Saturday, July 31, 2021
Myanmar: An Uneasy Alliance
Can pro-democracy activists and ethnic nationalists join forces to overthrow Myanmar’s brutal military regime?
Delta variant threatens hard-won COVID-19 gains worldwide | DW News
The World Health Organization says world is in danger of losing hard-won gains in the fight against COVID-19. It says the highly transmissible Delta variant is spreading in more than two thirds of all countries, with a global vaccination gap aiding the spread. I
Taliban attack major Afghan cities - BBC News
Fighting is raging around three major cities in southern and western Afghanistan as Taliban militants seek to seize them from government forces.
The last king of Eswatini? Reporting on protests in Africa's last absolute monarchy
Cebelihle Mbuyisa is a freelance journalist who was beaten for covering pro-democracy protests in the kingdom of Eswatini. Formerly known as Swaziland, the country has been rocked in recent weeks by anti-monarchy protests calling for King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, to have his powers diluted.
Protests turned violent, with reports suggesting there have been more than 50 deaths and countless casualties so far at the hands of state security forces. The Guardian spoke to Mbuyisa, who described his experience of being beaten by the police after they accused him of reporting illegally, and explained why protesters are calling for more democracy in Eswatini.
In his first comments since the unrest began, the king called the protests 'satanic' and said they had taken the country backwards.
Why internet connections in Germany are so bad
For years, Europe’s largest economy has failed to roll out good internet connections across the country, and that’s increasingly becoming a problem.
Six In The Morning Saturday 31 July 2021
What you need to know about the Delta variant if you're pregnant
Updated 0402 GMT (1202 HKT) July 31, 2021
The Delta variant of Covid-19 is dominating cases worldwide, and health officials in some countries are sounding alarm over its impact on pregnant women.
Several of England's top health officials issued a joint statement on Friday urging pregnant women to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. They pointed to new data showing that 98% of expectant mothers admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 in the country since May were unvaccinated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also previously said that infected, pregnant women face an increased risk of developing severe Covid-19 compared with non-pregnant women of a similar age.
Tibet and China clash over next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama
The spiritual leader has mused that he may return as a woman. But his succession has turned into a political battle
Hannah Ellis-Petersen South Asia correspondent
Sat 31 Jul 2021 16.13 BST
A couple of years ago, during a meeting of Tibetan leaders in Dharamshala in India, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was asked about his reincarnation. Addressing the room of monks, religious teachers and Tibetan politicians, the Dalai Lama asked them to look into his eyes. “Do you think it’s time now?” he asked.
It was a meeting that would end with the Tibetan leaders agreeing that the issue of reincarnation was one that would be decided only by the Dalai Lama himself. But China, which annexed Tibet in 1951 and has retained tight control over the region ever since, has other ideas. It insists that the choice of the next Dalai Lama lies only with China, and have even enshrined this right into Chinese law.
The Dalai Lama, who recently turned 86, has insisted that discussions of his death are premature (according to his own visions, he will live to 113). But a power struggle for who will choose his reincarnation after he dies has already begun.
From COVID to malaria: The potential of mRNA vaccines
Messenger RNA are little helpers, and scientists have long studied their potential in medicine. COVID-19 gave them a chance to prove it. Could malaria be next?
Malaria vaccines have had a slow time of it, lately. Progress on getting a vaccine out into the community has been sluggish.
There is a vaccine called RTS,S which, it is said, protects against about a third of malaria infections. That's been out for a bit and is approved.
Since this year (2021), there is a new vaccine called R21/Matrix-M, which has a reported efficacy of 75%. But it has yet to be approved.
France sees third weekend of protests against obligatory 'health pass'
Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets across France on Saturday to protest against the Covid-19 health pass that is now obligatory for entrance to many public cultural venues.
Authorities estimated that some 150,000 demonstrators would take part in Saturday's demonstrations. Some 161,000 people gathered at similar protests last week and 110,000 took to the streets a week earlier.
More than 3,000 police and gendarmes have been mobilised to deal with the demonstrators and secure vulnerable landmarks. Protests are planned in more than 150 French cities, including Montpellier, Bordeaux, Marseille, Nice and Nantes.
What’s behind far-right trend of using 3D tech to make guns?
There are mounting concerns over the proliferation of 3D-printed weapons amid growing arrests across Europe of people downloading and or trying to build their own guns.
31 Jul 2021
“All you need is a weekend’s worth of time and $50 for the materials”.
That was the advice of Stephan Balliet, a German Neo-Nazi who has been sentenced to life in prison for killing two people after attempting to attack a synagogue in the city of Halle on October 9, 2019.
