Sep 06 2023
Six In The Morning Wednesday 6 September 2023
The videos ISIS didn’t want you to see: How grainy security footage could help hold abusers to account
The footage is mundane and revelatory all at once.
The hallway, filmed from an unmoving closed-circuit camera, appears unremarkable. It’s the point in time, and the people in the former children’s hospital, that make the hours and hours of video from this and other cameras on site extraordinary.
ISIS fighters roamed the hallways of this building complex in the Syrian city of Aleppo, which they had claimed as a headquarters. They moved blindfolded prisoners. They struck them with sticks. They walked past a man being tortured – straining to stand, arms tied aloft behind his back.
They felt at ease.
Ukraine promises ‘retribution’ as market attack kills 17
Number of dead rises to 17
The number of people killed in Konstyantynivka has risen to 17, with 32 injured, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko has said in a post on Telegram.
The search and rescue operation has been completed, he added.
Kostyantynivka the latest in a series of attacks on civilians
There have been countless civilian attacks on Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Here are some of the worst attacks on civilians over the last few months:
- 6 September: 16 civilians, including one child, killed in Kostyantynivka
- 23 August: Three elderly people killed in Russian artillery fire near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman
- 19 August: Seven people, including a six-year-old child, killed and 110 injured in a strike in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv
- 8 August: Seven killed in a Russian missile attack on residential buildings in the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk
- 31 July: Six killed, including a 10-year-old girl and her mother, by a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih
- 27 June: 11 killed in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine – among them 14-year-old twin sisters Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko
- 18 May: Three people– including a five-year-old boy – killed in Kherson, and five more killed in occupied Donetsk
- 14 April: 11 civilians – including a two-year-old child – killed in Slovyansk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region
- 2 April: Six killed, also in Kostyantynivka, with missiles and rockets damaging 16 apartment blocks and a nursery school
Syrian refugee deported from Greece loses case against EU border agency
Ruling against man who claimed family were ‘pushback’ victims seen as blow to efforts to make Frontex accountable
A Syrian refugee has lost a landmark case against the EU’s border protection agency, Frontex, after he and his family were forcibly deported from Greece before his asylum application was processed.
The ruling is seen as a major blow to efforts to make the operations of Frontex in Greece and other countries more transparent and accountable to the member states who employ them.
The Syrian man and his wife and four small children made the perilous journey via people-smugglers from war-torn Aleppo to Greece in 2016 but 11 days after making landfall they were flown to Turkey by Frontex.
UN warns of ‘climate breakdown’ after record heat
UN chief Antonio Guterres says “climate breakdown has begun” after the Northern Hemisphere saw its hottest summer on record. August was the third month in a row to set a global monthly heat record.
This year has seen the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
“Our planet has just endured a season of simmering — the hottest summer on record. Climate breakdown has begun,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.
Scientists have said the burning of coal, oil and natural gas for human activity is driving ever-higher temperatures around the globe as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere and hold in heat. This year, El Nino, a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that occurs naturally, has also played a role in raising the global temperature.
As parents migrate, Venezuelan kids fall prey to abuse
Venezuelan children, left behind by parents seeking a better life elsewhere and forsaken by a crumbling schooling system, are increasingly falling victim to sexual predators.
In some cases, experts say, the abuse even happens with the consent of caretakers desperate for “payment” in food or cash.
Reported cases of child sex abuse in the economic crisis-hobbled South American country rose to more than 5,500 in 2022 — up nearly 30 percent from a year earlier, according to official data, and a ten-year high.
Some 10 million of Venezuela’s 30 million inhabitants are children or teenagers.
According to criminologist Magally Huggins, emigration is leaving children vulnerable as they are handed off to grandparents, other family members or even neighbors.
Another cause is the crisis in the education system, with public schools open only one or two days a week as teachers work fewer hours to compensate for low salaries.
India or Bharat: What’s behind the dispute over the country’s name?
A change to the Sanskrit name is backed by PM Narendra Modi’s BJP, which says the word ‘India’ is a symbol of colonial slavery.
