Aug 08 2023
Late Night Music:The Same Deep Water as You
Aug 08 2023
Six In The Morning Tuesday 8 August 2023
July hit a crucial warming threshold that scientists have warned the world should stay under
The world got its first preview last month of what summer will be like at 1.5 degrees of global warming — a threshold that scientists warn the planet should stay under, yet one that it has flown increasingly close to in recent years.
The average global temperature in July, the hottest month on record by far, was around 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era that ended in the mid-to-late 1800s, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reported Tuesday.
The announcement came after a series of deadly heat waves and remarkable record-breaking temperatures for several continents, as well as unprecedented ocean heat around the globe. Copernicus scientists say it’s the first summer month that has surpassed 1.5 degrees, offering a glimpse of future summers.
Leaders of Amazon nations gather in Brazil for summit on rainforest’s future
Conclave represents handbrake turn in Brazilian government policy since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power
The leaders of Amazon nations including Brazil, Colombia and Peru have gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém for a rare conclave about the future of the world’s largest rainforest amid growing concern over the global climate emergency.
The environmental summit – convened by Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – represents a handbrake turn in Brazilian government policy after four years of Amazon destruction and international isolation under the country’s previous leader, Jair Bolsonaro.
Those who have flown into Belém for the meeting include Bolivia’s president, Luis Arce, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, Guyana’s prime minister, Mark Phillips, and Peru’s Dina Boluarte. Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, pulled out at the last minute blaming an ear infection. The other members of the eight-country Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), Ecuador and Suriname, have sent senior representatives.
Five French police officers detained over death of a man during Nahel riots
Five French police were arrested on Tuesday over the death of a 27-year-old man in the southern city of Marseille in early July during nationwide rioting, prosecutors said.
France was convulsed in late June and early July by violent rioting over the killing outside Paris on June 27 of a teenager by a policeman during a traffic check.
The riots were met by a forceful police response.
Hundreds of people were arrested and hundreds of police officers were wounded.
But there has never been any confirmation of a member of the security forces or a protester losing their life during the events.
The five police officers, all members of the elite Raid unit, were detained in Marseille for questioning in the probe over the death of Mohamed Bendriss, prosecutors said.
Several civilians and police are also giving evidence as witnesses, the prosecutors added.
Niger coup: Calls grow for diplomacy before ECOWAS summit
Niger’s junta has ignored an ultimatum by the West African bloc for the reinstating of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. Whether ECOWAS will follow through with its threat and intervene militarily remains uncertain.
Envoys from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) , the United Nations and the African Union are expected to hold talks in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on Tuesday, according to a report by the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
This comes as the West African bloc is set to hold a meeting on Thursday to discuss a response to Niger’s defiance to its ultimatum, which ECOWAS had set for the reinstating of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
Last week, ECOWAS defense chiefs agreed on a possible military action plan if Bazoum was not released and reinstated. But they said any operational decisions would be taken by heads of states.
Aso: A resolve to fight needed to deter China from invading Taiwan
By HARUNA SHIROMI/ Staff Writer
August 8, 2023 at 18:48 JST
Taro Aso, vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said Japan and other countries should show they are prepared to fight China to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
“Like-minded countries, led by Japan, Taiwan and the United States, should be prepared to set a very powerful deterrence into motion,” Aso, a former prime minister, said in a speech at a hotel here on Aug. 8. “It is the resolve to fight.”
Niger coup: Wagner taking advantage of instability – Antony Blinken
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group is “taking advantage” of instability in Niger, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told the BBC.
The country has been ruled by a junta following the ousting of President Mohamed Bazoum nearly two weeks ago.
There have been suggestions the coup leaders have asked for help from Wagner, which is known to be present in neighbouring Mali..
Mr Blinken said he did not think Russia or Wagner instigated Niger’s coup.
However the US was worried about the group “possibly manifesting itself” in parts of the Sahel region, he told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme
“I think what happened, and what continues to happen in Niger was not instigated by Russia or by Wagner, but… they tried to take advantage of it.
Aug 07 2023
Six In The Morning Monday 7 August 2023
West African leaders to meet after Niger junta defies deadline
Ecowas to hold talks on Thursday as west African country ignores demands to reinstate ousted president
The West African bloc Ecowas will meet on Thursday to discuss the coup in Niger, as cracks appeared in its unity and the military junta in Niamey refused to cave in to international pressure to stand down.
