China stepping up use of secret detention without trial, report warns
China has ramped up its use of secret detention without trial, creating one of the most far-ranging systems of forced disappearance in the world, human rights activists warn in a report.
Tens of thousands of people have been subjected to “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL), an anodyne, bureaucratic name for an Orwellian system, the group Safeguard Defenders said in the report, Locked Up.
Researchers have combed China’s official court database to identify nearly 23,000 cases nationwide where it had been used since 2013, after a change in Chinese law gave police sweeping powers to detain with virtually no oversight.
Italy will scrap mandatory masks outdoors from 28 June
Italy will lift a requirement that people wear face masks outdoors from 28 June, the government said late on Monday, as Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations decline.
Mandatory masks were imposed in October last year, when the country was entering a second wave of the epidemic and authorities were struggling to curb surging infections.
Mario Draghi’s government has been steadily lifting restrictions since April, opening activities such as restaurants, bars, cinemas and gyms and allowing freedom of movement around the country.
Hitler’s ‘war of annihilation’: Operation Barbarossa, 80 years on
Perhaps the most pivotal moment in the Second World War took place on June 22, 1941 when Nazi Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union – shocking the world and striking fear into Joseph Stalin’s heart, but sowing the seeds of Adolf Hitler’s downfall. FRANCE 24 looks back at Operation Barbarossa, 80 years on.
One of the most striking eyewitness testimonies from this extraordinary outburst of militarised violence – in which some five million people were killed in 200 days – comes from German soldier Alexander Cohrs: “Two villages were burning in front of us. Civilians were completely taken by surprise; they didn’t have time to flee. The most horrific images was a three-year-old child lying in the middle of the road with half its head missing.” *
From Nobel peace hero to driver of war: Ethiopia’s Pentecostal leader
By Declan Walsh
As war raged in northern Ethiopia and the region barrelled toward its worst famine in decades, a senior US envoy flew to the Ethiopian capital last month in the hope of persuading Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to pull his country out of a destructive spiral that many fear is tearing it apart.
Abiy, though, wanted to go for a drive.
Taking the wheel, the Ethiopian leader took his American guest, the Biden administration’s Horn of Africa envoy, Jeffrey Feltman, on an impromptu four-hour tour of Addis Ababa, US officials said. The Prime Minister drove him past smart new city parks and a refurbished central plaza and even crashed a wedding where the two men posed for photos with the bride and groom.
Plans to sell alcohol at Olympic venues draw criticism from thirsty Tokyo residents
Olympic organizers will allow the sale of alcohol to Tokyo 2020 spectators, drawing criticism as residents of the capital grapple with curbs on bars to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Alcohol will be served at Olympic venues at limited times, Kyodo News reported Tuesday, citing anonymous sources, a decision that follows the approval on Monday of up to 10,000 domestic spectators at venues at next month's delayed Games.
The government last week downgraded the capital to a "quasi-emergency" state, which allows for drinking in small groups for short periods of time but offers limited succor to Tokyo's beleaguered bars, restaurants and night spots.
No comments:
Post a Comment