Sunday, June 30, 2024
How Biden’s age became the key question of the US election
Outrage over women's exclusion from UN-led talks with Taliban
Six In The Morning Sunday 30 June 2024
Highest French election turnout in 40 years as far right seeks historic win
With three hours to go, turnout stands at 59,39% - 20 points higher than 2022
French voters are going to the polls for the first round of a snap parliamentary election called by President Emmanuel Macron three weeks ago
At the time, President Macron said he had "heard the message" of French voters after the far-right National Rally (RN) won the European elections
Soon after the parliamentary elections were called, Socialists, Ecologists, Communists and France Unbowed(LFI) announced they would form this left-wing alliance – the New Popular Front.
These parties have previously criticised one another and have some key differences in their ideology and approach. But they decided to form a bloc to keep the far right out of government.
Russia wants to confront NATO but dares not fight it on the battlefield – so it’s waging a hybrid war instead
French authorities accused of ‘social cleansing’ of migrants and homeless before Paris Olympics
In the run-up to the Paris Olympic Games, human rights activists have alleged that authorities are engaged in "social cleansing", a government policy of removing the homeless from the city, which the authorities deny. But a number of non-profits have presented evidence documenting the methods used by the authorities to “manage” the most vulnerable populations in the Paris region both before and during the Games. FRANCE 24 investigates.
Just a day after the ceremonial lighting of the Paris 2024 Olympic flame in Greece on April 16, accompanied by oaths to friendship and solidarity, French authorities began evicting hundreds of migrants from France's largest squat in Vitry-sur-Seine, south of Paris. Those evicted were encouraged to board buses that would take them to other parts of France.
It was the third major eviction operation carried out in the Île-de-France region, comprising Paris and its surrounding areas, since the start of 2023. In April 2023, some 400 people were removed from a squat located near the Olympic Village on Île-Saint-Denis in the capital's northern suburbs. Two hundred more were evicted in July 2023 from a squat in Thiais south of Paris.
Hungary: Orban announces new far-right European alliance
Hungarian, Czech and Austrian parties have created the Patriots for Europe grouping, which aims to secure more influence for right-leaning and far-right parties in the new European Parliament.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced plans for a new alliance of European populist parties, during a news conference in Austria on Sunday.
Dubbed Patriots for Europe, the group brings together Orban's right-wing populist Fidesz party, Austria's far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Czech Republic's centrist group of ex-premier Andrej Babis.
Currently, there are seven political alliances at the European Union level that represent the political parties of the 27 member states elected to the European Parliament. The groups are organized by political affiliation rather than nationality. Some parties don't belong to any group.
A Prisoner of War Describes Captivity in Russia
"At Night, I Prayed I Wouldn't Survive to the Next Day"
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Oleksiy Anulya reported for military duty. Russian soldiers took him prisoner. How does one survive hunger, torture and rape? Here, a former prisoner of war tells his story.
By Alexander Kauschanski in Ternopil, Ukraine
"At one point, I imagined escaping from the prison. Not to return to Ukraine. It would have been enough to make it to the nearest village, hide in some farmyard and eat pig slop at night. Or at least be shot to death trying to climb over the fence, instead of dying this agonizingly slow death.”
It’s mid-January and Oleksiy Anulya is lying in Hospital N. 1 in Ternopil, located in western Ukraine. His right arm hangs in a sling. The 30-year-old is recovering from a shoulder operation on the trauma surgery ward. It is the 36th time in just over a year that Anulya has received treatment in a hospital
Fifty years on, how Lucy, the mother of humanity, changed our understanding of evolution
In 1974, the fossilised bones of Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old hominin, were discovered in Ethiopia. How has this remarkable skeleton disproved Darwinian theory – and what links her to the Beatles?
On 24 November 1974, the US anthropologist Donald Johanson was scrabbling through a ravine at Hadar in the Afar region of Ethiopia with his research student, Tom Gray. The pair were looking for fossilised animal bones in the surrounding silt and ash when Johanson spotted a tiny fragment of arm bone – and realised it belonged to a human-like creature.
