Saturday, September 4, 2021

Six In The Morning Saturday 4 September 2021

 

Vaccine slowdowns in the wealthy West could incubate the next disaster in the Covid crisis

Updated 0906 GMT (1706 HKT) September 4, 2021


One of the greatest success stories of the Covid-19 crisis has hit an alarming bump in the road.

The initial stages of the vaccine rollout earlier this year in countries such as Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States provided hope that the misery of lockdowns and isolation would soon be a distant memory, in a small group of rich nations, at least.
Both Israel and the UK appeared on track to hit the rough target of 80-90% of fully vaccinated citizens that each of the experts CNN spoke with for this article said is required to drop restrictions, while America had legitimate cause for optimism. But then came a drop in the number of daily vaccinations."


New Zealand stabbings: police made repeated attempts to curb ‘highly paranoid’ man


As number of victims updated from six to seven, police say ‘every legal avenue’ was explored to try to contain threat of attack


 in Christchurch

Seven people were injured in the Islamic State-inspired terror attack in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern has said, updating initial reports that only six people had been hurt.

Speaking at a media conference in Wellington on Saturday, New Zealand’s prime minister said that of the seven injured, five were in hospital, and three of them were in a critical condition.

Suppression orders on the attacker’s name and immigration status were lifted on Saturday night. He can now be named as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, who was trying to retain his status as a refugee in New Zealand when he carried out the attack. The Sri Lankan was shot dead by police after the attack at a supermarket in Auckland on Friday.


9/11: 20 years on, Germany still grapples with militant Islamists

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban flag is flying over Kabul again. A German police expert fears that Afghanistan could once again become a gathering place for jihadis — including from Germany.


Sven Kurenbach still remembers the images of the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing and the spontaneous minute of silence at the Berlin police department that followed. When Islamist terrorists weaponized passenger planes on September 11, 2001 — killing nearly 3,000 people — Kurenbach was still head of inspection for the Berlin police's special units. Today he is Germany's top investigator into jihadist activities.

Twenty years ago, Islamist terror was still largely an unknown for German security authorities, Kurenbach recalled recently at an event organized by "Mediendienst Integration" in Berlin. Just a dozen officers at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had been dealing with it.


Nearly 30% of 138,000 assessed species face extinction, says IUCN report

Nearly 30 percent of the 138,374 species assessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its survival watchlist are now at risk of vanishing in the wild forever, as the destructive impact of human activity on the natural world deepens.

Trapped on island habitats made smaller by rising seas, Indonesia's Komodo dragons were listed as "endangered" on Saturday, in an update of the wildlife Red List that also warned overfishing threatens nearly two-in-five sharks with extinction.

But the latest update of the Red List for Threatened Species also highlights the potential for restoration, with four commercially fished tuna species pulling back from a slide towards extinction after a decade of efforts to curb overexploitation.

China, US deal on climate change fails before COP26: report

Beijing rebuffs US proposal to accelerate climate efforts, including public commitment to stop financing of coal-fired power plants.


China and the United States have failed to reach an agreement on climate change, with Beijing rebuffing calls to make more public pledges on climate change before a United Nations’ climate summit in Glasgow in November, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

In a report published on Friday, the Hong Kong-based newspaper said that the talks also got entangled in the debate on human rights, after Washington recently targeted Beijing’s solar power industry over allegations of forced labour of minority Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.


The race is on to replace Suga, Japan’s lame-duck Prime Minister


By Eryk Bagshaw

One of the worst compliments a politician can receive is being labelled an effective backroom operator. Like Bill Shorten was to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, Yoshihide Suga was an effective numbers man for Shinzo Abe. But ultimately each of them failed to outshine their masters in the only test that matters: public opinion.

Instead, their years of manoeuvring left them with a caucus full of agitators ready to pounce when things went south and a public that labelled them a faceless man before they got the chance to know them.

In the background, the more polished, popular candidates bided their time. Suga, the chief cabinet secretary who replaced Abe after he retired for health reasons, never rose above the challenges that defined his prime ministership: a coronavirus pandemic, a stagnating economy and an Olympics that felt more like an imposition than a celebration.




No comments:

Translate