Controversy has gripped India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government referred to the country as Bharat on official invitations, leaving many wondering whether the name will be changed.
In dinner invitations sent on Tuesday to guests attending this week’s Group of 20 (G20) summit, Droupadi Murmu is referred to as “President of Bharat” instead of the usual “President of India”.
On the same day, a tweet by a senior spokesman of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Modi was attending a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia as the “prime minister of Bharat”.
Sep 05 2023
Six In The Morning Tuesday 5 September 2023
How US-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles helped Ukraine win the battle for Robotyne
The T0408 was once a country lane that led peacefully southward through the open fields of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, from Orikhiv through Robotyne and on to Tokmak.
Now, the men of Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade have renamed it “the road to hell” and the picture they paint is apocalyptic: the sky “black with drones,” constant artillery and aerial bombardments and the once-fertile fields crammed with Russian mines, trenches and dugouts that make any southward progress virtually impossible.
Cuba uncovers ‘human trafficking ring’ recruiting for Russia’s war in Ukraine
Havana says it is dismantling network seeking to recruit Cubans as mercenaries as Moscow attempts to boost its forces
Cuba has uncovered a human trafficking ring aimed at recruiting Cubans to fight as mercenaries for Russia in its war in Ukraine, its foreign ministry has said, as Moscow seeks to increase the size of its forces in Ukraine.
In a statement, the Cuban foreign ministry said that the authorities were working to “neutralise and dismantle” the network, which it said was operating within the Caribbean island nation and in Russia.
“The ministry of the interior … is working on the neutralisation and dismantling of a human trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the Cuban ministry statement said.
Turkish, Greek foreign ministers hail ‘new era’ of relations
The two neighbors have long had tense relations and territorial disputes but are looking to mend fences. Their leaders plan to meet more often, barely a year after Turkey’s president implied they’d never speak again.
The foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey announced a new era of friendly cooperation after a high-level meeting in Ankara on Tuesday.
The two Mediterranian neighbors have long had tense relations, including over their maritime borders and the status of Cyprus.
But more recently they have sought to mend relations, evidenced by Greece’s humanitarian aid in the wake of the devastating Turkish earthquakes earlier this year and Turkey’s condolences after a fatal train crash in Greece.
France confirms ‘talks’ with Niger junta over future of French troops
The French army is holding talks with Niger’s military over withdrawing “elements” of its presence there following a coup, a defence ministry source said on Tuesday.
There has been speculation that France will be forced into a full military pullout from Niger after the July 26 putsch, which ousted French ally President Mohamed Bazoum.
Some 1,500 troops are deployed in Niger as part of France’s wider fight against jihadists in the Sahel.
The country became a crucial hub for France after coups forced the withdrawal of French troops from neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso.
“Discussions on the withdrawal of certain military elements have begun,” the defence ministry source told AFP, asking not to be named. The source did not give details.
Schools in France send dozens of Muslim girls home for wearing abayas
Schoolgirls who refused to change out of the loose-fitting robes have been sent home with a letter to parents on secularism.
French public schools have sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – long, loose-fitting robes worn by some Muslim women and girls – on the first day of the school year, according to Education Minister Gabriel Attal.
Defying a ban on the garment seen as a religious symbol, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing abayas, Attal told the BFM broadcaster on Tuesday.
Most agreed to change out of the robe, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said.
The government announced last month it was banning the abaya in schools, saying it broke the rules on secularism in education that have already seen headscarves forbidden on the grounds they constitute a display of religious affiliation.
Ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to be sentenced for Capitol riot
The former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group will be sentenced on Tuesday for his role in the US Capitol riot.
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, 39, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges.
Tarrio wasn’t present in Washington during the riot on 6 January 2021, having been arrested and ordered to leave the city before the unrest.
Instead he watched from a hotel room in nearby Baltimore.
After the November 2020 US presidential election, Tarrio and other Proud Boys posted a number of threatening messages online, warning of violence and unrest if Donald Trump left office.
