Six In The Morning Saturday 18 December 2021

 

Covid-19: More than 10,000 new Omicron cases found in UK

By Hamish Mackay & George Bowden
BBC News

A major incident has been declared in London and more than 10,000 new Omicron cases have been confirmed in the UK, as the variant surges across the country.

A further 90,418 daily Covid cases have been reported across the UK on Saturday, after days of record highs.

Cabinet ministers have been briefed on the latest Covid data.

London's mayor said he was "incredibly concerned" by the city's infection levels and the major incident was "a statement of how serious things are".

Ransomware persists even as high-profile attacks have slowed

In the months since President Joe Biden warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin to crack down on ransomware gangs in his country, there hasn’t been a massive attack like the one last May that resulted in gasoline shortages

In the months since President Joe Biden warned Russia s Vladimir Putin that he needed to crack down on ransomware gangs in his country, there hasn’t been a massive attack like the one last May that resulted in gasoline shortages. But that’s small comfort to Ken Trzaska.

Trzaska is president of Lewis & Clark Community College, a small Illinois school that canceled classes for days after a ransomware attack last month that knocked critical computer systems offline.

“That first day,” Trzaska said, “I think all of us were probably up 20-plus hours, just moving through the process, trying to get our arms around what happened.”

Authorities accused of spying on journalists in Greece

Following attacks on journalists, a new law that many feel is a threat to independent reporting and reports that authorities in Greece are spying on journalists, concern about media freedom in Greece is growing.

On November 13, 29-year-old investigative journalist Stavros Malichudis was scrolling through Facebook and enjoying his morning coffee when he stumbled across a report by the Greek media outlet EFSYN. The headline read "Greek authorities spy on citizens." He immediately ran outside and bought the newspaper. What he read confirmed his suspicions: the article was about him and his employer, Solomon, an investigative media outlet based in Athens.

Malichudis had been reporting on a 12-year-old refugee on the island of Kos, whose artwork had been featured in the French newspaper Le Monde. The journalist's name appeared in e-mails leaked from the National Security Service, showing that the authorities had him under surveillance.

Taiwan referendums fail in major setback for opposition

Four questions were put to public, including whether to ban imports of pork containing ractopamine and whether to change site of LNG terminal.

Referendums that, if approved, might have affected Taiwan’s ties with key backer the United States and its energy security failed to pass on Saturday, in a major setback to the opposition which had cast the votes as a show of no-confidence in the government.

Of the four of Saturday’s referendums, the two most contentious and high-profile asked whether to ban imports of pork containing the leanness-enhancing additive ractopamine, and whether to change the site of a planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to protect a reef.

'We were cheated, framed, and scammed'

Jailed for the killing of Haiti's president, five suspected assassins say they're innocent

By Matt Rivers, Natalie Gallón and Etant Dupain, CNN
Videos by David von Blohn, for CNN

Updated 1302 GMT (2102 HKT) December 18, 2021

The smell of raw sewage and food waste permeates the air in the entrance to Haiti's National Penitentiary in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Its source is the exposed pipe that visitors must walk over as a liquid mix slides through to the street.

A pat-down of even our heads from quiet security guards follows and then a large metal door swings open, revealing a courtyard on the other side.

In this world exclusive, CNN came to the prison hoping to speak to a certain group of inmates whom the government has refused to make available until now: Some of the 26 Colombians and two Haitian-Americans that investigators say entered Haitian President Jovenel Moise's bedroom in the early morning hours of July 7 and killed him in a hail of gunfire.

Police search house of man linked to deadly Osaka fire

By CHISATO TANAKA and MARI YAMAGUCHI

Japanese police on Saturday searched the house of one of the patients at a mental clinic where a fire gutted an entire floor in an eight-story building, killing 24 people trapped inside.

An Osaka police investigator told The Associated Press that the man is a possible suspect. A small fire broke out about half an hour before the building fire at the man's house, where a patient registration card was found, the investigator said.

He is believed to be among the three people who survived and were in severe condition. Police have not arrested anyone, and it may take a while until the man recovers enough to be interrogated.