Monday, January 31, 2022
Are classrooms in the US being used as political battlefields?
Conservatives in the United States are leading a charge against a wide range of book titles that they believe sow division and cause distress in white students.
It is already a big issue for school boards and is likely to play a part in the upcoming midterm elections.
Man against machine - Coal, climate and the future
Eckardt Heukamp is refusing to budge: He's the last remaining resident of Lützerath in North-Rhine Westphalia, situated on the edge of a huge open-cast lignite mine. The energy giant RWE wants to dig, but Heukamp is digging in his heels.
Inside Kazakhstan's giant crypto-mine
Last year Kazakhstan became the second biggest crypto-currency mining country in the world, thanks partly to a vast mine containing 50,000 computers in the desert near the northern city of Ekibastuz.
Young men work 12 hours a day for 15 days in a row without leaving the site, in order to keep it running round the clock.
But the rapid growth of crypto-mining in the country has put pressure on the energy sector, which relies heavily on polluting, carbon-intensive coal-fired power stations.
Earlier this month the rising cost of car fuel acted as the trigger for nationwide political protests. For five days the Kazakh crypto-mines could not connect to the internet, causing crypto-currency transactions across the world to slow down.
Six In The Morning Monday 31 January 2022
Kremlin accuses US of stoking 'hysteria' over Ukraine, as UN Security Council meets
Updated 1605 GMT (0005 HKT) January 31, 2022
Russia has accused Washington of stoking "hysteria" over the crisis on the Ukrainian border, and the United Nations Security Council met to discuss the simmering tensions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Washington and US outlets have played up fears of a Russian invasion.
"To our dismay, American media have lately been publishing a very large amount of unverified, distorted and deliberately deceitful information about what's happening in Ukraine and around it," Peskov said Monday.
Canada investigating anti-vaxxers for allegedly desecrating monuments
Thousands gathered in Ottawa to protest mandates and some urinated on the National War Memorial
AP in Ottawa
Police in Canada’s capital are investigating possible criminal charges after anti-vaccine protesters urinated on the National War Memorial, danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, harassed volunteers at a soup kitchen and used the statue of Canadian hero Terry Fox to display an anti-vaccine statement.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Ottawa Saturday to protest vaccine mandates, masks and lockdowns. Some travelled in truck convoys and parked on the streets around Parliament Hill, blocking traffic.
Ottawa police said officers were also investigating threatening behavior to police and others.
Ayia Napa: British woman wants fresh investigation after court rules she did not make up gang rape claims
Her lawyer tells The Independent she’s been through ‘one of the worst imaginable times in her life’
Women’s Correspondent
A British woman whose conviction over lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus has been quashed now wants a fresh investigation into her case, her lawyers say.
The 21-year-old university student from Derbyshire was forced to spend four-and-a-half weeks in a prison in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia during the summer of 2019 after alleging she was sexually assaulted by up to 12 young Israeli tourists in a hotel room in the party resort of Ayia Napa.
The woman, whose identity cannot revealed, was charged after signing a retraction statement 10 days later but has since maintained officers forced her to revoke the rape allegation.
Press freedom rapidly deteriorating in China — report
Foreign journalists working in China are facing "unprecedented hurdles" ahead of the Winter Olympics, according to a new survey. Reporters in the Xinjiang region also say they are being increasingly harassed.
Foreign journalists in China are facing "unprecedented hurdles," according to a press freedom report by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) released on Monday.
"The FCCC is troubled by the breakneck speed by which media freedom is declining in China," the report said.
What did the report say?
Of the over 100 foreign journalists that took part in the FCCC's survey, 99% said that they felt working conditions did not meet international standards.
Climate change, population threaten 'staggering' US flood losses by 2050
Climate change is on track to ramp up the annual cost of US flood damage more than 25 percent by 2050, according to new research Monday that warns disadvantaged communities will likely bear the brunt of the financial burden.
The study published in the journal Nature Climate Change used new flood models to map out the present and future impact of sea level rise, tropical cyclones and changing weather patterns.
