1001 reasons to commence the Last Judgment and Resurrection

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BBC, Friday 29 August 2003

 

Iraqi Shia leader assassinated

 

Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim had returned from exile this year

At least 17 people have been killed by a car bomb in the holy city

of Najaf - among them leading Shia Muslim politician Ayatollah

Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim.

 

The bomb blew up near the Tomb of Ali in the central Iraqi city, one

of the holiest shrines for Shia Muslims, just as main weekly prayers

were ending

 

Najaf, IRAQ

 

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Rio police killings condemned

 

In a damning report issued to mark the 10th anniversary of two

massacres of civilians by police in Rio de Janeiro, which sparked

worldwide condemnation, Amnesty International says that little has

changed in the city.

 

In the first six months of 2003, 621 civilians were killed by the

city's police, the report says.

 

The two massacres in 1993 horrified world opinion. In the first, in

July, eight street children and young adults were shot dead as they

slept on the steps of the Candelaria church.

 

In the other, just a month later, 21 residents of a Rio shanty town

known as Vigario Geral, were murdered.

 

In both cases the killers belonged to the military police force.

 

Sau Paulo, BRAZIL

 

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Trading women in East Asia

 

Girls are often forced into prostitution through unpaid debts. Women

from minority hill tribes in Thailand are increasingly being lured

into prostitution, an anthropologist investigating the issue has

told the BBC.

 

David Feingold, who has recently made a film on the trafficking of

women in East Asia, found disturbing evidence of women lured into

the Thai sex industry, not just from the remote highland regions but

also from neighbouring countries such as Burma, Laos and China.

 

Bangkok, THAILAND