Six In The Morning Thursday 7 March 2024

 

Gaza ceasefire talks end in Cairo with ‘no substantial answer or solution’

Hamas says negotiations to continue next week even as Israel ‘thwarts’ deal to secure 40-day truce before Ramadan.

Hamas says its delegation has left Egypt but talks on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will continue next week until an agreement is reached with Israel, whom the Palestinian group says has “thwarted” mediators’ attempts to broker a deal before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“Hamas’s delegation left Cairo this morning for consultation with the leadership of the movement, with negotiations and efforts continuing to stop the aggression, return the displaced and bring in relief aid to our people,” a Hamas statement said on Thursday.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Israel had been “thwarting” efforts to conclude a ceasefire mediated by Qatar and Egypt during four days of talks in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

It’s now or never for Cyprus reunification, says top UN official

UN special representative for divided island says time is running out to settle decades-long dispute

Efforts to re-unite Cyprus are approaching a decisive moment, a top UN official has said, as he urged leaders on both sides to show political courage and warned civil society groups: “It’s now or never.”

In a week marking 60 years since the arrival of a UN peacekeeping force on the east Mediterranean island, Colin Stewart, the United Nations special representative in Cyprus, said time was running out to settle the decades-long dispute.

“We have to seize whatever opportunities we have, however small. We don’t know if there is going to be another opportunity,” he told local civil society groups.

With Sweden onboard, NATO’s north is now sealed

With Sweden’s membership now formalized, NATO’s Nordic wall is complete. Stockholm has been impatiently awaiting this moment, as it felt left out in the cold between allies Norway and Finland.

NATO officials assured Finland and Sweden when they applied together for membership in May 2022 that their process would be the fastest in history. And, in fact, it finally has been, but nearly one year since Finland’s rapid accession in April 2023 has been nerve-wracking for the Swedish government, which had hoped the duo’s accession would be a tandem one like the application. But opposition from Turkey and Hungary meant Sweden had to accept that long delay before being allowed under NATO’s security umbrella.

Oscar Jonsson, a researcher with the Swedish Defence University, says having declared its desire to join but being stalled by would-be allies was the “worst place” for Sweden to be stranded, even temporarily.

“If you look at just recent empirics, you can see that Russia has invaded two states that it perceived to be on the way into NATO,” he told DW, referring to Georgia and Ukraine, “but zero NATO member states.”

UN Security Council raises alarm over ‘critical’ situation in Haiti

The UN Security Council expressed its concern over the deteriorating situation in violence-gripped Haiti on Wednesday, as Washington ramped up pressure on absent Prime Minister Ariel Henry to secure a political settlement.

Armed gangs who control swaths of the country launched a coordinated effort to oust Henry last week, attacking the airport, prisons and police stations and threatening a full-scale civil war.

“The situation is critical,” said Security Council member Ecuador, whose ambassador to the UN José Javier De La Gasca Lopez-Domínguez called for Wednesday’s meeting.

The United States called for the prime minister to hold free elections, but did not urge his resignation – a key demand of powerful gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherisier.

In power since the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moïse, Henry was due to leave office in February but instead agreed to a power-sharing deal with the opposition until new elections are held.

From edge of extinction to Australia’s croc ‘paradise’

By Andrew LEESON

If you want a snappy death, one expert’s advice is to leap into a river near the Australian city of Darwin — within minutes, you’ll be in the jaws of one of the hundreds of crocodiles that stalk its murky waters.

That’s the promise of Grahame Webb, whose conservation efforts are credited with helping wrestle Australia’s saltwater predators back from the verge of extinction.

“You can’t sugarcoat crocs; these are seriously dangerous,” Webb told AFP in his leafy garden in the country’s tropical Top End.

Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. If you knew what I know, you’d be terrified too

Are you frightened by climate change? Do you worry about what sort of world we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren? In the words of science writer and author of “The Uninhabitable Earth” David Wallace-Wells, “No matter how well informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough.”

I would put it even more strongly.

If the fracturing of our once stable climate doesn’t terrify you, then you don’t fully understand it. The reality is that, as far as we know, and in the natural course of events, our world has never — in its entire history — heated up as rapidly as it is doing now. Nor have greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere ever seen such a precipitous hike.

Six In The Morning Wednesday 6 March 2024

 

Hunger death toll rises as famine looms

  • Calls to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip grow louder as health officials report more deaths from malnutrition and dehydration.
  • People in Gaza are waiting for the outcome of ceasefire talks amid continued Israeli attacks, our correspondent reports.

Another Israeli attack on aid seekers in Gaza City: Al Jazeera correspondent

Eight people have been wounded after Israeli forces fired live rounds at people waiting for humanitarian aid at the Nabulsi roundabout in the southwest of Gaza City, an Al Jazeera correspondent reports.

