Thursday, May 19, 2022

Six In The Morning Thursday 19 May 2022

 

North Korea sends cargo planes to China as country fights pandemic

Updated 0516 GMT (1316 HKT) May 19, 2022


Three North Korean cargo planes flew to China and back on Monday, as the country battles an fast-spreading outbreak of Covid-19, according to a South Korean government official with knowledge of the matter.

The planes traveled to Taoxian International Airport in Shenyang, in China's northeast Liaoning province, the official said.
It's unknown what the planes were carrying, but the rare trip came after China pledged to help North Korea with its Covid outbreak, which experts have warned could cause a major humanitarian crisis in the isolated and impoverished nation.


Israel will not hold criminal inquiry into killing of journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh


Military police say they are satisfied with assurances of Israeli troops over death of US-Palestinian despite international demands

Israel will not launch a criminal investigation into the killing of the US-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, which Palestinian officials and witnesses have blamed on Israeli soldiers.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces claimed that because Abu Aqleh was killed in an “active combat situation”, an immediate criminal investigation would not be launched, although an “operational inquiry” would continue.

According to a report in the Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli military police branch has accepted the assurances of Israeli troops that they were not aware she was in a village adjacent to the Jenin refugee camp when she was killed on 11 May.


Are European academics helping China's military?

An investigation by DW and partners has found that European researchers have cooperated with China's National University of Defense Technology. The NUDT's purpose is to "Strengthen the Armed Forces and the Nation."

The promotional video for China's elite National University of Defense Technology is set to dramatic music. In quick succession, soldiers run behind tanks, guns blazing, followed by uniformed NUDT professors addressing attentive students.

"We dedicate our lives to the modernization of the national defense army," a narrator intones.

The NUDT is the alma mater of a Chinese student who subsequently did his Ph.D in Germany, conducting research that may have had potential military applications.


The ‘untouchable’ parliamentary speaker at the heart of Lebanon’s next political storm

At 84, Nabih Berry is a seasoned Lebanese political player who has been the country’s parliamentary speaker for 30 years. Following Sunday’s legislative elections, the octogenarian stalwart is running for another term. But a record number of newcomers and political opponents are against his reelection – and in Lebanon, that could be dangerous. 

On October 14, 2021, residents of Beirut were shaken by deadly armed clashes right by the birthplace of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. 

Six people were killed as rival gunmen fired at each other while residents cowered, schoolchildren dashed for safety, and the city froze with a heightened awareness that Lebanon remains just a hair’s breadth away from all-out sectarian conflict. 


Paying to get paid: Young Zimbabweans trade money, sex for jobs

Experts say a series of monumental economic mistakes led Zimbabwe down a path of acute unemployment, forcing job seekers to engage in unethical recruitment processes.


As soon as Norman Chisunga arrived in Harare in February 2019 from his rural home in Murehwa, an hour north, he knew he needed a job urgently.

He figured his uncle, a trader in Mbare, the oldest high-density suburb of the capital and home to a thriving fresh market and electric and automotive consumables market, would not put up with him for long without a job.

And 24-year old Chisunga, who got his high school diploma in 2017, was also desperate for a job, like most of his compatriots. “I wanted any kind of job,” he told Al Jazeera. “There just weren’t any.”


Police arrest man who refused to return 46 million yen to his town


By MICHIYA OFUJI/ Staff Writer

May 19, 2022



Prefectural police arrested a 24-year-old man who refused to return a staggering sum of money his town mistakenly sent him before he moved it out of his account and said he gambled it away.

Police said Sho Taguchi, an unemployed man who resides in the Fukudashimo district in the town of Abu, was arrested on May 18 on suspicion of committing computer fraud. Police said he has admitted to the charge.

A town official accidentally sent 46.3 million yen ($360,242) to Taguchi, in addition to the 100,000-yen COVID-19 financial aid package to be distributed to 463 local households last month.




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