The announcement that the Economic Community of West African States would gather in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, came hours after the coup leaders ignored a deadline to reinstate the ousted president after the power grab on 26 July – a move the bloc had earlier warned could lead it to authorise a military intervention.
Shortly before the deadline, coup leaders closed Niger’s airspace until further notice, citing the threat of military intervention.
Storms and landslides claim lives in Slovenia, Austria
At least seven people have died amid heavy storms, floods, and landslides across Slovenia, Austria and Croatia. Further north, the extreme weather caused power outages and travel delays.
Rescue workers tackled extreme weather on Monday in Slovenia, Austria and Croatia, with record floods, hundreds of landslides and at least seven deaths.
The storms have forced the evacuation of villages and caused major damage, with emergency crews braced to respond to landslides and potential dam bursts.
Flooding and lightning prove fatal
Most of the deaths recorded so far have been in Slovenia, where the extreme weather was reported to have killed at least six people by Monday.
They included two Dutch men believed to have been struck by lightning and four Slovenians thought to have been caught up in the flooding.
Philippines summons Chinese ambassador over water-cannoned boats in South China Sea
Manila summoned Beijing’s envoy Monday after the China Coast Guard blocked and water cannoned Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea, President Ferdinand Marcos said.
The incident happened Saturday as the Philippine Coast Guard escorted charter boats carrying food, water, fuel and other supplies for Filipino military personnel stationed at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.
Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually, and has ignored a 2016 international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
The Philippine military and coast guard have accused the China Coast Guard of breaking international law in blocking and firing water cannon at the re-supply mission, which prevented one of the charter boats reaching the shoal.
China said it had taken “necessary controls” against Philippines boats that had “illegally” entered its waters.
Muslim homes, shops bulldozed; over 150 arrested in Nuh in India’s Haryana
Residents in BJP-ruled state’s only Muslim-majority district say more than 300 properties have been demolished in four days.
Abdul Rasheed says police locked him in a bus as a bulldozer demolished his shops in India’s northern Haryana state where a Muslim-majority district saw communal clashes last week.
“I was heartbroken. My family and children depended on the rent we received from the shops. We had rented shops to both Hindus and Muslims,” he told Al Jazeera on Sunday, adding that the authorities “gave no notice or showed any order, and bulldozed everything”.
“This is vengeance. They are destroying hotels, shops and homes. There is no appeal and hearing,” the 51-year-old said. “We have been handed a begging bowl.”
Trump and team seek to destroy credibility of his election subversion trial before a date is even set
Donald Trump and his legal team are escalating efforts to discredit and delay a trial over his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as his fight to avert criminal convictions becomes ever more indistinguishable from his presidential campaign.
The former president’s attorney Sunday vowed to petition to relocate the trial from Washington, DC, claiming that a local jury won’t reflect the “characteristics” of the American people. And as prosecutors seek a speedy trial, he warned that his team will seek to run out the process for years in an apparent attempt to move it past the 2024 election.
Trump demanded the judge set to hear the case recuse herself in a flurry of assaults on the process that may fail legally, but will play into his campaign narrative that he is a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration designed to thwart a White House comeback.
Jamboree participants to leave Saemangeum early due to Typhoon Khanun
Tropical storm expected to make landfall on Thursday morning
By Lee Hyo-jin
All participants of the World Scout Jamboree currently taking place in Saemangeum, a reclaimed tidal flat in North Jeolla Province, will leave the campsite for Seoul and its surrounding areas as Typhoon Khanun is expected to hit the nation on Thursday, the government announced, Monday.
Beginning Tuesday morning, tens of thousands of young Scouts will be relocated to the greater Seoul area under an emergency contingency plan initiated in the wake of the rapidly-approaching typhoon.
About 1,000 buses will be mobilized to transport some 36,000 participants from 156 countries. The Jamboree initially drew some 40,000 young Scouts from 159 nations, but the 1,500-member U.S. and 4,400-member U.K. delegations, along with participants from Singapore, pulled out from the campsite over the weekend citing risks posed by the heat wave.
Aug 06 2023
What’s Russia doing in Niger? | The Listening Post
A military takeover in Niger as the Kremlin and Russian mercenaries lurk on the sidelines and the airwaves. But would Russia be any less exploitative than Niger’s old colonial masters?
Aug 06 2023
Six In The Morning Sunday 6 August 2023
Pakistan passenger train derails killing 30
At least 30 people have been killed and 100 injured when a train derailed in southern Pakistan, a police spokesman has confirmed.
