Six In The Morning

ISIS: Japanese hostage beheaded

 

By Steve Almasy, CNN

Updated 0255 GMT (1055 HKT) February 1, 2015

A newly distributed ISIS release appears to show the decapitated body of captive Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, after an English-language lecture is given by masked ISIS member “Jihadi John” to the people of Japan.

The video, 67 seconds long, was released Saturday as others before it, by ISIS media wing Al Furqan Media, and cannot be authenticated by CNN.

“We are deeply saddened by this despicable and horrendous act of terrorism and we denounce it in the strongest terms,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in Tokyo, according to broadcaster NHK. “To the terrorists, we will never, never forgive them for this act.”

Blogger takes on Mexico’s drug gangs by publishing vital news on the latest shootouts, abductions and cartel roadblocks

 A secret online activist, unbowed by threats and murders, is nominated for a free-speech award

Catherine Vervier Sunday 01 February 2015

Being a citizen journalist in Tamaulipas, one of Mexico’s most violent states, means living a life of extreme risk and expecting very little by way of reward.

For three years, the anonymous administrator of the website Valor por Tamaulipas (Courage for Tamaulipas) has hidden his online identity from everyone he knows and faced a constant barrage of threats against him and his family. He has seen colleagues brutally murdered, while criminal gangs and corrupt officials apparently continue to operate with impunity in his state.

Showdown looms for Beijing and Hong Kong

 The gulf between the Chinese Communist Party and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong has grown increasingly wide. As they did last year, the two camps and their opposing ideologies are likely to clash again.

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Four months ago, the Occupy Central crusade – also known as the Umbrella Movement – exposed to the world the shocking frailty of the “one country two systems” model.

Occupy Central was a reaction against the Xi Jinping leadership’s efforts to tighten control over the Hong Kong, despite guarantees that the Special Administration Region (SAR) enjoys a high degree of autonomy apart from foreign and defense issues.

A “White Paper on the Practice of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Policy” issued last June by the central government emphasized that Beijing has “complete jurisdiction” over Hong Kong and that all of the SAR’s administrators – including judges- should demonstrate “patriotism” toward the socialist motherland. The document also warned against “a small minority of Hong Kong people colluding with outside forces to interfere in China’s domestic affairs.”

Palestinians in Syria cut off from aid once more



    February 1, 2015 – 2:56PM

Beirut: Tens of thousands of longtime Palestinian refugees in a camp on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus have been cut off from United Nations emergency aid for nearly two months by armed groups that are preventing access, a UN official said.

Up to 18,000 people are living inside the devastated Yarmouk camp, which is caught between government forces and Syrian insurgent groups including al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front. Food, water and medicine are scarce.

Last year “a degree of cooperation” allowed aid to enter after several months of being blocked, but access has again vanished with a deterioration of security, said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Why Paris terrorist wore a GoPro

In a generation raised on YouTube, even terrorists understand the power of a video clip.

 By Jessica Mendoza, Staff Writer

It’s not an event unless it’s on video.

That appears to have been the case for terror suspect Amedy Coulibaly, who wore a camera on his body when he attacked a Jewish grocery store in Paris earlier this month, according to multiple news outlets.

The information, first released by CNN, supports an earlier report by French magazine L’Express that Coulibaly used a GoPro camera to record seven minutes of his raid. He then emailed a copy of the clip using a computer at the market before he was killed by police, according to

 The Swedish Schindler who disappeared



1 February 2015 Last updated at 00:00

    By Rob Brown BBC World Service

During World War Two, a young Swedish diplomat saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis. But in January 1945 Soviet troops arrested him – he was never seen in public again.

The day German soldiers arrived in Budapest is one that 89-year-old Marianne Balshone will never forget.

She was due to meet her fiance, Pista, on the quay of the Danube but he called to tell her that German troops were crossing the bridges of the city – he told her to stay at home.

“From that day on, everything went downhill… that was the beginning of the end of my youth,” says Balshone. She was 17 years old at the time.