Friday, April 26, 2024
Germany: Police clear pro-Palestinian protest camp outside parliament building
Six In The Morning Friday 26 April 2024
Israeli PM says ICC decisions will not affect actions
Benjamin Netanyahu says any rulings issued by the International Criminal Court will not affect Israel’s actions but would “set a dangerous precedent”.
“Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself,” the prime minister said in a statement shared online.
“While decisions made by the court in The Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures.”
Last month, the Law for Palestine organisation made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, accusing Israeli leaders of committing the crime of genocide committed against Palestinians.
“The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases,” the group’s Anisha Patel and Hassan Ben Imran wrote in an opinion piece published by Al Jazeera.
“If the ICC fails to act once again, it risks undermining its own authority as an institution of international justice and the international legal regime as a whole,” they said.
‘Political arrest’ of Palestinian academic in Israel is civil liberties threat, say lawyers
Prof Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s legal team and employer speak out after arrest over podcast comments
The arrest and interrogation of a leading Palestinian legal scholar based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem marks a new threat to civil liberties in Israel, her legal team and employer have said.
Prof Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian was detained by police on the afternoon of 17 April over comments made on a podcast more than a month earlier and held overnight in conditions her lawyers described as “terrible” and designed to humiliate.
“This case is unique,” said Hassan Jabareen, her lawyer and the director of the human rights organisation Adalah. “This is not only about one professor, it could be a [precedent] for any academic who goes against the consensus in wartime.”
China's ByteDance denies plans to sell TikTok in US
Earlier reports had suggested ByteDance planned to sell the app, without its powerful algorithm. US President Biden recently signed a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the US if it is not sold.
ByteDance denied reports it intends to sell its popular TikTok app within the United States, after US President Joe Biden signed into law a legislation that would effectively ban the app should it not divest from the Chinese tech giant.
"ByteDance does not have any plans to sell TikTok," the company said, as the issue around the ban of TikTok further instigated rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.
During a visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China on Friday, Chinese chief diplomat Wang Yi warned of an increase in the "negative factors" in the relationship between the two countries, claiming that China's right to develop was being "unreasonably suppressed."
Junta-led Burkina Faso suspends BBC, Voice of America for two weeks
Burkina Faso has suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio networks from broadcasting after they aired a rights report accusing the army of attacks on civilians in its battle against jihadists.
The British and US broadcasters are the latest international media organisations to be targeted since Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in the West African country in a September 2022 coup.
"The programmes of these two international radio networks broadcasting from Ouagadougou have been suspended for a period of two weeks," Burkina's communications authority, the CSC, announced late on Thursday.
It said the decision had been taken because BBC Africa and the VOA had aired and also published a report on their digital platforms "accusing the Burkina army of abuses against the civilian population".
Meta sued in Japan over investment ads with fake celebrity endorsements
Four people sued the Japanese arm of U.S. tech giant Meta Platforms Inc on Thursday over false investment ads using fake celebrity endorsements on Facebook and Instagram.
The plaintiffs, including those from Kobe and Tokyo, filed the lawsuit with the Kobe District Court, claiming they had lost money because the company was negligent in verifying the legitimacy of such advertisements. They are seeking a total of 23 million yen in damages.
Social media scams soliciting investments by using the names and images of prominent business figures without their consent have become nationwide problems lately, with the amount of money defrauded reaching around 27.8 billion yen in 2023 alone, according to the National Police Agency.
The most streamed female Francophone artist has become a target in France’s culture wars ahead of Paris 2024
Aya Nakamura was born in the former French colony of Mali, raised in France and is widely considered the most streamed female Francophone artist in the world.
The 28-year-old, as well as being Malian, is a French citizen, and a multiple-platinum-selling pop star who was brought up in the Parisian suburbs. However, ahead of Paris 2024, Nakamura finds herself at the center of France’s culture wars.
Amid widespread rumors the singer would perform at the Games’ Opening Ceremony, singing an Edith Piaf song, some members of France’s far-right have questioned whether she embodies French heritage, values and identity. Piaf is a key figure in France’s musical – and national – identity.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
What we know about the mass graves found at Gaza’s hospitals •
Six In The Morning Thursday 25 April 2024
Mass graves show evidence of torture, executions
- Three separate mass graves containing 392 bodies show signs of executions and people being buried alive, Gaza’s civil defence agency says.
- Demands for “answers” from Israeli leaders reverberate as the grisly effort to dig up corpses buried in Khan Younis continues.
Israel should allow investigators into Gaza: Amnesty
A lack of resources and continuous air strikes in Gaza will hinder efforts to investigate human rights abuses, says Donatella Rovera, a senior adviser with Amnesty International.
“The expertise, the skills, the resources – such as the ability to carry out DNA tests – none of that is available [in Gaza], and to make matters worse, there is the constant bombardment,” Rovera told Al Jazeera.
“Where there is evidence of a crime committed yesterday, it may be destroyed by a bombardment committed today,” she said.
Furthermore, Rovera noted, human rights investigators have not been allowed inside Gaza for years.
“Something can be done immediately. That is for the Israeli authorities to allow independent investigators in immediately. If they have nothing to hide, they should have no reason in preventing them getting into Gaza,” she added.
Global heating and urbanisation to blame for severity of UAE floods, study finds
World Weather Attribution group says intensified El Niño effects caused torrential rain, but rules out cloud seeding as cause
Fossil fuels and concrete combined to worsen the “death trap” conditions during recent record flooding in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, a study has found.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution team said downpours in El Niño years such as this one had become 10-40% heavier in the region as a result of human-cased climate disruption, while a lack of natural drainage quickly turned roads into rivers.