A week ago, at least 112 Palestinians waiting for food aid were killed and 760 wounded after being shot at by Israeli forces in Gaza in the same area. Since then, Israeli forces have committed several similar attacks on hungry Palestinians in Gaza City.

Yulia Navalnaya asks Russians to join anti-Putin polling station protest

Alexei Navalny’s widow urges supporters to arrive en masse at midday for presidential election to overwhelm polling stations

The widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has called for people to protest against Vladimir Putin at polling booths in the forthcoming presidential election.

Yulia Navalnaya urged her supporters to protest against Putin by voting en masse at noon local time in the 17 March election, forming large crowds and overwhelming polling stations.

She said the action would also be a way to honour her late husband, who came up with the idea in one of his last public messages before his sudden death in an Arctic prison.

Strike forces Frankfurt Airport closure to departing flights

Frankfurt Airport will not allow departing passengers on Thursday due to a security strike. Some 25,000 employees are walking out, causing significant flight cancellations.

There will be no access to Frankfurt Airport for departing passengers on Thursday as Germany’s biggest airport is hit by strikes, the airport operator Fraport said on Wednesday.

Around 25,000 Lufthansa security staff represented by trade union Verdi are set to walk out again as wage talks remain stalled.

The staff are generally employed by private companies that check passengers, staff and luggage at the entrances to the security area on behalf of the German Federal Police.

Due to insufficient security checks, departing passengers will be unable to access the airport, explained a spokesperson for airport operator Fraport.

Line app operator told to rethink ties with S. Korea’s Naver

By NAOKO MURAI/ Staff Writer

March 6, 2024 at 17:25 JST

The communications ministry instructed the operator of the Line messaging app to consider reviewing its capital relationship with South Korea’s Naver Corp. over a massive leak of personal information through cyberattacks.

“We understand that more efforts are necessary to ensure security,” Takeshi Idezawa, president of service provider LY Corp., told reporters on March 5. “We want to take an immediate response based on the ministry’s guidance.”

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications issued the administrative guidance after LY said about 500,000 pieces of personal information, including those of Line users, were leaked due to cyberattacks.

Russian missile strike hits Odesa near where Zelensky met with Greek PM

Russian missile struck Odesa on Wednesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in the Black Sea port city with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Five people were reported to have been killed in the strike, which came as the two leaders were getting into their cars after touring the city. Neither of the men were injured but Zelensky said he was close enough to have seen and heard the strike.

“We saw this strike today. You can see who we are dealing with, they don’t care where they strike. I know that there were victims today, I don’t know all the details yet, but I know that there are dead and wounded,” Zelensky said from Odesa on Wednesday.

Haiti gang leader threatens ‘civil war’ if PM does not resign

By Vanessa Buschschlüter, BBC News

The gang leader behind the violence blighting the Haitian capital has warned there will be a “civil war” if Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, does not step down.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier made the threat as members of his gang tried to seize the capital’s airport to stop Mr Henry from returning from abroad.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the situation was “beyond untenable”.

Thousands of Haitians have had to flee.

Aid groups say about 15,000 people, among them many young children, have been displaced from their homes in recent weeks.

Six In The Morning Tuesday 5 March 2024

 

Hamas presents truce plan to mediators

  • Hamas says ceasefire negotiations are ongoing but “the ball is in the Israeli court.”
  • Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 97 Palestinians have been killed and 123 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Biden says US ‘won’t stand by’ in helping get aid to Gaza

The United States is committed to pulling out every stop to get more aid to those in Gaza who desperately need it,” the US president says in a post on X.

“We won’t stand by. We won’t let up,” he added.

US military cargo planes have been air-dropping food and other supplies into Gaza as a solution for Israel’s continued blocking of aid from entering the strip and reaching its most needy.

However, the US’s move has been criticised as inefficient and simply a public relations move by members of international aid organisations. The United States continues to apply only meagre diplomatic pressure on Israel, and the Biden administration has thus far not explored options like placing sanctions on Israel or conditioning the billions of dollars in military aid the US grants the country.

Ice-free summers in Arctic possible within next decade, scientists say

Home of polar bears, seals and walruses could be mostly water for months as early as 2035 due to fossil fuel emissions

The Arctic could have summer days with practically no sea ice within the next decade due to emissions from burning fossil fuels, a study has found.

This would transform the unique habitat, home to polar bears, seals and walruses, from a “white Arctic” to a “blue Arctic” during the summer months, scientists said. The calculation used for “ice free” means less than 1m sq km, in which case the Arctic would be mostly water.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth ­­& Environment, suggest the first ice-free day in the Arctic could occur more than 10 years earlier than previous projections.

Germany: Far-left group claims act of sabotage on Tesla

The Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin was evacuated on Tuesday after a major power outage.

The left-wing extremist “Volcano Group” said it had carried out the assault on the power grid supplying the carmaker.

What we know so far

“We sabotaged Tesla today,” a letter from the Volcano Group said, specifying an “attack on the electricity supply.”

