Six In The Morning Monday 27 September 2021

 

German election 2021: Both CDU and SPD aim to form coalitions 

The SPD's Olaf Scholz has said his party will likely enter coalition talks with the Greens and the FDP. But with the conservatives also trying to form a government, Merkel's successor is still unclear.

SPD's Lindh: CDU 'lack humility' and FDP have a choice between 'past' and 'future'

Helge Lindh, a member of parliament with the Social Democrats (SPD), has told DW that the CDU/CSU have "lacked humility" in the wake of yesterday's result as "it is evident they are the losers of this vote."

"But they are significantly immodest and there is a lack of backbone," he continued.

"It's the responsibility of the Liberals [FDP] and the Green Party if they want a real future coalition or if they intend to build a coalition of the past."

Race to the bottom: the disastrous blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea

One of the largest mining operations ever seen on Earth aims to despoil an ocean we are only barely beginning to understand

by Jonathan Watts, global environment editor

Ashort bureaucratic note from a brutally degraded microstate in the South Pacific to a little-known institution in the Caribbean is about to change the world. Few people are aware of its potential consequences, but the impacts are certain to be far-reaching. The only question is whether that change will be to the detriment of the global environment or the benefit of international governance.

In late June, the island republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority (ISA) based in Kingston, Jamaica of its intention to start mining the seabed in two years’ time via a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company (TMC, until recently known as DeepGreen). Innocuous as it sounds, this note was a starting gun for a resource race on the planet’s last vast frontier: the abyssal plains that stretch between continental shelves deep below the oceans.

Scores killed in fierce fighting over Yemen's strategic city of Marib

Sixty-seven Yemeni rebels and pro-government troops have been killed as fighting intensifies for the key city of Marib, military and medical sources said Monday.

A volley of air strikes from the Saudi-led coalition targeted the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have stepped up their assault on the government's last northern stronghold.

Hundreds of fighters have died this month after the Houthis renewed their campaign for the capital city of oil-rich Marib province.

Trump administration floated kidnapping, killing Julian Assange: report

By Latika Bourke

September 27, 2021 

A report claims the CIA raised the prospect of killing or capturing Julian Assange while he evaded possible charges hiding in Ecuador’s embassy in London because they feared the Australian was plotting an escape of his own.

The report, published by yahoo!news, relied on interviews with 30 former US officials and said eight of them detailed the plot to assassinate Assange.

Former US president Donald Trump declared the report “totally false” and said he never considered assassinating Assange.

The publication claimed that officials picked up what the former Trump administration viewed as highly credible intelligence suggesting the Russians were preparing to sneak Assange out themselves, possibly in a laundry basket, and whisk him to safety in Moscow.

Beirut blast probe suspended after request to remove judge

Lebanese political leadership has accused Judge Tarek Bitar of bias after charging senior officials.

By Kareem Chehayeb

27 Sep 2021

The Beirut port blast inquiry has been suspended after accused former Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk formally notified the investigator of the request to dismiss him from the case.

As per Lebanese law, Judge Tarek Bitar was forced to halt the investigation.

He had already filed new requests to the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities to summon General Security Chief Major-General Abbas Ibrahim and State Security Chief Major-General Tony Saliba on Monday, and had to cancel the scheduled interrogations with two brigadier-generals.

A pill to treat Covid-19: 'We're talking about a return to, maybe, normal life'

By JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News

Updated 1501 GMT (2301 HKT) September 27, 2021

Within a day of testing positive for covid-19 in June, Miranda Kelly was sick enough to be scared. At 44, with diabetes and high blood pressure, Kelly, a certified nursing assistant, was having trouble breathing, symptoms serious enough to send her to the emergency room.

When her husband, Joe, 46, fell ill with the virus, too, she really got worried, especially about their five teenagers at home: "I thought, 'I hope to God we don't wind up on ventilators. We have children. Who's going to raise these kids?"

But the Kellys, who live in Seattle, had agreed just after their diagnoses to join a clinical trial at the nearby Fred Hutch cancer research center that's part of an international effort to test an antiviral treatment that could halt covid early in its course.