Six In The Morning Thursday April 16

Holocaust Remembrance Day: Museum Showcases Survivors' Toys

BY PAUL GOLDMAN

JERUSALEM — Ina Rennert mislaid her best friend Miszou the teddy bear as the German bombs started falling.

Her family was fleeing the Nazis' 1939 invasion of Poland when the road they were traveling came under attack.

"I ran and hid under a tree ... and Miszou was left in the car," said Rennert, who is now 80. "I cried hysterically and I remember my mom running to the car just to bring me my teddy bear."

Her family, along with Miszou, escaped death on this occasion but Rennert's father and grandfather were later caught and killed by the Nazis. Rennert eventually moved to Israel from France with her own two children.

Amnesty warns human rights abuses ‘unabated’ before Bahrain Grand Prix

• Amnesty International report details ‘chilling’ crackdown on dissent 
• ‘Notion that Bahrain respects freedom of expression is pure fiction’ 
• Leading Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab arrested for highlighting prison abuse

Owen Gibson

@owen_g

Thursday 16 April 2015 00.04 BST

A major report from Amnesty International released to coincide with this weekend’s Formula One grand prix has warned that human rights abuses in Bahrain continue “unabated” despite repeated assurances from the authorities that the situation is improving.

The Bahrain Grand Prix has become a prism through which human rights groups have sought to focus attention on the situation in the country after protests in the capital by pro-democracy campaigners in 2011 caused the race to be cancelled.

The Amnesty report details dozens of cases of detainees being beaten, deprived of sleep and adequate food, burned with cigarettes, sexually assaulted, subjected to electric shocks and burned with an iron. One was raped by having a plastic pipe inserted into his anus.

Sydney woman praised for defending Muslim woman 'harassed on train for wearing a hijab'

Stacey Eden defended a woman who was being abused by a fellow passenger

HEATHER SAUL 

 

 

Thursday 16 April 2015

An Australian woman has been described as a “hero” for challenging a train passenger who was allegedly being abusive towards a Muslim woman sat in the same carriage.

Stacey Eden claimed an older woman was accusing the unidentified Muslim woman and the man sat next to her of being an Isis supporter because she was wearing a hijab.

Ms Eden, from Sydney, said the alleged tirade began "a good ten minutes" before she started filming the woman, later uploading the video onto her Facebook page.

Footage from the alleged incident on Wednesday began as the unnamed passenger asked the woman, who was also sat with a pram on the opposite side of the train, "why do you wear it [a hijab] for a man that marries a six year-old girl?"

Colombia to resume bombing Farc rebels

Rebels repeat ceasefire call, say attack was a response to offensive by government troops

Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos ordered the resumption of bombing raids against Farc guerrillas on Wednesday after a rebel attack killed 10 soldiers, heating up a war that had seen a tentative cessation of hostilities.

As part of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), Mr Santos last month stopped air raids on rebel hideouts in recognition of a unilateral ceasefire declared in December by the insurgent group.

But the relative calm was shattered when the Farc ambushed the soldiers in rural southwestern Cauca province in the early hours of Wednesday, hurling grenades and firing on them as they took shelter in a covered sports field, the army said.

South Korea president promises to raise sunken Sewol ferry

South Korea's president has announced that the Sewol ferry would be salvaged, a year after the tragedy that killed over 300 people. Victims' families boycotted a memorial ceremony, asking for an independent inquiry.

Many of the relatives of those killed a year ago when the Sewol ferry sank expressed their angry over the government's handling of the tragedy and refused to meet South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who visited the small island of Jindo near the where the ferry sank to offer her condolences on Thursday.

Park promised that the ferry would be brought to the surface, which has been a key request of the victims' families.

"I will take the necessary steps to salvage the ship at the earliest possible date," Park said in her speech on the first anniversary of the deadly accident.

Although 295 bodies have been recovered from the shipwreck, nine victims remain unaccounted for. The government has called off the search for the bodies in November 2014, after the death of two divers.

South Africans to march against attacks on foreigners

After weeks of violence, primarily in KwaZuluNatal, thousands expected to take part in solidarity rally in Durban.

16 Apr 2015 08:57 GMT

Thousands of people are expected to attend a march in South Africa's coastal city of Durban in solidarity with the country's foreign nationals.

The march, which includes religious leaders and concerned citizens, comes after weeks of attacks against foreign nationals in which at least five people have been killed and 74 people arrested since the end of March, according to Colonel Jay Naicker, the police spokesperson.

On Thursday, as many people prepared to march in the coastal city of Durban in KwaZuluNatal, many shops also remained closed in the business capital of the country, Johannesburg.