Wednesday, May 2, 2018
I knew bin Laden
An insight into Osama bin Laden's life through the eyes of people who knew him and met him.
On May 2, 2011, Barack Obama, the US president, announced that Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, was shot dead in a raid by US special forces on a compound about 60km north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.
The death of bin Laden ended a ten-year manhunt for the world's most wanted man.
Before his death, the last known sighting of bin Laden by anyone other than his very close entourage was in late 2001 - as he prepared to flee his stronghold in Afghanistan. However, in subsequent years he issued several video and audio messages.
Six In The Morning Wednesday May 2
Mueller 'threatened Trump with subpoena' amid Russia probe
Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned he could order Donald Trump to testify as part of a probe into alleged Russian election meddling, US media report.
Mr Mueller suggested the move during talks with Mr Trump's lawyers in March.
The threat to issue a subpoena, as it is known, was reportedly met with a sharp response from one of Mr Trump's former lawyers.
It is believed to be the first time the special counsel has raised such a possibility.
Mr Trump's lawyers insisted during the meeting that the president was under no obligation to face questions by federal investigators in relation to the Russia inquiry, the Washington Post reported.
'This election is personal': Mahathir Mohamad, 92, vows to stop 'corrupt' protege
Former Malaysian PM insists he is returning to the political fray ‘with great reluctance’ because he was betrayed by Najib Razak
Mahathir Mohamad is 92 and by his own account should be enjoying a “nice time” during his retirement. But instead, Malaysia’s arch political puppetmaster and former prime minister is returning to the political fray, bent on toppling his former protege and reclaiming power.
This time around, the man whose ambitions and political grudges came to influence every major power shift in the country for decades has his sights on bringing down the current prime minister, Najib Razak, a man he dismisses as “corrupt”.
Mahathir insists it is with “great reluctance” that he is running for prime minister again. If he wins, it will make him the oldest leader in the world.
US troops will not leave South Korea as part of peace treaty with North, says Moon Jae-in
Around 28,500 US troops are stationed in the South
The US currently has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, under a security agreement in place since the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty in 1953.
As such, the two Koreas are technically still at war, but North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has demanded US troops withdraw from the South as one of the conditions for the North giving up its nuclear weapons.
“US troops stationed in South Korea are an issue regarding the alliance between South Korea and the United States. It has nothing to do with signing peace treaties,” said Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House, speaking for the South’s president, Moon Jae-in.
SIPRI: Global military spending rose to $1.7 trillion in 2017
Global military spending in 2017 was at its highest level since the Cold War, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. DW spoke with Pieter Wezeman about the regional trends.
DW: In its report on military expenditure around the world in 2017, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) established that there had been a slight increase in spending. The report says that, around the world, $1.73 trillion (€1.45 trillion) was invested for military purposes. That's 1.1 percent more than in 2016. Is this a lot or a little?
Pieter Wezeman:If we take into account statistical imprecisions and the fact that the data is never absolutely reliable, we can say this is a minimal rise. It's also clear that on a global scale, military spending has stabilized at a high level. At a regional level, we see quite considerable differences.
In China, for example, expenditure rose by 5.6 percent, to a total of $228 billion.
Armenian protesters block Yerevan roads as opposition leader is denied power
Armenian protesters blocked several routes into the capital Yerevan on Wednesday as opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan announced a campaign of civil disobedience after parliament rejected his bid to become prime minister.
Days of protests in the small ex-Soviet state have created a standoff between Pashinyan's supporters, who have mobilised thousands of people to take to the streets, and a ruling elite which is determined to hold on to power and still controls the security apparatus.
The ruling Republican Party thwarted Pashinyan's bid to take over as prime minister on Tuesday.
"We will be staying here," David, 19, one of those who blocked the road to the airport, told Reuters. Protesters also blocked several junctions in the city centre and around some state agencies.
Israel's walled-in approach to nationhood
Critics say Israel's controversial barriers to keep out 'wild beasts' are counterproductive to its security concerns.
Speaking during a 2016 visit to a newly completed security barrier along Israel's border with Jordan near the southern Red Sea city of Eilat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to one day see the entirety of the Jewish nation fenced in.
"In the end in Israel, as I see it, there will be a fence like this that surrounds the whole country,"Netanyahu said.
"I'll be told, 'this is what you want, to protect the villa?' The answer is yes. Will we surround all of the state of Israel with fences and barriers? The answer is yes. In the environment we live in, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts."
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Undercover for RVision: Reporting Myanmar's Rohingya story
Rohingya VisionTV relies on undercover citizen journalists to tell Myanmar's Rohingya story from the inside.
It has been more than eight months since the start of the military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State which has forced almost three-quarters of a million Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh.
The United Nations has called the crisis a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" but the Myanmar government maintains this is a targeted operation to purge the state of Rohingya fighters - a narrative they have gone to great lengths to uphold.
As Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK explains, "We've seen the government of Burma (Myanmar) very strictly controlling the access and news coming out of Rakhine State and trying to dominate how it is reported and trying to intimidate domestic and international media organisations, who are trying to investigate and find out what really has gone on."
Six In The Morning Tuesday May 1
Israel's Iran documents show nuclear deal 'was built on lies'
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says a landmark nuclear deal with Iran was "built on lies", after Israel claimed to have proof of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons programme.
Mr Pompeo said documents revealed by Israel's prime minister were authentic.
Analysts say they show nothing new, highlighting that concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions led to the deal.
US President Donald Trump, who opposes the accord, has until 12 May to decide whether to abandon it or not.
Other Western powers, including signatories Britain and France, say Iran has been abiding by the deal and it should be kept.
Nine months after Myanmar assaults, Rohingya camps ready for spate of births
Agencies braced for spike in unwanted children who were conceived as a result of sexual violence by Myanmar soldiers and militiamen
When hundreds of thousands of Rohingya flooded into south-east Bangladesh last year they told of systematic rape and other sexual violence by Myanmar soldiers and militiamen.
May will mark nine months since that exodus started. Aid agencies, especially those who work with women and children, have been bracing for the date. Over the next weeks, babies conceived as a result of sexual assaults committed during the crackdown will be born.
Save the Children says it is expecting the number of babies who are abandoned by their mothers to increase next month in line with the milestone. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which runs hospitals in the sprawling Cox’s Bazar camps, is preparing to counsel affected mothers.Russian internet protests: Thousands take to the streets to show opposition to censorship
Telegram messenger shutdown is raising fears Kremlin could introduce even more restrictive policies
Thousands of Russians took to central Moscow on Monday in a rally against internet censorship and a government ban on the Telegram social media app.
Since a 13 April court decision outlawed the programme, authorities have taken a no-nonsense approach to blocking it. But their actions have also brought large parts of the web to a standstill – while Telegram continues to function. Many now fear the Kremlin will put in place even more restrictive information policies in an attempt to grasp control.
With banners such as “Big Moron Is Not Blocking You”, “Down with the Tsar” and “Things are so bad that even introverts have come here”, the mostly young crowd used every manner of protest to communicate their displeasure to the government. They threw paper aeroplanes in the air – a reference to the app’s logo. And they shouted angry slogans at President Vladimir Putin and his allies.
Syrian women tortured and humiliated in Assad regime prisons
Thousands of Syrian women are believed to be incarcerated in Assad regime prisons. Little is known about their fate, but those who manage to escape tell tales of horror. DW's Julia Hahn reports.
Muna Muhammad remembers every tiny detail. The stench in the cells, the pain, her torturers. "He pulled a black plastic bag over my head and then he hung me from the ceiling, head down," the 30-year-old says. The memory still haunts her. The guard said he was going to leave her hanging from the ceiling until all her "evil thoughts land in this bag," she remembers.
Muna was a music teacher before she was arrested in 2012 for participating in protests against President Bashar Assad in Deir ez-Zor. She was released, but re-arrested again and taken to Damascus' infamous Syrian Military Intelligence Branch 215 — inmates call it "branch of hell" because torture is a daily occurrence.
The caravan of Central Americans seeking asylum at the border, explained
The migrant caravan has finally arrived at the border. So has the crackdown.
By
On April 29, a group of 50 people — most of them families from El Salvador — attempted to enter the United States at the port of entry in San Ysidro, across the US-Mexico border from Tijuana. They’re the first delegation from a “caravan” of about 300 Central Americans that has traveled through Mexico over the past few weeks on the way to the United States, organized by the humanitarian nonprofit Pueblos sin Fronteras.
The caravan members were prevented from entering the US because Customs and Border Protection agents told them they didn’t have the capacity to process them. They are currently waiting in Tijuana to be allowed through.
None of this is all that unusual. People, most of them Central Americans, present themselves for asylum to border agents every day. It’s perfectly legal for someone without papers to go to a US port of entry and seek asylum by showing they meet the legal definition: that they would be the victims of persecution based on their race, nationality, religion, political views, or membership in a targeted social group if returned to their home country.
Foreign trainees worked at Fukushima nuclear plant despite ban
Six people on a foreign trainee program in Japan engaged in construction work at the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant despite the plant operator's ban on program participants working at the complex, officials said Tuesday.
The case is the latest in a string of inappropriate practices involving foreign trainees under the government's Technical Intern Training Program, often criticized as a cover to import cheap labor.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) had said in February last year that it would not have foreign trainees work at the plant, which was crippled by the 2011 quake and tsunami disaster, even though workers in some parts of the plant are not required to wear protective gear or dosimeters.
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