The Temple of Bel in the town of Palmyra, Syria, in a file photo dated Aug. 08, 2001

ISIS previous said it had blown up Palmyra's 2,000-year-old temple of Baalshamin

The 2,000-year-old temple was part of the remains of the ancient caravan city of Palmyra in central Syria, seized by IS in May.
The news of the latest destruction at Palmyra came just days after IS released propaganda images purportedly showing militants blowing up another Palmyra temple, the 2,000-year-old Baalshamin dedicated to the Phoenician god of storms and fertilizing rains.
The U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, which has designated Palmyra as a world heritage site, called the destruction of the Baalshamin temple a war crime.
Earlier this month, relatives and witnesses said that IS militants had beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, an 81-year-old antiquities scholar who devoted his life to understanding Palmyra.
The Islamic State group, which has imposed a violent interpretation of Islamic law across its self-declared “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq, says such ancient relics promote idolatry.
It already has blown up several sites in neighboring Iraq, and it is also believed to be selling looted antiquities.
A Palmyra resident, who goes by the name of Nasser al-Thaer, said IS militants set off a huge blast at 1:45 p.m. Sunday.
“It is total destruction,” he said of the scene of the explosion. “The bricks and columns are on the ground.”
“It was an explosion the deaf would hear,” he added.
The resident said only the outer wall surrounding the temple remains.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists in Syria, said the temple was damaged. It did not provide details.
The temple, consecrated to the Semitic god Bel, had been well-preserved and was a source of much pride for Syrians. It was consecrated in 32 A.D.
It stood out among the ruins not far from the colonnades of Palmyra, which is affectionately known by Syrians as the “Bride of the Desert.”
Earlier Sunday, IS fighters pushed into a large district in southern Damascus, clashing with rival militants just a few kilometers from the center of the Syrian capital, the extremist group and Syrian activists said.
More than two dozen militants were killed in the clashes on the edges of the Qadam neighborhood, said the Observatory.
The pro-IS Aamaq News Agency reported that IS fighters seized half of Qadam. The Observatory’s Rami Abdurrahman said IS fighters were holding two streets and that fighting was continuing.
IS supporters posted propaganda pictures claiming to show IS fighters advancing in the narrow streets of Qadam. The authenticity of the images could not be confirmed independently.
IS has emerged as one of the most powerful forces in the battle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad. Armed Islamic factions fighting forces loyal to Assad control parts of Damascus and large parts of the city’s suburbs. IS fighters control large parts of the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, east of Qadam.
Also Sunday, a mortar round hit an upscale neighborhood of central Damascus, killing four people, including a girl, Syrian state TV said.
It is not uncommon for Damascus to be shelled. Sunday’s attack targeted the posh neighborhood of Abu Rummaneh, which houses hotels and several embassies.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw two people wounded by shrapnel. Vehicles in the area were also damaged.

 See ISIS's Destruction of the Ancient City Palmyra

 

These will be the first elections since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was elected to office

Egypt will hold its long-awaited parliamentary elections in two stages in October and November, the country’s electoral committee announced on Sunday.
Ayman Abbas, head of Egypt’s Supreme Election Committee, said 14 administrative regions will vote on Oct. 17 and 18, while the 13 remaining regions, including Cairo, will vote on Nov. 21 and 22, the BBC reports. The first phase of the elections had previously been scheduled for March, but was delayed after a court ruled part of the election law was unconstitutional.
The elections will be the first since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was elected to office last May after overthrowing Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in a 2013 coup d’état.

India has been shaken, and its thriving state of Gujarat paralysed, by a massive agitation by its influential Patel community.
Millions gathered in the state's major towns under the surprisingly belligerent leadership of a hitherto unknown 22-year-old called Hardik Patel, clamouring for their caste to be granted affirmative-action benefits known as "reservations".
Violence erupted, property was damaged, eight lives were lost and the army was called in. Hardik Patel was briefly arrested and, when his arrest sparked fury and more violence, released.
The agitation damaged not only property and people but also some of the fundamental assumptions of Indian politics.