Several carriages of the Hazara Express overturned near Sahara railway station in Nawabshah, about 275km (171 miles) from the largest city Karachi.
Wounded passengers were moved to nearby hospitals. Rescue teams are trying to free people from the twisted wreckage.
Accidents on Pakistan’s antiquated railway system are not uncommon.
Railway Minister Saad Rafiq said initial investigations showed the train was travelling at normal speed and they were trying to establish what led to the derailment.
A railways spokesperson in Karachi said at least eight carriages went off the track.
Japan’s PM deplores ‘Russia’s nuclear threat’ on 78th anniversary of Hiroshima
Mayor of city where Little Boy atom bomb was dropped says nuclear deterrence is ‘folly’
Japan’s prime minister has hit out at Russian threats to use nuclear weapons as the country marked the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and 74,000 in Nagasaki three days later, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities days before the end of World War II.
“Japan, as the only nation to have suffered atomic bombings in war, will continue efforts towards a nuclear-free world,” said Fumio Kishida at a ceremony in Hiroshima on Sunday. “The path towards it is becoming increasingly difficult because of deepening divisions in the international community over nuclear disarmament and Russia’s nuclear threat.”
Rising RightThe German AfD’s Constant Drift Toward Extremism
Maximilian Krah adjusts the microphone in front of him before placing both hands on the lectern and addressing his party’s soaring numbers in public opinions: “We have more than doubled our support within a single year. And one thing is certain: We are far from satisfied!”
The 46-year-old Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician from the eastern state of Saxony – chosen last weekend as the right-wing party’s leading candidate in next year’s European Parliament elections – wants even more. And he speaks about the source of his inspiration. “We heard fantastic speeches here yesterday,” Krah says, referring to opening remarks delivered by representatives from other European right-wing parties the previous day.
Krah cites one in particular: “When it comes to our colleague from Bulgaria, you have to say: My goodness. That’s the kind of courage and passion we need to make it happen.”
Iran forces women defying hijab laws into psychiatric treatment
Authorities in Iran are trying to enforce laws obligating women to cover their hair by sending them into psychological treatment. While healthcare organisations warn the country’s judiciary is hijacking psychiatric medicine for its own purposes, others cite the move as being a sign of the government’s inability to enforce hijab laws.
In a symbolic act of defiance, Iranian actress Afsaneh Bayegan has repeatedly posted photos of her unveiled hair on Instagram, and recently attended a public ceremony without a hijab.
The move irked Iranian authorities, who have been looking for new ways to force women into covering their hair. Bayegan, 61, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and ordered to visit a “psychological centre” once a week to “treat her anti-family personality disorder”, the country’s Fars News Agency reported on July 19.
Many Iranian women have chosen to start showing their hair since the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 after being detained by Iran’s morality police for “improperly” wearing her headscarf. Iranian celebrities, athletes and actresses have followed suit in solidarity.
Philippines slams China for use of water cannon on boat
A tense confrontation between a Philippine vessel and China’s coast guard took place in the highly disputed South China Sea over the Second Thomas Shoal.
“We call on the China Coast Guard and the Central Military Commission to act with prudence and be responsible in their actions to prevent miscalculations and accidents that will endanger people’s lives,” the armed forces said.
China’s coast guard has said that its actions were compliant with the law and responded by saying that China has “indisputable” sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters, including the Second Thomas Shoal. It alleged that the Filipino boat was trespassing and carrying illegal construction material.
“Two repair ships and two coast guard ships from the Philippines illegally broke into the waters… in China’s Nansha Islands,” China Coast Guard spokesperson Gan Yu said, adding that Beijing “implemented necessary controls in accordance with the law and stopped Philippine ships carrying illegal building materials.”
Defiance, fear in Niger as ECOWAS deadline looms
The regional bloc’s ultimatum for Niger’s coup leaders to restore deposed President Mohamed Bazoum or risk military intervention is set to expire on Sunday.
Yeye Issoufou has joined pro-coup demonstrations in Niger three times since members of the presidential guards seized power in the West African country on July 26.
Numbering in their hundreds, the crowds have marched through the streets of Niger’s capital, Niamey, singing songs and waving placards hailing the country’s self-declared new leader Abdourahmane Tchiani. They booed “imperialist France” as well as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has threatened to intervene militarily and restore deposed President Mohamed Bazoum.