Police had earlier said they were investigating an initial suspicion of arson after an electricity pylon caught fire.

ICC issues warrants for two Russian officers over attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure

The International Criminal Court said Tuesday that it has issued arrest warrants for two senior Russian officers over the Ukraine war, including strikes targeting Ukrainian power infrastructure.

The move comes after the court targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin in March last year with an international arrest warrant on war crime accusations over the deportation of Ukrainian children since launching the war in February 2022.

It named the two new warrant targets as Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, an army lieutenant general and a navy admiral, and said the suspected crimes were committed between October 2022 and March 2023.

The two men “are each allegedly responsible for the war crime of directing attacks at civilian” targets and are also accused of the “crime against humanity of inhumane acts”, the court said.

Seven men arrested in India for alleged gang-rape of tourist

Seven men are now in custody in India for the alleged gang-rape of a tourist and assault on her husband, authorities said, in a case that has shone a new spotlight on the endemic problem of sexual violence against women in the country.

On Saturday, police announced that three men had been arrested in connection with the incident and that they were seeking four more.

Dumka Deputy Commissioner Anjaneyulu Dodde confirmed to CNN Tuesday that four further suspects had now been detained.

Facebook and Instagram in apparent global outage

By Shiona McCallum,Technology reporter

Facebook and Instagram have gone down in what appears to be a massive outage of parent company Meta’s platforms.

People trying to log onto the websites and apps were finding error messages and were unable to refresh their feeds as normal.

Tracking website Downdetector indicated hundreds of thousands of reported outages for Facebook and Instagram, affecting multiple countries.

Meta has acknowledged the issues and says it is “working on this now.”

Six In The Morning Monday 4 March 2024

 

UN rights chief says ‘powder keg’ Gaza could ignite wider war

Volker Turk says it is essential to avoid conflagration of conflict, which could have repercussions for region and beyond.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk says the war in Gaza is a “powder keg” that could ignite a wider conflict with serious repercussions for the Middle East and beyond.

In an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Turk said he was deeply concerned that the war – now in its 150th day – had already generated dangerous spillover in neighbouring countries.

“Any spark could lead to a much broader conflagration,” Turk warned. “This would have implications for every country in the Middle East,and many beyond it.”

‘We need to go again’: Australian who led MH370 search joins calls for fresh effort to find plane

Peter Foley, the program director for search led by Australian Transport Safety Bureau, says any chance of success needs the government to invest

The man who led Australia’s search for MH370 has urged the Australian government to support any new effort to find the plane, which disappeared 10 years ago on Friday.

On Sunday the Malaysian government said it was in talks with the US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity to discuss a new search. The company says it is willing and able to return to the search, and has submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government.

The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 departed Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014, bound for Beijing with 12 crew and 227 passengers on board – including seven Australians. About 40 minutes later it disappeared from the radar and its fate remains unknown.

Church of England told to invest billion pounds over slavery

An advisory group has urged the Church of England to raise its fund for redressing slavery to ten times of its current worth. The church set up the fund after it admitted it had invested in the African slave trade.

An independent Oversight Group on Monday said that the Church of England should increase funds earmarked for redressing its historical ties to slavery.

Experts advising the church are calling for funding to rise to tenfold, up to 1 billion pounds ($1.27 billion, €1.17 billion).

The Church of England is the mother church of global Anglicanism, which numbers some 85 million members around the world.

Haiti declares a state of emergency after a massive prison break in the capital

Haiti’s government declared on Sunday a state of emergency and nighttime curfew in a bid to regain control of the country after a deadly gang assault on the capital’s main prison that allowed thousands of inmates to escape.

The curfew will be enforced from 6 pm to 5 am in the Ouest region, which includes the capital, through Wednesday, the government said in a statement, adding that both the curfew and the state of emergency can be extended.

About a dozen people died as gang members attacked the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince overnight Saturday into Sunday, an AFP reporter observed.

The attack came as part of a new spate of extreme violence in the Haitian capital, where well-armed gangs who control much of the city have wreaked havoc since Thursday.

The gangs say they want to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led the crisis-wracked Caribbean nation since the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in 2021.

Veterans from Ukraine run in Tokyo Marathon to help colleague

By WATARU SEKITA/ Staff Writer

March 4, 2024 at 19:01 JST

Two Ukrainian veterans wounded in combat competed in the Tokyo Marathon to raise funds for medical treatment for a fellow soldier who was injured in the ongoing conflict with Russia.

Roman Kashpur, 27, and Yurii Kozlovskyi, 41, crossed the finish line near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on March 3, completing their fourth and first full marathon, respectively.

Kashpur enlisted in the Ukrainian army in 2016, two years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

He lost the lower part of his right leg in a land mine explosion in 2019 while on duty in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Undeterred, he continued serving in the army, training other soldiers while also preparing for marathons.

