Israel strikes Syrian military research center, US official says
By Robert Windrem, Jim Miklaszewski and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News
Israeli jets bombed a military research facility north of Damascus early Sunday, a senior official told NBC News — the second Israeli attack on targets in Syria in recent days.
Heavy explosions shook the city, and video shot by activists showed a fireball rising into the sky after Sunday’s strikes, according to Reuters.
Syrian media also reported that the target was the Jamraya military research center, which Israel hit in January, Reuters said. The center is about 10 miles from the Lebanese border.
Reuters reported that a Western intelligence source said the operation hit Iranian-supplied missiles that were en route to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Exclusive: Syrian aid in crisis as Gulf states renege on promises
Food rationing for refugees planned as $650m pledged to UN remains undelivered
JAMES CUSICK SUNDAY 05 MAY 2013
Millions of Syrian refugees face food rationing and cutbacks to critical medical programmes because oil-rich Gulf states have failed to deliver the funding they promised for emergency humanitarian aid, an investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found.
Arab states and aid groups, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain, have failed to deliver $650m (£420m) in pledges they made at an emergency United Nations conference in Kuwait four months ago.
Expats take their vote home for opposition
May 5, 2013
Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax MediaWilliam de Cruz felt a buzz of excitement when he arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Sydney two weeks ago, one of the first in a wave of expatriate Malaysians who have come home to vote.
”There was an expectation of change in the most critical election in my country’s history,” he said.
But Mr de Cruz said the mood among supporters of opposition parties led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has swung to disappointment in the final days of campaigning.
”Overwhelmingly people want change but the odds stacked against the opposition appear insurmountable,” he said, referring to alleged vote buying, a gerrymander, hundreds of millions of dollars in hand-outs, intimidation, violence, anti-opposition propaganda in the media and the mass movement of voters into tightly contested states.
China’s ‘master plan’ debunked
China has committed $75-billion to aid and development projects in Africa over the past decade, research shows.
03 MAY 2013 10:18 – RICH HARRIS, CLAIRE PROVOST
It also reveals the scale of what some have called Beijing’s escalating soft-power “charm offensive” to secure political and economic clout on the continent.
The Chinese government releases very little information on its foreign aid activities, which remain state secrets. In one of the most ambitious attempts to date to chip away at this secrecy, United States researchers have launched the largest public database of Chinese development finance in Africa, detailing nearly 1700 projects in 50 countries between 2000 and 2011.
Hundreds protest against China chemical plant
More than 200 demonstrate in southwestern city of Kunming against proposed factory that will produce toxic chemical.
Hundreds of people have protested against a proposed chemical plant in southwest China, state media said, while residents in another city accused authorities of preventing a similar protest.
More than 200 demonstrators gathered in the city of Kunming on Saturday to protest plans for a factory which will produce paraxylene (PX), a toxic petrochemical used to make fabrics, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
About 1,000 people described as “onlookers” surrounded the protesters, some of whom wore face-masks and held banners, the report said, adding that police “dissuaded” a protester from displaying a banner.
Bahrain’s medics politicised by crisis
By Bill Law
BBC NewsA group of Bahraini health workers have found themselves on the frontlines of a battle over medical neutrality as the aftershocks of the Arab Spring continue to rumble through the Gulf island kingdom.
In theory, medical neutrality is a simple concept: physicians must be allowed to care for the sick and wounded; soldiers must receive care regardless of their political affiliations; and all parties must refrain from attacking and misusing medical facilities, transport, and personnel.
Violations constitute a crime under the Geneva Conventions.
But for the medics who have been caught up in the unrest that swept Bahrain since February 2011, what is a simple principle has become a far more complex and sometimes terrifying dilemma.
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