| The shirts, the humour, the empathy -- the magic of Mandela Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:16 PM PST  South Africans called it the "Madiba magic" after his clan name -- Nelson Mandela's quirky mix of grandeur and simplicity, his ready quips, his ability to relate to the poor, his colourful custom-made shirts and his dancing prowess. Mandela -- who succumbed to a recurrent lung infection on Thursday aged 95 -- drew politicians from around the world, as well as ordinary children and adults keen to get a glimpse of the freedom icon who spent 27 years in prison. Many remember his solemn inauguration as South Africa's first black president on May 20, 1994 at the age of 75, when he shuffled a few steps in perfect time despite the wear and tear on his body, fists clenched, with a beaming smile. Parodied too, in many bars in South Africa, was his distinctive accent -- a slow, punctuated growl.
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| Anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela dies aged 95 Posted: 05 Dec 2013 04:25 PM PST  Nelson Mandela, the revered icon of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle and a towering figure of 20th century politics, died Thursday aged 95. The Nobel Peace laureate, who was elected South Africa's first black president after spending nearly three decades as a political prisoner, died at his Johannesburg home surrounded by his family, after a long battle against lung infection. The news was announced to the nation and the world by a clearly emotional South African President Jacob Zuma in a live broadcast to the nation. "Our beloved Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the founding president of our democratic nation has departed," said Zuma, who was also imprisoned on Robben Island.
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| Nelson Mandela, South Africa's peacemaker, dies Posted: 05 Dec 2013 04:06 PM PST  JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Nelson Mandela was a master of forgiveness.
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| Decaying steel town gets movie star turn in 'Out of the Furnace' Posted: 05 Dec 2013 04:05 PM PST  By Eric Kelsey BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) - A brief drive through Pittsburgh's down-and-out steel mill borough of Braddock at the time of the economic downturn in 2009 was all it took, and director Scott Cooper knew where he wanted to set his next film. Starring Christian Bale and Casey Affleck, it will be in wide release in U.S. movie theaters on Friday. "I wasn't going to make the movie if I didn't shoot it there." "Out of the Furnace," distributed by independent studio Relativity Media, tells the story of steel mill worker Russell Baze (Bale) and his younger brother, Rodney (Affleck), an Iraq War veteran haunted by his tours of duty, who would do anything to avoid working in the mills like his brother and father. "Even if something disastrous was to happen, they would rather stay there." The film - which features several past Oscar nominees and winners, including Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Forest Whitaker and Sam Shepard - adds a working-class quality to the recent spate of Hollywood fare that touches on the social anxieties and financial insecurity wrought by the recession.
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| Activists: Rebels kill Iraqi journalist in Syria Posted: 05 Dec 2013 03:15 PM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian opposition fighters killed an Iraqi freelance journalist in the rebel-held north of the country, the latest of dozens of reporters who have died in the country over the past three years, an activist group and an international media watchdog said Thursday.
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| Major events in the life of Nelson Mandela Posted: 05 Dec 2013 02:46 PM PST July 18, 1918 — Born to Hendry Mphakanyiswa, a Thembu chief, and Nosekeni Qunu in the Umtata district of the Transkei, at a time when virtually all of Africa was under European colonial rule |
| CHINESE BEHAVIOR, AS EVER, IS HARD TO PUZZLE OUT Posted: 05 Dec 2013 02:30 PM PST WASHINGTON -- Just about any American who has had briefings in China over the last 20 years about that country's new mandarin communist intentions toward the world has left the inner sanctums of the most mysterious kingdom in recent history with a feeling of satisfaction. For 300 years of their modern history, the men of the state tell you seriously, they have never gone outside of China's historical boundaries to occupy others' lands. The 300-year story happens to be true, but it was always dependent upon the fact that China was so penned in between its own Great Wall and the ever-constant threat of attacks from outside, that China had little chance to wriggle about in Asia. |
| Syrian refugees flee for safety through the desert Posted: 05 Dec 2013 02:16 PM PST  EASTERN JORDAN (AP) — As evening gathers across a desert plain in eastern Jordan, 80-year-old Muteea Talaa stands with 200 other starved, cold and wet refugees on the Syrian side of a muddy ditch marking the border between the two countries, waiting for a signal from a Jordanian army patrol to cross over.
