Taliban ‘resolve splits’ over leader

Taliban ‘resolve splits’ over leader 

 

Mullah Omar (left) was replaced by his deputy in late July. Photo: BBC/EPA

A dispute that threatened to split the Afghan Taliban has been resolved after relatives of late leader Mullah Omar backed his successor, the group says.

A spokesman told the BBC that Omar's eldest son and brother swore allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Tuesday - and the movement was now united.

The move consolidates the new leader's place after weeks of uncertainty.

His swift appointment had angered some Taliban leaders after the group's founder's death was confirmed in July.

Mullah Omar's family and a number of senior figures were against his successor and splits emerged into the open.

Who is Mullah Mansour?

--Long seen as acting head of the Taliban, and close to its founder Mullah Omar


--Born in the sixties, in Kandahar province, where he later served as shadow governor after the Taliban's fall

--Was civil aviation minister during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan

--Had an active role in drug trafficking, according to the UN

--Has clashed with Abdul Qayum Zakir, a senior military commander, amid a power struggle and differences over negotiations with the Afghan government

--A man claiming to be Mansour met former Afghan President Hamid Karzai for peace talks in 2010 - but it later emerged he was an imposter

The BBC's Dawood Azami says Mullah Omar's son and brother - Mullah Yaqoub and Mullah Manan - have little military power but their support is symbolically significant. He says Mullah Mansour's leadership now seems accepted by most Taliban.

Several other heavyweights not already on board are now expected to follow suit.

The support of important Taliban commanders in the south has yet to be secured but would be even more important, our correspondent says.

"We intend to protect and keep this movement united," the Taliban said in a statement on their website.

Speaking to BBC Persian's Harun Najafizada, Taliban spokesman Zaibullah Mujahid did not reveal where the secret meeting had been held but said it had been "splendid".

Asked about other senior Taliban figures such as Manan Niazi, Mullah Hassan Akhund and Mansour Dadullah, the spokesman said: "They have not yet given allegiances, but they should give it now, because they were waiting for the family of the commander of the faithful to go first."

The Associated Press news agency reported that it had spoken to Mullah Manan and he confirmed that he and Mullah Yaqoub now supported Mullah Mansour.

The two men made their support conditional on the new leader accepting eight demands, giving them more say, an aide to Mullah Yaqoub told Reuters news agency. These included restructuring the leadership shura (council) and ruling by consensus.

"Mullah Mansour accepted all these demands," the aide said.

Last month the Taliban admitted covering up Mullah Omar's death for two years, for tactical reasons. Earlier this week his son said he had died of natural causes in Afghanistan, after contracting hepatitis C.

This conflicts with the account given by the Afghan government, which said Mullah Omar died in hospital in Karachi in 2013, despite Pakistani denials he was in the country.

The death disrupted fledgling peace talks between the Afghan government and the insurgents, but hopes for talks will rise if Mullah Mansour's position is more secure.

From The Daily Star.

Ryan Adams releases first track from project to cover Taylor Swift’s 1989

Ryan Adams releases first track from project to cover Taylor Swift’s 1989

 Bad Blood, the first track from the singer-songwriter’s reworking of Swift’s blockbuster album, makes its debut on Apple’s Beats 1

  Ryan Adams and Taylor Swift: release is ‘surreal and dreamlike’ Photograph: Corbis and Rex



Ryan Adams has released the first fruits of his project to cover Taylor Swift’s 1989 album in its entirety.

On Thursday, Zane Lowe played Bad Blood on his Beats 1 show. Adams’s version is smoother and more gentle than the original, sprinkled with pedal steel guitar that takes Swift back to her Nashville roots.



Adams announced that his 1989 album will be released digitally on 21 September, with physical versions to follow. The wayward troubadour has shared clips from the sessions on Instagram, promising a string quartet on Blank Space, which also boasts a “deep end Smiths vibe”.



Welcome to New York, meanwhile, promises to be “the saddest version ever – or your tears back”. However, other tracks – for instance Style – are more upbeat.

On Twitter, Swift described the news of the album’s release as “surreal and dreamlike”. Adams has form in unusual covers, recently bowing to the inevitable and covering his near-namesake Bryan Adams’s Summer of 69. In 2002, he covered the whole of the Strokes’s album Is This It, though it was never released.
From Google.

Powerful Chile quake kills at least eight, one million evacuated

Powerful Chile quake kills at least eight, one million evacuated 

 

A powerful 8.3-magnitude earthquake has struck off Chile, killing eight people, forcing the evacuation of a million and sparking warnings that tsunami waves could reach Japan.