Discrimination

India's constitution, adopted in 1950, inaugurated the world's oldest and farthest-reaching affirmative action programme, guaranteeing scheduled castes and tribes - the most disadvantaged groups in Hinduism's hierarchy - not only equality of opportunity but guaranteed outcomes, with reserved places in educational institutions, government jobs and even seats in parliament and the state assemblies.
These "reservations" or quotas were granted to groups on the basis of their (presumably immutable) caste identities. The logic of reservations in India was simple: they were justified as a means of making up for millennia of discrimination based on birth.
It was a small way of compensating the millions of unfortunates who suffered daily the inequities and humiliations of untouchability.
Reservations became more political in 1989, when the VP Singh-led government of the day decided to extend their benefits to Other Backward Classes (OBCs), based on the recommendations of the Mandal Commission.
The OBCs hailed from the lower and intermediate castes who were deemed backward because they lacked "upper caste" status.

Prominent and successful

As more and more people sought fewer available government and university positions, we witnessed the unedifying (and unwittingly hilarious) spectacle of castes fighting with each other to be declared backward: the competitive zeal of the Meena and the Gujjar communities in Rajasthan, castes not originally listed as OBCs, to be deemed more backward than each other would be funny if both sides weren't so deadly serious.
As an uncle of mine sagely observed, "In our country now, you can't go forward unless you're a backward."
The Patels, however, are an unlikely caste to be seeking such recognition: they are in fact dominant in Gujarat, prominent, successful and wealthy beyond their share of 15% of the state's population.
Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel is from the community; several Patels occupy important portfolios in her cabinet. Hardik Patel says the majority of his fellow Patels are less well off.

He has faced public anger over a $700m (£455m) payment made to his bank account from unnamed foreign donors.
It was discovered last month during a probe into alleged mismanagement at the debt-laden state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Mr Najib has denied any wrongdoing.
Why Malaysians are disillusioned with Najib Razak
Saturday's rally is expected to continue into Sunday and the pro-democracy group Bersih has also called for protests in the cities of Kota Kinabalu and Kuching on the Malaysian side of Borneo.


Kuala Lumpur authorities have rejected the group's application for a permit to protest and Malaysian police have declared the rallies illegal.
Security is tight and eyes will be focused on any possible army intervention.
At the last big rally in 2012, police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters.
Rehearsals will take place this weekend for the former British colony's 58th anniversary of self-rule.
Mr Najib said in a statement on his blog he did not want a "provocation" to be triggered.
He said: "Whatever the disagreements or misunderstandings between us, national day should not be a stage of political disputes."

Tropical Storm Erika hit Dominica, in the eastern Caribbean, causing floods and mudslides that have set the country back 20 years, its prime minister said.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic are now expecting 53mph (85km/h) winds.
A state of emergency has been declared in the US state of Florida, where the storm is expected on Sunday.
Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late on Friday that hundreds ofhomes,bridges and roads had been destroyed

He said: "It is with heavy heart that I address you, you can well imagine the hell that it has been for me since I heard of the passing of Tropical Storm Erika and the damage it has done to our dear people and beloved country. But we all have to pull ourselves together.
"The extent of the devastation is monumental. We have, in essence, to rebuild Dominica."
Erika dumped 38cm (15in) of rain.
At least 31 people on the island of 72,000 people have been reported missing, according to officials with the Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency.
Among the houses lost in the mudslides was that of 46-year-old security guard Peter Julian, who had joined friends after leaving work.
"When I returned, I saw that my house that I have lived in for over 20 years was gone,'' he told Associated Press.
  

Other Caribbean nations have issued tropical storm warnings.
In Puerto Rico, Erika knocked out power to more than 200,000 people and caused more than $16m (£10m) of damage to crops including plantain, bananas and coffee, AP reported.

