Six In The Morning Monday 4 July 2022

 Volunteer fighters 'want payback', as Russians 'wipe out' Luhansk

Sarah Rainsford

Eastern Europe correspondent, reporting from Kyiv

Three Ukrainian soldiers who’ve served in the Donbas have described the fighting there as brutal. They say the Russian troops they faced are far more experienced and ruthless than those who tried to take Kyiv in the spring.

“Russians like to destroy a city, a village, totally. Never mind who’s there - Ukrainian civilians or military,” Mark, a volunteer fighter just back from the front line in the Luhansk region, told me.

He said Russia was using its overwhelming firepower to "wipe out" villages in its advance, leaving the Ukrainians with little cover.

Bolsonaro’s ‘surrender of Amazon to crooks played role in murders of Phillips and Pereira’

Brazilian president’s dismantling of environmental safeguards partly to blame, says politician leading inquiry

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

Jair Bolsonaro’s demolition of Brazil’s Indigenous and environmental protection services and “surrender of the Amazon to crooks” played a direct role in the murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, the politician leading a congressional inquiry into the crime has claimed.

One month after the British journalist and Brazilian Indigenous advocate were killed on the River Itaquaí, three men are in custody: two local fishermen and a third man called Jeferson da Silva Lima.

Federal police initially ruled out the involvement of a more powerful criminal mastermind in a lawless region at the heart of South America’s drug trade, although investigators are examining whether the crime was an ordered assassination.

Karakalpakstan protests: Uzbek authorities say 18 killed

Protests broke out in the autonomous Karakalpakstan province over plans for constitutional amendments that would chop away secession rights.

The rare protests which broke out in Uzbekistan's autonomous Karakalpakstan province last Friday have left 18 people killed, Uzbek authorities said on Monday.

Protests erupted in the northwestern province's capital Nukus after news that fresh constitutional amendments would curtail the province's autonomy by taking away its right to secede.

Some 243 were also wounded, and authorities detained 516, before releasing most of them, as per a press briefing by the national guard press office.

US says shot that killed Al-Jazeera journalist likely fired by Israel

U.S. officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions likely killed Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh but that there was “no reason to believe” her shooting was intentional, the State Department said Monday.

The finding, in a statement from State Department spokesman Ned Price, came after what the U.S. said was inconclusive tests by independent ballistics experts under U.S. oversight of the bullet fragment recovered from Abu Akleh's body.

“Ballistic experts determined the bullet was badly damaged, which prevented a clear conclusion” as to who fired the shot, Price said in the statement.

Kyoto’s love-hate relationship with tourists endures as yen weakens

REUTERS

July 4, 2022 at 12:05 JST

Poring over the ledger at her more than 230-year-old liquor shop in Kyoto, Yasuko Fujii has mixed feelings about the return of foreign tourists who would crowd the streets of Japan’s ancient capital before the pandemic--and buy lots of whisky and wine.

Her ambivalence reflects a broader uncertainty in Japan about welcoming tourist hordes amid fears they could trigger a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, even though a weak yen would be a big draw for tourists and a boon for local businesses.

“From a business standpoint, we want foreign tourists to come,” the 79-year-old Fujii said. “But from an emotional standpoint, we want customers from Japan.”

With no fuel and no cash, Sri Lanka grinds to a halt

Less than a day’s worth of fuel remains, says the energy minister, as the cash-strapped nation extends school closures.

Sri Lanka has less than a day’s worth of fuel left, the energy minister says, with public transport grinding to a halt as the country’s economic crisis deepens.

Power and energy minister Kanchana Wijesekera on Sunday said petrol reserves were about 4,000 tonnes, just below one day’s worth of consumption, as queues snaked through the main city of Colombo for kilometres.

The cash-strapped nation on Sunday extended school closures because there is not enough fuel for teachers and parents to get children to classrooms, with most pumping stations being without fuel for days.