Sunday, April 24, 2022

Six In The Morning Sunday 24 April 2022

 

  • This weekend many Ukrainians will attempt to celebrate one of their most important holidays of the year, Orthodox Easter, two months after the country was thrust into a devastating war.
  • Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russian forces were "continuously attacking" the encircled Azovstal steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol on Easter Sunday. The site has become one of the last significant holdouts of Ukrainian forces in the city, and is sheltering hundreds of soldiers and civilians.
  • Russia launched missile strikes at the southwestern port city of Odesa on Saturday, killing at least eight people, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Heavy fighting also continues in eastern Ukraine.
  • Russia revealed the goal of its invasion is to take "full control" of southern Ukraine as well as the eastern Donbas region and to establish a land corridor connecting Russia to Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014.
  • Zelensky said he will be meeting with the US secretary of state and defense secretary on Sunday in Kyiv. The White House has yet to confirm.



‘Carnival is politics’: revellers bring anti-Bolsonaro sentiment to Rio’s streets

With elections less than six months away, many see festival as a chance to vent their anger at far-right president

 in Rio de Janeiro

As the sun rose over Rio’s breathtaking granite and quartz landscape, José Leonardo da Silva set off from home dressed as a 6ft 2in box of Viagra.

His destination: a beach-sidestreet party called the Cosmic Trumpets where hundreds of half-clothed revellers had gathered to celebrate their first carnival since Covid. His message: that the scandal involving the purchase of tens of thousands of erectile dysfunction tablets by President Jair Bolsonaro’s defense ministry was an intolerable affront.

“Carnival is politics too,” said Silva, a 43-year-old psychologist for Brazil’s health service, as he prepared to spend the day denouncing Bolsonaro’s “completely fascist” government by disguising himself as a packet of 50mg impotence pills.


Israel says committed to status quo at Jerusalem holy site

 Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Sunday that Israel was "committed" to the status quo that prevents Jews praying at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the epicentre of repeated clashes.

His comments follow violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories that has killed 38 people since late March, with tensions further fuelled by the clashes in Jerusalem and consequent exchanges of fire between Israel and Gaza.

"Muslims pray on the Temple Mount, non-Muslims only visit," Lapid said, using the Jewish term for the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the holiest place in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam.

The German Chancellor and the War in UkraineIt's Time for Scholz To Stand Up To Russian Aggression

A DER SPIEGEL Editorial By Steffen Klusmann


Criticism of Olaf Scholz's handling of the war in Ukraine and his refusal to supply heavy weapons refuses to die down, and he is plummeting in the polls. Is the Social Democrat the right chancellor for times like these?


What a disappointment! The Chancellery announced on Tuesday that Olaf Scholz would be making a "substantial" statement after a conference call with other leaders that evening. Had he finally gotten around to ending his dithering? For weeks, there have been accusations that the chancellor is getting in the way of heavy weapons deliveries to Ukraine. For weeks, even members of Scholz’s own coalition government have been waiting for a firm message from their leader. And then this. Scholz said he supports Ukraine receiving heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery pieces from NATO countries. But there will be no direct deliveries for the time being. "Unilateral German action would be wrong." After all, he said, the country’s allies would act in exactly the same way.


Shanghai authorities fence off COVID-hit areas, sparking outrage

China’s most populous city, Shanghai, is battling the country’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak.

Shanghai authorities have erected fences outside residential buildings in the city to contain a COVID-19 outbreak, sparking renewed outrage over a lockdown that has forced many of the Chinese city’s 25 million residents to remain indoors.

China’s most populous city and most important economic hub is battling the country’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak by closing off areas of the city and forcing all those who test positive into quarantine centres.

Capitol Police sergeant posts images of his January 6 riot injuries after Marjorie Taylor Greene calls herself a 'victim' of the attack


Bryan Metzger

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is facing criticism from a member of the Capitol Police who protected members of Congress on January 6, 2021, after she said she was a victim of the riot at a hearing on Friday.

Greene is facing a challenge from Free Speech for the People, which is seeking to remove her name from the ballot in Georgia under Article 3, Section 14, of the Constitution. The group says Greene has violated that provision — which states "no person" who's taken an oath and served as a member of Congress "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion" — and that she is supportive of the events of January 6.

Seeking to contradict that notion, Greene was briefly questioned by her lawyer, James Bopp, about her understanding of the events of that day.




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