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Mali sharia amputees and displaced speak out
Maman Dedeou, 23, gently holds the rounded stump that now serves as his arm staring into the distance and remembering life before the moments that turned his world upside down.

Malian rebels in his hometown of Timbuktu cut off Dedeou’s right arm after he was accused of stealing.

"I was forced onto a chair and my arms were tightly bound to it," he said.

"With a razor, one of the rebel leaders traced a circle on my forearm before chopping it off with a sharp knife," he recalled with tears welling in his eyes.

"What they did to me was unfair. I did no wrong. I wish I could go back and avenge for what they did to me."

Such amputations are designed to shock - residents are often summoned to watch.

This harsh application of shariah, with people accused of being thieves sometimes having their feet amputated as well, has occurred at least 14 times since the Islamist takeover last spring according to human rights activists.

Many of the amputation victims have now drifted down to Bamako, in the south, which despite suffering from its own political volatility has become a haven for tens of thousands fleeing harsh conditions in the north, including the forced recruitment of child soldiers by the rebels.

It was in Bamako that I also met 40-year-old Maman Traore just moments after he arrived from the northern city of Timbuktu.

He escaped with his wife and five children on a boat on the river Niger after the French offensive against rebels in the north began.

Traore and his family are some of 30,000 Malians displaced since the French offensive and renewed fighting in the north started.

Aid workers have described the recently displaced as mostly made of "panicked and exhausted" people.

Most are headed to Bamako or the town of Segou which is the last government-controlled town to the north.

"As we approached Konna, we saw French fighter jets flying between Sevare and Konna," Traore told me.

"We could see people fleeing Kona. We could also hear the sound of the falling bombs."

Traore also described the dire situation he left back in Timbuktu.

"There is no security," he said.

"All our rights are violated. All kinds of atrocities and crimes you can think of are happening in Timbuktu.

"You cannot walk on the streets or even make a call. We really welcome French intervention."

Traore said that while many people would like to leave northern Mali, they couldn't afford the hefty prices boat owners are charging, and most roads remain cut off.

While some of the displaced live in camps run by churches and religious organisations, many others are dispersed within the capital - living with friends and relatives.

Traore and his family are now staying with relatives of his wife in Bamako where they begin a new life in displacement.
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Under the rebels' harsh application of Islamic law, people accused of stealing have limbs cut off.
Q:
Gone Girl's trailer is out - but is Fincher on form?
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The trailer for David Fincher's adaptation of Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn's bestselling thriller, has been dragged out of the murk.

The film stars Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne, a journo ousted from his job by cuts, who is then accused of the murder of his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) following her disappearance. Their seemingly perfect relationship is soon revealed to have been more turbulent than a series of Game of Thrones. The largely dialogue-free trailer makes excellent use of Richard Butler's version of She, originally by Charles Aznavour and famously covered by Elvis Costello. Fincher's characteristically stark aesthetic is at play and the trailer promises a stylish, grown-up thriller with plenty of twists and turns. Flynn and Fincher have apparently worked on an alternate ending, so even those who have read the book will find themselves guessing until the end.

With a reputation for producing some of the best thrillers in recent years, including Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac, Fincher seems a perfect fit for the source material. Gone Girl will be his first feature since his English-language remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's unclear what the director has planned next. It was announced today that he had left a planned biopic of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs after a dispute over pay and control of marketing. He is still serving as executive producer on Netflix's hit series House of Cards, which is rumoured to be returning for a third series.

Gone Girl is released on 3 October. What do you think of the trailer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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Ben Travis: David Fincher's adaptation of Gillian Flynn's bestseller promises a stylish, grown-up thriller with plenty of twists and turns. Watch the first trailer here
Q:
Hackers Repeatedly Penetrated Nasdaq Computers
Hackers have repeatedly penetrated the computer network of the company that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market during the past year, and federal investigators are trying to identify the perpetrators and their purpose, according to people familiar with the matter.

The exchange's trading platform—the part of the system that executes trades—wasn't compromised, these people said. However, it couldn't be determined which other parts of Nasdaq's computer network were accessed.

Investigators are considering a range of possible motives, including unlawful financial gain, theft of trade secrets and a national-security threat designed to damage the exchange.

The Nasdaq situation has set off alarms within the government because of the exchange's critical role, which officials put right up with power companies and air-traffic-control operations, all part of the nation's basic infrastructure. Other infrastructure components have been compromised in the past, including a case in which hackers planted potentially disruptive software programs in the U.S. electrical grid, according to current and former national-security officials.

"So far, [the perpetrators] appear to have just been looking around," said one person involved in the Nasdaq matter. Another person familiar with the case said the incidents were, for a computer network, the equivalent of someone sneaking into a house and walking around but—apparently, so far—not taking or tampering with anything.

A spokesman for Nasdaq declined to comment.

Click here to read more on this story from The Wall Street Journal.
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assistant: Hackers have repeatedly penetrated the computer network of the company that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market during the past year, and federal investigators are trying to identify the perpetrators and their purpose, according to people familiar with the matter.