‘Two sessions’: China scraps a decades-long political tradition as Xi tightens control amid economic woes

Thousands of delegates from across China are gathering in Beijing this week for the start of the country’s most prominent annual political event, where leaders will signal how they plan to steer the world’s second largest economy in the year ahead — and try to dispel deepening concern about the challenges it faces.

Projecting confidence is likely to be high on the agenda for Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his top Communist Party officials during the days-long, highly choreographed event, known as the “two sessions,” when China’s rubber stamp legislature and top advisory body convene.

The largely ceremonial gathering is taking on heightened importance this year as China’s economy has been roiled by a property sector crisis, hefty local government debt, deflation, a stock market rout and tech friction with the US — all fueling questions about whether the country will lose steam before it reaches its goal of becoming a developed global power.

Six In The Morning Sunday 3 March 2024

 

Children die of malnutrition amid truce talks

  • Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 15 children have died in the past few days from malnutrition and dehydration at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City hours after UNICEF chief warned against acute malnutrition in the besieged enclave.
  • Truce talks are expected to resume in Egypt on Sunday but the details beyond a possible six-week pause in fighting remain unclear despite US officials’ claims a ceasefire is near. A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that a ceasefire may be secured “within 24 to 48 hours” if Israel accepted their demands.

‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in attack on Gaza City

Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, says via a statement that Israeli forces “committed a horrific massacre” in southern Gaza City, near the Kuwaiti roundabout on Salah al-Din Street.

“Israeli occupation forces are carrying out systematic genocide crimes targeting hundreds of thousands of hungry stomachs in northern Gaza,” the statement reads.

About 170 people ‘executed’ in Burkina Faso village attacks, official says

Regional prosecutor says he received reports of deaths in three northern settlements as jihadist violence flares

About 170 people were “executed” in attacks on three villages in northern Burkina Faso a week ago, a regional prosecutor has said, as jihadist violence flares in the junta-ruled country.

On that same day, 25 February, separate attacks on a mosque in eastern Burkina and a Catholic church in the north left dozens more dead.

Aly Benjamin Coulibaly said he had received reports of the attacks on the villages of Komsilga, Nodin and Soroe in Yatenga province, with a provisional toll of “around 170 people executed”.

Family of celebrated French WWII veteran Léon Gautier refuses the commercialisation of his legacy

Léon Gautier was famous in France as the last representative of the “Kieffer Commando”, the only French unit to take part in the Allied D-Day landings on Normandy beaches in June 1944. As the 80th anniversary of D-Day approaches, some are seeing opportunities for financial gain. His descendants have decided to seek legal assistance to prevent any abusive or commercial use of his image.

Gautier, who died on July 3, 2023 at the age of 100, was a nationally celebrated figure and a near-constant presence at World War II commemorations who used his stature to make sure the lessons of the war were not forgotten.

Having joined the French navy in 1940 at 17, he was one of 177 French green berets of the Kieffer Commando unit to storm the beaches defended by Nazi forces on June 6, 1944.

His passing was marked by a ceremony with military honors presided over by President Emmanuel Macron which took place on the beach in Ouistreham, Normandy, as he and his family had wanted.

Everyday Repression and ResignationHow Vladimir Putin Controls the Russians

Russia has reverted to a dictatorship under President Vladimir Putin. Most people in the country seem to be accepting the war against Ukraine as well as the death of opposition activist Alexei Navalny. Why?

By Benjamin BidderAnn-Dorit Boy und Christina Hebel in Hamburg and Moscow

Pedestrians walk past Yaroslav Smolev with his placard as if he doesn’t even exist. The 24-year-old with the long hair is standing in the slush on the famous Nevsky Prospekt in the center of St. Petersburg. The news of Alexei Navalny’s death is only one day old. Smolev holds a sheet of paper in front of his chest. In red letters, he has written: “They killed Navalny because we didn’t care.”

He quickly realizes just how apt this sentence is, how little the death of the imprisoned Kremlin critic moves most of his fellow people. “The faces of most people who pass by are motionless,” the young Russian later recounts in an agitated video call. Two Russian tourists even asked him to step aside so that they could take “more beautiful photos” of Kazan Cathedral.

Malaysia says search for missing flight MH370 must go on

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. As relatives of passengers marked 10 years since the plane vanished, Malaysia said it was time for a new search.

Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke, said Sunday he was trying to arrange a new search for the lost Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

“The government is steadfast in our resolve to locate MH370,” Loke told a remembrance event to mark the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of the jet.

“We really hope the search can find the plane and provide truth to the next-of-kin.”

The Boeing 777 aircraft was en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, carrying 239 people, when it vanished from radar on March 8, 2014.

Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has never been found.

Thousands of South Korean doctors stage mass demonstration in Seoul

Thousands of doctors in South Korea took to the streets of Seoul on Sunday to protest the government’s plans to increase medical school admissions and what they see as a broader lack of support for the country’s medical system.