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| Red Cross calls for record $1.3 bn to cover 2014 aid Posted: 05 Dec 2013 12:38 PM PST  The Red Cross said Thursday it will need a record $1.3 billion (one billion euros) to cover its humanitarian activities next year, amid the soaring need for aid in places such as Syria. "We consider that this is a realistic estimate of the resources required," International Committee of the Red Cross president Peter Maurer told reporters in Geneva. The biggest budget ever requested in the ICRC's 150-year history is needed due to soaring humanitarian needs, but also the organisation's growing access to areas that were previously impossible to get to, like Myanmar, he explained. In 2014, Syria will account for the ICRC's biggest expenditure.
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| Nuclear North Korea: 6 ways it differs from Iran Posted: 05 Dec 2013 11:22 AM PST Military hard-liners in North Korea are believed to view the agreement under which Iran is scaling down its nuclear program as a dangerous precedent. Indeed, they see that deal as the type that North Korea should avoid and advocate a tough policy that precludes meaningful talks on the North's program for fabricating nuclear warheads, according to analysts here. Given this stance, are there lessons from the recently negotiated agreement to scale down Iran's nuclear program that can be used in North Korea? Some questions – and answers – on the North Korean and Iranian programs: |
| Five dead in Iraq as Qaeda group claims mall assault Posted: 05 Dec 2013 11:04 AM PST  Attacks in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul on Thursday killed five people as an Al-Qaeda front group claimed an assault on a mall and adjoining police complex. Officials have blamed a resurgent Al-Qaeda emboldened by the civil war in neighbouring Syria, but the government has itself been criticised for not doing enough to address the concerns of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority. Shootings and bombings in the capital and Mosul, a restive predominantly Sunni city in north Iraq, killed five people, security and medical officials said, while security forces found the bodies of two anti-Al-Qaeda militiamen. The militiamen were members of the Sahwa, a collection of Sunni tribal militias that sided with the US military against their co-religionists in Al-Qaeda from 2006 onwards.
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| Syria's 'bride of the revolution' mourns freedom in al Qaeda's grip Posted: 05 Dec 2013 10:22 AM PST  The eastern city of Raqqa was swept by celebrations after residents woke up one morning in March to see the last batch of forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad leaving. Believing a new era of freedom had arrived, they promised to make Raqqa, the first and only city to have fallen completely under rebel control, an example of a post-Assad era. Raqqa was for all Syrians and all those who helped liberate it," said one of several residents and activists contacted by Reuters via Skype.
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| Jihadists execute Iraqi cameraman in rebel-held Syria Posted: 05 Dec 2013 09:44 AM PST  Fighters linked to Al-Qaeda executed an Iraqi freelance cameraman as he was leaving Syria after a 10-day assignment in rebel-held territory, watchdogs said on Thursday. Yasser Faysal al-Joumaili was shot dead after being stopped at a checkpoint in mainly rebel-held Idlib province in the northwest as he headed for the Turkish border on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. His death at the hands of jihadist fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) underlined the risks of reporting from Syria, which Reporters without Borders (RSF) describes as the world's most dangerous country for journalists. The 34-year-old father-of-three had been filming in Aleppo province further east, one of the main battlegrounds of the 33-month conflict, the head of RSF's Middle East and North Africa desk, Soazig Dollet, told AFP.
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| Al Qaeda linked group says it attacked Iraqi mall, police HQ-SITE Posted: 05 Dec 2013 09:32 AM PST  A group linked to al Qaeda said it was behind suicide attacks on an Iraqi police intelligence headquarters and shopping mall in the northern city of Kirkuk, the SITE monitoring group said on Thursday, citing a communique. Gunmen and suicide bombers attacked the two sites in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, late on Wednesday. Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed the six-man suicide raid, according to a statement circulated on jihadi forums and social media, SITE said. Sunni Muslim insurgents linked to al Qaeda have regularly used such attacks on targets linked to Iraq's Shi'ite-led government and security services since the start of 2013.
