Photo: Li Jing/ZUMA
TURKEY TO BOOST SECURITY POST ISIS ATTACK
The Turkish government is set to bolster its security along the border with Syria after a suspected ISIS bombing in the town of Suruc killed 30 people, mostly students, yesterday. At a news conference, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said "measures on our border with Syria will continue, and will be increased,"Al Jazeera reports. But he added that Turkish "citizens should consider that countries experiencing tension, instability and clashes in the region could turn out to affect Turkey's inner peace." Meanwhile, Turkish daily Hürriyet reports that Turkish security forces had repeatedly warned about seven ISIS fighters who crossed into Turkey illegally and were planning to stage deadly attacks. But security forces failed to reach the jihadists.
VERBATIM
"We do not have any interest at all on dialogue for unilaterally freezing or giving up our nukes," North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement today, referring to potential Iran-like nuclear talks with the United States, Reuters reports. It added that the country's nuclear program was an "essential deterrence" against U.S. foreign policy toward the reclusive country. "It is not logical to compare our situation with the Iranian nuclear agreement because we are always subjected to provocative U.S. military hostilities, including massive joint military exercises and a grave nuclear threat," the statement said.
BURUNDI VOTE BEGINS AMID VIOLENCE
At least two people, a police officer and a civilian, were killed shortly before the start of the presidential election in Burundi this morning, Al Jazeera reports. A string of explosions and gunfire hit the country's capital Bujumbura, after what has already been three months of anti-government protests. Almost four million Burundians are eligible to vote, but the opposition and civil society groups are pushing the population to boycott the election, which incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza is expected to win for a third consecutive time.
UNDERAGE SOCCER PLAYERS TRAFFICKED FROM AFRICA
A BBC investigation has found that African soccer players as young as 14, especially from Western Africa, are being trafficked to Asian academies and clubs and forced to sign contracts. Under FIFA regulations, players under the age of 18 cannot be moved to foreign countries. But some underage players interviewed by the BBC say they were forced to sign year-long contracts without being paid and had to sleep on the floor of a club's stadium. According to the international NGO Culture Foot Solidaire, about 15,000 teenagers are moved out of West Africa every year to play soccer, but many of them are illegally trafficked.
WEEKEND ATTACKS IN BRAZIL KILL 35
A wave of simultaneous killings struck the northwestern Brazilian city of Manaus over the weekend, Globo reports, suggesting that at least some of the attacks were coordinated. The violence started after a police officer was shot dead outside a bank. Authorities are investigating whether the surge is linked to drug wars or police officers avenging the death of their colleague.
EXTRA!
What is being hailed as the world's first known case of long-term remission from HIV, in an 18-year-old French woman born with the virus, is featured on the front page of today's Paris-based newspaper Libération.
GROOVESHARK CO-FOUNDER FOUND DEAD
Josh Greenberg, who in 2006 co-founded the music streaming website Grooveshark, which is now defunct, was found dead Sunday evening in his home in Gainesville, Florida, local authorities reported on Twitter. There was no evidence of foul play or suicide, police said. Grooveshark was shuttered in April as part of a settlement with major music labels, thus avoiding hundreds of millions in damages for copyright infringement.
ON THIS DAY
The last book in author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series went on sale eight years ago today. Your shot of history is here.
TOSHIBA BOSS RESIGNS AMID SCANDAL
Hisao Tanaka, chief executive and president of the Japanese company Toshiba, has resigned after an independent panel appointed by the company said it had overstated its profit by $1.2 billion over the past six years, The Mainichi reports. "It has been revealed that there has been inappropriate accounting going on for a long time, and we deeply apologize for causing this serious trouble for shareholders and other stakeholders," the company said in a statement.
MY GRAND-PÈRE'S WORLD
NEW GLOBAL SELFIE
NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), which has recently reached its destination 1.6 million kilometers away in gravitational balance between the Earth and the sun, has sent a new high-quality photograph of our planet, as The Guardian reports. It will be among the first of many such photos.
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
Discovering new methods and habits to help us become a little happier every day has become a veritable science. And big business, Ernesto Vieitez writes for Clarin. "One of the pioneers of the field is the Israeli-born psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches at Harvard University and is the author of several widely read books, including The Pursuit of Perfect, wherein he calls perfectionism a kind of neurosis. He argues that the modern human condition pushes us to work toward attaining the impossible. The antidote he proposes is to replace this perfectionism with optimism, noting how perfectionists simply reject flaws, while optimists humbly accept them."
Read the full article, The Everyday Science Of Striving For Happiness.
SCRABBLE INT'L
New Zealand's Nigel Richards has just won the French-language Scrabble world championship. The twist? He speaks no French at all.