Six In The Morning Sunday 6 October 2024

Israeli strikes hit Lebanon and Gaza as gunman kills woman in Israel

Israel’s ambassador to the UK won't rule out strike on Iran's nuclear facilities

Earlier today, Israel’s ambassador to the UK spoke on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

During the programme, Tzipi Hotovely was asked whether Israel will rule out attacking Iran's nuclear sites - something US President Joe Biden has opposed in recent days.

Hotovely told Laura that Israel will "remove the threat", adding that Iran has attacked it twice - first on 14 April and again just a few days ago.

Summary

• Israel has issued fresh evacuation orders in southern Lebanon. Last night, it carried out strikes on Beirut that our correspondent describes as being the "worst" night of attacks

• In southern Israel, several people have been wounded and one person has died in a shooting attack - police say the attacker has been killed

• Lebanese officials say 23 people died across the country in strikes on Saturday and nearly 100 more were wounded

Democracy campaigners criticise President Saied as voting begins in Tunisia

Leader of north African country looks set to win second term after jailing opponents and changing constitution

Angelique Chrisafis and agencies

Sun 6 Oct 2024 14.15 BST

Voting has begun in the Tunisian presidential election as the president, Kais Saied, seeks a second term, while his most prominent critics are in prison and after his main rival was jailed suddenly last month.

The election, expected to be won by Saied, is being seen by observers as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.

The north African country had for a decade prided itself for being the birthplace of the pro-democracy movement after the 2011 Arab spring uprisings against dictatorship. It had been hailed for introducing a competitive, though flawed, democracy after decades of autocratic rule.

A Questionable Audit in XinjiangVolkswagen's Human Rights Bluff

Volkswagen wanted to prove that its controversial factory in Xinjiang is free of forced labor. But the audit the company ordered to demonstrate that fact is full of methodological shortcomings and was performed by a dubious law firm.

Travel guides refer to the Chinese city Suzhou as the "Venice of the East,” but ultimately, it is just another one of those mega-cities in the People’s Republic that hardly anyone has ever heard of. To be fair, though, it is perhaps a bit more picturesque, with canals constructed during the imperial era crisscrossing the city center.

The few foreigners who live in Suzhou generally know each other, and they tend to work for multinational companies that have established presences in Suzhou in recent years. Bosch assembles braking and steering systems here, while the British pharmaceutical giant GSK produces drugs for the Chinese market.

Teen 'stabbed 50 times' before being burned alive in Marseille

A 15-year-old boy was "stabbed 50 times" and burned alive this week in the southern French city of Marseille in an apparent drug-related killing. A Marseille prosecutor told the press on Sunday that victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger. 

The southern French city of Marseille was this week shaken by two apparently drug-related killings, including the murder of a 15-year-old boy who was "stabbed 50 times" and burned alive, prosecutors said on Sunday.

Marseille, France's second-largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence.

The historic port city on the Mediterranean coast has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various clans including DZ Mafia and Yoda.

Hong Kong plans to install thousands of surveillance cameras. Critics say it’s more proof the city is moving closer to China

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

Glance up while strolling through parts of downtown Hong Kong and, chances are, you’ll notice the glassy black lens of a surveillance camera trained on the city’s crowded streets.

And that sight will become more common in the coming years, as the city’s police pursue an ambitious campaign to install thousands of cameras to elevate their surveillance capabilities.

Though it consistently ranks among the world’s safest big cities, police in the Asian financial hub say the new cameras are needed to fight crime – and have raised the possibility of equipping them with powerful facial recognition and artificial intelligence tools.

Al-Shabab in Somalia: Bullets and bombs can’t bury ideologies

The Somali government’s offensive against al-Shabab is faltering because of the divisive tactics deployed.

Mohamed Gabobe

Freelance journalist based in Mogadishu

In August, Somalia’s prime minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, held a town-hall meeting in the Somali capital Mogadishu to mark the two-year anniversary of the formation of his cabinet.

Naturally, one of the hot-button issues raised at the event was the offensive against al-Shabab, which was launched in the fall of 2022.