Tuesday, January 31, 2023
India: Anti-Muslim hate music
Sandeep Acharya is a popular musician. Millions of users stream his songs online, and thousands of fans attend his concerts. He belongs to India’s Hindutva music scene - an Islamophobic scene that has been on the rise in India. Hindutva pop is often played when Hindu groups rally in India. Some songs have even sparked violence and riots.
Urgent search for tiny radioactive capsule missing in Australia
An urgent search is under way in Western Australia after a tiny capsule containing a radioactive substance went missing between a town and city roughly 1,400km (870 miles) apart. The casing contains a small quantity of radioactive Caesium-137, which could cause serious illness if touched. The public has been warned to stay away from the capsule if they see it.
What role will Belarus play in Russia's next military offensive?
The Belarusian Defence Ministry on Tuesday announced the start of week-long training of their joint military grouping with Russia. According to a ministry statement the training is part of preparation for joint military drills the allies will hold in Russia in September. Moscow used the country as a staging point for the invasion of northern Ukraine.
Six In The Morning Tuesday 31 January 2023
Secretive Saudi executions leave families in the dark
By Caroline Hawley
Diplomatic correspondent
Executions of prisoners have been carried out in Saudi Arabia with no advance warning to their families, relatives have told the BBC. The country's execution rate has almost doubled since 2015 - according to a new human rights report - the year when King Salman and his son Mohammed bin Salman took charge.
Mustafa al-Khayyat's family were given no notice that he was about to be killed.
They still have no body to bury. No grave to visit. The last they heard from him was a phone call from prison, and he signed off with these words to his mother: "Alright, I have to go. I'm glad you're OK."
Neither had any inkling that it would be the last time they spoke.
North-west Pakistan in grip of deadly Taliban resurgence
Misguided government efforts to rehabilitate militants have helped fuel recent terrorist activity
Shah Meer Baloch in Waziristan and Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Mumbai
The bomber struck shortly before afternoon prayers, when the mosque in Peshawar’s bustling Police Lines district would be at its busiest. Hundreds of people, including many police officers, were inside as the device detonated, creating a blast so strong the roof and wall collapsed and 92 people were killed.
The attack on Monday was among the worst in years to hit Peshawar, a city in north-west Pakistan that has been ravaged relentlessly by deadly terrorist violence over decades. Hours after the attack, responsibility was claimed by a low-level commander from one faction of the Pakistan Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as revenge for the death of a fighter in Afghanistan.
European court rejects intersex birth certificate plea
A French individual has failed in their bid to have their birth certificate reflect their status as intersex. The European Court of Human Rights ruled authorities were not violating the law in rejecting the request.
The European Court of Human Rights rejected a challenge to French law Tuesday by an individual who sought to have their birth certificate changed to recognize them as intersex.
The Strasbourg court said French authorities had not violated the European Convention on Human Rights in rejecting the individual's request. The court is part of the European Council, which works to protect human rights in its 46 member states and is not part of the EU.
Intersex people defy gender norms of male or female and are often born with these characteristics.
EPA blocks Alaska mining project in salmon-rich Bristol Bay
US environmental authorities on Tuesday blocked a huge gold and copper mine project in Alaska's pristine salmon-rich Bristol Bay.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) move is a victory for environmental activists, the fishing industry and indigenous groups who had been fighting the Pebble mine for two decades.
Citing the Clean Water Act, the EPA said it was blocking the project to "help protect Bristol Bay, the most productive wild salmon ecosystem in the world."
‘Surprisingly resilient’: IMF lifts global growth forecasts
Fund says demand in the US and Europe has been stronger than expected, and that only the UK faces a recession.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its 2023 global growth outlook slightly due to “surprisingly resilient” demand in the United States and Europe and the reopening of China’s economy after Beijing abandoned its strict zero-COVID strategy.
The IMF said global growth would still fall to 2.9 percent in 2023 from 3.4 percent in 2022, but its latest World Economic Outlook forecasts mark an improvement over an October prediction of 2.7 percent growth this year, with warnings that the world could easily tip into recession.
A radioactive capsule is missing in Australia. It’s tiny and potentially deadly
It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack – an 8mm by 6mm silver capsule, no bigger than a coin, believed to be lost somewhere along a stretch of vast desert highway in Australia’s biggest state.
Mining company Rio Tinto issued an apology on Monday saying it was supporting state government efforts to find the capsule, which contains Caesium-137, a highly radioactive substance used in mining equipment.
Rio Tinto said it has checked all roads in and out of the Gudai-Darri mine site in remote northern Western Australia, where the device was located before a contractor collected it for the journey south to the state capital, Perth.
Monday, January 30, 2023
Will the Ukraine war become a wider European conflict?
