Six In The Morning Sunday 5 June 2022

 

Putin warns of hitting ‘new targets’ if Kyiv gets new missiles

The Russia president issues a new warning to the West against providing Ukraine with long-range missiles as it attacks Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West against providing Ukraine with long-range missiles, as Moscow claimed it had struck targets in Kyiv, destroying tanks and other armoured vehicles supplied by Western countries.

Putin warned that he would hit new targets if advanced rocket systems were supplied to Ukraine, adding that new arms deliveries to Kyiv are aimed at “prolonging the conflict”.

Moscow “will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our arms…. to strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” the Russian leader said without specifying which targets he meant.

‘Fear is increasing’: Hindus flee Kashmir amid spate of targeted killings

Increase in violence prompts protests and biggest exodus of Kashmiri Pandit families for two decades

Aakash Hassan In Srinagar

Hundreds of minority Hindus have fled from Indian-administered Kashmir, and many more are preparing to leave, after a fresh spate of targeted killings stoked tensions in the disputed Himalayan region.

Three Hindus have been killed by militants in Kashmir this week alone, including a teacher and migrant workers, prompting mass protests and the largest exodus of Hindu families from the Muslim-majority region in two decades.

Sanjay Tickoo, a Kashmiri Pandit activist, said: “Some 3,500 people have left and more will be leaving in coming days.”

Caught Between War and PeaceThe Russians Are Gone, But Normal Life Has Yet to Return to Kharkiv

The Ukrainians managed to stop the Russian advance on Kharkiv. The city's mayor is now dreaming of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, but the Donbas is nearby and Kharkiv is within range of enemy artillery. A report from a city that is torn apart and far from normal.

By Christian Esch in Kharkiv and Maxim Dondyuk (Photos)

Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently traveled through his war-torn country for the first time. For three months, the president had remained in Kyiv with, at most, occasional visits to the surrounding countryside. On Sunday, he arrived in Kharkiv, in the northeast of the country. The president inspected columns of burned-out Russian vehicles, destroyed apartment blocks and government buildings. He handed out medals to soldiers.

60 Rohingya found abandoned on Thai island: police

Fifty-nine Rohingya people have been discovered on a Thai island, saying they were abandoned by traffickers en route to Malaysia, a senior police officer said Sunday.

The group -- among them five children -- were found on Koh Dong island in the southern Satun province on Saturday, said lieutenant general Surachet Hakpan.

Each year, thousands of the mostly Muslim minority Rohingya people, heavily persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, risk their lives in months-long expensive journeys to reach Malaysia over Thailand's seas.

Police said they had been charged with illegal entry and could face deportation to Myanmar following a court case.

Nigeria's political system favors old wealthy men

Despite young people making up the majority of Nigeria's voters, the country's politicians are mostly old, wealthy and male. Such a system makes it harder for young people to enter politics.

Campaigning is in full gear in Nigeria as the the June 9 deadline nears for Nigeria's political parties to pick their presidential candidates for the 2023 polls.

The main opposition party, the People's Democratic Party, or PDP, has already nominated a 75-year-old as its presidential candidate. 

Business tycoon Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, has had five previous goes at winning the presidential ticket. Given his advanced age, many believe this could be his last shot. 

‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan

Backed by the Kremlin, the shadowy network known as the Wagner Group is getting rich in Sudan while helping the military to crush a democracy movement.

By Declan Walsh

Declan Walsh is the Chief Africa correspondent and first reported from Sudan in 1998.

 In a scorched, gold-rich area 200 miles north of the Sudanese capital, where fortunes spring from desert-hewn rock, a mysterious foreign operator dominates the business.

Locals call it “The Russian Company” — a tightly guarded plant with shining towers, deep in the desert, that processes mounds of dusty ore into bars of semirefined gold.

“The Russians pay the best,” said Ammar al-Amir, a miner and community leader in al-Ibediyya, a hardscrabble mining town 10 miles from the plant. “Otherwise, we don’t know much about them.”