<!-- Start of StatCounter Code for Blogger / Blogspot -->
<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
var sc_project=9846274;
var sc_invisible=0;
var sc_security="6395c985";
var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www.");
document.write("<sc"+"ript type='text/javascript' src='" + scJsHost+ "statcounter.com/counter/counter_xhtml.js'></"+"script>");
//]]>
</script>
<noscript><div class="statcounter"><a title="visit counter for blogspot" href="http://statcounter.com/blogger/" class="statcounter"><img class="statcounter" src="http://c.statcounter.com/9846274/0/6395c985/0/" alt="visit counter for blogspot" /></a></div></noscript>
<!-- End of StatCounter Code for Blogger / Blogspot -->
<a href="http://statcounter.com/p9846274/?guest=1">View My Stats</a>

'Almost 2,000' killed by Syria barrel bombs in 2014

Almost 2,000 people have been killed by Syrian government air attacks in the northern city of Aleppo so far this year, an activist group says.

The dead included 283 women and 567 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The Syrian air force has used so-called "barrel bombs" dropped from aircraft to try to put down a rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

Aleppo has seen fierce fighting since a rebel offensive in the area in 2012.

The UK-based SOHR said 1,963 people had been killed in the city - Syria's largest - and the surrounding area since January.

The government has used air and ground forces to drive the rebels back, but they remain in control of some areas to the east of Aleppo.

Crude bombs

The SOHR - which has a network of activists around the country reporting on the violence - says more than 162,000 people have been killed in the three-year conflict.

Analysis: Jim Muir, BBC News, Beirut

The barrels, packed with explosives, are a crude weapon, rolled out of helicopters, often from high altitude.

They're extremely inaccurate; they cause a huge blast and massive damage, often devastating entire quarters in the densely-built-up areas of Aleppo controlled by rebel forces.

Underlining the complexity of the conflict now going on in Syria, the Syrian observatory has also reported that 15 Kurdish civilians, including seven children and three women, were summarily executed by fighters from the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), after they overran a village in the north-east of the country.

The use of shrapnel-packed barrel bombs in Aleppo and elsewhere has been condemned by international human rights groups.

The bombs are dropped from helicopters and cannot be guided or controlled.

 Fighting between government forces and rebel groups has left much of the city of Aleppo in ruins

A BBC team witnessed the effects of the weapons on Syrian civilians in rebel-held areas of Aleppo in April.

Last week government forces broke a year-long rebel siege of Aleppo's central prison.

Correspondents say the government breakthrough has cut off a major supply route for the rebels from Turkey.

India gang rapes: Outrage over police 'discrimination'

Ever since the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi in December 2012, there have been public protests and an outcry against sexual violence

There is outrage over police inaction in a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where two teenage girls were gang-raped and hanged from a tree.

The father of one victim says he was ridiculed by police when he sought help in finding his missing daughter.

He said that when policemen found out he was from a lower caste, they "refused to look for my girl".

At least three men, including one policeman, have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Relatives have complained that police refused to help find the missing girls, aged 14 and 16, who were cousins from a low caste.

"When I went to the police station, the first thing I was asked was my caste. When I told them what my caste was, they started abusing me," the father of one of the girls told the BBC.

Divisions between India's castes run deep. Violence is often used by upper castes to instil fear in lower castes.

Although both the victim and the accused belonged to a caste grouping known as 'Other Backward Classes', the victims were lower in that hierarchy.

The victims had apparently gone out to relieve themselves as they had no toilet at home.

Campaigners have highlighted the lack of sanitation in rural areas as being a risk to women's security as well as their health, as they are often attacked when having to go out to go the toilet, particularly at night.

Further suspects hunted

Police said two men had been arrested for the rape and murder of the girls.

A constable was also detained for conspiring with the suspects and for dereliction of duty, authorities said, adding they were looking for one more suspect and one constable.

Indian media reacts to hangings

The incident has received top coverage on India's main TV channels such as NDTV, Times Now and CNN-IBN.

"Uttar Pradesh Rape shockers", reads a ticker on NDTV, which accuses the local police of being "complicit" with the attackers and quotes relatives of the two girls saying they have "no faith" they'll receive justice.

"Lawless in Uttar Pradesh" reads a top headline on CNN-IBN, which has started its own campaign using the hashtag #StopThisShame.

"UP: 3 Rapes in 48Hrs" is the lead on the Times Now channel, which reports the growing number of rape incidents in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

"Outrage" is the word used on the front pages of several leading English-language newspapers, including The Hindu and The Indian Express.

In an editorial, The Times of India lays the blame on the government of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Singh, saying the hangings "exposes the state's slide into medieval lawlessness".

Source: BBC Monitoring

Honour killings in Pakistan

In 2013, 869 women murdered in so called "honour killings"

• Campaigners say real number is likely to be much higher

• Of these, 359 were so called "Karo Kari" cases, whereby family members consider themselves authorised to kill offending relatives to restore honour

• Rights groups say conviction rate in cases of sexual and other violence against women is "critically low"

Source: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan annual report 2013

The newlyweds were only at the Lahore court to contest this case. Ms Parveen had already testified to police that she had married of her own free will.

Mr Iqbal told the BBC that when the couple arrived at the court on Tuesday to contest the case, his wife's relatives were waiting and tried to take her away.

As she struggled to free herself they dragged her to the floor, pelted her with bricks and then smashed her head. She died on the pavement.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said she was "deeply shocked" and urged Pakistan's government to take action.

