Tuesday, April 30, 2024
20 years after EU's Eastern Enlargement: was it an economic success?
Six In The Morning Tuesday 30 April 2024
In Rafah, lack of clarity on ceasefire deal leaves people ‘in limbo’
Netanyahu’s comments that Israel will invade Rafah whether there is a deal or not is very concerning and frustrating for the vast majority of people here – there are 1.5 million displaced across crowded Rafah city.
People are losing hope for a potential ceasefire. What makes it worse right now is people feel like they are in limbo: They don’t know whether there is a deal, and in case there is a deal, Netanyahu promised he would invade Rafah, which makes the whole point of going to a deal pointless.
There’s a great deal of anguish, worry, concern and frustration as things are not clear. People say it’s similar to past narratives of moving people and herding them from one place to another for the purpose of evacuating them to safe zones that eventually happen not to be safe at all.
How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany
Politicians fear perceived costs of green transition are driving poor and rural voters to parties such as AfD
Raising his voice above the pounding drums and honking tractors, Lutz Jankus, a city councillor from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), distanced himself from the furious protest unfurling before him.
“They’re rightwing extremists,” he said about Free Saxony, a loose political movement that includes neo-Nazis and skinheads, as his colleagues began to pack up their tent on the side of the square in the centre of Görlitz.
“We don’t want anything to do with them, but we’re here because there’s also a lot of people who vote AfD.”
In Indian tech hub Bengaluru, water crisis gets political
Bengaluru is running out of drinking water, with an estimated daily deficit of 500 million liters. The shortages have become a hot-button political issue during the 2024 election.
Once a week, Chitra Jayaraju and her children get up early in the morning to wait in line at a community water tap near a housing complex in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru.
"Earlier we used to get water twice a week, now we only get it once," she said. "In the past three to four months, the price of drinking water has also doubled," she told DW.
Bengaluru, one of India's most populous cities, primarily sources its water from the Kavery river and borewells. However, the wells are drying up as groundwater levels drop amid persistent droughts.
US warns of impending 'large-scale massacre' in capital of Sudan's North Darfur
The US ambassador to the United Nations on Monday warned of an impending "large-scale massacre" in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher, a humanitarian hub in the Darfur region.
The city had until recently been relatively unaffected by fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but bombardment and clashes have been reported both there and in surrounding villages since mid-April.
El-Fasher "is on the precipice of a large-scale massacre. This is not conjecture. This is the grim reality facing millions of people," Linda Thomas-Greenfield told journalists following a UN Security Council meeting on Sudan.
"There are already credible reports that the RSF and its allied militias have razed multiple villages west of El-Fasher, and as we speak, the RSF is planning an imminent attack on El-Fasher," which "would be a disaster on top of a disaster," Thomas-Greenfield said.
Philippines accuses China of damaging its vessel at hotly contested shoal
The Philippines on Tuesday accused China's coast guard of harassment and damaging one of its boats in a disputed area of the South China Sea, and rejected Beijing's position that it had expelled two vessels from the hotly contested shoal.
The Philippine coast guard said its two vessels stood their ground at the Scarborough Shoal, a key battleground in the South China Sea, but one sustained damage from use of water cannon by two Chinese coast guard ships.
"This damage serves as evidence of the forceful water pressure used by the China coast guard in their harassment of the Philippine vessels," Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said in a statement.
Gaza: Israeli PM Netanyahu says Rafah attack will happen regardless of deal
By Matt Murphy,BBC News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will launch an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of truce talks with Hamas.
It comes amid ongoing attempts to try to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage releases.
But at a meeting of hostages' relatives, Mr Netanyahu said he would invade "with or without" a deal.
His comments follow renewed warnings by the US against a Rafah invasion unless civilians were properly protected.
In a phone call with Mr Netanyahu on Sunday, US President Joe Biden "reiterated his clear position" on Rafah, a White House statement said. Mr Biden has previously described an invasion of Rafah as a "red line".
Monday, April 29, 2024
Why India’s election is such a big deal | Start Here
India is about to hold the world’s biggest election: 970 million voters will cast their ballots over seven phases of voting from mid-April to early June.
Start Here with Sandra Gathmann explains how the election will work, why Narendra Modi and the BJP are expected to win again, and how India is changing under them.
Blinken: ‘An extraordinarily generous proposal on the part of Israel’
Six In The Morning Monday 29 April 2024
Hamas set to join Cairo ceasefire talks
- At least 27 Palestinians have been killed, including many children and women, in overnight Israeli attacks on Rafah and Gaza City.
Hamas’s response to deal expected in coming ’24 hours or so’
The Israelis have a delegation ready to go to Cairo tomorrow, but that depends on the response from Hamas to Israel’s ceasefire proposal.
