Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Six In The Morning Tuesday 20 August 2024

Six hostages' bodies retrieved from Gaza tunnels, says IDF

Tom Bennett

BBC News

The bodies of six hostages being held by Hamas have been retrieved from an "underground tunnel route" inside the Gaza Strip, Israel's military has said.

A statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the bodies of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Chaim Peri and British-Israeli Nadav Popplewell were recovered from the Khan Younis area on Monday.

Five of their deaths had already been announced by Israel, though it was thought Avraham Munder could still be alive.




Police in Kenya say suspected serial killer has escaped from custody

Man accused of murdering and dismembering 42 women named as one of 13 detainees on the run in Nairobi

A Kenyan man who police claim has confessed to murdering and dismembering 42 women is among 13 people who have escaped from custody at a Nairobi police cell, police have said.

Collins Khalusha, 33, was described by police as a “vampire, a psychopath” when he was arrested in July after the discovery of bodies at an abandoned quarry in the Kenyan capital.

Police said on Tuesday that the officer in charge and the canteen manager at Gigiri police station realised the suspects were missing when they went to serve them breakfast at 5am.

Could Russia be prosecuted for environmental war crimes?

Ukraine wants to hold Russia accountable for the environmental destruction caused by its ongoing war. A war crime conviction for ecological damage at the International Criminal Court would be unprecedented.

The devastating photos stunned people worldwide. In the early hours of June 6, 2023, an explosion tore through the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in southeastern Ukraine. Soon after, the dam gave way, unleashing a massive flood that spread rapidly downstream.

Thousands of people lost everything in the disaster, some their lives. But the collapse of one of the world's biggest dams also took a huge environmental toll.  

Ukraine's government estimates that its destruction caused some 600 metric tons of crude oil to spill out of damaged industrial areas. The oil, municipal waste and chemicals from destroyed factories have harmed plants and animals and have polluted water, soil, and agricultural land. UN experts fear lasting damage.

Nicaragua outlaws 1,500 NGOs, including religious charities

The government of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega on Monday banned 1,500 non-governmental organisations it views as hostile, most of them religious charities. The move was part of an ongoing crackdown on civil society groups seen as opposing Ortega's rule.

Nicaragua on Monday shuttered 1,500 NGOs, bringing to more than 5,000 the number of such entities scrapped in a crackdown on opponents by President Daniel Ortega.

The government has jailed hundreds of critics, real and perceived, since protests against his regime in 2018 that were met with a crackdown the UN said left more than 300 people dead.

Monday’s announcement was the single-largest targeting of NGOs to date, bringing the total to more than 5,100.

Full-scale land reclamation in Henoko for U.S. base begins

By SATSUKI TANAHASHI/ Staff Writer

August 20, 2024 at 17:37 JST


The Defense Ministry on Aug. 20 began driving piles to solidify the soft seabed in Oura Bay on the north side of Henoko for the controversial relocation of a U.S. air station within Okinawa Prefecture. 

Construction is now in full swing in areas with weak seabed for the relocation of U.S. Futenma Air Station in Ginowan to the Henoko district in Nago, also in the prefecture.

The Okinawa Defense Bureau had applied to change the design of the construction work on the north side of Henoko to shore up the soft seabed.

Why is Switzerland offering cash prizes to retrieve munitions from lakes?

Why did the Swiss military dump munitions into lakes from 1918 to 1964 and why must they be retrieved now?

The Swiss Federal Department of Defence Procurement (Armasuisse) is offering 50,000 Swiss francs ($57,800) for the three best ideas on how to retrieve some 12,000 tonnes of old munitions from the country’s lakes, including Lake Thun, Lake Brienz and Lake Lucerne.

“Armasuisse wants to involve academia and industry in the considerations on how environmentally friendly and safe recovery of deep lake ammunition could be carried out,” according to a department statement.




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