Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Is the killing of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh a humiliation for Iran's regime?
The crisis in the Middle East is escalating. Iran and Hamas are accusing Israel of assassinating Hamas's top political leader, Ismael Haniyeh. They say Wednesday's airstrike in the Iranian capital Tehran will not go unpunished. Hardline protesters took to the streets, vowing revenge and denouncing Israel and the US.
Six In The Morning Wednesday 31 July 2024
Iran vows to avenge killing of Hamas political leader Haniyeh
What does Haniyeh's killing say about Iranian security?
Kasra Naji
Special correspondent, BBC Persian
Iran says Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard were killed at a guest house in northern Tehran at 02:00 local time, in the early hours of Wednesday, by a missile that had been fired from beyond Iran’s borders.
The attack brings Iran’s security agencies under question and their control over Israeli actions of this sort inside Iran.
Israel has assassinated a string of Iranian nuclear scientists over the last decade or so, but never has it targeted a dignitary or a prominent Iranian political leader.
Three years ago the former intelligence minister, Ali Yunessi, said the Israeli infiltration is so deep in Iran that all officials should fear for their lives.
Summary
Iran vows to avenge the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who died in an overnight air strike in Tehran, according to Iranian media
Hamas and Iran blame Israel for the strike - Israel hasn’t commented but has previously vowed to eliminate the group’s leaders. Haniyeh, 62, is the most senior leader to be killed since the 7 October attacks
Iran - Hamas’s most important backer - declares three days of mourning and promises “harsh punishment” against Israel
The killing, hours after an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, heightens fears of wider conflict in the Middle East
Haniyeh’s death could also delay efforts to bring a ceasefire in Gaza, as he was a key player in negotiations
Guinea court awaits verdict on stadium massacre trial
Former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara accused of deadly crackdown on thousands of unarmed protesters in 2009
A Guinean court is expected to deliver a long-awaited verdict in the trial of the former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara over a massacre and mass rape in September 2009, despite impending protests and a lawyers’ strike.
Camara is accused with 10 others of ordering a crackdown on thousands of unarmed protesters who were aggrieved that he had decided to stand for election the following year.
Palestinians detained by Israel faced torture — UN report
The UN Human Rights Office has released a report detailing incidents of torture and mistreatment. UN rights chief Volker Türk said there were a "range of appalling acts" in violation of international humanitarian law.
Thousands of Palestinians have been detained by Israel in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
In a report, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights highlights arbitrary, prolonged, and, in some cases, secret detention of Palestinians since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on southern Israel.
The report also includes allegations of torture and other degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of both women and men.
Kremlin critic Kara-Murza disappears from Russian jails, fuelling prisoner swap rumours
Prominent Russian opposition figure and dual British national Vladimir Kara-Murza has “disappeared” from Russian prisons along with jailed US national Paul Whelan, according to lawyers and rights activists. Reports of the two prisoners being moved from Russian jails to unknown locations have fuelled rumours of a likely prisoner swap between Russia and Western countries.
Lawyers representing jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza said Wednesday that they did not know the dissident's exact location after twice being denied access to the facility where he was supposed to be held.
Rumours are swirling of an upcoming prisoner swap involving Russia and Western countries as numerous high-profile prisoners, including foreigners, have gone missing from Russian prisons where they are serving long terms, in recent days.
"Today a lawyer for Vladimir Kara-Murza for a second day running was not allowed to visit him in a prison hospital. The exact location of the political prisoner is unknown," his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov wrote on Facebook.
Italian author reflects on harsh internment in Japan in WWII
By KAYOKO SEKIGUCHI/ Staff Writer
A renowned Italian author visited Japan to recount her childhood experiences of being interned as an “enemy national” 80 years ago, in the hopes that her dark memories can encourage brighter futures.
“People become sadistic when they gain absolute power over others. This isn’t limited to the military,” said Dacia Maraini, 87, at a gathering in Tokyo on June 12.
During the Asia-Pacific War, Japan forcibly sent around 1,200 civilians from Allied countries and others to roughly 60 internment camps across the country.
Al Jazeera journalist, cameraman killed in Israeli attack on Gaza
Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Refee killed in Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Refee have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip.
