Tag: Six In The Morning

Why Afghanistan’s election campaign may look familiar to American TV viewers

 

By Wajahat S. Khan, Producer, NBC News

American-style debates, polling and current affairs programming are bringing a whole new level of political punditry to Afghanistan as the country prepares to elect a new president.

Campaign managers, TV producers and pollsters are hot commodities in Kabul as live “town halls” and meet-and-greet interviews aimed at driving the democratic debate forward are getting more attention than ever before.

Despite a stubborn insurgency and an economy that the World Bank has warned will shrink as the U.S. and other Western powers begin their military withdrawal in 2014, the country’s 30 national and more than 20 regional TV channels are thriving ahead of April’s election.

Conditions for Abu Dhabi’s migrant workers ‘shame the west’

 Calls for urgent labour reform after Observer reveals construction workers face destitution, internment and deportation

David Batty

The Observer, Sunday 22 December 2013

Trade unions, human rights activists and politicians have called for urgent labour reforms to protect the thousands of migrant workers building a complex of five-star hotels and museums on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates, including a new Louvre and the world’s largest Guggenheim.

The International Trade Union Confederation and art activism group Gulf Labor have urged the western institutions involved in the project, including the British Museum, to take active steps to address the workers’ welfare and press the UAE government to improve their conditions.

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Nelson Mandela funeral farewell in Qunu ancestral home

 15 December 2013 Last updated at 08:30 GMT

The BBC

Nelson Mandela’s state funeral is under way at his ancestral home in Qunu, ending a week of commemorations for South Africa’s first black leader.

Some 4,500 people – including foreign dignitaries – are attending the service, which blends state ceremonial with traditional rituals.

A close friend, Ahmed Kathrada, told the service he had lost an “elder brother” who was with him for many years in prison on Robben island.

Mr Mandela died on 5 December aged 95.

Members of his family attended an overnight vigil, with a traditional praise singer believed to be chanting details of his long journey and life.

Mandela death: ‘Day of prayer’ in South Africa

 8 December 2013 Last updated at 07:24 GMT

The BBC

People in South Africa are taking part in a day of “prayer and reflection” for late President Nelson Mandela.

President Jacob Zuma will attend a service in a Methodist church in Johannesburg, with other multi-faith services planned throughout the day.

A national memorial service will be held on Tuesday, ahead of a state funeral on 15 December.

South Africans have been holding vigils since Mr Mandela died on Thursday at the age of 95.

President Jacob Zuma urged South Africans to go to stadiums, halls, churches, and other places of worship on Sunday to remember their former leader.

Despite changes to one-child policy, Chinese parents say having two kids is too expensive

 

By Le Li, NBC News Producer

BEIJING – Despite China announcing changes to its strict one-child policy, many young parents say they will not choose to have a second child due to the high cost of living in modern-day China.

“Giving birth to a second child is not difficult, but we do not have the energy anymore,” said Wang Tao, a 35-year-old native of Beijing, who is married and has a 5-year-old daughter.

“We lack a safe social net to support a family with two children,” Wang added. “China doesn’t provide a pension or free education,” he said while ticking off a list of things that make having a larger family a financial burden.

Syria conflict: Children ‘targeted by snipers’

24 November 2013 Last updated at 00:11 GMT

The BBC

More than 11,000 children have died in Syria’s civil war in nearly three years, including hundreds targeted by snipers, a new report says.

Summary executions and torture have also been used against children as young as one, the London-based Oxford Research Group think tank says.

The report says the majority of children have been killed by bombs or shells in their own neighbourhoods.

It wants fighters trained in how not to put civilians’ lives at risk.

Philippines typhoon survivors attend church services

17 November 2013 Last updated at 06:10 GMT

The BBC

Thousands of grieving survivors have attended church services in areas of the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan nine days ago.

In many places, including the mostly flattened city of Tacloban in Leyte province, Masses were held in half-destroyed and flooded churches.

