at which scientists expected to find them.

A team from the Catlin Seaview Survey discovered the reef corals living at 125 metres, the deepest ever found on the reef. Reef corals are in a perilous state around the world, under threat from climate change through warming oceans and acidification of seawater as well as by coastal pollution and unsustainable fishing practices. The remarkable find was made on the outer edge of the Ribbon Reefs off the north of the Barrier. The extreme depth is more than four times the depth of the shallow reef coral habitat (0-30m) which most scuba divers can reach.

Dr Pim Bongaerts from the Global Change Institute at Queensland University, who led the expedition's deep reef team, said: "It's intriguing. When we began our survey, we were amazed to see significant coral at depths of around 60 metres. However, it is truly mind-blowing to see reef coral at more than twice that depth.

Blowing the whistle on Obama's America

On the campaign trail four years ago, US presidential candidate Barack Obama shared his views on whistleblowers. He said: "Often the best source of information about waste, fraud and abuse in government is a government employee committed to public integrity, willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism ... should be encouraged rather than stifled."

As president, the reality has been very different. During his first term in office, six whistleblowers have been charged under the Espionage Act for allegedly mishandling classified information. That is twice as many as all previous presidents combined. 

The threat facing whistleblowers has implications in many areas, including defence, intelligence and national security. And then there is the impact it is having on the US media: In a digital age, where electronic paper trails are hard to hide, journalists are no longer able to guarantee their sources' anonymity. And if the sources dry up, so do the stories and the American people are left knowing less and less about what their government is doing.

Six In The Morning

Rebellion at Stalemate, Waiting for Undecided Syrians to Make a Move

 

By ANNE BARNARD and HWAIDA SAAD

Published: January 4, 2013 

 BEIRUT, Lebanon — At his government office in the Syrian capital, Damascus, the civil servant avoids discussing what Syrians call “the situation.” But he quietly ponders his own private endgame, toying with defecting to the rebels, yet clinging to his post, increasingly sure there are no fighters worth joining. 

 

A multilingual former military officer, he says he is among many friends and colleagues who feel trapped: disenchanted with President Bashar al-Assad, disgusted by the violence engulfing Syria and equally afraid of the government and the rebels, with both sides, as he puts it, ready to sacrifice “the innocents.”

Mr. Assad remains in power in part because two years into the uprising, a critical bloc of Syrians remains on the fence. Among them are business owners who drive the economy, bankers who finance it, and the security officials and government employees who hold the keys to the mundane but crucial business of maintaining an authoritarian state. If they abandoned the government or embraced the rebels en masse, they might change the tide. Instead, their uncertainty contributes to the stalemate.

 

 

America the ungovernable

 January 5, 2013

 

Nick O'Malley

US Correspondent

 Without reforms, US Congress's deadly game of brinkmanship will continue, writes the Herald's United States correspondent, Nick O'Malley.

 

Two of the most powerful men in America crossed paths in the lobby of the White House last Friday.
"Go f--- yourself," said the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, to Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader.
Reid was startled, according to the account in Politico, which used a handful of interviews to piece together the moment. "What are you talking about?" he responded.

 

"Go f--- yourself," repeated Boehner by way of clarification.

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You can read a lot into such snarling profanity being tossed about only a few metres from the Oval Office.
You get a sense of the frustration and fog and the mistrust of the endless negotiations over the package of tax increases and spending cuts that became known as the fiscal cliff. And you can get a sense just how tough Boehner's past couple of months had been. Republicans had failed to win the White House and the Senate, and had lost ground in the House.

 

Palestinian Territories

Fatah party supporters mark anniversary in Gaza

Tens of thousands of supporters of the Fatah party have gathered in the Gaza Strip to mark the anniversary of the movement’s founding. This is the first time the party has held a rally in the territory since 2007.

Demonstrators gathered in a square in Gaza City on Friday waved both Fatah and Palestinian flags, with some carrying portraits of the party's leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Similar events were held in other towns across Gaza.
The fact that Hamas has allowed Fatah to organize the celebrations there is seen as part of efforts at reconciliation between the two sides, which have been at loggerheads since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. This came a year after Hamas won a parliamentary election.

‘Shoot Swabians’: Berlin berates its bourgeois invaders

Status as Germany’s capital of cool under threat after influx from provincial backwater

Tony Paterson

Berlin

Saturday 05 January 2013

Their dialect is famous for being unintelligible to most Germans.

Stereotypically, they are hard workers, miserly, and fastidious doorstep polishers, and they have flooded the trendiest part of Berlin with yuppie residents since the fall of the city’s infamous Wall over two decades ago.
The newcomers hail from a wealthy region in Germany’s south-west called Swabia. But their presence in the capital has now provoked a furious outburst from one of the country’s leading politicians, who has accused them of importing nauseating provincialism to metropolitan Berlin.

The broadside against Berlin’s Swabian community has been delivered by German parliamentary vice president, Wolfgang Thierse, a 69-year-old east-Berliner who has lived in the city’s now upmarket and Swabian-dominated Prenzlauer Berg district for over 40 years.

Arson deaths in Chile spark anti-terror measures

 President announces new anti-terrorist measures after attack on couple who owned land wanted by indigenous people

 Associated Press in Santiago 

  

An elderly couple whose family's landholdings in southern Chile have long been targeted by indigenous Mapuche people were killed in an arson attack on Friday. The president, Sebastián Piñera, quickly flew to the scene and announced fresh security measures, including the application of Chile's tough anti-terrorism law and the creation of a special police anti-terror unit backed by Chile's military.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which some Mapuche people repudiated as abhorrent. But Chile's interior minister said pamphlets condemning police violence and demanding the return of Mapuche lands were left at the scene. The presidentially appointed governor of the remote southern region of Araucania, Andres Molina, called the attackers "savages

Zim election dealt another blow

04 Jan 2013 00:00 - Jason Moyo

As the human rights head quits, doubts escalate over the country's readiness to go to the polls

Zimbabweans have begun 2013 still searching for clues as to whether this will be the year they face elections, with the resignation of the country's human rights chief only the latest in a string of hurdles leading up to a fresh poll.