“We looked up the slope,” Johanson later recalled. “There, incredibly, lay a multitude of bone fragments – a nearly complete lower jaw, a thighbone, ribs, vertebrae, and more! Tom and I yelled, hugged each other, and danced, mad as any Englishman in the midday sun!”
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Six In The Morning Saturday 29 June 2024
Israeli forces intensify attacks in Shujayea as Gaza death toll rises
Soldiers advance in Gaza City neighbourhood as UN says at least 60,000 Palestinian residents displaced.
The Israeli military has said its troops are intensifying operations in the Shujayea neighbourhood east of Gaza City and “fighting simultaneously above and below ground”.
In a situational update on Saturday, it claimed troops had eliminated “a large number of terrorists” over the past day and located a weapons storage facility within a school compound.
It said the air force also struck “terror targets and armed terrorist cells, including a terrorist cell that was on its way to fire at troops”.
Iran heading for runoff election after neither lead candidate scores majority
Turnout estimated to be as low as 40%, a record low since the revolution and a rebuff for the regime
Iran is heading to a runoff election in a week’s time after the reformist lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian secured a narrow lead over the hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili but failed to secure more than 50% of the votes.
Turnout may end up low as 40%, a record low for an Iranian presidential election since the revolution in 1979.
The scale of the boycott is a rebuff for the regime, which had repeatedly urged Iranians to show their commitment to the Islamic regime by voting.
Protesters, police clash as Germany’s far-right AfD party congress starts
Alternative for Germany came in second in European Parliament elections earlier this month.
Large protests have been taking place as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party opened its convention in the western city of Essen, with demonstrators attempting to block roads and clashing with police.
Police used pepper spray and batons on Saturday to push back protesters attempting to break through a cordon before the two-day event kicked off, a police spokesperson told the German news agency dpa.
Masked demonstrators attacked officers, according to police, who reported “several” arrests. About 1,000 police have been deployed in Essen.
Gazans living in 'unbearable' conditions, says UNRWA
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees on Saturday denounced the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, saying that hundreds of thousands of people had been “deprived of adequate shelter, food, medicine and clean water”. The day before, UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge had described the situation as “the worst it’s ever been”.
Gazans are forced to live in bombed-out buildings or camp next to giant piles of trash, a United Nations spokeswoman said Friday, denouncing the "unbearable" conditions in the besieged territory.
Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, described the "extremely dire" living conditions in the Gaza Strip.
"It's really unbearable," she told reporters in Geneva, via video-link from central Gaza.
Was there a massacre after Kenya's anti-tax protests?
By Anne Soy, BBC deputy Africa editor & Peter Mwai, BBC Verify, Nairobi
In the chaotic context of this week's violence on the streets of the Kenyan capital and a government accused of responding brutally to protests, rumours began to take on a life of their own - feeding into public anger and further stoking a situation that was already tense.
On Tuesday citizens watched in horror as a bloody day unfolded in Nairobi.
The country’s police watchdog is now investigating allegations that officers shot dead protesters outside the national parliament during a day of demonstrations in which at least 23 people are reported to have died.
Opinion: Ukraine’s new weapon against Russia? Lego
From the US and Germany to Poland and Ukraine, creators have been volunteering their time and talent to support United24, Ukraine’s official fundraising platform, by recreating Ukrainian monuments as one of a kind Lego sets. These sets aren’t available for purchase; they can only be won through a raffle, by donating $24 or more to United24, with contributions going toward rebuilding destroyed structures and other relief efforts amid the country’s ongoing defensive war against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky created United24 as a personal initiative to attract more international aid through mass appeal fundraising projects such as soccer games, art shows, music videos, celebrity ambassadors and even a donation center on Minecraft, with a virtual recreation of Ukraine’s Soledar salt mines.
According to United24 Coordinator Yaroslava Gres, the name United24 comes from the initiative’s “goal to provide 24/7 assistance…in support of Ukraine” — but the number 24 holds an even deeper connotation for Ukrainians. August 24 is Ukraine’s Independence Day, and Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Friday, June 28, 2024
Six In The Morning Friday 28 June 2024
Iranians vote for a new president under the shadow of conflict and economic woes
Under the specter of conflict with Israel, a struggling economy and social discontent, Iranians headed to the polls on Friday for snap presidential elections that could be the most important for the country in decades.
The sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a recent helicopter crash, alongside Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials, has left a leadership void. Raisi, a hardline regime loyalist, was widely regarded as a leading candidate to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader, 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate authority over all state matters.
It is also the first presidential election since the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s notorious morality police in 2022, an event that sparked the largest protests since the regime’s founding in 1979. The vote takes place amid deteriorating relations with the West, an advancing Iranian nuclear program, and an increasing risk of direct war with Israel. Just two months ago, Iran and Israel exchanged fire for the first time as the Gaza conflict widened, and Israel is now preparing for a potential second front with Hezbollah, Iran’s primary regional proxy, in Lebanon.
Israel destroys 11 homes in West Bank village amid spiralling violence
Fifty left homeless in remote hamlet of mainly shepherds, as beatings and demolitions in occupied territory increase
Israeli soldiers have destroyed 11 homes and other structures in an isolated community in the occupied West Bank, leaving 50 people homeless, amid a reported uptick in house demolitions and spiralling violence in the Palestinian territory.
Contractors with bulldozers accompanied by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops arrived in Umm al-Kheir, a village mostly home to shepherds, on Wednesday morning and demolished six houses, tent residences, an electricity generator, solar cells and water tanks, according to residents and Israeli activists who documented the proceedings. Agricultural land and fences were also damaged and trees uprooted.
Pakistan: Parliament passes tax-heavy budget to appease IMF
Pakistan's parliament has approved a government budget entailing significant tax hikes. Islamabad is looking to secure yet another billion-dollar IMF loan in order to avoid defaulting on its debts.
Pakistan is looking to increase total tax revenues by around 40% during the 2024/25 fiscal year, according to government budget plans which were passed by parliament on Friday.
In a country dominated by informal employment and where only 5.2 million of its over 240 million inhabitants are subjected to income tax, increased tax revenues are now intended to raise around $46 billion out of a total budget of around $68 billion.
The tax-heavy budget, which also foresees a scrapping of petrol/gasoline subsidies, comes ahead of further talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a loan of between $6-8 billion to help Pakistan av
Urbicide: ‘Even if Israel stops bombing Gaza tomorrow, it will be impossible to live there'
Eight months of war have destroyed more than 55% of the structures in Gaza, according to the latest report from the UN Satellite Centre. The enclave's main towns have been devastated by Israeli bombardment, rendering them almost uninhabitable. The destruction has been called an example of “urbicide” – the deliberate, utter destruction of an urban area.
"All the houses have been turned into ruins. We're lost, we don't know exactly where our homes are in the midst of this massive destruction," said Mohammad al-Najjar, 33, in an interview with AFP on June 1 in the Jabaliya camp in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Eight months of war and intense bombardment by the Israeli military has turned most of Gaza into a heap of ruins, as confirmed by photos and satellite images.
"A total of 137,297 structures, or around 55% of structures in Gaza, are affected," noted the United Nations Satellite Centre (Unosat) in a report published on May 31.
Okinawa angry over lack of info about suspected assault of minor
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
June 27, 2024 at 17:06 JST
Okinawa prefectural government officials expressed outrage over being left in the dark about allegations that a U.S. serviceman had sexually assaulted a minor.
The suspected attack against the girl occurred on the night of Dec. 24, 2023. The suspect, Brennon R.E. Washington, 25, was indicted by the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office on March 27.
However, the prefectural government said it had no knowledge of the case until a local broadcaster reported it on June 25.
China honours woman who died saving Japanese family
By Kelly Ng, BBC News
A Chinese woman who tried to shield a Japanese mother and her child from a knife attack has died.
Hu Youping was working as a school bus attendant in Suzhou city when a man attacked a Japanese woman and her child at a bus stop outside a Japanese school.
Tributes for her have poured out online and the local government has said she will be given the title of "Righteous and Courageous Role Model".
The Japanese embassy in China also lowered its flag to half-mast to honour Ms Hu. In a statement on Weibo, the embassy said it was "saddened" to hear of her death.