Six In The Morning

Iraq conflict: US in new air strikes on militants

 10 August 2014 Last updated at 08:20

 BBC

The US military says it has carried out a third round of air strikes on Sunni Muslim militants to defend civilians in northern Iraq.

It said jet fighters and drones had destroyed armoured vehicles that were firing on members of the Yazidi sect trapped by jihadists on Mount Sinjar.

The US authorised the strikes last week to halt the lightning advance of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

France’s foreign minister has arrived in Iraq to discuss the crisis.

Laurent Fabius, who landed in the capital Baghdad on Sunday morning, will also oversee the first delivery of French aid for displaced people in the Sinjar region.

Iran plane crash kills dozens

State media outlets say passenger jet carrying 48 people crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport.

Last updated: 10 Aug 2014 08:05

All 48 passengers and crew on board an Iranian jet have reportedly been killed after the plane crashed near an airport in the capital Tehran, state television reported.

IRNA agency said the plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Mehrabad airport on Sunday.

The news agency said the suspected cause of the crash was an engine failure.

The Civil Aviation Authority said the passengers included two infants and three children under the age of 12.

The plane crashed into the Azad residential block on Mina 6 Boulevard, IRNA reported. State television said that at least three people in the area were taken to hospital with burns.

Indonesia’s five-year-old child jockeys stare down death to stave off poverty

They hurtle without saddles at 50mph. Some will fall; a few will die. These are the child jockeys of Indonesia – and the youngest of them is aged just five

ADAM JACQUES  Sunday 10 August 2014

Fahri is seven years old, and when he’s not studying at school, he leads a very different existence – working as a jockey, he races horses at up to 50mph on a dusty 1,400m track.

Horse-racing is in the blood on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, and many families from this rural community pass their knowledge down from generation to generation. Riding since he was five, Fahri is one of 25 to 30 young boys who race 10 times a season across several tracks.

Although it is illegal for children under the age of 15 to work in Indonesia, Fahri comes from a long line of child jockeys, whose families’ meagre livelihoods have long been supplemented by their youngest members’ racing careers.

Libya insecurity forces aid workers to leave

NGOs exit as violence intensifies, leaving Libya straining under weight of supporting migrants and internally displaced people

IRIN, part of the Guardian development network

theguardian.com, Sunday 10 August 2014 09.00 BST

Libya’s deteriorating security situation has led to an exodus of aid workers and the suspension of development programmes, leaving tens of thousands of displaced and vulnerable people relying on skeleton networks run in part by volunteers.

In recent weeks, thousands of families have fled their homes in the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, following clashes between rival militias, factions of whom seized control of the capital’s international airport and a military base in Benghazi, and set fire to a major fuel depot.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s party faces dilemma as Myanmar constitution bars her rise to presidency

August 10, 2014 – 5:26PM

Chris Blake and Kyaw Thu

Bangkok: Aung San Suu Kyi’s quarter-century quest to lead Myanmar is running out of time because of a legal roadblock, posing a dilemma for a party that was forged around the mystique of the Nobel peace prize winner.

With elections due next year, Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy is in the running to win a majority of seats in a national poll for the first time since 1990, when the military refused to recognise its election win. However, since it was unbanned, the NLD has been unsuccessful in attempts to amend a constitution that bars Ms Suu Kyi, 69, from the presidency because her two sons are British.

 As Erdogan makes presidential bid, Turkish media airs ‘Truman Show’

 Erdogan is scoring lightning fast in charity soccer games, reviving fainting women, and dominating the airwaves. Is there anything Turkish prime minister and presidential front-runner Erdogan can’t do?

 By Alexander Christie-Miller, Correspondent

ISTANBUL – With presidential elections looming this Sunday, Turkey’s television broadcasters seem to be running their own “Truman Show” starring outgoing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Having reached his term limit, Mr. Erdogan is now seeking the presidency – currently a ceremonial position, but one he hopes to endow with a plethora of new powers. The overwhelming frontrunner has been broadcast scoring goals in an exhibition soccer match and “reviving” an unwell supporter with the touch of his hand during a rally in Istanbul last weekend.

The coverage has dwarfed that of his two rivals.