Six In The Morning

Cyclone Pam leaves ‘most’ of Vanuatu population homeless

    29 minutes ago

BBC

Vanuatu’s president has told the BBC most of his people are homeless after the devastating cyclone that ravaged the Pacific island nation on Saturday.

Speaking from Japan, Baldwin Lonsdale said Cyclone Pam had destroyed most buildings in the capital Port Vila, including schools and clinics.

A state of emergency has been declared in the tiny state of 267,000 people, spread over 65 islands.

At least eight people are reported to have been killed.

However, it is feared the toll will rise sharply as rescuers reach outlying islands.

Thousands of people spent a second night in shelters.

The category five storm, with winds of up to 270km/h (170mph), veered off its expected course and struck populated areas when it reached Vanuatu early on Saturday local time (+11 GMT).

  Rakhat Aliyev: Claims of murder over death of rival to Kazakhstan’s president in an Austrian prison

 Mr Aliyev’s lawyers say suspicious circumstances undermine an initial verdict of suicide

 Tony Paterson Author Sunday 15 March 2015



Prison authorities discovered his corpse at 7.20 on a Tuesday morning late last month. Rakhat Aliyev’s body was hanging from a noose made from gauze bandages which had been attached to a peg in the cell’s shower unit.

Aliyev, the former son in law and prominent millionaire opponent of the autocratic Kazakh president, was found dead in his solitary cell in the hospital unit of the Josefstadt prison in Vienna in circumstances that might have been lifted from the pages of a John Le Carré spy novel.

Suspicions that he could have been the victim of a political assassination have obliged Austria to launch an independent judicial inquiry into the mysterious Vienna prison “suicide.”

  Kurds accuse IS of using ‘weaponized’ chlorine in Iraq

 Iraq’s Kurdish authorities say they have evidence “Islamic State” has used chlorine gas as a weapon against Kurdish fighters. The accusation comes as Iraqi soldiers attempt to drive the militants out of Tikrit.

DW

The Security Council of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said in a statement on Saturday it had found traces of chlorine gas on samples taken from the site of a suicide truck bombing in northern Iraq.

The alleged attack on Kurdish Peshmerga fighters by “Islamic State” (IS) militants took place on January 23, along a highway between Iraq’s largest city, Mosul, and the Syrian border.

According to the council’s statement, which was posted on Twitter, soil and clothing samples were sent to a lab in a “partner nation” from the US-led coalition fighting IS militants in the region.

“The analysis, which was carried out at an EU certified laboratory, found the samples contained levels of chlorine that suggested the substance was used in weaponized form,” the statement read. The council did not identify the laboratory, and its allegations have not yet been independently verified.

 On war-torn frontier, Israelis feel government has forgotten them

 March 15, 2015 – 4:43PM

  Ruth Pollard

Middle East Correspondent

Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha, southern Israel: A sculpture of rockets covers the centre pylon in Ein HaShlosha’s machinery shed – a mere fraction of the number of homemade missiles fired by militants from the Gaza Strip at the tiny Israeli community over the last 14 years.

Its fields lie just 500 metres from the Gaza border, its houses around two kilometres. Tunnels built by Hamas militants were discovered on its farmlands months before last year’s war even began.

 Nigeria: Boko Haram bomb factory uncovered in troubled northeast

 

    By Faith Karimi and Radina Gigova, CNN Updated 0428 GMT (1228 HKT) March 14, 2015

Nigerian troops discovered a Boko Haram bomb factory this week after they seized a northern town from the extremists, the military said.

The factory was tucked inside a fertilizer company in Buni Yadi town in Yobe state, according to officials.

Islamist fighters took over the town in August, one of many seized in the troubled northeast. Troops have battled the militants for months to regain control, and said they recaptured it last week.

Militants planted explosive devices along the highway on their way out, which delayed the soldiers’ advance. Four soldiers were killed during the operation.

Dark side of Japan revealed in film about Internet cafe living

 

   By Adario Strange 9 hours ago

If you’ve ever wondered if some of those film depictions of futuristic, dystopian cities will ever come to fruition, you need look no further than the dark, broadband-connected caves shown in director Shiho Fukada’s film.

One part-time construction site worker is shown spending his time between monotonous work shifts and Internet cafe existence by chain smoking and staring listlessly at a computer screen surrounded by black walls draped with wires. Another man admits that he has lived in an Internet cafe for four months, after quitting his job as a computer systems manager at a credit card company.