Sunday, November 14, 2021

Six In The Morning Sunday 14 November 2021

 

COP26: China and India must explain themselves, says Sharma

By Malu Cursino & Doug Faulkner
BBC News

China and India will have to explain themselves to climate-vulnerable nations, COP26 President Alok Sharma has said as the summit ends.

It comes after the two nations pushed for the language on coal to change from "phase out" to "phase down" in the deal agreed in Glasgow.

But Mr Sharma insisted the "historic" deal "keeps 1.5C within reach".

It is the first ever climate deal that plans explicitly to reduce coal - the worst fossil fuel for greenhouse gases.

The summit, which was initially due to end on Friday, had to go into overtime before a deal was agreed late on Saturday - following the late intervention from India to water down the language on coal.



‘I loved my job in the police. Then the Taliban came for me’

After a vicious beating, Fatima Ahmadi fled Afghanistan with her children for Pakistan. But her pleas for asylum in the west are met by silence

 and Zahra Nader
Sun 14 Nov 2021 10.55 GMT


Fatima Ahmadi only stopped screaming when the Taliban held a knife to her child’s throat, and told her: “Shut up, or we will kill your son.” They had burst into the policewoman’s Kabul home one late September morning, demanding she hand over her weapons. She told the Taliban she had no guns at home, but they said she was lying, ransacked the house, then began beating her, pulling out handfuls of hair, and when she would not stop shouting, they grabbed her nine-year-old son.

The knife was pressed so violently into his throat it left a red welt, visible in photographs seen by the Observer. Ahmadi’s back was covered with bruising from an assault so vicious that she lost control of her bodily functions. The men eventually left, but with an ominous warning. “We will come back.”


A Federation of ImbecilesAnti-Vaxxers and Politicians Push Germany to the Brink

Many in Germany thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. But the country is now being slammed by the fourth wave – fueled by millions of people who refuse to be vaccinated and political leaders who have abdicated leadership. The situation, say virologists, is grave.

By Markus FeldenkirchenMatthias GebauerVeronika HackenbrochMilena HassenkampMartin KnobbePetra MaierVeit MedickCornelia SchmergalChristoph Schult und Nina Weber


Nobody really wanted to listen to him in the last few months. He was seen as a killjoy, dragging down the mood. That annoying guy from Berlin's Charité University Hospital. German politicians also studiously ignored his warnings of a difficult fourth epidemic wave – of a deadly corona autumn. But here we are. Because as it happens, Germany’s best-known virologist, Christian Drosten, in concert with many of his fellow scientists, had been spot on.

Countries with high vaccination rates like Spain and Portugal, says Drosten now, "could definitively leave the pandemic behind them" in spring. But in Germany, because of the many people who still refuse to be vaccinated and due to the sluggish booster campaign, is "still miles away" from that. "As soon as Delta strikes with full force, the hospitals will quickly be overwhelmed," Drosten warns.


Thousands of Tunisians rally against presidential power grab near suspended parliament


Thousands of Tunisians gathered near the country's parliament Sunday to protest a presidential power grab they have deemed a "coup".

It was the latest rally opposing President Kais Saied's July 25 decision to sack the government, suspend parliament and seize an array of powers, citing an "imminent threat" to the country -- the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings against autocracy.

More than 3,000 protesters gathered, shouting "The people want to bring down the coup d'etat" and "Kais's project is a civil war" and branding the president an "agent of colonialism", AFP correspondents reported.

Some carried signs reading "No to the intimidation of the media" and demanding "an independent judicial authority".

450 settler attacks on Palestinians in two years: Israeli NGO

Israeli forces are not intervening to stop the attacks in most cases, and often actively join in, B’Tselem rights group says.

An Israeli rights group has said it documented 451 incidents of settler violence on Palestinians since early 2020, with Israeli forces not intervening to stop the attacks in the majority of cases.

In a report published on Sunday, B’Tselem said in 66 percent of the incidents when settlers in the occupied West Bank attacked Palestinians, Israeli forces did not go to the scene.

In 170 of the cases where the army did arrive, troops either chose not to intervene to protect the Palestinians or actively joined the attack.


Children caught up in Belarus-Poland border crisis face bitter nights without shelter


Updated 1619 GMT (0019 HKT) November 14, 2021


The air in the Belarusian forest is thick with the smoke from scores of small fires. People cough and choke but they keep burning the sticks of wet wood: it's the only way to warm up as temperatures start to fall sharply.

This coming week, the mercury will dip close to zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) at night; rain is also forecast. Winter is coming and they are stuck out in the open, caught up in a geopolitical storm that shows no sign of abating.
There are 200 children and 600 women among an estimated 2,000 people massed along the Bruzgi-Kuznica border crossing separating Belarus from Poland, Belarusian border officials told CNN on Friday. Some of those are only babies or toddlers.



 

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