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| A History of Media Manipulation: This Holiday Book List Will Protect You from Lying Liars Posted: 05 Dec 2013 08:59 AM PST On the Huffington Post, the story received close to 8,000 comments and 16,000 Facebook shares (with follow-ups receiving more). Creating and running one of the web's first and biggest news aggregators gave him one of the best perspectives you could hope for in a book about the media. |
| Syria top priority for Red Cross in 2014 despite limited access Posted: 05 Dec 2013 08:18 AM PST By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Desperate civilians in a swathe of Syria from Aleppo in the north to the southern border are largely out of reach of aid workers, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday. Throughout the country, the wounded are often denied medical treatment by either government officials or rebels, while hospitals and ambulances remain targets of unlawful attacks, ICRC President Peter Maurer said. The ICRC is seeking 105.3 million Swiss francs ($116.27 million) in 2014 for Syria, its largest operation worldwide. |
| Insight: Beheadings and spies help al Qaeda gain ground in Syria Posted: 05 Dec 2013 07:17 AM PST  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis AMMAN (Reuters) - Armed with machine guns, black-clad al Qaeda fighters drove their pick-ups calmly into the northern Syrian town and took over its imposing agriculture ministry building. The scene in Termanin, recounted by an activist who witnessed it last week, is being repeated in towns along the border with Turkey and at road junctions further inside Syria that have fallen out of President Bashar al-Assad's control. Whether through weakness or a desire to focus on Assad, rebel units are making way for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda affiliate led by foreigners hardened by guerrilla warfare in Iraq, Chechnya and Libya. The landgrab has given radical jihadists a large territorial base in the heart of a Middle East convulsed by the civil war raging in Syria since 2011.
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| Syria jihadists kidnap 50 Kurds: NGO Posted: 05 Dec 2013 06:57 AM PST  Jihadists in northern Syria have kidnapped more than 50 Kurds in the past three days, in the second such case of mass hostage-taking since July, a monitoring group said Thursday. The kidnappings come months into major battles for control of several parts of northern Syria that have pitted Kurdish fighters against jihadists, chiefly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). "In the past three days, ISIL has kidnapped at least 51 Kurds in the towns of Minbej and Jarablus," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The kidnappings come weeks after Kurdish fighters further east, in majority Kurdish areas, expelled jihadists after battles that lasted several months.
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| Syrian al Qaeda affiliate executes Iraqi cameraman: watchdog Posted: 05 Dec 2013 06:33 AM PST An al Qaeda-linked group in Syria has executed an Iraqi freelance cameraman, the first foreign journalist killed by insurgents in the rebel-held north, a press freedoms watchdog said on Thursday. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized Yasser Faysal al-Joumaili while he was on a reporting trip in northern Syria's Idlib province on December 4. Reporters Without Borders said Joumaili was the 20th professional journalist and 8th foreign journalist to die in the Syrian conflict, which started in March, 2011, as a peaceful protest movement and slid into civil war after a crackdown. |
| UK marine who killed Afghan captive loses right to anonymity Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:35 AM PST  Sergeant Alexander Blackman is facing a possible life sentence after he was found guilty at a court martial last month of murdering the insurgent while deployed in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province in 2011. Blackman, who had also served in Iraq and Northern Ireland during 15 years in the Royal Marines, is due to be sentenced on Friday. His court martial heard that he had shot the wounded captive in the chest while quoting Shakespeare. Blackman's name was disclosed following a High Court ruling that lifted an anonymity order preventing him from being identified.
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| Iraq forces end Kirkuk mall siege, release hostages Posted: 04 Dec 2013 11:55 PM PST  Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Security forces early Thursday ended an hours-long siege at a mall in the northern city of Kirkuk but not before militants killed nine people, security officials and medics said. Attacks by militants were also launched Wednesday in Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah, but the assault on the Jawaher Mall in Kirkuk was the deadliest.
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| Paul Walker: Couple Share Story Of How Actor Secretly Bought Their Engagement Ring Posted: 04 Dec 2013 03:46 PM PST  Paul Walker's death hit fans hard, and in the days since the accident that claimed his life, people have been coming forward to share their stories of how the actor touched their lives.
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