Just over two years after Japan's PM Shinzo Abe launched an economic policy blitz, the latest inflation and consumer demand figures suggest his spendthrift measures have led to nothing but higher government debt.
New economic data coming out of Japan on Friday showed that annual inflation fell back to zero in July in spite of massive amounts of cheap cash that had been pumped into the world's third largest economy by the country's central bank.
Consumer spending also declined, falling 0.2 percent year-on-year and marking the second monthly drop after slumping 2 percent in June.
The disappointing data are the latest indication that the Japanese economy, which contracted 0.4 percent in the second quarter, was likely to continue struggling.
Flash in the pan
The slowdown comes more than two years after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched his new economic policy, dubbed Abenomics, to kickstart anemic growth and rein in more than a decade of deflation. The program called for big government spending, massive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) and reforms to free up Japan's highly-regulated economy.
In 2013, the BoJ launched an asset-buying program worth 80 trillion yen ($640 billion, 586 billion euros) annually. Speculation is mounting now that the central bank will expand the purchases to boost the inflation rate to the desired target of 2 percent.

Demonstrations in Guatemala City are continuing against President Otto Perez Molina, who is under pressure to step down. He faces impeachment over a corruption scandal, which has embroiled the Central American country.
Pressure was growing on Thursday for Guatemala's President Otto Perez Molina to resign, as businesses and government offices closed down in the capital amid street protests.
Perez Molina -- facing an impeachment process and possible indictment over a customs fraud scheme -- had not spoken in public since Sunday. He denied any involvement with the alleged corruption scandal and remained defiant that he would not step down.

The former ministers of defense and the interior, who recently resigned from Perez Molina's cabinet, had both fled the country, according to Guatemala's immigration service. His vice president had also been arrested.
The legislature is expected to vote next week whether to strip the president of immunity, thus opening the door to prosecution.
The demonstrations had gained momentum in recent days, and were joined by high ranking business leaders.
In a show of solidarity, famous fast food chains shuttered their restaurants on Thursday. Various hamburger and pizza outlets announced the move on social media.
Elsewhere, Guatemala's chamber of commerce called on its members to allow their employees to attend the demonstrations "as long as they are peaceful and law-abiding."
Guatemala is set to hold a general election on September 6.
The 64-year-old president, who has been in office since 2012, cannot run for re-election under the Guatemalan constitution.

The United Nations refugee agency fears at least 200 people may have died after two boats with refugees sank in the Mediterranean. Several young children are believed to be among the victims.
The Geneva-based United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, confirmed on Friday that two boats carrying a


total of 500 refugees had sunk off the Libyan port town of Zuwara.
"We are hearing media reports that there are about 100 survivors," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told journalists. "Our office in Libya is checking with the coastguard…We believe 200 are still missing, feared dead."
The Libyan Red Crescent's volunteers were meanwhile collecting bodies that had washed ashore.
"Until now 76 bodies have been retrieved from the sea and 198 people have been rescued," Mohammed Al-Misrati, who works with the organization, told reporters. "There are still people missing, but we don't know how many," he added.
Malta-based group Migrant Report said many young children, between one and three years old were among the dead. Refugees from Syria, Bangladesh and African nations were among the victims.
The first boat, carrying around 50 people, signaled for help on Thursday. Around 400 passengers were traveling in the second vessel, which sank later. The Italian Coastguard, which coordinates refugee rescue missions in the Mediterranean, said it received no distress call.
Trapped passengers
The head of Libya's Red Crescent in Zuwara, Hussein Asheini, said some people died after being trapped inside one of the boats. Fishermen and the coast guard found the waterlogged vessel and towed it back to Zuwara.
"The boat sank out at sea and a coast guard team is still diving in and checking inside to see if there is anyone else," Asheini told reporters.
Many refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa come to Libya to cross over the Mediterranean and reach Europe's shores. Human traffickers have taken advantage of the situation, charging huge sums for loading the migrants onto flimsy boats and taking them to Italy or Greece.
More than 2,500 people have died trying to reach Europe this year.