The doctors say the government needs to address a wider range of challenges facing the healthcare system than just the total number of doctors trained per year.

Their concerns include staffing in specific fields and the price the government pays for essential medical treatments as well as establishing a proper infrastructure for educating large numbers of new medical students.

Six In The Morning Saturday 2 March 2024

Israel-Gaza war: US carries out first aid airdrop in strip

The US has carried out its first airdrop of aid for Gaza, with more than 30,000 meals parachuted in by three military planes.

The operation was carried out in conjunction with the Jordanian air force, the US Central Command said.

US officials say the drop was the first of many announced by President Joe Biden on Friday.

He promised to step up aid to Gaza after the death of over 100 people seeking aid from a convoy on Thursday.

C-130s dropped more than 38,000 meals along the coastline of Gaza, US Central Command said in a statement.

“These airdrops are part of a sustained effort to get more aid into Gaza, including by expanding the flow of aid through land corridors and routes,” it added.

Mount Everest is too crowded and dirty, says last living member of Hillary team

Kanchha Sherpa, 91, says more respect should be shown to sacred peak that has been climbed thousands of times since 1953 ascent

The only surviving member of the mountaineering expedition that first reached the summit of Mount Everest has said the world’s highest peak is too crowded and dirty, and the mountain is a god that needs to be respected.

Kanchha Sherpa, 91, was one of the 35 members of the team that helped the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay to the top of the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) peak on 29 May 1953.

“It would be better for the mountain to reduce the number of climbers,” Kanchha said in an interview in Kathmandu on Saturday. “Right now, there is always a big crowd of people at the summit.”

Germany confirms bugging of Bundeswehr Ukraine war talks

Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a quick probe into a Russian leak of secret talks about the Ukraine war. The German military confirmed the talks were real, but couldn’t rule out that the recording had been edited.

Germany’s Defense Ministry on Saturday confirmed the authenticity of a recording of a confidential discussion between high-ranking Bundeswehr officers regarding the war in Ukraine that was leaked by Russian state media.

“According to our assessment, a conversation in the air force division was intercepted. We are currently unable to say for certain whether changes were made to the recorded or transcribed version that is circulating on social media,” a spokeswoman for the ministry said.

The head of Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, on Friday published what she said was an audio recording between German officers, including the chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz.

Kashmiri journalist Aasif Sultan re-arrested days after release

Aasif Sultan, a former editor of Kashmir Narrator magazine, has been re-arrested under ‘anti-terror’ law days, two days after his release following five years in jail.

A Kashmiri journalist, who was released after spending more than five years in jail earlier this week, has been re-arrested by police in another case under India’s stringent “anti-terror” law, according to his lawyer.

Aasif Sultan, 36, has been sent to a five-day police remand after he was produced in a court in the city of Srinagar on Friday, Adil Abdullah Pandit, Sultan’s lawyer, told Al Jazeera.

Pandit said that Sultan was arrested on Thursday in a 2019 case regarding violence inside the central jail in Srinagar under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which international rights groups have described as a “draconian” law. Srinagar is the largest city and summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Here’s why Americans drive on the right and the UK drives on the left

I drove out to Pennsylvania’s rural Amish country to see a man about a wagon. I was looking to nail down the answer to a question I’ve had since 2015 when I traveled to England on a work trip.

Back when I was motoring through London, very carefully, in a Mini Cooper, I wondered: Why was I driving on the “wrong” side of the road? I’m from the United States, which started as a bunch of former British colonies. We speak the same language, more or less. But we drive on opposite sides, sometimes with hazardous effects.

And the United Kingdom isn’t the only country, of course, to do it the other way. It turns out that about 30% of the world’s countries mandate left-side driving and another 70% or so stay to the right. How it got that way is a winding tale.

Six In The Morning Friday 1 March 2024

 

Global condemnation grows over Israel’s killing of Gaza aid seekers

France calls for an independent inquiry as more countries speak out against the shootings of Palestinians seeking food.

French authorities have called for an independent inquiry into the killing of more than 100 Palestinians who were collecting food aid in northern Gaza as global outrage against Israel’s attack grows.

At least 112 people were killed and more than 750 wounded in the attack, which occurred at the Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza City on Thursday.

Witnesses said Israeli soldiers opened fire as people gathered for flour while Israeli officials said their soldiers fired because they felt threatened when people stormed the aid trucks.

Kenya signs deal in attempt to rescue plan for deployment of 1,000 police officers to Haiti

It’s not clear if the new agreement can circumvent the Kenyan high court’s earlier ruling that such a deployment is unconstitutional

Kenya and Haiti have a security deal to try to salvage a plan for Nairobi to deploy 1,000 police officers to the troubled Caribbean nation to help combat gang violence that has surged to unprecedented levels.

Kenya and Haiti have a security deal to try to salvage a plan for Nairobi to deploy 1,000 police officers to the troubled Caribbean nation to help combat gang violence that has surged to unprecedented levels.

