Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Six In The Morning Tuesday 25 June 2024

 

 Police fire on anti-tax rallies, protesters killed

  • Hundreds of anti-tax protesters have entered Kenya’s Parliament and part of the building is on fire.
  • A coalition of human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and the Kenya Medical Association, have said that five people have been shot dead after police fired at protesters.
  • Protests and clashes also took place in several other cities and towns across the country.
  • Parliament approved the finance bill, moving it through to a third reading by lawmakers.
  • The next step is for the legislation to be sent to the president for signing.

A week of protests over tax reforms

Pressure on the government over controversial tax reforms began with largely peaceful protests last Tuesday.

On Thursday, as the crowds grew bigger in the capital, Nairobi, antiriot police, some of them on horseback, launched tear gas canisters and aimed water cannons to try to hold back demonstrators from breaching government offices in the city’s business district.


‘An incredible loss for Palestine’: Israeli offensive takes deadly toll on journalists

The flak jackets handed to Palestinian media workers by the non-profit Press House quickly became a symbol of the dangers they face

By , Hoda Osman and 


As Gaza City trembled to the sound of bombs, dozens of journalists made their way to a white-walled, two-storey building in the upmarket neighbourhood of Rimal.

It was the morning of 8 October 2023, and the building was the home of Press House, a Palestinian non-profit organisation training and supporting journalists.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Hekmat Yossuf, one of the group’s founders, phoned a colleague. “Get ready, we have to go to the office,” he said.


ICC issues arrest warrant for Russia's Shoigu and Gerasimov

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russia's Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of war crimes in Ukraine. They join President Putin on the ICC's wanted list.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague said on Tuesday it is seeking the arrest of former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and current military Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. 

The charges pertain to alleged crimes committed during Russia's war in Ukraine

Attacks on energy infrastructure at heart of the warrants

The court said in a press release on Tuesday that there were "reasonable grounds to believe that the two suspects bear responsibility for missile strikes carried out by the Russian armed forces against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March 2023." 


Kenyan police force arrives in Haiti for UN-backed security mission

The first wave of Kenyan police disembarked a plane at the Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Tuesday as part of a UN-backed security mission to defeat the powerful gangs ravaging the island nation.

The officers are expected to lead a mission to tackle raging gangland violence convulsing the Caribbean nation, which has suffered a prolonged period of instability amid a severe humanitarian crisis.

Kenyan police streamed out of the plane at the capital’s airport as a small crowd, mostly airport personnel, greeted them on the tarmac.

Kenya volunteered in last July to lead an international force to stem the latest wave of violence to afflict Haiti, where gangs control most of the capital Port-au-Prince while carrying out widespread killings, kidnappings and sexual violence.


Israel’s top court rules ultra-Orthodox Jews must be drafted into military, in blow to Netanyahu

Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, delivering a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has the potential to unravel his ruling coalition.

The court also ordered the government to withdraw funding from any religious schools, or yeshivas, whose students do not comply with draft notices.

“The government wanted to distinguish at the level of law enforcement between individuals based on their group affiliation,” the court said in its ruling. “It was determined that by doing so, the government seriously harmed the rule of law and the principle according to which all individuals are equal before the law.”


Louisiana families sue over Ten Commandments law

By Holly Honderich, BBC News

Nine Louisiana families have sued the state over a new law that orders every public school classroom to display a poster of the Ten Commandments.


The suit, filed in federal court on Monday, comes less than a week after Governor Jeff Landry ratified the Republican-backed measure.


It is expected to kick off a drawn-out legal battle that could reach the US Supreme Court.

The law is the first of its kind in the US, and governs all classrooms up to and including university.





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