Six In The Morning

India election: Kejriwal party ahead in Delhi – exit poll

   7 February 2015 Last updated at 15:32

BBC

Voting has ended in the Delhi state elections which are seen as a popularity test for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The anti-corruption Common Man party (Aam Admi) of former tax inspector Arvind Kejriwal is in the lead and could win, early exit polls suggest.

Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded former policewoman Kiran Bedi as its pick for chief minister.

Turnout is estimated at more than 60%. Official results are due on Tuesday.

Over 13 million people were eligible to vote.

The turnout underlines the significance of the vote which is seen as the first real test for the prime minister since his convincing victory in general elections last summer, says the BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi.

Brutal killing of a samba ‘queen’ exposes dark world behind the glitter of carnival

 Tourists love Brazil’s glamour, but the murder of a transvestite has revealed the drug gang violence and transphobia below the surface

Beth McLoughlin Sunday 8 February 2015 00.04 GMT

In the flurry of blue and white that lit up Rio de Janeiro’s vast Sambadrome last week, black bands could be spotted on some of the wrists of those who marched to the driving beats.

It was an uncharacteristically sombre touch for the prestigious Beija-Flor samba school, 12 times winners of the city’s carnival parade, whose symbol is a gigantic hummingbird. The black bands worn at a rehearsal for the carnival, which begins on Friday, were a tribute to a dancer who had been killed the week before.

Claudio da Silva, 25, a transvestite who lived as a woman and was known by the name Piu to those in the school where she danced, had often joked to the “queen of the drums”, Raissa de Oliveira, that she would one day steal her crown and take her place as the most prominent woman in Beija-Flor’s parade. That ambition was never to be realised as Da Silva’s tortured corpse was discovered on 23 January, a few weeks before the carnival.

Isis in Iraq: Britain has no plan for tackling the militants, and no idea who’s in charge

  A Commons report revealed last week that our involvement there is beyond parody

Patrick Cockburn Sunday 8 February 2015

The traumatic experience of Britain’s participation in the 2003 Iraq war led the Government to have as little to do with the country as possible. By the spring of 2014, as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) prepared its great offensive that would capture a third of Iraq, the political section of the British embassy in Baghdad consisted of just three junior diplomats on short-term deployment. The British consulate in Basra, the city that had been the base for UK military operation between 2003 and 2007 and is the centre of Iraq’s oil industry, had been closed in 2011. Amazingly, Iraq was apparently a low priority for British intelligence at a moment when it was becoming obvious that much of the country was being taken over by the world’s most violent terrorist movement.

 Poroshenko: Ukraine ready for ‘unconditional ceasefire

Ukraine’s president has said his country is ready for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. A rising death toll is adding to pressure on a Franco-German effort to end the 10-month conflict.

  DW-DE

“I am ready to announce a complete and unconditional ceasefire any time to stop the rising civilian casualties,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Saturday in Munich, where world leaders were meeting to try and find a way out of the conflict.

Poroshenko said Kyiv was prepared to sign a truce “in a few hours or days” if Russia was also willing.

Kyiv struck a ceasefire deal – complete with a demilitarized buffer zone – with the pro-Russia rebels in Minsk last September, but that agreement was never properly implemented and fell apart completely after the rebels launched a new offensive in January.

The Minsk agreement is expected to form the basis of a new peace push by France and Germany, but there are also likely to be some important differences.

Taliban justice winning favour in Afghanistan

     February 8, 2015 – 1:07PM

 Azan Ahmed

Kandahar: Matiullah Khan and Muhammad Aywaz were each dug in, their property dispute in southern Afghanistan at an impasse. Despite paying more than $US1000 ($1280) apiece in lawyers’ fees, they found no resolution in the government’s court system. The tribal courts, informal networks of elders that most rural Afghans rely on, had also come up short.

So the two men did what a growing number of Afghans do these days when there is no other recourse: they turned to the Taliban. Within a few days, their problem was resolved – no bribes or fees necessary.

“He would have kept my house for himself if it wasn’t for the Taliban,” said Khan, a resident of Kandahar City who accused Aywaz of commandeering his home. “They were quick and fair.”

Nigeria postpones elections, focuses on major offensive against Boko Haram

Nigeria’s electoral commission announced it will postpone elections for six weeks as a multinational force from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Benin, and Niger attempt to secure a large swath of northeast land from Boko Haram.

    Michelle Faul, Associated Press

 Dakar, Senegal – Nigeria’s electoral commission will postpone Feb. 14 presidential and legislative elections for six weeks to give a new multinational force time to secure northeastern areas under the sway of Boko Haram, an official close to the commission told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Millions could be disenfranchised if next week’s voting went ahead while the Islamic extremists hold a large swath of the northeast and commit mayhem that has driven 1.5 million people from their homes.

Civil rights groups staged a small protest Saturday against any proposed postponement. Police prevented them from entering the electoral commission headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Armed police blocked roads leading to the building.