Balliet, 27, was referring to 3D-printed firearms. In the same post, on the now-defunct far-right messaging board, Meguca, Balliet wrote, just minutes before carrying out his attack: “Of course, there are dozens of other designs out there, so what’s special with mine? Simple, I prefer live testing.”
Interpreters make sure nothing gets lost in translation at Olympics
By STEPHEN WADE
Ask him how many languages he speaks, and Alexandre Ponomarev replies: “If you mean to make myself understood, I've lost count.”
Count 'em. Ponomarev speaks Russian, Ukranian, English, German, Spanish, French and Danish. And gets by in Swedish, Portuguese, Italian and Norwegian.
Ahh, but how about your Japanese?
“Muzukashi,” replied Ponomarev, which means “difficult” in Japanese, and can be interpreted to mean he doesn't speak much.
OK, nobody's perfect.
Friday, July 30, 2021
Visiting North Korea
Few tourists manage to peek behind the iron curtain of North Korea's dictatorship. But the journalist Luca Faccio managed to visit Kim Jong Un's regime.
Hong Kong man first to be jailed under national security law - BBC News
A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to nine years in prison after he rode a motorbike into police officers while flying a flag with a protest slogan.
'I'm embarrassed': Constituents react to Boebert defying Covid-19 rules
CNN's Gary Tuchman visits a county in Northwestern Colorado where the vaccination rate is low and the Covid-19 infection rate is high. The area is represented by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who is in defiance of new Covid rules on Capitol Hill.
Six In The Morning Friday 30 July 2021
CDC document warns Delta variant appears to spread as easily as chickenpox and cause more severe infection
Updated 1219 GMT (2019 HKT) July 30, 2021
The Delta coronavirus variant surging across the United States appears to cause more severe illness and spread as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal document from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The document -- a slide presentation -- outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky confirmed the authenticity of the document, which was first reported by The Washington Post.
Locked down with Covid cases rising, Sydney wonders how Delta outbreak will end
Helen Sullivan in Sydney
After five weeks of a tightening lockdown, they were not the words Sydney residents wanted to hear: the leader of New South Wales announcing another month of restrictions and telling the state to prepare for things to get worse, not better.
There was further anguish prompted by the daily Covid case numbers, which were rising daily, despite strict stay at home measures.
As Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales, told Sydney its lockdown would continue until the end of August, many residents of Australia’s largest city wondered if life would return to normal before Christmas.
Coronavirus: EU vaccine drive picks up pace while US stalls
The European Union is now inoculating its population faster than the United States, but figures suggest that both have some way to go before they hit their previously announced inoculation targets.
The EU's once-faltering vaccine rollout has now overtaken that of the United States, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing figures compiled by Our World in Data.
But figuring out who is ahead in the race to protect their citizens from COVID-19 depends largely on how one crunches the numbers.
Beirut's historic Sursock museum still recovering from wounds of the blast
On August 4, 2020, the deadly Beirut port explosions devastated the historic Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum and some of its prized artworks. But a year later, one of the city’s most cherished museums is on its way to recovery. For the ornate building that houses the museum, it will be a new phase of a century-old relationship with the Beirut port.
As workers in the corridor manoeuvred construction gear, Zeina Arida opened the doors to the Salon Arabe in Beirut’s Sursock Museum and exhaled slowly, a smile lighting her eyes, as she entered the magnificent wood-panelled room.
Nestled on the museum's first floor, the Salon Arabe is a historic gem designed in the Orientalist diwan style complete with ancient Damascene wood engravings and Ottoman era flourishes.
‘Absolute nonsense’: Khan rejects claim Pakistan helping Taliban
PM Imran Khan denies report that Pakistani fighters crossed border into Afghanistan to aid Taliban in its fight against Afghan government.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has denied a report that Pakistani fighters have crossed the border into Afghanistan to aid the Taliban in its fight against the Afghan government.
“This is absolute nonsense”, Khan said in an interview with PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff.
(Editors note: Pakistan's ISI recruited, trained, funded and supplied arms to the Taliban. They were the ones that recruited Mullah Omar to lead the Taliban. it's founding leader.)
Japan expands virus state of emergency, restrictions to more prefectures
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency to four more areas in addition to Tokyo on Friday following record spikes in infections as the capital hosts the Olympics.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared an emergency in Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures, as well as in the city of Osaka, effective Monday until Aug 31. Emergency measures already in place in Tokyo and the southern island of Okinawa will be extended until the end of August, after the Olympics and well into the Paralympics which start Aug 24.
Five other areas, including Hokkaido, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, will be placed under less-stringent emergency restrictions.
