British surgeon says Gaza ‘beyond worst thing’ he’s seen, as Jordan’s king warns Israel creating a ‘generation of orphans’

A British surgeon who led an emergency medical team in central Gaza says the situation at Al-Aqsa hospital has been “beyond any doubt the worst thing” he’s seen in his career, as Jordan’s monarch warned Israel’s bombardment was creating an “entire generation of orphans.”

“There’s been multiple traumatic amputations of children … horrific burns, the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” Dr. Nick Maynard told CNN’s Isa Soares on Monday after his team found themselves with no choice but to withdraw from the hospital, following increased Israeli military activity.

He said that often “there is no pain relief to give to these patients at all,” underscoring the dire humanitarian situation and lack of medical supplies in the Palestinian enclave following more than three months of Israeli bombardment.

Ecuador: State of emergency follows drug boss disappearance

Ecuador’s new president has declared a 60-day state of emergency after a top drug gang leader vanished from prison. The move comes as the country is trying to tackle soaring levels of violence and crime.

Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency for 60 days on Monday, a day after Adolfo Macias, leader of the Los Choneros criminal gang, disappeared from the prison where he was serving a 34-year sentence.

Noboa did not mention Macias’ possible escape in imposing the state of emergency, but said in an Instagram message that he won’t stop until he “brings back peace to all Ecuadorians.”

Police say at least four police officers have been kidnapped in Ecuador following the declaration, and unrest was reported at several prisons.

Bhutan’s Tobgay, environmental advocate facing economic headwinds

The man set to become Bhutan’s new prime minister is a passionate environmental advocate and sportsman, a veteran politician in a mountain kingdom where parliamentary democracy is still young.

Tshering Tobgay, who is expected to become premier for a second time after his party won nearly two-thirds of seats in elections on Tuesday, served as prime minister from 2013 to 2018.

The 58-year-old former civil servant, who holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard, was leader of the opposition in Bhutan’s first parliament when it was established in 2008.

Head of the liberal People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Tobgay fielded a heavyweight team that included several former ministers and lawmakers to win 30 of 47 seats in Tuesday’s election, Bhutanese media reported.

Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption

Practice has drawn domestic, international criticism for animal cruelty

By Lee Hae-rin

Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.

The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.

According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.

23 runway incursions put aircraft at risk in Japan since 2014

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

January 9, 2024 at 17:00 JST

Japanese safety authorities reported at least 23 “serious incidents” on runways over 10 years through 2023 where investigators judged there was a risk of collision between aircraft or with other vehicles.

The Asahi Shimbun analyzed aircraft serious incident investigation reports released by the Japan Transport Safety Board for 19 cases following a fatal collision between a Japan Airlines Co. passenger jet and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 2.

The newspaper also examined the remaining four cases into which the board is still investigating.

Twelve of the 19 runway incursions were attributed to aircraft or work vehicles on the ground.

TB Joshua: Megachurch leader raped and tortured worshippers, BBC finds

By Charlie Northcott and

Helen Spooner

BBC News, Africa Eye

Evidence of widespread abuse and torture by the founder of one of the world’s biggest Christian evangelical churches has been uncovered by the BBC.

Dozens of ex-Synagogue Church of all Nations members – five British – allege atrocities, including rape and forced abortions, by Nigeria’s late TB Joshua.

The allegations of abuse in a secretive Lagos compound span almost 20 years.

The Synagogue Church of All Nations did not respond to the allegations but said previous claims have been unfounded.

Germany’s far-right exploits farmers’ protests

Farmers’ protests have a long tradition in Germany. And today again, there are deliberate attempts by right-wing extremists to instrumentalize farmers’ anger for their own ends.

Images of farmers driving their huge tractors in long convoys along highways, blocking traffic at crossroads to protest against government policies are being shared millions of times on social media in Germany these days. Communications consultant Johannes Hillje describes this as part of a “strategic battle fought by right-wing extremist media-makers.”

Far-right activists have rallied behind the farmers’ protest on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and X. And their comments are seen to be deliberately fanning the flames.