Official figures show that India's economy is growing at an annual rate of more than 7%, the fastest of any major country.
But some economists suggest the growth figures are not an accurate reflection of what is taking place on the ground, as Karishma Vaswani reports.

The Kenyan government has offered a reward of $ 20,000 to any person who provides information to the arrest of a suspected female terrorist, jump Faraj.

More than a million Brazilians have joined demonstrations around the country demanding President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment.
The protesters say the president must have known about a corruption scandal which has engulfed Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras.
But Ms Rousseff has been exonerated in an investigation by the attorney general and denies involvement.
Julia Carneiro reports from Rio de Janeiro.

US President Barack Obama has said New Orleans is "building a better future", as he visited the city 10 years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
The storm killed nearly 2,000 people and displaced one million, as Gary O'Donoghue reports.

The turmoil in world markets this week has raised concerns about the strength of the world's emerging market economies.
But one potential bright spot is India. Its economic growth rate has overtaken China, and the International Monetary Fund predicts it could soon be the world's third largest economy.
The BBC's business editor, Kamal Ahmed, has been speaking to the country's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley about India's ambitious attempts to reform.

 

The 28-year-old has played Kyrgios twice in Grand Slams this year, winning in straight sets at both the Australian and French Opens.
World number 37 Kyrgios, 20, was fined $10,000 this month for an "insulting remark" to Stan Wawrinka.
Top seed Novak Djokovic takes on Joao Souza of Brazil in New York.
Women's defending champion Serena Williams, who is aiming to complete a calendar Grand Slam, will play Russian Vitalia Diatchenko, while men's defending champion Marin Cilic will face a qualifier.
Murray could face French Open champion Wawrinka in the quarter-finals and second seed Roger Federer in the semis.
 
It is arguably the toughest possible first-round draw, it is certainly the most high-profile - Kyrgios will bring plenty of baggage on court against Murray, along with his powerful game.
The Australian, just outside the seedings, is playing under a suspended 28-day ban and $25,000 (£16,200) fine as his behaviour is closely monitored following the comments to Wawrinka.
On-court microphones picked up Kyrgios making a lewd suggestion about the Swiss player's girlfriend.
The incident made global headlines and has raised the Kyrgios profile to such an extent that it is likely his contest with Murray will be a night match.
The Australian's game, when firing on all cylinders, is good enough to have already seen off the likes of Federer and Nadal.
"Kyrgios has had a lot of trouble against Murray, who's able to defend against his game really well," said Darren Cahill, former coach to Andre Agassi, at Thursday's draw.
To add extra spice, if it were needed, Murray and Kyrgios are likely to meet again straight after the US Open when Britain face Australia in the Davis Cup semi-finals in Glasgow.
 

The main interest in the men's draw surrounded which side Murray would be on, and where eighth seed Rafael Nadal would land.
The Spaniard's slip down the rankings means he now lurks as a potential Grand Slam quarter-final opponent for his established rivals, this time Djokovic.
Nadal will need to get past Croatian teenager Borna Coric in the first round, with the 18-year-old having won their only previous meeting.
In-form second seed Federer plays world number 33 Leonardo Mayer in the first round, with Tomas Berdych a potential quarter-final opponent and Murray or Wawrinka in the semis.
World number one Djokovic remains the favourite, despite defeats by Murray and Federer in recent weeks.

Williams has won her last 28 matches at the tennis majors - she needs seven more to make history as only the fourth woman to complete the calendar Grand Slam.
The American, 34, already holds all four major titles stretching back to last year's US Open, has 21 in total and has won the last three US Opens.
Her last defeat at a Slam came against Alize Cornet at Wimbledon 2014.
Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, her sister Venus and Maria Sharapova are potentially standing in the way this time, with Simona Halep seeded to be waiting in the final.
"I don't feel the pressure right now," Williams insisted. "I'm really just here to perform and do the best I can."