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Is the US leading a new nuclear arms race?
The US speaks of non-proliferation but is spending billions to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.
The forgotten victims of IS
Najlaa Matto is a Yazidi. As a young woman living in Iraq, she was abducted and enslaved by IS fighters. After she was freed, Najlaa went back to her home village and met other former slaves who told her about the ordeals they’d suffered.
Inside Japan's SLEEPER Train | $160 FIRST CLASS Room
Japan's overnight sleeper train is stunning. We ride 11 hours & 600km from Tokyo to Tottori on the Sunrise Express in search of the Tottori sand dune desert. FEAT. Natsuki who's on extended holiday after Journey Across Japan.
South Africa riots: Is recent unrest a sign of deeper tensions? - BBC Newsnight
Over the past few weeks, more than 330 people have died in some of the worst violence South Africa has experienced since apartheid.
Scale of Sars-Cov-2 immunity still unclear
How long can a virus keep attacking me - especially when I've been previously infected? How long do my antibodies survive in my blood? How long does a vaccine defend my immune system against an intruder?
Six In The Morning Thursday 29 July 2021
Japan Medical Association fears medical system will collapse if Covid-19 surge continues
The Japan Medical Association, the country's largest association of doctors, issued an emergency request to Japan's capital to enhance urgency surrounding the Covid-19 surge.
The head of the association, Toshio Nakagawa, called on people to work remotely and complete vaccinations for people aged between 40 and 64, in a televised address on Thursday.
“We think the medical system will collapse, if this spread of infection continues," Nakagawa said, adding that medical workers are feeling the strain of the spike in cases.
Israeli authorities inspect NSO Group offices after Pegasus revelations
Officials visit offices near Tel Aviv as Israeli defence minister meets French counterpart in Paris
Bethan McKernan Middle East correspondent
Israeli authorities have inspected the offices of the surveillance outfit NSO Group in response to the Pegasus project investigation into abuses of the company’s spyware by several government clients.
Officials from the defence ministry visited the company’s offices near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, at the same time as the defence minister, Benny Gantz, arrived for a pre-arranged visit to Paris in which the Pegasus revelations were discussed with his French counterpart.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is one of the highest profile figures whose phone numbers appeared on a leaked database of 50,000 numbers that are believed to have been selected as candidates for possible surveillance by clients of NSO.
Malta failed to protect murdered journalist, says inquiry
A public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia has concluded that the Maltese state failed to protect the journalist from threats to her life.
The government of Malta failed to adequately protect anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and bore responsibility for creating a "culture of impunity," an independent inquiry into the car bomb murder concluded on Thursday.
The inquiry, conducted by one serving judge and two retired judges, found that a culture of impunity was created by the highest echelons of power within the government of the time.
Pro-democracy Hong Kong radio host 'Fast Beat' goes on trial for sedition
A pro-democracy Hong Kong radio host went on trial Thursday for sedition in the first use of the colonial-era law since the city’s handover to China as authorities broaden their criminalisation of dissent.
Tam Tak-chi, 48, is among a growing number of activists charged with sedition, a little-used decades-old law that prosecutors have dusted off in the last 12 months.
It is separate from the sweeping national security law that was imposed on Hong Kong last year, which has also been used to prosecute dissidents.
CIA DROVE SPIKE IN MEDIA LEAK INVESTIGATION REQUESTS UNDER TRUMP
Records released by the Department of Justice provide new details about Trump’s campaign against whistleblowers and leakers.
Jason Paladino, Nick Schwellenbach, Ken Klippenstein
NEW DATA OBTAINED by The Intercept adds considerable detail to what we already know about former President Donald Trump’s relentless campaign against whistleblowers and leakers in the intelligence community. The Trump administration referred far more media leaks for criminal investigation each year than any of the previous 15 years, with the CIA accounting for the vast majority of such leaks, according to a trove of records released by the Department of Justice to the independent watchdog group Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The DOJ records provide a previously unavailable level of detail on media leak referrals, including the originating agency, the date of the referral, and the classification level of the suspected disclosure. The records also show the CIA accounting for more than 64 percent of all referrals. The next most common agency, the National Security Agency, accounted for just 15 percent. The documents reveal a dramatic spike in the number of such leak referrals — called “crime reports” — from the CIA in 2017, when Mike Pompeo led the spy agency. Many of those referrals pertained to leaks that had taken place months and even years prior during the Obama administration, raising questions about why they were being revisited.
Palestinian Authority’s standing slides amid growing frustration
A protest movement against Palestinian Authority’s corruption and authoritarianism is gaining momentum in the occupied West Bank.
