Tuesday, May 31, 2022
What’s the way out of the global cost of living crisis?
Many countries are reporting significant increases in the prices of food, housing and fuel.
How India’s first all-women newsroom is creating a media revolution
Khabar Lahariya or Waves of News is an all-women newsroom in northern India.
Its co-founder, Kavita Bundelkhandi, learned to write when she was 12. Many of her staff are from marginalised backgrounds and include survivors of domestic abuse and violence.
Her team has faced discrimination and death threats, but have gone on to produce award-winning stories about illegal mining, jungle bandits and the daily lives of rural communities.
Sending Aya Back: the Syrian teen facing deportation in Denmark
Aya, a Syrian teenager in Denmark, is threatened with deportation to a place she cannot remember. Under a hostile immigration system, Denmark has begun trying to send back refugees from Damascus, claiming the city is now safe under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Aya's brothers are allowed to stay, since if they returned they would have to join the military. We join Aya at her graduation surrounded by her schoolmates, teachers, friends and family who are rallying around her as she fights to stay
How long can Russia's forces sustain their momentum? | Ukraine latest
The Ukrainian prosecutor's office said it has uncovered a "few thousand" cases of war crimes in the eastern Donbas region. Kyiv's top prosecutor also said it has identified over 600 Russian war suspects and started prosecuting around 80 of them.
Six In The Morning Tuesday 31 May 2022
Ukraine war: Refugee from Popasna spots looted possessions on Russian tank
By Robert Greenall
BBC News
A Ukrainian refugee in the UK says she recognises items apparently looted from her house sitting on top of a Russian tank in a recent photo.
Alina Koreniuk says the box in the photo contains a new boiler she planned to install before the war started.
She and her children left Ukraine on 8 April and are staying with a British couple in Nottinghamshire.
The picture, taken in late May, shows the tank moving past bombed residential buildings in the town of Popasna.
Japan to approve abortion pill – but partner’s consent will be required
Delay in approving pill, and the possible $780 cost, reflect priorities of male-dominated parliament, say critics
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Women in Japan could be forced to seek their partner’s consent before being prescribed the abortion pill, which will reportedly be approved late this year – three decades after it was made available to women in the UK.
Under Japan’s 1948 Maternal Protection Law, consent is already required for surgical abortions – with very few exceptions – a policy that campaigners say tramples over women’s reproductive rights.
“In principle we believe that spousal consent is necessary, even if an abortion is induced by an oral medication,” Yasuhiro Hashimoto, a senior health ministry official, told a parliamentary committee earlier this month, according to Bloomberg.
'The coverage continues': Palestinian journalists vow to carry forward Abu Akleh's legacy
Israelis and Palestinians started separate inquiries into the killing of a prominent US-Palestinian reporter. Those who knew Shireen Abu Akleh worry no one will be held to account for her death.
It's been almost two weeks since Faten Elwan woke up to the dreadful news that her colleague and close friend Shireen Abu Akleh had been fatally shot in the early morning of May 11. Abu Akleh, a senior correspondent with Al Jazeera Arabic, was covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on that fateful day.
"Now we start to realize and it just doesn't make sense," says Elwan, a Palestinian journalist who lives in Ramallah and currently works for a youth website. "We just pick up the phone and call her, we are not over that habit yet."
Daniel Defense, the US gunmaker notorious for ‘aggressive marketing’ targeting young adults
The perpetrator of the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two adults lost their lives on May 24 – the worst US school shooting in a decade – used a semi-automatic weapon manufactured by the US firm Daniel Defense, one of the most aggressive marketers of assault weapons, notably targeting young adults.
A week after the Uvalde school shooting, Daniel Defense shied away from attending the National Rifle Association convention.
“Daniel Defense is not attending the NRA meeting due to the horrifying tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, where one of our products was criminally misused,” the company’s vice president of marketing Steve Reed said in a statement. “We believe this week is not the appropriate time to be promoting our products in Texas at the NRA meeting.”
In Ethiopia, mass detention signals shrinking press freedom
Twenty-two media employees have been arrested across Ethiopia this year alone.
On April 26th, an official from the Ethiopian attorney general’s office took to state media to lament what he called a lack of police action in clamping down on disinformation and hate speech.
A number of journalists in the country saw that as a bad omen.
“When I heard the call, I knew a crackdown on the press was imminent,” an Addis Ababa-based journalist told Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted. “I had already heard rumours that the government was keen on reining in the press, especially producers of digital content. The only question now was how many of us would be jailed.”
Math books outrage China with 'ugly, sexually suggestive, pro-American' images
Updated 0455 GMT (1255 HKT) May 31, 2022
China has ordered a nationwide review of school textbooks after illustrations deemed ugly, sexually suggestive and secretly pro-American caused public uproar.
The news has alarmed some experts and parents who fear the campaign is turning into a political witch hunt and represents an unnecessary tightening of the country's already stringent censorship of cultural publications.