The 33-year-old hinted he could quit after becoming a five-time Ashes winner last week.
He has since had "a really good talk" with coach Trevor Bayliss and captain Alastair Cook.
"I was as honest as I could be," Bell wrote in the Metro.  "Deep down I probably knew I wasn't ready to call time on my Test career."
Bell has played 115 Tests - only four Englishman have played more - scoring 7,569 runs at an average of 43 with 22 centuries.
He managed only 215 runs at an average of 26.87 in five Ashes Tests against Australia.

Not to be too cheeky, but the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards was the year of the butt. From Miley Cyrus heroically giving up twerking, to Beyonce’s booty-full performance, to the (rough count) thousands of butts on display during Nick Minaj’s performance of “Anaconda,” it’s clear the show was making due on the promise of the latter half of “Gluteus Maximus.”
Hey, they call the award the Moon Man for a reason.

 Beyonce

 ALL

Messi, Sasic voted UEFA's best players

The Argentina star, who won the Champions League, Spain's La Liga and Spanish Cup with Barcelona, claimed the award for the second time ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez.
"I am happy to win the award. I thank all my teammates because they deserve part of it. I depend a lot on the team like everyone else," the 28-year-old said.
Messi also won in 2010-2011 and succeeds Real Madrid rival Ronaldo who won last year.
FFC Frankfurt's Sasic, 27, was voted the best women's player ahead of France's Amandine Henry and fellow German Dzsenifer Marozsan.
Sasic, who retired last month, was the top scorer in the Champions League which Frankfurt won, the Bundesliga and at the Women's World Cup in Canada where she won the Golden Boot award

‘Furious 7′: James Wan On Changing the Film’s Ending

Furious 7 was supposed to come out in summer 2014, but when star Paul Walker tragically passed away in the middle of filming, director James Wan and his team had to retool several aspects of the movie (delaying its release date) – in order for it to be not just another thrilling installment in the series, but also a fitting tribute to the actor. Many would agree that Walker’s farewell (in which his Brian O’Connor and Dom Toretto share one last ride down an open highway) was handled very well – and emotional to the point that even casual fans got swept up in the moment.
There was, however, a version of Furious 7 that called for Walker to continue to be a part of Dom’s “family” for future installments down the road. Now that the film has been released and is breaking box office records, some may be wondering how everything would have played out if Walker was still alive today. Wan has now revealed the original ending, which would have hinted at how the franchise’s universe could expand in an eighth movie.
While speaking with Collider, Wan broke down the initial conclusion and how Walker’s death impacted their decision to cut it from the script:

“The original ending of ‘Furious 7′ was setting up, you know, the bigger world of where the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise could go into. And that’s obviously very smart of them to think so. But when the tragedy happened, all of that became irrelevant. So it did not matter anymore, all of that stuff. And to the studio’s credit, they did not push for that. They realized how important it was to make a movie that finishes and that just outright is a tribute to Paul Walker. So I give them a lot of credit for being bigger than that and going along with this ending that is the right ending to go with.”

It’s becoming standard fare in Hollywood for tentpoles to tease sequels in the final moments of the film audiences are currently watching (see: Marvel Studios), and it sounds like that was the initial plan here. While Wan doesn’t come out and say what the final scene would have been, it’s easy to envision it being similar to the mid-credits scene from Fast & Furious 6, which gave viewers their first look at Jason Statham’s Furious 7 villain (and started the hype train for that movie in the early going).

Migrant crisis: Grim find of bodies in Austria lorry 

The number of dead could be as high as 50, police say. Their bodies had started to decompose.
The lorry has been moved to an undisclosed location for detailed examination.
The grim find comes as a summit focusing on migration takes place in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
Tens of thousands of migrants from conflict-hit states in the Middle East and Africa have been trying to make their way to Europe.
Austria's Chancellor Werner Faymann said the tragedy showed once again "how necessary it is to save lives by combating criminals and people traffickers".
The vehicle - a refrigerated lorry with Hungarian licence plates - was parked off the A4 motorway between Parndorf and Neusiedl am See, according to Burgenland police chief Hans Peter Doskozil.
 