Months before Ghassan’s sixth birthday, he already had his party all planned out; he wanted a policeman costume and a cake shaped like a police cap. That is until a month ago, when his idolisation of the police was shattered.
On July 5, Ghassan’s mother, Hind Shraydeh, went to the police station in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah to demand the release of her husband, who had been detained along with several other activists by Palestinian security forces before a planned demonstration against the Palestinian Authority (PA) earlier that day. The police said the activists had been arrested because the protest did not have a permit.
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
UK: Structures of power and systems of exclusion
Community activist Temi Mwale and political activist Athian Akec are on a mission to end youth violence in the United Kingdom.
Are arms manufacturers complicit in war crimes?| DW Documentary
A French manufacturer of weapons components has been charged with complicity in war crimes. It is a trial that could set an important precedent, and might change the way arms manufacturers do business.
Covid ravages Indonesia with daily deaths above 1,000
Indonesia is at the epicentre of the Covid outbreak in Asia, fuelled by the more infectious Delta variant.
COVID-19 pandemic leads to major backsliding on childhood vaccinations
As hospitals around the world buckled under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, 23 million children missed out on routine vaccinations in 2020 - putting them at risk from devastating but preventable diseases like Measles, Polio and Meningitis.
Six In The Morning Wednesday 28 July 2021
China appears to be expanding its nuclear capabilities, US researchers say in new report
Updated 0527 GMT (1327 HKT) July 28, 2021
China is building a second field of missile silos in its western deserts, according to a new study, which researchers say signals a potential expansion of its nuclear arsenal and calls into question Beijing's commitment to its "minimum deterrence" strategy.
Identified via satellite imagery, the new missile base in China's Xinjiang region may eventually include 110 silos, said the report released Monday by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
It is the second apparent silo field uncovered this month by researchers, adding to 120 silos that appear to be under construction in the neighboring province of Gansu, as detailed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
Myanmar could become Covid ‘super-spreader’ state, says UN expert
Special rapporteur urges security council to call for ceasefire amid fears Covid will spread across wider region
Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok
Myanmar is at risk of becoming a super-spreader Covid state that fuels outbreaks across the region, the UN special rapporteur for the country has warned as he urged the security council to call for a ceasefire.
The south-east Asian country is facing its most severe outbreak yet, on top of a deep political and economic crisis brought about by the military coup in February. Its vaccination programme has ground to a standstill, testing has collapsed, and government hospitals are barely functioning.
Doctors, who have been at the forefront of an anti-junta strike and are refusing to work in state hospitals, have been forced to treat patients in secret because they face the constant threat of military violence or arrest.
Is the Geneva Refugee Convention living up to the times?
As the UN document turns 70 years old, experts say there is a lack of political will to implement the rights of refugees under the agreement. Countries in Africa are already moving beyond it.
Defending human rights is Hamado Dipama's passion. It's something he's been committed to every day since he fled politically motivated violence in his home country, Burkina Faso.
Twenty years ago, as a young student, Dipama joined protests against the dictatorship of Blaise Compaore, who ruled Bukina Faso with an iron fist for 27 years until he was swept from power following a popular uprising in 2014.
Covid-19: France only EU country not exempt from UK travel quarantine
People fully vaccinated in the United States and European Union -- except France -- will be allowed to travel to England without having to quarantine on arrival, the UK government announced on Wednesday.
"We're helping reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends," Transport Minister Grant Shapps tweeted, adding that the policy will come into force from 4:00 am (0300 GMT) on August 2.
Travellers fully jabbed with a vaccine approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency will be able to travel from any country on the British government's "amber" traffic light list without having to self-isolate at home for 10 days.
Tokyo governor urges young people to get vaccinated to slow virus surge
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike on Wednesday urged younger people to cooperate with measures to bring down the high number of infections and get vaccinated, saying their activities are key to slowing the surge during the Olympics.
On Wednesday, the Japanese capital reported a record high 3,177 new cases. Of those, 1,078 were in their 20s.
Koike noted that the majority of the elderly have been fully vaccinated and infections among them have largely decreased, while the mostly unvaccinated younger people are now dominating the new cases.
Thousands of scientists warn climate tipping points ‘imminent’
Researchers say ‘overexploitation of the Earth’ has seen many of its ‘vital signs’ deteriorate to record levels.
Thousands of scientists have repeated calls for urgent action to tackle the climate emergency, warning that several tipping points are now imminent.
The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said in an article published in the journal BioScience on Wednesday that governments had consistently failed to address “the overexploitation of the Earth”, which they described as the root cause of the crisis.
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