The international aid effort is starting to have a major impact, with Britain’s HMS Daring warship joining the huge relief operation.

Haiyan killed more than 3,600 people.

The typhoon – which had some of the strongest winds ever recorded on land – also left about 500,000 people homeless.

Typhoon Haiyan: Thousands feared dead in Philippines

The BBC

Around 10,000 people may have died in just one area of the Philippines hit by Typhoon Haiyan, according to officials.

One of the worst storms on record, it destroyed homes, schools and an airport in the eastern city of Tacloban.

Neighbouring Samar island was also badly affected, with reports of 300 people dead and 2,000 missing.

The Philippine government has so far only confirmed the deaths of 151 people throughout the country, but hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports that the scene in Tacloban, the capital of Leyte province, is one of utter devastation.

Agent provocateur: Inside the secret archives of East Germany’s secret police

Simon Menner spent three years trawling through millions of surveillance images in the archives of the East German secret police. What he found was often laughable. But, he tells Holly Williams, beneath the Austin Powers exterior, there was evidence of a truly disturbing machine that still has the power to break its subjects

HOLLY WILLIAMS  Author Biography   SUNDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2013

While the recent leaking of government-surveillance information hasn’t exactly been welcomed by the secret services behind it, an exception comes in the form of the documents obtained by the spies of the Stasi, the Ministry for State Security run by the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the vast swathes of material the Stasi gathered about their compatriots was archived, and opened to the public. Now, a new book by the artist Simon Menner brings many of these bizarre but sinister records to light for the first time, from photographic guides on how to apply fake wigs, to coded hand signals and even images of Stasi award ceremonies and parties.

UN: Refugee numbers at highest in 19 years

Escape routes in focus as thousands risk their lives to escape war, unrest and poverty and reach distant shores.

Last Modified: 27 Oct 2013 08:45

The UN says there are now more refugees than at any time since 1994. Thousands of asylum-seekers, mainly from Afghanistan and the Middle East, head to Indonesia each year to make the dangerous voyage across the Indian ocean to Australia.

They are seeking a new life, fleeing war, political unrest, and poverty.

The influx of asylum-seekers is a major political issue both in Indonesia and Australia, particularly as Indonesia has not signed up to the 1951 UN Refugee convention and does not have to accept refugees.

Australia, on the other hand, is a signatory.

The asylum-seekers pay thousands of dollars to people smugglers for a hazardous boat ride to Christmas Island.

EU member states make a distinction between asylum seekers and refugees, with asylum seekers defined as people submitting a request for refugee status.

Australian bushfires: Conditions set to worsen

20 October 2013 Last updated at 06:47 GMT

The BBC

Australian firefighters battling destructive bushfires in New South Wales are preparing for worsening conditions in the next few days.

The return of hot weather and strong winds is expected to fan the flames – the worst in the state for 40 years.

State Premier Barry O’Farrell declared a State of Emergency on Sunday and several areas are being evacuated.

The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, has been the worst-hit region with some fires still raging out of control.

About 200 homes have already been destroyed and hundreds of people have been left homeless.

Family Man One Day, Rebel Fighter the Next

 By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Published: October 12, 2013

RAMTHA, Jordan – The Syrian rebel leader was sitting comfortably on a cushion at his home here recently, his wife and children filling the rooms with conversation and laughter. Then one day he shaved off his beard and slipped back into Syria, where he leads a rebel brigade.

“I cried,” said his mother-in-law, Wesal al-Aweer. “I pleaded with him not to leave.”

“We were used to having him around the house,” said his wife, Montaha Zoubi, 34, “so now we feel there is an emptiness in the house.”

A hardware store owner in Syria before the civil war, Hussein Zoubi, 40, took up arms against the government almost two years ago. Since then, like thousands of Syrian men in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, he has been leading the life of a commuter rebel, a fighter inside Syria and a family man across the border.