Six In The Morning Saturday 2 April 2022

 Explosions at protest rally in southern Ukraine

As we've been reporting, Russian troops have violently dispersed a pro-Ukraine rally taking place in the occupied southern town of Enerhodar.

This video, which has been verified by the BBC, shows explosions going off in the centre of the town. They appear to be caused by multiple stun grenades landing in a square next to the town's main cultural centre.

The Ukrainian authorities also said that there had been shelling in the town, but the BBC can't independently verify this.

Summary

1. Russian forces have used what appear to be stun grenades on a protest by residents of an occupied town in southern Ukraine
2. Video from Enerhodar, home to Europe's largest nuclear plant, shows people running away from explosions in a square
3. The International Committee of the Red Cross is making another attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol after failing yesterday
4. The organisation says it did not get sufficient security guarantees in two prior attempts to bring aid to the besieged port
5. More than 3,000 people managed to leave the besieged southern port city anyway, Ukraine's President Zelensky says
6. Seven humanitarian corridors are planned for today according to Ukraine's deputy prime minister
7. Zelensky warns Ukrainians that "hard battles lie ahead" in the east, around Donbas and Kharkiv

Sri Lanka president declares public emergency after protests against economic crisis

Declaration comes after hundreds of protesters clashed with police and the military

Reuters

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared a nationwide public emergency, following violent protests over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Rajapaksa said in a government gazette notification late on Friday that he took the decision in the interests of public security, the protection of public order and the maintenance of supplies and essential services.

Hundreds of protesters clashed with police and military on Thursday outside Rajapaksa’s residence in a suburb of the capital, Colombo.

Ukrainian Holocaust survivors flee Russia's war to Germany

"I never thought something like this could happen again." They survived the Holocaust and World War II — now they are fleeing Ukraine to Germany.

They came with whatever they could carry: a small suitcase, a travel bag, photos, an address book, a cellphone and all the memories of a very long life. Completely exhausted, three elderly women got out of the large Red Cross hospital bus; one was brought out on a stretcher by paramedics.

The passengers, Jewish Holocaust survivors who have fled Russia's invasion of Ukraine, are welcomed by care home director Thomas Böhlke — without a grand reception ceremony, without fanfare, "because everyone is just exhausted now," he said.

Brazil drops Covid test for vaccinated travelers

Brazil loosened its pandemic restrictions for international travelers Saturday, ending its Covid-19 test requirement for vaccinated passengers and scrapping a lengthy health questionnaire.

Travelers will now only be required to present proof of vaccination on arrival in the country, according to new regulations published late Friday in the government gazette, following a recommendation to the same effect from federal health regulator Anvisa last week.

Proof of vaccination is not required for Brazilians or foreigners with residency in Brazil. Unvaccinated travelers will have to present a negative Covid-19 test dated no more than one day before departure.

Rights groups slam India for deporting Rohingya woman to Myanmar

Rights groups say the forced deportation of Rohingya to Myanmar is a ‘cruel disregard for human life and international law’.

By Rifat Mohi Uddin

Published On 2 Apr 20222 Apr 2022

The deportation of a 36-year-old Rohingya woman by Indian authorities and fresh detention of Rohingya refugees in Indian-administered Kashmir has been criticised by human rights groups, who called New Delhi’s forcible return of refugees a “cruel disregard for human life and international law”.

Hasina Begum, 36, who was detained on March 6, 2021, along with more than 100 other Rohingya refugees from Jammu city, was deported to Myanmar on March 22.

Since 2017, India has deported 16 Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, according to rights groups, in violation of the principle of non-refoulment – which states that refugees should not be deported to places where they may face persecution.

Putin is making the same mistakes that doomed Hitler when he invaded the Soviet Union

Analysis by John Blake, CNN

Updated 0839 GMT (1639 HKT) April 2, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin often evokes the Soviet Union's epic defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II to justify his country's invasion of Ukraine.

Yet Putin is committing some of the same blunders that doomed Germany's 1941 invasion of the USSR -- while using "Hitler-like tricks and tactics" to justify his brutality, military historians and scholars say.

This is the savage irony behind Putin's decision to invade Ukraine that's become clear as the war enters its second month: the Russian leader, who portrays himself as a student of history, is floundering because he hasn't paid enough attention to the lessons of the "Great Patriotic War" he reveres.