The far-right populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is using the protests on its many social media channels to attack the ruling center-left coalition government of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) and express solidarity with the farmers protesting against the cuts in subsidies for agricultural diesel.

Bangladesh’s Hasina wins three-quarters of seats in election boycotted by opposition

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won a fifth term in power with her party taking three-quarters of seats in parliament, election officials said Monday after polls boycotted by the opposition as a “sham”.

“The Awami League has won the election,” said Moniruzzaman Talukder, a joint secretary of the Election Commission a day after a vote boycotted by the opposition, with initial reports suggesting a meagre turnout of some 40 percent.

Talukder said Hasina’s party had won 223 seats, but support of other lawmakers including from allied parties, means Hasina’s actual control over the 300 seat parliament is even higher, analysts said.

“This is a one-party parliament,” Ali Riaz of Illinois State University told AFP, adding that “only the allies of the Awami League had the opportunity to participate”.

Thousands forced from homes by quake face stress and exhaustion

By HIRO KOMAE, AYAKA MCGILL and YURI KAGEYAMA

Thousands of people made homeless overnight are living in weariness and uncertainty on the western coast of Japan a week after a powerful earthquake left at least 168 dead and 323 missing.

The rescue effort since the magnitude 7.6 New Year’s Day quake has drawn thousands of troops, firefighters and police who picked through collapsed buildings Monday hoping to find survivors.

Authorities warned of the danger of landslides, exacerbated by a heavy snowfall, throughout the quake’s epicenter on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. The landscape blanketed in fluffy white revealed burned and crumbled houses, ashen blocks of a city, highways with gaping holes and cracks.

The ‘walking route’: How an underground industry is helping migrants flee China for the US

They come with backpacks carrying a few spare changes of clothes and whatever money and phones they weren’t robbed of by criminals or cartels along the way, arriving at the United States-Mexico border exhausted from the stress of the journey north.

Like the hundreds of thousands of people around them who have also trekked weeks to reach the US, they’re driven by a desperation to escape and make a new life, despite the uncertainty of what’s on the other side.

But these migrants are fleeing the world’s second largest economy and an emerging superpower.

Al Jazeera bureau chief’s son Hamza al-Dahdouh among journalists killed in Gaza

7th January 2024, 06:22 PST

By Shaimaa Khalil BBC News, Jerusalem

Alaska Airlines grounds 737 Max 9 planes after section blows out mid-air

By Thomas Mackintosh & Kathryn Armstrong

BBC News

North Korea fires artillery close to border for second day

Pyongyang fired another 60 artillery rounds following the more than 200 fired the day before. Tensions between north and south have been escalating for months.

The North Korean military fired more than 60 rounds of artillery close to a disputed maritime border with its southern neighbor on Saturday.

“North Korean forces conducted artillery fire with over 60 rounds from the northwest area of Yeonpyeong Island today between approximately 16:00 and 17:00 (0700 to 0800 GMT),” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The barrage came a day after Pyongyang fired over 200 rounds of artillery in the same area. In both cases, the shells landed in a buffer zone set up between the two countries in 2018.

Luxury hotel plans threaten East Jerusalem’s Armenian quarter

Activists say a controversial deal to build a luxury hotel could destroy part of East Jerusalem’s historical Armenian quarter, accusing the company behind the plan of paying people to seize land by force. As Armenian Christians celebrate Christmas on Saturday, those who call Jerusalem’s Old City home say they are worried for their future.

In a corner of Jerusalem’s Old City near the Cathedral of Saint James, the fight for a plot of land has become tied to the future of the Armenian quarter.

It is the spot where survivors of the Armenian genocide found a safe haven more than a hundred years ago.

But in 2021 a Jewish-Australian investor signed a deal with a representative of the Armenian clergy to build a luxury hotel. Now activists are trying to save this land from demolition.

“Basically we are fighting for our existence,” says Hagop Djernazian, a student and co-founder of Save the ARQ, an NGO dedicated to preserving the Armenian Quarter.

