Six In The Morning Saturday 20 March 2021

 

'Practically this
has been a genocide'

Doctors say rape is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia's conflict

By Bethlehem Feleke, Eliza Mackintosh, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Katie Polglase, Nima Elbagir, Barbara Arvanitidis and Alex Platt, CNN

Updated 1100 GMT (1900 HKT) March 20, 2021

More evidence of sexual violence being used as a deliberate weapon of war is emerging from Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, where an armed conflict has been raging for months.

Women are being gang-raped, drugged and held hostage, according to medical records and testimonies from survivors shared with CNN. In one case a woman's vagina was stuffed with stones, nails and plastic, according to a video seen by CNN and testimony from one of the doctors who treated her.

China's first local Covid case since February had been vaccinated – state media

The hospital worker had received two doses of an unspecified vaccine, report says, as much of France re-enters lockdown

Reuters

Sat 20 Mar 2021 07.27 GMT

China’s first local coronavirus case since February was a staff worker at a hospital who had received two shots of a vaccine between end-January and early February, state media has reported.

The patient, identified by her surname Liu, had been working in the quarantine area of a hospital in Xian city since 4 March, and was mainly responsible for collecting samples from quarantined people for coronavirus testing, the Health Times reported on Saturday.

The Health Times is listed as a newspaper published under The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party.

Turkey pulls out of international treaty on violence against women

Some 77 women killed in first 78 days of this year

Emily Goddard@emilysgoddard

Turkey has pulled out of a landmark European treaty aimed at protecting women from violence, despite rising domestic abuse and the country’s high femicide rate.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree early on Saturday morning annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention, which is designed to promote equality and obliges state authorities to prevent violence against women, protect survivors and prosecute perpetrators.

Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe accord in 2011 and the law came into force in 2014.

EU warns AstraZeneca of export ban if bloc not supplied first

European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen has upped the pressure on pharma company AstraZeneca, threatening to forbid planned exports until the firm fulfils its obligations to Europe.

The European Union could stop AstraZeneca from exporting its COVID-19 vaccine from the bloc if the British-Swedish pharma company does not meet its supply obligations, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in comments published on Saturday.

"We have the possibility to forbid planned exports. That is the message to AstraZeneca: You fulfill your contract with Europe before you start delivering to other countries," von der Leyen told newspapers from the Funke Media Group.

Anti-coup protesters defy Myanmar junta's campaign of fear

Protesters took to the streets across Myanmar again on Saturday, defying the junta which has increasingly sought to crush the uprising with a campaign of violence and fear.

The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power in a February 1 coup, triggering a nationwide uprising as protesters call for a return to democracy.

So far, more than 230 people have been killed in anti-coup unrest, according to a local monitoring group, as security forces have deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds against anti-coup protesters.

26th anniversary of Aum subway gas attack observed in Tokyo

Japan marked the 26th anniversary Saturday of the Aum Shinrikyo cult's sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, amid calls for tighter monitoring of its successor groups.

Officials of the subway operator, Tokyo Metro Co, and relatives of the victims observed a moment of silence at a memorial service at Kasumigaseki Station at 8 a.m., around the same time when the deadly sarin agent was scattered in train cars on March 20, 1995.

Two Tokyo Metro employees at the station were among those killed in the terror attack. In all, 14 people died and 6,300 were sickened after cult members released sarin in five subway trains on three lines during co-ordinated rush-hour attacks. Thirteen of those killed died by the end of 1996 while the 14th, Sachiko Asakawa, 56, who had been bedridden with severe brain damage following the attack, died on March 10 last year.