 Kenya agreed in October to lead a UN-authorized international police force to Haiti, but the Kenyan high court in January ruled the plan unconstitutional, in part because of a lack of reciprocal agreements between the two countries.

Navalny buried at Moscow cemetery after prison death

Crowds chanted “Navalny, Navalny!” as his coffin was carried into the church for his funeral service. Proceedings had taken place amid a heavy security presence and warnings that protests would not have been allowed.

Thousands of people turned out in Moscow for the funeral of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny on Friday.

Many carried flowers and shouted support for the man who was one of  President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics.

Russian security forces maintained a significant presence at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, a Russian Orthodox church, and the Borisovskoye cemetery, where Navalny was laid to rest.

Navalny died at the age of 47 under mysterious circumstances during his imprisonment at a remote prison camp on February 16.

Iran heads to the polls with hardliners expected to tighten grip on power

Iranians voted on Friday in elections for parliament and a key clerical body, amid fears of a low turnout and with conservatives expected to tighten their grip on power.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called for a strong turnout, was the first to cast his ballot, at a polling station in central Tehran, state television reported.

The elections are the first in Iran since widespread protests erupted after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code for women.

Since the last elections, Iran has also been badly affected by international sanctions that have led to an economic crisis.

Gold and a naval base: Russia’s wish list in northeast Africa

Is Sudan still a state?

Seven million people have been displaced and around 20,000 killed in Sudan’s bloody, ongoing civil war, which has deep roots in the country’s history. Now, with a fast growing regional food crisis, Sudan is sliding into chaos.

by Gérard Prunier

When fierce fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary militia, the media attributed it entirely to the rival ambitions of ‘warlords’ General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti (‘little Mohamed’), respectively the president and vice-president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, the junta then running the country.

In reality, far from being caused by personal rivalry, this conflict is rooted in the long history of the region and Sudan’s never-ending economic and social crisis. This is why the fighting spread and turned more violent, fuelled by massive arms imports, in particular from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the RSF and Egypt for the SAF. To date, seven million people have been internally displaced or fled to Egypt or Chad. The government, itself displaced to Port Sudan, has lost control of half the country.

Largest wildfire in Texas history kills thousands of cattle

By Brandon Drenon BBC News, Washington

Thousands of cattle have been killed in a raging Texas blaze, the second largest wildfire in US history.

That fire, which spans over 1.1 million acres, has melted light posts, destroyed homes and left a blackened landscape in its wake.

Two people have been confirmed dead in the blaze, which is only 5% contained.

North Texas residents have been warned the wildfire may worsen over the weekend, fuelled by low humidity and high winds.

Fire weather watches have been issued in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle from Saturday through to midnight on Sunday as firefighters rush to contain the conflagration.

Six In The Morning Thursday 29 February 2024

 

Dozens killed while waiting for food aid

  • At least 104 Palestinians waiting for food aid killed and 760 wounded after being shot at by Israeli forces in Gaza.
  • Israeli air strikes and shelling have killed at least 30 people in separate attacks in the Nuseirat, Bureij and Khan Younis camps in Gaza.
  • The NGO Save the Children says world is “witnessing mass killing of children in slow motion” in Gaza.
  • Gaza Health Ministry says six children died in north Gaza from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan and al-Shifa hospitals, while others are in critical condition.
  • At least 30,035 people have been killed and 70,457 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel from the October 7 attacks stands at 1,139.

Martin Griffiths says he’s “appalled” at the killing and wounding of hundreds of people during the transfer of aid earlier today.

“Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed,” the UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs wrote in a post on X, noting that even after almost five months of “brutal hostilities, Gaza still has the ability to shock us”.

US funding delays hurt the Pacific – but there are bigger worries

Terence Wesley-Smith and Gerard Finin

Pacific leaders are increasingly concerned that Washington’s actions in the region conflict with their objectives

Adelay by the US in providing crucial funding to Pacific Island nations is fuelling concern in the region – but questions about the competing visions held by the US and regional leaders are even more pressing.

The funding is part of longstanding agreements the US has with three nations in the north Pacific, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Marshall Islands and Palau. The agreements, known as the Compacts of Free Association (Cofa), provide a range of assistance to these nations, including visa-free entry to the US, grant assistance, trust fund contributions, and support for government services including the US postal service. In exchange, the US gets exclusive military access to large parts of the north Pacific.

South Korea: Striking trainee doctors face prosecution

The South Korean government has warned trainee doctors they could face legal punishment if they don’t end their strike. Protests have been taking place over plans to boost medical school enrollments

The government in South Korea made a last-ditch appeal to striking doctors on Thursday to end their mass walkout, or face having their medical licenses suspended and prosecution.

Thousands of resident and intern doctors have walked off the job for the past 10 days in protest over government plans to raise the number of students enrolling at medical school by 2,000 each year.