Buildings swayed as far away as in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east. In Chile, people ran out into the streets in terror.

TV footage showed stores with floors strewn with a mess of broken bottles, jars and other spilled merchandise.

It was the sixth most powerful quake in the history of geologically volatile Chile and the strongest anywhere in the world this year, Deputy Interior Minister Mahmoud Aleuy said.

 People stand in the street during a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Santiago on September 16, 2015. Photo: AFP



The death toll of eight was given by Interior Minister Jorge Burgos.

Strong aftershocks followed the first quake, and a tsunami alert was imposed for hours for the Chilean coast. But it was lifted before dawn Thursday. Many people were evacuated to higher ground.

Tsunami warnings were issued in New Zealand and other countries in the Pacific.


In Chile, more than 135,000 families were left without power in the north-central coast area, the National Emergency Office reported, lowering an early figure.

Central Choapa province, which is closest to the epicenter, was declared a disaster zone and placed under military rule.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake occurred at 2254 GMT and measured a 8.3 on the so-called moment magnitude scale.

It occurred at a shallow depth, 228 kilometers (about 140 miles) north of Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people.

The Chilean government put the main earthquake at 8.4 on a slightly different measurement, the Richter scale.

"The motion began lightly, then stronger and stronger," said Santiago resident Jeannette Matte.

"We were on the 12th floor and we were very afraid because it was not stopping. First it was from side to side, then it was like little jumps."

Residents stand in the street after a strong quake in Concon, 110 kms northwest of Santiago on September 16, 2015. Photo: AFP



Interior Minister Burgos said evacuation of coastal towns and cities had been ordered as a precautionary measure. Classes were cancelled in coastal areas.

Among the dead were a woman in Illapel, close to the epicenter, and an 86-year-old man in Santiago, where there were scenes of pandemonium as thousands fled swaying buildings.

Hardest-hit Illapel, a coastal city of 30,000, saw its electricity fail and several homes collapsed. Around a dozen people were injured.

In coastal La Serena, in the north of Chile, "people were running in all directions," said resident Gloria Navarro.

Waves crashed across costal roads in the regions of Coquimbo and Valparaiso. Rough seas were also forecast for Thursday.

Fear in Argentina

Fear also seized residents in Argentina.

 People gather in the street after a strong quake was felt in Valparaiso, northern Chile, late on September 16, 2015. Photo: AFP



"We went into a panic and the floor kept moving. We went out into the hallway and down the stairs," Celina Atrave, 65, who lives in a 25-story high-rise near downtown Buenos Aires, told AFP.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said she would travel to the quake-hit area to assess the relief effort.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves were also possible in French Polynesia, Hawaii and California, officials said, as well as smaller waves as far afield as Japan and New Zealand.

The first tsunami waves struck Chile's coast, including the tourist city of Valparaiso, local television pictures showed, but there were no immediate details of damage or injuries.

A precautionary alert for Peru was later called off, civil defense officials said, but scared residents in the city of Ilo, close to the border with Chile, remained out on the streets and on higher ground nonetheless.

In April last year, a deadly 8.2-magnitude earthquake in northern Chile killed six people and forced a million to leave their homes in the region around Iquique.

And a February 2010 quake that struck just off the coast of Chile's Maule region measured 8.8 in magnitude, making it one of the largest ever recorded.

It killed more than 500 people and inflicted an estimated $30 billion in damages.
From The Daily Star.

S Sudan oil tanker blast 'kills 170'

S Sudan oil tanker blast 'kills 170' 

 

At least 170 people have been killed after an oil tanker exploded in South Sudan, a presidential spokesman said.

The tanker had veered off the road in Maridi, Western Equatoria state, and local residents were siphoning off the fuel when the vehicle exploded, Ateny Wek Ateny said.

At least 50 people are reported to have been injured.

Local hospitals have been overwhelmed, and state officials have appealed to the Red Cross and the UN for help.

The tanker was travelling from the capital Juba to Maridi, some 250km (155 miles) away, when it came off the road.

Residents of nearby communities did what many people do after similar crashes in Africa, they rushed to scoop up the leaking fuel before it seeped away.

The state's minister for information Charles Kisagna told the Reuters news agency he feared for the injured.


"We don't have medical equipment and these people may not survive because we do not have the facilities to treat the highly burnt people," he said.

South Sudan became an independent country in 2011, after a peace deal with Sudan that ended Africa's longest-running civil war.

But the country is one of the poorest in Africa, and more than 2.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes because of a conflict between government troops and rebel factions.

A tentative internationally-mediated peace agreement was signed in August but the ceasefire has already been violated.
From The Daily Star.

