Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Six In The Morning Tuesday 23 April 2024

 





UN rights chief ‘horrified’ by reports of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals

Spokesperson says some bodies allegedly had their hands tied while others were bound and stripped

The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he was “horrified” by reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies at two of Gaza’s largest hospitals.

Palestinian civil defence teams began exhuming bodies from a mass grave outside the Nasser hospital complex in Khan Younis last week after Israeli troops withdrew.

“We feel the need to raise the alarm because clearly there have been multiple bodies discovered,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights.


German far-right AfD staffer arrested on China spy charges

Police in Germany have arrested a staff member of the German far-right Alternative for Germany party. Prosecutors have said the individual was spying on behalf of China.

German prosecutors on Tuesday said police had arrested an employee of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party on suspicion of espionage

In January, the accused is said to have repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence client.

He also allegedly spied on Chinese opposition figures in Germany for the intelligence service.

The arrest comes about a week after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz traveled to China to push Beijing to take a harder line against its neighbor Russia on the issue of the Ukraine war.


India's main opposition party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using hate speech at a campaign rally, when he called Muslims “infiltrators" in an incendiary address. Irfan Nooruddin from Georgetown University, Washington DC, notes that while Modi's speech over the weekend was particularly incendiary and "ugly", it was consistent with his rhetoric on India's minority Muslim community. 

Cabinet minister Takaichi, more than 90 lawmakers visit Yasukuni Shrine


Japan's economic security minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday visited Yasukuni Shrine, seen by some of Tokyo's Asian neighbors as a symbol of its past militarism, raising concerns about potential backlash from China and South Korea.

Takaichi, known for her hawkish views on national security issues, has routinely visited the Shinto shrine in Tokyo on various occasions, such as its biannual rites and the anniversary of Japan's surrender on Aug 15, 1945.

"I offered my gratitude with respect to the spirits of those who lost their lives for a national policy," Takaichi told reporters after visiting the shrine on the final day of its three-day spring festival.


‘Forced’ move: Rwandans grapple with own fears over UK asylum seeker plan

Amid high unemployment and a housing crisis, many in Rwanda are apprehensive about the $272m UK migrant deal criticised by rights groups.


 Lush hills draped in verdure belie the controversies surrounding two locations in Kigali that may soon host hundreds of people who had no plans of ever living in Rwanda.

In northern Kigali, Hope Hostel sits on a hill overlooking the capital.

Across town in the southwest sits the Bwiza Riverside Estate, where manicured greenspaces, fences and small plots of land paint a picture of a quaint neighbourhood – one that, despite its suburban charm, also feels sterile and artificial.


‘Our artillery is starving:’ Ukraine holds its breath as US set to approve $60bn of military aid


Soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine say the prospect of final approval in the US Congress of a $60 billion military aid package for Kyiv will serve as a giant morale boost as Russia looks to step up its advance.

The Ukraine aid bill, passed in the United States’ House of Representatives on Saturday, is now due to go to the Senate on Tuesday. If passed in Congress’s upper chamber then President Joe Biden has said he will sign it into law immediately, so that “we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”

Ukraine’s wish list is no secret. At the top: artillery shells and air defense systems.



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