Quake-hit Noto woefully short of medical care and supplies

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

January 6, 2024 at 17:31 JST

Yutaka Kobayashi has rushed to several disaster areas over the years to provide emergency medical care, but the situation he encountered in the Noto Peninsula region of Ishikawa Prefecture is “the worst ever,” he said.

Kobayashi, who heads Sakura General Hospital in Oguchi, Aichi Prefecture, assembled a small team and set off Jan. 2 for Suzu, one of the hardest hit areas from the magnitude-7.6 earthquake that hit on New Year’s Day.

The situation there was nothing like what he experienced after the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 that claimed nearly 20,000 lives or the magnitude-7.0 Kumamoto Earthquake in 2016 that killed close to 300 people.

Famine in Gaza ‘around the corner,’ as people face ‘highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,’ UN relief chief says

Famine is “around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,” according to UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths.

Citing a death toll in the tens of thousands, attacks on medical facilities and a lack of functioning hospitals, Griffiths said in a statement issued Friday that Gaza had become “a place of death and despair.”

“Hope has never been more elusive,” he added.

Israeli minister outlines plans for Gaza after war

By Wyre Davies in Jerusalem & Alys Davies in London BBC News

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has outlined proposals for the future governance of Gaza once the war between Israel and Hamas is over.

Fighting in Gaza continued alongside the plan’s publication, with dozens of people killed in the previous 24 hours, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Iran arrests suspects after IS attack in Kerman

The arrests come as people once again gather in Kerman, this time to mourn Wednesday’s dead. At least nine young children were among the victims of the blasts.

Iranian authorities have arrested a number of suspects in relation to the blasts that killed 89 people at the grave of General Qassem Soleimani on Wednesday in the city of Kerman, Iranian media reported.

Deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi said five people had been arrested in five different provinces, according to state news agency IRNA and semi-official agency Tasnim.

The news of the arrests, provided without further information, came as the victims of those attacks — which were claimed by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) —  were laid to rest.

Iranian media reported that 30 of the victims had been under the age of 18, and nine were 10 or younger.

India navy rescues Arabian Sea crew after hijack attempt

 India’s navy said Friday it had rescued 21 crew members from a vessel in the Arabian Sea after a hijacking distress call, the latest attack on commercial shipping in the region.

Last month the force deployed several warships into the sea to “maintain a deterrent presence” after a string of recent shipping attacks, including a drone strike near India’s coast which the United States has blamed on Iran.

It comes at a time when many vessels have been rerouted from the Red Sea due to drone and missile attacks carried out by Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is battling Hamas militants.

A navy statement said Friday that all 21 crew members, including 15 Indian nationals, aboard the MV Lila Norfolk had been evacuated from the ship’s citadel — a fortified section of commercial vessels used as a refuge during pirate attacks.

Final whistle to blow for ‘Captain Tsubasa’ manga series in April

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

January 5, 2024 at 17:30 JST

“Captain Tsubasa,” a globally beloved soccer manga series, will end its 40-year run in April, publisher Shueisha Inc. announced on Jan. 5.

In a statement, Yoichi Takahashi, 63, the manga artist, cited changes in the creative environment due to the digitization process, as well as his declining health.

“Rather than continue drawing ‘manga’ to the limits of my physical strength, I have decided to stop the serialization so that I can tell the ‘story’ of ‘Captain Tsubasa’ to the end,” he said.

World’s biggest polluter just had its hottest year on record, marked by deadly extreme weather

China saw Its hottest year on record in 2023, state media reported this week, as the world’s biggest polluter confronted a series of relentless heat waves and other extreme weather events driven by the human-caused climate crisis.

Daily and monthly temperature records were repeatedly shattered as the year wore on while the country grappled with scorching heat waves, which authorities said had arrived earlier and been more widespread and extreme than in previous years.

China’s exceptional warmth echoed global trends – with scientists confirming that 2023 will officially be the hottest year on record, the result of the combined effects of El Niño and climate change.