Six In The Morning Friday February 23

Barnaby Joyce: Scandal-hit Australia deputy PM to resign

Barnaby Joyce says he will resign as Australia's deputy prime minister following a politically damaging saga that began with his affair with a former staffer.

Mr Joyce said he would step down on Monday as leader of the Nationals, the junior government partner.

He had previously resisted calls to quit amid intense scrutiny over his ministerial conduct.

The scandal has dominated Australian headlines for more than two weeks.

He described his decision on Friday as a "circuit-breaker" for his family and new partner.

"This current cacophony of issues has to be put aside," he told reporters.

The Guardian view on US gun laws: listen to teenagers, not Trump

Editorial

The impassioned campaign by survivors of the Florida high school massacre and their peers is in stark contrast to the US president’s crass proposals

Mass shootings occur nine out of 10 days in the United States, and seven American children or teenagers are shot dead daily. Though the death toll was so high in last week’s Florida high school shooting, and the horror felt so deeply, there seems to be more surprise at the outpouring of anger and action from young people than at the massacre itself. On one estimate, 150,000 school pupils have experienced a shooting on campus since Columbine in 1999. In these circumstances, such atrocities can come to be seen as almost inevitable – appalling, but the way things are.

Teenagers are insisting that cannot be. First came the boldness, courage and urgency of survivors, vowing “we are going to be the last shooting”; confronting Marco Rubio over NRA cash; chastening politicians: “We’re children. You guys are the adults.” Then the engagement of their peers: walking out of classes and marching on the Florida state capitol and to the White House.

Myanmar bulldozed scores of Rohingya villages, says human rights group

Human Rights Watch says the Myanmar authorities' actions were aimed at covering up evidence of atrocities against Rohingya Muslims. HRW calls on the government to allow UN fact-finding team in to Rakhine state.

New satellite images of Myanmar's Rakhine state show that the Myanmar authorities have been bulldozing Rohingya Muslim villages that were burned down during the "ethnic cleansing campaign"against the minority, human rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday.

HRW said at least 55 villages had been razed to the ground since late 2017, after nearly 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape military and civilian reprisals in the state.

French far-right decries choice of mixed-race Joan of Arc in Orléans

The French city of Orléans has for the first time named a mixed-race teenager to play folk heroine Joan of Arc for annual festivities, prompting a torrent of racist abuse from far-right social media users.

Mathilde Edey Gamassou was chosen among 250 girls Monday to play Joan for a spring festival marking the victory of the Catholic warrior saint in breaking the English siege of Orléans in 1429.

The 17-year-old, whose father is from Benin and whose mother is Polish, is set to ride horseback through the central city dressed in armour for an annual celebration dating back nearly six centuries.

US State spokesperson on Syria: 'I don't know what some of you expect us to do'

By Laura Koran and Nicole Gaouette, CNN

Updated 0641 GMT (1441 HKT) February 23, 2018

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert struggled to describe specific steps the State Department and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are taking to end the violence in Syria at the agency's briefing on Thursday, exclaiming, "I don't know what some of you expect us to do," while arguing that the administration is "fully engaged."

Horrific reports have emerged of civilians dying under the Syrian regime's siege of the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta. At the United Nations, calls for a 30-day ceasefire to allow for evacuations and the delivery of humanitarian supplies have been stymied by Russian objections.

But pressed on whether easing the violence is part of the US mission and what Tillerson is doing to address the bloodshed, the State Department provided few details, pointing instead to statements the agency and White House have released and mentioning conversations with other governments.

Begging for bread: A Greek family under austerity

Like 20 percent of Greeks, Iliodoros and Ioanna Filios cannot find work in the country's austerity-ravaged economy.

by Patrick Strickland

When Iliodoros Filios first ventured to a soup kitchen in 2012, he was consumed with shame. He waited idly outside while his wife and children went in to gather their portions.

With time, he says, their needs eclipsed grief. Within a year, the 52-year-old jobless painter was making the rounds each evening at bakeries, begging for stale leftovers: meat pies, pastries and an occasional loaf of bread.

Later, Filios and his 48-year-old wife, Ioanna, found help in vegetable markets, where they were able to get a handful of tomatoes, onions and cucumbers twice a week.