Munich stations evacuated over ‘IS attack threat’
Police in Munich evacuated two major railway stations after an intelligence agency warned Germany of an imminent attack, officials said.
Authorities received information that suicide bombers from so-called Islamic State (IS) could target the central station or Pasing station, Bavaria’s interior minister said.
Both stations have since reopened, police tweeted.
Cities across Europe have been on alert for a possible New Year’s Eve attack.
The alert in Munich came just hours before midnight and police warned people to stay away from crowds.
“I am happy that nothing has so far happened and I hope it stays that way,” said interior minister Joachim Herrmann.
Between five and seven militants were thought to be planning an attack, Munich’s police head Hubertus Andra said.
Nepalese women trafficked to Syria and forced to work as maids
Unscrupulous agents lure women into conflict zones with promises of employment abroad only to leave them working long hours for little or no pay
While millions are fleeing the brutal conflict in Syria, hundreds of Nepalese women are being trafficked to the war-torn country and forced to work as domestic maids. The women, who are duped into travelling to Damascus, often arrive in the country with no idea they are being sent to a war zone.
“I didn’t know anything about Syria. I didn’t realise there was war going on … The agent told me it was like America,” said Gyanu Reshmi Magar, 25, who was promised a job in Dubai but found herself forced into domestic service in the Syrian capital.
Magar, who was trafficked to Syria through India and then Oman and Dubai, begged to be sent back to Nepal only to be told, “We bought you for $6,000 [£4,000]. You can’t go home unless you pay back that money.”
Opinion: 2015 was a horrible year
The headlines that have dominated the news this year have made for unhappy reading. There’s been no historic moment of change, but the world has definitely become messier, says DW’s editor-in-chief Alexander Kudascheff.
2015 was a horrible and depressing year. It was a year of crises, of war and of catastrophes. It was a year of things starting to unravel, of shows of force and of monstrous terror from Paris to Beirut to Bamako. And it was a year of change, as well as political and societal upheaval. But has it marked the end of an era? A historic turning point?
In 1989, the American historian Francis Fukuyama predicted that history was ending: that humanity had reached the endpoint of its ecological evolution. He was certain, after the implosion of the main communist nations, that the liberal Western view of democracy would triumph.
Ramadi residents fleeing ISIS: ‘They wanted to use us as human shields’
Updated 0500 GMT (1300 HKT) January 1, 2016 |
Standing in the entrance of her tent on a chilly winter night in the Iraqi desert, Nada Saleh describes the terrifying moment her family almost became part of ISIS’ last stand in Ramadi.
As government forces mounted their final assault to retake the key city — controlled by the Sunni terror group since May — ISIS began to pull families out of their homes and move them to the eastern part of the city.
Saleh says she and her six children watched as her husband stared down the militants, refusing to allow them to take his family.
North Korean leader talks war but doesn’t comment on nukes
By KIM TONG-HYUNG
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in an annual New Year’s speech Friday that he was ready for war if provoked by “invasive” outsiders, but he stayed away from past threats involving the country’s nuclear weapons and long-range missile ambitions.
His comments stuck to well-worn propaganda meant to lift his image for the elite residents of one of the world’s poorest, most closed countries, and could be read as an attempt to keep ties with rivals Washington and Seoul from getting worse so he can try to turn around a miserable economy and further solidify his leadership.
“We will continue to work patiently to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula and regional stability. But if invasive outsiders and provocateurs touch us even slightly, we will not be forgiving in the least and sternly answer with a merciless, holy war of justice,” said Kim, who wore thick black-rimmed glasses that continued his efforts to mimic the style favored by his late grandfather, beloved national founder Kim Il Sung.
Chairman/CEO, XPRIZE
Top 10 Breakthroughs for 2015
As we near the end of 2015, here are my top 10 picks for 2015 technology breakthroughs.
These genius inventions are sending us careening into a world of abundance, bold visionaries and accelerating exponential change.
My team and I reviewed over 100 prospects as we created this list.
And the countdown is…
(#10) NASA Confirms Evidence of Water of Mars
What happened: This year, NASA announced that their “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has provided the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.” Using an imaging spectrometer on the MRO, NASA identified hydrated minerals with patterns unique to flowing water.
Why it’s important: Based on what we know about living organisms, you need to have water to have life. In my opinion, our next Mars mission, scheduled to land on Mars in 2020, will discover that life exists there now. This is just the beginning of a much larger initiative around the Red Planet. Once we detect life we will determine if it is identical to that of Earth (based on the same coding system, DNA) and whether it has a common origin.