Saturday, October 5, 2024
Six In The Morning Saturday 5 October 2024
Israel and Hezbollah report clashes near Lebanese border as air strikes hit Beirut
Smoke rises over Beirut after latest strikes
Images shared with us in the past hour and a half show smoke rising over Beirut, following a strike in the south of the city.
We earlier reported that the strike appeared to have hit the Burj el Brajneh area, which is close to the airport:
Summary
Israel and Hezbollah report more fighting in southern Lebanon, as Israel's ground offensive continues
Hezbollah claims it repelled an Israeli offensive overnight, with fighting "ongoing" on Saturday, while Israel says it's carrying out "targeted" raids
More Israeli air strikes hit Beirut after the Israeli military warned people in a southern suburb to evacuate
Failing Gaza: Pro-Israel bias uncovered behind the lens of Western media
Journalists at CNN and the BBC expose the inner workings of their newsrooms, a year into Israel’s war on Gaza.
Names marked with an asterisk* have been changed to protect identities.
Ten journalists who have covered the war on Gaza for two of the world’s leading news networks, CNN and the BBC, have revealed the inner workings of those outlets’ newsrooms from October 7 onward, alleging pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards and frequent violations of journalistic principles.
In several cases, they accused senior newsroom figures of failing to hold Israeli officials to account and of interfering in reporting to downplay Israeli atrocities. In one instance at CNN, false Israeli propaganda was put on air despite advance warnings from staff members.
Arab spring dreams in ruins as Tunisia goes to polls against backdrop of repression
Critics of incumbent Kais Saied say he has increasingly bent the country’s institutions to his will
Tunisia will hold a presidential election on Sunday against the backdrop of a crackdown on dissent and human rights violations committed against undocumented migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
The incumbent, Kais Saied, whose most prominent critics are behind bars, is expected to sail to an easy win after a campaign with few rallies and public debates, marking a significant step back for a country that long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab spring uprisings of 2011.
Only 11% of the electorate of 9 million voted in December’s local elections. Similarly low voter turnout this weekend would provide a hint of disapproval with Saied’s tenure so far.
Haiti: Gang opens fire killing at least 70 people
Members of the "Gran Grif" gang wielded assault rifles and massacred dozens of people near Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, forcing thousands to flee.
The government in Haiti has deployed teams of anti-gang police after gunmen carried out a mass shooting through a town near Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, killing at least 70 people and forcing over 6,000 to flee.
"This odious crime against defenseless women, men and children is not only an attack against victims but against the entire Haitian nation," Prime Minister Garry Conille said on X, adding that security forces were reinforcing the area.
Massacre in Burkina Faso left 600 dead, double previous estimates, according to French security assessment
Up to 600 people were shot dead in a matter of hours by al Qaeda-linked militants in an August attack on a town in Burkina Faso, according to a French government security assessment that nearly doubles the death toll cited in earlier reports. The new figure would make the assault, in which civilians were shot dead as they dug trenches to defend the remote town of Barsalogho, one of the deadliest single attacks in Africa in recent decades.
Militants from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al Qaeda affiliate based in Mali and active in Burkina Faso, opened fire methodically as they swept into the outskirts of Barsalogho on motorcycles and shot down villagers, who lay helpless in the freshly upturned dirt of the trench, according to several videos of the August 24 attack posted by pro-JNIM accounts on social media. Many of the dead were women and children, and the footage is punctuated by the sound of automatic gunfire and screams of victims as they are shot while apparently trying to play dead.
Mother despairs over N Korea-abducted daughter on her 60th birthday
The mother of Megumi Yokota, an iconic victim among Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea decades ago, is growing increasingly despondent over the prospects of reuniting with her daughter, whose 60th birthday was Saturday.
"I'm saddened whenever her birthday comes around as it reminds me of the reality I'm in," said Sakie Yokota, 88, in a recent interview with Kyodo News, while lamenting how the abduction issue was not extensively debated in the lead-up to Shigeru Ishiba becoming Japan's new prime minister last Tuesday.
Friday, October 4, 2024
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Six In The Morning Friday 4 October 2024
More blasts reported in Beirut after key route out of Lebanon hit by Israeli strike
Israel evacuation order tells people to head north of Awali river
The Israeli military has issued further evacuation orders today for people in southern Lebanon to move north of the Awali river, which can be seen in the map below.
The Israel Defense Fores (IDF) says anyone near "Hezbollah elements, installations, and combat equipment is putting his life at risk," adding that travelling south may put civilians in further danger.
Summary
More air strikes have been reported in southern Beirut and Lebanon, as Israel tells more than 30 villages in the south to evacuate
A major road out of Lebanon was hit overnight - pictures show a large crater near the border crossing into Syria, where thousands of people have been fleeing. Israel says the route was being used to transport weapons
Rockets continue to be fired into Israel from Lebanon - watch the moment our correspondent runs for cover after hearing gunfire and explosions
Argentina’s Javier Milei accused of plagiarising UN speech from West Wing
Populist leader alleged to have ‘copied word for word’ a monologue by TV show’s fictional president Jed Bartlet
Fri 4 Oct 2024 15.04 BST
Argentina’s rightwing populist president, Javier Milei, has been accused of plagiarising a chunk of his recent speech to the United Nations general assembly from the political drama The West Wing.
“It seems like fiction, but it isn’t,” the left-leaning Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12 reported on Friday, claiming Milei had “copied, word for word, a monologue” by the television show’s fictional president, Josiah “Jed” Bartlet.