It’s understood that the Israelis are asking for fewer than 40 of the 130 or so captives being held by Hamas, and in return for that, they’ll release Palestinian prisoners, and they’ll move to a second phase of a truce, which will offer this period of “sustained calm”.
The wording is very important there because we know that Hamas has been insisting that throughout previous talks, they get a complete end to hostilities and the removal of Israeli forces from Gaza so that Palestinians can return to their homes, particularly in the north.
Iran’s death sentence for rapper sparks protests and undermines criticism of US
Regime’s effort to exploit US campus crackdown damaged by treatment of Toomaj Salehi
An Iranian court’s decision to pass the death sentence against Toomaj Salehi, a popular Iranian rapper and regime opponent, has led to international protests and damaged Iran’s fledgling efforts to exploit crackdowns on unrest in US university campuses over Gaza as an abuse of human rights.
Crowds gathered in the US, Europe and Canada on Sunday to support Salehi, while dozens of political prisoners in Iran’s Ghezel Hesar prison issued a statement condemning the death sentence, calling it “the culmination of gross human rights violations in Iran”. Salehi has also won the support of major US rappers, as well as human rights groups.
German far-right coup plot trial to begin
The first of three trials involving a far-right network of "Reichsbürger" around ringleader Prince Reuss is about to start. The group is accused of planning to topple the government.
The first of three trials linked to a far-right coup plot begins in Germany on Monday, with the defendants accused of preparing to commit high treason and belonging to a terrorist organization.
All the suspects, part of the so-called "Reichsbürger" movement, were allegedly plotting to overthrow the German government. The Reichsbürger, or "citizens of the Reich," reject Germany's post-war state, claiming it was installed and controlled by the Allied powers who won World War II.
Police uncovered the suspected plot in a series of nationwide raids on December 7, 2022. Some 25 people were arrested and are now in detention awaiting the upcoming trials. More than 380 firearms were confiscated, along with almost 150,000 pieces of ammunition.
Tesla clears key Chinese regulatory hurdles during Musk visit
Tesla received a key security clearance from China during Elon Musk's whistlestop visit to the world's biggest electric car market, which wrapped up on Monday.
The tech billionaire arrived on Sunday for his second trip to China in less than a year, meeting top officials including Premier Li Qiang as he worked to boost his electric car company's fortunes in the face of intense competition from local challengers such as BYD.
On the same day, Tesla's locally produced models were listed among the EVs that meet China's data security requirements for smart cars, clearing a key regulatory hurdle.
Musk boarded his private jet at Beijing Capital Airport just before 1:00 pm (0500 GMT), and a Chinese flight tracking app said it was bound for Anchorage, Alaska.
China coast guard confronts Japanese politicians in disputed East China Sea area
China's coast guard confronted Japanese lawmakers in waters claimed by both countries in the East China Sea, China's embassy in Tokyo and Japanese media said on Sunday, the latest in a series of maritime disputes involving China and its neighbours.
Chinese vessels took unspecified law enforcement measures, the embassy said in a statement, adding that it had lodged solemn representations for what it called "infringement and provocation" by Japan near tiny, uninhabited islands that Beijing calls the Diaoyu and Tokyo calls the Senkaku.
The Japanese group, including former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, was on an inspection mission organized by the city of Ishigaki in Okinawa prefecture, according to the Chinese embassy and Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
'Invisible in our own country': Being Muslim in Modi's India
By Soutik Biswas, India correspondent
Six years ago, a Muslim boy returned red-faced from a well-known school in the northern Indian city of Agra.
"My classmates called me a Pakistani terrorist," the nine-year-old told his mother.
Reema Ahmad, an author and counsellor, remembers the day vividly.
"Here was a feisty, little boy with his fists clenched so tightly that there were nail marks in his palm. He was so angry."
As her son told the story, his classmates were having a mock fight when the teacher had stepped out.
"That's when one group of boys pointed at him and said, 'This is a Pakistani terrorist. Kill him!'"
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Sudan: A savage war and toxic information battle
Domestic rivalries and external players pollute the Sudanese information space.
How dangerous is it for independent journalists in Russia?
Six In The Morning Sunday 28 April 2024
Abbas appeals to US to stop Israel's Rafah offensive
By George Wright, BBC News
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the US is the only country that can stop Israel from attacking Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million people are taking refuge.
Mr Abbas, who runs parts of the occupied West Bank, said any attack could see Palestinians flee Gaza.
On Saturday Israel's foreign minister said Israel could suspend the incursion if there was a hostage deal.
Long-running talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar have largely stalled because of the gaps between the Israeli and Hamas positions, but on Sunday Hamas said it would send representatives to Cairo to give a response to the latest proposal.
