Convicted Israel spy Jonathan Pollard being released after 30 years
Updated 0116 GMT (0916 HKT) November 20, 2015
As a Jewish-American teen moving to South Bend, Indiana, in the 1960s, Jonathan Pollard immediately struggled to fit in.
The family moved so his father, Morris Pollard, could take a job as a virologist at Notre Dame. But the transition to the predominantly Christian community wasn’t easy on the young Pollard.
He didn’t know it then, but his need to connect and a growing commitment to Israel, combined with access to top-secret information, would turn him into one of the most notable spies to be convicted for passing information to Israel.
Now, at 61, Pollard has spent nearly half of his life in prison. On Friday, he will be released in North Carolina after 30 years in a prison and given an ankle monitor while he completes five years of parole in the United States.
General Franco: Forty years after his death Spain is still coming to terms with the painful legacy of its civil war
Alistair Dawber wonders if the nation can ever achieve real unity
The flowers on Francisco Franco’s tombstone today, the 40th anniversary of his death, will be as fresh as on any other day.
Lying in state at the Valle de los Caídos, a huge basilica outside Madrid, Spain’s former fascist dictator has a grave that would befit any fallen king. The fact that 40,000 victims of the civil war that saw him swept to power are buried at the site only adds to the feeling that, although Franco is gone, he cannot be forgotten.
In Madrid alone, there are still more than 150 streets and squares named after his ministers and military officers and, although the country long ago came in from the cold and embraced democracy, his memory and his legacy are never far from the surface.
Imagine if history had turned out differently: what if, rather than shooting himself in a Berlin bunker in 1945, Adolf Hitler had triumphed over the Allied forces and ruled Nazi Germany for decades? Today he might be entombed in a similar mausoleum in Berlin.
Pakistani army chief’s ‘futile’ US visit
When Pakistani leaders meet US officials, they express strong commitment to fighting Islamic extremism. Experts say it is usually a hollow exercise, and the Pakistani army chief’s five-day US visit is a perfect example.
Pakistan’s military chief, Raheel Sharif, who is touted by much of the Pakistani media as the “savior” of the Islamic country, is wrapping up his five-day visit to the United States. The military’s supporters, including a number of journalists and analysts, claim Sharif’s US trip is far more significant in terms of strategic and defense ties than Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington in October.
Their claim is not entirely wrong: General Sharif (main picture) holds the real power in Pakistan, whereas PM Sharif, despite being the constitutional head of the government, has almost no say in matters related to foreign policy and defense.
The dichotomy of power in Pakistan has always put the US in a dilemma. On the one hand, it wants to strengthen civilian democracy in the country, on the other, it knows it has to deal with the powerful Pakistani army, if it wants to get the work done.
Aleppo’s doctors and nurses face Syrian barrel bombs, detention and torture: report
November 20, 2015 – 6:03AM
Beirut: They live in constant fear of the next attack, operating with little in the way of equipment or medication, often forced to turn out the lights at their hospital and work in darkness to avoid another bombing raid.
Aleppo’s doctors and nurses – an ever-dwindling, life-saving workforce operating in harrowing conditions in a city under a years-long siege – don’t work in shifts. Instead, they remain in their medical facilities full-time, working, eating and sleeping there.
That way, they can respond immediately when there is an attack.
And there is always another attack.
About 95 per cent of medical staff in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, have been killed, detained or have fled, a new report from Physicians for Human Rights has found, leaving an enormous workload for the 80-90 left behind.
“They live and work in their hospitals for weeks at a time and perform operations for which they had no formal training,” the report found.
“These doctors and their fellow nurses, medics, and other health workers remain in the city out of duty; they understand that their departure would result in further loss of lives and decreased access to health care for the 300,000 residents remaining in Aleppo.”
Qatar slavery museum aims to address modern exploitation
The Bin Jelmood house is the first museum to focus on slavery in the Arab world amid concerns by rights groups that migrant workers are modern-day slaves.
DOHA, QATAR — Amid thatched ceilings and arched doorways in a traditional Qatari house in Doha, a projector beams a quote by Abraham Lincoln onto a wall: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
The Bin Jelmood house in Doha is the first museum to focus on slavery in the Arab world, and it opens as the gas-rich Gulf monarchy faces accusations by rights groups of modern-day slavery of migrant workers before the 2022 World Cup.
Qatar has denied exploiting or abusing workers and says it has implemented labor reforms. The museum itself is funded by the government and was inaugurated last month with a visit by Qatar’s Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of the current emir.
China says 28 foreign-led ‘terrorists’ killed after attack on mine
By Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard
Chinese security forces in the far western region of Xinjiang killed 28 “terrorists” from a group that carried out a deadly attack at a coal mine in September under the direction of “foreign extremists”, the regional government said on Friday.
The news carried by the official Xinjiang Daily was the first official mention of the Sept. 18 attack at the Sogan colliery in Aksu, in which it said 16 people, including 5 police officers were killed, and another 18 people injured.
Radio Free Asia, which first reported the incident about two months ago, said at least 50 people had died.
Attackers fled into the mountains and authorities launched a manhunt with more than 10,000 people participating every day, forming an “inescapable dragnet”, the Xinjiang Daily said.