Six In The Morning Sunday 26 December 2021

 

Desmond Tutu: Obama joins tributes to South Africa anti-apartheid hero

Former US President Barack Obama has joined the tributes being paid to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has died aged 90.

Mr Obama described the churchman as "a mentor, friend and moral compass".

A contemporary of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu was one of the driving forces behind the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he had helped bequeath "a liberated South Africa".

China replaces Xinjiang party boss associated with Uyghur crackdown

It is not known if Chen Quanguo’s replacement by Guangdong governor Ma Xingrui signals fresh approach

Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent

Sun 26 Dec 2021 13.08 GMT

China has replaced the Communist party official widely associated with a security crackdown targeting ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in the far-west region of Xinjiang.

The state-owned Xinhua news agency said in a brief announcement on Saturday that Ma Xingrui, the governor of the coastal economic powerhouse Guangdong province since 2017, had replaced Chen Quanguo as the Xinjiang party chief. Chen will move to another role.

The change came amid a wider reshuffle ahead of next year’s 20th party congress, scheduled for the autumn. It is not clear whether the move signals a rethink in China’s overall approach to Xinjiang. Beijing would be sensitive to any interpretation that it was bowing to international pressure.

A Chronicle of Refugee Deaths along the Border Between Poland and Belarus

An Iraqi mother, a football fan from Yemen, a teenager from Syria: At least 17 people have died since September in the border area between Belarus and Poland. Here are their stories.

By Mohannad al-Najjar, Bashar Deeb, Klaas van Dijken, Christina Hebel, Muriel Kalisch, Steffen Lüdke, Maximilian Popp, Jack Sapoch, Marta Solarz und Lina Verschwele

The new dead are buried in the back, close together, in the farthest corner of the cemetery. Three men shovel soil onto the coffin. The only sound is the crunch of their shovels. Then they place a plaque on the grave. The date of death is noted on it, above the letters N.N., nomen nescio, name not known.

For the men in Bohoniki in eastern Poland, this is the second funeral in three days. All they know about the dead man is that he isn’t from the region and that he is said to be a Muslim. A person picking mushrooms discovered his body in the forest. Members of the local Muslim community have come to join the imam in praying for the deceased.

Poland’s largest Muslim cemetery is located in Bohoniki, on the border with Belarus. Since November, some of the people who died while fleeing Belarus have been buried here. The imam is hoping that the dead can eventually be repatriated to their home countries so that their relatives can visit their graves. For now, though, it is strangers who lay flowers here.

Kishida must turn to Abenomics to satisfy financial markets: Abe

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday called on Japan's current leader to commit to the so-called Abenomics policy mix pursued during his time in office to satisfy wishes of financial markets.

Abe said on a TV program that financial markets are not looking for a fundamental change in economic strategy from the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, rather they want a continuation of the big-spending, growth-seeking program maintained throughout the term of Abe's successor Yoshihide Suga.

Kishida has vowed to bring a "new capitalism" to the country in hopes of promoting growth via a pathway of wealth redistribution, among other central steps, aimed at expanding the country's middle class.

Israel says will ‘double settlements’ in occupied Golan Heights

PM Naftali Bennett says investment in the region was prompted by US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian territory.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said the country intends to double the number of settlers in the occupied Golan Heights with a multimillion-dollar plan meant to further consolidate Israel’s hold on the territory it captured from Syria more than 50 years ago.

Bennett said the new investment in the region was prompted by the Trump administration’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the swath of land in 2019 and by the Biden administration’s indication that it will not soon challenge that decision.

As the Taliban swept Kabul, one friend escaped. The other was trapped. They shared their anguish on WhatsApp

By Eliza Mackintosh and Nilly Kohzad, CNN
Illustration by Alberto Mier, CNN

In the four months since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Nilofar, a 20-year-old university student, has rarely left her small apartment in Kabul, where she lives with her older sister, brother and father.

Her days, which were once punctuated by exam preparation, fitness classes at the gym, meeting friends for coffee at cafes and shopping for new clothes, are now painfully empty.

She was planning to start an economics degree at Kabul University this fall. Instead, she's stayed at home, too terrified to venture further than the neighborhood grocery store. Confined to four walls, she tries to keep herself busy. She rearranges her furniture frequently, studies English textbooks, posts poetry on Instagram and practices new makeup tricks she finds on YouTube.