Former Wagner Group commander who fled to Norway feared for his life
Andrey Medvedev told the Guardian he had seen summary executions of mercenary group’s Russian fighters
A former commander with the Russian mercenary Wagner Group who sought asylum in Norway spoke of how he feared for his life in an interview conducted last month in Russia with the Guardian.
Andrey Medvedev, 26, said that in Ukraine he had witnessed the summary killing of Wagner fighters accused by their own commanders of disobeying orders, sometimes in pairs.
After fleeing his unit, he crossed the border into Norway near the Pasvikdalen valley shortly before 2am local time last Friday, where he was arrested and detained by border guards.
World Food Program chief Somali famine slowed, not avoided
The head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Program says support from donors like the United States and Germany have allowed it to postpone — though not entirely avert — famine in Somalia
The head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Program says support from donors like the United States and Germany have allowed it to postpone — though not entirely avert — famine in Somalia but stressed that “we’re not out of this yet.”
WFP Executive Director David Beasley said countries in the Horn of Africa have faced “unprecedented climate impact” from years of drought, and the U.N. agency had been expecting to announce famine in Somalia before donors “stepped up in magnificent ways.”
“And we’ve been able to — I don’t know if the right word is ‘avert’ famine — but we definitely have postponed it,” he told The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. “We’ve been fortunate so far, given the climate shocks inside Somalia. But we’re not out of this yet.”
China: Fears grow for detained anti-COVID protesters
Chinese police have arrested scores of "white paper" protesters more than a month after unprecedented demonstrations nationwide. Many fear detained protesters are being psychologically and physically abused.
China may have reopened its border after anti-COVID demonstrations in November pushed Beijing to end its zero-COVID strategy, but authorities have since begun a series of retaliations against a number of people who took part in the protests.
At least 32 people have been targeted by police since December, according to Weiquanwang, a Chinese website documenting human rights issues in the country.
Though some protesters have been released on probation, more people have reportedly been arrested by police in recent days. Those still in detention include six young people who took part in a peaceful protest in Beijing in late November.
Analysis: Israeli government starts by pushing far-right agenda
Only three weeks into office, the new Israeli government is planning to change the judicial system and wants to crack down further on Palestinians.
The new Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has already begun working on pushing through its far-right policies, after coming into office on December 29.
The proposed changes would severely impact both internal Israeli politics and policies towards Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The nationalist-religious government, said to be the most right-wing in Israel’s history, emerged after Netanyahu’s Likud and allied far-right parties won the most seats in parliamentary elections on November 1.
The British government wants to hand police unprecedented powers to handle protesters. Human rights activists say it’s an affront to democracy
The British government wants to hand new powers to police that would allow officers to take stronger action against people engaging in peaceful, political protest.
Human rights activists have accused the government of trying to suppress freedom of speech, while opposition politicians claim that Downing Street is simply trying to distract from the myriad of things going wrong in the United Kingdom at the moment.
The government issued a statement on Sunday night, in which it said it would table amendments to legislation that is already passing through Parliament called the Public Order Bill. This has already been the subject of huge controversy due to the extent to which it curbs protest.
China's population falls for first time since 1961
China's population has fallen for the first time in 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low - 6.77 births per 1,000 people.
The population in 2022 - 1.4118 billion - fell by 850,000 from 2021.
China's birth rate has been declining for years, prompting a slew of policies to try to slow the trend.
But seven years after scrapping the one-child policy, it has entered what one official described as an "era of negative population growth".
The birth rate in 2022 was also down from 7.52 in 2021, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics, which released the figures on Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment