Saudi Arabia executes 47 people in one day including Shia cleric
Scores of ‘terrorists’ put to death amid warning from Iran that executing prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr would ‘cost Saudi Arabia dearly’
Saudi Arabia has executed 47 people for terrorism, including the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Most of those executed on Saturday were involved in a series of attacks carried out by al-Qaida from 2003-06, the interior ministry said.
Iran, a Shia Muslim country, has warned that executing Nimr “would cost Saudi Arabia dearly”.
In October 2015 Saudi Arabia’s supreme court rejected an appeal against the death sentence passed earlier on Nimr, who had called for pro-democracy demonstrations and whose arrest in 2012 sparked protests in which three people died.
Nimr had long been regarded as the most vocal Shia leader in the eastern Saudi province of Qatif, willing to publicly criticise the ruling al-Saud family and call for elections. He was, however, careful to avoid calling for violence, analysts say.
Scientists discover new antibiotic-resistant gene MCR-1 in China
A new gene rendering bacteria immune to an antibiotic has been found in China by a Lancet research team. Doctors worry that it could roll back decades of medical progress, as bacteria adapt to resist antibiotics.
Scientists found a gene that allows bacteria to become resistant to a class of antibiotics known as polymyxins, commonly used to fight superbugs. The gene called MCR-1 makes bacteria invincible, making previously treatable diseases like pneumonia potentially deadly again.
A study published in the British medical journal “The Lancet” said that the discovery stood out for identifying a gene with mobile DNA, a so-called plasmid, which can easily spread from one strain of bacteria to another. Previously-identified cases of antibiotic resistance were formed by genetic mutation and then replicated as the bacteria reproduced, so did not transfer as readily.
Liu Jian-Hua, a co-author of the study, said that the findings amounted to “extremely worryingly results.”
Somali al Shabaab militants use Donald Trump in recruiting film
Somalia’s militant group al Shabaab has released a recruitment film in the form of a documentary about racial injustice in the United States featuring Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, SITE Monitoring reported on Saturday.
Trump, the billionaire developer, former reality TV star and Republican front runner, was shown in the 51-minute film making his December call for the United States to bar all Muslims from the country as his supporters cheered.
It was shown between two clips of militant leader Anwar al-Awlaki, killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, saying Muslims in the United States would face a choice between leaving for Islamic countries or staying at home to fight the West.
Putin points to NATO threat in new security strategy
By Euan McKirdy, CNN
Russian President Vladimir Putin has endorsed a new security strategy, which points to NATO expansion as a threat to the country.
The document outlines the national interests and strategic priorities of the nation. Putin signed the executive order Thursday, establishing a new posture toward the NATO bloc, which has seen its relationship with Russia deteriorate since the crisis in Ukraine, which began in 2014.
Russian news agency Tass quotes the strategy, which cites a NATO military buildup, and “the alliance’s approach to Russia’s borders,” as a threat to Russia’s national security. The document says the organization is illegally extending its reach.
North Korea leader opens ‘Sci-Tech Complex’ in Pyongyang
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has opened a science and technology complex in Pyongyang, the North’s state media said on Saturday, adding another ostentatious building to the impoverished country’s showcase capital.
His attendance at the ceremony on Friday marked his first public appearance since his New Year address, when he vowed to raise living standards in the struggling one-party Stalinist state.
Inspecting the complex, he said it was “a great centre” open to everybody for study and “for disseminating [the] latest science and technology in which the party’s plan has been materialised”, Pyongyang’s KCNA news agency reported.
He said the completion of the complex was testimony to the great importance the Worker’s Party of Korea attaches to the development of science and technology.
Shostakovich’s symphony played by a starving orchestra
In the summer of 1942, Leningrad was starving. It had been under siege and bombardment by German forces for nearly a year. And yet an orchestra managed to perform a new symphony by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, and broadcast it across the city.
When conductor Karl Eliasberg received instructions to rehearse Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony he had a problem.
After a performance the previous December of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture – which depicts the Russia’s victory over Napoleon’s invading army – the only remaining orchestra in the city, the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, had shut down.
A note in the ensemble’s log records: “Rehearsal did not take place. Srabian is dead. Petrov is sick. Borishev is dead. Orchestra not working.”
So it was no surprise that when Eliasberg recalled his musicians for a rehearsal, only 15 turned up.
Among them was oboist Ksenia Matus. “When we began rehearsals for the performance, I had to take my oboe to be repaired,” she recalled years later. “I went back to collect it and asked how much I owed. The repairman said “just bring me a pussycat”. He said he preferred their meat to chicken.”