Turkey says downed jet may have violated Syrian airspace
ANKARA, June 23 (AFP) Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said Saturday the jet fighter shot down by Syria might have violated Syrian airspace. “It is routine for jet fighters to sometimes fly in and out over (national) borders … when you consider their speed over the sea,” Gul told Anatolia news agency. “These are not ill-intentioned [...]
Kristen Stewart bumps Jolie as highest-paid actress
NEW YORK (Reuters) Kristen Stewart, who shot to fame as Bella Swan in “The Twilight Saga” films and has a starring role in “Snow White and the Huntsman”, jumped to the top of Forbes.com’s annual list of highest-paid actresses on T ues day.The 22-year-old earned an estimated $34.5 million from May 2011 to May 2012 [...]
Remote Indian state becomes rock music hub
IMPHAL, India, June 23 (AFP) In the far north-east of India, cut off from the rest of the country except via a narrow land bridge, perhaps the only way to make yourself heard is loud, really loud, rock music. For White Fire’s drummer Elangbam Kumar, that explains why their cover version of the Guns N’Roses song [...]
Israel launches fresh strikes on Gaza Strip
June 23 (AFP) Israel launched fresh air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after killing two people in earlier raids, the Palestinian health ministry said Saturday. The latest strikes targeted two camps of the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in central and northern Gaza, and a former Hamas security post in Gaza City. [...]
Hitler, bare breasts, adultery – election time in Mexico
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A Hitler admirer, a former Playboy model, a self-confessed adulterer and the promise of hanky panky. Sounds like the ingredients of the latest Mexican soap opera. In fact, it’s a snapshot of the surreal twists and turns of Mexican politics as Latin America’s No. 2 economy heads into a July 1 presidential [...]
Does Kim Kardashian really sum up all that’s wrong with modern society?
Kim Kardashian is the poster girl for ‘almost everything that is wrong with Western society’, according to a leading headmistress. The reality TV star is part of a culture that glorifies women’s physical appearances over their character, claims Dr Helen Wright, head of a private girls’ boarding school. In a speech tomorrow, Dr Wright will [...]
Women’s rights law no match for Kurdistan tradition
ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) In June 2011, Iraqi Kurdistan passed a landmark law that criminalised female circumcision and domestic violence, but one year on, activists remain frustrated with its patchwork implementation. In what is a conservative society even by Middle East standards, the passage of the law last year was hailed by rights groups and NGOs as [...]
Cyber-wars: The U.S. and Israel develop destructive Flame virus to slow Iran’s nuclear programme
They are two of the most destructive computer viruses ever created, tailor-made for cyber-espionage and capable of wreaking havoc on government systems.Both Flame and Stuxnet are believed to have been used by the U.S. government to wage online warfare against hostile regimes. Now The Washington Post has claimed, citing anonymous Western officials, that the United [...]
Rio+20 shows UN ‘impotence’ in global eco-crisis
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 23 (AFP) The outcome of the Rio+20 summit provides further proof that the nation-state system is failing badly in tackling global environmental threats, say analysts. The UN’s Conference on Sustainable Development had been billed as a once-in-a-generation chance to overhaul an economic model that had left a billion people in poverty and [...]
The truth about Rwanda
KILGALI – Ongoing unrest between rival military factions in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has triggered a predictable barrage of innuendo, fabricated leaks, and outright lies regarding Rwanda’s role. It began ten days ago, with a single BBC story on a leaked United Nations report that was said to prove Rwanda’s involvement, but [...]
Pakistan’s ruinous political farce
The political pantomime played out in Pakistan over the past few years is degenerating into farce. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court terminated the career of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani — disqualifying him from office on the basis of a contempt of court conviction linked to his refusal to reopen corruption cases against President Asif [...]
US drone Attacks threaten 50 years of international law, says UN rapporteur
The US policy of using drone strikes to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a UN investigator has said. Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, fears that Barack Obama’s CIA-run programmes in Pakistan, [...]
War crimes: History is the enemy as ‘brilliant’ psy-ops become the news
June 21, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — Arriving in a village in southern Vietnam, I caught sight of two children who bore witness to the longest war of the 20th century. Their terrible deformities were familiar. All along the Mekong river, where the forests were petrified and silent, small human mutations lived as best they [...]