Suspicions over Milei’s address surfaced this week when the political columnist Carlos Pagni flagged the “extraordinary” similarities between part of the president’s speech and words uttered by Martin Sheen’s Bartlet 21 years earlier. “Didn’t anyone else notice?” Pagni wrote in the newspaper La Nación, before transcribing the words of both men.
Pakistan locks down capital ahead of pro-Khan rally
Supporters of ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan have vowed to march on Islamabad, Pakistan's capital city, with some of them threatening to fire at the police if denied entry.
The Pakistani capital Islamabad was put on lockdown on Friday in preparation for a demonstration by supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Roads leading into the city were blocked with shipping containers, extra police and paramilitary troops were deployed and internet and mobile services were shut down.
Khan's party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaaf (PTI), appeared to ignore a demand from Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi to call off the rally.
October 7 attacks: Israel's intelligence failures
A year after Palestinian armed groups breached Gaza's security fence and led a simultaneous wave of assaults on Israeli communities and outposts, FRANCE 24 looks at the intelligence failures that led to the October 7 attacks. There was plenty of warning that Hamas was planning a large-scale assault: suspicious movements along the border with Gaza, as well as a huge military parade taking place inside the enclave. But Israeli authorities ignored them. FRANCE 24's Claire Duhamel examines how the threat from Hamas was underestimated at the highest echelons of the Israeli army and state.
On October 4, 2023, the Palestinian armed faction Islamic Jihad organised a huge military parade in Gaza. It proudly displayed its new weapons: drones and long-range rockets capable of reaching the heart of Israel. A few women, who had been authorised to attend the parade by the local authorities, shouted slogans encouraging the fighters. Militants had been planning for months to stage the attack on Israel for Shabbat, three days later.
Sudan's war to intensify as rainy season draws to a close
Scientists looked at images from space to see how fast Antarctica is turning green. Here’s what they found
Thursday, October 3, 2024
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Six In The Morning Thursday 3 October 2024
Israel strikes Beirut as it tells more people in south Lebanon to leave their homes
Tehran 'would like to de-escalate', former UK ambassador to Iran says
A former UK ambassador to Iran has told BBC Radio 4's The Today Podcast that he thinks Tehran "would like to de-escalate".
Sir Simon Gass, who also used to be political director at the Foreign Office, said he was "pretty confident that Tehran is a very worried place at the moment" and would "like to draw a line under this".
But he also warned that there was a "risk" that Iran might try to accelerate its development of a nuclear weapon.
Summary
Fresh explosions are heard in Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut, as Israel says it has struck the group's "intelligence headquarters"
Overnight Israeli air strikes on central Beirut killed nine people, officials there say; our correspondent in the Lebanese capital says any feeling of safety is vanishing
Britain to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius ending years of dispute
Agreement to hand back UK’s last African colony follows 13 rounds of negotiations and international pressure
Thu 3 Oct 2024 13.01 BST
The UK has agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s last African colony.
The UK expelled the Chagossians in the 1960s and 1970s, in what has been described as a crime against humanity, when it retained possession of what it called the British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.
The agreement follows 13 rounds of negotiations that began in 2022 after Mauritian arguments for sovereignty were recognised by the international court of justice (ICJ), the UN general assembly and the international tribunal of the law of the sea (Itlos) in 2019 and 2021.
Rwanda tests Marburg vaccines, therapies amid outbreak
Rwanda is rolling out vaccine and therapeutic trials to treat Marburg disease, as the country battles an outbreak of the deadly and highly viral fever. Two suspected cases in Germany turned out to be negative.
Rwandan Assistant Health Minister Yvan Butera on Thursday said doctors were seeking to break the spread of the Marburg virus disease by isolating and monitoring the contacts of infected individuals.
He also said the ministry was embarking on trials of vaccines and clinical therapies for those already sick with the viral hemorrhagic disease from the same virus family as Ebola.
"About to start vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials to protect high-risk groups," Butera said on X, without giving details of the drug to be tested.
EU sues Hungary for criminalising groups that receive foreign funding, including NGOs
The European Commission said on Thursday it was suing Hungary over a law that imposes jail terms for groups that accept foreign funds for political causes, which rights groups say is aimed at silencing critics of the government by targeting civil society organisations, media outlets and journalists.
The EU said Thursday it was referring Hungary to the European Court of Justice over laws passed by Budapest to curb foreign influence in the country, which critics say aim to silence government opponents.
The European Commission said the legislation passed last year by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's nationalist government violated fundamental rights and other regulations.
"The European Commission decided to refer Hungary to the Court of Justice because it considers its national law on the 'Defence of Sovereignty' to be in breach of EU law," the EU's top executive body said.
Tokyo expands underground 'cathedral' complex to counter climate change rains
By Issei Kato and Tom Bateman
Just after 5 a.m. on August 30, water began flooding a vast underground chamber called the "cathedral" in Saitama Prefecture. The gushing water, captured by security cameras, was the rain that was drenching the capital region as Typhoon Shanshan lashed southwest Japan, 600 km away.
The cathedral and its vast network of tunnels did their job: they prevented a vulnerable river basin in the metropolis from flooding. But as global warming causes more severe weather, authorities are having to give the system a major upgrade.
"As the temperature rises, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases, resulting in relatively larger quantities of rainfall," said University of Tokyo professor Seita Emori, who is a member of a climate science group that won a Nobel Prize in 2007.
‘As if we don’t exist’: Under bombs in Lebanon, Americans feel abandoned
Karam, an American citizen stranded in Lebanon, says she feels as if she does not matter to the United States government.
Lebanon has been facing relentless Israeli bombardment — part of a US-backed campaign that has killed hundreds and displaced more than a million people, according to the United Nations.