History Readings

North Korean hackers are capable of attacks that could destroy critical infrastructure and even kill people, a high-profile defector has warned. Speaking exclusively to BBC Click, Prof Kim Heung-Kwang said the country had around 6,000 trained military hackers. The warning follows last year's Sony Pictures hack - an attack attributed to North Korea.

The unexpected fall of Ramadi to the Islamic State this month is the latest sign of a basic intelligence problem: The United States doesn't know enough about its jihadist adversaries to combat them effectively. This intelligence deficit afflicts the military, the CIA and other agencies.

A bold, surprise move by the US on the world stage hasn't always been a recipe for global applause. By indicting 14 top Fifa officials on corruption charges on Wednesday, however, the US government currently finds itself on the right side of much of the international media.

The US state of Nebraska has abolished the death penalty after a veto-override was passed through its legislature. The measure was backed by a coalition of conservatives who oppose execution as a form of punishment. Nebraska joins 18 other states and the federal district of Washington, DC, in banning capital punishment, and is the first traditionally conservative state in four decades to do so.

Rick Santorum, a Christian conservative who came second in the 2012 Republican primaries, has launched a second campaign for the US presidency. Mr Santorum launched his campaign on Wednesday at an event in his home state, Pennsylvania. The former senator won several key races in 2012, emphasising social issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Western women in the Islamic State are playing a crucial role in disseminating propaganda and are not simply flocking to the region to become "jihadi brides," according to a new British research report.

After a week of disturbing headlines, is Islamic State winning? It depends where. In Syria, where Islamic State (IS) captured Palmyra and is said to have murdered large numbers of people in its usual bloodthirsty fashion, it looks as though the regime of Bashar al-Assad is getting into serious trouble.

On Jordan's bleak, windswept border with Iraq there is little two-way traffic these days. The convoys of articulated lorries that used to thunder through the Karama crossing, shuttling goods between Baghdad and Aqaba, have dwindled to a trickle.

An Islamist coalition that includes Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front has taken over one of the last government strongholds in western Idlib province, activists say. The Jaish al-Fateh, or Conquest Army, took control of the city of Ariha after a "lightning offensive", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Former SS lieutenant Gerhard Sommer, at the top of a most-wanted list of Nazis, has been declared unfit for trial by prosecutors in Germany. They said he had severe dementia. Sommer, 93, was one of 10 ex-Nazi officers found guilty in absentia in Italy of one of the country's worst civilian wartime massacres.

Nigeria's army has sacked at least 200 soldiers for cowardice and failure to fight against Boko Haram militants, several soldiers have told the BBC. Up to 4,500 other rank and file soldiers could be dismissed, they say. A Nigerian military source confirmed the dismissals to the BBC, but would not give an exact figure.

The football bureaucrats of the world were probably expecting to make global headlines as they gathered for the Fifa Congress in Zurich. But the news so far has been bigger - and worse - than they can possibly have imagined.

The US military accidentally sent live anthrax samples to as many as nine labs across the country and to a US military base in South Korea, the Pentagon says. Twenty-two military personnel at the Osan Air Base in South Korea are receiving preventive treatment after being possibly exposed to the sample.

Pakistan has hanged three Baloch insurgents, 17 years after they hijacked a passenger plane with 30 people on board. The men were executed at jails in Karachi and Hyderabad. They hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines flight in May 1998 and ordered the pilot to fly to India but the plane was diverted and stormed by troops.

Malaysia has detained 12 policemen suspected of human trafficking, two of whom are said to be connected to recently discovered jungle graves. Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the two officers were suspected of transporting migrants. He also clarified that the 139 graves found on the border with Thailand were not mass graves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to make losses of Russian troops in peacetime a secret. The amendment bans information about the deaths of Russian forces "during special operations" in peacetime. The Kremlin has consistently denied sending regular troops and armour to help rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The indictment was unsealed in the District Court of Northern Illinois on Thursday. The Justice Department alleges that Hastert made large withdrawals after he agreed to pay an unnamed subject $3.5 million. The indictment does not explain precisely what the "past misconduct" is, but instead details at length various withdrawals and financial transactions he made with the unidentified subject.

The leader of al-Nusra Front - the al Qaeda-affiliate group in Syria - insisted on Wednesday that he is under orders from the organization's central leadership not to attack Western interests in Syria, but rather focus on toppling President Bashar al-Assad. Golani said "all options are open," for an attack on the West if his group felt compelled to act in self-defense, but he insisted that Nusra is focused on battling the Assad regime inside Syria. Golani also issued a threat to the Shia Alawite community of Syria, saying, "if the Alawites disowned Bashar al Assad, stopped supporting his regime, and if they stopped practicing their erroneous doctrine, we would forgive them." Assad himself is Alawite.

GROZNY, May 28. /TASS/. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Thursday the Islamic State (IS) militant group poses a threat to both the Middle East and Russia. "The IS terrorists have nothing to do with Islam. Their path contrasts with our religion. This has been proven by the leading Islam researchers. They are cutting, beheading and shooting innocent people, including Muslims," Kadyrov was quoted by his press service as saying. "The enemies of Russia want to see the Chechen Republic hit by the war," he stressed.

There are signs Israel may be at war again this summer. This time, not with Hamas in Gaza but with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Such a war may be the result not only of spillover from the Syrian war or ongoing Israeli-Hezbollah tensions. The deciding factor may be an Israeli calculation that war will shift momentum in the U.S. Congress decisively against the pending nuclear deal with Iran -- a deal that critics say will increase Iran's maneuverability in the region, including its support for Hezbollah.