President Robert Mugabe wants elections in March, but the resignation of Reginald Austin, the head of Zimbabwe's human rights commission, sets the stage for yet another fight.

The respected lawyer quit last Friday in protest at the lack of independence and resources given to the commission, which is tasked with curbing rights abuses. It is said Zanu-PF is already lining up an ally as his replacement, which would lead to a battle with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)

The Big Dig: Destroying Mongolia's environment?

Mongolia is opening one of the world's biggest copper mines, the Oyu Tolgoi. 

The project is due to start operations in the next few months and this mine alone will account for 30 percent of Mongolia's entire GDP.
But the Oyu Tolgoi deal between the government and the Australian company Rio Tinto is highly controversial. The government gets just 34 percent, raising suspicions about how much the nation's interests are being protected. 

Rio Tinto is also exempt from a windfall profits tax. 

And critics say the government is inexperienced in striking deals with foreign mining giants.

For those living around the site, their concerns are more immediate. Located in the South Gobi desert, water is a precious commodity and a source of life for the nomadic herdsmen. 

Six In The Morning

Malala Yousafzai leaves Queen Elizabeth Hospital

A Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban has been discharged from a Birmingham hospital as an inpatient.

Malala Yousafzai, 15, was being treated at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEHB) after being transferred following the attack in October.

She will continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in the West Midlands.

Malala will have cranial reconstruction surgery in late January or early February, the hospital's trust said.

The Taliban said it shot Malala, a campaigner for girls' education, for "promoting secularism".

Doctors said the bullet grazed the teenager's brain when it struck her just above her left eye in the incident in the Swat Valley in north-west Pakistan.

NDIA

India charges men accused in gang rape case

Prosecutors in New Delhi have formally charged five men accused of raping a 23-year-old woman who later died from severe head trauma and organ damage. The case sparked outrage across India.

The charges filed against the men on Thursday to the district court included murder and presented a reportedly 1,000-page dossier of evidence. If the court finds the assailants guilty in the fast-tracked case, they could face the death penalty. The country's chief justice called for resolve to let justice prevail in a highly emotional situation.

"Let us not get carried away. A swift trial should not be at the cost of a fair trial," Chief Justice Altamas Kabir told the local media on Thursday.

Furious battle for Aleppo airport

January 4, 2013 - 8:44AM

Furious combat is raging around the main airport and a military airbase in northern Syria, a day after the United Nations gave a staggering toll of 60,000 dead in the 21-month civil war.

Insurgents besieged troops on the perimeter of Aleppo’s international airport and around Taftanaz airbase in Idlib province, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The airport in Aleppo has been closed since Tuesday after repeated attacks by rebels, according to an airport official.

The Greece of AsiaJapan's Growing Sovereign Debt Time Bomb

By Anne Seith

The eyes of the financial world are on Greece and other heavily indebted euro-zone countries. But Japan is in even worse shape. The country's debt load is immense and growing, to the point that a quarter of its budget goes to servicing it. The government in Tokyo has done little to change things.

Today's Tokyo has become a permanent mecca of consumption, its boroughs seemingly divided according to target markets. The city's Sugamo district, for example, is dominated by the elderly. Escalators in the subway station there go extra slow, while the stores along the Jizo Dori shopping street offer items such as canes, anti-aging cream and tea for sore joints. The Hurajuku neighborhood, on the other hand, is teeming with fashionistas made up to look like Manga characters.

This world of glitter, however, is but an illusion. For years, the world's third-largest economy has been unapologetically living on borrowed cash, more so than any other country in the world. In recent decades, Japanese governments have piled up debts worth some €11 trillion ($14.6 trillion). This corresponds to 230 percent of annual gross domestic product, a debt level that is far higher than Greece's 165 percent.

Sudan, South Sudan presidents to meet over tensions between them

Sapa-AFP | 04 January, 2013 08:15

Rival leaders of Sudan and South Sudan are due to meet Friday in the Ethiopian capital to push for progress on stalled economic, oil and security deals that were drafted to ease tension between the former civil war foes.

The meeting between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his Southern counterpart Salva Kiir comes despite accusations from Juba on Thursday that Khartoum had launched aerial and ground attacks inside South Sudan.

Southern army spokesman Philip Aguer said that Sudanese troops had struck inside South Sudan on Wednesday, just as aircraft were bombing the South's remote north Raja region of Western Bahr el-Ghazal state.

4 January 2013 Last updated at 05:48 GMT

Hugo Chavez suffers 'complications' after surgery

Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, is suffering from "complications" brought on by a "severe lung infection" which developed after surgery, officials say.

Mr Chavez, 58, had his fourth operation for cancer in Cuba on 11 December and then developed a respiratory infection.

In a statement from Caracas, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said the infection had "led to a respiratory insufficiency".

Mr Chavez is due to be sworn in for another term in office on 10 January.

Google Pushed Hard Behind the Scenes to Convince Regulators

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and NICK WINGFIELD

Published: January 3, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO — For 19 months, Google pressed its case with antitrust regulators investigating the company. Working relentlessly behind the scenes, executives made frequent flights to Washington, laying out their legal arguments and shrewdly applying lessons learned from Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle in the 1990s.

After regulators had pored over nine million documents, listened to complaints from disgruntled competitors and took sworn testimony from Google executives, the government concluded that the law was on Google’s side. At the end of the day, they said, consumers had been largely unharmed.