Alan Henning’s wife appeals to IS to release him
21 September 2014
BBC
The wife of a British taxi driver being held hostage by Islamic State has pleaded with the militants to “see it in their hearts” to release him.Alan Henning, from Eccles in Salford, was seized while on an aid mission to Syria last December.
In a statement released via the Foreign Office, his wife Barbara said he had been driving an ambulance stocked with food and water at the time.
Mrs Henning said she had sent messages to IS but had received no response.
The militants issued their threat to kill the 47-year-old in a video released last Saturday which showed the killing of another British man, David Haines.
‘Selfless man’
The full statement released from the Henning family read:“I am Barbara Henning, the wife of Alan Henning.
“Alan was taken prisoner last December and is being held by the Islamic State.
Scientists reveal ‘fair system’ for countries to tackle climate change
Rich nations should make biggest commitment to ensuring that temperatures are held to a 1.5C rise by 2025, says study
John Vidal
theguardian.com, Sunday 21 September 2014 07.00 BST
Rich nations should make the deepest emission cuts and provide most money if countries are to share fairly the responsibility of preventing catastrophic climate change, says a major new study.Calculations by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) scientists and Friends of the Earth suggest the UK would need to make cuts of up to 75% on 1990 emission levels by 2025 and would also need to transfer $49bn (£30bn) to developing countries. The US would have to cut slightly less, but transfer up to $634bn to make a fair contribution.
Blasphemy laws silence another voice in Karachi
As an outspoken Islamic scholar is gunned down in Pakistan, legal reform looks more distant than ever
ANDREW BUNCOMBE , UMAIR AZIZ Sunday 21 September 2014
Professor Muhammad Shakeel Auj knew very well that not everyone agreed with his moderate views about Islam. There had been messages and threats over the years, some of them serious enough to warrant reporting to the police.But the academic never stopped debating or discussing or writing. Indeed, he encouraged people to challenge him. “Convince me or be convinced,” the Dean of the faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Karachi, would say.
Last Thursday, such discussions were ended forvever. As Mr Auj made his way to a function at the city’s Iranian cultural centre, two gunmen on a motorbike opened fire on his car. The 54-year-old was was fatally injured in the head while a junior teaching colleague was wounded in her arm. It was the fourth such deadly attack on the department.
Ghana goes green with bamboo bikes
A young female social entrepreneur has vowed to bring change to the world – one bamboo bike at a time. The 19-year-old employs about 30 girls to produce bikes in Ghana and has received numerous awards for her work.
DW
Winifred Selby, 19, is a young social entrepreneur who is determined to fight for a carbon-free and greener planet. She founded Ghana Bamboo Bikes in 2009 – and her business model took off immediately. She currently employs about 30 young women and her bikes made from bamboo are becoming more popular day by day. Selby says the company creates a turnover of about $10,000 (7,720 euros) a month by exporting some of its bikes.She started her enterprise at the age of 15. Money was always tight in the family. She says she was motivated by the challenges she and her family were facing.
“When I was six things were so tight that we sometimes had to sell [items] during [school] vacations, because where are the school fees going to come from?” Often she would sell toffee or other small items to earn a little bit of money.
The Middle East and its armies
By Brian M Downing
Recent events have shown the ineffectiveness of armies in the Middle East, from Libya to Iraq, and extending beyond the region into Afghanistan. Training missions can teach troops to shoot and march and salute, but not to hold up under fire. Several armies have struggled or collapsed in recent conflicts, despite superior armaments, training, and numbers. Only a few have acquitted themselves well in battle.The Libyan army collapsed in the face of lightly-armed rebels and a measure of NATO air support. The Syrian army has been driven from most of the country by a miscellany of rebel forces and can only maintain a stalemate with the help of Hisbollah and Iranian
advisers. The Iraqi army was sent fleeing by a few thousand Islamic State (IS) troops and is only slowly regaining ground with outside help. And of course Saddam Hussein’s army was devastated in a matter of a few days by the US and allies in 1991 and 2003.
From gangsta rapper to Islamist militant
A German hip-hop artist joins the Islamic State, sparking fears of homegrown terror in his country
By Marc Young Yahoo News
As war in Syria and Iraq attracts a growing number of Muslim extremists from Europe, intelligence officials in Germany believe a former gangsta rapper has joined the inner circle of Islamists fighting there.Denis Cuspert was once a modestly successful member of Germany’s hip-hop scene going by the stage name Deso Dogg. Now he calls himself Abu Talha the German and is a top propagandist for the so-called Islamic State (IS) caliphate, which is blamed for several wartime atrocities.
His ascent into the upper IS ranks is raising concerns that such “homegrown” Islamists could embolden Muslim extremists in Germany or that they might one day return themselves to target the country for terrorism.
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