Six In The Morning Sunday 9 February 2020

Thailand shooting: Soldier who killed 26 in Korat shot dead

A soldier who killed 26 people in a gun rampage in the Thai city of Nakhon Ratchasima has been shot dead by the security forces, Thai police say.

Jakraphanth Thomma on Saturday killed his commanding officer before stealing weapons from a military camp.

The suspect continued his attack on the streets and in a shopping centre in Nakhon Ratchasima, also known as Korat.

The gunman, who posted material to social media, was shot dead after being cornered all night in the building.

Bloomberg's unusual campaign: $10m ads, self-funding and a Super Tuesday focus

The billionaire ex-mayor decided to forgo New Hampshire and all other early primary states and has invested $188m in his campaign

Daniel Strauss in Manchester

 @danielstrauss4

Sun 9 Feb 2020 07.00 GMT

In their stump speeches, advertising, and meet-and-greets, the top 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are eagerly sniping at each other as they criss cross the Granite state in the final days before the critical New Hampshire Democratic primary on Tuesday.

Yet one person is conspicuously absent. Looming over the race is fellow candidate and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who has decided to completely forgo New Hampshire and all other early primary states to instead invest heavily in the crucial set of Super Tuesday states that vote on 3 March – an unconventional and risky strategy.

Bloomberg is “spending millions to buy the election,” Sanders warned this week.

Pushbacks in GreeceThe Turkish Woman Who Fled Her Country only To Get Sent Back

Ayşe Erdoğan was persecuted in Turkey as an alleged follower of the Gülen movement. The young teacher fled to Greece to seek refuge. This is how she wound up back in a Turkish prison.

By Giorgos Christides , Steffen Lüdke und Maximilian Popp

As Ayşe Erdoğan reached for her mobile phone to film herself, she was already aware of the risk she was facing. She had managed to cross over into Greece from Turkey, meaning she had made it to Europe. But she still wasn’t home free.

On the morning of May 4, 2019, Erdoğan, a 28-year-old math teacher from Turkey, hid near the Greek village of Nea Vyssa. Accompanied by two Turkish traveling companions, she had succeeded in crossing the Evros, a wild river that forms a natural border between the two countries but whose current is so strong that it often sweeps migrants away to their deaths.

Israel blocks Palestinian agricultural exports, escalating trade spat

Israel on Sunday imposed a ban on Palestinian agricultural exports, in a move the Palestinians blasted as a "dangerous" escalation in a five-month trade war.

"Starting from today... export abroad of Palestinian agricultural product through the Allenby crossing will not be allowed," COGAT, the Israel defence ministry unit that oversees civilian activities in the Palestinian territories, said in a statement.

The Israeli-controlled Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank is the only route through which Palestinian goods can reach foreign markets.

Acronym, the dark money group behind the Iowa caucuses app meltdown, explained

“People have been waiting for this to blow up.”

By Emily Stewart emily.stewart@vox.com

This isn’t how Acronym wanted to rocket onto the national stage.

The Iowa caucuses debacle drew a lot of attention to a new app made by a company called Shadow that was at the center of many technical failures of the evening. It’s also putting scrutiny on Acronym — the Democratic group that backed Shadow — which has sought the spotlight in recent months though probably didn’t hope for this situation.

Acronym is a relatively new Democratic group that launched in 2017 and got active around the 2018 midterms in digital organizing. Its structure is, in a word, complex. Acronym is a nonprofit, but it also has a political action committee — under its nonprofit are for-profit entities that its nonprofit sometimes pays into. It is brazen and ambitious, which is not unique for a political strategy group, but it’s also somewhat shadowy and secretive. And it’s been trying to distance itself from the Iowa debacle, even though it’s really at the center of the storm.

Coronavirus Outbreak: 'We need facts not fear'

We ask China Global Television Network anchor Wang Guan about China's response to the spread of the virus.

In December 2019, the first case of the coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, China. Since then, it has spread to dozens of other countries and resulted in tens of thousands of people being infected and hundreds of deaths.

When the virus began to spread, Chinese citizens who tried to warn others about the illness were accused of lying and told by police to stop their "illegal activity". Since then, China's top officials have admitted there were shortcomings in response to the virus and recognised they must improve their national emergency management system.