The drawings, found in a series of math textbooks that have been used by Chinese primary schools for nearly a decade, are controversial for various reasons.
Monday, May 30, 2022
Can the ‘status-quo’ of Jerusalem’s Old City be preserved?
Israeli incursions increasingly challenge the longstanding agreement banning non-Muslim prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound.
EU reaches partial agreement on embargo on Russian oil at summit
European Union leaders have reached a partial agreement on an embargo of Russian oil at the summit, the Associated Press is reporting.
EU leaders agree to ban more than two-thirds of oil imports from Russia
After hours of last-minute negotiations – and failure to come to agreement – European Union leaders have agreed to ban more than two-thirds of of all Russian oil imports.
The ban, which President Zelenskiy spent Monday advocating EU leaders for as a show of unity against Vladimir Putin, was heavily resisted by Hungary. Earlier compromises included exempting Russian oil transported through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline for Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia from the EU embargo.
While the ban will put the “maximum pressure on Russia to end the war”, as Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said on Twitter, it will also probably result in a hike in the already high gas prices across Europe, which is heavily reliant on Russian oil.
Australia alarmed over China's security ambitions in the South Pacific
An attempt by China to secure a sweeping security and trade deal with ten South Pacific islands remains elusive.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was hoping to sign such a pact during a stop in Fiji, part of his diplomatic tour of the region. But Wang came away from a virtual meeting with his South Pacific counterparts without a deal. He urged them not to be too anxious about his country's aims in the region and promised to clear the air.
Six In The Morning Monday 30 May 2022
On the front lines with a family fighting for Ukraine
Updated 1215 GMT (2015 HKT) May 30, 2022
In a shallow trench in a narrow strip of trees that offers the only cover in this Ukrainian landscape in the Mykolaiv district, a man stands with his two adult sons.
This is their first war together. Their first time as soldiers. When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded their land, they went to the army as a family to sign up to fight.
Yaroslav is a 59-year-old grandfather. One of his sons, Nazar, 34, has two sons of his own. Another son, Pavlo, 26 has a daughter.
Greenhouse gas removal ‘not a silver bullet to achieve net zero’
UK scientists say carbon capture is ‘hard and expensive’ and focus must be on reducing emissions
Helena Horton Environment reporter
Many of the UK’s top scientists working on carbon capture technologies do not believe they will be developed and scaled up in time to reach net zero and limit global heating to 1.5C.
Experts speaking at a Greenhouse Gas Removal Hub event in London warned that these techniques, including direct air capture, biofuels, biochar, afforestation and advanced weathering, are not a silver bullet and should make up just a fraction of the efforts to decarbonise.
The researchers were polled by event organisers on whether they believed the carbon removal targets would be met. Of 114 scientists in the audience, 57% said they were “not confident” the UK would meet the 2030 goals in the net zero strategy of 5m tonnes of engineered greenhouse gas removal, and 30,000 hectares a year of tree planting; 25% said they were quite confident, and 11% said there was no chance.
Could naval convoys lift the blockade on Ukraine grain?
Lithuania proposed a naval coalition of the willing to lift Russia's blockade on Ukraine grain. Is this practical?
Three months into Russia's war in Ukraine, the Kremlin's blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports continues, heightening fears of a global food crisis.
Ukraine is the fifth largest exporter of wheat in the world and earlier this month, the UN's World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley warned that millions of people around the world would die with Ukrainian ports being blocked.
French journalist killed in Ukraine while covering ‘reality of the war’, Macron says
A French journalist has been killed while working in Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said Monday on Twitter. "Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff was in Ukraine to show the reality of war. On board a humanitarian bus with civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombings, he was mortally wounded," Macron wrote. Leclerc-Imhoff was working for the BFM television news channel.
Former inmates talk about their lives after prison on radio show
By SERI ISHIKAWA/ Staff Writer
May 30, 2022 at 13:58 JST
A radio program featuring former prisoners and inmates' family members discusses how former inmates rejoin society and how they plan to make up for their crimes.
“I want to convey various aspects of life in prison that aren't known in society, along with the difficulties I faced after my release from prison,” said a former inmate.
The show is aired on a community broadcasting station in western Tokyo’s Fuchu.
Far-right Israeli attacks highlight ‘Jerusalem Day’ reality
Ultra-nationalist Israelis violently confronted Palestinians both during and after the ‘flag march’ on Sunday.
“Jerusalem Day” and its accompanying ‘flag march’ came and went in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, but, despite Israeli authorities breathing a sigh of relief that it did not trigger wider confrontations between Israel and the Palestinians, particularly Hamas in Gaza, the reality was a day of violence in which ultra-nationalist Jewish Israelis attacked countless Palestinians, many times under the eyes of Israeli police.