They argue that the government should first address pay and working conditions before attempting to raise the number of doctors.

Chad opposition leader killed in army attack on party headquarters, govt says

A leading opponent of Chad’s ruling junta Yaya Dillo Djerou has been killed in an army assault on his party headquarters, a government spokesman told AFP Thursday.

Dillo died on Wednesday “where he had retreated, at the headquarters of his party. He didn’t want to surrender and fired on law enforcement,” Abderaman Koulamallah, who is also communications minister, said.

The prosecutor general earlier spoke of “dead including Yaya Dillo” without detailing the circumstances.

Dillo, who led the opposition Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF), was accused of having led an attack against the offices of the internal security agency overnight on Tuesday to Wednesday.

Meta accused of ‘massive, illegal’ data processing by European consumer groups

European consumer rights groups have accused Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, of carrying out a “massive” and “illegal” operation of collecting data from hundreds of millions of users in the region.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), an umbrella body for 45 consumer groups, said eight of the groups were filing complaints with their respective national data protection authorities Thursday.

The groups claim that Meta (META) collects an unnecessary amount of information on its users — such as data used to infer their sexual orientation, emotional state or even their susceptibility to addiction — which they are unable to freely consent to.

Putin warns West against sending troops to Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Western countries against sending troops to Ukraine.

The consequences of such a decision would be “tragic”, he said.

In his annual state of the nation address, President Putin accused the West of trying to drag Russia into an arms race.

At the same time, he said that Russia needed to strengthen its defences on its western border now that Sweden and Finland were joining Nato.

President Putin said the West “provoked” the conflict in Ukraine and “continues to lie, without any embarrassment, saying that Russia allegedly intends to attack Europe”.

Six In The Morning Wednesday 28 February 2024

 

How indiscriminate Israeli fire killed half a family in Gaza

The right side of Roba Abu Jibba’s face is almost completely gone – a deep, bloody wound is where her eye should be.

The 18-year-old, confused and in pain, lies on a gurney in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. She tries to explain how she got there. She had been sheltering with her family for two months in an industrial warehouse on Salaheddin Street, the strip’s main north-south highway, she explains, when they came under heavy fire from the Israeli military.

In a whisper, she recalls being shot at, explosions and bulldozing. She says she watched her brothers and sisters die around her. Her mother and three of her siblings were able to flee, but she’s not sure where they went.

‘When have we ever had democracy?’: is Thelma Cabrera Guatemala’s most surprising politician?

The Indigenous activist explains why the country’s ‘democratic spring’ is an illusion and why, despite violence and corruption, she would consider a third presidential bid

by  in Guatemala City

Thelma Cabrera wraps her tiny body around a large mango tree. It is a warm embrace between old acquaintances: as a girl , she walked past this tree every day on her way to the coffee plantation where she worked with her mother and siblings. On good days, she recalls, they could pick ripe mangoes off the ground.

Today, dressed in flip-flops, a colourful checked skirt and a floral top, the 53-year-old may well be Guatemala’s most surprising politician – even without her penchant for hugging trees.

A Maya woman from the Mam people, Cabrera has run for president twice – in 2019 and 2023 – on behalf of the socialist Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (MLP) party, with a manifesto promising a new plurinational constitution and advocating for the Indigenous philosophy of el buen vivir: a sustainable and organic “good life” instead of the large-scale agriculture that dominates the Guatemalan countryside.

Germany inspects North Korea embassy closed since COVID

Germany has made a temporary inspection of its embassy in North Korea after the diplomatic mission was closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. No decision has yet been taken about whether it will be reopened.

A team from the German Foreign Office has been sent to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, with a decision yet to be taken about whether Berlin’s embassy there will be reopened.

The already isolated state shut its borders completely at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which broke out in neighboring China.

A German Foreign Office spokesman told DW that a team had been sent to Pyongyang to conduct a purely technical inspection of the facility.

Several killed in attack on Chad’s intelligence services office in capital, says government

An attack on the office of Chad’s ANSE internal security agency in the capital N’Djamena has killed several people, the government said Wednesday.

Blaming the overnight assault on activists from the opposition Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF), headed by Yaya Dillo, the government said that “the situation is now completely under control” and “the perpetrators of this act have been arrested or are being sought and will be prosecuted”.

The attack came after a party member was arrested and accused of an “assassination attempt against the president of the supreme court”, it said.

Dillo is a fierce opponent of Chad‘s transitional president, his cousin Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

He denounced the attack against the supreme court president as “staged”.

Small drone flies into damaged Fukushima reactor for first time to study melted fuel

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

A drone small enough to fit in one’s hand flew inside one of the damaged reactors at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Wednesday in hopes it can examine some of the molten fuel debris in areas where earlier robots failed to reach.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings also began releasing the fourth batch of the plant’s treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea Wednesday. The government and TEPCO, the plant’s operator, say the water is safe and the process is being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the discharges have faced strong opposition by fishing groups, as well as a Chinese ban on Japanese seafood.

