Six In The Morning Sunday 3 April 2022

 

Ukrainian president reacts to images from Bucha: "This is genocide"

From CNN's Niamh Kennedy and Anastasia Graham Yooll in London

"This is genocide," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, speaking after images emerged of civilian bodies strewn across the streets of Bucha, northwest of the capital of Kyiv.

When asked during an appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation" program if Russia is carrying out genocide in Ukraine, Zelensky replied: "Indeed. This is genocide."

 "The elimination of the whole nation, and the people. We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities," he continued. 

Ukraine doesn't want to be "subdued to the policy of the Russian Federation," Zelensky said, adding that this "is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated."

Dire warning on climate change ‘is being ignored’ amid war and economic turmoil

The third segment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is being overshadowed, just like the previous one

Fiona Harvey

Sun 3 Apr 2022 08.45 BST

Scientists fear that their last-ditch climate warnings are going unheeded amid international turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine, and soaring energy prices.

The third segment of the landmark scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – which could be the last comprehensive assessment of climate science to be published while there is still time to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown – will be published on Monday, warning that the world is not shifting quickly enough to a low-carbon economy.

But the previous instalment of the vast report – known as working group 2 of the IPCC – was published a month ago, just as Russia invaded Ukraine, and received only muted attention, despite warning of catastrophic and irreversible upheavals that can only narrowly be avoided by urgent action now. Scientists told the Observer that Monday’s fresh scientific warning must spur governments to belated action.

The war in Ukraine is crushing thousands of elderly Japanese people

In the disputed Northern Territories of Japan, the war has crushed people’s hopes of ever seeing their homeland again after Russia broke off negotiations, write Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Julia Mio Inuma

Soviet soldiers barged into Hirotoshi Kawata’s home on 4 Sept 1945, searching for hidden Japanese soldiers and valuables. Kawata, then 11, remembers understanding only two words they said: tokei, or wristwatch; and sake, which they went on to loot from the home.

It was the beginning of the Soviet takeover of a resource-rich chain of islands in northern Japan, to the terror of families who had thought that the worst of the war was over after Japan’s surrender. Japanese citizens were soon forbidden from working or moving freely, and women and children were detained for forced labour.

Many families fled on boats in the middle of the night, rowing at first until they were far enough from the coast to turn on their engines. Kawata’s family was among thousands displaced during that time.

Humanitarian Catastrophe in SomaliaWith the World's Attention on Ukraine, Suffering Is Rising Elsewhere

Ukraine isn't the only place where children are dying because of the Russian invasion. With all attention on the war there, aid money is drying up in other regions – including in Somalia, which is experiencing a devastating drought.

By Heiner Hoffmann in Somalia

A teenage girl is squatting on the dusty ground, her long robe covering her entire body, right down to her feet. Beneath the dress, blood is dripping into the sand. Everyone knows it, but she wants to keep it hidden from view. The young woman is having her period, but here in the camp, neither pads nor tampons are available – indeed there isn’t even anything to eat. So she squats on the ground, for several days running, and hopes that it will soon come to an end.

She's surrounded by plastic tarps rippling in the wind, stretched as they are across branches bound together to create dome-shaped shelters. It is a camp for displaced people, set up by the Somalian government in the southern part of the country. A water truck comes by every now and then, but residents of the camp have to take care of everything else themselves. They all used to be cowherds, but the persistent drought has killed off their livestock, and their livelihoods. More than 4 million of the country’s population of 16 million have been affected.

Sri Lankan opposition lawmakers defy curfew to stage protest amid economic crisis

Armed troops in Sri Lanka blocked a Sunday opposition protest march staged in defiance of an emergency curfew to protest the island nation's worsening economic crisis, after authorities imposed a social media blackout to contain public dissent.

The South Asian island nation is facing severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials, along with sharp price rises and crippling power cuts, in its most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa imposed a state of emergency on Friday, the day after a crowd attempted to storm his home in the capital Colombo, and a nationwide curfew is in effect until Monday morning.

Pakistan PM escapes removal but triggers a constitutional crisis

Imran Khan ducks a no-confidence motion and gets parliament dissolved, but the opposition decides to challenge the move in the Supreme Court.

By Q Zaman

 Pakistan’s parliament has been dissolved after a no-confidence motion seeking the removal of Prime Minister Imran Khan was dismissed on Sunday, triggering another political and constitutional crisis in a country that has a history marred by frequent coups by powerful generals.

President Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly minutes after receiving advice from Prime Minister Khan. Minister of State for information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib said Pakistan will hold fresh elections in 90 days. However, the final decision will come from the president and the Election Commission of Pakistan.