Losses include destruction projected to hit homes and businesses. Researchers warned that even more people are expected to move into areas at growing risk of inundation.
COVID: Iran’s parliament suspended amid rapid spread of Omicron
Daily cases are rising fast, reaching close to 29,000 COVID infections on Monday.
Iran’s parliament has temporarily suspended its sessions because of an outbreak of COVID-19 among MPs as the Omicron variant spreads across the country at an explosive rate.
Senior lawmaker Nezam Mousavi announced on Monday that at least 47 members of the 290-member parliament have tested positive for the virus, prompting it to cancel its public sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Parliamentary commissions also suspended their sessions this week as per guidelines by the national anti-coronavirus task force.
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Ukraine crisis: Entrenched narratives and a dearth of nuance
Amidst the heated rhetoric around the Ukrainian crisis, there is a risk that nuance is being lost. Plus, speaking with one of the writers of ‘Don’t Look Up’.
Secret State of North Korea FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE shines a light on the hidden world of the North Korean people, revealing how ordinary citizens are resisting one of the world’s most oppressive regimes.
Inside Tokyo's Most Expensive Hotel Room | $12,000/Night
Tokyo's luxury 5 star hotels are amongst the best in the world. We stay the night in a $12,000 a night suite with stunning views as a reward to Connor for eating 100 bowls of noodles.
Beijing Olympics: Five things to know
Covid bubbles, artificial snow and human rights are making Beijing's Winter Olympics hit the headlines.
Here's what you need to know about the Games, which start on Friday 4 February.
Peru in dispute with oil company over massive spill | DW News
The government of Peru says an off-shore oil spill is twice as big as previously reported. It's now confirmed that 12,000 barrels of oil leaked into the sea two weeks ago at a refinery owned by the Spanish oil company Repsol. Peru's government has demanded compensation but Repsol says it was an act of nature.
Six In The Morning 30 January 2022
How a tiny European country took on China over Taiwan
Updated 0911 GMT (1711 HKT) January 30, 2022
A curious spat has unfolded in recent months between Lithuania, a small, Eastern European nation of fewer than 3 million people, and China, a superpower with an economy that could soon exceed that of the United States.
It all started last year, when Lithuania poked Beijing in the eye -- twice in the space of a few months.
First, it withdrew from the so-called "17+1" group, a forum in which 17 eastern and central European countries engage with China, before encouraging others to do the same. Given China's numerous business interests in the region, most notably the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) focused on infrastructure projects, any kind of European pushback is unwelcome in Beijing.
Fruit pickers lured to Portugal by the dream of a ‘raspberry passport’
Farm workers from south Asia describe exploitative conditions at the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry
Three days after Sagar* arrived as a worker in Portugal from Nepal, he began to worry he had made a terrible mistake. “I had expectations to get good work, good money,” he says. “But the reality was different.”
The only job Sagar, 21, could find was on one of the country’s berry farms in Odemira, a rural region on the south-west coast. Earning less than the legal minimum wage to work 16-hour days in 40C heat, he knows he is being exploited. But quitting could jeopardise his residency application – and that’s a risk he cannot afford to take.
Sagar is one of more than 10,000 young men and women who have left their home countries to find work in Portugal’s £200m berry industry, picking fruit that will be sold in supermarkets across Europe.
An "Unreliable Partner"?The Price of Berlin's Hesitancy on Ukraine
Germany is sending 5,000 helmets to Ukraine, but that's it. Many of Berlin's NATO allies, including the U.S., are unimpressed, and there are a number of voices within the Green Party that agree.
By Matthias Gebauer, Kevin Hagen, Valerie Höhne, Dirk Kurbjuweit, Veit Medick, Ralf Neukirch, Jonas Schaible und Fidelius Schmid
"Berlin, we have a problem." That was how Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, began a confidential dispatch she sent to the German Foreign Ministry on Monday. The memo went on to provide a detailed description of how Germany is being discredited in the United States as an "unreliable partner," due to its reticence in the Ukraine crisis. The media, she wrote, isn’t alone in seeing Berlin as a brake when it comes to sanctions, the U.S. Congress does as well. In addition, Berlin’s blocking of weapons deliveries to Kyiv has also been a source of frustration. Washington, Haber wrote, believes that Germany’s position is born of a desire to continue procuring cheap natural gas from Russia.