Issoufou, who works at Aghrymet, a climate institute in the capital, is frustrated by insecurity, corruption and a worsening economy in landlocked Niger. The country is battling armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) and is among the poorest in the world.
Aug 05 2023
Six In The Morning Saturday 5 August 2023
Russia says tanker hit in Ukrainian attack near Crimea
A Russian tanker with 11 crew members has been hit in a Ukrainian attack in the Black Sea, Russian officials say.
They said the vessel’s engine room was damaged in the overnight strike in the Kerch Strait. No-one was hurt.
Ukraine has not publicly commented. But a Ukrainian security service source told the BBC a sea drone had been used.
Saturday’s attack is the second in as many days involving such weapons. Russia, however, has not admitted any damage during Friday’s attack.
Naval drones, or sea drones, are small, unmanned vessels which operate on or below the water’s surface. Research by BBC Verify suggests Ukraine has carried out several attacks with sea drones.
Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan sentenced to three years in jail
Khan arrested in Lahore after court ruling bans him from politics for five years for corruption
Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has been arrested after a court in Islamabad sentenced him to three years in jail and disqualified him from politics for “corrupt practices” involving the sale of state gifts.
Khan, 70, was picked up by police from his home in Lahore on Saturday after a court ruled on the Toshakhana case, in which he was accused of illegally selling gifts from heads of state worth hundreds of millions of rupees.
Toshakhana is the government department that stores official gifts given to rulers and government officials. Last October, Pakistan’s election commission began investigating allegations that Khan had bought several of the valuable gifts, including an antique watch given to him by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and sold them for undeclared profit.
German AfD: Revival of far-right a ‘threat to Jewish life’
Germany’s antisemitism commissioner has spoken out about the surge in support for the Alternative for Germany. The far-right party is meeting in Magdeburg to finalize its list of candidates for the 2024 EU elections.
The German government’s antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, has expressed concern about the resurgence of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as polls suggest the party currently has the backing of a fifth of voters.
The AfD is holding a conference in the eastern German city of Magdeburg this weekend to finalize the list of its candidates and manifesto for the 2024 European elections in Magdeburg.
What did antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein say?
“I’m worried that a party like that would achieve such approval,” Klein told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper in remarks released on Saturday.
The latest Deutschlandtrend poll for public broadcaster ARD, published Thursday, suggested if elections were held now, 21% of German voters would back the AfD. That compares to 10.3% two years ago.
US, UK scouts quit S Korea World Scout Jamboree campsite over extreme heat
Hundreds of participants in scouting event in South Korea’s southwest have fallen ill due to soaring temperatures.
Scouts from the United States and the United Kingdom are leaving the site of an international scouting jamboree in South Korea after hundreds of participants fell ill due to extreme heat.
The US scouts will move to a US army base about 175km (109 miles) from the site of the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea’s southwest after taking part in the jamboree programme on Saturday, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an email to parents.
The move comes after the UK Scout Association on Friday announced it would pull more than 4,000 scouts from the campsite and move them into hotels over the weekend due to soaring temperatures.
U.N. group says people abused by late Japanese boy band producer deserve apologies and compensation
By YURI KAGEYAMA
The men who came forward to allege they were sexually abused as teenagers by Japanese boy band producer Johnny Kitagawa now have a powerful listener: the United Nations.
Damilola Olawuyi, chair of the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights, told reporters Friday the number of victims may total several hundred, and he accused Japan’s mainstream media of standing silent about the alleged abuse for decades.
Olawuyi raised serious questions about the sincerity of the response from the talent agency Kitagawa founded, Johnny & Associates. He urged other entertainment industry players to carry out a “transparent and legitimate investigation with a clear timeline.”
Junya Hiramoto, one of seven men who talked with Olawuyi’s team, was moved to tears by the U.N. official’s remarks.
Top Russian soprano axed over Ukraine invasion sues Met Opera
Anna Netrebko requests $360,000 damages after being dropped when manager Peter Gelb demanded she repudiate Vladimir Putin
Soprano Anna Netrebko, once among the Metropolitan Opera’s biggest box office draws, has sued the New York opera company and general manager Peter Gelb, alleging defamation, breach of contract and other violations related to the institution’s decision to drop her following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The suit, filed in US district court in Manhattan on Friday, asks for at least $360,000 in damages for lost performance and rehearsal fees. Netrebko claims the Met caused ”severe mental anguish and emotional distress” that included “depression, humiliation, embarrassment, stress and anxiety, and emotional pain and suffering.”
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