Six In The Morning Tuesday 12 July 2022

 

Unification Church puzzled by reports of alleged grudge held by Shinzo Abe assassination suspect

By Jessie Yeung, Emiko Jozuka and Mayumi Maruyama, CNN

Updated 0723 GMT (1523 HKT) July 12, 2022

The Unification Church said Monday it was puzzled by reports of alleged resentment held against the group by the man suspected of assassinating former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"There is a big distance between having resentment toward our association and killing former Prime Minister Abe," Tomihiro Tanaka, the Japan office chairman of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, told a news conference Monday.

"We struggle to understand why this happened. We will cooperate fully with the police to reveal his motive," he added.

Dangerous heatwaves engulf parts of China, US and Europe

At least 86 Chinese cities issue alerts, as temperatures soar in south-west and central US and Iberian peninsula

Vincent Ni, China affairs correspondent, Sam Jones in Madrid and Nina Lakhani in New York

Dangerous heatwaves are engulfing parts of China, Europe, south-west and central US this week, as dozens of cities have found themselves dealing with soaring summer temperatures.

By Tuesday afternoon, at least 86 Chinese cities in eastern and southern parts of the country had issued heat alerts. Chinese meteorologists forecast temperatures in some cities would top 40C (104F) in the next 24 hours.

In eastern Shanghai, China’s most populous city, the authorities have told its 25 million people to prepare for unusually hot weather. Since record-keeping began in 1873, Shanghai has had only 15 days with temperatures above 40C.

Dutch government offers ‘deepest apologies’ over Srebrenica massacre role

‘The events of 1995 led to deep human suffering that is palpable here to this day,’ says the Netherlands’ defence minister

Anthony Deutsch

The Netherlands has offered its “deepest apologies” for the role played by Dutch peacekeepers in the Srebrenica genocide, when roughly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred 27 years ago.

It is the first time the Dutch government has apologised to the relatives of the victims.

Outgunned and outnumbered, Dutch peacekeepers were unable to prevent Bosnian Serb forces from overrunning the UN-declared “safe haven” at the tail end of the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

During a week of bloodletting in July 1995, men and boys were separated from the women and taken to execution sites where they were massacred. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves.

Opinion: Vladimir Putin is callously exploiting the plight of Syria's displaced

With his refusal to allow aid through the Bab al-Hawa border point, Vladimir Putin could trigger mass migration towards Turkey and the EU. Once again, he is sacrificing people for his politics, says DW's Kersten Knipp.

As was to be expected, Russia is refusing to allow further aid into Syria. If no agreement is reached behind the scenes at the UN soon, the only remaining access point into northern Syria — Bab al-Hawa, near the Turkish city of Iskenderun — will be cut off from international aid supplies.

As things stand, some 4 million displaced people in the north of the country, who have so far relied on aid for the most basic supplies, will have to help themselves in other ways. The question is how? And does President Vladimir Putin even care? If his attack on Ukraine is anything to go by, it's fair to assume that he doesn't.

Killing of Palestinian journalist threatens to overshadow Biden's Israel trip

 Joe Biden flies to the Middle East on Tuesday for his first trip to the region since entering the White House. Before a visit to Saudi Arabia – one which reawakens the age-old foreign policy dilemma of realpolitik versus human rights – the US president goes to Israel, where he risks becoming entangled in the storm surrounding the fatal shooting of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May.

Biden will be in Israel from Wednesday to Friday on the first stop of his Middle Eastern tour – and is expected to discuss with new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid the deepening ties between Tel Aviv and certain Arab states, as well as US attempts to revive in some form the nuclear deal discarded by his predecessor Donald Trump.

But regardless of these intentions, Biden’s visit risks being caught up in the anger over the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al-Jazeera journalist who was shot dead on May 11 while covering an Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Jenin, despite wearing a protective helmet and a bulletproof vest bearing the word “Press”.

Sri Lanka protesters reject all-party gov’t, want Rajapaksas out

Protesters say no to an all-party government being discussed by politicians, saying it will be a way for the ‘Rajapaksa cartel’ to remain in power.

By Saroj Pathirana

Published On 12 Jul 202212 Jul 2022

 Tens of thousands of Sri Lankan protesters have been occupying the President’s House, the presidential secretariat and the prime minister’s official residence in growing anger over the island nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.

The chaos began on Saturday when angry Sri Lankans stormed the official residence of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a 73-year-old member of the powerful Rajapaksa clan whom protesters blame for the country’s worst economic crisis since 1948.

Rajapaksa is expected to officially resign on Wednesday. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has also offered to quit once an interim all-party government being discussed among the political parties to resolve the crisis is formed.