Six In The Morning

Clashes as Israeli soldiers storm Al-Aqsa compound

  Israeli security personnel use tear gas as they enter compound to arrest Palestinian ‘stone throwers’.

13 Sep 2015 06:51 GMT

Clashes have erupted after a number of Israeli soldiers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, police and witnesses said.

The Israeli security personnel used tear gas as they entered the compound to arrest what they called Palestinian “stone throwers”.

The disturbances came with tensions running high after Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon last week outlawed two Muslim groups from entering the mosque compound – Islam’s third holiest site.

Israeli security forces closed the mosque’s compound to worshippers following the clashes.

 Refugee crisis: Desperate Iraqi Yazidis join exodus to Europe

 Singled out by Isis, believers say they can not stay in Iraq

 Cathy Otten Sharya Sunday 13 September 2015

Khatab’s eyes darted around the torch-lit room as he speaks. His family, part of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, sits around him inside the shell of a half-built home as darkness falls.

“Look, we have nothing,” says the nervous-looking 15-year-old, pointing to the plastic-covered holes in the walls where windows should be. Two weeks ago the teenager attempted to reach Europe, walking for 35 hours towards the Turkish-Bulgarian border before he was arrested. “He is still shaking now”, his father says.

  The Vanishing: Why Are Young Egyptian Activists Disappearing?

 Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s security forces have been kidnapping scores of young activists in the country. They include former revolutionaries and Islamists who are, in many cases, being denied due process.

By Nicola Abé

A paper sun hangs on the wall, and the dresser is covered with bottles of nail polish in all colors. The woman who used to inhabit this room, who has been in the hands of the government for the past three months, seemed to have a fondness for ladybugs. There is a stuffed animal ladybug on the bed, and a rug in the shape of a ladybug on the floor. “Her friends called her the ladybug of the revolution,” Duaa El-Taweel, 22, says of her sister, who has disappeared.

El-Taweel says her sister Esraa was restless and constantly on the go, taking pictures wherever she went. The walls are covered with patches of dried adhesive. “We took down the pictures,” she says, explaining that anyone depicted in them is in danger. El-Taweel pulls letters from her sister out of a cardboard box.

 Turkey’s escalating violence, explained



   by Zack Beauchamp

On Friday, militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) went into a cafe in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir and opened fire on a table of police officers, wounding three and killing a nearby waiter. This wasn’t random: It’s part of an upswing in fighting between Turkey and the Kurdish group since July that’s already killed hundreds. The Turkish government has imposed a crushing set of restrictions on the town of Cizre, where, according to the BBC, “residents in the mainly Kurdish town say they have been unable to buy food or medical supplies.”

This is some of the worst violence the country has seen since the 1990s. On the surface, the conflict is the latest cycle of violence between two longtime enemies that has gone on for decades. But it’s also about the impact the Syrian war is having on Turkish society, as well as some pretty nasty changes in Turkish domestic politics.

 Who are Uighurs? A look at group from restive China region

 

 BEIJING (AP)

Arrests made and details revealed about the Aug. 17 Bangkok bombing that killed 20 people have raised the question of whether members of an ethnic and religious minority from China’s far west were involved. A primer on the Uighurs, the repression they face in China and their presence abroad:

WHO ARE THE UIGHURS?

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) are a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic group native to China’s far western region of Xinjiang, which was sporadically controlled by Chinese dynasties over the centuries. They have long complained of ethnic discrimination and religious restriction under the Chinese government, which is dominated by members of the Han ethnic group.

Surviving desert marathons: ‘Imagine the Devil holding a blowtorch in your face’

 

By Sheena McKenzie, for CNN

Updated 0257 GMT (0957 HKT) September 13, 2015

When Dean Karnazes ran 135 miles nonstop across Death Valley during the height of summer, the heat was so intense it “caused the epithelia in my mouth and throat to slough off, like a reptile shedding its skin.”

“I really enjoyed that race,” adds the the legendary 53-year-old American runner.

Indeed, put Karnazes in 130F heat with a headwind like “the Devil’s blowtorch” and blisters the size of marbles, and he’ll happily tell you he’s “never felt more alive.”

This, afterall, is the “Ultramarathon Man” who in 2005 ran 350 miles nonstop for almost 81 hours — that’s over three days without sleep (Karnazes later said he experienced bouts of “sleep running,” where his body kept jogging while his mind napped).