Six In The Morning

Gunman kills two New York police officers

21 December 2014 Last updated at 06:33

BBC

A gunman has shot dead two police officers sitting inside a patrol car in New York before killing himself.

The head of the New York police said the men had been “targeted for their uniform”. The gunman then ran into a subway station where he shot himself.

Earlier he had shot and injured his ex-girlfriend and had posted anti-police messages on social media.

President Barack Obama – who is on holiday in Hawaii – said he condemned the killings unconditionally.

“Officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day,” he said in a statement.

Pakistan dares to ask: will school attack finally end myth of the ‘good Taliban’?

 Decades of state support for jihadis has led to national confusion over who the real enemies are. But the latest attack might be a watershed

Jon Boone in Islamabad

The Observer, Sunday 21 December 2014

It is not just the survivors of Tuesday’s assault on Peshawar’s Army Public School who have been reliving the nightmarish attack that left 132 teenage boys dead. The entire country has been traumatised by graphic accounts of gunmen spraying bullets into a hall full of children and then later sadistically killing others after checking whether their parents served in the military.

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s army made a point of letting scores of television crews trample over the crime scene in order that they could broadcast pictures of rooms blasted by suicide bombers, floors covered with pools of barely dried blood, and the sad detritus of an ordinary school day suddenly interrupted by seven terrorists.

Banda Aceh ten years on: A decade after the tsunami, the province is slowly rebuilding itself

 In the area hardest hit by 2004’s Boxing Day disaster, children in kindergarten are now taught to make evacuation maps

 ALEXANDER WARD , NICK WILLOUGHBY   Sunday 21 December 2014

“I had never seen in my life so much destruction and death on such a massive scale. I remember going to a place called Lambaro, just outside Banda Aceh, and that was my first interaction – seeing hundreds of corpses being laid out outside the shops.”

Tomi Soetjipto worked as a journalist when he arrived in Aceh and came face to face with the aftermath of the tsunami that wreaked havoc on Boxing Day in 2004, which laid waste to large swathes of the Indonesian coast and the coastlines of a number of other countries, including India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. More than 200,000 people died that day, a decade ago this week, with some estimates putting the total nearer a quarter of a million.

West’s sanctions on Russia bite, but backlash could hurt

As Vladimir Putin tries to gloss over his country’s economic problems, ordinary Russians are starting to feel the double whammy of falling oil prices and sanctions. But has the West bitten off more than it can chew?

 DW-DE

Russia’s economy is in tatters. The ruble is in free fall despite a massive intervention by the Russian central bank to prop up the currency. Russian officials have admitted that the combination of falling oil price and Western sanctions are taking a heavy toll – despite assurances to the contrary by President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. The country’s finance minister says that Russia is projected to lose something to the tune of 140 billion euros a year in investments as a result of the sanctions regime. And here’s another figure to drive home the brutal truth: Russia’s economy is set to contract by 4.7 percent next year if oil prices stay at their current level.

All of which could make you wonder about German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s recent statement that the aim of the sanctions is not to harm Russia economically.

Cuba harbours one of US’s most wanted fugitives, Assata Shakur

December 21, 2014 – 4:32PM

 Tina Griego

Washington: This week’s shift in relations between Washington and Havana has renewed the call for Cuba to turn over one of the United States’ most controversial fugitives.

Even the act of naming her reveals the depth of the schism. Law enforcement calls her JoAnne Chesimard. Her supporters know her by her chosen name, Assata Shakur. She is the godmother and aunt of slain rap star Tupac Shakur.

Thirty years ago,  Shakur fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum by Fidel Castro. US law enforcement has repeatedly sought her extradition, and the FBI has placed her on its Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorists list. Information directly leading to her apprehension carries a $US2 million reward.

Tunisians set to vote in landmark elections

 Tunisia to elect president in runoff that presents a stark choice between the country’s past and its post-uprising era.

 Last updated: 21 Dec 2014 06:39

Tunisians are set to go to the polls to freely elect their president for the first time in the country’s history, rounding off an at times bumpy four-year transition from dictatorship.

The runoff on Sunday pits 88-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of the Nidaa Tounes party, against incumbent Moncef Marzouki, who held the post through an alliance with the moderate Islamist movement Ennahda.

The landmark second-round vote sets Tunisia apart from the turmoil of other Arab countries that went through uprisings.

The vote, which is taking place amid tight security and the closure of main border posts with strife-torn neighbour Libya is the first free presidential election since independence from France in 1956.