Coffee has secret trick to stop sleep

Coffee has secret trick to stop sleep 

 

An evening cup of coffee can keep you awake for more reasons than you realise, scientists say. Photo taken from BBC



A cup of coffee in the evening may be keeping you awake for more reasons than you realise, scientists say.

Their study, in Science Translation Medicine, showed caffeine was more than just a stimulant and actually slowed down the body's internal clock.

A double espresso three hours before bedtime delayed the production of the sleep hormone melatonin by about 40 minutes, making it harder to nod off.

Experts said our own actions had a huge influence on sleep and the body clock.

One of the researchers, Dr John O'Neill, from the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, told the BBC News website: "If you're tired and having a coffee at night to stay awake, then that is a bad idea, you'll find it harder to go to sleep and get enough sleep."

In his half of the study, cells grown in a dish were exposed to caffeine to work out how it changed their ability to keep time.

It showed the drug was able to alter the chemical clocks ticking away in every cell of the human body.


Wakey wakey

Meanwhile, five people at the University of Colorado Boulder, in the US, were locked in a sleep laboratory for 50 days.

And as light exposure is the main way we normally control our body clock, they spent most of their incarceration in very dim light.

In a series of experiments over the month and a half, the scientists showed that an evening dose of caffeine slowed the body clock by 40 minutes.

It had roughly half the impact of three hours of bright light at bedtime.

Take the test - are you are lark or an owl?

Dr O'Neill said it would be "complete speculation" to set a cut-off time for drinking caffeine in the evening but he personally never drank coffee after 17:00.

He said the findings may help treat some sleep disorders and people who naturally woke up too early - known as larks - to help keep them in sync with the rest of the world.

"It could be useful with jet lag if you are flying east to west where taking caffeine at the right time of day might speed up the time it takes to overcome jet lag," he added.

Prof Derk-Jan Dijk, from the University of Surrey, told the BBC: "Individuals differ in their sensitivity to caffeine, and if coffee drinkers experience problems with falling asleep, they may try to avoid drinking coffee in the afternoon and evening."

He added that people "too often" thought they were a "slave" to their body clocks and programmed to wake up early or late.

"These and other data clearly indicate that we can to some extent modify these rhythms and that part of the reason why we sleep so late relates to factors such as caffeine intake and the exposure to artificial light in the evening," he said.
From The Daily Star.

Simon Cowell for 'America's Got Talent' role?

Simon Cowell for 'America's Got Talent' role?

 

Simon Cowell is to replace Howard Stern on 'America's Got Talent'.
The 55-year-old music mogul - who is currently head judge on 'The X Factor' - has reportedly been signed up to take over from the comedian and talk show host on the next series of the US talent show following his decision to quit earlier this year.
A source shared: "Simon has been off the television in the last couple of years focusing on family life. But with his comeback to British screens, he also wants to make his way back into America.
"And he's more than used to the travel."
Simon - who is also a judge on 'Britain's Got Talent' - first appeared on US television on 'American Idol' from 2002 to 2010 before launching the US 'X Factor' in 2011.
However after the show failed to take off in the States, the Syco boss decided to return to the UK version last year.
And if Simon does join 'America's Got Talent' he will be reunited with his former fellow 'X Factor' judge Mel B - who was axed in favour of Rita Ora earlier this year - who sits on the judging panel alongside Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and the departing Howard Stern.
From The Google.

9 ways the world is supporting Ahmed Mohamed

9 ways the world is supporting Ahmed Mohamed 

 

14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed is greeted by a supporter during a news conference on September 16, 2015 in Irving, Texas. Mohammed was detained after a high school teacher falsely concluded that a homemade clock he brought to class might be a bomb. The news conference, held outside the Mohammed family home, was hosted by the North Texas Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Photo: AFP





When 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed of Irving, Texas took a clock he had made himself to school, he didn’t expect to be led away in handcuffs. The young engineering and robotics enthusiast had his homemade tech confiscated by an English teacher. School officials and police officers, convinced it was a bomb, or at least a hoax bomb -- despite the Muslim student’s protests that it was just a clock -- led him away in handcuffs to a juvenile detention facility, where he was fingerprinted. Even after he had been released to his parents, he was suspended from school for three days.



While the police have dropped charges against him, many people were outraged by the fact that a talented, dedicated student was unduly punished for trying to show his teachers a piece of technology he had created outside of the classroom, reports Mental Floss.

Scientists, politicians, and other STEM advocates have taken to Twitter to express their support and encouragement for his ingenuity. Here are nine ways the world is trying to let Ahmed know that his inventions are awesome, not criminal:
From The Daily Star.