At least 81 Palestinians were wounded on Sunday by Israeli forces and far-right Jews in Jerusalem during and after the flag march, which marked the day Israel illegally occupied and annexed the city’s eastern half in 1967. Most Jewish Israelis view it as the day Jerusalem was “unified”.
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Australia’s new PM Albanese backs climate, defying Murdoch media
Climate was a big factor in the Australian elections despite the Murdoch media push. Plus, the taboo of Palestine in Germany.
Hong Kong's Omicron crisis: ‘It took just 10 days for everyone to be infected’
More than 9,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Hong Kong since the start of the year, giving it one of the highest fatality rates in the world.
Over half of those to die in the latest wave were care home residents.
BBC Chinese was given rare access to one such home.
Starting over: A Ukrainian family in Berlin
In March 2022, 43-year-old Sascha fled Ukraine with her 17-year-old daughter, Anna. Anna's father died a few years ago while fighting in eastern Ukraine. Now Sascha and Anna are starting a new life in Berlin.
Six In The Morning Sunday 29 May 2022
Ukraine war: BBC interview with Russian ambassador to the UK
Russia’s ambassador in Britain was asked to explain CCTV footage of Moscow’s soldiers committing alleged war crimes in Ukraine. In a tense exchange with the BBC's Clive Myrie, Andrei Kelin said such allegations were a "fabrication".
Tensions high in Jerusalem before rightwing Israeli flag parade
3,000 police deployed amid fears contested annual march could spark fresh violence
Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem
Jerusalem is on edge in advance of a rightwing Israeli parade that will pass through Muslim parts of the Old City, after violence during the same event last year helped spark an 11-day-war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.
The annual flag march, in which thousands of religious nationalists enter the highly symbolic Damascus Gate and walk through the Muslim Quarter waving Israeli flags, takes place at sunset on what Israel calls Jerusalem Day, the celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
It is often accompanied by racist chants and violence and viewed as deeply provocative by the Palestinians. This year the flag march comes at a particularly tense time: in the last two months Israel has suffered its worst wave of terrorist attacks in years, which have killed 19 people, while retaliatory Israel Defence Forces (IDF) raids in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank have left about 35 Palestinians dead, including the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh.
The Oppression of Uyghurs in ChinaVW Under Fire for Ongoing Operations in Xinjiang
Volkswagen continues to operate a factory in the heart of Xinjiang, despite massive criticism from human rights activists. The factory is largely meaningless from a business perspective. Is the company trying to prove its loyalty to the Chinese government?
By Christoph Giesen, Simon Hage und Frederik Obermaier
The Communist Party has divided the city into precise quadrants, just like a chessboard. Across the city of Ürümqi, signs with numbers are posted on lampposts and fences. The cross street just behind the factory gate lies in Sector 65,793, while the east side is part of Sector 65,605.
The numbering system helps state authorities to intervene immediately if necessary. A single call suffices: Within a minute, officers from surrounding police stations will turn up in their vans, brandishing assault rifles. And this despite the fact that there really isn’t much to protect in this corner of this city of 4 million in western China, the capital of the Xinjiang region. Except for a single automobile factory. But that factory appears to be so important to the People’s Armed Police that they maintain a barracks virtually right next door.
Francia Marquez, the Afro-Colombian rights activist campaigning for vice president of Colombia
For the first time in Colombia's history, the left, led by former Bogota mayor Gustavo Petro, could win the presidential election set to begin Sunday. If it prevails, Afro-Colombian environmental and human rights activist Francia Marquez would become vice president. A victory would mark a turning point for a country that has been plagued by social inequalities and historically governed by conservatives.
In recent weeks, Marquez has consistently appeared in public wearing brightly coloured traditional Afro-Colombian outfits. As a vice-presidential candidate in the presidential election, she always chants the same message: "It's time to move from resistance to power!"
Japan's Ukraine refugee policy criticized for putting politics over human rights
Japan has quickly opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees, but the country has a long history of denying entry to people seeking safety from conflicts. Human rights activists hope that will now change.
The Japanese government has been quick to publicize its acceptance of more than 1,000 refugees from war-torn Ukraine.
But critics point out that Japanese immigration authorities have been far less willing to open the nation's doors to people fleeing violence and persecution in developing states much closer to Japan.
Human rights groups say those double standards need to end and that Japan needs to live up to its international obligations on extending assistance to refugees from other war zones.
Liverpool requests formal investigation into ugly scenes around Champions League final
Updated 1315 GMT (2115 HKT) May 29, 2022
Liverpool Football Club has requested a formal investigation into the ugly scenes that marred the Champions League final in Paris on Saturday.
The game, which Real Madrid won 1-0, was delayed by over 35 minutes after Liverpool fans struggled to enter the stadium despite many arriving hours before kickoff.
Tear gas was used by French police as supporters were held in tightly packed areas around the Stade de France, causing safety fears to spread among those who were there.
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