Sudan security forces kill protester in crackdown on anti-coup march
Sudanese security forces killed a protester Sunday as they cracked down on thousands marching for civilian rule, medics said, taking the number killed since last year's military coup to at least 79.
"Blood is the path to freedom," protesters waving the Sudanese flag chanted, as they marched through the streets of Omdurman, which lies across the Nile river from the capital Khartoum.
"Go back to the barracks," protesters in eastern state of Gedaref shouted at soldiers, witnesses said.
Pro-democracy activists have upped calls for protests to restore a transition to civilian rule, following the October 25 military takeover led by general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
4 top publishers to sue U.S. IT firm for ‘pirate’ manga
By YASUKAZU AKADA/ Staff Writer
January 30, 2022 at 18:32 JST
Four leading manga publishers are set to file a lawsuit against a U.S information technology company in early February, arguing it is breaching their copyrights by distributing data from pirate manga sites, according to sources.
The lawsuit to be heard by the Tokyo District Court targets Cloudflare Inc., a U.S. web infrastructure company that serves as a content delivery network.
Publishers Shueisha Inc., Kodansha Ltd., Shogakukan Inc. and Kadokawa Corp. will seek combined damages totaling about 400 million yen ($3.48 million), the sources said.
Northern Ireland commemorates 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday
Five decades on, memories are still painful for the relatives of civil rights protesters killed by British troops.
Fifty years since one of the worst massacres in Britain, residents in Londonderry, also known as Derry, have marked the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when British troops opened fire on civil rights protesters and gave way to decades of chaos in Northern Ireland.
On January 30, 1972, a British elite parachute regiment shot 14 Catholic marchers dead on the streets of Northern Ireland’s second-largest city.
Retracing the steps of the original march, relatives of the victims staged a walk of remembrance on Sunday.
Saturday, January 29, 2022
The Origins Of The First Spy Planes | Secrets Of War | Timeline
An examination of the secret deployment of modern aircraft designed to spy from the sky. From remotely piloted aircraft on today's battlefield to the venerable U-2 and SR-71, spy plans have long been the most valuable reconnaissance craft in modern warfare
EV1: How an electric car dream was crushed
Before the Prius and Tesla, came the EV1. The world’s first mass-produced electric car was launched by General Motors back in 1996 and was capable of nought to 60 in eight seconds.
However, within a few short years, almost every vehicle was recalled and crushed, and the electric car of the future disappeared in history’s rear-view mirror.
Witness History spoke to Wally Rippel, research engineer for AeroVironment, a Californian company that developed the EV1s predecessors for General Motors.
COVID and the gaping wealth gap: What can be done to fix it?
The coronavirus pandemic has made the rich even richer – and the poor even poorer. Here is why – and what we can do to combat this rise in inequality, which has pushed 160 million people into poverty, while the richest 10 men double their fortunes.
Six In The Morning
How a Russian invasion of Ukraine would reverberate around the world
Updated 0501 GMT (1301 HKT) January 29, 2022
The prospect of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine has heightened alarm in the region, threatening to plunge the country's 44 million inhabitants further into the grips of conflict.
But a move by the Kremlin would also ripple far beyond the two nations' shared border.
Experts fear it could usher in a new era of uncertainty in eastern Europe, disrupt supply chains and the global economy, and force a shift in geopolitical influence that damages the credibility of the West.
Myanmar’s junta torching ‘village after village’ in bid to quell opposition
After a year in power, evidence is growing of regime scorched-earth tactics to terrorise the civilian population
Min Ye Kyaw and Rebecca Ratcliffe
Friday, January 28, 2022
Why is Germany still refusing to send weapons to Ukraine?
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling for calm after speaking with US President Biden. He said there has been no further escalation with Russia at the moment and is asking allies to dial down talk of war.
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