Six In The Morning

Syria conflict: Children ‘targeted by snipers’

24 November 2013 Last updated at 00:11 GMT

The BBC

More than 11,000 children have died in Syria’s civil war in nearly three years, including hundreds targeted by snipers, a new report says.

Summary executions and torture have also been used against children as young as one, the London-based Oxford Research Group think tank says.

The report says the majority of children have been killed by bombs or shells in their own neighbourhoods.

It wants fighters trained in how not to put civilians’ lives at risk.

The British mine owners, the police and South Africa’s day of blood

In August 2012, police shot 34 strikers dead in the bloodiest crackdown since the end of apartheid. Now new evidence shows meetings between police and employees of mine owner Lonmin in the crucial days before the killings

Maeve McClenaghan and David Smith

The Observer, Sunday 24 November 2013

On 16 August 2012 the summertime sun streamed through the leafy canopy of Green Park and into the windows of the Belgravia headquarters of platinum mine company Lonmin plc. But 5,500 miles away there was a chill in the air as the company’s biggest South African mine became a frenzy of activity.

Striking workers had gathered for the eighth day in a row at the Marikana mine, while media crews watched from nearby. Four thousand rounds of live ammunition were delivered and ambulances rolled ominously into place. As the cameras flashed, Zukiswa Mbombo, police chief of North West province, announced: “Today is D-day: we are ending this matter.”

Jeremy Scahill: From pursuing Washington over its secret war on terror to becoming a rebel fighter in the global war against journalism

 SARAH MORRISON  Author Biography   Sunday 24 November 2013

Jeremy Scahill has been dubbed a “one-man truth squad”. The American journalist has spent more than a decade reporting on what he describes as the “so-called war on terror,” from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia. Attentive readers will have already worked out he is no friend of the White House.

He has received death threats, and his computer has been hacked. Chilling warnings have even come from high up in President Barack Obama’s administration. Why? He has never minced his words. “We are making more new enemies across the world than we are killing actual terrorists,” he tells me. “I think there will be blowback.”

 Thousands protest US drone strikes in Pakistan

Thousands of people have gathered in northwest Pakistan to protest against drone strikes. The demonstrations blocked a NATO troop supply route used to transport supplies in and out of Afghanistan.

 DW

About 10,000 people gathered on a road in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday in a rally led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. Protesters shouted anti-US slogans, including “Down with America” and “Stop drone attacks.”

The event was jointly organized by Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – which has called on the Pakistani government to take a harder line against US drone strikes in the country – and the party’s junior coalition partners in the province: the Jamaat-e-Islami party and the local Awami Jamhoori Itehad party.

“We will put pressure on America, and our protest will continue if drone attacks are not stopped,” Khan told the protesters, who blocked a NATO supply route. The supply interruption, however, was seen as largely symbolic as the road sees little NATO traffic on Saturdays.

High murder rate in Honduras, but presidential vote could hinge on economy

In Honduras, the gap between rich and poor has grown since the last election, and violence and economic decline have gone hand in hand.

 By Seth Robbins, Correspondent

SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS

For two decades, Sandra Rivera worked in one of this city’s maquiladoras, factories that receive materials from the United States and return them as brand-name clothes: Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, Fruit of the Loom.

But last month, Ms. Rivera struck a deal with her employer, agreeing to be laid off from her job sewing T-shirts in order to receive back wages. Waiting in a packed unemployment office, Rivera, 36, says her age and lack of a high school diploma have made finding work nearly impossible.

“The only thing I ask from the next government,” she says, “is that they generate more employment, and that there are opportunities for older people like myself.”

Rich-vs.-poor nations’ clash stalls work toward 2015 climate pact

By Carol J. Williams

The issue that has prevented a major advance in the battle against global warming for two decades has scuttled progress at the latest U.N. gathering aimed at forging a climate pact by 2015: how much rich nations should pay to help developing countries build their economies with clean-energy sources.

The United States and the European Union wanted a firm deadline set at the conference in Warsaw for each of the 195 countries party to the talks to make commitments on emissions reductions that will be enshrined in a new global climate pact at a meeting in Paris in December 2015.