Kyiv calls for fighter jets after Germany agrees to allow the deployment of Leopard 2 tanks.
LGBT people hunted by gangs and police in Egypt
A BBC News investigation has revealed how violent criminal gangs are finding, abusing and extorting people from the LGBT community they meet online in Egypt.
Using masking technology to hide the identities of the people he meets, Ahmed Shihab El-Din navigates the complex online and real-life world of people who identify as queer and who have been repeatedly targeted by a gang with violent viral video humiliations and police arrests.
How Russia pressures schoolchildren to support war in Ukraine
Russian authorities are continuing their repression of criticism of the invasion of Ukraine. Some parents have reported that their children are facing pressure at school, where they're taught that the war is only a limited military operation.
Six In The Morning Monday 30 January 2023
Pakistan: dozens killed in mosque blast in Peshawar
At least 46 people dead and more than 100 wounded in suicide bombing claimed by the Pakistan Taliban
Hannah Ellis-Petersen South Asia correspondent
At least 46 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a suicide bombing carried out by the Pakistan Taliban at a mosque in the city of Peshawar, as the security situation in the country continues to deteriorate.
The blast struck as 200 worshippers were praying in the mosque, located in the Police Lines area of the city where the police headquarters and counter-terrorism officers are based. Most of those inside the mosque were thought to be officers.
The impact of the explosion collapsed the roof and one wall of the mosque and injured many people, said Zafar Khan, a local police officer. Witnesses said the blast took place in the main hall just as afternoon prayers were about to begin and worshippers were packed tightly inside. According to officials, the bomber had been standing in the front row.
Ex-spy chief caught in race row over anti-white conspiracy theory
Hans-Georg Maassen is accused of ‘repeatedly using language from antisemites and conspiracy ideologists’
Germany's main opposition party is trying to get rid of a member and former head of the country's domestic intelligence agency after he complained about what he said was a move toward “eliminatory racism against whites.”
The leadership of the center-right Christian Democratic Union unanimously approved a resolution on Monday calling for Hans-Georg Maassen to leave the party. It said that it would seek to start expulsion proceedings if he doesn't willingly do so by Sunday.
Mr Maassen was removed as the head of the BfV domestic intelligence agency in 2018 after appearing to downplay far-right violence against migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz. He has since become a vocal if marginal figure on the hard right of the CDU, the party once led by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ran unsuccessfully for election to the national parliament in 2021.
How China's yuan props up Putin's anemic budget
Russia has started selling its growing reserves of the Chinese currency to fill a budget deficit caused by falling oil and gas revenues and the costs of war. For how long will the yuan shore up Putin's ailing economy?
Falling oil and gas revenues due to Western sanctions have widened Russia's budget deficit and the Kremlin is busy flogging off some of the Chinese yuan reserves it has built up to fill the gap.
Russia had a budget deficit of a 3.3 trillion ruble ($47 billion, €45 billion), or about 2.3% of GDP, in 2022.
A fall in the export price of Russian oil below $50 (€45,84) per barrel (159 liters) could increase Russia’s budget deficit by another 2.5 trillion ruble, forcing the Kremlin to increase yuan sales further, according to the analysts of news agency Bloomberg.
S.African judge in Zuma graft trial recuses himself
A South African judge presiding over Jacob Zuma's arms corruption trial recused himself on Monday, in a move likely to add further delay in an affair already dating back more than two decades.
Judge Piet Koen, who has presided over the case for several years, announced he would step aside following a decision to dismiss Zuma's bid to force out the prosecutor, Billy Downer.
Zuma accused Downer of leaking confidential medical documents to the media.
In December the Constitutional Court backed Koen's decision, concluding that Zuma's application to remove Downer had no reasonable prospects of success.
Israel was behind drone attacks at military plant in Iran, US media report
US officials believe drone attacks at a military plant in Iran’s central city of Isfahan were carried out by Israel, according to US media reports.
Tehran said on Sunday that drones had attacked the plant in Isfahan late the previous evening, calling the operation “unsuccessful.”
The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that Israel was behind the attacks, citing US officials and people familiar with the operation. The New York Times cited senior intelligence officials who were familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the United States about the incident. None of the officials were named.
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s effect on Wrexham: ‘They’ve given us everything we lacked’
It’s Saturday night in Wrexham and the BBC’s production trucks are already in town, parked up outside the Racecourse Ground next to The Turf pub, ready to screen Sunday’s FA Cup tie against Sheffield United.
According to Wayne Jones, the pub’s landlord, a space has been reserved for Gary Lineker, the BBC presenter and former England international, next to his burger van.
