Six In The Morning

Japan election: Abe set to win key upper house vote

21 July 2013 Last updated at 06:47 GMT

The BBC

Voters in Japan are casting ballots in upper house elections expected to deliver a win for PM Shinzo Abe.

Half of the 242 seats in the chamber are being contested.

Polls show Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its allies could secure a majority, meaning a ruling party would control both houses of parliament for the first time in six years.

The deadlock in parliament has been seen as a key factor in Japan’s recent “revolving door” of prime ministers.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 (22:00 GMT Saturday) and will close at 20:00 (11:00 GMT).

Capture of Mexican mob boss began with a fed-up informant

Insider gave up ‘El Teo’ to help ‘clean up my country.’ The hit to the Tijuana drug cartel has brought peace in Baja.

By Richard Marosi

TIJUANA – The informant paid his own way to Mexico City and strode into a hotel room in an upscale neighborhood, willing to end the reign of one of Mexico’s most brutal crime bosses.

He wanted money, he told four Drug Enforcement Administration agents, but that wasn’t his primary motivation. The Tijuana drug cartel insider said he had grown disgusted by the savagery of Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental – the pudgy kingpin whose criminal mayhem was generating headlines around the world.

Baja California, once a popular destination for day-tripping Americans, had become one of Mexico’s most violent regions. Army soldiers patrolled in convoys and manned bunkers flanking highways. Torture victims’ bodies hung from overpasses, and once-crowded beaches became playgrounds for mob bosses and their entourages.

Bombs dropped on Great Barrier Reef marine park

 US warplanes jettison four unarmed bombs after training exercise goes wrong

 Associated Press in Canberra

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 July 2013 02.20 BST

Two US fighter jets have dropped four unarmed bombs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef marine park after a training exercise went wrong.

The two AV-8B Harrier jets launched from aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard each jettisoned an inert bomb and an unarmed explosive bomb in the World Heritage-listed marine park off the coast of Queensland state on Tuesday, the US 7th Fleet said in a statement on Saturday.

The four bombs were dropped in more than 50 metres (164ft) of water away from coral to minimise possible damage to the reef, the statement said. None exploded.

Farc rebel group in peace talks: Is Colombia’s 50-year war about to end?

The talks in Cuba are promising. But that doesn’t mean the bloodshed is over

 GARRY LEECH   SUNDAY 21 JULY 2013

It was dusk in the Amazon as the two female guerrillas stashed the canoe and camouflaged it with branches and leaves. There began an hour-long hike into the gloomy jungle, lit only by the beams from two small torches.

As a camp became visible, a uniformed man toting an AK-47 appeared out of the darkness. Up ahead, a white light illuminated a man with a grey beard working on a laptop. It was Raúl Reyes, a member of the seven-person ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, more commonly known by their Spanish acronym, Farc. According to many analysts, Reyes was the second-highest ranking member of Farc, a Marxist insurgent group that has been fighting in the mountains of Colombia for 50 years to overthrow the government.

Magazine reveals German government using NSA spying data

 SECURITY

Intelligence agencies in Germany and the US have been collaborating, according to a new report from a German magazine. The German government has been using bulk data collected by the National Security Agency.

Germany’s foreign and domestic intelligence services have been using a spying program set up by the NSA, “Der Spiegel” magazine reported on Saturday.

According to documents seen by “Der Spiegel,” the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) was given a program called XKeyScore that was intended to “expand their ability to support NSA as we jointly prosecute CT (Counter Terrorism) targets.” The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) was reportedly charged with instructing the BfV on how to use the program.

Zimbabwe’s first independent TV station now on air

 Zimbabwe’s first independent television station is now on air to challenge the 30-year state broadcasting monopoly controlled by President Robert Mugabe.

Sapa-AP | 20 July, 2013 08:46

Mugabe’s party said earlier Friday it will take all measures to “cripple” what it calls a pirate station.

The station, known as 1st TV, began broadcasting in the evening. It is a satellite feed from outside Zimbabwe using a free network received by an estimated 700,000 homes across the nation.

The state Herald newspaper reported that George Charamba, Mugabe’s spokesman, said South Africa will be asked to stop broadcasts believed to be beamed from there because they “hurt Zimbabwean interests” ahead of elections on July 31.