Thursday, June 16, 2022

Six In The Morning Thursday 16 June 2022

 

'The Russians said beatings were my re-education'

By Hugo Bachega
BBC News, Zaporizhzhia

Andriy watched anxiously as Russian soldiers connected his mobile to their computer, trying to restore some files. Andriy, a 28-year-old marketing officer, was attempting to leave Mariupol. He had deleted everything he thought a Russian soldier could use against him, such as text messages discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine or photos of the devastation in his city caused by weeks of relentless shelling.

But the internet in Mariupol, a once bustling port in southern Ukraine, had been cut off as part of the siege imposed by Russia, and Andriy had not been able to take down some of his social media posts. He remembered the first days of the war, when he had shared some anti-Russian messages and speeches from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. "I'm screwed," he thought.

The soldiers, Andriy said, already had their focus on him.



Trains and tyres burn as Indians protest against loss of army job security

Rallies spread across states over news of four-year contract to replace job-for-life scheme

 in Delhi


Young people in India have set trains and tyres alight and vandalised buses in angry protests against a new army recruitment scheme that calls time on a guaranteed job for life.

The protests took place in Rajasthan, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh after the announcement on Tuesday of the Agnipath (“path of fire”) scheme, which aims to recruit people aged between 17 and 21 on four-year contracts.

Once the contract ends, 25% of the proposed 45,000 recruits will be allowed to stay on, and the rest must leave. Those who don’t qualify to continue their military careers will receive a lump sum of 1.2m rupees (about £12,000) in lieu of a pension or benefits.

Hezbollah members get life terms for Lebanese leader's death

Appeals judges at an international tribunal have sentenced two members of the militant Hezbollah group to life imprisonment for their roles in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the deaths of 21 other people


Via AP news wire

Appeals judges at an international tribunal sentenced two members of the militant Hezbollah group to life imprisonment Thursday for their roles in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the deaths of 21 other people in 2005.

Neither of the convicted men, Hassan Habib Merhi and Hussein Hassan Oneissi, has been arrested and sent to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the Netherlands. They were tried in their absence and remain at large.

Merhi and Oneissi were convicted on appeal in March of five crimes, including being accomplices to the intentional homicide of Hariri and the 21 others. They all were killed when plotters detonated a huge truck bomb outside a hotel on Beirut's seafront as Hariri's motorcade drove past.


Ethiopia: The tale of a border town ravaged by the Tigray conflict

Abala — a border town between Tigray and Afar — embodies the Tigray conflict like no other. Residents who used to be neighbors now accuse each other of committing massacres.

Decimated houses, as far as the eye can see, are the sights that greet when entering the town of Abala on the Tigray-Afar border. It feels like a ghost town in a sci-fi movie.

In December 2021, Tigrayan fighters loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked Abala.

Survivors who remained in the town told DW the Tigrayan fighters went door to door, looted, and destroyed anything they could find.


US envoy sees China lockdowns extending into 2023

China is likely to keep imposing sweeping lockdowns into 2023, the US ambassador said Thursday, as he cautioned that the zero-Covid strategy was hurting business.

"I think we are going to have to live with this for a long time. My own assumption is that we'll see the continuation of zero-Covid probably into the beginning of 2023," Ambassador Nicholas Burns told the Brookings Institution.

Burns, speaking to the Washington think tank by video link from Beijing, said that the lockdowns were disrupting supply chains and making foreign businesses wait before considering further investment.


Suspect admits killing missing pair in Brazilian Amazon, authorities say


Updated 0215 GMT (1015 HKT) June 16, 2022



A suspect held over the disappearance of a British journalist and Brazilian indigenous affairs expert has admitted to killing the pair in a remote region of the Amazon, Brazilian authorities said at a news conference Wednesday.

Brazilian Federal Police identified the suspect as Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira. Police said he confessed on Tuesday night and indicated where the bodies of veteran correspondent Dom Phillips and researcher Bruno Araújo Pereira had been buried.
The following day, the suspect took police to the area where the pair were allegedly killed -- a 100-minute journey by speedboat and 3-kilometer (about 2 miles) trek into the jungle.








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