The reporters were killed on Wednesday in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to initial information.
They were in the area to report from near the Gaza house of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who was assassinated in the early hours of Wednesday in Iran’s capital, Tehran, in an attack the group has blamed on Israel.
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Six In The Morning Tuesday 30 July 2024
More protests loom in Venezuela as opposition disputes election results
Opposition calls for ‘popular assemblies’ across nation as Nicolas Maduro’s election victory spurs fraud claims.
More protests are expected in Venezuela as opposition leaders are disputing the results of a weekend election that saw President Nicolas Maduro secure another term in power.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called for families to turn out on Tuesday for “popular assemblies” across the South American nation.
Machado told reporters a day earlier that a review of available voting records from Sunday’s presidential contest showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had achieved a “categorical and mathematically irreversible” victory over Maduro.
Greening the desert: is Sisi’s grand plan using up all of Egypt’s water?
The ‘Future of Egypt’ envisages turning tracts of desert into farmland to grow crops for export. But with sky-high food price inflation and a water deficit, critics doubt it is viable
For the two hours drivers can spend on the eight-lane, often empty, highway from Cairo to El Dabaa on the north coast, all there is to see is miles and miles of intensively farmed land on each side. Ten years ago, this expanse of the Western desert was little more than rocks and sand.
It is the first stage of the vast Future of Egypt project, which will eventually encompass 2.2m feddans (9,240 sq km, or 3,500 sq miles) – an area the size of Cyprus.
“The map of the Egyptian desert is changing colour,” declared a recent promotional video, “from yellow to green”.
Top German court finds fault with electoral law reform
The Bundestag has too many seats. The German government wanted to change this for the next election. Parliament can shrink. But the reform must be revised, the Federal Constitutional Court has ruled.
There has long been cross-party agreement that the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, is far too big. With the last general election in 2021, it had ballooned to 736 members, making it larger than any other democratically elected parliament in the world — and very expensive.
In March 2023, the three ruling parties — the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) — together passed a new electoral law aiming to limit the size of Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, to 630 seats.
The opposition center-right Christian Democrat Union (CSU), the Left Party and others took the new law to the Federal Constitutional Court. They feared for their seats in parliament.
More than 90 dead, hundreds feared trapped in southern India landslides
Landslides in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Tuesday killed at least 93 people, according to local authorities. Hundreds are still feared missing after heavy monsoon rains collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders.
Landslides in India triggered by pounding monsoon rains struck tea plantations and killed at least 93 people Tuesday, with at least 250 others rescued from mud and debris, officials said.
The southern coastal state of Kerala has been battered by torrential downpours, with blocked roads into the disaster area in Wayanad district complicating relief efforts.
"93 dead bodies have been found so far," Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters. "This is one of the worst natural calamities that our state has seen."
Australian police officer recalls 2022 ambush by extremists in rural area that left 2 officers dead
By ROD McGUIRK
A police officer testified Tuesday he did not know where bullets were coming from as two colleagues were shot in an ambush by three Christian extremists on a rural Australian property two years ago.
Constable Randall Kirk told a coroner’s inquest he was also shot as he fled the property in the Wieambilla region of Queensland state on Dec. 12, 2022, after his colleagues Constable Matthew Arnold and Constable Rachel McCrow had been killed.
They were ambushed by brothers Gareth and Nathaniel Train and Gareth’s wife Stacey Train, conspiracy theorists who hated police, State Coroner Terry Ryan was told.
Girls killed in Southport stabbing, aged 7, 9, and 6, named by police
Summary
Three girls who were killed in the mass stabbing in Southport on Monday have been named by police
Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, died on Monday; Alice Aguiar, 9, died in the early hours of Tuesday
Five children and two adults remain in a critical condition after the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class
The event was organised by Leanne Lucas - people have paid tribute to her bravery but her condition is not known - while a local man has been called a "hero" for intervening in the attack
Swift herself has reacted, saying "the horror of yesterday's attack in Southport is washing over me continuously"
A 17-year-old male, arrested on suspicion of murder, remains in custody
He was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved to Southport in 2013 - in Cardiff, ex-neighbours remember a "normal family" with "normal kids"
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