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.
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