Six In The Morning

Gaza: Israel hits security HQ and rocket site

 13 July 2014 Last updated at 06:57

 BBC

Israel has carried out overnight air strikes against Gaza’s security headquarters and police stations, in the heaviest bombardment since operations began on 8 July.

It also said its troops had carried out a brief raid against a rocket-launching site in the coastal territory.

Israel added that Palestinian militants fired about 90 rockets from the Gaza Strip into its territory on Saturday.

At least 159 Palestinians have died in the air strikes, Gaza officials say.

They are said to include 17 members of one family who died in an Israeli missile strike on Saturday evening.

Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country

World View: A speech by an ex-MI6 boss hints at a plan going back over a decade. In some areas, being Shia is akin to being a Jew in Nazi Germany

PATRICK COCKBURN Sunday 13 July 2014

How far is Saudi Arabia complicit in the Isis takeover of much of northern Iraq, and is it stoking an escalating Sunni-Shia conflict across the Islamic world? Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: “The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally ‘God help the Shia’. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them.”

 Heavy fighting breaks out near Libya’s Tripoli airport



TRIPOLI Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:47am EDT

Heavy fighting between militias with anti-aircraft guns and rocket propelled grenades broke out near the airport of the Libyan capital Tripoli on Sunday, residents and Reuters witnesses said.

Explosions could be heard on the airport road and other parts of Tripoli though it was not immediately clear who was fighting whom.

Libyan social media websites said the airport had been closed. A Reuters reporter on the airport road said he could see no inbound or outbound flights.

El Dorado in the Amazon: A Deluded German and Three Dead Bodies

A German man claims to be an Indian chief in the Amazon rainforest. His tales of El Dorado even impressed Steven Spielberg and Jacques Cousteau. His tales would be harmless if there were three unsolved deaths connected to his fantasy world.

By Alexander Smoltczyk

In the late 1960s, a man turned up in the Brazilian state of Acre, deep in the Amazon region. He was wearing a loincloth and a feather, carried a bow and claimed he was Tatunca Nara, chief of the Ugha Mongulala. No one had ever heard of an Indian tribe with that name. In addition, the man bore no resemblance whatsoever to an Indian. He was white and spoke with a strong French accent.

He said he had inherited the accent from his mother, explaining that she was a German nun who had been taken by the Indians. His people, he said, lived in an underground city called Akakor, and that German was one of the languages spoken there — a byproduct of the offspring of 2,000 Nazi soldiers who had once traveled up the Amazon in U-boats.

Kerry arrives in Vienna for Iran nuclear talks



VIENNA (Reuters)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Vienna on Sunday for talks with foreign ministers from the six powers negotiating with Tehran on its nuclear program.

Kerry arrived in the early hours after clinching a deal in Kabul with Afghanistan’s presidential candidates to end the country’s election crisis.

Iran and the powers – the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China – aim to reach a long-term deal to end the decade-old nuclear standoff by a July 20 deadline. Many diplomats and analysts believe an extension may be needed in view of the wide gaps in negotiating positions.

 1,500-Year-Old Claws Intrigue Archaeologists in Peru

 

 BY ALAN BOYLE

Archaeologists in Peru say they have unearthed the previously unknown tomb of a nobleman from a pre-Inca civilization known as the Moche. The tomb contained the remains of an adult male, plus artifacts indicating the man’s elite status, according to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio.

Among the most intriguing artifacts are ornamental metal pieces fashioned to look like feline paws with claws. The paws may have been part of a ritual costume used in ceremonial combat, El Comercio reported. The loser would be sacrificed, while the winner would get the costume.