Officers had found at least 20 bodies inside the lorry, but there could be 30, 40 or even 50 inside, he told Austrian TV.
The vehicle was found late on Thursday morning but had been there since at least Wednesday, Mr Doskozil said.
The victims had been dead for some time.
At 15:30 local time (14:30 GMT) the truck was towed away, and was due to be taken to a hall in the local area for further examination, Austrian media report.
Only there would the lorry be opened and the recovery of the bodies begin, the authorities said.
The truck bears the logo of a Slovakian poultry company, Hyza, which said in a statement that the vehicle no longer belonged to the firm - but the new owners had not removed the branding.
Hungarian police are working with Austrian police on the investigation, a spokesman for the Hungarian prime minister said.
Hungary had been informed that the driver was Romanian, the spokesman said.

he lorry in which dozens of people died was sitting in a lay-by on the main motorway between Vienna and the Hungarian and Slovakian borders.
As we drove past, I saw police in white forensic suits combing the area for evidence.
It is hot. The smell of so many decomposing bodies close up must be difficult to take.

---

In Vienna, Serbia and Macedonia have told the summit on migration that EU must come up with an action plan to respond to the influx of migrants into Europe.
Austria has complained that the EU has failed to address the problem of people entering via the Western Balkans.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday's find "reminds us to tackle the issue of migration with European spirit and find solutions".
A record number of 107,500 migrants crossed the EU's borders last month and on Wednesday police counted more than 3,000 crossing into Serbia.
Meanwhile migrants are continuing to die as they try to reach Europe via the central Mediterranean route. The bodies of at least 51 people were found on Wednesday in the hold of a stricken ship off the coast of Libya.

 Dr John Pombe Magufuli Ashangazwa na Miradi Kadhaa kukwama

Floyd Mayweather's new car is one of only two in the world

 When you have a nickname like "Money," cold, hard cash is usually little or no problem.
And in the overall scheme of his life, $4.8 million is small change to Floyd Mayweather. That's why he was able to drop that eye-popping wad on a new supercar -- actually a hypercar, according to Swedish manufacturer Koenigsegg.

Mayweather recently purchased the second of a planned production run of three CCXR Trevitas that Koenigsegg has created for hyper-rich buyers. The name Trevita translates to "three whites," representing Koenigsegg's unique coating solution that turns traditional black carbon-fiber weave into what it calls a sparkling, silvery white.
"It's a stunning visual effect and one that Koenigsegg is unlikely to ever produce again, ensuring the exclusivity of the 'three whites' forever," the company revealed in a statement.
The car features an AMG-based twin-supercharged 4.8-liter V-8 engine that kicks out 1,018 horsepower, more than enough to propel the sleek 2,822-pound machine to hyper-legal speeds on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Trevita can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds and achieves a top speed of 254 mph.
Christian von Koenigsegg began building bespoke sports cars in 1994, and his company has earned a niche in the automotive world despite extremely limited production numbers.
Koenigsegg's popularity among car cognoscenti expanded exponentially when the CCX model was featured on the popular English television program "Top Gear." When the show's mysterious test driver known as "The Stig" suffered a high-speed spin while making a timed run in the CCX in 2006, Koenigsegg added a rear spoiler, and the revised machine set a new record for the "Top Gear" test track.
The Trevita is Koenigsegg's most radical ride yet -- perfect for a flamboyant character like Mayweather, who is so proud of his new acquisition that he shared details with the world on Instagram.
One thing is for certain: If Mayweather's taste in cars continues to occupy the $5 million bracket, he'll have to go to work in the ring more often.