It is hard to know whether Jones is joking or serious. After all, anything seems possible at Wrexham these days.
“Night and day” is the expression Jones uses to describe the difference between Wrexham now and Wrexham before it underwent a Hollywood makeover.
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Ghosts of Gujarat: India bans the BBC’s Modi film
The Indian government’s decision to ban a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, which left more than a thousand people dead, has become its own story.
It has drawn global attention to Modi’s record in office and the subsequent decline of media freedom in the world’s largest democracy.
Why leprosy still disables millions of people worldwide
Many people think it's been eradicated. But Hansen's Disease -- more commonly known as leprosy -- has disabled millions of people worldwide. And over a hundred thousand new cases globally are still reported every year.
Six In The Morning Sunday 29 January 2023
Russian teen faces years in jail over social media post criticizing war in Ukraine
Olesya Krivtsova sports an anti-Putin tattoo on one ankle and a bracelet that tracks her every move on the other.
The 19-year-old from Russia’s Arkhangelsk region must wear the device while she is under house arrest after she was charged over social media posts that authorities say discredit the Russian army and justify terrorism.
Russian officials added Krivtsova to the list of terrorists and extremists, on a par with ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban, for posting an Instagram story about the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October that also criticized Russia for invading Ukraine.
Krivtsova, a student at Northern (Arctic) Federal University in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, is also facing criminal charges for discrediting the Russian army for making an allegedly critical repost of the war in a student chat on the Russian social network VK.
Drone attack targets Iranian defence factory as global tensions rise
Isfahan blast came as refinery fire broke out in country’s north-west and 5.9-magnitude quake hit
Associated Press
Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defence factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, authorities have said, causing damage at the plant amid heightened regional and international tensions engulfing the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian defence ministry offered no information on who it suspected carried out the attack, which came as a refinery fire separately broke out in the country’s north-west and a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck nearby, killing three people.
Tehran has been targeted by suspected Israeli drone strikes amid a shadow war with its Middle Eastern rival as its nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. Meanwhile, tensions remain high with neighbouring Azerbaijan after a gunman attacked that country’s embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others.
"I Want To Live"A Victim of Repression in Xinjiang Awaits New Life
In China's Xinjiang region, officials have forced hundreds of thousands of residents into internment camps. Activist Zhanargul Zhumatai describes how she got through her reeducation program – and why she lives in fear of being arrested again.
Her mother walks to the front door every morning at 8 a.m. to listen, says Zhanargul Zhumatai. Will the men come back? She herself sometimes sits at the window of the apartment, looking out from the second floor into the smog-shrouded street outside their home in Ürümqi. The last time they picked her up, Zhumatai says, the men were wearing black uniforms and leather boots.
Zhumatai says she was interned in camps in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang for more than two years, just like hundreds of thousands others, most of them from the Muslim Uyghur population, but also members of the Kazakh minority. Like Zhumatai.
Israel takes measures against 'families of terrorists' after attacks in east Jerusalem
Israel sealed the family home Sunday of a Palestinian in east Jerusalem who killed seven people near a synagogue, as part of measures to revoke certain rights of attackers' relatives.
The security cabinet announced a slew of steps late Saturday, including revoking the rights to social security of "the families of terrorists that support terrorism".
It also announced that the home of 21-year-old Khayri Alqam, who was shot dead by police following Friday's attack, "will be sealed immediately ahead of its demolition".
An AFP correspondent saw Israeli forces Sunday on the terrace of the building after they sealed its entrances, with Palestinians clearing out their belongings.
Activists fight Tokyo gov't over historic Jingu Stadium demolition
By Jim Allen
Activists seeking to preserve two historic sports venues and an iconic tree-lined avenue are locked in a battle with the Tokyo government over the redevelopment of one of the city's greenest neighborhoods.
Tokyo is now in the final stages of initiating a plan to demolish and replace Jingu Stadium, the world's fourth-oldest baseball ground still used by a top-flight pro team, and Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Ground, Tokyo's 75-year-old main rugby venue and the home of the Japan Rugby Football Union.
According to management consultant Rochelle Kopp, three different petition drives to halt the project have amassed nearly 150,000 signatures. Kopp originally got involved in the campaign because the plan would involve cutting down around 1,000 trees -- a figure Tokyo has since reduced to around 500.
‘Ideology of hate’ consuming India, Gandhi’s great-grandson says
Tushar Gandhi has blamed the rise of PM Modi and the BJP for increasing polarisation and division in the country.
India’s rising tide of Hindu nationalism is an affront to the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, his great-grandson said ahead of the 75th anniversary of the revered independence hero’s assassination.
Gandhi was shot dead at a multi-faith prayer meeting in January 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a religious zealot angered by his victim’s conciliatory gestures to the country’s minority Muslim community.