Shahzeb Jillani, BBC News, Karachi

This murder has appalled Pakistan's small but vocal civil society. Social media activists took to Twitter and Facebook to express their shock. English-language newspapers have published strongly-worded editorials to denounce the brutal crime.

But all that is in sharp contrast to the muted reaction in the mainstream Urdu language media which, instead, chose to focus on political and security-related stories.

The killing of a woman in the name of honour remains an appalling reality in villages and towns across Pakistan.

As Dawn newspaper points out in its editorial: "The most shocking aspect of this killing, however, is that all the people witnessing the crime, even the law enforcers, were silent spectators as a woman was bludgeoned to her death."

Ms Parveen's father later surrendered to police but other relatives who took part in the attack are still free.

"We arrested a few of them and others are currently being investigated," local police chief Mujahid Hussain said.

Ms Parveen came from a small town outside the city of Lahore. According to reports, her family were furious because she decided to marry Mr Iqbal instead of a man they had chosen.

Her relatives then filed a case for abduction against Mr Iqbal at the High Court.

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif orders action on stoning

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has described the stoning to death of a woman by her family in front of a Lahore court as "totally unacceptable".

He ordered the chief minister of Punjab province to take "immediate action" and submit a report by Thursday evening.

Farzana Parveen, who was three months pregnant, was pelted with bricks and bludgeoned by relatives furious because she married against their wishes.

Her husband told the BBC that police simply stood by during the attack.

"They watched Farzana being killed and did nothing," her husband, Muhammad Iqbal, told the BBC.

There are hundreds of so-called "honour killings" in Pakistan each year.

This incident has prompted particular outrage as it took place in daylight while police and members of the public apparently stood by and did nothing to save her.

Mr Iqbal described the police as "shameful" and "inhuman" for their failure to stop the attack. 

"We were shouting for help, but nobody listened. One of my relatives took off his clothes to capture police attention but they didn't intervene.," he added.

Arranged marriages are the norm in Pakistan, and to marry against the wishes of the family is unthinkable in many deeply conservative communities.

Shahzeb Jillani, BBC News, Karachi

This murder has appalled Pakistan's small but vocal civil society. Social media activists took to Twitter and Facebook to express their shock. English-language newspapers have published strongly-worded editorials to denounce the brutal crime.

But all that is in sharp contrast to the muted reaction in the mainstream Urdu language media which, instead, chose to focus on political and security-related stories.

The killing of a woman in the name of honour remains an appalling reality in villages and towns across Pakistan.

As Dawn newspaper points out in its editorial: "The most shocking aspect of this killing, however, is that all the people witnessing the crime, even the law enforcers, were silent spectators as a woman was bludgeoned to her death."

Ms Parveen's father later surrendered to police but other relatives who took part in the attack are still free.

"We arrested a few of them and others are currently being investigated," local police chief Mujahid Hussain said.

Ms Parveen came from a small town outside the city of Lahore. According to reports, her family were furious because she decided to marry Mr Iqbal instead of a man they had chosen.

Her relatives then filed a case for abduction against Mr Iqbal at the High Court.

"We were shouting for help, but nobody listened. One of my relatives took off his clothes to capture police attention but they didn't intervene.," he added.

Arranged marriages are the norm in Pakistan, and to marry against the wishes of the family is unthinkable in many deeply conservative communities

Chechen leader Kadyrov denies sending troops to Ukraine

In a statement, Ramzan Kadyrov said that as part of the Russian Federation, Chechnya had no armed forces - and that any Chechens operating in Ukraine were there in a personal capacity.

Monday saw some of the worst fighting since rebels seized much of the east.

The separatists say they lost up to 100 fighters as they tried to seize Donetsk airport from pro-Kiev forces.

Ukraine's interior ministry says the military is now in full control of the airport, although gunfire was reported in Donetsk itself on Wednesday.

A government fighter jet was seen flying over the city.

New President Petro Poroshenko has vowed to tackle the eastern uprising. "We will no longer let these terrorists kidnap people and kill them," he told Germany's Bild newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

Missing monitors

Many of the separatists involved in the clashes at the airport were reported to be part of a unit called the Vostok (East) Battalion, said to include fighters from the northern Caucasus.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Mr Kadyrov said: "Ukrainian sources have been circulating reports that some Chechen units from Russia have invaded Donetsk. I officially declare that this is not true."

He added: "There are three million Chechens and two-thirds of them live outside the Chechen Republic, including in the West. We cannot know and are not supposed to know which of them goes where."

Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe says it has lost contact with a monitoring team. Four of its monitors were on a routine mission east of Donetsk when they were stopped at a checkpoint late on Monday, the security body says.

A spokesman told the BBC the men, were Turkish, Swiss, Estonian and Danish. Danish Trade Minister Mogens Jensen said it was believed they were being held by armed separatists.

In a separate development, Poland's foreign ministry says that a Polish Roman Catholic priest who was abducted in Donetsk on Tuesday has been released.

Mr Poroshenko won an outright majority in a presidential election on Sunday.

The poll was called after President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed in February, amid mass protests against his pro-Russian policies.

Separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence after referendums on 11 May, a move not recognised by Kiev or its Western allies.

The two regions took their cue from a disputed referendum in Crimea, which led to Russia's annexation of the southern peninsula.

Kiev and the West accuse Russia of stoking separatist sentiment in eastern Ukraine - a claim President Vladimir Putin denies.

His foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov reaffirmed on Wednesday that Moscow "respected" the will of Ukraine's voters but also denounced the Ukrainian army's "provocative military actions".