UN experts say ‘outrageous disregard’ for Palestinian lives in Nuseirat raid
UN experts have again condemned what they described what the organisation described as the “umpteenth massacre by Israeli forces in Gaza”, this time referring to raid on Nuseirat that rescued four Israeli captives, but left at least 274 Palestinians deads.
“According to survivors, the streets of Nuseirat were filled with bodies of dead and injured people, including children and women, lying in pools of blood. Walls were covered in body parts scattered by multiple explosions and bombed houses,” the experts said in a statement.
- Hossam Abu Safiyya, the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, says Gaza’s health system is in dire condition, with severe medical supply shortages and an absence of fuel.
- A funeral was held for 14-year-old Mustafa Hijazi who died of health complications due to malnutrition.
- Israeli helicopter gunships, drones and warplanes attack Rafah as Palestinian fighters engage Israeli troops in running street battles.
- US President Joe Biden said he did not expect to see a Gaza ceasefire deal in the near future. Responding to reporters, who asked if a truce would be reached soon, Biden said no, adding, “I haven’t lost hope.”
South Africa’s ANC strikes coalition deal with free-market DA
Country’s second-largest party agrees to support re-election of Cyril Ramaphosa as president
South Africa’s African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance have agreed to form a coalition in which the former liberation movement and the pro-business party will set aside their rivalry in an historic governance pact.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s centrist preferences ultimately won out over more leftwing factions of the ANC that wanted to strike a deal with breakaway parties that back nationalisation and seizing land from white farmers. The deal was struck amid criticisms that the DA favours the interests of South Africa’s white minority, something it denies.
Ukraine and NATO slam Putin’s ‘absurd’ peace conditions
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a ceasefire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukraine responded by calling Putin's proposal “manipulative” and “absurd”.
Putin’s remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders – but not from Moscow – this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine.
They also coincided with a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations in Italy and after the US and Ukraine this week also signed a 10-year security agreement that Russian officials, including Putin, denounced as “null and void”.
Putin blasted the Switzerland conference as “just another ploy to divert everyone’s attention, reverse the cause and effect of the Ukrainian crisis (and) set the discussion on the wrong track”.
Sudan: Army says senior rebel commander killed amid siege
The army said hundreds were killed and injured, including senior RSF commander Ali Yagoub Gibril. The RSF siege of El Fasher city has opened up a new front in the ongoing conflict.
A leading rebel commander was among those killed in the besieged north Darfur city of El Fasher, the latest flashpoint in Sudan's ongoing civil war, the army said on Friday.
In a social media statement, the Sudanese army said Ali Yagoub Gibril, a commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who was under US sanctions, was among hundreds killed and injured in confrontations between the rebels and the army.
Band apologizes after ‘Columbus’ music video deemed racist
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
June 14, 2024 at 18:05 JST
A popular Japanese rock band has apologized for its “Columbus” music video that was heavily criticized as condoning colonialism, discriminatory against indigenous people and lacking historical awareness.
“We did not intend for the (content of the video) to be discriminatory nor to affirm a tragic history,” Motoki Omori, vocalist of the three-member band Mrs. Green Apple, said in a statement released on the group’s official website on June 13.
The video, released on June 12, was pulled the following day by Universal Music Japan.
These cities are now so expensive they’re considered ‘impossibly unaffordable’
Anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last two decades will know that in many countries, not least the United States, it’s become much more difficult to buy a home.
But a new report sums up the feeling of many potential home buyers by creating a category that labels some major cities as “impossibly unaffordable.”
The report compared average incomes with average home prices. It found that pandemic-driven demand for homes with outside space, land use policies aimed at limiting urban sprawl, and investors piling into markets had sent prices soaring.
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