Six In The Morning Tuesday 21 December 2021

 

How children were used in a 48-hour deadly rampage for gold

By Saskya Vandoorne, Adama Koné, Nick Paton Walsh and Dalal Mawad, CNN

Updated 0650 GMT (1450 HKT) December 21, 2021

The men were shot as they slept outside, having spent their days underground, choking in the Sahel dust, digging and panning for gold.

They were killed by children -- some apparently as young as 12 -- and men who had arrived on dozens of motorbikes and were egged on in their murderous spree by women who knew the village well, according to witnesses. The local militia had left. The army came to the rescue for a matter of hours in the morning but then left before dusk, letting the attackers return the following night to burn the village down and most likely steal what gold it had.

In the end, somewhere between 170 and 200 people died, according to estimates by a local police source and other officials, and it still remains unclear who the killers were.

Fears of Libya violence as UN races to manage election postponement

All sides acknowledge 24 December vote cannot go ahead but there has been no announcement, and political vacuum looms

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Tue 21 Dec 2021 13.18 GMT

The United Nations is scrambling to manage the postponement of Libya’s presidential elections, which are due to take place on 24 December, as fears grow that a looming political vacuum will lead to renewed violence and economic chaos.

There has been no formal announcement on a postponement, but all sides acknowledge the vote cannot proceed, not least because a list of authorised candidates has yet to be published.

Torn apart by a decade of conflict since its 2011 revolution, Libya has seen a year of relative calm since a landmark October 2020 ceasefire, and the UN has been pushing for elections as part of a multi-pronged effort to cement the peace. Leading politicians from across Libya’s east-west divide were meeting in Benghazi on Tuesday to discuss how to handle the crisis.

Life under threat of invasion: Russian-backed forces are at Ukraine’s border

The prospect of further war terrifies citizens of the western-backed country, writes Isabelle Khurshudyan

On one side of the Kalmius river in Ukraine’s war-battered eastern Donbas region, a dirt road is lined with houses hit by artillery shells. On the other side are hills less than a mile away. That’s where the Russian-backed forces are posted.

Distant booms can occasionally be heard from the road – what one Ukrainian soldier describes as “the enemy saying hello”.

This has been the daily, draining status quo in Ukraine’s nearly-eight-year conflict with pro-Moscow militants who control two separatist enclaves along the border with Russia. Though the two sides reached a ceasefire in 2015, hostilities continue. Nearly 14,000 people have died.

Now Ukrainian officials and their western allies fear that tensions with Russia are entering a new phase, with the Kremlin potentially preparing to launch an invasion. Around 100,000 Russian troops and an array of military hardware are massed in annexed Crimea and near Ukraine's border, according to US and Ukrainian officials.

India: Will COVID pose more problems in 2022?

India battled a devastating second coronavirus wave earlier this year and is now seeing a rise in omicron cases. Experts hope the new variant will prove less lethal, but warn against complacency.

India's devastating second wave of COVID-19 earlier this year brought the nation's health care system to its knees.     

At the height of the wave in April and May, the daily number of new infections often exceeded 400,000, overwhelming the country's health care infrastructure, which struggled with acute shortages of hospital beds, critical medicines and equipment.

Many patients died outside hospitals because of the lack of beds and medical oxygen.

Bullish Coe rejects talk of Chinese boycott

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said on Tuesday he wants the body to become a campaigning organisation" but stressed that he sees no point in boycotting China over human rights.

Speaking in his annual year-end conference call, Coe said his sport had "come out of 2021 in a strong position" and he was bullish about its immediate prospects for growth with the World Championships in the United States for the first time in 2022.

"We came out of Tokyo as clearly the No. 1 sport," he said, quoting statistics from the International Olympic Committee showing that athletics scored the biggest numbers of any sports on television, traditional print newspapers and social media.

Princess Haya: The princess, the sheikh and the £550m divorce settlement

By Frank Gardner
BBC security correspondent

It's described as the biggest divorce case in British legal history - a settlement of more than £500m involving the billionaire ruler of Dubai and his estranged wife.

The UK's High Court on Tuesday awarded a lump sum settlement of £251.5m to Princess Haya Bint Al-Hussain - the 47-year-old daughter of Jordan's former King Hussein.

She is the youngest of six wives of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum - the multi-billionaire ruler of Dubai, prime minister of the UAE and influential horse-racing owner.