Sep 04 2023
Six In The Morning Monday 4 September 2023
Burning Man: Revellers begin to leave as boggy conditions improve
Weather conditions at the Burning Man festival in the US have eased enough to allow revellers to start leaving.
Heavy rain had turned the event, held in a desert in Nevada, into a mud bath.
The ground is now dry enough for vehicles to drive on it without getting stuck, and pictures show campervans driving out of the event.
Some 72,000 people had been stranded at the festival, but organisers say they are ready for a mass exodus from Monday morning, local time.
They have also confirmed that a man’s death at the event on Friday was unrelated to the bad weather.
They said that emergency services were called to help the man, said to be about 40 years old, but he could not be resuscitated. The local sheriff’s office earlier said it was investigating.
EU to rethink conservation status of wolves after numbers surge
Ursula Von der Leyen calls for action as attacks on livestock prompt rise in complaints from farmers
The EU is to review the conservation status of wolves on the continent after a remarkable comeback of the carnivore species raised protests from farmers whose livestock have become prey.
“The concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said. “I urge local and national authorities to take action where necessary. Indeed, current EU legislation already enables them to do so.”
It is a subject close to Von der Leyen’s heart after her pony, Dolly, was killed last September by a wolf that broke into a well-guarded compound in north-west Germany.
Gabon coup leader sworn in as interim leader
The general who led Gabon’s coup has been sworn in as interim president and vowed to restore civilian rule through “free, transparent and credible elections” after a transitional period
General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema on Monday has been sworn in as the interim head of state of Gabon, less than a week after President Ali Bongo Ondimba was ousted.
Nguema took the oath of office in the presidential palace in the capital city Libreville before a room crammed with government officials and military leaders.
Interim leader promises elections after transition
Nguema vowed to hold “free, transparent and credible elections” following a transitional period, the length of which he did not stipulate.
In a televised address, Nguema proposed reforms that would include the adoption of a new constitution along with new electoral and penal codes.
IAEA regrets ‘no progress’ as Iran falls short of nuclear commitments
The UN nuclear watchdog said Monday it regretted that “no progress” had been made by Iran on outstanding issues, including installing more cameras to monitor Tehran’s nuclear programme.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi “requests Iran to work with the agency in earnest and in a sustained way towards the fulfilment of the commitments,” the agency said in a confidential report seen by AFP.
Tehran in March vowed to reactivate surveillance devices which were disconnected in June 2022 amid deteriorating relations with the West.
In a separate report, also seen by AFP, the IAEA said Iran’s total stockpile of enriched uranium was lower than in May but still more than 18 times the limit set in a 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers.
Top court ruling obligates Tamaki to OK changes to U.S. base work
By TAKASHI ENDO/ Staff Writer
September 4, 2023 at 18:59 JST
Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki has come under pressure to reverse his rejection of the central government’s proposed changes to land reclamation work for the relocation of a U.S. military base within his prefecture under a Supreme Court ruling on Sept. 4.
The top court upheld a high court ruling, which obligates Tamaki to approve the solidifying work of the soft seabed off the Henoko district of Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, where a replacement facility for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, also in the prefecture, is planned.
If Tamaki, who won two gubernatorial elections on a promise to block the base relocation, again refuses to approve the design changes, the central government could take a series of steps to do so by proxy, including another lawsuit.
Ukraine needs to “soften its approach” to revive Black Sea grain deal with Russia, Turkish president says
Ukraine needs to “soften its approach” to revive the Black Sea grain deal, from which Russia withdrew in July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
“In order to be able to take common steps with Russia, Ukraine needs to soften its approach. Especially now, grain which will be sent to the least developed poverty-stricken African countries is important,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin after a meeting in Sochi.
“Putin rightfully does not approve if 44% of the grain goes to European countries,” the Turkish leader added.
Sep 03 2023
Six In The Morning Sunday 3 September 2023
Threats, insults, and Kremlin ‘robots’: How Russian diplomacy died under Putin
Russia’s diplomats were once a key part of President Putin’s foreign policy strategy. But that has all changed.