Amber Rose Is Totally Unrecognizable With Long Hair And Bangs

 If there’s one thing we know for sure in this world, it’s that Amber Rose pulls off a shaved head like none other. In April, she shared a photo of herself with long red hair and our Instagram scrolling immediately stopped—seeing her with long hair was totally foreign. Well, good news—if you’re into being shocked by Amber Rose and the transformative power of wigs, she just shared
Yeah, so, not only does she have long, blonde hair, but also bangs. Like, heavy bangs! If you saw this person walking down the street, there’s no way you’d recognize her, right? Imagine walking by Amber Rose and not recognizing her immediately—it’s almost unfathomable!
While it seems that Amber kept her red hair experiment confined to Instagram, if she ever needs to lay low while running errands, these bangs will help her achieve, like, complete anonymity.

Will South Sudan peace deal be worth the wait?

They have been waiting a while for peace in South Sudan, so weren't surprised to wait a few hours more for the nitty-gritty of an agreement to be ironed out before the show began.
The leader rarely photographed without his broad-rimmed trilby hat entered the tent with much acclaim, and finally put his name to South Sudan's latest hope for peace.
On the stage, five flags wafted in the breeze of a dozen fans. It was the combined weight of those flags which forced both leaders into submission.
Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan have been instrumental in bringing the two sides to the table.
And the people of South Sudan are sick of war.
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir had been given 15 days to sign on the dotted line after his rival, the vice-president turned rebel leader Riek Machar, agreed to terms set by an international panel of mediators last week.
 

A brass band dressed in red with a lavish gold trim added to the pomp and ceremony.
Each visiting head of state gave their comments in turn.
President Kenyatta of Kenya hinted that the long day's discussions leading up to the ceremony had been hard, saying there's no such thing as "a perfect agreement", but it's better to find a solution around a table rather than on a battlefield.
"Don't see the obstacles," he said, "but the opportunity and hope."
The elder statesman, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, rebuked President Kiir, calling the fighting in South Sudan "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time".
Up until the last minute it wasn't even certain if President Kiir was definitely going to sign, with his "registration of serious reservations."
He even handed out photocopies of his list of reservations - and they weren't small points, but major differences.
He made a theatrical point of initialling a copy on every page - and unsuccessfully urging the other heads of state to do likewise - before finally putting ink to paper on the aptly called Compromise Peace Agreement.

But the question is not just whether the two leaders can even agree on a proper, long-lasting peace deal, but whether those fighting in the bush will take the cue.
At least with President Salva Kiir's signature now on the peace accord there's more chance of an end to the fighting.
But don't expect the 200,000 people currently sheltering in UN camps to be heading home just yet.
There are still sporadic clashes, and with renegade generals splitting their troops from the rebel side and going it alone, it's hard to judge how successful a ceasefire might be.
The United Nations Security Council threatened "immediate action" if their members were left at the altar yet again.
America's draft resolution included targeted sanctions and an arms embargo.
A UN panel of experts said the free flow of weapons to both sides and the tens of millions of government dollars being spent on arms and ammunition were fuelling the war.
They also highlighted an increasing brutality towards civilians as rebel supporters were being cleared out of the countryside.
The statistics are horrifying - 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes, 70% of the population are short of food including a quarter of a million severely malnourished children, and parts of the country have been cut off by fighting where aid workers can't go.
Twenty months into this crisis the reports of human rights abuses keep coming - child soldiers; rape as a weapon of war; ethnic-based killing; people being trapped in huts and burned alive.
There have been atrocities carried out by both sides, as the clashing of two political heavyweights and leaders of the country's two largest ethnic groups, sparked terrible violence.
There are parts of Unity state in the north of the country where aid agencies haven't been able to go, and where conditions are thought to be dire.

'Complex differences'

The complex historical differences between and within ethnic groups and clans will be hard to unravel.
And what the generals who have not signed up to peace decide to do with their thousands of troops will have a big impact on whether this really means peace.
The text of the agreement will be full of the loopholes and conditions necessary to bring the two sides together, but is unlikely to be a long-term solution.
The signing of the deal is just one small step in a long process towards peace and reconciliation - and there have been many steps this way which have faltered before.