Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Six In The Morning Wednesday 29 March 2023

 

Video of deadly fire at Mexico migrant centre causes outrage

By Vanessa Buschschlüter
BBC News

Outrage is growing in Mexico following a fire at a migrant centre in Ciudad Juárez that killed 38 migrants.

Unverified footage has emerged, which appears to show the moment the fire started at the centre run by Mexico's National Migration Institute (INE).

Uniformed officials seem to walk away as the blaze erupts in a corner, leaving a group of men behind in what appears to be a locked cell.

The men unsuccessfully try to open the barred door as smoke quickly spreads.

The 32-second clip appears to come from a security camera inside the facility, which is located just south of the border crossing at the Stanton-Lerdo bridge, which links Ciudad Juárez with the city of El Paso in Texas.


Roman Abramovich secretly bankrolled Dutch football club, leaked documents suggest

Exclusive: Files reveal €117m in loans for Vitesse Arnhem originated with then owner of Chelsea, despite repeated denials

Roman Abramovich secretly funded the takeover of a Dutch top division football club and bankrolled it for years during the period that he also owned Chelsea, leaked documents appear to show.

Two investigations by the Netherlands football association were unable to uncover any financial ties between Abramovich and the club, Vitesse Arnhem, and concluded that the Russian oligarch had no managerial influence on Vitesse. Both Vitesse under its then owners, and Chelsea under Abramovich, repeatedly denied the oligarch was involved in funding the Dutch club.


Number of usable nuclear warheads increased in 2022 — report

The world's stockpile of usable nuclear warheads increased by over 130 in 2022, Norwegian People's Aid has reported. The authors have warned of the risk that nuclear weapons pose to humanity.


The number of nuclear warheads that states could deploy reached a total of 9,576 at the beginning of 2023, up from 9,440 the previous year, according to a report published by the NGO Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) on Wednesday.

The Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor report said that the weaponized nuclear power amounted to a "collective destructive power of more than 135,000 Hiroshima bombs."

The issue of nuclear weapons has become its most prominent since the end of the Cold War thanks in part to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent aggressive rhetoric, as well as fears over Iran's nuclear program and North Korea's renewed missile tests.


Top French court to rule April 14 on constitutionality of Macron's pension reform


France's highest constitutional authority will rule on President Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reform on April 14, it said Wednesday, a verdict decisive for the future of the changes. 

The reforms were passed by parliament on March 16 after the government used a mechanism to bypass a vote by MPs, inflaming nationwide protests.

They were considered adopted by parliament when the government survived two no confidence motions on March 20.

But the reforms can only come into law once they are validated by the Constitutional Council, which has the power to strike out some or even all of the legislation if deemed out of step with the constitution.

The council's members -- known as "les sages" ("the wise ones") -- will give two decisions when the ruling is made public on the legislation, whose headline measure raises the retirement age from 62 to 64.     


Netanyahu is backed into a corner. Here’s what he may do next

Updated 11:13 AM EDT, Wed March 29, 2023


 

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his decision to delay a controversial plan to weaken the country’s judiciary on Monday, he invoked the biblical story of the Judgement of Solomon, where the king had to rule between two women, both claiming to be the mother of a child. Solomon ordered that the child be cut in two, and the woman who protested the ruling was determined to be the real mother.

Before Netanyahu spoke, supporters of the judicial overhaul had gathered in the streets following calls from right-wing politicians to come out, allowing the prime minister to make his address as protesters from both sides rallied simultaneously for the first time in weeks.

“Even today, both sides in the national dispute claim love for the baby – love for our country,” said Netanyahu. “I am aware of the enormous tension that is building up between the two camps, between the two parts of the people, and I am attentive to the desire of many citizens to relieve this tension.”



Republicans Face Setbacks in Push to Tighten Voting Laws on College Campuses

Party officials across the country have sought to erect more barriers for young voters, who tilt heavily Democratic, after several cycles in which their turnout surged.


Alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box, Republican lawmakers in a number of states have been trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students.

In Idaho, Republicans used their power monopoly this month to ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification.

But so far this year, the new Idaho law is one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters.

Attempts to cordon off out-of-state students from voting in their campus towns or to roll back preregistration for teenagers have failed in New Hampshire and Virginia. Even in Texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on many college campuses, a new proposal that would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future.






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