In the years leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomats lost their authority, their role reduced to echoing the Kremlin’s aggressive rhetoric.
BBC Russian asks former Western diplomats, as well as ex-Kremlin and White House insiders, how Russian diplomacy broke down.
In October 2021, US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland went to a meeting at the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow. The man across the table was Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, whom Ms Nuland had known for decades and always got along with.
Airstrike in Khartoum kills 20 civilians, activists in Sudan say
Artillery and rocket fire also reported as fighting between armed forces and paramilitaries shows no sign of abating
Residents of Khartoum woke to artillery and rocket fire on Sunday, hours after an airstrike in the south of the city killed at least 20 civilians including two children, according to Sudanese activists.
“The death toll from the aerial bombardment” in southern Khartoum “has risen to 20 civilian fatalities,” according to a statement by the neighbourhood’s resistance committee. It is one of many volunteer groups that used to organise pro-democracy demonstrations and now provide assistance to families caught in the crossfire between the army and paramilitary fighters.
In an earlier statement, it said the victims included two children, and that more fatalities went unrecorded as “their bodies could not be moved to the hospital because they were severely burned or torn to pieces in the bombing”.
Spying and SabotageHow Russia Is Paralyzing Europe’s Peace Organization
The threat was hardly veiled: The diplomat from Moscow warned that the long arm of Russia can reach a very long way. “Anyone,” he said, can be caught, “anywhere,” including diplomats from other countries. His sharp words were directed at a counterpart from Lithuania. At a March 2022 meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an organization whose goal is peace, the Lithuanian had dared criticize Russia’s war, thus drawing the ire of his Russian colleague. In the end, the Russian threatened to place his fellow diplomat on trial in Russia, where criticizing the war can result in prison sentences of up to 15 years.
The verbal outburst is one of many conflicts currently rocking the security organization. Nothing has been the same for the OSCE since founding member Russian invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The war, it seems, has totally caught up with the peace organization. Ukraine’s ambassador to the OSCE, Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, calls it an “existential crisis created by Russia.”
France’s public schools will enforce dress code banning Islamic abayas, says Macron
French students won’t get past the door if they show up for school wearing long robes, President Emmanuel Macron made clear Friday, saying authorities would be “intractable” in enforcing a new rule when classes resume next week.
French Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced at a news conference six days ago that robes worn mainly by Muslims, known as abayas for girls and women and khamis for boys and men, would be banned with the start of the new school year on Monday.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Sunday rejected any accusation of unfair treatment with the introduction of this ban. “I can see that there is manipulation and attempts at provocation on the part of some. I’m thinking in particular of LFI (La France Insoumise or France Unbowed – a French left-wing political party),” Borne said in an interview with French radio network RTL.
“But I want to state things very clearly: there is no stigmatisation. Every one of our fellow citizens, whatever their religion, has their place in our country,” she said.
Colombian government and rebels agree on ceasefire
In a renewed attempt to broker peace, Colombia’s leftist President Petro agreed on a ceasefire with an armed dissident group. The EMC is a splinter group that rejected the 2016 deal broadly honored by the larger FARC.
The Colombian government and armed dissidents called Estado Mayor Central (EMC), announced on Saturday that they had agreed to renew a ceasefire, brokered and broken several times in recent months, and peace talks.
It’s part of leftist President Gustavo Petro’s bid to expand on his predecessor’s landmark peace deal with the country’s biggest rebel group, FARC, which disarmed in 2016.
The current truce will “aim to reduce confrontation and violence” said the joint statement.
The ceasefire, the statement said, will apply across the country with the aim of including “civil society in the peace process.”
Gaza’s calligraffiti of hope
Sadly, the Gaza Strip is no stranger to violence and destruction, with repeated Israeli assaults on the besieged enclave exacerbated by the Israeli siege that prevents the entry of building material to mend what was shattered.
So the people of Gaza are no strangers to the rubble that punctuates their everyday lives, manoeuvring around the piles of broken walls with their steel rebar reaching up into the sky.
Palestinian artist Ayman al-Hosari, 35, has always been affected by the ugliness of the piles of rubble and the suffering that they represent.
So, one day, he decided to take matters into his own hands, gathering up brushes, rags and his inspiration and heading for the nearest pile of rubble.
Sep 02 2023
Six In The Morning Saturday 2 September 2023
Aditya-L1: India successfully launches its first mission to the Sun
India has launched its first observation mission to the Sun, just days after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the Moon’s south pole.
Aditya-L1 lifted off from the launch pad at Sriharikota on Saturday at 11:50 India time (06:20 GMT).
It will travel 1.5 million km (932,000 miles) from the Earth – 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.
India’s space agency says it will take four months to travel that far.
India’s first space-based mission to study the solar system’s biggest object is named after Surya – the Hindu god of Sun who is also known as Aditya.
And L1 stands for Lagrange point 1 – the exact place between Sun and Earth where the Indian spacecraft is heading.
Possibility of arrest grows for Bolsonaro over jewellery scandal
Friends and foes of Brazil’s former president believe it is only a matter of time before he is detained
Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has never shown much sympathy for prisoners.
“Why should we give those dirtbags a good life? … They should just get f—d, full-f—ing-stop. That’s what I reckon,” he once ranted.
Many in Brazil believe those words may soon come back to haunt the far-right populist, amid growing speculation Bolsonaro could be close to arrest thanks to a tangle of criminal investigations and scandals involving luxury watches, phoney vaccination records, a four-star general, a computer hacker and a botched military coup.
Cyprus riots over migrant influx: 13 arrested
Cyprus police made arrests after a right-wing anti-migrant protest that turned violent in the port city of Limassol. The Cypriot president condemned the riots.
Cypriot leaders met on Saturday to discuss a violent right-wing protest against refugees and migrants that erupted on Friday evening in the port city of Limassol.
Police arrested 13 people after a mob vandalized shop fronts and set fire to scores of rubbish bins during an anti-immigration march. Among those arrested was the alleged organizer of the march.
An emergency meeting was held in the presidential building with the relevant ministers and heads of the police, civil defense and fire service.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides condemned “images of shame” and suggested that the violence was the product of a group of petty criminals who had no real connection to the migration situation.
Gabon’s military rulers to reopen borders with ‘immediate effect’
Gabon’s army said on Saturday that it would reopen the country’s borders, closed in the wake of the military coup that ousted ex-president Ali Bongo
A spokesman for Gabon‘s military rulers said on state TV that they had “decided with immediate effect to reopen the land, sea and air borders as of this Saturday”.
A group of 12 Gabonese soldiers had announced on Wednesday that the country’s borders were closed until further notice, in a statement broadcast on the Gabon 24 television channel.
General Brice Oligui Nguema, the head of the elite Republican Guard, on Wednesday led officers in a coup against President Ali Bongo Ondimba, scion of a family that had ruled for 55 years.
His ousting came just moments after Bongo, 64, was proclaimed victor in presidential elections at the weekend — a result branded a fraud by the opposition.
Nihon University suspends football team again over cannabis allegations
Nihon University said Friday that it has indefinitely suspended its American football team again and closed its dormitory over the suspected possession of cannabis by more team members.
A team member was arrested for alleged possession of cannabis and an illegal stimulant on Aug. 5 following a police search of the football team’s dormitory in Tokyo.
The university then ordered the team to suspend practice indefinitely but said on Aug. 10 that it had lifted the suspension as “many students’ efforts will come to nothing if they are forced to assume joint responsibility.”
Blue-water ambitions: Is China looking beyond its neighborhood now it has the world’s largest navy
China has built the world’s largest naval fleet, more than 340 warships, and until recently it has been regarded as a green-water navy, operating mostly near the country’s shores.
But China’s shipbuilding reveals blue-water ambitions. In recent years it has launched large guided-missile destroyers, amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers with the ability to operate in the open ocean and project power thousands of miles from Beijing.
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