Saturday, January 28, 2023
Resurrecting Australia’s Extinct Tasmanian Tiger
Australia’s thylacine has been extinct for almost 100 years, but a group of the country’s scientists say they will have it roaming the wilds again in a matter of years.
Having received a $15m funding windfall, they are embarking on a project to bring the so-called Tasmanian tiger back to life and are hoping the technology they develop will also help save endangered species from extinction.
What role does the Wagner Group play for Russia in Ukraine?
Ukraine's President Volodymr Zelenskyy has described the situation at the front as "extremely acute."
Fighting has thrown a new spotlight on Russia's Wagner Group -- a private military company led by a millionaire with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many Wagner fighters killed in Ukraine were convicts who were promised freedom in exchange for their service.
Six In The Morning Saturday 28 January 2023
China claims Covid wave has peaked with severe cases, deaths falling fast
But reporting from inside China during the lunar new year period suggests rates of infection and fatalities exceeding official reports
Helen Davidson in Taipei
China’s health authorities have said the Covid wave is past its peak, with rapid decline in both severe cases and deaths in hospitals, but experts remain wary of the government’s official data.
According to China’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), the number of critically ill patients in hospital peaked in the first week of January, then rapidly declined by more than 70%. The number of deaths also reached its highest level that week, the data said.
Prof Chi Chun-huei, director of the centre for global health at Oregon University, said local officials were incentivised – via punishments and rewards – to under-report infection figures during the zero-Covid policy. Now that policy was gone, they were incentivised to exaggerate infection rates and under-report deaths.
Fears of escalating conflict as gunman injures two Israelis in East Jerusalem
Shooting comes hours after seven people killed outside synagogue and two days after deadliest Israeli raid in West Bank for 20 years
Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem
Two Israelis have been shot in occupied East Jerusalem hours after a gunman killed seven people outside a synagogue, as the worst violence in years across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories continues to escalate.
Israel’s ambulance service said a father and son, in their 50s and 20s, were badly hurt in the incident in a Jewish neighbourhood near the Old City on Saturday morning. Police said the assailant had been shot by armed passersby. There were conflicting reports on his condition.
Police identified the attacker as a 13-year-old boy. Unconfirmed Arabic and Hebrew media reports said he was from the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan.
Man arrested after six British children found living in wine cellar in Austria
Six children, said to have been born in Britain, discovered with husband and wife
A family including six young children born in Britain were found living in an abandoned wine cellar in a small Austrian village.
An unnamed man, 54, was arrested after the children - all under the age of five - were discovered in the illegal hideout in Obritz, about 47 miles north of the capital Vienna.
Local media reports said the man, who has been linked to conspiracy theories and those rejecting the Austrian state, was detained for resisting state authority.
Taliban ban women from NGO work in Afghanistan
Since returning to power in 2021, Taliban leaders have made life increasingly difficult for Afghan women. A ban on women working for nongovernmental organizations spells disaster for humanitarian work.
Afghanistan is heading into a "humanitarian catastrophe," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said earlier this week at a meeting with her European counterparts in Brussels. It is brutal, she said, to witness the Taliban cut off millions of Afghans from aid.
Baerbock's comments come in response to the Taliban's decision in December to ban women from working for aid agencies in the country. The new rules apply for Afghan as well as foreign organizations.
Taliban leaders justified their decision by saying some aid workers had ignored the country's Islamic dress code. Any organization that continues to employ women will lose its license to operate. Baerbock said this ban would make it harder for German aid deliveries to reach the country and called on the Taliban to allow girls and women back to workplaces, schools and universities.
Dentsu officials admit to Tokyo Olympic test event bid rigging
Several officials of Japanese ad giant Dentsu Inc have admitted to collusion over bid rigging for contracts related to test events for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, a source familiar with the matter say.
The officials admitted to the wrongdoing during voluntary questioning with prosecutors, while maintaining they were not aware of any illegality at first when the bid rigging took place, according to the source.
A former operations executive of the event's organizers is suspected of playing a lead role in the rigging, along with several Dentsu staff, some of whom were seconded to work for the games.
Does the West’s decision to arm Ukraine with tanks bring it closer to war with Russia?
The West’s decision to finally send tanks to Ukraine has caused some to ask the uncomfortable question: Does this mean that NATO is now in direct conflict with Russia?
This narrative, which is being pushed hard by the Kremlin, undoubtedly helps Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies deflect from the fact that Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine and illegally occupied parts of a sovereign state.
It also, perhaps more conveniently for Putin, gives the NATO allies pause for thought when it comes to deciding exactly how much military assistance they should give Ukraine.
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