‘My hands went cold’: Rio’s reporters risk death to reveal criminal ties between police, politicians and mafia
The killing of councillor Marielle Franco has inspired a generation of journalists to probe the city’s dangerous underworld
Rafael Soares’s phone rang and his blood froze. “Ronnie Lessa Googled you,” a federal police contact on the other end of the line told the Brazilian reporter as he stood in his newsroom one morning in 2019.
Any Rio crime journalist worth their salt knew that being investigated by such a man was extremely bad news. Lessa was reputedly one of the city’s most in-demand contract killers: a battle-hardened police combatant turned assassin whose crimes had enabled him to buy a speedboat named after a Belgian machine gun called the Minimi.
Some called Lessa “Perneta” – one leg – because of a bomb attack in which he lost his left limb. A former colleague called him “a killing machine”.
Russia: Navalny-linked journalists arrested over 'extremism'
Two Russian journalists have been accused of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. If convicted, they could face years in prison.
Russian journalists Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin, both of whom have worked for DW and other international media in the past, have been arrested by Russian authorities over accusations of "extremism."
The accusations against both are linked to YouTube videos published on the channel that was once run by late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony in February, but the YouTube channel is still active and managed by his aides and allies. Navalny's movement is designated by Russian authorities as an "extremist" group, meaning his staff and supporters can face prosecution.
The billionaire who benefits from close ties to Narendra Modi
Crony capitalism in Modi’s India
The day after his 2014 election victory, Narendra Modi was filmed on board a private jet owned by business magnate Gautam Adani, already one of India’s richest men. One side of the cabin was decorated in the saffron, white and green of the Indian flag, the other in the colours of the Adani group. The mutual attraction of money and power is hardly news but the relationship between these two men – one the figurehead of Hindu supremacism, the other of accumulating wealth – has been solid for two decades, a symbol of crony capitalism on a scale unprecedented in India’s history.
Adani dropped out of college, left his native Gujarat for Mumbai, and took a job in the diamond industry sorting stones. A year later he came home to help his brother launch a plastic film manufacturing business. The firm grew so large they started importing raw materials. In 1988 they founded Adani Exports and diversified into food product storage, power generation, cement manufacturing and steelmaking. Ten years later, Adani laid the foundations of his business empire by building a private port at Mundra, on India’s Arabian Sea coast, on a site of nearly 3,600 hectares, partly covered by forest and pasture.
Paris suburbs get spanking new Olympic venues while teachers and pupils seethe in decrepit schools
Teachers and parents in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris have staged several weeks of strikes and protests in the run-up to the Paris Olympics, leveraging the Games as they call for urgent measures to help struggling state schools in mainland France’s poorest region, home to many of the Olympics’ signature venues.
Snaking her way through a maze of roadworks, Saint-Ouen resident Zora Cheikh is unimpressed with the vast resources that have been pumped into this suburb of Paris in the run-up to the Olympics.
Located on the northern edge of Paris, Saint-Ouen will host a large chunk of the Olympic Village this summer, part of huge infrastructure projects that officials have touted as a game-changing legacy for the Seine-Saint-Denis area, the poorest in mainland France.
Cheikh, however, is more concerned about the chronic teacher shortages that have stripped her children of hundreds of hours of learning throughout the academic year.
The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal 20 years on: What redress for victims?
Two decades since images of Iraqi men being abused by US soldiers shocked the world, victims are still seeking justice through civil actions against military subcontractors.
By
When the US TV news programme 60 Minutes II revealed images of Iraqi men being abused and humiliated by their American jailers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq 20 years ago this weekend, the United States-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was just 13 months old.
Toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who had been captured by US forces more than four months earlier, was awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity, and the Iraqi state itself was in the grip of violence and disorder.
For many in the Arab world, Abu Ghraib quickly became a symbol of US imperialism and hypocrisy, shattering then-US President George W Bush’s repeated claims that the US was a bastion of human rights.
From a Heavy Metal Band in Hijabs, a Message of Girl Power
Voice of Baceprot has electrified audiences and built a large following in Indonesia. Now the group is taking its music to the West.
Reporting from Jakarta, Indonesia
The drummer crashed her cymbals. The bass player clawed at her guitar. The crowd raised index and pinkie fingers in approval. The lead singer and guitarist stepped up to the mic and screamed: “Our body is not public property!” And dozens of fans threw themselves into a frenzy for the hijab-wearing heavy metal trio.
“We have no place for the sexist mind,” the lead singer, Firda Kurnia, shrieked into the mic, singing the chorus of one of the band’s hit songs, “(Not) Public Property,” during a December performance in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.
Nearly a decade after first emerging, Voice of Baceprot (pronounced bachey-PROT, meaning “noise” in Sundanese, one of the main languages spoken in Indonesia) has earned a large domestic following with songs that focus on progressive themes like female empowerment, pacifism and environmental preservation.