Six In The Morning Friday 16 July 2021

 

Scores dead, hundreds missing after massive floods in Germany, Belgium

German emergency responders were on Friday still searching for hundreds of missing people after the worst floods in living memory killed 103 people in the country's west.

"I fear that we will only see the full extent of the disaster in the coming days," Chancellor Angela Merkel said from Washington, where she met with President Joe Biden.

Catching residents of several regions unaware and leaving destruction and despair in their wake, the masses of water were dubbed the "flood of death" by top-selling daily Bild.

‘Enough with the burning’: EU executive accused of sacrificing forests

Campaigners criticise European Commission strategy that allows continued burning of trees for fuel

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels

Fri 16 Jul 2021 15.38 BST

The EU executive has been accused of “sacrificing forests” after it published proposals that would allow trees to continue to be burned for fuel.

The charges of “accelerating climate breakdown” through wood-burning were made on Friday as the European Commission unveiled its forest strategy, which includes a goal to plant 3bn trees across the EU by 2030.

The forest strategy is part of a broader plan to confront the climate and nature emergencies and put the EU on track to cut emissions by 55% by the end of the decade, a mammoth bundle of legal proposals known as “Fit for 55”.

NATO: 'We are not abandoning Afghanistan'

Mircea Geoana, NATO’s deputy secretary general, defended on DW's Conflict Zone the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan. But he recognized the decision comes with important security and political risks.

NATO's deputy secretary general said the military alliance is not "running away" from Afghanistan, as international troops leave the country after nearly 20 years.

Speaking to DW's Conflict Zone host Tim Sebastian, Mircea Geoana stressed that NATO wants to continue to help Afghanistan, especially as the alliance is "fully aware" that there are security and political challenges ahead.

Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa unrest was ‘instigated’

In his first visit to an area affected by weeklong unrest, the South African president says ‘anarchy and mayhem’ will not be allowed to unfold in the country.

The deadly violence and looting that have rocked South Africa for the past week were planned, President Cyril Ramaphosa has alleged, during his first visit to areas affected by the worst unrest in the country’s post-apartheid era.

“It is quite clear that all these incidents of unrest and looting were instigated, there were people who planned it and coordinated it,” he said on Friday.

Ramaphosa made the remarks when he visited Ethikwini Municipality, which includes the port city Durban in KwaZulu-Natal province, one of the worst-hit areas in a week of looting that destroyed hundreds of businesses. At least 117 people have died, some shot and others killed in looting stampedes.

Little fanfare as Tokyo begins Olympic one-week countdown

By Sara HUSSEIN

Tokyo entered the final Olympic countdown on Friday, but there was little fanfare with just one week until the opening ceremony, as virus infections surge in the Japanese capital.

Organizers have been forced to bar spectators from all events in the city and most venues hosting competitions elsewhere in the country. And Olympic participants from athletes to media face a range of anti-virus measures including regular testing and limits on their movement.

But with Tokyo recording its highest case numbers since a winter wave in January, scrutiny of virus risks around the Games is intense.

'Something terrible happened': A radio call with one of the men accused in presidential assassination plot

By Caitlin Hu, Etant Dupain, Natalie Gallón and Matt Rivers, CNN

Updated 1456 GMT (2256 HKT) July 16, 2021

As Haitians woke up last week to the news their President had been brutally killed, an unidentified man called into a local radio station and unleashed a strange monologue while live on air.

He was the translator for a group tasked with providing security for Haitian President Jovenel Moise, he said -- but during an encounter at his private residence, "something terrible happened."

"There's loss of life but we didn't do it," he said.

The killing of Moise has sparked a sprawling investigation across multiple countries, supported by both the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Colombian intelligence services. No public statements have been released by at least two dozen people who have been detained in relation to the case. However, new audio and video recordings from the day of the killing obtained by CNN may offer a glimpse into the mindset of those now implicated in the assassination.