Alexei Navalny’s funeral to be held on Friday in Moscow

By Laura Gozzi 
BBC News

Alexei Navalny will be buried in Moscow on Friday, a spokesperson has confirmed.

The service will be held at Borisovskoye Cemetery, after a farewell service at a Moscow church.

In a speech on Wednesday, the opposition leader’s widow Yulia said she didn’t know if the funeral would be peaceful or if police would arrest those who came to say goodbye.

Alexei Navalny died suddenly in an Arctic prison earlier this month.

For years, he was the most high-profile critic of Vladimir Putin. His widow has blamed the Russian president for his death, as have many world leaders.

Few details have been released on the cause of his death, and Russian authorities initially refused to hand Navalny’s body over to his mother Lyudmila. They finally relented eight days after he died.

On Tuesday, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said his team were struggling to find somewhere to hold the ceremony – some funeral homes had claimed they were fully booked, she said, while others had refused when they found out who the event was for.

Six In The Morning Tuesday 27 February 2024

 ‘Trying to keep children busy so they don’t hear bombs’: Follow daily life in Gaza

Summary

  1. The BBC is bringing you a detailed insight on life inside Gaza in a special day of coverage
  2. People in Gaza, many of whom have fled their homes, are sharing with us how their daily lives have changed during the war
  3. A nurse, Rewaa Mohsen, describes the struggle of keeping her daughter entertained “so she doesn’t hear bombs”
  4. Yahya Hussen, a 30-year-old fashion designer, says food prices are “astronomical”, with basics like cheese and eggs too expensive for many people

Electricity shortage shuts down key hospital services

Another doctor, this time from northern Gaza, is now telling us about the situation there. In a voicenote, Dr Mohammed Salha explains how three departments at his hospital stopped running today because of electricity shortages:

Today, we stopped the operating department and also the laboratory department and the X-Ray department because we can’t run the generator.

We are providing emergency services only.

Dr Mohammed has also sent over photos of staff inside the hospital cooking.

Like others in Gaza we’ve been hearing from today, he says staff have been baking bread over fire.

‘Fight waste to fight hunger’: food banks embrace imperfection to feed millions in Brazil

More than 40% of produce in the country is lost or wasted but new research highlights how it could be a key tool in fighting rising food insecurity. One charity is leading the charge

About half a dozen men in hairnets busy themselves with crates of fresh produce outside a food depot in Rio de Janeiro’s northern suburbs. As one reels off a list of products, the others place oddly shaped vegetables into large bags before loading them into a waiting car. The produce will later be cooked and served in soup kitchens, nurseries and other institutions offering free meals to people in need across the city.

The depot is run by Brazil’s biggest network of food banks, Sesc Mesa Brasil. With 95 units all over the country, Mesa – which means table in Portuguese – collects food that would otherwise go to waste from supermarkets, farmers and other suppliers and retailers, sorts it, and then donates it to partner organisations.

Somalia-Turkey security deal: How does it impact Ethiopia?

Somalia’s recent deal with Turkey has raised the stakes in a simmering maritime dispute with Ethiopia. Experts say it could escalate the conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Turkey and Somalia last week signed a significant defense and economic cooperation agreement.

Under the 10-year pact, Turkey will help defend Somalia’s long coastline and also rebuild the naval forces of the fragile Horn of Africa nation.

“We will help Somalia develop its capacity and capabilities to combat illegal and irregular activities in its territorial waters,” a Turkish Defense Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.

The Malawians braving climate shocks and red tape to make banana wine

Global warming has shrunk crop yields in farming communities. Some have poured their frustration into making wine.

Regina Mukandawire has been growing bananas on her small farm in the Karonga district in northern Malawi for more than 16 years. But heatwaves, floods and disease outbreaks that have hit the country since 2010 have gradually reduced her yields from half a tonne to only a few buckets per harvest.

“If it’s extremely hot, ripe bananas will quickly rot, meaning you won’t be able to sell them,” the 38-year-old mother of six told Al Jazeera. “Again, when floods happen, the trees are affected, and heavy storms can actually destroy a whole farm.”

Malawi is suffering some of the worst impacts of climate change despite being one of the world’s lowest emitters of greenhouse gases. The dry spell caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon during the 2016-2017 season also left a third of the country’s 18 million people in dire need of food assistance.

Tourists have returned to North Korea for the first time since the pandemic. Here’s what they saw

Lena Bychcova couldn’t really believe it when her North Korean tourist visa came through.

Many Russian tourists have found themselves locked out of tourism destinations. But North Korea — as a key Russian ally — offered a rare opportunity to travel.

The marketing professional was one of about 100 Russian nationals who were allowed to travel to North Korea this month in what is believed to be the hermit kingdom’s first international tourist trip since the coronavirus pandemic.

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