Espionage in the EU: Is the bloc ready to ward off spies?
With just six weeks to go until European Parliament elections, fresh revelations of suspected espionage at the legislature will do little to instill public confidence. The last 18 months have seen a string of malign foreign influence scandals involving EU parliamentarians.
First, starting from December 2022, came bombshell accusations that MEPs and their staff accepted cash for influence from Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania. Then, at the start of this year, investigative outlet The Insider alleged that Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka had worked with Russian intelligence officials for years.
Only last month, Czech authorities sanctioned news outlet Voice of Europe, alleging that it was a Russian influence operation. Days later and in connection with the same revelations, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Russia had approached and paid MEPs "to promote Russian propaganda."
Burkina Faso’s army summarily executed 223 civilians, says Human Rights Watch
The mass killings took place on Feb. 25 in the country's northern villages of Nondin and Soro, and some 56 children were among the dead, according to the report. The human rights organization called on the United Nations and the African Union to provide investigators and to support local efforts to bring those responsible to justice.
“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. “International assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into possible crimes against humanity.”
The once-peaceful nation has been ravaged by violence that has pitted jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group against state-backed forces. Both sides have targeted civilians caught in the middle, displacing more than 2 million people, of which over half are children. Most attacks go unpunished and unreported in a nation run by a repressive leadership that silences perceived dissidents.
Haiti's PM Ariel Henry resigns as transitional council is sworn in
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Gaza war protests: Is this a rising student movement to be reckoned with
Six In The Morning Wednesday 24 April 2024
Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin appears in Hamas video, the first proof he survived October 7 injuries
From CNN’s Eyad Kourdi, Pauline Lockwood and Lauren Izso
Hamas released a video of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin on Wednesday, the first proof that he survived being badly wounded during his capture on October 7.
Goldberg-Polin, then 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7 during Hamas’ attacks on Israel that left more than 1,200 people dead and saw more than 200 people taken hostage in Gaza.
He is shown in the undated video with part of his left arm missing several inches above the hand.
- The US Senate has passed a $95 billion funding package that includes money for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. The package provides $26.4 billion to aid Israel and includes sanctions on Iran.
- Dozens more bodies have been found in a mass grave at a hospital in southern Gaza, bringing the total uncovered to 344 following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.
Iranian women violently dragged from streets by police amid hijab crackdown
Video evidence shows multiple arrests after regime launched new draconian campaign against women and girls
Harrowing first-hand accounts of women being dragged from the streets of Iran and detained by security services have emerged as human rights groups say country’s hijab rules have been brutally enforced since the country’s drone strikes on Israel on 13 April.
A new campaign, called Noor (“light” in Persian), was announced the same day the Iranian regime launched drone attacks against Israel, to crack down on “violations” of the country’s draconian hijab rules, which dictate that all women must cover their heads in public.
Hours later, videos verified by human rights groups showing women and girls being forcefully arrested by agents of the notorious Gasht-e-Irshad (“morality police”) flooded social media along with stories of beatings and assault.
China spying: Krah still tops AfD's EU ticket
The Alternative for Germany politician Maximilian Krah will stay on as the AfD's lead candidate in June's European elections. On Tuesday, one of Krah's aides was accused by Germany's government of spying for China.
German EU lawmaker Maximilian Krah on Wednesday said he would remain the nationalist Alternative for Germany's lead candidate in upcoming European elections, despite the fact that one of his aides was charged with committing espionage for Chinese intelligence agencies.
It was agreed, however, that Krah would take a lower profile at the start of the campaign.
What did the AfD politician say?
Krah said he would immediately sack Jian G., the aide in his EU parliamentary office who is now in custody.
Iran sentences popular rapper to death for supporting Mahsa Amini protests
An Iranian court has sentenced to death a popular rapper jailed for more than a year and a half for supporting nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death, local media reported Wednesday.
Toomaj Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing the wave of demonstrations which erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Amini.
The Iranian Kurdish woman had been detained by the morality police in Tehran over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress rules for women.
"Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court... sentenced Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth," the singer's lawyer Amir Raisian said, quoted by the reformist Shargh newspaper.
Japan's moon lander wasn't built to survive a weekslong lunar night; it's still going after 3
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Japan’s first moon lander has survived a third freezing lunar night, Japan’s space agency said Wednesday after receiving an image from the device three months after it landed on the moon.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the lunar probe responded to a signal from the earth Tuesday night, confirming it has survived another weekslong lunar night.
Temperatures can fall to minus 170 degrees Celsius (minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit) during a lunar night, and rise to around 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) during a lunar day.
Over 40% of Japan's municipalities at risk of vanishing, study finds
BY FRANCIS TANG
STAFF WRITER
More than 40% of Japan’s municipalities might eventually vanish due to a sharp population decline brought on by a chronically low birthrate, according to a study by a private group of experts.
The study released Wednesday by the Population Strategy Council (PSC) deems local municipalities that would likely see their population of women age 20 to 39 — the core childbearing age group — reduced by half between 2020 and 2050 as having a risk of disappearing.
Of 1,729 local municipalities nationwide, the study identified 744 with such a risk.
The Japan Policy Council, a now-defunct organization, had released a similar report in 2014, in which it estimated that 896 municipalities would eventually vanish because of similar factors.